Amha Iyasus

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Amha Iyasus, better known as Ammehayes (reigned c.1744 - c.1775), was a Meridazmach of Shewa, an important Amhara noble of Ethiopia. He was the son of Qedami Qal.

Mordechai Abir writes, "It was during the reign of Ammehayes that the reconquest of the territories held by the Galla really seriously began."^[1] He imported a number of firearms from the northern parts of Ethiopia, and used them to assert his primacy over his neighboring Christian states including Tegulet, Menz, Efrata and Bulga. He moved his capital to Doqaqit in Yifat, whence he raided the lands of the Afar to the east. He renewed the war with the Karayu Oromo, but had more success with the Abichu Oromo, conquering their tribes as far west as the Chia Chia river near Angolalla.

It was during his reign that Shewa conquered the Ankober area; according Harold Marcus, he founded the "two important and still active churches", Qeddus Giyorgis in Ankober and Kidana Mehrat in Astit. He virtually exterminated the Oromo population between Debre Berhan and Ankober, resettling the area with Amhara colonists^[2]

Amha Iyasus was the creator of the policy, followed by the rulers of Shewa into the middle of the next century, of avoiding being drawn into the struggles around control of the Imperial throne. An important part of this policy was leaving the district of Wallaka between the Geshen and Samba Rivers untouched as buffer between Shewa and the Imperial territories of Ethiopia.^[3]

The Meridazmach also made a diplomatic visit to the Emperor's court at Gondar in 1771, at the first decades of the semi-anarchical Zemene Mesafint ("Era of The Princes"), where he was received "more like an honoured ally than a vassal" by the then 17-year-old Emperor 'Admas Sagad III' Takla Haymanot II.^[4] This visit was recorded by James Bruce, who called him "Yasous".

[edit] 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.
^ Marcus, Harold G. (1995). The Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia 1844-1913. Lawrenceville: Red Sea Press. ISBN 1-56902-010-8.
^ Abir, p. 148.
^ Abir, p. 148.