is no one who takes care of the land he enjoys; there is not even anyone to plant a tree because he knows that he who plants it very rarely gathers the fruit. For the king, however, it is useful that they should be so dependent upon him.
These descriptions suggest major similarities between the political and economic structures of Ethiopia and those of European absolutism, though they also make it clear that absolutism was more intense in Ethiopia, and economic institutions even more extractive. Moreover, as we emphasized in chapter 6, Ethiopia was not subject to the same critical junctures that helped undermine the absolutist regime in England. It was cut off from many of the processes that shaped the modern world. Even if this had not been the case, the intensity of its absolutism would probably have led the absolutism to strengthen even more. For example, as in Spain, international trade in Ethiopia, including the lucrative slave trade, was controlled by the monarch. Ethiopia was not completely isolated: Europeans did search for Prester John, and it did have to fight wars against surrounding Islamic polities. Nevertheless, the historian Edward Gibbon noted with some accuracy that“ encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion, the Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten.”
As the European colonization of Africa began in the nineteenth century, Ethiopia was an independent kingdom under Ras( Duke) Kassa, who was crowned Emperor Tewodros II in 1855. Tewodros embarked on a modernization of the state, creating a more centralized bureaucracy and judiciary, and a military capable of controlling the country and possibly fighting the Europeans. He placed military governors, responsible for collecting taxes and remitting them to him, in charge of all the provinces. His negotiations with European powers were difficult, and in exasperation he imprisoned the English consul. In 1868 the English sent an expeditionary force, which sacked his capital. Tewodros committed suicide.
All the same, Tewodros’ s reconstructed government did manage to pull off one of the great anticolonial triumphs of