Menelik II's conquests, also known as the Agar Maqnat (Amharic: አገር ማቅናት, romanized: agär maqnat, lit. 'to position the country'), were a series of late 19th-century military campaigns led by Menelik II, king of Shewa (1865–1889) and Ethiopian Emperor (1889–1913) to expand the territory of the Ethiopian Empire.
Ascending power in the de facto independent kingdom of Shewa in what is now central Ethiopia in 1865, Menelik II spent the early years of his reign consolidating his power and campaigning in Wollo to the north. After Emperor Yohannes IV forced him to submit in 1878 he turned his attention south. After defeating his rival Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam at the Battle of Embabo in June 1882 he began the first phase of his expansion, conquering most of the Oromo-dominated territory including Welega, the five Gibe kingdoms as well as the powerful Arsi confederation. In 1887 he conquered the small but prestigious Emirate of Harar. In 1889 he became Emperor and, five years later, initiated the second phase of his expansion with the invasion of Wolaita, followed by Aussa in 1895 and Kaffa and the Boorana-Oromo in 1897. By 1900 he had conquered the western lowlands, the northern shores of Lake Turkana and Ogaden, giving Ethiopia its present shape.
Menelik capitalized on growing centralization efforts, an increasing militarized state apparatus, and substantial arms imports from European powers. His campaigns mirrored European colonial practices—such as indirect rule, settler colonialism, and land dispossession—and were frequently justified by Menelik as part of a Christianizing civilizing mission. Central to the imperial structure in many southern regions was the neftenya-gabbar system, a settler-colonial arrangement that established Amhara dominance over newly incorporated regions through land grants, taxation, and forced labor. Menelik's expansionist drive transformed Ethiopia into one of the few African empires participating in the Scramble for Africa. While it preserved its sovereignty against European colonization—most notably through victory in the First Italo-Ethiopian War—the empire's growth was achieved through serious violence and repression that some historians today characterize as genocidal. Contemporary observers described severe population losses among the Oromo during the conquests, although estimates of the scale and causes of these losses vary considerably. The dramatic increase in Ethiopia's size helped establish Menelik's legacy as the architect of the modern Ethiopian state. The enduring social, political, and cultural legacies of these conquests have had a profound effect on Ethiopian state formation and interethnic relations, with consequences that continue to shape the country's internal conflicts into the present day.
Background (before 1865)
Menelik II (1844–1913) belonged to a regional Amhara dynasty that claimed Solomonic descent via the 16th-century Emperor Dawit II. It was founded at the turn of the 18th century by Nagasi Krestos in Menz at the southern fringes of the Ethiopian Empire. Due to its geographic position the heads of this dynasty bore the title merid azmach ("Commander of the Rearguard"), although in the early 19th century they adopted the title ras ("Duke"). The polity they ruled over came to be known as Shewa and soon established its capital at Ankober. Shewa pursued a policy of steady expansion against neighboring Oromo groups, most of them Tulama. Subjugated Oromo, who were fierce horsemen, went on to join the Shewan army. Thus, Amhara came to be a dominant minority ruling over an Oromo majority, even though over time the Oromo adopted Christian Amhara culture and even identity. In their wars against the Oromo they allied with Muslim Argobba from Ifat, who eventually joined Shewa. Shewa tended to be highly unstable: whenever a ruler died, large portions of the population rebelled and had to be violently subdued once more.
Under Shewa's hitherto greatest ruler, Menelik II's grandfather Sahle Selassie (r. 1813–1847) expansion continued. Sahle Selassie himself was said to lead 84 expeditions, which primarily revolved around pillaging and human trophy hunting. By the 1840s Shewa bordered Wollo (marked by the Wanchet and Borkana Rivers) in the north, the escarpment bordering the Danakil Desert in the east and exerted a more loose form of influence as far south as the plains of the Awash. From 1843 it began to launch first raids beyond the Awash and pushed as far south as Sodo in northern Gurageland, with Kistane chief Oda Lelisso submitting in return for protection against Oromo raiders. Having a total population of about 1,000,000 people, Shewa grew prosperous by controlling long distance trade routes that connected southwestern Ethiopia with the Red Sea. Eager to engage in trade with Shewa, European diplomats began to enter Shewa from the late 1830s. In order to further enhance his legitimacy Sahle Selassie adopted the title negus, "king".
