The 'Kingdom of Garo' (also known as 'Bosha', after the name of its ruling dynasty) was a kingdom of the
Sidama people on the periphery of the
Gibe region of
Ethiopia. The kingdom of Garo had definite borders to the north with
Janjero, on the east was the
Omo River, and on the south the
Gojeb River separated Garo from the
Kingdom of Kaffa. Lacking a clear boundary on its western borders, the kingdom's subjects had constructed a series of trenches and gates to defend themselves from encroachments by the
Oromo of the
Kingdom of Jimma.
[1]
Werner Lange discusses the possibility that the kingdom of Garo had been a subsidiary part of
Ennarea, in much the same way that Ennarea had been a part of the kingdom of
Damot.
[2] By the reign of
Yeshaq I, Garo had separated itself from Ennarea, and was a tributary state to Ethiopia; it may be the "Bosge" mentioned in the itineraries of Zorzi. In the 16th century, the Emperor
Sarsa Dengel convinced the king to officially embrace Christianity. By the 17th century, Ethiopia lost all contact with this state, and the history of this state is "largely a blank" for most of this century, although under the increasing pressure of the Oromo migrating into the Gibe region forced "the Bosa kingdom must have continued its gradual contraction until little more than a relatively small area isolated in the highland forests of
May Gudo was left at the end of the century."
[3]
Garo survived as an independent state until the reign of
Abba Gomol of Jimma, who conquered the last isolated part of this realm. At the time Emperor
Haile Selassie annexed Jimma, a descendant of
Dagoye, the last king of Garo, was living in a state of "semi-banishment" in
Jiren.
[4]
See also
★
Rulers of Bosha
Notes
1. Werner J. Lange, ''History of the Southern Gonga (Southwestern Ethiopia)'' (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1982), p. 53.
2. Lange, p. 50.
3. Lange, p. 55.
4. G.W.B. Huntingford, ''The Galla of Ethiopia; the Kingdoms of Kafa and Janjero'' (London: International African Institute, 1955), p. 57.
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