Bonga is thought to be the oldest city in western Ethiopia.[7] The first European recorded to have visited the capital of the former Kingdom of Kaffa was Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie, who resided for 11 days in the marketplace reserved for Christian traders in 1843. The royal residence at Bonga was not as elegant as those in Gomma, Gera, and Limmu-Ennarea. Capuchin monks founded a mission there in 1845 and discovered some medieval churches which remained as evidence of the early infiltration of Christian influence before the invasion of the Oromo.[5] When Paul Soleillet visited Bonga in the 1880s, he described its trade as primarily slaves, coffee, civet cat oil, coriander and ivory, the turnover amounting between 200,000 and 300,000 dollars a year.[8] Following the conquest of Kaffa by the generals of Menelik II in 1897, Bonga was deserted; governor Ras Wolde Giyorgis made neighboring Anderaccha his capital.[5] Bonga was occupied 13 December 1936 by the Italians under General Malta, who died there the next year on 30 May. He and his successor Colonel Corrado refounded Bonga as a local administrative and commercial center for the production of coffee, hides, wax, maize, tea, etc. By 1938, there were about 3,000 inhabitants in the town, of whom about 200 were Italians, and it was equipped with a post office, telegraph, hospital, pharmacy, and spacci. There were few remains of early constructions, but the new settlement was well built from brick and tufa, covered by clay tiles or corrugated iron. Generals Bortello and Tosti, commanders of the Italian forces south of the Didessa River acknowledged their weak position and along with 2,850 troops on 28 June 1941 surrendered to Lt. Col. McNab of the King's African Rifles.[5]