Hezqeyas of Ethiopia

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For the early 18th century pretender to the Ethiopian throne, see Atse Hezqeyas.

Hezqeyas or Hezekiah was niguse negest (26 July 1789 – January 1794) of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the son of Iyasus III.

Hezqeyas with his captains marched on Gondar against the reigning Emperor, Tekle Giyorgis, who himself was campaigning against several regions in revolt. When Tekle Giyorgis saw Hezqeyas' army, he turned and fled; Hezqeyas was then placed on the throne with the help of Ras Ali.

During the early years of his reign, Hezqeyas had to provide a refuge for Selasse, who had raided Tigray. Hezqeyas also advanced to the frontier with Sennar, which he plundered and lay waste to.¹ Despite this demonstration of military strength, his power was very limited; the Royal Chronicle records that, towards the end of his reign one of the warlords, Dejazmach Wolda Gabrael, entered Gondar and "made appointments and dismissals without leave of the Negus [Hezqeyas]."² A few months later the disgruntled Master of Horse Asserat entered the capital city to expel the Dejazmach, and in the fighting his men set fire to the Gan Takal, part of the Royal Enclosure.

The traveler Henry Salt notes that he was still alive at the time of his visit to northern Ethiopia in 1809/1810.³

[edit] Notes

E. A. Wallis Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), p. 479.
Quoted in Richard P.K. Pankhurst, History of Ethiopian Towns (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982), p. 177.
Henry Salt, A Voyage to Abyssinia and Travels into the Interior of that Country, 1814 (London: Frank Cass, 1967), p. 474.