Egwale Seyon of Ethiopia

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Egwale Seyon (Ge'ez እጓለ ጽዮን; died 12 June 1818[1]) or Gwalu (ጓሉ) was nəgusä nägäst (throne name Newaya Sagad; June 1801 – 12 June 1818) of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the son of Hezqeyas.

He was made Emperor by Rasses Wolde Selassie and Gugsa of Yejju and chief of the Oromo. Emperor Egwale Seyon then married Walatta Iyasus, the sister of Ras Gugsa, and they had five children. When Henry Salt visited Ras Wolde Selassie at his palace in Chalacot in 1809/1810, the Emperor's brother, Kenyazmach Iyasu, was also a guest of the Ras.[2]

The writer of The Royal chronicle of Abyssinia repeatedly notes that Ewale Seyon never left Gondar, and laments

Nothing took place in the habitations, since nothing was done good or bad, no appointments and no dismissals; for there was an authority over the Negus in the hands of a Galla, who was called Dajazmach Gugsa.[3]

From 1803 on, his reign was marked by constant civil war. Most of the battles were part of a three-sided struggle between Ras Gugsa, Ras Zewde of Gojjam, and Wolde Selassie. Egwale Seyon was also twice attacked at Gondar (1804 and 1808) by armies of the Oromo who lived south of the Abay River, who were united under the leadership of the disgraced Master of the Horse Asserat.[4] Following the death of Abuna Yosab III in 1803, Ras Gugsa plundered the episcopal properties, but Ras Zewde forced him to return a part of what his men had stolen.[5] A little more than five years later, Ras Zewde attempted to depose Egwale Seyon and replace him with the former Emperor Tekle Giyorgis, but on February 24, 1809 Ras Gugsa arrived and Ras Zewde's army refused to fight; Ras Zewde escaped on foot, and returned to his village.[6]

Nathaniel Pearce commented, following the Emperor's death, that Egwale Seyon "was always very sickly and of a weak constitution".[7]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Pearce, Nathaniel (1831). in J.J. Halls: The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce. 
  2. ^ Salt, Henry [1814] (1958). A Voyage to Abyssinia and Travels into the Interior of that Country. London: Frank Cass. 
  3. ^ H. Weld Blundell, The Royal chronicle of Abyssinia, 1769-1840 (Cambridge: University Press, 1922), p. 478.
  4. ^ Wallis Budge, E. A. [1928] (1970). A History of Ethiopia: Nubia and Abyssinia. Oosterhout, the Netherlands: Anthropological Publications.  According to the Royal chronicle, Asserat died after Easter, 1806 (Weld Blundell, p. 479).
  5. ^ Weld Blundell, Royal chronicle, pp. 474f
  6. ^ Weld Blundell, Royal chronicle, pp. 483f
  7. ^ Pearce, Life and Adventures, vol. 2 p. 246
Preceded by
Demetros		 Emperor of Ethiopia
1801–1818		 Succeeded by
Iyoas II