where is adwa ethiopia?

Adwa (Tigrinya: ዓድዋ; Amharic: ዐድዋ; also spelled Aduwa) is a town and separate woreda in Tigray Region, Ethiopia. It is best known as the community closest to the site of the 1896 Battle of Adwa, in which Ethiopian soldiers defeated Italian troops, thus being one of the few African nations to thwart European colonialism. Located in the Central Zone of the Tigray Region, Adwa has a longitude and latitude of 14°10′N 38°54′E / 14.167°N 38.900°E / 14.167; 38.900Coordinates: 14°10′N 38°54′E / 14.167°N 38.900°E / 14.167; 38.900, and an elevation of 1907 meters. Adwa is surrounded by Adwa woreda.

Adwa is home to several notable churches: Adwa Gebri'el Bet (built by Dejazmach Wolde Gebriel), Adwa Maryam Bet (built by Ras Anda Haymanot), Adwa Medhane `Alem Bete (built by Ras Sabagadis), Adwa Queen of Sheba secondary school, and Adwa Selasse Bet. Near Adwa is Abba Garima Monastery, founded in the sixth century by one of the Nine Saints and known for its tenth century gospels. Also nearby is the village of Fremona, which had been the base of the 16th century Jesuits sent to convert Ethiopia to Catholicism.

According to Richard Pankhurst, Adwa derives its name from Adi Awa (or Wa), "village of the Awa". The Awa are a tribe that was mentioned in the anonymous Monumentum Adulitanum that once stood at Adulis.[1] Francisco Alvares records that the Portuguese diplomatic mission passed Adwa, which he called "Houses of St. Michael," in August 1520.[2] Despite this claim of antiquity, Adwa only acquired major importance following the establishment of a permanent capital at Gondar. As the traveler James Bruce noted, Adwa was situated on a piece of "flat ground through which every body must go in their way from Gondar to the Red Sea". The person who controlled this plain could levy profitable tolls on the caravans which passed through.[3]

By 1700, it had become the residence for the governor of Tigray province and grew to overshadow Debarwa, the traditional seat of the Bahr negus, as the most important town in northern Ethiopia. Its market was important enough to need a Nagadras. The earliest known person to hold this office was the Greek immigrant Janni of Adwa, a brother of Petros, chamberlain to Emperor Iyoas I. Adwa was home to a small colony of Greek merchants into the 19th century.[2]

Because of its location on this major trade route, it is mentioned in the memoirs of numerous 19th-century Europeans visiting Ethiopia. These include Arnaud and Antoine d'Abbadie, Henry Salt, Samuel Gobat, Mansfield Parkyns and Théophile Lefebvre. After the defeat and death of Ras Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay, its inhabitants fled Adwa for safety. The town was briefly held by Emperor Tewodros II in January 1860, who had marched from the south in response to the rebellion of Agew Neguse, who had burned then fled the town.[2]

Giacomo Naretti passed through Adwa in March 1879, after it had been devastated by a typhus epidemic. It had been reduced to a shadow of itself, having about 200 inhabitants.[2]

Its geographical importance has also led to Adwa's greatest importance as the site of the final battle of the First Italo-Ethiopian War, where the Ethiopian Emperor fought to defend Ethiopia's independence against Italy in 1896. Menelik led the Ethiopian Army to a decisive victory against the Italians, which ensured an independent Ethiopia until the Italians invaded again in 1935 (Second Italo-Ethiopian War). A large tree at the edge of the town was shown to visitors in the following years as the place where Emperor Menelik passed judgement on about 800 Eritrean askaris captured in the battle.[2] Eritrean Battalions were part of the Italian colonial army, but the drumhead court-martial that passed judgment on them did not recognise this, and condemned the prisoners to having their right hand and left foot cut off.[4]

