by Ghidewon Abay Asmerom
MYTH: “Eritrea is an artificial colonial creation of Italy and sustained by Arab patronage”
FACT: Eritrean independence was not granted by foreign powers. Like virtually every African state, Eritrea emerged within borders established during the colonial era and later recognized under international law. If Eritrea is considered artificial because its borders were defined during the colonial era, then the same logic would render almost every African state artificial. Eritrea is no exception; it emerged through the same historical process that shaped the modern African state system. Its independence, however, was not bestowed by diplomats, negotiated into existence in foreign capitals, or delivered on a silver platter. It was won through the blood, sacrifice, and perseverance of generations of Eritreans who fought and died for freedom on every front, from the trenches of Nakfa and the mountains of Sahel to the shores of the Red Sea. Eritrea secured its independence the hardest way a nation can, by defeating an occupying power backed at different times by the United States, the Soviet Union, and powerful diplomatic allies. What others sought to deny through force, Eritreans secured through struggle. Eritrea was not given independence; it earned it.
Some myths survive not because they are true, but because they are useful. Few examples illustrate this better than the persistent false claim in Ethiopian expansionist discourse that “Eritrea is merely a creation of Italian colonialism sustained by Arab patronage.” According to this false narrative, Eritrea possesses no authentic historical legitimacy, no distinct political identity, and no rightful claim to sovereignty. Eritrean existence, Ethiopians are repeatedly told, is not the product of the sacrifices and aspirations of its people, but the result of foreign powers conspiring to weaken Ethiopia and deny it access to the Red Sea.
At first glance, the argument may appear plausible to those unfamiliar with the history of Africa, colonialism, state formation, or even the history of the formation of modern Ethiopia itself. Upon closer examination, however, it quickly reveals itself as political mythology masquerading as history. Its purpose is not to explain Eritrea’s emergence, but to delegitimize its existence. It reduces more than a century of documented historical development, colonial administration, international treaties, federation, annexation, armed resistance, and self-determination, into a simplistic tale of foreign manipulation.
The irony is striking. Those who dismiss Eritrea as a colonial creation rarely apply the same standard to any other African state, including Ethiopia itself. Yet modern Africa was largely built upon colonial-era boundaries. If colonial origins invalidate Eritrea, then consistency demands the same verdict for virtually every state on the continent. The claim collapses the moment it is subjected to the same scrutiny applied elsewhere.
To understand why, one must examine the historical foundations of both Eritrea and modern Ethiopia.
The Double Standard of Colonial Borders
The first flaw in the Ethiopian argument is its selective treatment of colonial boundaries. Virtually every African state emerged within borders shaped by colonial treaties, diplomatic agreements, administrative decisions, and imperial rivalries. If one looks in East Africa, the modern boundaries of Djibouti (France), Ethiopia (Abyssinia), Kenya (Britain), Somalia (Italy/Britain), Sudan (Britain/Egypt), Tanganyika (Germany), Uganda (Britain), Rwanda (Germany/Belgium), Burundi (Germany/Belgium), were all shaped in the colonial era. Before colonialism there was no Djibouti, there was no Eritrea, there was no Ethiopia, or Kenya, or Somalia, etc. The story is the same else where in Africa: Algeria (France), Angola (Portugal), Congo-DRC (Belgium), Congo-Brazzaville (France), Equatorial Guinea (Spain), Ghana (Britain), Guinea (France), Lesotho (Britain), Libya (Italy), Mozambique (Portugal), Nigeria (Britain), South Africa (Dutch/Britain), and the rest of the continent. No serious historian argues that these states are illegitimate simply because their borders were inherited from European colonial administrations.
In fact, the opposite principle governs modern Africa. At independence, African leaders overwhelmingly agreed to preserve inherited colonial boundaries in order to avoid endless territorial disputes and interstate wars. This principle was formally endorsed by the Organization of African Unity in 1964 and remains a cornerstone of African interstate relations.
Why, then, is Eritrea singled out? The answer is simple: the argument is designed to deny Eritrea legitimacy while exempting every other African state from the same standard. It also serves another purpose: to falsely project Ethiopia’s modern statehood back into antiquity. That claim is not history. It is fabrication dressed as national memory.
Eritrea’s Territorial Identity Was Not Invented Overnight
The claim that Eritrea was simply “created” by Italy ignores a century of legal, administrative, and political development that gave Eritrea a distinct territorial identity.
