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Emperor Theodore II and the Kingdom of Shoa

1855–1865

Ko Darkwah

The Journal of African History / Volume 10 / Issue 01 / January 1969, pp 105 - 115
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700009300, Published online: 22 January 2009

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Ko Darkwah (1969). Emperor Theodore II and the Kingdom of Shoa 1855–
1865. The Journal of African History, 10, pp 105-115 doi:10.1017/
S0021853700009300

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Journal of African History, x, i (1969), pp. 105-115 105
Printed in Great Britain

EMPEROR THEODORE II AND THE KINGDOM

OF SHOA 1855-1865
BY KOFI DARKWAH

One of the most important developments which took place in Ethiopia

during the nineteenth century was the rise of Kassa to the imperial throne,
as Theodore II, in the first half of the 1850s. Among other things, Theodore's
emergence led to a shift in the centre of political power. In the period
before 1855, imperial politics were dominated by the Yejju Galla; after
1855, it was the provinces of Tigre in the north and Shoa in the south which
shaped the course of events. Traditional Ethiopian historiography has ten-
ded to put Tigre at the centre of domestic politics from 1855 to 1889. Much
of Theodore's difficulty has been explained in terms of Tigrean resistance
to his regime. It is not even mentioned that Shoa too offered opposition
to Theodore's attempt to create an effective centralized empire.1 On the
contrary, the impression has been given in the histories that Theodore's
conquest of Shoa took place in a single battle lasting a couple of hours, and
that thereafter Shoa became peacefully integrated into the empire and was
effectively administered from Magdala until Menelik's escape in 1865.
It has even been said that Shoa submitted to the emperor without striking
a blow in defence of its independence. Jones and Monroe put it thus: ' He
[Theodore] had captured Shoa without a blow'; and Trimingham is no
less specific: 'Shoa capitulated in 1855 without a struggle when its king
died on the eve of battle... >2 A closer examination of the evidence belies
these statements. Theodore's attempt at uniting the empire had to come to
grips and to deal with an independent Shoan nationalism which had been
built up during the early nineteenth century.
Under Wassen Saggad (1808-12) and Sahela Sellassie (1813-47), Shoa
had gradually and successfully asserted its independence from the imperial
authority at Gondar. Sahela Sellassie was, by the standards of his time
and country, an enlightened monarch, and under his leadership Shoa grew
into a strong peaceful and prosperous kingdom to jhe mutual benefit of
both the ruling dynasty and its subjects. As a result both the king and his
people developed a common interest in maintaining the independence of
the kingdom. Sahela Sellassie's successor, Haile Malakot, was by contrast
1
The principal exception to this is Professor Sven Rubenson's recent study of Theodore,
in which a correct picture is given of the initial opposition offered by the Shoans to the
emperor's invasion and of subsequent rebellions. See Sven Rubenson, King of Kings
Tewodros of Ethiopia (Haile Sellassie I University in association with O.U.P., Addis
Ababa and Nairobi, 1966). C. Jesman's article in Ethiopia Observer, x, no. 2 (1966), may
also be included among the exceptions.
8
A. H. M. Jones, and E. Monroe, History of Ethiopia, 131; J. S. Trimingham, Islam in
Ethiopia, 118.
106 KOFI DARKWAH
a weak monarch, and it was during his reign that Shoa was invaded and
conquered by Theodore. Yet this was only a temporary setback, and neither
Haile Malakot's weak leadership nor the subsequent conquest could destroy
the spirit of independence that the kingdom had acquired under Sahela
Sellassie. Thus Shoan nationalism was not only revived after 1865, but
in fact, was a strong force in the domestic politics of the empire in the
1870s and 1880s. It became assimilated into the general Ethiopian
nationalism only with the accession in 1889 of a Shoan king to the imperial
throne.
The object of this paper is to show that Theodore's conquest of Shoa
was not the walk-over which it has been portrayed, and that once conquered,
Shoa was undoubtedly one of the least pacified of all the conquered
provinces.
The reason why incorrect statements such as those quoted above have
held the ground for so long, is that a study of the evidence from the Shoan
(or provincial) angle, and a thorough study of the life and work of
Emperor Theodore, have been slow to appear.3 A study of the history
of the kingdom of Shoa in the nineteenth century has recently been made
by the present writer.4 A very broad outline of the sources on which the
study has been based may not be out of place here. These may be classified
into two groups—European and Ethiopian sources.
The European sources consist of the journals, letters and other reports
of Europeans who visited either Shoa itself or its neighbouring provinces
in the nineteenth century. The least known of these sources are the
documents preserved in the India Office Library in London. These con-
sist of dispatches from members of a commercial mission sent to Shoa in
1841-3 by the India Government of the British East India Company. They
contain invaluable information on almost every aspect of life in Shoa during
the reign of Sahela Selassie. No Europeans visited Shoa in the 1850s, but
from 1868 onwards French and Italian nationals—missionaries, explorers
and adventurers came to the kingdom in increasing numbers. Their reports
are preserved in French and Italian archives.5 The Italian archives have

