name of areas before the oromo renamed them

There are many things that tell that an influx of Oromoo Invasion took place in the 16th century and afterwards to the heartland of Ethiopia: although they might have in-out migration earlier, this great Invasion followed the footsteps of the rise of Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim al Ghazi or Gragn (1527-1543), which took advantage of the weakness of Ethiopian Christian rulers and assistance from Turkey/Ottoman Empire/ that had controlled the Red sea area at the height of its hegemony (16th & 17th centuries). To resist the Jihadist movement, Emperor Libne Dingel had requested assistance from Portugal; however, the assistance did not arrive on time. So, E. Libne Dengil could not stand Gragn’s forces and lost the biggest battle with Gragn in 1529 at Shimbra Kure near Waj (around Nazreth) and fled to Lasta and Begemdir where he eventually died from illness. Gragn’s invasion contributed to new demographics and dynamics of the social relationships of our peoples. Before the Portuguese force arrived, Christians were mercilessly persecuted; many fled their native places to the north to escape from the religious persecution. The survivors then settled around mountainous and un-navigable rigorous terrains. The Christian population that used to inhabit Shewa, Arsi, Bale, eastern Ethiopia like Dawaro (parts of Bale and Harar at that time), Sidamo, Ganz, kafa, Conta, Damot, Angot, Wallo, Sidama, Hadiya, what is now Gamu Gofa, etc., migrated to the most rigid and segregated mountainous localities such as northern Shewa, Lakomelza(Wallo), Begemedir, Tigray, and Gojjam while very few remained in the segregated mountainous locations still isolated from their larger groups. The mostly women and children who remained behind faced forceful conversion to Islam.

Oromoo tribes got this opportune condition of power vacuum and penetrated the central and even northern part of the country and made settlements with little or no hindrance. Herbert S. Lewis wrote it as follows:
''We do not know why the Galla suddenly became mobile and aggressive, but we do know from several early written sources that by 1540 the Galla had begun to attack the state of Bali. Defeating Bali, they rapidly moved on to Dawaro, Fatajar, Ifat, and Adal. Turning west, they cut off the southwestern tributaries from contact with the Abyssinians and occupied the central western region of Wellega. “…they made themselves Masters of the Provinces of Gedman, Angota, Dawaro, Wed, Fat’egar, Ifat, Guragea, Ganza, Conta, Damota, Waleka, Bizama, part of Shewa, and many intermixed kingdoms” (23-24).''

In the mid-sixteenth century, its political and military organization already weakened by the Muslim assault, the Christian kingdom began to be pressured on the south and southeast by movements of the Oromo (the then Galla ). These invasions also affected the Sidama, Muslim pastoralists in the lowlands, and Adal. At this time, the Oromo, settled in far southern Ethiopia, were an egalitarian pastoral people divided into a number of competing segments or groups but sharing a type of age-set system of social organization called the gada system, which was ideally suited for warfare. Their predilection toward warfare, apparently combined with an expanding population of both people and cattle, led to a long-term predatory expansion at the expense of their neighbors after about 1550. Unlike the highland Christians or on occasion the lowland Muslims, the Oromo were not concerned with establishing an empire or imposing a religious system. In a series of massive but uncoordinated movements during the second half of the sixteenth century, they penetrated much of the southern and northern highlands as well as the lowlands to the east, affecting Christians and Muslims equally.

These invasions also profoundly affected the Oromo. Disunited in the extreme, they attacked and raided each other as readily as neighboring peoples in their quest for new land and pastures. As they moved farther from their homeland and encountered new physical and human environments, entire segments of the Oromo population adapted by changing their mode of economic life, their political and social organization, and their religious adherence. Many mixed with the Amhara (particularly in Shewa), became Christians, and eventually obtained a share in governing the kingdom. In some cases, royal family members came from the union of Amhara and Oromo elements. In other cases, Oromo, without losing their identity, became part of the nobility. But no matter how much they changed, Oromo groups generally retained their language and sense of local identity. So differentiated and dispersed had they become, however, that few foreign observers recognized the Oromo as a distinct people until the twentieth century. 
Hence the situation allowed the immigrants to settle in the regions that are still the most economically lucrative parts of the country; one of the most lucrative cash crops, coffee, grows in all Oromoo inhabited territories of the nation. They had displaced many indigenous settlements and replaced previous kingdoms, imposed their culture and language after this era. Huntingford wrote, “Innarya became an easy prey to the Galla who, under a leader called Teso, conquered it between 1550 and 1570” (20). His records indicate that they conducted historical battles: from 1605 to 1617 and raided Gojjam and Begemdir before they were defeated by Emperor Susenyos. They formed a Borana League in 1617 to occupy Gojjam and Begemdir; however, the governor of Gojjam, Se’ela Krestos, defeated them and the league collapsed soon. After they defeated Wallo in 1620, they made series of unsuccessful invasions again in 1636, 1639, 1643, 1649, 1652, 1658, and 1661. In 683 and 1699, however, the Gudru Oromoo they won battles and in 1709 they invaded Amara dominated northern regions, looted and burnt the convent of Atronse Mariyam. Shewan kings made annual expeditions against Mecha and other occupiers, and the rivers Chacha, Adabai, and Jema were used as natural dyke against the incursions (ibid 21). Oromoo challenges continued whenever internal and external political turmoil was created until they were gradually absorbed and assimilated.