On January 1, 1890, Italy formally proclaimed the Colony of Eritrea. As the table at the end of this article shows, this date places Eritrea’s formal colonial establishment squarely within the same historical period in which many other modern African territorial entities were defined under colonial rule. From 1890 until 1941, Eritrea existed as a distinct colonial territory with internationally recognized boundaries, a separate administration, and a legal status different from that of Ethiopia. Nor were these boundaries invented in a vacuum.
The Treaty of Wuchale, signed on May 2, 1889, between Italy and Abyssinia, recognized Italian possession of territories that would form Eritrea. It also contained the controversial Article 17, which Italy interpreted as placing Abyssinia under an Italian protectorate. Abyssinia later rejected that interpretation, arguing that the Amharic and Italian versions of the treaty differed in meaning. This dispute ultimately contributed to the breakdown in relations between Italy and Abyssinia and led to the Battle of Adwa. Subsequent agreements with Italy progressively clarified the frontier between Eritrea and Abyssinia. By October 1889, both parties agreed that the boundary would follow the “actual state of possession“. By this time, Italian authority had already expanded from Assab along the Red Sea coast to Massawa and the northern tip of the Eritrean coastline and inland into the highlands, reaching the Mareb, Belesa, and Muna river systems, and into the western lowlands along the Sudanese border.
The Mareb Pact of December 1891, involving Italian authorities and prominent Tigrayan leaders including Ras Mengesha Yohannes, Ras Alula, and Ras Hagos, effectively accepted the Mareb-Belesa-Muna line as the frontier separating Eritrea from Abyssinia.
Following the Battle of Adwa, the Armistice Agreement of March 1896 reaffirmed the same frontier. The Addis Ababa Peace Treaty later that year again recognized the status quo pending final delimitation.
Definitive treaties followed in 1900, 1902, and 1908. Together, they established the central, western, and eastern sectors of the Eritrea-Ethiopia boundary. These agreements created one of the most thoroughly documented colonial frontiers in Africa. More than a century later, they formed the legal basis upon which the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) issued its unanimous final and binding delimitation and demarcation decisions.
Far from being an artificial invention, Eritrea existed as a clearly defined territorial entity long before its formal independence in 1993.
The Myth of Ancient and Immutable Ethiopia
The second flaw in the argument is the assumption that Ethiopia’s borders are ancient, natural, and immutable. They are not.
Here is a sharper and more coherent rewrite:
One of the lesser-known features of Abyssinian ecclesiastical tradition is the astonishing extent to which church scholars, scribes, and chroniclers appropriated biblical language and retrofitted it onto Abyssinia. Virtually every reference to “Ethiopia” in scripture was treated as if it pointed directly to the Abyssinian kingdom, regardless of the original historical, linguistic, or geographical context. The result was not interpretation in any serious scholarly sense, but a long tradition of sacred appropriation, historical inflation, and, at times, outright fabrication.
The words of Ethiopian Evangelical preacher Dawit Fasil of Jimma, quoted at the end of this article, provide a remarkably candid admission of this tradition. He openly acknowledges the tendency to “steal” biblical narratives and claim them as Ethiopian stories, peoples, and histories that originally had no connection to Abyssinia.
Some of these claims are so extravagant that merely repeating them sounds almost unreal. The Yemeni Queen of Sheba is appropriated as an Abyssinian queen. The Ark of the Covenant is claimed to have been stolen and carried to Abyssinia and it now rests in Aksum, Tigray. The biblical title “Lion of Judah,” reserved in Christian theology for Jesus Christ, was blasphemously transferred to Abyssinian kings, who styled themselves as the “Elect of God” down to the last emperor. Even Mary is claimed in some traditions as Abyssinian, while Geʿez is elevated to the supposed language of angels.
The list goes on. These stories appear throughout Abyssinian church tradition not merely as harmless folklore, but as instruments for constructing an inflated sacred history around Abyssinia. They are especially visible in Geʿez texts such as the Kebra Nagast, or Glory of the Kings, a fourteenth-century Abyssinian work that became the theological foundation of the Solomonic dynasty and later influenced Rastafarian belief. Critics have described it as an “abhorrent hodgepodge” because it blends biblical material, local legend, royal propaganda, and Coptic-Arabic traditions into a single ideological narrative designed to sanctify Abyssinian kingship.