Shewa had remained largely isolated from the bloody warfare that shook the Ethiopian Empire during the Zemene Mesafint (1769–1855) and stopped paying tribute to the Emperor in the late 18th century. Throughout most of the period the Empire was run by a dynasty of Oromo kingmakers from Yejju in northern Wollo who left Shewa alone. Things changed with the rise of Kassa Hailu, who between 1852 and 1855 crushed the Yejju Oromo and their vassals, united most the Empire and Wollo and crowned himself Emperor Tewodros II. In October 1855 he invaded Shewa, with its king Haile Melekot dying before giving battle. He installed a halfbrother of Haile Melekot as governor and took multiple nobles as hostages to his capital Magdala in Wollo, including Haile Melekot's teenaged son Sahle Maryam, the future Menelik II. Despite this the Shewans defied Tewodros' rule and he never managed to pacify the province.
Early conquests and conflicts until the council of Liche (1865–1878)
Menelik escaped Magdala in 1865 and returned to Shewa, where he confronted Bezabeh, an appointee of Tewodros who had rebelled and declared himself negus of Shewa in 1863. Menelik, rightful heir of Haile Melekot, enjoyed wide support and large parts of Bezabeh's army deserted. He eventually surrendered to Menelik, who had him executed. In August 1865 Menelik was crowned king of Shewa and pacified the country until 1866.
Wollo (1867–1878)
Menelik quickly challenged Tewodros' authority and proclaimed himself Emperor (neguse negast). By 1867 rebellions had caused the collapse of Tewodros' rule, now restricted to Magdala itself. In late 1867 Menelik mustered an army of 30.000 men and marched on Magdala, but retreated without giving battle. Despite this he still increased his influence in Wollo by backing Warqitu over her rival Mestawat, both being queen regents of the local Muslim Oromo Mammadoch dynasty of Were Himanu that had fragmented into two lines. In 1868 a British army invaded to free European captives that Tewodros had taken hostage and conquered Magdala on April 13, when Tewodros committed suicide. Menelik and Warqitu mustered a joint army to aid the British, but ultimately did not get involved. Tewodros was succeeded by Tekle Giyorgis II, but was soon defeated by Yohannes IV, who became Emperor in 1872. Despite his ambitions Menelik was too weak to challenge either of them.
From late 1868, when Werqitu died, Menelik repeatedly campaigned in Wollo against Mestawat and her son Abba Wato. He founded the town of Were Ilu and conquered all of Wollo south of Magdala. In 1873 he raised a large army against Abba Wato, who in 1874 called Emperor Yohannes for help. Arriving with an army in 1875, a clash between Menelik and Yohannes was only averted because Yohannes had to return north to confront an Egyptian invasion. Thus, Menelik finally managed to defeat Abba Wato in 1876 and unify Wollo under his rule, which he placed under his governor Mohammed Ali, a Mammadoch protegee of Werqitu who had married a daughter of Menelik and his wife Bafena. In 1877 Bafena convinced Menelik to attack Yohannes and launched a coup, which was also joined by Mohammed Ali. Menelik defeated and pardoned the coupists and exiled Bafena, but in early 1878 Yohannes invaded Shewa. After some skirmishes both sides came to negotiate at the council of Liche in February 15. Menelik agreed to submit to Yohannes and pay tribute, who in return recognized him as king of Shewa. Wollo was de facto divided between Menelik and Yohannes: after converting to Christianity Mikael (previously Mohammed Ali) became Yohannes' vassal and Hayle Maryam Menelik (previously Abba Wato) became Menelik's.
Hadiya
In the late 1870s, Menelik led a campaign to incorporate the lands of Hadiya, which included the Gurage people, into Shewa. In 1878, the Soddo Gurage living in Northern and Eastern Gurageland peacefully submitted to Menelik and their lands were left untouched by his armies, likely due to their shared Ethiopian Orthodox faith and prior submission to Negus Sahle Selassie, grandfather of the Emperor. However, in Western Gurage and Hadiya, which were inhabited by the Sebat Bet, Kebena, and Wolane fiercely resisted Menelik. They were led by Hassan Enjamo of Kebena who on the advice of his sheiks, declared jihad against the Shewans. For over a decade, Hassan Enjamo fought to expel the Shewans from the Muslim areas of Hadiya and Gurage until 1888, when Gobana Dacche faced him in the Battle of Jebdu Meda where the Muslim Hadiya and Gurage army was defeated by the Shewans, and with that, all of Gurageland was subdued. Professor Lapiso states that the assistance of Habte Giyorgis Dinagde who was captured from a previous battle with the Hadiyans was instrumental for the Abyssinians being victorious in the conflict.
