When Kassa Haylu was crowned as King of Kings of Ethiopia in 1855 and assumed the throne-name of Tewodros II, after having succeeded in breaking the military power of most of the warlords of northern and central Ethiopia, and in terminating the predominance of the Yejju ruling dynasty, he was still paradoxically confronted with the old and tenacious challenge to his authority from the new representatives of the provincial hereditary aristocracies of Tegray in the north, Gojjam in the west, Wallo in the centre, and Shawa in the south.[2].

[…] Beginning from the time of Imam Amade Liban I (d. 1825), there emerged in Wallo south of the Bashilo River a number of competing local political entities each of which was strong enough to resist being overpowered by the other, and over which the Warra Himano dynasts had attempted to establish their dominance. Liban Amade II (d. 1857), who ruled from 1838 to 1841, was deposed by Ras Ali of Gonder/Dabra Tabor who appointed Dajjach Ali Liban alias Abba Bulla (d. 1852). Liban took over again in 1846 and some years later, Ali seized power until his death when he was succeeded by Amade.

So by the time that Tewodros came to the imperial throne, there were three local contenders for the control of Wallo: Liban Amade, the representative of the Mammadoch dynasty of Warra Himano; Worqitu, who was tutoring the young Amade Ali (whose father had died in 1852); and Amade Bashir, a son of Bashir Liban, with his centre at Koreb, to the west of Warra Himano. Farther south was Adara Bille of Lage Gora.

Soon after his coronation on 11 February 1855, Tewodros and his army marched south to Wallo. Amade Ali fled to the plains of southern Warra Himano but was captured later, and the emperor took possession of the strategic fortress of Maqdala on 22 September 1855. In the same year Adara Bille of Laga Gora died while resisting Tewodros, and his son, Ali, was later appointed as governor [3]. One of the chroniclers of Tewodros, Walda Maryam, wrote that Tewodros's second campaign to Warra Himano, which occurred in late 1855, was motivated by his desire to punish Worqitu who had burnt churches at Garagara [4]. Shortly afterwards, Liban Amade, who had been in the meantime appointed by Tewodros as governor of Wallo, declared his revolt and captured Maqdala, and the emperor had to march and recapture it. [5].

In 1857 Liban died leaving a young son named Amade (better known as Abba Watew, d. 1880), who had been tutored by his mother, Mastawot. In 1858 Tewodros led a campaign to Wallo for the third time in two years, this time to put down a rebellion led by a powerful contender for the overlordship of Wallo and his own appointee: Amade Bashir, who had proclaimed himself Imam and transferred his base of operation from Koreb in the west to Feyyel Amba in Tehuladare in the east. Although Tewodros fought and defeated Amade several times, once in Reqqe [6], Amade eluded capture. The imperial troops pillaged the Wallo countryside and the resulting devastation was so thorough that it gave rise to a serious famine in the area [7]. The rebellion of Amade continued and the emperor has to stay in Wallo for a whole year until October 1859. Amade died in 1861, having ruled as overlord of Wallo for seven years. His brother, Shumin, succeeded him and took up the standard of revolt against Tewodros who defeated him and appointed Abba Watew as governor of Wallo. The Wallo resistance was also led by Worqitu, mother of Ali Amade.

In 1860 Tewodros was once again in Wallo for the fourth time, and yet again in 1862/63 [8] for the fifth and last of his campaigns. In 1865, following Menilek's escape from captivity at Maqdala, Tewodros executed Amada Ali as revenge against Worqitu who had helped Menilek in gaining his freedom [9].

What accounts for Tewodros's repeated and repressive campaign to Wallo? Several writers have stressed the political objectives: the breaking, once and for all, of the power of the Wallo regional dynasts, although they did not ignore the emperor's two other aims: to weaken and neutralize Islam, which was identified as a basis of regional political and cultural identity, and to convert the Muslims to Christianity [10].

The report of Plowden, the British envoy, which date from as early as 1855, suggest that Tewodros had made it clear, right from the beginning of his reign, that his intention was to have the Muslims in his domain to receive baptism. Plowden described the resistance of the Warra Himano chiefs as a measure taken "in defence of their faith" [11]. As Rubenson observed, in spite of Plowden's later assertions that Tewodros's policy towards the Wallo rulers and Islam was "a political and dynastic question rather than a religious one," [12] to the emperor who called himself 'the slave of Christ', "political supremacy was a means of Christianizing and re-Christianizing the population, and the growing moral and spiritual strength of the Christian population and guarantee against a relapse into the rule of the country by the largely [sic] Muslim Galla faction"[13].