This tradition matters because it shaped more than religious imagination. It helped manufacture a political mythology in which Abyssinia presented itself as the heir of every biblical “Ethiopia,” even when the original references pointed elsewhere, especially to Cush, Nubia, and the ancient Nile Valley south of Egypt. In this way, theology, translation, and royal ideology were fused into a powerful narrative of appropriation—one that continues to echo in modern Ethiopian nationalism.
Part of this tradition emerged from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, where the Hebrew term Cush was often rendered as “Aithiopia” (burned face) referring to every African south of the Sahara. Abyssinian interpreters used this linguistic substitution to blur an important historical and geographical distinction.
In the Hebrew Bible, Cush consistently refers to the Nile Valley south of Egypt, corresponding roughly to Nubia and the ancient Kingdom of Kush in present-day Sudan. It does not refer to the Ethiopian highlands in the modern sense. The civilization known to the Hebrews, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Greeks as Cush or Aithiopia was centered along the Middle Nile, not in the later Christian kingdoms of the Eritrean and northern Ethiopian highlands.
Yet over the centuries, Abyssinian clerics increasingly interpreted biblical references to Cush and Aithiopia as references to themselves, constructing a sacred genealogy linking Abyssinia to biblical history. The influence of this tradition remains visible in certain Geʿez and Amharic biblical translations, where references to distant peoples, desert inhabitants, or wilderness creatures are rendered as “Ethiopians,” reinforcing the belief that biblical references to Ethiopia referred specifically to Abyssinia. See the Appendix for two examples from the Book of Psalms. Those who can obtain a copy and read Tigrigna should read the late freedom fighter Aba Yissak Ghebreyesus’ 1994 book, ፍረዱ (Fredu), which translates as Judge for Yourselves. The book was reportedly banned by the TPLF from circulation in Tigray.
This tradition of appropriation has found modern political expression in the rhetoric of Abiy Ahmed, the self-anointed “Seventh King of Ethiopia,” who blends biblical symbolism, imperial nostalgia, and historical mythology into a narrative designed to legitimize contemporary ambitions with borrowed authority from the past.
Ironically, many of the same voices that dismiss Eritrea as a colonial creation ignore the fact that modern Ethiopia emerged through similarly modern processes.
Between the 1880s and the early twentieth century, Menelik II transformed a relatively small Abyssinian kingdom into a vast empire through military expansion to the south, east, and west. Millions of people and vast territories that had never been part of Abyssinia were incorporated into the expanding state.
This expansion unfolded in stages. From the 1870s to 1889, Menelik consolidated the Shewan kingdom, strengthened central control, and pushed outward in several directions. In 1878, he moved northward into Wollo. Between 1886 and 1889, the independent Oromo states of Arsi and Bale were conquered, and the strategically important trading city of Harer was occupied. All these conquests are done in collusion with the French and Italians.
The second phase, from 1889 to 1896, extended imperial control over major kingdoms and territories in the south and southwest. In 1890, Jimma, Konta, and Dauro became vassals of the expanding Abyssinian Empire. In 1892, Sidamo territory was conquered and incorporated.
After Ethiopia’s victory over Italy at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, Menelik intensified his efforts to secure the empire’s southern, western, and southeastern frontiers. In 1897, Wollo was annexed and Borana territory was conquered. In 1898, the Kingdom of Kaffa, Sheka, and parts of Borana were brought under imperial control after major military expeditions. Further expansions in 1899 consolidated Ethiopia’s western and southeastern boundaries. By 1903, the annexation of the Kingdom of Gumma completed the bulk of Menelik’s territorial acquisitions, transforming the Abyssinian kingdom into the much larger modern Ethiopian Empire.
At the same time, Ethiopia’s external frontiers were defined through negotiations with European colonial powers. Its border with Eritrea was established through treaties with Italy. Its boundary with Sudan was formalized through the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902. Its borders with French Somaliland, British Somaliland, and Italian Somaliland emerged through agreements with France, Britain, and Italy.
Thus modern Ethiopia, no less than Eritrea, was shaped during the colonial age. There is no difference whether the occupier is European or Black African.
