Dr. Richard Pankhurst
First published as an article in the Addis Tribune newspaper in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 19 February 1999.

1 Ancient Times

Since time immemorial the area which is now called Eritrea played an important role within the framework of the wider region which we now know as Ethiopia.

The coastal area represented the external door and the window of much of the Ethiopian region. The area lay off the Red Sea coast, one of the major trade routes of ancient times. Recent Egyptologist studies suggest that the area was probably the celebrated Land of Punt, to which Queen Hatshepsut and other ancient Pharaohs despatched their memorable naval expeditions; and that Puntite seafarers before long were themselves travelling up the Red Sea to Egypt, to participate in international trade.

The coastal area was later likewise visited, shortly before the Christian era, by Ptolemaic naval expeditions, which came in quest of elephants, aptly termed the tanks of the ancient world.

The coastal area, throughout its long history, was in fact closely involved in the foreign trade of the hinterland. Much of the latter’s commerce passed through the Red Sea coast: exports consisted largely of gold, ivory, civet musk and slaves, and the imports of textiles and other manufactured goods.

The area’s proximity to the sea was invaluable in bringing the inhabitants of the area into contact with the outside world, but was at the same time highly disadvantageous, in that the coastal lands were often threatened by foreign interference, invasion, and even occupation.

2 Aksum

Ethiopian history, as we know it, dawns with the emergence of an important centre of civilisation in the north of the country: this civilisation is exemplified by the great temple of Yeha, which dates back to perhaps the sixth or seventh centuries BC.

From this early beginning developed the historical Aksumite state: with its plough agriculture, reservoirs and dams, great palaces, and remarkable stele. One of these obelisks was looted by the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini: it is my earnest hope that the resumption of peace, for which we pray, will be followed by the stele’s long overdue return to Ethiopia, in accordance with international agreement.

But to return to the Aksumite state: there can be no denying that it constituted the origin of the subsequent medieval Ethiopian state. This is evident from the hierarchical, and largely feudal form of government, the system of land tenure with the institutions of gult and rest, and the unique relationship between church and state. The historic continuity between Aksum and medieval Ethiopia is likewise evident architecturally, with the decorative carvings on Aksumite stelae serving as the model for the rock-hewn churches of both Tegray and Lasta, excavated a millennium or so later.

If Aksum was the political centre of this great civilisation, Adulis, in what is now Eritrea, was its principal port. This is apparent from archaeological evidence, as well as from the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Graeco-Egyptian text written in the first century or so of the Christian era.

This relationship between Aksum, the inland capital, and Adulis, the coastal port, set a commercial pattern, which was to continue for centuries, right down, in fact, to modern times. The Ethiopian region throughout this period was thus an economic unity embracing the coast no less than the hinterland.

The coastal region was likewise the territory through which Christianity entered Ethiopia, in the early fourth century, after which Aksum emerged as the religious capital of a realm covering much of the coastlands as well as the interior. Islam penetrated northern Ethiopia by a similar route, three centuries later, when the first Muslims were reportedly welcomed by the Aksumite ruler of the day.

Economic and communicational ties between the hinterland and the coast found expression also in political links. By the early middle ages we find the northern districts of Hamasen and Seraye, two of the principal districts of what is now highland Eritrea, under the rule of the famous Ethiopian Zagwé dynasty.

Ethiopian control of the area continued after the so-called the Solomonic restoration of 1270, when at least four Ethiopian emperors, ‘Amda Seyon, Sayfa Ar’ad, Dawit and Yeshaq, are known to have granted extensive lands to monasteries in both Hamasen and Seraye. It is reported that Emperor Dawit also enrolled men from Hamasen in his imperial army.

3 The Later Middle Ages

Later again, in the fifteenth century, the Ethiopian Emperor Zar’a Ya’qob was in effective control of most, if not all, of the northern region. It was he who established the rank of Bahr Negash, or ruler of the lands beside the bahr, or sea. This title was given to the ruler of the north, who was appointed by the Emperor, and exercised jurisdiction not only over Hamasen and Seraye, but also over the semi-coastal peninsula of Bur. Zar’a Ya’qob allocated sizable stretches of land to the great monasteries of Debra Bizen in Hamasen and Debra Maryam in Seraye. He likewise established military garrisons in Hamasen, doubtless because it lay on the important route to the Red Sea port of Massawa.

