Ethiopian Categories, British Definitions: British Discovery of Ethiopian Identities from the Nineteenth Century to the First Decade of the Twentieth Century

This essay examines correspondence in the British Foreign Office Archive to explore British views of Ethiopian identities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The premise of the paper is that during this time, British officials used group identities to help determine which Ethiopian leaders might make the best allies in furtherance of British strategic and economic interests. In essence, the British correspondents created and continually redefined ethnic categories as a reflection of the provincial leaders’ willingness to serve British economic interests. In the mid nineteenth century, after freeing British subjects imprisoned by emperor Tewodros (ruled 1855–1868), British diplomats sought to identify another legitimate ruler of Ethiopia; in the process, they attributed characteristics to various Ethiopian groups which marked those groups as more or less “civilized.” By the late nineteenth century, this recasting of identities contributed to the racializing of Ethiopian territories. In defining and redefining the qualities of Ethiopian notables and groups according to their own economic, colonial or political needs, British sources created categories of actors which did not necessarily correspond to identities as understood and asserted by the populations of what would become the Ethiopian Empire.