Those who dismiss Eritrea as a colonial creation while portraying Ethiopia’s borders as ancient, natural, and immutable apply two entirely different standards to remarkably similar historical processes. They cannot have it both ways. If colonial-era boundary formation invalidates Eritrea’s legitimacy, then the same logic must be applied to modern Ethiopia, whose present territorial configuration was forged through nineteenth- and twentieth-century conquest, treaties, and colonial-era diplomacy.
Those who weaponize history against Eritrea are, in effect, throwing stones from within a glass house. The narrative they invoke to delegitimize Eritrean identity ultimately undermines the foundations of modern Ethiopia itself. The rope of history they imagine will bind Eritrea to Ethiopia would, if applied consistently, unravel much of the Ethiopian state as it exists today. By their own standard, vast territories and populations incorporated during the imperial expansions of Menelik II would stand on no firmer ground than the legitimacy they deny to Eritrea.
History, however, is not selective. It cannot be invoked when convenient and ignored when inconvenient. Once the same standard is applied to both Eritrea and Ethiopia, the argument collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.
Indeed, if the standard for legitimacy is historical continuity rather than colonial-era borders, the scrutiny does not end with Eritrea. It turns inevitably toward Ethiopia itself. Once the mythology of an eternal and unchanging Ethiopia is set aside, a more uncomfortable question emerges: which state more closely resembles an artificial political construction—the territory that developed within internationally recognized colonial boundaries, or the empire that incorporated vast and diverse peoples through conquest and subjugation?
The Artificiality Question Turns Homeward to Ethiopia
Ethiopia is more artificial than Eritrea because modern Ethiopia was not formed through a shared national compact, but through imperial conquest, forced incorporation, enslavement, and the subordination of vast non-Abyssinian peoples. Eritrea’s borders were shaped in the colonial era, like nearly every African state, but its national identity was forged through a common struggle for liberation. Ethiopia’s modern territory, by contrast, was assembled through expansion from the Abyssinian highlands into lands whose peoples were neither consulted nor treated as equal members of the state.
The difference is fundamental. Eritrea’s nine ethnic groups entered the modern era through a shared anti-colonial and anti-annexation struggle that created a strong sense of common destiny. Ethiopia’s empire expanded by conquering Oromo, Somali, Sidama, Wolayta, Hadiya, Kambata, Gambella, Benishangul, Gamo, Gedeo, and many others, many of whom were treated for generations as subjects rather than citizens. Until the mid-1970s, non-Abyssinian peoples and Muslims were largely excluded from full political, cultural, and social equality. It was only under the Derg that equality was proclaimed in formal terms, though even then it remained deeply incomplete.
This is why Ethiopia’s crisis today is not accidental. The ethnic fragmentation, armed rebellions, competing nationalisms, and deep mistrust among communities are not simply the result of recent misrule. They are symptoms of a state built without genuine consent. The inter-ethnic violence now visible in Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, Somali, and elsewhere reflects the unresolved contradictions of an empire trying to present itself as an ancient nation-state.
Eritrea, on the other hand, has maintained a remarkable degree of social cohesion among its nine ethnic groups and religious communities. Ethiopia continues to struggle with the legacy of conquest and hierarchy. Its artificiality lies not merely in colonial-era borders, but in the forced incorporation of peoples who were long denied equal dignity, equal citizenship, and equal ownership of the state.
That is why the accusation that Eritrea is artificial is historically dishonest. If Eritrea is artificial because its borders were shaped during the colonial era, then Ethiopia is even more artificial because its modern form was built through conquest, subjugation, and imperial expansion. Eritrea was forged by collective sacrifice. Ethiopia was assembled by force. The ethnic wars and fragmentation we see today are the bill coming due for that history. Like Yugoslavia before its collapse, Ethiopia is a multinational state whose unresolved contradictions may yet tear it apart.
The Arab Conspiracy Narrative
Unable to challenge the legal and historical foundations of Eritrea’s territorial identity, some Ethiopian writers advance a second claim: that Eritrean nationalism was engineered by Egypt and Arab states seeking to weaken Ethiopia. This argument confuses external support with authorship.
It is true that Eritrean activists operated from Cairo, Khartoum, Mogadishu, Aden, and other neighboring capitals, as they were doing from Rome, London, Washington, and New York. It is true that the Eritrean Liberation Front was founded in Egypt in 1960. It is also true that various Arab governments provided differing degrees of diplomatic, financial, political, and military support over the course of the struggle. None of these facts demonstrate that Arab governments created Eritrean nationalism.
