The Abyssinian kingdom, on the other hand, although exhausted by the long struggle with the Muslims, was also able to offer a valid defense to the Galla and under the guidance of its sovereigns (some of whom singularly eminent such as Malak Sagad, Susenyos, Fāsiladas) fought vigorously to oppose the passage to the new invaders. Meanwhile, however, the Jesuits, who entered Abyssinia in 1557 after the Portuguese expedition, had begun a powerful religious and political work to convert Abyssinia to Catholicism. This work, which – owing to the studies it provoked by the Jesuits themselves – was to lay the foundations for the modern knowledge of Ethiopia in Europe, nevertheless achieved only a passing success; because the negus Susenyos who had adopted the Catholic religion in 1626 was forced to abdicate in 1632. instrumentum regni dei Portuguese, succeeded in placing the son of Susenyos, the negus Fāsiladas, on the throne of Abyssinia, who – according to the Abyssinian motto – made “the faith of the fathers return” by re-establishing the Monophysite church and expelling the Jesuits from the kingdom.
Fāsiladas himself (who reigned from 1632 to 1657) placed his capital at Gondar in Dambià, north of Lake Tana, in a region that could be considered better safe from galla invasions than Scioa. But, despite this strenuous resistance, the invasion floated on continuously; and if the Abyssinian negus here and there also used the same Galla tribes as mercenary troops, this only caused new contacts and provoked new ambitions of conquest. Thus came the second half of the century. XVIII to the period of the galla leaders who made and unmade the fearful negus their puppets, while the great feudatories of the provinces affirmed more and more openly their independence with respect to the so weak sovereign. In turn, however, the same immigrants galla in the northern and central areas of Abyssinia, further away from the bulk of their tribes, they slowly came under the influence of the vanquished and by now they approached the customs, the organization, the same political attitudes of the Abyssinians. The Solomonid dynasty continued to remain on the throne by means of the negus of Gondar: this, even if the kingdom was only nominal, still constituted a political bond and of such prestige that none of the new praetorians of the Abyssinian kingdom wanted to dispose of the throne in favor of himself. Among the great feudatars of this period it is worth mentioning the name of ras Gugsā, of the two ras Ali and of ras Mārye in Baghiemeder (area to the east of Lake Tana and adjacent to the capital Gondar); of the Among the great feudatars of this period it is worth mentioning the name of ras Gugsā, of the two ras Ali and of ras Mārye in Baghiemeder (area to the east of Lake Tana and adjacent to the capital Gondar); of the Among the great feudatars of this period it is worth mentioning the name of ras Gugsā, of the two ras Ali and of ras Mārye in Baghiemeder (area to the east of Lake Tana and adjacent to the capital Gondar); of the from ǧǧ – azm āč Sabāgādis and Wubē in Tigrè, and of the chiefs of Scioa. In this latter region, in fact, a lineage that boasted Solomonid origins tried to inherit the government with the greatest autonomy from Gondar, first retaining only minor feudal titles and finally in the first decades of the century. XIX assuming that of negus. The first to be entitled negus was Sāhla Sellāsē, who was able to take advantage of renewed contacts with Europe to make a treaty of friendship with France in 1839 through the traveler Rochet d’Héricourt: a treaty that was to be used by Sahla Sellāsē to reaffirm in Abyssinia his new quality as a negus of the Scioa. For Ethiopia history, please check ehistorylib.com.
But in 1855, after a bitter struggle, a leader from Quarā (west of the Tana) named Kāsā entered Gondar who had gathered around him a strong army of soldiers hostile to ras Ali, the last leader of the praetorians of Gondar.. Kāsā, seizing power, ascended the throne with the name of Theodore II with the plan to unify Abyssinia again. This enterprise he carried out with often ferocious energy and with bloody repression. Even the Scioa was conquered by him and severely subjugated. Menelik, son of the last negus of the Scioa – Ḫāyla Malakot – was taken hostage by Theodore outside the Scioa. But later the contacts with the European states, which travelers and missionaries began to promote again on the way to Massawa, led to war with England.
To Theodore, after three years of struggle between Takla Giyorgis II and the da ǧǧ – azm āč Kāsā del Tigrè, the latter succeeded him and took the name of John IV. The negus Giovanni found himself in his internal politics, faced by the two major feudatars: the ras Adal of Goggiām and the negus Menelik of Scioa (the latter, freed after Magdala, had regained his country). John often had to use one against the other and assert his authority over both by both arms and political action. In 1879, after a successful expedition against the Scioa which had forced Menelik into submission, John IV crowned Menelik himself a negus dello Scioa thus reaffirming his vassalage and at the same time conferring the title of negus del Goggiām on ras Adal which assumed the name of the kingdom of negus Takla Hāymānot. A few years later the two new negus vassals of John IV came,
While John thus weakened his opponents in the interior of Abyssinia, he also had to fight on the northern frontier, which the new expansion of Egypt under the dynasty of Muḥammad ‛Alī was seriously threatening. Giovanni was victorious against the Egyptians in Gundat (1875) and Gurā ‛(1876) and an attempt to advance from Danakil ended with the tragic massacre of the Munzinger Pasha expedition by the Danakil Bedouins.