Writing in the 1890s, Augustus B. Wylde described the Adwa market, held on Saturdays, as a large one with cattle of all sorts available for purchase.[5] The Asmara-Addis Ababa telegraph line, constructed by the Italians in 1902-1904, passed through Adwa and had an office there. By 1905 it was considered the third-largest town in Tigray. Telephone service reached Adwa by 1935, but no phone numbers are listed for the town in 1954.[2]

On 6 October 1935 Italian forces entered Adwa, after two days of bombardment had shocked Ras Seyoum Mengesha into a hasty retreat, abandoning large stocks of food and other supplies. The Italian Gavinana Division brought with them a stone monument in honor of the Italian soldiers who had fallen in 1896. This monument was erected immediately after their arrival, and inaugurated on 15 October in the presence of General Emilio De Bono. The town had passed from Italian hands before 12 June 1941, when the newly arrived 34th Indian State Force Brigade set up a post office there.[2]

During the Woyane rebellion, 6000 of the territorial troops retreated to Adwa on 22 September 1943. By 1958 Adwa was one of 27 places in Ethiopia ranked as First Class Township. During the 1960s the town was not only an educational center but also an early focus for nationalist dissent, indicated by the fact that all three of the leaders of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) over the 22-year period from 1975 to 1997, Aregawi Berhe, Sebhat Nega, and Meles Zenawi, all came from Adwa and attended the town's government school.[2]

Adwa was a frequent target of attacks by the TPLF during the Ethiopian Civil War: in 1978 the TPLF attacked Adwa; in 1979 it unsuccessfully tried to rob the bank. The town permanently passed into TPLF control in March 1988. Adwa and its environs are the native district of many of the core leaders of the TPLF which lead Ethiopia today, and the district was represented in Parliament by the former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi himself.

During the Ethiopian Civil War, Adwa was bombed frequently from the air by the Ethiopian National Defence Forces:[6]

Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this town has a total population of 40,500, of whom 18,307 are men and 22,193 women. The majority of the inhabitants said they practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, with 90.27% reporting that as their religion, while 9.01% of the population were Muslim.[7] The 1994 census reported it had a total population of 24,519 of whom 11,062 were males and 13,457 were females.

Almeda Textile Football Club (ALTEX) was promoted to the Ethiopian National Football League after winning the Ethiopian football club championships held in Mekelle. ALTEX beat Meta Beer Football Club 2-1 in the final. ALTEX is the first club from Adwa town to represent the town in Ethiopian association football history.

As far back as the 1400s, European nations made incursions into Africa, largely to facilitate the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Yet, for centuries, tropical diseases and navigational challenges restricted most of their activities to coastal areas. In 1870, by which time the slave trade had subsided, Europeans controlled only about 10 percent of the continent.

By 1885, however, the so-called Scramble for Africa was fully underway, with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal carving up virtually the entire continent among themselves. At colonialism’s peak, only Liberia, created for the re-settlement of free Black Americans, and Ethiopia remained independent.

A relative newcomer to the game, Italy began its colonial military exploits in 1885, when, with Britain’s encouragement, it occupied the Red Sea port of Massawa. From there, it spread out along the Horn of Africa, establishing the colony of Eritrea—on land formerly controlled by Ethiopia—and occupying much of present-day Somalia as well. Its military presence particularly ramped up following an 1887 battle, when some 500 Italian soldiers were killed in an ambush.

“At that time, to be a big power you need at least two things,” says Haile Larebo, an associate professor at Morehouse College, who specializes in African colonial history. “You need a navy…and you need colonies.” He adds that the Italians were “simply mimicking others,” such as the British and French.

In 1889, Italy signed a treaty with Ethiopia’s emperor, Menelik II, who recognized the Italian claim to Eritrea in exchange for a loan of arms and money. But a major disagreement arose, exacerbated by differences between the Italian and Amharic versions of the text, over whether the treaty had turned Ethiopia into an Italian protectorate, without control of its external affairs.