Evidence of the significance of the Bahr Negash, and of his position in the hierarchy of Ethiopian government, is preserved by the early sixteenth century Portuguese traveller Francisco Alvares. He indicates that the official was Emperor Lebna Dengel’s uncle, and, like other provincial chiefs, paid the monarch sizable taxes, in horses, as well as in silks and cotton cloth, imported from India. Soldiers from the country of the Bahr Nagash likewise played a prominent role in the Emperor’s army. One of them, Awrai ‘Uthman, was his governor of Ifat and Fatagar.

The sixteenth century was a major turning-point in the history of the northern region. The rise of the Ottoman Empire was followed by the Turkish occupation of Massawa, in 1557, and by a Turkish blockade of the interior. This action was strongly opposed by three Ethiopian emperors: Sarsa Dengel, Za-Dengel, and Susneyos. Sarsa Dengel, who succeeded in driving the invaders to the coast, is said, in his chronicle, to have had strong support from the local Hamasen peasantry, led by a certain ‘Aquba Mika’el. Za-Dengel and Susneyos both later sought, albeit unsuccessfully, to obtain Spanish or Portuguese help in expelling the Turks.

The establishment of Gondar as the capital of the Ethiopian realm in 1636 was yet another landmark in the country’s history, and had its impact also on the lands of the Bahr Negash. Local tradition of Hamasen, recorded in Johannes Kolmodin’s memorable study, the Traditions de Tsazzega et Hazzega, tells of many nobles from the area who travelled to Gondar to serve in the Emperor’s court, and were subsequently appointed by the Ethiopian monarch to positions of status in their localities. When the Turks again attempted to interfere with imports, in the late seventeenth century, Emperor Iyasu I, whose wife Walatta Seyon was a noblewoman of Hamasen, made his way to the area, and broke the blockade.

The on-going relationship between the country of the Bahr Negash and the Christian interior is clearly demonstrated in a late eighteenth century Ethiopian map, found in many manuscripts of the time. It depicts Aksum in the centre, surrounded by twelve districts, the most northerly of which are Seraye, Hamasen, and Bur.

The Ethiopian state, however, was by then beginning to decline, in the era of the masafent, or judges. This was a time when the power of the central state collapsed, and feudal chiefs gained control of the provinces. The country of the Bahr Negash, like other areas, became virtually independent of the capital, but nevertheless remained closely linked to nearby Tegray.

This was scarcely surprising. The people of the area who were economically linked to Tegray, had virtually identical social structure and customs, spoke the same language or languages, mainly Tegrenya, and were affiliated to either of the two great monotheistic faiths: Christianity, mainly in the highlands; and Islam, in the lowlands.

4 Emperors Tewodros and Yohannes

The rise of Emperor Tewodros II, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was another turning-point in Ethiopian history. Like many of his predecessors he considered the country of the Bahr Negash an integral part of Ethiopia, and often declared, “My kingdom stretches to the sea”.

The extent to which the area was in fact still part of Tegray, and hence of Ethiopia, is evident from Tewodros’s tax documents, looted from Maqdala by the British in 1868. These records, which I edited with the late Ato Germa-Sellassie Asfaw, reveal that Tewodros received taxes from the Keren area, of what is now western Eritrea, as well as from the main highland districts: Seraye, Hamasen, and Akala Guzay.

The death of Tewodros was followed by the steady expansion of the Egyptians. Having acquired Massawa from the Ottoman Empire they advanced into Hamasen and Akala Guzay in the north, and Keren in the north-west, as well as Harar in the east. They were, however, defeated by Emperor Yohannes IV, at the battles of Gundat and Gura, in 1875 and 1876 respectively.

Yohannes, like Tewodros before him, often declared that his empire stretched as far as the coast, and his notable commander, Ras Alula, actually had his headquarters at Asmara, which was shortly to become the capital of the Italian colony of Eritrea.

