3 - From Adwa to Maychaw 1896-1935

Summary

Few events in the modern period have brought Ethiopia to the attention of the world as has the victory at Adwa. As a counter-current to the sweeping tide of colonial domination in Africa, it shocked some as it encouraged others. It forced observers, politicians and businessmen to reassess their positions. George F.H. Berkeley, the pro-Italian British historian of the campaign, provides us with an example of such a reassessment:

From the broader standpoint of politics and history, it seems possible that it [the Battle of Adwa] heralds the rise of a new power in Africa - we are reminded that the natives of that continent may yet become a military factor worthy of our closest attention. The suggestion has even been made - absurd as it appears at present - that this is the first revolt of the Dark Continent against domineering Europe.

(Berkeley, viii)

The racial dimension was what lent Adwa particular significance. It was a victory of blacks over whites. Adwa thus anticipated by almost a decade the equally shattering experience to the whites of the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905.

The symbolic weight of the victory of Adwa was greater in areas where white domination of blacks was most extreme and marked by overt racism, that is, in southern Africa and the United States of America. To the blacks of these countries, victorious Ethiopia became a beacon of independence and dignity. The biblical Ethiopia, which had already inspired a widespread movement of religious separatism known as Ethiopianism, now assumed a more cogent and palpable reality. Nor was this feeling of identification with Ethiopia limited to times of glory. Forty years later, in its hour of distress, black solidarity with Ethiopia was remarkable for its breadth and depth, ranging from fund-raising to the flourishing of a number of‘ Abyssinian’ and ‘Coptic’ churches. A dramatic example of such identification was a church in the United States of America which came to be known as ‘the Coptic Ethiopian Orthodox Church of Abyssinia’.