Subsequent reports by Plowden shed light on both the duration of Tewodros's campaigns and the intensity of the resistance of the Wallo chiefs. For instance, for most of the year 1857, Tewodros was in Warra Himano [14]. In a despatch sent in the summer of the following year, Plowden made a reference to a large Wallo force under a chief [Amade Basir], together with rebel troops from Tegray, Amade had, according to Plowden's report, a cavalry force of 50,000 men. Plowden also emphasized the role of Islam as a rallying point and ideology of resistance for the various hereditary chieftaincies of Wallo [15]. In 1859 Plowden reported that the emperor concentrated his force on the Wallo front in spite of a serious of rebellion which was raging in Tegray and that, despite his overall military superiority, the enemy force could not be pinned down as they followed a calculated and effective tactic of harassment and retreat. Plowden estimated that the chief, presumably of Qallu, led a large force consisting of 10, 000 men [16].

Hence, Tewodros's policy towards Wallo was motivated both by political consideration: the weakening of regional dynastic power in order to facilitate his program of reunification, [17] and by ideological factor: "… as a Christian ruler, [he] was resolved to push back its {Islam's] positions in Ethiopia …"[18]. As Crummey pointed out, Wallo's 'limited' strategic value [19] did not justify Tewodros's continuous campaign to repress the revolts [20]. He also argued that since the threat of an alliance between local and foreign Muslim forces (referred to by some contemporary observers) [21] no longer existed, Tewodros's obsession with the Wallo problem only reflected his failure to assess his national priorities [22]. It can also be argued that it was an indication of the degree of Tewodros's commitment to an essentially negative and destructive policy towards the Wallo question because the rulers there happened to be identified as Oromo, Muslim and unwilling to submit to his authority. There is a strong suggestion in some of the oral traditions that Tewodros was alarmed by the progress of Islam in the region [23]. While Darkwah ascribed the emperor's anti-Muslim sentiment to his military encounter with the Egyptian troops along the north-western frontier which had led to a military reverse in 1848 [24], Rubenson explained Tewodros's policy towards indigenous Islam in terms of his own ambition to be master of Ethiopia, and of the Holy Land, which was then under Muslim rule [25].

Crummey has recently argued that Tewodros's activities in Wallo were supported by the contemporary Protestant missionaries for three reasons: firstly, because they hoped that the subjugation of Wallo would inaugurate a period of tranquillity; secondly, they saw the struggle in terms of a confrontation between Christianity and Islam; and thirdly, because they believed that the Wallo, "… were the spearhead of Muslim drive to take over Ethiopia" [26]. Again it was Crummey who put Tewodros's Wallo campaign in the specific context of his plan to bring about national unification. He noted that what distinguished his policy towards Wallo from that which he adopted towards other rebellions provinces such as Tegray, Gojjam and Shawa, was the severity of the measures he took to put down the Wallo uprisings, the terrorism he unleashed, and the ruthless devastation his troops caused in Wallo [27].

The resistance of the Wallo Muslims was not always a concerted action; it was sometimes seriously divided and consequently undermined by district and personal allegiances. It may be that, as Crummey pointed out in a more general context, Tewodros's position can be said to have been progressive while the rebels appeared to be champions of provincialism [28]. However, as Crummey himself admits, the material available to him is limited only to the activities of rebels in the north, such as Tegray, and the data on those operating in the centre, like Wallo, suggest that although the Wallo chiefs were anxious to preserve their traditional hereditary power, they also showed an appreciable degree of willingness to come to an understanding with the emperor. What therefore intensified their frequent insurrection and tenacious resistance were, firstly, Tewodros's policy of indiscriminate devastation and destruction of the land, and the deportation of some of the people, and secondly, his clearly anti-Islamic, and even anti-Oromo, stance.

The leaders of the rebellions perceived Tewodros's objectives and activities as being aimed not only at their destruction as a ruling class, but also at undermining the social, economic and cultural foundation of the Muslim communities themselves. Therefore, one can discern a basic contradiction in Tewodros's policy of building a unified and centralized nation-state as much as in his own personality [29], since he was determined to destroy the very elements which were to constitute the society and polity he had set out to rebuild. As Rubenson rightly noted, Tewodros made no efforts to "accommodate his Muslim subjects" [30]. In this respect, Fekadu's argument that Islam was for the Wallo Muslims a source of inspiration and a basis for the formation of a "political unit outside the organisational framework of Christian Ethiopia which was not willing to permit religious diversity …" [31] is both plausible and substantiable.

However, the available written and oral sources equally emphasize that Tewodros did not impose and enforce a policy of religious coercion involving mass conversion comparable to that adopted in the time of his successor, Yohannes IV [32]. In spite of this, the extent of physical and material destruction, the pillaging of the Wallo countryside, affected the demographic, economic and political vitality of the region for the remaining part of the century; "… that violence of Tewodros dealt the coup de grace to the central provinces" [33].

