MAKONNEN, RAS

Ras Makonnen (May 8, 1852-March 22, 1907), whose full name was Ras Makonnen also called Abba Qagnew, served Emperor Menilek Walda Mikael, II  [reigned 1889-1913] both as a diplomat and on the field of battle, and was the father of the future Emperor Haile Selassie  (reigned 1930-74).

PHOTO CAPTION: Ras Makonnen. SOURCE: EA Library.

He was the son of Dajazmach Walda Mikael Guddessa (or Walda Mikael Walda Malakot), a balabat (lord) of Doba in eastern Tegré, and Manz in northern Shawa, and a prominent general, who died in 1879/80.

His mother, Princess Tenagne Warq, was a daughter of Sahla Selassé , ruler of Shawa from 1813-47. In 1876 Makonnen married Yeshimbet, the daughter of a balabat of Warayelu in Wallo. Their children included Tafari Makonnen who, born in 1892, was to becomne Emperor Haile Selassie.

Makonnen had previously had another son, Yilma, whom he legitimised after Yilma saved his life at the battle of Adwa on March 1, 1896, at which the Ethiopians defeated the Italians. Yeshimbet died in 1894, and Makonnen did not remarry, despite the insistence of Menilek’s wife, Empress Taytu Betul [reigned 1889-1913], that he ally himself with her family.

Makonnen had been given his name (meaning “Ruler” or “He who has authority'”) as a good omen. Unlike his father and an elder brother, Dajazmach Hayla Maryam Walda Mikael, called Abba Yibas, Makonnen seems to have had no important appointment during the early years of Menilek’s reign as king of Shawa (1865-89).

Given the junior title of balambaras (commander of a fortress) in 1875/76, he was made one of the palace treasurers after the rainy season (June-September) of 1881, and soon afterwards received the governorship of Wabari, a small district to the west of Entoto, then the capital of Shawa.

After Menilek’s defeat of the amir of Harar early in January 1887, none of the more prominent officers were willing to stay behind in the remote and hostile area after Menilek’s forces withdrew. Thus Makonnen, who accepted the responsibility, was promoted to the rank of Dajazmach on January 27, 1887, and made governor of Harar. This made his future. He could maintain a large army from the immigrant soldiers who came to settle in the new province, and it became one of the best-armed of all Menilek’s armies because of its easy access to imported arms.

By the time the eastern frontier was to be delimited in 1897, Makonnen had extended Ethiopian hegemony over many of the Somali towards the European-occupied ports on the coast. From 1888 onwards he helped, with the French, to develop a new port at Jibuti, and was a major contributor to the opening of Shawa and the rich lands of southwestern Ethiopia to outside contact.

One of the few whom Menilek consulted when negotiating the Treaty of Wechalé with Italy, (signed May 2, 1889), Makonnen was appointed Ras that month, and was sent to Rome in September for the exchange of ratifications, and to purchase large quantities of munitions with a loan he negotiated for Menilek.

On his return, he rejoined Menilek in Tegré in February 1890, and was rewarded with the governorship of the Ittu highlands, just west of Harar proper, being accorded primacy among all others with the rank of Ras. Over the ensuing five years, during the growing crisis with Italy, Makonnen was often employed by Menilek in dealings with Italian envoys and other foreigners.

In late April 1893, he went secretly to Jibuti, and unsuccessfully attempted to visit Aden as well, seeking arms and allies for Menilek, who had just denounced the Treaty of Wechale. Makonnen was not the hero of the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1895-96 that later sycophants of Haile Selassie tried to claim. He fought, however, in the advance guard, and was also in the forefront as a negotiator.

Unfairly criticised by the empress and other conservatives as a defeatist, and mistakenly estimated by the Italian high command to be a potential traitor, he alone, perhaps, shared with Menilek the understanding that victory on the battle field could not, by itself, halt the partition of northern Ethiopia.

At the end of 1897, Makonnen was sent to conquer the gold-mining districts of the present-day sub-provinces of Assossa, west of the Blue Nile, reaching as far as Fazugoli, a town in the Sudan, before returning to Addis Ababa early in May 1898.

In October he was given Tegré in addition to Harar, and went with Ras Mikael of Wallo to capture Tegre’s rebellious governor, Ras Mangasha Yohannes, whom they delivered to Menilek at the beginning of 1899. For over a year Makonnen remained in Tegré as overlord.

By mid-1900, he was back in Harar to organise joint expeditions with the British against Muhammad Abdullah Hassan (erroneously called the Mad Mullah), and his dervish followers, until a temporary truce was made with this Somali proto-nationalist movement in 1905. In the meantime, from July to September, 1902, Makonnen had again been sent abroad as Menilek’s representative at the coronation of Edward VII, and as an envoy to Paris and Rome.

At the Feast of the Finding of the True Cross in late September 1905, Makonnen made his 13-year-old son Tafari governor of a district of Harar, with the title of Dajazmach, and commended him to his officials. This was taken as a sign that he was unwell, but early in 1906 he set off for Addis Ababa. He died at the pilgrimage church he had built at Qulubi, some 30 mi (48 km) west of Harar. He was buried at St. Michael’s church in Harar, and his many slaves were freed.

Menilek’s distress at the news of Makonnen’s death was deep and genuine, from all accounts. It is unlikely that he wished to make Makonnen his heir, although Europeans heard the rumour, and it appears in some later Ethiopian writings. (Haile Selassies autobiography, however, does not make the claim).

Makonnen was unquestionably a great favourite, however. Perhaps none of Menilek’s contemporaries certainly no-one else in his family, or of equal importance at court shared, as did Makonnen, Menilek’s tolerance of foreigners, or his enthusiasm for borrowing from Europe to strengthen Ethiopia.

The appointment of Dajazmach Yilma Makonnen (who died, however, on October 12, 1907) as Makonnen’s successor as Ras, and then, in early 1910, of Tafari as governor of Harar, is evidence of Menilek’s affection for his dead cousin, and of the status Makonnen had acquired for this branch of the descendants of Sahla Selassé.

RICHARD CAULK