Throughout Africa, liberation movements received foreign support. Algeria received assistance from Arab states and socialist countries. The ANC in South Africa benefited from broad international backing. PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, FRELIMO in Mozambique, the MPLA in Angola, ZANU in Zimbabwe, and SWAPO in Namibia all received external aid. No serious observer concludes that these nations were inventions of their supporters. The same principle applies to Eritrea.
The struggle was fought by Eritreans. The sacrifices were made by Eritreans. The prisoners, refugees, wounded, and martyrs were Eritreans. Eritrean villages were bombed. Eritrean communities were displaced. Eritrean fighters carried the burden of a thirty-year war.
Indeed, throughout much of the armed struggle, and especially during its later stages, the EPLF increasingly armed itself with weapons captured from Ethiopian forces. The tanks, multiple rocket launchers, artillery pieces, anti-aircraft guns, armored vehicles, and vast quantities of small and medium arms deployed by the EPLF were, in large measure, acquired on the battlefield from defeated Ethiopian units. As Ethiopian forces retreated, surrendered, or abandoned their positions, they often left behind the very weapons later turned against them.
This became a defining feature of the Eritrean struggle. The famous EPLF maxim, “ንጸላኢ ብንብረቱ ብብረቱ”—defeating the enemy with his own possessions and weapons—captured this reality. Far from being sustained by foreign arsenals, the Eritrean liberation movement increasingly relied on the resources of the very army it was fighting, transforming Ethiopian vast weapons supply into a source of Eritrean resilience and eventual victory. Eritrea’s independence was not purchased with petrodollars. It was earned through sacrifice.
The Arab conspiracy narrative also served a strategic purpose. It allowed Ethiopian governments to portray Eritrean nationalism as part of the broader Arab-Israeli conflict and to present Ethiopia as a strategic bulwark against Arab influence in the Red Sea. By reframing a struggle for self-determination as a regional security threat, successive Ethiopian governments secured military, diplomatic, and political support from Israel and Western powers. In effect, a decolonization struggle was repackaged as a geopolitical menace.
Why the Myth Persists
The persistence of this “Arab” myth is no accident. It survives because it serves several political purposes simultaneously.
It seeks to delegitimize Eritrean sovereignty by portraying Eritrea as an artificial colonial creation rather than a nation with its own history, institutions, identity, and political evolution. It obscures Ethiopia’s own role in the scramble for the Horn of Africa and the imperial expansion that transformed Abyssinia into the modern Ethiopian state.
It provides a historical justification for contemporary claims regarding the Red Sea by suggesting that Ethiopia was unfairly deprived of territory supposedly belonging to it by historical right. It redirects public attention away from Ethiopia’s internal crises by creating external villains—Italy, Egypt, Arabs, colonial powers, or foreign conspirators.
It also seeks to portray Eritrean nationalism as an Arab or Muslim project, despite the movement’s clearly multi-religious and multi-ethnic character. Eritreans themselves proudly use the Arabic term Shaebia for the EPLF, derived from Al-Jabha ash-Shaʿbiyya li-Taḥrīr Eritrea, meaning the Popular Front for the Liberation of Eritrea. The same is true of the PFDJ’s Arabic name, Al-Jabha al-Shaʿbiyya lil-Dimuqrāṭiyya wal-ʿAdāla, used alongside the Tigrigna ህዝባዊ ግንባር. For Eritreans, these names reflect the country’s proud linguistic, cultural, religious, and national diversity.
But when Ethiopian regimes—from the Derg to the TPLF to the Prosperity Party—use the word Shaebia, it is often not neutral. It is deployed as a coded term, meant to trigger the Islamophobia and Arabophobia that still persist in many parts of Ethiopian political culture. The intent is to cast Eritrean nationalism as foreign, Arab, Muslim, and therefore suspect, rather than as an indigenous, Eritrean, multi-faith national movement.
Externally, the same narrative serves another purpose. It allows Ethiopia to present itself to Western audiences as a Christian island surrounded by hostile Muslim and Arab forces, while depicting Eritrean nationalism as foreign-inspired rather than rooted in Eritrean history, sacrifice, and self-determination.
