When emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia annexed territories lyging between the 2nd and 14th-latitudes north and west of the White Nile in 1891, and took control after the battle of Adwa in 1896, four sheikhdoms were annexed, and three of four pledged loyalty to the Ethiopian invaders, among them being Khojali al-Hassan.
[1] In 1903, the traditional rulers of Bela Shangul, Assosa and Komosha were all taken to Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, where they were imprisoned for five years.
[1] In 1908 they were released with the status of balabbat, local tributary rulers with a large degree of political autonomy under the emperor.
[2] His principal wife, Sitt Amna, had been acknowledged by the British as the head of an administrative unit in Sudan in 1905, where she had settled with her retinue.
Khojali al-Hassan collected slaves – normally adolescent girls and boys or children – by kidnapping, debt servitude or as tribute from his feudal subjects, and would send them across the border to his wife, who sold them to buyers in Sudan.