• For a study of Theodore's life and work, see Professor Rubenson's book referred to
in n. 1.
* R. H. Kofi Darkwah, 'The rise of the kingdom of Shoa, 1813-1889', London Uni-
versity Ph.D thesis, July 1966 (unpublished).
8
While the French reports are found mainly in the archives of the French Foreign
Ministry at Quai d'Orsay, the Italian ones are found in three different places. In the
archives of a section of the Italian foreign ministry, now known as Comitato per la
Documentazione dell'Opera dell'Italia in Africa, are to be found various reports, including
most of those by Antonelli. Antonelli was, between 1889 and 1891, the official representative
of the Italian government in Emperor Menelik's Ethiopia. He first arrived in Shoa in 1879
in a private capacity, but from 1882 to 1889 he served first as an unofficial and later as
the official agent of the Italian Government in the kingdom of Shoa. Secondly, in 1877
there arrived in Shoa a scientific expedition which was sent by the Italian Geographical
Society to explore the Galla lands to the south of Shoa. Some members of this expedition
remained in Shoa throughout the 1880s and into the 1890s. Documents on this expedition
are preserved in the historical archives of the Italian Geographical Society in Rome. Some
 EMPEROR THEODORE AND THE KINGDOM OF SHOA 107

been consulted extensively by Professors Carlo Giglio and Sven Rubenson,

and more recently by Dr Richard Caulk; the last two have done so with
reference to the reign of Menelik as Emperor of Ethiopia. Since Shoa as
such was not the main concern of these writers, the relevance of the Italian
sources to the history of Shoa before Menelik became emperor has been
overlooked.
The Ethiopian sources consulted for the study of Shoa are the chronicles
of Menelik's reign written by Guebre Sellassie, and two chronicles of
Theodore's reign. One of these was written by a Shoan monk called Walda
Maryam, but the author of the other is not known for certain. It is believed
to have been written by a dabtara (scribe) called Zenab.6 A detailed dis-
cussion of these chronicles cannot be attempted here, and only a few brief
comments will be made on them. Guebre Sellassie is often sketchy and
sometimes inaccurate on events in the period before about 1850. But the
events after this date are fairly well covered and, when cross-checked
with other sources, his account is found to be generally correct, not only
in substance but sometimes also in minute details.7 In so far as Shoa is
concerned, the two chronicles of Theodore's reign are useful only for the
period 1855-65. Zaneb's account of it is hardly helpful. One has to turn
to Walda Maryam who, although not always accurate as regards chronology
and details, is, in substance, a reliable source for events in Shoa during the
period 1855-65.
The story of Kassa's early life, of his rise to power as Emperor Theodore
II, of his reforms and his later excesses, is too familiar to require repetition
in this paper. It should, however, be noted that Kassa's early struggles in
his native district of Quara against the Muslim soldiers of Egypt sharpened
both his religious and his nationalist sentiments. Muhammad Ali's Egypt
had since the 1820s menaced the north-western frontier of the Christian
of the reports were published in various issues of the bulletin of the Society, but others
have remained unpublished. Thirdly, in the archives of the Sacra Congregazione di
Propaganda Fide are to be found documents relating to a Roman Catholic mission led
by Monsignor (later Cardinal) Massaia, which was sent to evangelize the Galla who con-
stituted Shoa's southern neighbours. The districts in which the mission was established
were conquered by Shoa in the 1870s and early 1880s. Massaia wrote a twelve-volume
book on his missionary activities in the Ethiopian region. See Massaia, I Miei Trentacinque
anni di missions nell'Alta Etiopia (12 vols., Milan, 1886-96).
• Gu6bre Sellassi6: Chronique du Rigne de Mtntlik II, roi des rois d'Ethiopie, ed. M.
de Coppet, 2 vols. (Paris, 1930-2). Walda Maryam, Chronique de Thiodros II roi des rois
d'Ethiopie, ed. and trans. C. Mondon Vidailhet (Paris, 1904-5). Zaneb in M. M. Moreno's
Italian translation, 'La Cronaca di Re Teodore attribuita al dabtara "Zaneb"', Rassegna
di studi Etiopici, 11 (1942). In his book referred to in n.i, Professor Rubenson makes
references to other Ethiopian sources, especially to another Chronicle of Theodore edited
by L. Fusella and to Nuovi documenti per la storia d'Abissinia nel secolo XIX, published
by Conti Rossini in the Rend, dell'Ace. Nas. dei Lincei, ser. vm, vol. II (1947), 15, no. 1;
19, no. 10. But these do not add anything new to what is already known from other
sources.
' An example of this is found in his account of the Shoan expedition to Arussi in May-
June 1886, where his details agree with the account given by Traversi, who accompanied
the expedition. For Traversi's account see Bolletino della Societd Geografica Italiana,
serie. n, vol. XII (1887).
108 KOFI DARKWAH