Emperor Yohannes’ opportunity to regain access to the sea came in the early 1880s when the British and Egyptians needed Ethiopia’s help in rescuing Anglo-Egyptian garrisons besieged in Sudan as a result of the Mahdist revolution. Yohannes agreed to help, but insisted that the Egyptians should return to Ethiopia the territories they had recently acquired in the Keren area. He also asked for control of Massawa. His first demand was accepted, but as for the port the British Government agreed merely to promise free transit “under British protection”, for Ethiopian goods, including arms and ammunition.

A treaty embodying these principles was signed on 3 June 1884. Its preamble stated that it bound not only the signatories, but also their “heirs, and successors”. Ras Alula thereupon relieved six garrisons: the only ones in fact saved from the Mahdists.

Having obtained what they wanted from Yohannes the British Government arranged for the Italians, whom they regarded as a useful counter-balance to the French – their main rivals in the Scramble for Africa – to take over Massawa. The Italians thereupon seized the port, on 5 February 1885.

The treaty, which was supposedly to bind not only the signatories, but also their “heirs, and successors”, thus endured for only nine months!

A.B. Wylde, a sometime British consul for the Red Sea area, commented:

“Look at our behaviour to King Johannes from any point of view and it will not show one ray of honesty, and to my mind it is one of the worst bits of business out of many we have been guilty of in Africa… England made use of King Johannes as long as he was of any service, and then threw him over to the tender mercies of Italy, who went to Massowah under our auspices with the intention of taking territory that belonged to our ally, and allowed them to destroy all the promises England had solemnly made King Johannes after he had faithfully carried out his part of the agreement. The fact is not known to the British public, and I wish it was not true for our credit’s sake, but unfortunately it is, and it reads like one of the vilest bits of treachery that has been committed in Africa or India in the eighteenth century”.

5 Ras Alula, Dogali, and Adwa

The Italians, having gained a foothold at Massawa, soon attempted, like the Turks and Egyptians before them, to advance inland. Within two years they began to penetrate into the Ethiopian interior, but were defeated by Ras Alula in 1887. The engagement was fought at Dogali, only about 25 kilometres from the coast – an indication of the limited extent of Italian penetration up to that time, and of the fact that Ethiopia then still extended to virtually within sight of the sea.

The Italians, however, bided their time. Two years later Emperor Yohannes was killed at Metemma, fighting against the Mahdists from Sudan. Ethiopia was struck at the same time by two major calamities: a drought and a cattle plague. The resultant famine, perhaps unprecedented in the country’s history, lasted for three years, and was followed by several epidemics.

The Italians seized this opportunity to march inland once more. Finding no organised opposition they swept forward to occupy Asmara and Keren, after which, at the beginning of 1890, they formally established a colony which they named Eritrea. This they immediately fortified, rendering it impregnable against attack from the south, as Wylde observed.

The core of the colony comprised the fertile highland provinces, without which such a polity would scarcely have been worth occupying, as well as the western lowlands, the ports of Massawa and Asab, acquired by Italy in 1885 and 1869 respectively; and, between them, a narrow coastal strip of largely Afar-inhabited territory. The remarkably long southern frontier with Ethiopia was, of course, entirely arbitrary.

Opposition to Italian rule flared up almost immediately afterwards, with the rebellion, in 1894, of Batha Hagos, a local chief from Akala Guzay. His insurrection marked the beginning of another Italian advance inland. Mounted from Eritrea, it took the Italian invaders, and their Eritrean colonial troops, into much of Tegray. The campaign culminated, however, in Emperor Menilek’s resounding victory at the battle of Adwa, in March 1896.

Despite this victory, the Ethiopian ruler was in an unenviable position. His large army, assembled from distant parts of the country ,was by then starving, and his lines of communication over-extended. Though he had defeated a relatively small Italian colonial force, he was scarcely in a position to fight a new campaign, should the Italians have decided to wage a major war of revenge. He had in any case no possibility of capturing Massawa, which was linked to the mainland only by a narrow, and easily defensible, causeway. The result was that Menilek, like Yohannes after his no less memorable victory at Gudat twenty years earlier, was not in a position to drive the invaders into the sea. Thus was it that the Italians retained what they chose to term their “first born” colony.

