Tigray Region
The Tigray Region is the northernmost regional state in Ethiopia. The Tigray Region is the homeland of the Tigrayan, Irob and Kunama people. Its capital and largest city is Mekelle. Tigray is the fifth-largest by area, the fourth-most populous, and the fifth-most densely populated of the 11 regional states. Tigray is bordered by Eritrea to the north, the Amhara Region to the south and the west, and Afar Region to the east.
Tigray's official language is Tigrinya, similar to that of southern Eritrea. The Tigray region had an estimated pre-war population of 7,070,260. The majority of the population are farmers, contributing 46% to the regional gross domestic product. The highlands have the highest population density, especially in eastern and central Tigray. The much less densely populated lowlands comprise 48% of Tigray's area. Although the percentage of Muslims in Tigray is less than 5%, it has been historically Islam's doorway to the region and to Africa at large. Approximately 97% of Tigrayans are Orthodox Christian.
The government of Tigray consists of the executive branch, led by the president, Getachew Reda; the legislative branch, which comprises the state council; and the judicial branch, which is led by the state supreme court. In early November 2020, a conflict between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the Ethiopian federal government rapidly escalating into the Tigray War, destabilizing the region, and conflict spread beyond Tigray to Amahara and Afar displacing millions of people. As many as 70,000 combatants were killed and up to 18,000 injured as a result of the war. As of 2023, the region is run by the Interim Regional Administration of Tigray.
History
3rd millennium to 1st century BC
Tigray is often regarded as the cradle of Ethiopian civilization. Its landscape has many historic monuments. Three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived in Ethiopia through the Red Sea and then Tigray.Given the presence of a large temple complex and fertile surroundings, the capital of the 3,000-year-old kingdom of Dʿmt may have been near present-day Yeha. Dʿmt developed irrigation schemes, used the plough, grew millet, and made iron tools and weapons. Some modern historians, including Stuart Munro-Hay, Rodolfo Fattovich, Ayele Bekerie, Cain Felder, and Ephraim Isaac consider this civilization to be indigenous, although Sabaean-influenced due to the latter's dominance of the Red Sea. Others, including Joseph Michels, Henri de Contenson, Tekletsadik Mekuria, and Stanley Burstein, have viewed Dʿmt as the result of a mixture of Sabaean and indigenous peoples. The most recent research, however, shows that Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language spoken in Tigray, Eritrea and northern Ethiopia in ancient times, is not likely to have been derived from Sabaean. There is evidence of a Semitic-speaking presence in Tigray, Eritrea and northern Ethiopia at least as early as 2000 BC. It is now believed that Sabaean influence was minor, limited to a few localities and disappearing after a few decades or a century, It may have represented a trading or military colony, in some sort of symbiosis or military alliance with the civilization of Dʿmt or some other proto-Aksumite state.
After the fall of Dʿmt in the 5th century BC, the plateau came to be dominated by smaller, unknown successor kingdoms. This lasted until the rise of one of these polities during the first century BC, the Aksumite Kingdom, which succeeded in reunifying the area and is, in effect, the ancestor of medieval and modern states in Eritrea and Ethiopia using the name "Ethiopia" as early as the 4th century.
1st to 10th century AD
The Kingdom of Aksum was a trading empire rooted in northern Ethiopia. It existed from approximately 100–940 AD, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period c. 4th century BC to achieve prominence by the 1st century AD.According to the Book of Axum, Axum's first capital, Mazaber, was built by Itiyopis, son of Cush. The capital was later moved to Aksum in northern Ethiopia.
The Empire of Aksum, at its height, at times extended across most of present-day Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. The capital city of the empire was Axum, now in northern Ethiopia. Today a smaller community, the city of Axum was once a bustling metropolis and a cultural and economic hub. Two hills and two streams lie on the east and west expanses of the city; perhaps providing the initial impetus for settling this area. Along the hills and plain outside the city, the Aksumites had cemeteries with elaborate grave stones, which are called stelae, or obelisks. Other important cities included Yeha, Hawulti-Melazo, Matara, Adulis, and Qohaito, the last three of which are now in Eritrea. By the reign of Endybis in the late 3rd century, Aksum had begun minting its own currency and was named by Mani as one of the four great powers of his time, along with China and the Sassanid and Roman empires. It converted to Christianity in 325 or 328 under King Ezana and was the first state to use the image of the cross on its coins.
