1770s–1850s: (The Ethiopian Highlands in the Age of Fragmentation — The Unified Christian Empire as an Ideal Only, Multiple Polities Jostling for Commerce Th…

1770s–1850s: (The Ethiopian Highlands in the Age of Fragmentation — The Unified Christian Empire as an Ideal Only, Multiple Polities Jostling for Commerce Through Massawa and Zeila, the Oromo Migration Onto the Plateau, and Tewodros’s Brute-Force Reunification in the 1850s That Laid the Foundations for Yohannes and Menelik): Trade was important further north as well, as commerce along the Red Sea expanded dramatically in the course of the nineteenth century, linking the Ethiopian region ever more closely with Europe, Arabia, and southern Asia. Firearms were increasingly important in deciding political strength and help explain the growing significance of central and northern Ethiopia from the second half of the eighteenth century onward. The benefits of access to commerce through Massawa and Zeila were a factor in the heightened and violent competition between several states in the highlands. Between the 1770s and the 1850s, the unified highland Christian empire was an ideal only — the centralized state disintegrated and several polities jostled for access to land, resources, and commerce. Meanwhile, there was pressure from the south as the Oromo migrated onto the plateau and became a political and military force to be reckoned with, even though many became assimilated into Amhara culture and society. Only in the 1850s, largely through brute force, did Tewodros bring about a kind of unity — and even then he spent most of his reign on campaign. But he laid the foundations for a larger, more stable empire-state that would continue to grow between the 1870s and 1890s under his two immediate successors, Yohannes and Menelik.