Ultimately, the myth endures in Ethiopia because it is politically useful for the regimes to find external enemies. It transforms Ethiopia from an empire that expanded through conquest into a victim of foreign conspiracies. It recasts Eritrea’s internationally recognized decolonization process as an act of theft and injustice against Ethiopia. And it substitutes mythology for history in an effort to challenge a reality that neither repetition nor propaganda can erase.
Conclusion: History Has Already Rendered Its Verdict
The claim that Eritrea is merely a creation of Italian colonialism and Arab patronage is not a historical argument. It is a political narrative designed to deny Eritrea’s legitimacy.
It ignores the reality that Eritrea existed as a distinct territorial and administrative entity for decades before independence. It overlooks the treaties that defined its borders, the federation that recognized its autonomy, the annexation that violated that autonomy, and the thirty-year struggle that followed. It forgets that modern Ethiopia’s own territorial configuration was consolidated during the same colonial era through conquest and treaties with European powers. And it dismisses the sacrifices of generations of Eritreans who fought and died to determine their own future.
Eritrea was not created in Cairo. It was not manufactured in Rome. It was not gifted by Arab governments, nor granted by America, Britain, Italy, or any other foreign power. Eritrean independence was not negotiated into existence in conference halls, diplomatic salons, or foreign capitals. It was forged on the battlefield and purchased with the blood, sacrifice, and endurance of the Eritrean people.
Its price was paid in the trenches of Nakfa and Northeastern Sahel, on the scorching salt plains of Salina, along the Ghindae front, in the unforgiving deserts of Dankalia, and on the battlefields of the Dekemhare Front all the way to the center of Asmara. It was paid in every valley, mountain, village, and town across the country. Every square inch of Eritrea bears witness to that sacrifice.
Eritrea was not handed independence. It earned it the hardest way a nation can—through decades of struggle, immeasurable sacrifice, and the unwavering determination of a people who refused to surrender their right to determine their own destiny.
Its modern statehood emerged from a distinct historical experience shaped by geography, colonialism, federation, annexation, armed resistance, and self-determination. Its legitimacy rests not on mythology, but on history, law, and the unmistakable will of its people.
Those who deny that reality are not merely challenging Eritrea. They are challenging the very principles of decolonization, self-determination, and inherited borders upon which modern Africa itself was built.
History has already rendered its verdict. The myth survives only because some refuse to accept it.
Appendix
The tendency to appropriate biblical history and recast it as Ethiopian is not merely an accusation made by critics; it has been openly acknowledged by some Ethiopian religious figures themselves. In a striking sermon, Ethiopian preacher Dawit Fasil of Jimma reflected on what he described as a longstanding habit of inserting Ethiopia into sacred narratives where it did not originally belong and downright “stealing (ንጥቅያ)”. Here are his words followed by a literal translation into English.
ዳዊት ፋሲል. የወንጌል እውነት አለማቀፍ ቤተክርስቲያን፣ ጅማ
“በዚህ ላይ እኛ የትሪክ ተሻሚዎች ነን። ኣንደኛ ያልተሰራ ታሪክን ፈጥረን እናወራለን። የኸ የታወቅንበት ነው። የትሪክ ንጥቅያዎች ኣሉ። እግዚኣብሄራዊ ታሪኮች ሁሉ ኢትዮጵያዊ የማድረግ ሙክራ ኣለ። እግዚኣብሄራዊ ታሪኮችን፡ የክርስትናውን ዓለም ታሪኮችን ኢትዮጵያዊ የማድረግ ሙክራ። ከኣዳም ጀምሮ። ኣዳም ኢትዮጵያዊ እንደ ነበረ፡ ግእዝ ቋንቋ እንደሚናገር። መላእክትም በግእዝ እንደሚናገሩ። … ያልተሰራ ታሪክ ከመፍጠር ባሻገር የመቀማት። ኢትዮጵያዊ የማድረግ። እግዚኣብሔራዊ ታሪኮችን ኢትዮጵያዊ የማድረግ በሽታ ነበረብን። የማይካድ ነው። ዝም ስንባል ፡ ታሪክ ከመቀማት ኣልፎ ፡ የላየኛውን እዚህ ሰፈር እስከ ማምጣት ደርሰናል።”
“On this matter, we ourselves are practitioners of trickery. First, we fabricate a history that never happened and then circulate it. That is what we are known for. There are many acts of appropriation. There is a tendency to make all sacred—biblical—histories Ethiopian. An attempt to Ethiopianize divine histories, to Ethiopianize the histories of the Christian world. It begins with Adam. Adam is said to have been Ethiopian, to have spoken the Geʿez language; even the angels, we are told, spoke Geʿez. Beyond inventing history, there is appropriation—turning everything Ethiopian. We have suffered from a disease of Ethiopianizing divine histories. This cannot be denied. And when people remain silent, we move beyond appropriating history; we reach the point of dragging what belongs to the heavenly realm down here to earth.”