11th to 19th century AD
In the 11th century the Tigrinya-speaking lands were divided into two provinces, separated by the Mereb River, by the newly enthroned Agaw emperors. The governor of the northern province received the title Bahre Negash, whereas the governor of the southern province was given the title of Tigray Mekonen. The Portuguese Jesuit Emanuele Baradas's work titled "Do reino de Tigr", written in 1633–34, states that the "Reino de Tigr" extended from Hamasien to Temben, from the borders of Dankel to the Adwa mountain. He also stated that Tigray-Mereb Melash was divided into 24 smaller political units, twelve of which were located south of the Mereb and governed by the Tigray Mekonen, based in Enderta. The other twelve were located north of the Mereb, under the authority of the Bahre Negash, based in the district of Serae.The Book of Aksum, written and compiled mainly in the period from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, shows a traditional schematic map of Tigray with the city of Aksum at its center, surrounded by the 13 principal provinces: "Tembien, Shire, Serae, Hamasien, Bur, Sam'a, Agame, Amba Senayt, Garalta, Enderta, Sahart and Abergele."
During the Middle Ages, the position of Tigray Mekonnen was established to rule over the area. Other districts included Akele Guzay, and the kingdom of the Bahr negus, who ruled much of what is now Eritrea and Shire district and town in Western Tigray. At the time when Tigray Mekonnen existed simultaneously with that of Bahr negus, their frontier seems to have been the Mareb River, which is currently constitutes the border between the Ethiopian province of Tigray and Eritrea.
After the loss of power of the Bahr negus in the aftermath of Bahr negus Yeshaq's rebellions, By the unsettled Zemene Mesafint period, both designations had declined to little more than empty titles, and the lord who succeeded them used the title of either Ras or Dejazmach, beginning with Ras Mikael Sehul. Rulers of Tigray such as Ras Wolde Selassie alternated with others, chiefly those of Begemder or Yejju, as warlords to maintain the Ethiopian monarchy during the Zemene Mesafint.
In the mid-19th century, the lords of Tembien and Enderta managed to establish an overlordship of Tigray. One of its members, Dejazmach Kahsay Mercha, ascended the imperial throne in 1872 under the name Yohannes IV. Following his 1889 death in the Battle of Metemma, the Ethiopian throne came under the control of the king of Shewa, and the center of power shifted south and away from Tigray.
20th century
In 1943, a rebellion broke out all over southern and eastern Tigray under the slogan, "there is no government; let's organize and govern ourselves". Throughout Enderta Awraja, including Mekelle, Didibadergiajen, Hintalo, Saharti, Samre and Wajirat, Raya Awraja, Kilte-Awlaelo Awraja and Tembien Awraja, local assemblies, called gerreb, were formed. The gerreb sent representatives to a central congress, called the shengo, which elected leaders and established a military command system. Although the first Woyane rebellion of 1943 had shortcomings as a prototype revolution, historians agree that it involved a fairly high level of spontaneity and peasant initiative. It demonstrated considerable popular participation and reflected widely shared grievances. The uprising was specifically directed against the central "Shoan Amhara" regime of Haile Selassie I to rile support, despite Tigrayan imperial elite being collaborators and beneficiaries of the regime.Ethiopian Civil War
Following the outbreak of the Ethiopian Revolution in February 1974, the first signal of any mass uprising was the actions of the soldiers of the 4th Brigade of the 4th Army Division in Nagelle in southern Ethiopia. The Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army, or the Derg, was officially announced 28 June 1974 by a group of military officers. The committee elected Major Mengistu Haile Mariam as its chairman and Major Atnafu Abate as its vice-chairman. In July 1974, the Derg obtained key concessions from the emperor, Haile Selassie, which included the power to arrest not only military officers but government officials at every level. Soon both former Prime Ministers Tsehafi Taezaz Aklilu Habte-Wold and Endalkachew Makonnen, along with most of their cabinets, most regional governors, many senior military officers and officials of the Imperial court were imprisoned. In August 1974, after a proposed constitution creating a constitutional monarchy was presented to the emperor, the Derg began a program of dismantling the imperial government in order to forestall further developments in that direction. The Derg deposed and imprisoned the emperor on 12 September 1974.File:Nest box for Columba guinea in Zerfenti.jpg|thumb|Nest box for Columba guinea in the wall of a homestead in Zerfenti, a village in Tigray where hundreds were killed by Derg bombings.
In addition, the Derg in 1975 nationalized most industries and private and somewhat secure urban real-estate holdings. But mismanagement, corruption, and general hostility to the Derg's violent rule, coupled with the draining effects of constant warfare with the separatist guerrilla movements in Tigray, led to a drastic fall in general productivity of food and cash crops. In October 1978, the Derg announced the National Revolutionary Development Campaign to mobilize human and material resources to transform the economy, which led to a Ten-Year Plan to expand agricultural and industrial output, forecasting a 6.5% growth in GDP and a 3.6% rise in per capita income. Instead per capita income declined 0.8% over this period. Famine scholar Alex de Waal observes that while the famine that struck the country in the mid-1980s is usually ascribed to drought, "closer investigation shows that widespread drought occurred only some months after the famine was already under way". Hundreds of thousands fled economic misery, conscription, and political repression, and went to live in neighboring countries and all over the Western world, creating an Ethiopian diaspora.
Toward the end of January 1991, a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front captured Gondar, the ancient capital city, Bahar Dar, and Dessie.