empire. It was Kassa's experiences in the campaigns against the Muslims,
as well as in the incessant inter-provincial wars which plagued the empire,
which brought home to him the urgent need for national unity in Ethiopia,
and for the establishment of a strong and effective central government,
capable of giving the leadership needed for opposing the Muslims. So
he determined to provide these for the empire. Kassa's military offensive
against the various provincial governors of the empire in the first half of
the 1850s was thus the first step towards achieving his objective.
As emperor, Theodore's authority was limited by May 1855 to the
provinces north of the Wallo Galla country. The central Ethiopian plateau
was occupied by the Wallo Galla, Muslims by religion, nominally dependent
on the authority at Gondar, but virtually independent. South of the Wallo
lay the independent kingdom of Shoa, paying no allegiance whatever to
the political authorities at Gondar.8 Both Wallo and Shoa lay within the
boundaries of the former Empire of Abyssinia; the conquest of these two
'provinces' could not be delayed for long if Theodore was to restore the
unity of the empire, and to make the influence of his government felt
throughout it.
The conquest of the Wallo, which was to be a prelude to that of Shoa,
started in June 1855. The campaign was short; the Wallo were defeated,
and a number of the leading men of the region were taken prisoner. How-
ever, as was the case in other parts of the empire, a series of revolts was
to break out later, and during the rest of his reign, Theodore twice made
futile attempts to pacify the Wallo country.
With the fall of the Wallo, it was natural that the emperor's next target
would be Shoa. Theodore saw the independent existence of Shoa as a
negation of the centralism for which he stood; in 1854, even before he was
crowned emperor, Kassa was said to have sent a message to the king of
Shoa asking him to come to Gondar to pay him (Kassa) homage9. This
message sounded a warning to the king of Shoa, who thereupon began to
take measures to defend his kingdom against a possible invasion by the
emperor. Thus when Theodore crossed the Wallo-Shoan frontier into
Shoa, he found himself opposed by a combined force from three of Shoa's
northern provinces. The first battle of the emperor's campaign in Shoa,
which lasted nearly five months, was fought in the frontier province of
Geshe early in October 1855. It was a fierce conflict which lasted a
whole day. Theodore won the battle, but it was by no means an easy
victory.10
The news of the defeat of the three northern frontier governors caused
panic in the governing circles of Shoa. This panic was heightened by the
8
In religious matters, however, Shoa appears to have acknowledged, within certain
limits, the overlordship of the Abuna.
• Correspondence Respecting Abyssinia, (1867-68, LXXII) p. 94, no. 177, Plowden to
Clarendon, 10 July 1854.
10
Walda Maryam, op. cit. (French trans.), 10. Professor Rubenson says: 'the northern
governors surrendered without much resistance' (Rubenson op. cit. 52).
 EMPEROR THEODORE AND THE KINGDOM OF SHOA 109
additional information that the imperial forces were vastly superior to those
of the kingdom. The danger which faced Shoa could not be underestimated,
and Haile Malakot, the king of Shoa, is said to have convened a council of
his generals to decide the best course of action to follow. Some of the men
present at the meeting advised submission without further resistance, but
the assembly appears to have been swayed by a group, led by the king's
younger brother, Prince Seifou Sellassie, who favoured vigorous and sus-
tained resistance.11
Meanwhile Theodore, after his victory at Geshe over the northern
provinces, continued his march into the central provinces, where the
governors of Manz, Geddem and Efrata submitted without striking a blow.
It would be unfair to regard the submission of these governors simply as
an act of treachery. As they saw it, submission was the only reasonable
course of action open to a people who, though proud of their independence,
were militarily weak and found themselves matched against a vastly superior
enemy. Those who submitted either joined forces with the invaders against
their king and fellow countrymen, or at best remained neutral in the contest;
in either case their action considerably facilitated the task of the invader.
For Haile Malakot and his generals, on the other hand, the step taken by
the governors of the central provinces deprived them of a sizeable portion
of the total fighting force which they could muster against the invader.
Further, it could hardly have failed to weaken their morale.
However, the rest of the kingdom rallied round the king to offer a
strong and determined resistance to the emperor. In the encounter which
followed, the Shoans fought bravely, but the superior discipline and arma-
ment of the imperial forces won them the day. Not long after this, Haile
Malakot fell ill, and he died at the beginning of December 1855.12

