Answer:
In the history of the modern world, the victory of Adwa is best remembered for offering the seminal phenomenon that put the prevalent bias and prejudice towards black people into question. This change of perception towards the nature and capability of black people had also dramatic consequences in the political history of Africans and other peoples who suffered from racial contempt and colonial rule, and everything that goes with it.
This paper attempts to reassess how Africans and their continent were portrayed by the non-African peoples before the Ethiopian military, diplomatic and political exploits witnessed at the Battle of Adwa. It argues that the victory has paramount historical significance in changing the lots of black people for the better as it effectively challenged the hitherto hailed perceptions and valuations of the black people, their history, culture, and their human nature by the whites. Secondary and primary sources pertinent to the discussion are used to support a proposition that the psychological impact of the battle of Adwa, especially the commonly raised attributes to shame and glory, merits a slightly different reinterpretation.
It is quite unmistakable that discussing a grand and delicate subject like this is too big to tell exhaustively. Particularly, it is difficult to appreciate the exact changes caused by the victory of Adwa on different sections of the international community. Of course no sources, no sources, as there are no enough, can be sufficiently relied on to discern the psychology there are no enough, can be sufficiently relied on to discern the psychological changes witnessed in the self-perception of blacks and their characterization by others mainly due to victory of Adwa. How many contemporary black people did really receive the news of the victory at Adwa is not clear, leave alone its impact on their innermost thoughts about racial myths. Also, it may be questionable to singularly relate changes observed subsequent to the victory based on acceptable historical causal reasoning.
We can never be sure that the changes witnessed stand the test of the negative logic principle of causation. These and many other uncertain elements pose some limitations on assertions and counter assertions made in this paper. This, however, is part of the norm than the exception in other historical inquiries too. E.H. Carr has so accurately captured this problem of lack of internal data validity which underwrites the inherent limitation of historical claims in his phrase; ‘inbuilt ignorance’. Such and other limitations on the intellectual quality of historical writing, however, have never been hindrances to the production of historical knowledge by individuals highly acclaimed by the scholarly community. It seems a tacitly acknowledged principle that at least to write something with all its deficiencies is better than ignoring it altogether. Hence, this paper should be considered in the same light.