Adowa
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Adowa (also spelled Aduwa, Adwa or Adua) is a highland town in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. It is best known as the community closest to the decisive Battle of Adowa in 1896.
Located in northern Ethiopia, south of Asmara, Eritrea and between Axum and Adigrat, Adowa is a center for agricultural markets. The town is also home to some notable churches, while Abba Garima Monastery, founded in the sixth century and known for its tenth century gospels, lies nearby. As of 1994, the town had a population of 24,519.
History
According to Richard Pankhurst, Adowa derives its name from Adi Awa (or Wa), "Village of the Awa"; the Awa are an ethnic group mentioned in the anonymous inscription that once stood at Adulis.1
Despite this claim of antiquity, Adowa only acquired major importance following the establishment of a permanent capital at Gondar. As the traveller James Bruce noted, Adowa was situated on a piece of "flat ground through which every body must go in their way from Gondar to the Red Sea."2 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 geographical importance also led to Adowa being the site of the final battle of the First Italo-Abyssinian War, where Shewa ruler Menelik II fought for Ethiopia's independence against Italy. Menelik led the Ethiopian Army to a decisive victory against the Italians, which ensured an independent Ethiopia until the Italians invaded again on the eve of World War Two.
A frequent target of attacks by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front during the Ethiopian Civil War, Adowa permanently passed into their control in March 1988.
Notes
- Richard R.K. Pankhurst, History of Ethiopian Towns: From the Middle Ages to the Early Nineteenth Century (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982), p. 192.
- Pankhurst, Ethiopian Towns, p. 194.de:Adwa