It could be assumed that the Shoan chiefs and their soldiers were
demoralized by the sudden death of their king at this critical moment.
Their difficulties were complicated by the fact that the heir to the Shoan
throne, Prince Menelik, was a minor, and incapable of giving the leadership
which the kingdom needed to prosecute the war. The safety of the prince
was the immediate problem for the leaders of the kingdom. Theodore, on
the other hand, realising what the safety of the prince entailed for the
success of his campaign, directed his tactics to capturing Menelik. The
next phase of the struggle therefore centred around Menelik, with the
Shoan chiefs seeking to prevent the emperor from capturing the prince.
This phase lasted from the beginning of December 1855 to February 1856,
11
Antonio Cecchi, Da Zeila alle frontiere del Caff a, 1 (Roma, 1886), 251.
12
Walda Maryam, op. cit., 13. Basing his calculation on an earlier version of Gu£br6
Sellasste's manuscript, Professor Rubenson accepts 9 November 1855 as the date on which
Haile Malakot died (op. cit. 53, n. 21). The present writer is inclined to accept the dating
of Walda Maryam, because it is the one date on which the Chronicler is most specific,
thus giving the impression that he was very sure about it. He dates the death of the king
to ' 30 hedar, Friday night, in the 8th year of his reign'.
IIO KOFI DARKWAH
and involved skirmishes which ranged all over the southern provinces of
the kingdom.18
Eventually the emperor succeeded in capturing Menelik together with
a number of the leading generals of Shoa. But even this did not mean the
end of Shoan resistance, and the imperial forces had to tour the kingdom,
suppressing one local uprising after another. In one such encounter between
the emperor's soldiers and the Galla of Angolala province, the Galla were
said to have 'suffered 1,000 of their number dead on the field, besides
wounded and prisoners'.14 It was only after suppressing the various local
manifestations of resistance that Theodore could enter Ankober, the capital,
to receive homage from the clergy. With the submission of both the army
and the clergy, the independence of Shoa may be said to have come to an
end; the last act of the emperor was to settle the administrative question of
the conquered kingdom. This was done towards the end of February 1856.

