Tekle Haymanot II of Ethiopia

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Tekle Haymanot II (Ge'ez ተክለ ሃይማኖት, "Plant of the faith"; 1754 – 7 September 1777) was nəgusä nägäst as Admas Sagad III (Ge'ez አድማስ ሰገድ "to whom the horizon bows"; 18 October 1769 – 13 April 1777) of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the son of Yohannes II by Woizero Sancheviyar, at the Imperial prison of Mount Wehni.

Tekle Haymanot became Emperor at the age of 15 when Yohannes II was killed by Ras Mikael Sehul; he was largely the figurehead of the aged warlord of Tigray. He lost the throne briefly in 1770 when Susenyos II was made Emperor by three rebel generals of Ras Mikael, but regained it when the Ras returned to the capital city of Gondar on 23 December of that year.

Upon entering the city, Mikael Sehul immediately slaughtered a troop of travelling actors who had performed a satire of him. A number of former rebels, who had switched sides, brought to him a number of prisoners, including the Abuna Abba Salama; after a show trial, Mikael Sehul had them brutally executed. In the days that followed, Mikael Sehul wrought his vengeance on all who had opposed him; as the Scottish explorer James Bruce (who was in Ethiopia from September 1769 to November 1771) wrote:

Fifty-seven people died publicly by the hand of the executioner in the course of a few days; many disappeared, and were either murdered privately, or sent to prisons, no one knew where. The bodies of those killed by the sword were hewn to pieces and scattered about the streets, being denied burial. I was miserable, and almost driven to despair, at seeing my hunting dogs, twice let loose by the carelessness of my servants, bringing into the courtyard the head and arms of slaughtered men ... the quantity of carrion, and the stench of it, brought down the hyaenas in hundreds from the neighbouring mountains; and, as few people in Gondar go out after dark, they enjoyed the streers to themselves, and seemed ready to dispute the possession of the city with the inhabitants.¹

The next year saw Ras Mikael Sehul defeated in three battles against the rebels near Sarbakusa in May, which forced the Ras to retreat to Gondar, where he surrendered to Wand Bewossen on 4 June 1771. Wand Bewossen imprisoned Mikael Sehul for a year, then sent him back to Tigray to live out his last years as governor of that province. As a result, Ras Gusho replaced Mikael as the power behind the throne. When Tekle Haymanot, who had been taken captive with Ras Mika'el Sehul at Dagola in 1771, attempted to exert his independence, Wand Bewossan forced him to abdicate. Weary of the continuing power struggles with his regional governors he repudiated the throne, 13 April 1777. He lived in exile at Waldeba, where he died a few months later.

Despite this political turmoil, art and scholarship flourished in Gondar. Pankhurst credits the construction of seven churches built in or near that city as being built during his reign. The most important was Baeda Maryam, built in 1775, which originally had a large bronze cross on its roof that towered over all of Gondar; the others include: Qeddus Qirqos (dedicated to St. Cyriacus), Qeddus Peros Pawlos (Ss. Peter and Paul), Ferta Ledata ("the Nativity of Mary") at Ferta, Walda Nagwadgwad Yohannes (St. John the Evangelist), Abageale Tekle Haymanot (St. Tekle Haymanot), and Debre Tebab ("the Mount of Knowledge").²

[edit] References

Cited in E. A. Walis Budge, A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia, 1928 (Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications, 1970), p. 473. Bruce's account is an important eye-witness record for Tekle Haymanot's reign.
Richard P.K. Pankhurst, History of Ethiopian Towns (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982), pp. 178f.