Menelik, who claimed to be descended from the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and his wife, Taytu Betul, a shrewd opponent of European expansionism, prepared to defend their sovereignty. In addition to securing modern weapons, they launched a public relations campaign with the help of several Europeans sympathetic to their cause.

Swiss-born engineer Alfred Ilg, for example, who served as Menelik’s de facto chief of staff, helped modernize the country’s infrastructure and, during trips to Europe, reportedly promoted Ethiopia as “Africa’s Switzerland.” Other Europeans published admiring articles about the Ethiopian court, sometimes referring to the devout Menelik as “Africa’s Christian monarch.” Menelik became somewhat of a celebrity, and, later on, even traded phonograph messages with England’s Queen Victoria. “He’s a down-to-earth monarch,” says Haile, with a “charming” and “magnetic” personality.

During his rise to power, Menelik had viciously mutilated rival Ethiopians, branded slaves with the sign of the cross, destroyed mosques, and encouraged pillaging. Nonetheless, with the Italians presenting a common threat, Menelik united the country’s fractious provincial rulers behind him. When he called for a mass mobilization in September 1895, he was able to raise around 80,000 to 120,000 troops, with men pouring in from almost all of Ethiopia’s regions and ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, Italy had advanced to within about 250 miles of Addis Ababa, the newly founded Ethiopian capital. Menelik, accompanied by Taytu, led his army north on what would become a five-month march totaling nearly 600 miles. As Raymond Jonas, author of “The Battle of Adwa: African Victory in the Age of Empire,” writes, Menelik covered more ground than either William Tecumseh Sherman on his March to the Sea or Napoleon on his ill-fated invasion of Russia.

In December 1895 and January 1896, the Ethiopian army annihilated a vanguard Italian column at Amba Alage and then besieged an Italian fort at Mekele, forcing its surrender in large part by implementing Taytu’s strategy of cutting off the water supply. The Ethiopians next slipped past the main, entrenched Italian force and moved on to the Adwa area. Throughout, Menelik allegedly spread false rumors, downplaying the size and cohesiveness of his troops. “This is one of the 19th century’s greatest campaigns,” Jonas said on a 2012 podcast.

Cognizant of his lack of food, water, and accurate maps, Italian commanding officer Oreste Baratieri considered retreating into Eritrea. But, on February 25, 1896, he received a telegram from Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi essentially goading him into action. His subordinate generals likewise pushed for a decisive engagement, prompting Baratieri, who had earlier vowed to bring Menelik back to Italy in a cage, to advance three brigades.

When the fighting broke out on March 1, the Italians and their African auxiliaries quickly found themselves disorganized, highly outnumbered, and exposed in inhospitable terrain. By day’s end, they were in full retreat, leaving behind their artillery and roughly 3,000 prisoners. “[Menelik] outsmarted and outflanked the Italians in every aspect,” Haile says. Many women contributed to the victory, serving as water distributers, medical care providers, prison guards, and morale boosters. Taytu herself commanded her own personal army.

Overall, the Ethiopians inflicted a casualty rate of up to 70 percent (while also suffering relatively heavy losses). They brought the Italian prisoners back to Addis Ababa, in what Jonas calls a “racial turning of the tables that put whites at the mercy of blacks in significant numbers for the first time.” Treated well, they were gradually released, whereas, in contrast, the Africans fighting alongside the Italians purportedly had their right hands and left feet amputated.

In the aftermath of the battle, Crispi’s government collapsed and Baratieri was put on trial. (He was acquitted.) Moreover, Italy agreed to recognize Ethiopian independence, as did other European powers, which negotiated with Menelik to settle the country’s borders.

Menelik’s victory had farther-ranging consequences as well. Before Adwa, according to Haile, Europeans generally thought of Africans as primitive savages, who would all be ruled over and eventually displaced by Europeans. But afterwards, Haile says, Europeans were forced to take “Africans much more seriously,” even as racist attitudes remained entrenched.