Local History of Ethiopia

Here is an interesting web site that serves as a repository of the local history of Ethiopia. Bernhard Lindahl compiled it and here is his description of what the web site is about:

The concept of this work is to make extracts from printed external sources and to sort them geographically and chronologically. It concerns environment and events in the countryside of Ethiopia mainly from the early 1800s and onwards. The special effort is to shed light on places which are seldom mentioned in print and to make searchable the contents of various published sources.

I like the web site's search feature a lot. For example, when I searched for 'Wolayta' one of the search result pages I got contained an entry for Girmame Neway, a man who knew what was wrong with Ethiopia and tried to do something about it:

Girmame Neway was appointed as governor of Welamo sub-province in the late 1950s. He was well received there because he had a famous forefather, Dejazmach Girmame, who had negotiated with the chiefs prior to Menileks re-occupation of the area.
Girmame led the people to build roads and bridges and schools. After he had been governor for just over six months he is said to have produced som E$ 30,000 for a school. He surprised everyone by announcing that the money came from bribes which he had accepted and put aside for the school project.
Governor Girmame organised the people into their own watch committees when they complained of the dishonesty and brutality of 'Amhara' police. He distributed undeveloped land to the landless. The landowners complained of this and of Girmame's settling squatters from their land, leaving them with no labour supply. D. Levine in Africa Today, May 1961, states that a wealthy landowner named Desta Fisseha managed to arrange Girmame's transfer through the customary channels of Palace intrigue. Girmame was recalled and posted to Jijiga. Together with his brother he became the leader of the failed coup in December 1960.
[R Greenfield, Ethiopia, London 1965 p 371]

Typed in 'Alula' and here is one of the entries I found:

HET86c Mannawe, about 25 km south of Abiy Adi. 13/39 [n]
Ras Alula (1847-1897) was born in this small village. It is not confirmed that his year of birth really was 1847. His father was the farmer Engda Qubi with wife Garada who was daughter of Nagid, a local notable from the neighbouring village of Baga. A few old people in Mannawe remembered these names when they were interviewed by Haggai Ehrlich in February 1972.
Alula once told an Italian journalist that his father and grandfather had been soldiers. He was educated in the local church school by the Memhir Welde-Giyorgis and "being an aggressive and dominating youngster, he soon became the leader of the children".
"When his Tigrean patron became Emperor Yohannes IV, the young Alula was translated from the provincial to the national scene -- Alula's excellent military services in fighting external enemies and consolidating the emperor's supremacy in Ethiopia established him as a king's man." History remembers particularly Ras Alula's time as administrator of Mereb Mellash = the future Eritrea.

One of the search results for 'Hadiya' returned the following entry:

"The Muslims of Hadiya who earlier had suffered at the hands of the Oromo, no longer had any desire for war with the Christians. The attitude was expressed by the action of Azé's soldiers, who refused to fight with Sarsa Dengel. Only the malasay, the Muslim force from Harar, fought. Deserted by their fellow Muslims and outnumbered by Sarsa Dengel's men, they were easily crushed. Aze reconciled himself to the king, who was magnanimous in return. The king left Aze in his office, but stripped him of real power. Takla Giyorgis was made the commander of the provincial soldiers." [Mohammed 1994 p 33]

Thanks to Bernhard Lindahl, you may be pleasantly surprised to find historical information about the local area that you come from within present day Ethiopia. Just peruse around and satisfy your intellectual curiosity.