The number of Afaan Oromoo speakers grew in geometric progression by the nineteenth century because:

1) The defeat of Emperor Libne Dengil by Gragn Ahmad created the first favorable situation for immigration Oromoo tribes. Muslim jihadists led by Gragn massacred a large number of Christians mercilessly; those who escaped were forced to inhabit the most un-navigable mountainous northern regions leaving the fertile low lands for the invaders. The Oromoo had conflict with Somali pastorals on one hand and the Adal Muslims lead by Gragn on the other hand. However, Gragn did not want to confront the Oromoos since he did not want to create another front with the people who were indifferent to any religious movement. So, the power vacuum gave them a safe haven to immigrate into the hinterland, fertile low lands, replacing the fleeing Christian people. Although Emperors Gelawdewos, Susenyos, Sertse Dengil, Iyasu I tried to suppress the invasion, Oromoo immigration continued. Later the creation of Zemene-mesafint from the time when Ras Michael Sehul deposed Emperor Iyoas (1769) to the rise of Emperor Tewodros II (1855), the central state had very loose control over sultanates, Emirs and kings leaving them to enjoy relative independence. This helped Oromoo expansion.

2) The persecution of Christians similar to racial cleansing conducted by Gragn’s invading force that affected especially the productive male sector directly and indirectly reduced the Christian population compared to the new settlers. Then every Galla male had to serve in compulsory military campaigns while the Christian male was either a farmer, chewa (belonging to nobility) awedash, kedash (priestly roles), and a relatively small number went to war. This helped the expansion of Oromoo people.

3) They had no marriage restrictions as compared to the Christians. There was a very little place for jealousy in Oromoo culture on sexual behavior (ibid 223-228). There was also no racial hindrance to marriage; an Oromoo national could marry any other member of ethnicity which helped extension of families and the language (Lewis 58-60). Children whose father passes away will not become orphans; their uncle will automatically marry their mother and will father them through a custom known as sera warsaa avoiding the number of widows that also helped to keep up the family.

4) The Oromoo relatively enjoyed peaceful life since most natives welcomed them even after Ahmed Gragn was killed and Christian rule was restored mostly due to their assimilation with the indigenous peoples. They used different adoption methods to assimilate other indigenous people – moogassa, meedhicha, and harmoa-hodha (Etefa 43-48). Oromoo occupiers forced most of their captives to pass through an assimilation ritual process known as Moogassa through which they were forced to make a covenant with the occupiers – to like what the Oromoos liked, to hate what Oromoos hated, to protect the interest of Oromoos, to believe in what they believe in, and to speak Afaan Oromoo. Oromization took place in the west, south, east, center, and north (Wallo) and previous inhabitants were persuaded or forced to accept Oromoo culture and even Oromoo names (Lewis 38). At that time, although Oromoos believed in Waqa (also meaning sky), they were generally pagans and were easy to adapt to any faith. Hence all these camouflaged and exaggerated the Oromoo population.

5) Peaceful Oromoo expansion was unabated until resisted. They raided and forcefully displaced Christian and other indigenous inhabitants in all places even after a Christian rule was restored while the Amara rulers were fighting among themselves for rivalry. Raiding and looting was the common practice of their campaigns. They recruited their captives to fight with them. They uniformly invaded other indigenous people also, and the trend of their movement was to occupy land but not to create a central nation-state. They destroyed kingdoms of Damot, Ganz, Bizama, Janjero, Sharka, Fatagar, Dawaro, Angota, etc. But they neither built an empire since they were not united and often fought among each other as will be explained later in the article.

Melbaa’s statements stated, “… Emperor LibneDengil fled from Shewa to Wallo and Begemdir area'' is another indicative to himself that the emperor moved within the same empire. So, the “Abyssinian Empire” was not limited to the north.