6 The Rise of Fascism

The Italians, after their defeat at Adwa, took little interest in Ethiopia or Eritrea, until after the rise of Fascism, in 1922. When two years later Ras Tafari Makonnen, the future Emperor Haile Sellassie, travelled to Paris, Rome and London, in an effort to obtain access to the sea for Ethiopia, they received him warmly. Later, in 1928, Italy agreed to grant Ethiopia part of the port of Asab as a free port. Mussolini, however subsequently decided, in the early 1930s, to invade Ethiopia, to avenge Adwa, and to win Italy “a place in the African sun”. It was only then that development on any scale began in Eritrea. Even so, it was largely restricted to the building of military roads, airports, hospitals, and naval installations.

Little or nothing was done for the education of the so-called “native population”. Many young Eritreans accordingly escaped to Ethiopia, to benefit from Ethiopian Government schooling in the country or abroad, and later joined Emperor Haile Sellassie’s service. They included Lorenzo Taezaz and Blatta Efrem Tewelde Medhen, two of Ethiopia’s leading officials of the time – and many others.

7 The Fascist Invasion, and Occupation

In the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia, which began in October 1935, Eritrean banda, or “native troops”, as the Italians called them, constituted a large proportion of the invading army. A few patriotic Eritreans, however, deserted. They joined the Ethiopian forces, and played a major role for example in the famous Black Lion resistance organisation. Two Eritreans, Abraha Debotch and Moges Asgedom, subsequently undertook an historic attempt on the life of the Fascist Viceroy Graziani, which was followed by the three-day Addis Ababa massacre of February 1937; while a third Eritrean, Zeray Deres, later carried out a one-man pro-Ethiopian demonstration in Rome, when the looted statue of the Lion of Judah was unveiled in that city.

Eritrea had meanwhile featured in the Hoare-Laval plan, put forward by the British and French leaders in December 1935, ostensibly as a “compromise” between Fascist Italy and Ethiopia. This plan, which was rejected by both parties, granted Mussolini an immense stretch of Ethiopian territory, but proposed in return that Ethiopia be granted access to the sea, through a strip of Eritrea adjacent to French Somaliland, and including Asab.

The ensuing Fascist occupation of Ethiopia was followed by the beginnings of light industry in Eritrea, set up largely to meet the needs of the Italian East African empire as a whole. This period also witnessed the development of Asab port; and the administrative annexation of the whole of Tegray to Eritrea. Also worthy of mention was the enactment by Fascist Italy of a series of racial decrees, which were without parallel until the establishment of the South African apartheid regime a decade later. These laws, introduced for the so-called “defence” of the Italian race, applied to Eritrea, as well as Ethiopia, and the rest of the Italian empire.

The establishment of the Italian East African Empire, which was followed, after Mussolini’s entry into the European war in June 1940 by the Italian seizure of British Somaliland, led to the creation of a vast East African Empire. Centred in Addis Ababa, though with a still only rudimentary road network, it extended from Eritrea, through Ethiopia, to Italian Somalia; and controlled no less than six ports: Massawa, Asab, Zeyla, Berbera, Mogadishu and Kismayu.

This empire crumbled as a direct result of Mussolini’s declaration of war on Britain and France, which led to British intervention, and the speedy collapse of Fascist power.

8 The Post-War Settlement

It may be interesting at this point to contrast the decolonisation of the Fascist empire, which took place in the 1940s, when the colonial powers were still strong, with the liberation, two decades later, of most other European colonies. The latter colonies were liberated as single units. The liberation of the Italian East African Empire, which the Fascists had ruled as a single entity, was, on the contrary effected piece-meal, and resulted in the fragmentation of the territory once more into three political entities: Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. Each emerged to independence separately, and at a different time. This militated against the maintenance of regional unity, which the Italians had established.

Ethiopia, liberated with the help of its own Patriots in 1941, was not considered a victim nation restored to freedom, but an Italian, or enemy, territory occupied by British troops. Partial British military occupation continued for several years. The British did not allow the country a fully independent government until the conclusion of the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement of December 1944. The Ogaden and Reserved Area, amounting to almost a quarter of the country, were likewise kept under British occupation until July 1948. Ethiopia’s freedom of action, after liberation from Italian rule, was thus curtailed for almost seven years.

