Bale Province, Ethiopia

Bale (also known as Bali) is the name of two polities located in the southeastern part of modern Ethiopia

The province-kingdom of Bale

The earlier Bale was a Muslim tributary kingdom to the Emperor of Ethiopia during the Solomonic dynasty, between Ifat and Hadiya. This kingdom's earliest surviving mention is in the Soldiers Songs of Emperor Amda Seyon I. [Taddesse Tamrat, "Church and State in Ethiopia (1270-1527)" (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 142 n.1.] The historian al-Umari described its size as 20 days travel by six days travel, and its lands were more fertile and with a better climate than its Muslim neighbors; it had an army of 18,000 horsemen and "many" foot soldiers. [G.W.B. Huntingford, "The Glorious Victories of Ameda Seyon, King of Ethiopia" (Oxford: University Press, 1965), p. 21.] Taddesse Tamrat locates Bale south of the Shebelle River, which separated the kingdom from Dawaro to the north and Adal to the northeast; [Taddesse Tamrat, p. 142 n.1.] Richard Pankhurst adds that its southern boundary was the Ganale Dorya River. [Pankhurst, "The Ethiopian Borderlands" (Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press, 1997), p. 71]

While Bale was the first Ethiopian province Imam Ahmad Gragn conquered after the Battle of Shimbra Kure, [This campaign is described in Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader, "Futuh al-Habasa: The conquest of Ethiopia", translated by Paul Lester Stenhouse with annotations by Richard Pankhurst (Hollywood: Tsehai, 2003), pp. 105-122.] Emperor Geladewos quickly recovered it after the Imam's death. However, the territory eventually became the possession of the Oromo people, who had begun settling there as early as the Mudana gadaa (1530-1538), and disappeared as a distinct entity by the middle of the next century. [Mohammed Hassen, "The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570-1860" (Trenton: Red Sea Press, 1994), p.22]

The province of Bale

The later Bale, named for the earlier one, was a province in the south-eastern part of Ethiopia, with its capital city at Goba. It was created in 1960 out of the province of Harerge south of the Shebelle. The lowlands of both Bale and Harerge encompassed Ethiopia's portion of the Ogaden.

Beginning in 1963, Waqo Gutu led a rebellion which at one point involved all of Bale. The Ethiopian military was not able to put it down until 1969. Waqo Gutu did not offer his surrender until February of the following year, and afterwards was granted a commission in the Ethiopian Army. [Paul B. Henze, "Layers of Time: A History of Ethiopia" (New York: Palgrave, 2000), pp. 263f.]

With the adoption of the constitution of 1995, Bale was divided between the Oromia and Somali Regions of Ethiopia.

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