Until the time of Wassan Saggad (1808-12), the sixth ruler of Shoa, the
expanding ' province' which was later to become the independent kingdom
of Shoa, was considered as an integral part of the empire, and its ruler was
regarded as a vassal of the titular emperor at Gondar. Towards the end of
his reign, Wassen Saggad adopted the title of Ras, and in this way took the
first major step towards making Shoa independent of the empire. Until
then the title of the ruler of Shoa was Maredazmatch. Now that the in-
dependence of Shoa was a thing of the past, Theodore reintroduced the
old title, and appointed Haile Mikael, one of the many sons of Sahela
Sellassie, the seventh ruler of Shoa (1813-47), ^ governor over the con-
quered country with the title of Maredazmatch. In addition to the governor,
Theodore appointed one Ato Andargatchaw an abogaz, or frontier governor.
The task of the abogaz was the onerous one of seeing to it that the Shoan
subjects who inhabited the frontier provinces lived in peace with those
beyond the frontier. It was not to be expected that one abogaz could keep
effective watch over the whole stretch of Shoa's four frontiers, especially
since his army was hardly worth the name, and communications were also
poor.
Between February, when he was crowned emperor, and October 1855,
when he embarked on the southern campaign, Theodore had proved him-
self to be, among other things, an administrative reformer. The adminis-
trative reorganization which he effected in the northern provinces of his
Empire was described as follows: 'He placed the soldiers of the different
provinces under the command of his own trusty followers, to whom he
gave high titles but no power to judge or punish, thus in fact creating
generals in place of feudal chieftains, more proud of their birth than of

» Walda Maryam, op. cit. 13-14; Cecchi, op. cit. 1, 255; Guebrl Sellassie, op. cit. 1,
86.
14
Correspondence Respecting Abyssinia, (1867-68, LXXII) 269, no. 469 (Plowden to Earl
of Clarendon, 22 Dec. 1855).
 EMPEROR THEODORE AND THE KINGDOM OF SHOA III
their monarch, a legion of honour, dependent on him and chosen specially
for their daring and fidelity.'15 In Shoa, Theodore certainly did not follow
this practice. The two men whom he appointed to the highest offices in
the territory did not belong to the category of ' his own trusty followers'.
Haile Mikael was a prince of the defeated Shoan dynasty, and there is no
evidence that during the campaign he proved faithful to the emperor.
Ato Andargatchaw had been a devoted official of the Shoan dynasty, and
had fought courageously against the imperial forces. Moreover, he was
immensely popular in Shoa. It may be that the emperor wanted to take
advantage of Andargatchaw's .courage and popularity to further imperial
interests in Shoa. Yet the indications are that Andargatchaw was more of a
liability than an asset to the imperial administration.
We do not have any indication as to what became of the numerous
petty officials of the former administration, all of whom had played a use-
ful role in the government of the kingdom. It would probably not be wrong
to assume that these lower grades of the former hierarchy were left un-
disturbed by the conqueror, and that it was only the important top ranks
which were reorganized. This assumption is strengthened by the fact that
we are told in the sources that Theodore issued a proclamation confirming
all the laws which had existed during the previous regime.16
It is not known for certain what method Theodore adopted in the other
provinces with regard to the lower grades of the former administrations.
To leave them intact, as he did in Shoa, was to invite trouble, for these
minor officials had been the backbone of the former regime, and no con-
quest of Shoa (or for that matter of any other province) could hope to
last long unless the lower ranks of the monarchical administration were
reorganized.
Having thus settled the administration of Shoa, Theodore left Ankober
for Gondar by way of Godjam, taking with him, as prisoners of war, the
heir to the Shoan throne, Prince Menelik, and a number of the chief men
of Shoa. Theodore had indeed conquered Shoa, but it was not without
a desperate struggle that the inhabitants of Shoa yielded to the invader;
their defeat was undoubtedly hastened by the sudden illness and subsequent
death of their king at the critical moment. For the next nine years the
Shoans lived as a conquered people, but throughout this period, they
strove hard to regain their independence.

