Crossing the River in a Time of Shifting Boundaries: Translating Power in an Expanding Multicultural State, Western Ethiopia 1850–1930

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Abstract: During the late nineteenth-century expansion of the Ethiopian Empire, those who had already been able to form relationships across territorial boundaries served as important translators and intermediaries. Soldiers, teachers, and traders had been the most capable of crossing physical borders like river watersheds and mountain ranges. At the same time, they also provided translation between languages, cultures, and faiths. People in newly incorporated areas were able to negotiate their new relationship to the central government based in the examples set by these translators. This project brings together records provided by secular administrators and religious teachers and places them into conversation with oral history to provide a richer understanding of how people dealt with dramatic changes in society. Although many studies of African history have reckoned with multiple centers of power forged into a single polity, this is a notable example in the late nineteenth century in which the primary actors were African rather than European. The intermediaries sharing universalizing faiths, integrating local markets to international commerce, and expanding imperial dominion backed by force were Africans. As Ethiopia formed a multicultural nation-state, the relationships they formed, and the inequalities they dealt with, have continued to shape relationships between regions, cultures, and faiths.