Dawit Fassil of Dawit Fassil Ministry
Whether one agrees with Dawit Fasil’s assessment or not, his remarks point to an important historical phenomenon: the gradual identification of Abyssinia with the biblical Ethiopia of scripture, even in passages where the original texts contain no reference to either Cush or Ethiopia.
A revealing example appears in Psalm 72:9. In the original Hebrew text, the verse reads:
Psalms 72:8-9
New International Version
“8 May he rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth. 9 May the desert tribes bow before him and his enemies lick the dust.”
Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)
“8 May his empire stretch from sea to sea, from the [Euphrates] River to the ends of the earth. 9 May desert-dwellers bow before him; may his enemies lick the dust.”
The Hebrew word used is in this verse means desert dwellers, wilderness peoples, or inhabitants of arid lands. Neither Cush nor Ethiopia appears in the text. Yet in the Amharic translations, the verse is rendered:
Amharic Version Mezmure Dawit 71*: 8-9:
“8 ከባሕር እስከ ባሕር ድረስ፥ ከወንዝም እስከ ዓለም ዳርቻ ድረስ ይገዛል። 9 በፊቱም ኢትዮጵያ ይሰግዳሉ፥ ጠላቶቹም አፈርን ይልሳሉ።”
“8 “From sea to sea he shall rule, and from the River to the edge of the world. 9 Ethiopia shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust.”
A similar example occurs in Psalm 74:13–14. The original Hebrew text translates:
New International Version
“13 It was you who split open the sea by your power; you broke the heads of the monster in the waters. 14 It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.”
Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)
“13 By your strength you split the sea in two, in the water you smashed sea monsters’ heads, 14 you crushed the heads of Livyatan and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.”
The passage belongs to a common ancient Near Eastern literary tradition describing God’s triumph over primordial chaos. It is theological and mythological in character rather than geographical. No nation is mentioned. There is no reference to Cush, Ethiopia, Nubia, or any African kingdom. Yet in the Amharic versions, the final verse is rendered in a way that introduces Ethiopia where none existed in the original text:
Amharic Version Mazmura Dawit 73: 13-14:
“13 አንተ ባሕርን በኀይልህ አጸናሃት፤ አንተ የእባቡን ራስ በውኃ ውስጥ ሰበርህ። 14 አንተም የዘንዶውን ራሶች ቀጠቀጥህ፤ ለኢትዮጵያ ሕዝብም ምግባቸውን ሰጠሃቸው።“
“13 You, by your strength, made the sea firm; you broke the serpent’s head in the waters. 14 You also crushed the heads of the dragon; you gave them for food to the people of Ethiopia.”
The significance of these examples lies not simply in translation choices, but in the broader interpretive tradition they reveal. Over centuries, biblical passages that originally referred to desert peoples, wilderness creatures, or symbolic figures were increasingly read through the lens of Abyssinian sacred history. This reinforced the belief that biblical references to “Ethiopia” referred specifically to Abyssinia, even when the original Hebrew or Greek text pointed elsewhere.
The historical distinction is crucial. In the Hebrew Bible, Cush refers to the Nile Valley south of Egypt, not in the later Christian kingdoms of the Eritrean and northern Ethiopian highlands.
By the late medieval period, especially from the fourteenth century onward around the writing of the Kebra Nagast, Geʿez biblical traditions—and later nineteenth- and twentieth-century Amharic translations—began interpreting passages in ways that strengthened the identification of Abyssinia with biblical Ethiopia. References to “desert dwellers” or “creatures of the wilderness” were rendered as “Ethiopia” or “Ethiopians,” even where neither Cush nor Ethiopia appeared in the original text. It is almost laughable that this tradition of distortion went so far that even “animals of the wilderness” could be transformed into people and rendered as “Ethiopians.” Yet perhaps it should not be surprising from a tradition that could also preserve tales of a dragon ruling the land, or imagine a queen as a hybrid figure born from the union of human and animal elements. Once sacred history is built on myth, exaggeration, and symbolic invention, even the most strained claims can be made to sound like inherited truth.