The world is full of evidences that nobody can steal or deny facts that the ancient Ethiopian history that is old as those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece… An Ethiopian or an Oromoo must be proud of the Ethiopian history, our common past. If one denies that to promote an ethnic issue, historians like Dr. David Levine will laugh at them, because trying to create history by denying one’s own ancestry is absurd and infantile. An historian put it this way:

The Ethiopian is a great race, probably the oldest. It is a race that does not die out under adversity. When other races are sullen or despairing and turn to self-destruction, these people cheerfully press on. When they think the way is blocked they turn aside to pick flowers along the pathway of pleasure.

An Ethiopian ancient Kingdom known as Da’mt ruled Ethiopia when Sabaeans came from South Arabia around 1000 B. C. In the 10th century B.C., there was an Ethiopian queen by the name Azeb or Saba or Sheba whose palace remains has been found in the present Tigray at Roha. Arab writers put her as the queen of Yemen; it has to be noted that Yemen and Ethiopia used to be under the same empire at a time in history (Dinberu 25-26). Aksumite rule included South Arabia in 80 to 265 AD. Emperor Ezana of Ethiopia (320s – c. 360 AD) ruled from Nubia in the west, to south Egypt in the north, south Arabia, and northern Somalia in the east. Emperor Caleb had control over Nubia; Meore, Napata, and south Arabia (present day Yemen) from 525 to 575 AD (Sergew 107, Pankhurst 52). When Emperor Caleb liberated Christians in Arabia from persecution by Jews in the 6th century AD, the whole horn of Africa that included the present Somalia was under the dominance of his state. It was objectively proved that Ge’ez was not only an Ethiopian language but an ancient language in literature used by Ethiopian state by 2000 B. C. and by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church since the birth of Jesus Christ (Sergew 11). Since the birth of Jesus Christ alone, Ethiopia was ruled by king of kings or emperors and Haile Selassie was the 225th leader in the Solomonic dynasty. For example: Emperor Zera-Yaqo defeated Adal and Mogadishu in 1445 and secured the southern commercial center in Mogadishu, Brava, and Merca. The Sultanate of Adal was under Ethiopia and used to pay tribute to E. Zara Yaqob (Marcus 26). The name ‘Somali’ was mentioned for the first time in the victory songs of Emperor Yeshaq I (1421-1437) after a war on Somalia in consolidation of the empire; and the Walasma Chronicle of 1415 confirms this (Dinberu 26-27). So, since Somalia was previously under Ethiopian Empire, the migration of Oromoo from that part of the country to the central part of the present Ethiopia is not immigration from a foreign country. However, this is not to ignore people from Oromoo origin that live in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. It is believed that the Maasai pastoral nomads with larger population in Kenya and Tanzania who have the history of mobility in the Rift Valley area of East Africa, are related to Oromoo ancestors. According to their own oral history, the Maasai originated from the lower Nile valley north of Lake Turkana and began migrating south around the 15th century.

Several changes of the power structure were manifested by changes of centers of the empire like Roha, Axsum, Debre Berhan, Gondar, Ankober, and Addis Abeba. Expansion, contraction, disintegration, and reunification had taken place several times. Internal conflicts among different popular powers for supremacy (the Agaw, Beja, Jews, Ge’ez speakers, Damot, Walasma, and other local rivals), natural disasters like famine and epidemic diseases, causes due to religious expansion, pastoral life, and commercial business were vehicles of migration and integration of different races. The original migrants learned farming and horse riding from the highlanders; their belief in one God (Waqa) seems a past inheritance from Abaraham that hardly kept its originality through historical changes; they adopted either Islam or Christian religion in course of time. Historical records show that Oromoo tribes were assimilated with other tribes that made Ethiopia a melting pot of countless races that became an identity by itself. Ethiopians today, whether they come from north, south, east or west, irrespective of their races, religions, and languages are identified by their looking, the color of their skin, their posture, the way they walk, their dress, their hair, their food, and even their behavior. Today, there is no pure Oromoo race, but Oromoo language. No one can identify an Oromoo from any other Ethiopian until one speaks the language; hence, an Oromoo is a typical Ethiopian.

In a more immediate sense, the Oromo invasions resulted in a weakening of both Christian and Muslim power and drove a wedge between the two faiths along the eastern edge of the highlands. In the Christian kingdom, Oromo groups infiltrated large areas in the east and south, with large numbers settling in Shewa and adjacent parts of the central highlands. Others penetrated as far north as eastern Tigray. The effect of the Oromo invasions was to leave the Ethiopian state fragmented and much reduced in size, with an alien population in its midst. Thereafter, the Oromo played a major role in the internal dynamics of Ethiopia, both assimilating and being assimilated as they were slowly incorporated into the Christian kingdom. In the south, the Sidama fiercely resisted the Oromo, but, as in the central and northern highlands, they were compelled to yield at least some territory. In the east, the Oromo swept up to and even beyond Harer, dealing a devastating blow to what remained of Adal and contributing in a major way to its decline.

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