Ali II of Yejju
Ali II of Yejju | |
---|---|
Wollo, Ethiopian Empire | |
Spouse | Hirut |
Issue | Tewabech Ali |
Dynasty | Warra Sheik |
Father | Alula of Yejju |
Ali II of Yejju (c. 1819 – c. 1866) was Ras of Begemder and the de facto ruler of the Ethiopian Empire. He was a member of a powerful dynasty known as the Yejju, which ruled much of the Ethiopian Empire during the Zemene Mesafint.
Appointment as ruler
In July 1831, after the death of his cousin,
Ras Ali was officially a
For much his reign Ras Ali was constantly at war, either putting down rebellions in his core territories, or defending his territory from rival lords. In one of these continual campaigns, Ras Ali II plundered the imperial capital, Gondar, in 1838.[4]
Ras Ali made
Marriage
Ras Ali married Hirut, the daughter of
End of reign
Although his reign was punctuated by recurrent rebellions, Ali managed to keep all of the major lords subject to his rule until the final years. Shiferaw Bekele asserts that "it is to his credit" that there were only two major wars while he was Ras Bewodded: the Battle of Debre Tabor in 1842, and
Future events were foreshadowed in October, 1846, when Kassa Hailu defeated detachments of Empress Menen's army at two separate battles in
Dejazmach Kassa later reconciled himself to Ras Ali in 1849, and Kassa remained loyal to Ali for the next three years.However, the relationship between the two eventually deteriorated. Following a series of stunning victories by Kassa, Ali II was decisively defeated by his son-in-law Dejazmach Kassa (who later assumed the throne name of
give the date of 1866 for his death, without further details.Notes
- ^ Abir, Mordechai (1968). Ethiopia: The Era of the Princes; The Challenge of Islam and the Re-unification of the Christian Empire (1769-1855). London: Longmans. p. 38.
- ^ Rubenson, Sven (1966). King of Kings: Tewodros of Ethiopia. Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie I University. p. 22.
- ^ J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 111
- ^ Abir, Era of the Princes, p. 111f
- ^ Weld Blundell, H. (1922). The Royal chronicle of Abyssinia, 1769-1840. Cambridge: University Press. p. 489.
- ^ Shiferaw Bekele, "Reflections on the Power Elite of the Wärä Seh Mäsfenate (1786-1853)" Annales d'Éthiopie 15 (1990), p. 161
- ^ Rubenson, King of Kings, pp. 37f
- ^ Rubenson, King of Kings, p. 52.
- ^ Chris Proutky, Empress Taytu and Menelik II: Ethiopia 1883-1910 (Trenton: The Red Sea Press, 1986), p. 27n
- ^ Trimingham, Islam, p. 110