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An Ethnic History of Ethiopia
Ethiopia is the home of more than 100 million people who find their country ravaged by conflict — most of it ethnic-based. The very constitution of the country, as it currently stands, defines Ethiopia as a federation of Nations, defined by ethno-linguistic distinction. Among a proliferation of political parties in recent years, all but one of the prominent parties are associated with a single ethnic group or ethnic state. The correlation between Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism and Ethiopia’s ethnic-based conflict is hotly contested, as is the legitimacy and validity of the Ethiopian state itself. Ethiopia can be looked at as ancient state, moving, expanding, contracting, evolving over centuries with the dense history that can be expected from one of the most ethnically diverse regions in the world; or as a Colonialism-era local rendition of an empire that still struggles to hold together distinct nations, most recently and mostly forcibly brought together by the imperialist projects of a powerful and resurgent northern, christian, Amhara-dominated Ethiopian Empire; or perhaps, somewhere in between those two explanations lies a balanced understanding of how things came to be.
The earliest major power in the region was the Kingdom of Axum, which existed for close to a thousand years starting in the year 100 AD (100 years before Jesus). At the height of its power, the Kingdom of Axum — with its capital in Tigray, Ethiopia grew into an Empire that controlled much of present day Northern and Central Ethiopia, Eritrea, parts of Northern Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Growing rich from trade on the Red Sea, Axumite kings adopted Christianity in the year 325, and grew powerful enough to conquer present-day Yemen and northern Somalia to the east, Meroë to the north, and as far as Keffa and Shewa to the south. During the era of the birth of Islam, the first Muslims fleeing persecution in the Arabian Peninsula made the first hijra to Axum, where they were accepted and given refuge by the Axumites, who went on to enjoy peaceful relations with the early Muslims as Islamic societies established footholds in Arabia and East Africa. However, as Islam grew more powerful in the area, the Axumites were cut-off from their trade routes, and their powerful navy was slowly weakened. Their decline was perhaps further exacerbated by climate change and drought.
