Honestly if there is one thing that seems to define the history of somalis in the last 2 centuries it's erasure. You have people who legitimately don't know how large of a somali presences there was in ethiopia,the swahili coast and yemen. Or if they do it's reduced to them just being irrelevant. I was in momba a week ago. When I went to fort Jesus the tour guide was talking about how the omanis renovated the place and put up pictures and signs talking about omani influence but nothing on their involvement in the slave trade. He also casually mentioned how the omanis ruled mogadishu when my family brought up said bargash and how somalis were also slaves.@Laser made an extended researched post on this. Both Oromo and Hararis knew and understood that they were Gurage , up until recently when they constructed this fake Harari ethnicity. They kept concious trail and connection with it.
Another source from 1841 by a visitor describing the 12-14.000 inhabitants as Somalis
Another source that speaks more on this:
Then after this, Menelik came to slaugthered unarmed Somali inhabitants.
We were massacred a second time in 1913 in Harar:
@Midas @Shimbiris @NidarNidar
Things tipped in a different direction first with the Gurage-Oromo Adopted Emir, that took control of the city & overran us, then 2nd with Menelik came to wipe us out and then last the Iyasu failed revolt. Somalis were legit ethnically cleansed from our central city like damnnnn and not only was our scholars, generational inhabitants brutally murdered, but our libraries burnt to ashes, our mosques turned to Churches, it's only through the efforts by Enrico Cerruli historical rescue operations that we have the few medieval chronicles that was kept by Somalis families in Harar.
Ethiopians also looted a lot of our treasures , from our ancestors and actively display it in their museum like the armour of Sultan Badlay and the fines robes of Imam Ahmed that @Emir of Zayla showed . We practically went through a cultural genocide and replacement, it's insane to think about.
It was all aided by the British and the Italians. The Italians pressured Menelik to invade Harar as a revenge for most of their Italian top politicans being murderd by Somalis and the british provided cover and millitary support for him, while trying to actively disarm Somalis and forced Egyptians we called in for protection to pull out, which left us defenseless.