Shoan resistance to imperial administration found immediate leadership

in Prince Seifou Sellassie, the younger brother of the deceased king, Haile
Malakot. Seifou appears to have been one of the few leaders of Shoa who
had managed to escape capture at the hands of the imperial soldiers. The
first series of revolts was protracted; it started soon after the departure of
the emperor in 1856, and was brought to an end only by the death of
18
F.O. 1/9, Plowden to Clarendon, 25 June 1855, enclosure.
" Walda Maryam, op. cit. 17-18.
112 KOFI DARKWAH
Prince Seifou four years later.17 In a number of battles fought between 1856
and 1859, the imperial administrators suffered repeated defeats at the hands
of the rebels. In the latter year the Maredazmatch, Haile Mikael, was
summoned to Magdala, the headquarters of the emperor, where he was
deprived of this post and imprisoned.18 We are not told what happened
to the Abogaz Andargatchaw, but one suspects that he suffered the same
fate as the Maredazmatch, because from 1859 he disappears from the scene.
The reason for the imprisonment of the administrators was obviously that
they had not proved equal to the task of governing Shoa, and had been
unable to maintain peace in that part of the empire. A new set of officials
was appointed to take the place of the deposed ones. Ato Aboye was made
governor, with Bezabu as Abogaz. Again both officials were men who had
held positions in the previous administration. In their efforts to restore
peace in Shoa, the new administrators had no better luck than their pre-
decessors. By mid-1859 the rebels were in possession of Ankober, the
capital. After many futile attempts to recapture Ankober, the governor
sent to Theodore for help. This brought the emperor down to Shoa
for the second time. Walter Plowden, the British envoy to Ethiopia, who
was then at Gondar, places the emperor's second visit to Shoa at the
beginning of October 1859.19 The rebels successfully repulsed every assault
on Ankober, inflicting severe losses on their enemy. According to Walda
Maryam, the emperor lost 1,600 men in this encounter.20 Unable to make
any headway against the rebels, Theodore decided to abandon the struggle,
and gave orders to his men to withdraw.
It was just at this point, when the imperial forces were in the process
of withdrawing, that the rebel leader, Prince Seifou Sellassie, made an
error of judgement which played into the hands of the emperor and robbed
him of the victory. He decided to abandon the amba on which Ankober
stood, with all the advantage of fighting from a mountain top, to pursue
the enemy into the plains below.21
On seeing that Seifou had abandoned the city and was pursuing the
imperial forces, Theodore turned round, gave him battle, and succeeded
in scattering Seifou's soldiers; then he made an attack on Ankober, which
soon fell to the invaders. The fall of Ankober was followed by pillage and
the massacre, not only of soldiers but also of clergy.22
The emperor does not appear to have learnt any lesson from these
revolts, for he contented himself with having suppressed them, and he
17
Professor Rubenson refers to 'a budding revolt' in Shoa at the end of 1858 (op. cit.
77-8). This gives the impression that between its conquest in 1855-6 and the end of 1858
Shoa had enjoyed peace. It is clear from the Shoan sources that this was not in fact the
case. See Zaneb in Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, 11 (1942), 174; Gu6bre Sellassie, op. cit.
93-4; A. Cecchi, op. cit. 256.
18
Cecchi, op. cit. 1, 256; Guebre Sellassie, op. cit. I, 93-4; Alaka Zaneb, op. cit. 174.
" F.O. 1/11: Plowden to H.M.'s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 2 Feb. i860.
•» Walda Maryam, op. cit. 25-6.
11
Cecchi, op. cit. 1, 257.
^ i , ibid.; Guebre Sellassie: op. cit. 96; Walda Maryam, ibid.
 EMPEROR THEODORE AND THE KINGDOM OF SHOA 113