The death of Tewodros in 1868 was followed by a brief interregnum during which Wag Shum Gobaze Gabra Madhen, hereditary ruler of Wag and Lasta, and Dajjazmach Kasa Mercha of Tamben, Tegray, built up their power bases in their respective territories. Gobaze declared himself King of Kings over parts of central and northwest Ethiopian lying to the north of Bashilo and west of the Takkeze Rivers, having taken the regnal name of Takle Giyorgis. He established his centre at Gondar. On 11 July 1871 a fierce armed encounter between the forces of Takle Giyorgis and those of Kasa at Assam near Adwa resulted in the latter's spectacular victory which opened the way to coronation as Emperor Yohannes IV on 21 January 1872 [34].

*****

Yohannes and Islam in Wallo

The Resistence of the Militant Muslim Clerics

3. Fekadu, "Tentative History," p. 14

4. [Walda Maryam], Chrnique de Theodros, p. 7 (text). The Chronicler also mentions the stiff resistance put up by the chiefs of highland Wallo whose renowned cavalry proved no match to Tewodros's army.

5. Rubenson, Tewodros of Ethiopia, p. 75.

6. Fekadu op. cit., p. 17.

7. Rubenson, op. Cit., p. 76-77.

8. Ibid., pp.79, 80.

9. [Walda Mariam] op. Cit., p. 32 (text); Gabra Sellase [Walda Aragay], Alaqa, "Chronicle of Shawa" (Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris: Department des Manuscrits, collection Mondon-Vidailhet, Ethiop. 261, Mondon 74), Amharic; hereafter Mondon 74, f. 27.

10. Rubenson op. Cit., p. 59; idem, "Ethiopia and the Horn." P. 76; Donald Crummey, "The violence of Tewodros"in Bethwell A. Ogot (ed.), War and Society in Africa (London, 1972), p. 68; Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, p. 118.

11. PRO, FO 1/9, f. 84: Plowden from Adwa, 7 April 1855; also enclosure to a letter from Gondar dated 18 June 1855, f. 140.

12. PRO, FO 1/10, f. 23: Plowden from Enfraz, 11 November 1856.

13. Rubenson, Tewodros of Ethiopia, p. 59.

14. PRO, FO 1/10, folios 80, 88: Plowden from Dambiya, 2 April and 20 May 1857.

15. PRO, FO 1/10, f. 233r-v Plowden from Warra Himano, 5 July 1858.

16 PRO, FO 1/10, folios 344, 352: Plowden to the Earl of Malmesbury, from Ayn Amba, 1 February 1859, and Gondar, 18 June 1859.

17. An informant, Shaykh Ali, emphasized this aspect: the refusal of the Wallo chiefs to submit to Tewodros.

18. Rubenson, Tewodros of Ethiopia, p. 59. See also Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 19940, p. 69.

19. This is disputable. The strategic importance of Wallo has been emphasised by several writers: Caulk, "Religion and the State," p. 31; R.H. Kofi Darkwah, Shewa Menilek and the Ethiopian Empire 1813 - 1889 (London, 1975), pp 87-88; and Crummey himself, "Cacaho and the Politics …,"pp.2-3, 4.

20. Crummey, "Violence of Tewodros," p. 72.

21. This is discussed in Abir, era of the Princes, pp. 115 -16.

22. Crummey, op. cit., p. 74

23. Informant, Shaykhs Muzaffar and Muhammad Zaki. On the rapid expansion of Islam in north / central Ethiopia at the time, see Trimingham , Islam in Ethiopia, 99 111-13.

24. Darkwah, "Emperor Theodore," p. 107.

25. Rubenson, Tewodros of Ethiopia, pp 59-60. See also idem, "Shaykh Kasa Haylu" in Sven Rubenson (ed.), Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, University of Lund, 26-29 April 1982 (Addis Ababa/Uppsala/East Lansing, 1984), pp. 279-84.

26. Crummey, "Tewodros as Reformer and Modernizer," p. 466-67; idem, Violence of Tewodros," p. 74.

27. Crummey, "Violence of Tewodros,"p. 68.

28. Ibid. p. 71.

29. Rubenson. op. cit., p. 79

30. Ibid., p. 72

31. Fekadu,"A Tentative History,"p. 41.

32. Rubenson, "Horn of Africa," p. 76; informants: Shaykhs Muhammad Nur and Ali.

33. Crummey, "Violence of Tewodros,"pp. 66,76.

34. Zewde, Yohannes IV, pp. 17-36; Rubenson, Survival, pp. 270-71, 274-75.