A solution to the future of Eritrea was also inordinately delayed. The British Government, to encourage desertions among Eritrean “native troops”, had dropped leaflets in 1941, during the fighting, at Keren and elsewhere. They contained texts such as the following:

“You people who wish to live under the flag of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Sellassie I, and have your own flag, we give you our word, you shall be allowed to choose what government you desire”.

Many Eritreans hearkened to such words, as George Steer reports in his book Sealed and Delivered, and defected from the Italian colonial army.

Despite these promises Eritrea was placed under a separate British military administration. This was at the beginning remarkably strict, and retained the Fascist racial laws for at least four years. During this time a spontaneous Eritrean movement for “reunion” with Ethiopia emerged, at first under the cover of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Eritrea. This was the earliest, and for almost a decade, the strongest of the Eritrean political parties.

It was during this time too that the British Military Administration undertook extensive dismantling of the Eritrean ports.

Discussion on the future of the ex-colony was postponed until September 1945, when the Foreign Ministers of the five Great Powers, Britain, France, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, discussed the matter, but failed to come to any conclusion.

A Four Power Inquiry Commission, on which the Chinese declined to participate, was eventually sent to Eritrea in 1947. It found the population divided into three main factions: pro-Ethiopian Unionists, for the most part Christians of the highlands, who demanded “reunion” with Ethiopia; adherents of a Muslim League strongly opposed to such a union; and members of a Pro-Italia Party, many of them Italian pensioners, who advocated the return of Italian rule.

The Commissioners, whose findings reflected the political biases of their respective governments, differed in their proposals. The British and Americans favoured the union of most of Eritrea with Ethiopia, except for the western province, which they wished to incorporate in the then Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The French and Russians by contrast proposed that the ex-colony should be placed under United Nations Trusteeship, leading to independence after five years.

The Four Powers being unable to agree, the issue was referred to the United Nations, which despatched a second Commission of Inquiry to Eritrea in 1950. This Commission, which represented five countries, found the Eritrean public by then grouped into two factions: the Unionists on the one side, and an Independence Block, formed by a coalition of the Muslim League and the Pro-Italia Party, on the other.

The Commissioners, like their predecessors, came out with differing proposals. Those of Burma and South Africa, urged that Eritrea should be federated with Ethiopia as a self-governing unit “under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian crown”; Guatemala and Pakistan wanted to put the territory under United Nations Trusteeship, to be followed by independence after ten years; while Norway advocated the outright union of Eritrea to Ethiopia.

The United Nations, considering the reported wishes of the Eritrean population, as well as the conclusions of three out of the five groups of Commissioners, finally decided, at the end of 1950, that Eritrea be federated with Ethiopia, under the Ethiopian Crown. An Eritrean Assembly was thereupon elected, under United Nations auspices, and chose the Unionist leader, Tedla Bairu, as its Chief Executive. An Eritrean Constitution was likewise drafted, and approved by the Assembly, in 1952.

This first Eritrean settlement, that of Federation, with which I am presently concerned, had taken no less than eleven years to achieve.

These long delays in re-establishing Ethiopian independence, and in settling the future of Eritrea, were deplorable, in that they wasted valuable time, and effort, which could have been better been spent on overcoming technological backwardness, and conquering disease and illiteracy.

So much for what we may call the first Eritrean Settlement, of 1952, with which I conclude my study. I leave it to the next speakers to take the chronicle forward to later times:

* to the story of the Federation, and Eritrea’s subsequent incorporation in Ethiopia;
* the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974;
* rebellion and civil war; the military victory of EPLF;
* the declaration of Eritrean independence; and
* the present conflict.

9 And what of the future?

When the bloodshed is over, and the scars begin to heal, and probably even sooner, it will be necessary to look to the future with new, and wiser, eyes. It is important to remember that the two countries of the Ethiopian region, divided by an artificial frontier, and years of civil war, as well as by the Peace Settlement of 1991, share a common millennial-old history, and form part of the same civilisation. Recognising that the economies of what is now Ethiopia and Eritrea have been linked since time immemorial, and that the two countries are bound together by innumerable racial ties, it should not be beyond the ingenuity of the peoples of this part of the Horn of Africa to devise a mutually acceptable framework, and the sooner they begin to think about this the better. The viability, development, and prosperity of the two states are inter-dependent, and the political and economic structures of the future should take this into account.