left both the administration and the defence system of the territory the
same as they had been in 1856. He returned to Magdala, leaving Aboye
and Bezabu again in control at Ankober. On his way to the north, the
emperor devastated the Shoan province of Morabietie, over which Prince
Seifou had been the governor, and left it in a state of great confusion. It
was in his attempt to restore order there that Seifou was killed in June
i860.23
The death of Prince Seifou Sellassie brought the first wave of revolts
in Shoa to an end. The enthusiasm with which the Shoans rallied round
Seifou's standard of revolt, and the zeal and courage with which they prose-
cuted their designs, indicated that they would spare no effort to overthrow
the imperial regime. The lesson was clear to those who cared to take lessons
from past events. Unfortunately for the cause of centralism in eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century Ethiopia, Theodore was not such a person, so he
failed to take more effective steps to safeguard his southern conquest. It
is true that he had too much trouble on his hands in the north to con-
centrate for long on the distant province of Shoa. Nevertheless, the fact
that he found time to come to the south to quell revolts indicates that he
attached some importance to his southern conquests. One is led to think
that Theodore failed to understand the attitude of the Shoans towards his
conquest of their kingdom, and seriously underestimated their loyalty to
the independent kingdom of Shoa which they and their ancestors had
helped to build.
Late in 1863 or early in 186424, the second wave of insurrections broke
out in Shoa. This time they were led by Abogaz Bezabu, one of the two
officials appointed by Theodore to govern Shoa in 1859. The fact that
a representative of the imperial regime should have turned against the
emperor indicates that Theodore's conquest of Shoa was not as popular
as the emperor appears to have assumed. Bezabu declared himself negus
(king).25 In taking this action Bezabu must have reckoned on the absence
of popular support for the emperor's rule in Shoa. The Shoans had not
yet reconciled themselves to the fact that their independence was lost,
and all that they needed to make them rebel was a strong and determined
leader who would restore the independence of the country. Prince Seifou
Sellassie had been one such leader. This helps to explain the zeal with which
they fought under his leadership. Nobody knew this better than Bezabu,
who for four years had represented the interests of the emperor in Shoa.
In his campaign, therefore, Bezabu must have represented himself as a
man pledged to restore the old order, the champion of the conquered

" Cecchi, op. cit. I, 258-9.

M
India Office Library, Aden Secret Letters Received (Various), vol. 42, Rassam to
Merewether, 22 Jan. 1865, fols. 23, 28-32. H. A. Stern, The Captive Missionary (London,
1868), 214-16; Gu6br6 Sellassie, op. cit. 97, no. 10. The actual date is uncertain. The
evidence from Stern would seem to favour late 1863 while evidence from Rassam suggests
1864. What is clear, however, is that there was a revolt in Shoa by February 1864.
15
Cecchi, op. cit. 1, 260; G. Sellassi6, op. cit. 1, 97.
8 AH x
114 KOFI DARKWAH
people against the conqueror. This interpretation is made in the light partly
of Bezabu's subsequent actions, and partly of a speech attributed to Bezabu
by the chronicler of Menelik's reign. Translated literally it reads as follows:
' If Menelik, the son of my [former] master returns, I shall hand over the
reins of government to him, but if anybody else comes claiming to be
master of Shoa, I shall not abandon it [Shoa]'—that is, Bezabu would oppose
any such pretender.26 And in order to be better able to oppose such a pre-
tender, Bezabu had sometime earlier sent messengers to Tadjura to pur-
chase firearms.27 This is significant, for it indicates the extent to which the
rebels in Shoa, like those in Tigre, were determined to fight for the over-
throw of the imperial regime.
At the time when Bezabu rebelled, there were rebellions against the
imperial regime in the Wallo country and in other parts of the empire;
Theodore was therefore in a difficult situation, yet he managed to find
time for the distant province of Shoa, and for the third time in his reign
he marched southwards to Shoa with the aim of crushing the rebel abogaz.
His plan appears to have been first to put down a rebellion in the Wallo
country, and then to continue his advance to Shoa. Complete failure
attended the campaign in both Wallo and Shoa. The Wallo Galla, without
hazarding a battle, withdrew to distant and inaccessible ambas from which
they 'began a destructive guerrilla war' against the imperial forces.
' Numerous bands... hovered around the [emperor's] camp when it rested
or assailed its rear when it moved'.28 The effect of the campaign in the
Wallo country upon the imperial troops cannot be over emphasized. By
the time they arrived in Shoa, they were exhausted and dispirited; con-
sequently both their morale and their physical fighting strength were con-
siderably weakened. In the circumstances it was not to be expected that
the imperial troops could storm the naturally impregnable fortress of
Afqara from which the rebels attacked the invaders. Unable to make any
headway against the rebels, and pressed by the need to attend to other
rebellions in the northern part of his empire, the emperor withdrew from
the attack and returned to Magdala, leaving Shoa in the hands of the rebel
leader. As it turned out, Theodore was never again to set foot in Shoa and,
by the time he died in April 1868, the kingdom which he had sought to
annex to his empire had re-established its independence under Menelik,
the prince who for nearly a decade was Theodore's prisoner at Magdala.
Theodore's conquest of Shoa constituted a setback in the general de-
velopment of Shoa. It put to a severe test the life's work of Sahela Sellassie.
At the critical moment some of the people chose the softer option of sub-
mitting to the emperor. But those who did so acted more out of fear than
out of disloyalty to the Shoan monarchy, or out of sympathy with the

