Droughts, Famines, and Chronicles: The 1780s Global Climatic Anomalies in Highland Ethiopia

Abstract Contrary to studies that attribute the 1782–1784 drought in northeastern Africa to the 1783 eruption of the Laki fissure in Iceland, climatological data suggest that the key driver of drought in the region, and in the wider Indian Ocean World, was an El Niño Southern Oscillation anomaly. Ethiopia during this period—the early decades of the Zemenent (the protracted civil war from 1769 to 1855)—also endured considerable political instability. The lack of documentary evidence and an over-reliance on the Ethiopian Royal Chronicles has led historians to view the famine as primarily the result of environmental stress. A more critical reading of the Chronicles, however, suggests that integrating its reports of internal strife with the comprehensive climatological record presents a more accurate picture of how the famine and the drought emerged.