The Halaba Hadiya, however, under their chief Barre Kagaw, continued to resist until 1893 when the Abyssinians took advantage of the famine that had struck the region and led a conquest into their territory.
Expansion until Menelik's coronation as Emperor (1878–1889)
The subjugation of the western Oromo by ras Gobana Dacche
By the early 1880s, Shewan and Gojjam forces had made their first forays over the Gibe River into the region of Welega ruled by king Kumsa Moroda from the Machaa people of the Oromo. Ras Gobana, an Oromo general serving Menelik, arrived in the region at the head of a well armed force of Shewan troops. Menelik's primary motive in conquering Welega was control over the gold producing districts in the west. Ras Gobana's campaigns in Western Welega from 1886 to 1888 established Shewan rule over the entire region and ended the threat of Mahdist incursions. Menelik's success in these Oromo regions was in great measure due to Ras Gobana, with his large cavalry force he conquered and extracted tribute from Oromo leaders for the Shewan court. Menelik dispatched an army against Gojjam to the wast and achieved a victory. Emperor Yohannes punished Menelik and the ruler of Gojjam for going to war by taking away parts of their regions, but recognized 'Menelik's right to the south-west.' Having secured the watershed to his south-west, Menelik turned his attention to the Muslim-inhabited south-east.
The Great Drought of 1888-92 allowed Menelik to draw on the masses of Amhara peasantry. With them he assembled an immense army that swept outwards from Shewa in search of spoils and tribute.
In 1891 the Abyssinians also annexed the Kingdom of Limmu-Ennarea.
The long war against the Arsi Oromo
As the Abyssinian armies pushed south into land inhabited by the Oromo people (the Galla land), the determined resistance of many Oromo groups was incapable of stopping the heavily armed invaders. One after the other, the Oromo people suffered defeat except for the Arsi people. Unlike the peasantry in the Christian north, the peoples of southern Ethiopia during Meneliks time were largely too poorly armed to resist his riflemen. Menelik's campaign against the Arsi were among his bloodiest and most sustained efforts. After a series of military campaigns over several years, they were finally subjugated by Shewan firepower.
Conflicts between the Kingdom of Shewa and the Arsi Oromo date back to the 1840s when Sahle Selassie (father of Ras Darge and previous king of Shewa) led expeditions against the Arsi after consolidating control of his Tulama conquests, extending the frontier of Shewa through Bulga and Karrayyu, and as far south as the territories of the Gurage, during which numerous examples of slave raiding and ethnic cleansing occurred. Shewans rulers had longed to pacify and incorporate this territory into their realm. In 1881, Menelik led a campaign against the Arsi Oromo, this campaign proved difficult, as the Oromos abandoned their homeland to wage guerilla war against the Shewan army, the Arsi inflicted significant losses against Menelik's forces through ambushes and raids. Menelik eventually left Arsi territory, and his uncle Darge Sahle Selassie was left in charge of the campaign. In September 1886, Darge faced a large Arsi force at the Battle of Azule, the result was an overwhelming Shewan victory as the Arsi Oromo were completely defeated by the Shewan army. A brutal turning point in the conflict occurred when many captured Arsi Oromo fighters and chiefs, along with thousands of men and women, were gathered for systematic mutilation. Before being allowed to return home, the right hands of men and the breasts of women were severed and tied around their necks. This mass mutilation was intended to hasten Arsi's surrender and deter future uprisings against Shewan rule. Although the exact number of victims remains unknown, estimates suggest thousands suffered. As Ras Darge Sahle Selassie had predicted, the Arsi were horrified and demoralized by the atrocity. After six years of intense fighting, fear and exhaustion left them with no choice but to surrender. Ras Darge Sahle Selassie then established Arsi as a province under his rule. After six military campaigns, during 1887 the Arsi finally were brought under the rule of Menelik. The Arsi of Bale were conquered in 1893, but sporadic resistance continued until 1897. After the conquest, much of the best Arsi grazing land was given as war booty to soldiers. Arsi Oromo during the 1960s spoke of the era of Amhara rule beginning after their subjection in 1887 as the start of an 'era of miseries'.