17th–18th Centuries: (The Oromo Migration and the Zemene Mesafint — The Oromo as a Political and Cultural Force Transforming Habesha Society, the Collapse of…

17th–18th Centuries: (The Oromo Migration and the Zemene Mesafint — The Oromo as a Political and Cultural Force Transforming Habesha Society, the Collapse of Central Authority in the 1760s, the Age of the Princes from the 1770s to the 1850s, Tigray’s Rise Through Long-Distance Trade, and Shoa’s Foundation-Laying Under Sahle Selassie): Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Christian kingdom shifted its center northward, with a permanent capital at Gondar and Tigray more fully incorporated. The Oromo migrations constituted mounting pressure from the south — as they moved onto the highland plateau they became a political, economic, and cultural force, changing the very nature of habesha society. Many were Muslim, but many others adopted Orthodox Christianity and were absorbed into Amhara culture. In the second half of the eighteenth century, central authority collapsed and the Solomonic rulers were reduced to figureheads. Between the 1770s and the 1850s — the era known as the Zemene Mesafint, the age of the princes — provincial rulers were wholly independent, engaged in cyclical conflict with one another, struggling to control regional trade, resources, and the signs of central authority. During this period, Tigray, ideally located to exploit burgeoning long-distance trade, became a major power in northern Ethiopia, exercising control over Gondar during the governorship of Ras Mikael and reaching northward into the Eritrean highlands. Further south, the kingdom of Shoa struggled with Oromo incursions, recapturing territory in the first half of the nineteenth century — under Sahle Selassie, Shoa positioned itself to take advantage of regional commerce and laid the foundations for what would later become the modern Ethiopian empire.