Chapter 4
The Arsi Oromo Resistance against Ethiopian
Imperial Conquest (1880–1900)
Introduction
If a word could summarize modern Arsi Oromo history it would be resistance,
which includes military, political and cultural. The Arsi Oromo stood up in uni-
son against the Shoan expanding army by mobilizing all their material and
human resources for more than 10 years (1882–1892). This happened in two
phases: 1882–1886 in northern Arsi (Dide’a) and 1888–1892 in southern Arsi
(Bale). The Arsi Oromo made a collective and conscious decision to form an
armed resistance against their invaders and paid a heavy price in order to
maintain their independence. Their resistance did not end with their military
defeat; they continued to resist assimilation and Amharization through con-
version to Islam which was considered an anti-establishment religion in
Ethiopia. Their mass conversion to Islam appeared to be a reaction to their
military subjugation and the ensuing colonial political economy and policy of
the Ethiopian Empire. In this chapter we will analyze in detail Menelik’s war of
conquest of Arsi Oromo country which ended the era of sovereign existence
and heralded a new chapter in their political and economic life.
Several scholars and the official chronicler, Gabre Selassie,1 and the histori-
ographer Asma Girorgis2 have written about the war against the Arsi in an
extremely partial way, from the perspective of the ruling classes. Also, perhaps
they were not aware of the details of a decade-long war which took place in
every corner of this vast Oromo country. These writers, as many others who
followed them, relegated the decade-long history to a few paragraphs or pages.
1 Gabre Selassie, La chronique de Menenlik II, Rois des Rois d’Ethiopie traduit par Tesfa Selassie
publiée et annotée par Maurice de Copet, Paris, Librairie Orientale et Américaine (1930,
1932), 2 tomes. In this text we used the French translation of the original chronicle since the
Amharic version of 1959 E.C. was censored by its editors. The censorship concerned Menelik’s
war against the Arsi. (For the details see Hussein Ahmed, Some Problems of the Gabre
Selassie’s Chronicle (B.A. Thesis, Addis Ababa University, 1977).)
2 Astme, Ya Galla Tarik (History of the Galla), Vol. 2 (IES, University of Addis Ababa), trans-
lated by Bairu Tafla, Atsma Giyorgis and His Work, History of the Galla and the Kingdom of
Shewa (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1987).
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Oromo Resistance against Ethiopian Imperial Conquest 139
Likewise, historians of Menelik’s period have been largely based on these
sources and other available materials indicated the destructive nature of the
war en passant.3 This is mainly because in Ethiopia the tendency is to ignore
such wars of colonization and expansion, to treat them as internal wars, or as
campaigns of (re)unification, incorporation, and the like. In contrast to the
international wars on which entire treatises have been written, these wars of
conquest and annexation of neighboring peoples and territories by “landed
empires,” such as Russia and Ethiopia have received little attention. In actual
fact, the war against the Arsi Oromo by the Shoan kingdom represented not
only a classical colonial war but also one in which egregious war crimes were
perpetrated by an organized state.
I have been working on imperial conquest and its consequences for quite
some time which has provided me with the opportunity to examine available
sources in Amharic and European languages (English, French, Italian and
German) and to interview hundreds of Amhara and Oromo informants of dif-
ferent regions, religions and origins particularly among the Arsi who suffered
greatly from the war and the ensuing political economy. They have not forgot-
ten and perhaps may never forget this crucial period of their history. Their col-
lective memory of the war is so fresh that one has the impression that the
informants took part in it or saw it with their own eyes. The original oral data
obtained in the course of fieldwork is analyzed in detail in comparison with
other primary and secondary sources. The following analysis is the summary of
Menelik’s decade-long wars and campaigns of conquest and Arsi Oromo
resistance.4
According to Asma Giyorgis,5 the first campaign against the Arsi dates back
to the 1840s when most of the Tulama clans of Shoa fell under King Sahle
Selassie, Menelik’s grandfather, though they did not completely submit until
his death.6 Foreign observers, traditional historiographers as well as the writers
of the 16th century, Bahrey in particular, dwell on what they believe to be the
warlike nature of the Oromo society, on their great passion for victory in war
3 Rexford Darkwah, Shewa, Menelik and the Ethiopian Empire (1813–1889) (London: Bulter and
Tanner Ltd, 1975); Harold G. Marcus, The Life and Times of Menelik and the Ethiopian Empire,
1844–1991 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
4 Abbas Haji Gnamo, A History of the Arsi (1880–1935); Les Oromo-Arsi, pp. 154–191.
5 Bairu Tafla, Atsma Giyorgis and His Work, p. 543.
6 Ed. Simone, “The Amhara Expedition against the Shawa Galla (1880–1850): A Reappraisal.” In
Proceedings of the First United States Conference on Ethiopian Studies, Michigan State
University, 2–5 May, 1973, edited by Harold G. Marcus (East Lansing: African Studies Center,
1975), pp. 135–141.