" G. Sellassid, ibid.

17
M.A.E. (Paris), Memoires et documents (Afrique), vol. 63, fols. 276-8, Bezabu to
a certain Gabre Hajwat, 2 Apr. 1863.
18
H. A. Stern, op. cit. 215.
 EMPEROR THEODORE AND THE KINGDOM OF SHOA I15

aspirations of the invader. Even after the conquest, the majority of the
inhabitants of the conquered kingdom remained loyal to the former ruling
dynasty, and expressed their loyalty in rebellions against the imperial
administration. Theodore's conquest of Shoa therefore failed to destroy
the country's sense of independence; it merely dampened it. It was Theo-
dore's failure to kill Shoa's spirit of independent nationalism which made
probable the restoration of the Shoan dynasty. And when the restoration
came, Shoan nationalism was not merely revived; it actually grew in
strength, and it was to exercise considerable influence on imperial politics
during the reign of Emperor John IV.

SUMMARY
In the period before the rise of Emperor Theodore, the provinces in Ethiopia
tended to behave like independent entities. Shoa was one of the more successful
provinces in this respect. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a strong
independent nationalism had developed in Shoa which threatened to stand in
the way of national unity. This was not favoured by Emperor Theodore, who
therefore strove to destroy provincial independence and unite all the provinces
under an effective central government.
For a long time it was thought that Theodore had an easy task with Shoa,
defeating her in a single combat and thereafter completely pacifying the country.
Recent researches have revealed that this was not the case. Theodore did not
gain an easy victory over a timid enemy. On the contrary, he met with a strong
and determined resistance from the Shoan kingdom. He did in the end succeed
in conquering it, but he did so only after a vigorous campaign which lasted five
months. His final victory was affected by two related factors which seriously
weakened the morale of the Shoan soldiers. Thefirstwas the sudden death of the
king of Shoa at the height of the campaign. The second factor was that the heir
to the Shoan throne was a boy of ten years, and incapable of giving effective
leadership in the war against the emperor. Shoan resistance collapsed with the
capture of the heir and of a number of the leading personalities in the kingdom.
The emperor established his own administration in the conquered territory,
which he hoped would effectively execute imperial policy there.
The administration was, however, unable to pacify the conquered territory,
and the period of imperial control was spent suppressing one rebellion after
another. On two occasions during this period, Theodore had to go down to
Shoa himself to strengthen imperial attacks on the rebels. Although the Emperor
managed to gain a hard-won victory over the rebels on the first occasion, he could
not make any headway on the second occasion, and eventually he left the
country in the hands of the rebels. Thus, in spite of all his efforts, Theodore
never succeeded in gaining complete control over Shoa, and by the time he died
in April 1868, Shoa had already regained her independence.