How Menelik II’s garrison towns and the establishment of Ethiopia’s capital city reshaped Oromia, displacing the Oromo people and cementing a system of political and economic control that endures today

FINFINNEE, OROMIA — The bustling streets of Addis Ababa, known to the Oromo as Finfinnee, tell a story of power, conquest, and displacement that remains largely hidden beneath the city’s modern veneer. This is not merely the capital of Ethiopia; it is the heart of a colonial project that began in the late 19th century and continues to shape the lives of millions.

The founding of Finfinnee was not an act of urban planning in the conventional sense. It was the culmination of a deliberate strategy of conquest and control, a military project disguised as a city, designed to secure the domination of the Ethiopian Empire over the Oromo people, the largest ethnic group in the Horn of Africa. As one historical account describes, the city was originally a katama – a military encampment or royal camp, with its neighborhoods laid out “mirroring an army on the march” . This military logic was not accidental; it was the foundation upon which the entire colonial structure was built.

The Strategy of the Katama

The establishment of garrison towns, or katamas, was a central feature of Emperor Menelik II’s colonial expansion. Convinced that more could be gained from the permanent exploitation of the Oromo, Menelik began to occupy conquered districts with permanent garrisons of his troops, providing for their administration under a hierarchy of his own officials. As one historical account notes, the creation of these towns was based on a desire to exercise “more effective control over the Oromo” and to escape interference from rival powers . These were strategically and politically secured regions, designed to serve as nerve centres for the Ethiopian colonial system .

From the mid-19th century, Menelik developed garrison towns such as Ankobar, Dabra Berhan, and Angolala. The last of these was burned by the Oromo in 1868, but was recovered by Menelik. He also developed Leche, Feqre Gimb, Enaware, Tamo, and Warra Illu, where he installed 40,000 soldiers in 1870. The Wallo Oromo attacked and destroyed Warra Illu that same year, but it was rebuilt. This pattern of Oromo resistance and Ethiopian colonial reassertion continued as northern Oromia gradually fell into Ethiopian hands .

Following the submission of northern Oromia, Menelik turned his attention to the Tulama Oromo, who were the residents of Finfinnee and its surroundings. The desire to exercise more effective control led him, in the latter part of 1878, to move to the mountain of Wacaca, where he dug the foundation for a new town, which he named Entoto (later called Old Entoto). In 1882, he transferred his settlement to a place called Dildila, later named New Entoto. These settlements were created by evacuating or enslaving the Oromo living there. After strengthening his army and accumulating massive firearms, Menelik built Addis Ababa on the place known by the Oromo name Finfinnee, between 1886 and 1887 .

The Founding of Finfinnee

The site of Finfinnee was originally chosen by Empress Taytu Betul in 1886, who was attracted by the hot springs in the area . The local Oromo tribes had their lands confiscated, and many were displaced . In its first years, the city was more like a military encampment than a town, with the emperor’s palace surrounded by the dwellings of his troops and retainers . As historian Getahun Benti argues, “From its earliest days, Addis Ababa was the staging station for the economic exploitation and political control of the conquered provinces of which Oromia was the largest” .

The major portion of the Oromo land on which the capital city was founded was divided among thirty-one Ethiopian officials . Army commanders were given large plots of land on which they established their respective camps for their relatives, followers, and war captives. While most Oromos were evicted and forced to migrate to far places, others were permanently marginalised and turned into servants and labourers . Through the proclamation of October 27, 1907, Oromo land became a commodity to be sold and bought, giving Ethiopian and European landlords a great deal more security of tenure .

Making Addis Ababa the centre of commerce, bureaucracy, and employment, the Ethiopian government attracted people from different parts of the world and Abyssinia proper to this city, while the Oromo people were marginalised, segregated, and dehumanised in rural and urban areas alike. The people in the city mainly obtained their food and income from the surrounding Oromos; military commanders, soldiers, and followers depended on the tribute and tax mainly collected from the Oromo people .

Consolidating the Colonial System

The garrison towns gradually evolved into the major geopolitical centres for practising political domination, wealth and capital accumulation, and religious and cultural dissemination . From these garrison centres, Ethiopian soldiers and colonial administrators were dispatched to impose colonial rule on Oromos through subjugation, enslavement, and expropriation of the basic means of production such as land, cattle, and other valuable resources .

Several non-garrison towns emerged in eastern and western Oromia with the development of trade and communication networks. As rail service was introduced, the towns of Aqaqi, Bishoftu, Mojo, Adama, Walanchiti, Metahara, Awash, Mieso, Afdem, Gota, Munesa, and Dire Dhawa flourished. While Oromos were evicted from their urban lands and forced to migrate to rural areas, Abyssinians were encouraged to migrate to cities and towns in Oromia .

The colonisation of Oromia, the development of transportation and communication systems, and the establishment of Addis Ababa and garrison towns facilitated the development of the Ethiopian institutional milieu and created “the integrating nucleus of the colonial economic system” in Oromia, with the collusion of the capitalist world economy. Commodities and food products produced by Oromo labour flowed to and were concentrated in Addis Ababa and other urban centres for local consumption and international markets .

A Legacy of Dispossession

The consequences of this colonial urbanisation are profound. The Ethiopian colonial structure has limited the access of Oromo urban residents, who are a minority in their own cities and towns, to institutions and opportunities such as employment, education, health, mass media, and other public services. The Oromo have been prevented from developing autonomous institutions, organisations, culture, and language, and have been subordinated to the institutions and organisations of the Habasha colonial settlers in their own cities, towns, and homeland .

The Ethiopian state elites and urban communities in Oromia remain determined to maintain the existing political and economic order, investing meagre available resources in building unproductive institutions, such as the army, security infrastructure, and colonial bureaucracy. The Abiy monologue, which he calls a national dialogue, is seen by many as an integral part of the Ethiopian colonial project .

Today, millions of Oromos are exposed to fatal diseases, famine, and massive poverty in Oromia cities and urban centres. Since state-terrorism, poverty, famine, and ethnonational challenges are increasing, and since the major world powers have a role in shaping these problems, they have a moral and political responsibility to become capable of mediating these processes and developing procedures and criteria by which these conflicts must be solved fairly and democratically before it is too late .

Finfinnee’s founding is etched in Oromo collective memory as a site of violent conquest. The legacy of Finfinnee is therefore inseparable from trauma, subjugation, and displacement.

*From Asafa Jalata “Oromian Urban Centers: Consequences of Spatial Concentration of Pinational Ethiopia,” Journal of Oromos Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, January 2011, pp. 39-74.