'Colonization, Cultivation and Christianization of Land'),[4] were a series of expansionist wars and conquests carried out by Emperor Menelik II of Shewa to expand the Ethiopian Empire.

[5] In 1866 Menelik II became the king of Shewa, and in 1878 began a series of wars to conquer land for the Ethiopian Empire and to increase Shewan supremacy within Ethiopia.

[11] Menelik's expansions coincided with the era of European colonial advances in the Horn of Africa, during which the Ethiopian Empire received significant military resources from foreign powers.

Thus when conflict later began with the Italians during the First Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895–6, the Ethiopian Empire had accrued a significant amount of modern weapons that allowed them to fight on similar terms as the European powers and maintain expansion.

[17] British writer Evelyn Waugh describing this nineteenth century event stated: The process (the creation of the Ethiopian Empire) was closely derived from the European model; sometimes the invaded areas were overawed by the show of superior force and accepted treaties of protection; sometimes they resisted and were slaughtered with the use of modern weapons which were being imported both openly and illicitly in enormous numbers; sometimes they were simply recorded as Ethiopian without their own knowledge.

[19] The Ethiopian Empire under Menelik II exhibited many classic features of European colonialism, including indirect rule, divide-and-rule tactics, cooptation of local elites, and prioritizing the interests of settlers above all else.

[26] Though some polities negotiated differing levels of autonomy through tribute payments and taxation, elsewhere local populations were frequently decimated by violent colonial expansions that rested largely on cultural assimilation.

Military expeditions into the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region under Ras Makonnen were characterized by massacres and expropriation, laying foundations for future incorporation into the Ethiopian Empire.

[27] During the first half of the 1880s, then king of Shewa Sahla Selassie conducted numerous military expeditions against the Oromo people residing on the Shewan plateau.

Emperor Yohannes punished Menelik and the ruler of Gojjam for going to war by taking away parts of their regions, but recognized 'Menelik's right to the south-west.'

In 1878, the Soddo Gurage living in Northern and Eastern Gurageland peacefully submitted to Menelik and their lands were left untouched by his armies, likely due to their shared Ethiopian Orthodox faith and prior submission to Negus Sahle Selassie, grandfather of the Emperor.

Professor Lapiso states that the assistance of Habte Giyorgis Dinagde who was captured from a previous battle with the Hadiyans was instrumental for the Abyssinians being victorious in the conflict.

[32] The Halaba Hadiya however under their chief Barre Kagaw continued to resist until 1893 when the Abyssinians took advantage of the famine that had struck the region and led a conquest into their territory.

[33] By the early 1880s, Shewan and Gojjam forces had made their first forays over the Gibe River into the region of Welega ruled by king Kumsa Moroda from the Machaa people of the Oromo.

[35] Ras Gobenas campaigns in Western Welega from 1886 to 1888 established Shewan rule over the entire region and ended the threat of Mahdist incursions.

[12] Unlike the peasantry in the Christian north, the peoples of southern Ethiopia during Meneliks time were largely too poorly armed to resist his riflemen.

[20] From the initial raids Menelik and his commanders had seized thousands of prisoners, resulting in an increase in slavery on the domestic and international market.

[42] Four years after the conquest of the Arsi, foreign travelers passing through their regions noted that they were regarded as slaves by the new rulers and in sold openly in markets.

Harari oral tradition recounts 300 Hafiz and 700 newly wed soldiers killed by Menelik's forces in the short battle.

The war of conquest has been described by Bahru Zewde as "one of the bloodiest campaigns of the whole period of expansion", and Wolayta oral tradition holds that 118,000 Welayta and 90,000 Shewan troops died in the fighting.

Due to constant invasions from the Mecha Oromos, the Kafficho people developed a very unique defense system unlike anything seen in the Horn of Africa.

Gaki Sherocho the king of Kaffa hid in the hinterlands of his kingdom and resisted the armies of Menelik II until he was captured in 1897 and exiled to Addis Ababa.

[63] In 1897, in order to appease Menelik's expansionist policy, Britain ceded almost half of the British Somaliland protectorate to Ethiopia in the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897.

[65] While previous Ethiopian raids had been primarily disruptive to trade, Emperor Meneliks well armed incursions in the era of colonialism provoked significant unease among the Somalis all the way to the Banaadir coast.

A force of several thousand Ethiopian horseman armed with rifles pushed into the Shabelle valley near Balad, only a days march away from Mogadishu during the spring of 1905.

[15] The vast southwards expansions carried out by Emperor Menelik exacerbated the divide between the largely Semetic populated north and the primarily Cushitic inhabited south, creating the conditions which encouraged significant future social and political transformations.

"[12] The Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), which came to dominate Ethiopian politics at the end of the 20th century, castigated the formation of the centralized empire state under Menelik as, "the beginning of national oppression" in the groups manifesto.

[81] Menelik's expansions into what is now southern Ethiopia set a pattern of razing entire districts, killing all male defender and then enslaving the women and children.

[42] Eventually Menelik did sign an agreement with the British Empire to reign in and suppress the Ethiopian slave trade, which he backed with edicts - though they were not always enforced.

[82] During the wars to expand the Ethiopian Empire, Menelik's army committed genocidal atrocities against peoples of the invaded territories, which included torture, mass killings and the imposition of large scale slavery.