TASAMMA NADAW

Ras Tasamma Nadaw (18?-April 10, 1911), Regent of Ethiopia from 1909-11, was a general, statesman, and confidant of Emperor Menilek II [reigned 1889-1913].

PHOTO CAPTION: Tasamma Nadaw. SOURCE: EA Library

His father, Ato Nadaw, had been Menilek’s guardian and tutor. It is uncertain whether Tasamma, like his father, accompanied Menilek into captivity at the court of Téwodros II [reigned 1855-68] from 1856 to 1865. But from 1865 onwards Nadaw was an important functionary in Menilek’s Shawan government, and Tasamma was probably a favored young courtier holding certain important civil and military positions.

A successful soldier in fighting the Galla in July 1883, he subsequently became conqueror and, in April 1886, governor of Goma and Ilubabor in the southwest. From 1889 to 1895, after Menilek’s accession to the throne, he actively expanded and consolidated Shawan rule to the south, over the Gibé river basin, excluding Kaffa. During the war against Italy in 1895-96, Tasamma helped to protect the Ethiopian flank by successfully neutralising the allies of the Italians, the Afar of Awsa.

Immediately after the battle of Adwa in 1896, at which the Ethiopians defeated an invading Italian army, Tasamma helped to conquer Kaffa. In March 1898, with three Europeans and a large army, he left Goré (360 mi. or 600 km, west-south-west of Addis Ababa) to meet the French soldier Major Jean-Baptiste Marchand at Fashoda in the Sudan, where in July Marchand was to face a British force in a confrontation that was to bring the two European powers to the brink of war. Menilek, however, did not intend to strengthen the position of the French in the Nile basin, but merely to send an army to fulfill a treaty obligation and to lay claim to more territory in the southwest.

Tasamma’s army, however, was so troubled by disease in the Nile valley lowlands that it returned to Goré in May 1898 without reaching Fashoda. But he allowed Fitawrari Haylu, with 800 men and the Europeans, to advance to the confluence of the White Nile and the Sobat, where the French and Ethiopian flags were planted.

Tasamma was named Ras in April 1900. After the unexpected death of Ras Makonnen in 1905, he became Menilek’s most trusted adviser. After Menilek’s illness. Tasamma was appointed Ras-Regent to Lej lyasu Mikael, who became nominal ruler of Ethiopia from 1909-16. Because of his weakness as a regent the Empress Taytu Betul, wife of Menilek became very powerful. But in March 1910, helped by various Shawan nobles, Tasamma Nadaw reduced her authority, and restored power to the Council of Ministers under the Ras-Regent’s chairmanship. After a short iliness, Tasamma died on April 10, 1911.

HAROLD G. MARCUS