The earliest known inhabitants of the area that is now Eritrea are believed to have migrated into the region from the Nile valley around 4000 B.C. They were followed by migrations of various Cushitic-, Nilotic-, and Semitic-speaking peoples from the north and the west who helped develop one of the first centers of agriculture in Africa. Beginning in the fourth century A.D., the region came under the control of the Aksumite empire, which had emerged in the first century A.D. and provided the early framework for what would become the Ethiopian nation state. The inhabitants of the highland areas of Eritrea converted to Christianity in the fourth century, and lowlanders adopted Islam beginning in the seventh century, about the time the kingdom of Aksum began to decline. During the eighth to the 16th centuries, Eritrea functioned as a relatively independent state, although successive Ethiopian emperors maintained a presence in the region. In the mid-16th century, however, the Ottoman Turks annexed Eritrea, which was strategically located on trade routes connecting central Ethiopia and the Nile River Valley to the Red Sea. In the mid-19th century both Italy and Egypt sought control of the region. Italy acquired the Red Sea port cities of Massawa and Assab in the late 1880s and, expanding their territorial gains over the next few years, formally declared the region a colony on Jan 1, 1890, deriving its name (Eritrea) from the Roman term Mare erythraeum, meaning Red Sea.

During its period as colonial ruler, Italy greatly improved Eritrea's infrastructure, building one of the best communication and transportation systems in Africa to help develop an export-driven, market-based economy. (It also used the colony as a tactical base from which to invade Ethiopia in 1935.) While Italy's main goal was to benefit itself, its efforts also contributed to the development of Eritrean national identity and structure. By the time the Allied powers in World War II defeated Italy in Eritrea in 1941, after which the colony became a British protectorate, Eritrea had a fairly large working class and an urban elite. It also had a burgeoning nationalist movement.

Britain administered Eritrea first as an "Occupied Enemy Territory" and then as a United Nations (UN) trust territory. In December 1950 the UN approved a resolution that federated Eritrea with neighboring Ethiopia, which had been pushing its claims on the territory throughout the 1940s, using both diplomatic and other methods. A majority of Eritreans opposed the move, but federation became official in 1952. Ethiopia's emperor, Haile Selassie, soon made it clear that he planned to end the semiautonomous status granted to Eritrea under the UN resolution, which included a separate constitution for Eritrea. In 1962 Selassie pressured the Eritrean legislature into dissolving itself and abolishing Eritrea's federal status; Ethiopia then annexed the territory as a province. The action gave new impetus to the Eritrean nationalist cause, which took on an increasingly militant character. The Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) was founded in 1958 and took up arms in 1961 to fight for independence. An offshoot of the ELF, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), split from the group in 1970, but the rival organizations later joined forces to battle the military government that ousted Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

Led by the well-organized EPLF, the secessionist rebels drove Ethiopian forces out of Eritrea by 1976, but the Ethiopian government regained control several years later with financial and military assistance from Cuba and the Soviet Union. Guerrilla warfare continued throughout the 1980s, with the Eritrean forces slowly gaining ground. They seized the strategic port city of Massawa in 1990 and in April 1991 captured Asmara. In May 1991 the Eritrean forces and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front finally defeated the army of Ethiopian military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. EPLF leader Issaias Afewerki immediately declared Eritrea a sovereign state, a move supported by the new Ethiopian government. In April 1993, after two years of de facto independence under an Afewerki-led provisional administration, Eritrea held a UN-sponsored referendum on independence that was approved by 99.8% of Eritrean voters. Independence was officially declared on May 24, 1993.

SOURCE: Africa: Handbook to the Continent; Columbia Encyclopedia; Encarta Encyclopedia; Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia; A History of the African People; The Hutchinson Encyclopedia; The New York Times

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