What we see in the Amharic Psalms is more than a matter of translation. It forms part of a broader political and theological project through which the Abyssinian church and monarchy—and now the self-anointed “Seventh King”—have sought to appropriate the prestige of biblical Ethiopia and transfer it from the ancient Kingdom of Kush in Nubia to the Solomonic kingdom of the northern highlands and, by extension, to modern Ethiopia.
In this process, sacred history was placed in the service of dynastic legitimacy. Biblical symbolism was transformed into a foundation for political identity, royal mythology, and imperial ambition.
This centuries-long process of historical, theological, and political reinterpretation helps explain why many modern Ethiopians still equate biblical Ethiopia with Abyssinia, despite substantial historical, archaeological, and textual evidence distinguishing the Kingdom of Kush from the later Ethiopian highland kingdoms.
* The discrepancy in verse and psalm numbering reflects two different textual traditions. The Geʿez Bible follows the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, while most standard English Bibles follow the later Hebrew Masoretic Text. Consequently, some psalms are combined or divided differently, resulting in variations in numbering despite substantial overlap in content.
Partial List of African Countries: by the year they were colonized and their colonizer
| Year | Country | Colonizer |
| 1462 | Cabo Verde | Portuguese settlement/colony |
| 1505 | Mozambique | Portuguese colonial presence begins |
| 1575 | Angola | Portuguese colony at Luanda |
| 1638 | Mauritius | Dutch colony |
| 1652 | South Africa | Dutch Cape Colony |
| 1659 | Senegal | French settlement at Saint-Louis |
| 1778 | Equatorial Guinea | Spanish possession begins |
| 1808 | Sierra Leone | British Crown Colony |
| 1821 | Gambia | British colony/protectorate framework |
| 1830 | Algeria | French conquest/colony begins |
| 1844 | Gabon | French protectorate presence |
| 1861 | Nigeria | British protectorate |
| 1874 | Ghana | British Gold Coast Crown Colony |
| 1879 | Guinea-Bissau | Portuguese Guinea formally separated |
| 1881 | Tunisia | French protectorate |
| 1882 | Egypt | British occupation; protectorate 1914 |
| 1884 | Cameroon | German protectorate |
| 1884 | Namibia | German Southwest Africa |
| 1884 | Somalia | British Somaliland; Italian Somaliland followed |
| 1884 | Togo | German protectorate |
| 1885 | Botswana | British Bechuanaland Protectorate |
| 1885 | DR Congo | Congo Free State under Belgian king |
| 1885 | Tanzania | German East Africa; |
| 1889 | Zimbabwe | British South Africa Company rule |
| 1890 | Eritrea | Italian colony proclaimed |
| 1890 | Mali | French Sudan |
| 1890 | Rwanda | German East Africa sphere/protectorate |
| 1890 | Zanzibar | British protectorate |
| 1890 | Burundi | German East Africa sphere/protectorate |
| 1891 | Malawi | British Central Africa/Nyasaland Protectorate |
| 1891 | Zambia | British S. Africa Co. rule; Northern Rhodesia |
| 1892 | Guinea | French Guinea |
| 1893 | Côte d’Ivoire | French colony |
| 1894 | Central African Republic | French Ubangi-Shari formation begins |
| 1894 | Uganda | British protectorate |
| 1895 | Burkina Faso | French protectorate/conquest period |
| 1895 | Kenya | British protectorate |
| 1895 | Madagascar | French protectorate; colony in 1896 |
| 1896 | Djibouti | French colony |
| 1899 | Sudan | Anglo-Egyptian Condominium |
| 1900 | Chad | French military territory |
| 1900 | Niger | French military territory |
| 1903 | Mauritania | French protectorate |
| 1912 | Libya | Italian colony after conquest |
| 1912 | Morocco | French and Spanish protectorates |
| 1936 | Ethiopia | 1889 Disputed Italian Protectorate; Italian occupation/annexation in 1936 |
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