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EXTERNALITY AND INCORPORATION 182 ‘periphery of contention’ between two counter-systemic superpowers (cf., Allen 1997, Cline 2000). With Istanbul competing with Lisbon for hegemony of the Indian Ocean, Ethiopia became a contested ground between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Religion was perhaps the most obvious symptom of this divide, but it was a systemic conflict more than a strictly religious one. This becomes evident if we look at the resulting socio-political situation within Ethiopia. Even though a consolidated facsimile of the Solomonic empire was fashioned after the victory, it lacked the deep strength of the earlier polity. The Christian core of the Ethiopian state was further divided as Portuguese priests sought to undermine the local Orthodox Church and promote conversion to Catholicism. By the mid-1600s, the Ethiopian church-state relations were characterized by fragmentation and sectarianism, resulting in a series of rebellions and uprisings and the eventual rejection of Roman Catholicism. In turn, this meant that the Solomonic state became limited to the highlands of Abyssinia. The Jesuits, and later all Roman Catholic missionaries, were expelled. Effectively, by refusing to embrace the Roman Catholic Church of the Portuguese, Ethiopia managed to withdraw from existing in the periphery of contention between Portugal and the Ottomans. This ‘negotiated peripherality’ (cf., Kardulias 1999, 2007) also contributed to a period of isolation that followed for the next 200 years (Marcus 1994; Stevens 1981). Incorporation into the European system necessarily meant dissension in Ethiopia; religious division is merely one aspect of this process. While incorporation is oft thought as consolidation, it is only consolidation if it benefits the expanding system. Necessarily, it is a force of ‘creative destruction’ that eliminates or reduces contending sources of authority or power. This, then, creates significant fissures in societies on the periphery that are in the process of being absorbed, groomed, altered, or otherwise incorporated. Political isolation does not mean that Ethiopia was not connected to the larger systemic networks, as the regional sub-system of Ethiopia continued to be active. While the political reach of Ethiopia consolidated around the new capital of Gonder 12 in the Christian north, the economic reach of Ethiopia continued to be extensive, and influenced by European demands. The highlands exploited the hinterland’s primary products, connecting Ethiopia’s economy to the commerce of the Red Sea and Nile valley. A complex caravan network linked Mitsiwa and the interior, and Gonder became a regional center, doing business with Sennar and Fazughli for slaves and gold bought and paid for with coffee obtained from Enerea. The market for Ethiopian beans grew considerably during the last quarter of the seventeenth century as Yemen, a major trading partner, sought increasing amounts of coffee for transshipment to Europe to satisfy burgeoning Western demand (Marcus 1994:40). Coffee became an important linkage to the outside world. A common export, there were unsuccessful attempts by Europeans to obtain coffee directly from Ethiopia (Aregay 1988). With the growth of coffee plantations in European colonies this became superfluous, though Ethiopia continued to contribute to the Red Sea coffee trade during the eighteenth century. Overall, the Gonderine period is one of political decline. The religious divisions within the Ethiopian state continued, which led to the eventual aristocratization of encroaching Oromo from the south as an attempt to stabilize increasingly tenuous authority in the region. This only fueled interior division as regional feudal leaders continued to challenge the monarch, who increasingly became dependent on their generals. Abyssinia slipped into disarray, and provincial lords increasingly went their own way as the emperor’s power at Gonder became limited to the 12 Or Gondar, Ethiopia has a tradition of transient capitals (See Horvath 1969).
183 JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH immediate vicinity of the royal compound. Predictably, civil war broke out in 1766 between provincially divided interpretations of Ethiopian Christianity, leading to a period of feudal anarchy, which would last until 1855 (Crummey 1975, 1990; Crummey and Shisagne 1991). So where is Europe during this period? How is the expanding European system conceptualizing Ethiopia and where does it sit in terms of European networks of interaction? After coming into initial contact, and even entering into the realm of political-military interaction with the Portuguese supply of musketeers and in 1541, Ethiopia rejected the subsequent phase of cultural incorporation as embodied by the dispute with the Jesuits and Roman Catholics. The expulsion of the Europeans meant that little first-hand knowledge of Europe was directly available in Ethiopia, though the region was still part of the Red Sea trading network and the prestige-goods network of the European system. As the political situation became unstable and Ethiopia declined, it stagnated on the active fringe of the European system, sliding back toward the realm of myth and fantasy. Figure 4: “Presbiteri Iohannis”. Ortelius, Abraham (1573). “Presbiteri Iohannis…” [map], in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Antwerp. Image from Peter Whitfield (1998) New Found Lands. London: The British Library, pp. 165. Shelfmark Maps C.23.e.12.
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James Rice—New Mexico State Unive
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BOOK REVIEW ESSAY 236 Review Essay:
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INTRODUCTION: THE WORLD-HISTORICAL
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