The Oromo, who constitute more than forty percent of the population of Ethiopia, belong to the Cushitic language-speaking family of peoples who are known to have lived in the Ethiopian region for thousands of years.  Historical evidence and linguistic data establishes beyond an iota of doubt that the Oromo are one of the indigenous peoples of Ethiopia, original inhabitants of that country.  For centuries the Oromo lived as a free, powerful independent nation in the Hon of Africa.

Up to the seventeenth century, all Oromo lived under the Gada System.  Even after the seventeenth century, most Oromo continued to live under the republican form of Gada government, in which leaders were elected every eight years.  However, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Oromo who lived in the regions of Wallo, Wallaga and the Gibe region slowly abandoned the republican form of government and adopted a monarchic institution. This was brought about by complex developments which cannot be discussed in this brief answer. Here let it suffice to say that there were six small Muslim Oromo states in Wallo alone, ruled by their own kings and queens.  Of all the Oromo states in Wallo, Warra Himano was the strongest and it lasted the longest.

In the Gibe Region, there were five Oromo states, two of which Limmu Ennarya and Jimma Abba Jifar, were the richest kingdoms in the Ethiopian region. There were also two Oromo states in Wallaga and two others in the process of formation there.  These Oromo states were engaged in a continuous struggle with each other for the formation of a single Oromo state.  Interestingly this development coincided with the struggle among the Amhara-Tigray princes for the unification of historical Abyssinia, the land of Amhara-Tigray people.  Before the conquest of the Oromo in the 1880s, Abyssinia produced nothing which the Oromo of the Gibe Region were not already producing or capable of producing more than Abyssinia itself. These two developments indicate that on the eve of the conquest and colonization of Oromia:  “ . . . the Abyssinian and Oromo societies were roughly at similar stages of development, one society more advanced in some areas, but less so in others” ( Hassen 1990, p. 92).

Up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, whether they lived under the republican form of government or monarchy, all Oromo led an independent life, as masters of their destiny and makers of their own history. They had their own political and religious institutions, which flowered in patterns of their own making and nourished their spiritual and material well being. The independent existence of the Oromo was brought to an end rapidly by the creation of the modern Ethiopian empire in the 1880s and after.  It was Menilek, the Amhara King of Shawa (1865-1889) and the Emperor of Ethiopia (1889-1913) who created the Modern Ethiopian Empire.  It was Emperor Menilek who conquered and colonized Oromia.  With that the Oromo nation lost its sovereignty, freedom and independence, the ability to make history and to control their resources.

The Oromo also lost something very crucial: they lost their leadership.  Consequently, from the 1880s to the early 1960s, the Oromo suffered a great deal from lack of central leadership: A leadership vacuum was created and maintained in order to divide and weaken Oromo unity.  Deprived of leadership and prevented from leading a free social existence, the Oromo were subjected to long oppression which assumed a multi-dimensional thrust attacking simultaneously Oromo national identity, cultural heritage, religious and political institutions   ( Hassen 1990, p. 10) .