Saw Selassie
Sahle Selassie (* 1795 ; † October 22, 1847 ) was Meridazmatch and Negus of Shoah , Ethiopia . He was a younger son of Wossen Seged .
Life
After his father's murder, Selassie's older brother Bakure was prevented by Oromo rebels from moving to their father's capital at Qundi to claim the throne . Despite Sahle Selassie's young age, he seized his opportunity to rule from his place of study, the monastery Sela Dengel . Presumably with the help of relatives of his mother Zenebwork , he was proclaimed the Ras and Meridazmatch of the Shoah. Bakure arrived late in Qundi, where he was detained with the rest of his brothers and some supporters in Gonchu State Prison.
After consolidating his rule, Sahle Selassie turned his attention to the Oromo and Amharen rebel groups . With diplomacy he defeated the Omoro group of the Abichu, who urgently needed his help in the fight against their neighbors, the Tulama-Oromo. He defeated them at the beginning of the 1820s. After his victory, he rebuilt Debre Berhan, which had been destroyed by the Oromo, as well as a number of other cities. He also consolidated his influence in the Abichu area by establishing some fortified villages such as Angolalla . He also extended the border of Shoaz to Bulga and Karayu, to the southeast to Arsi and to the south to the areas of the Gurage .
Sahle Selassie followed the strategy of his ancestor Amha Iyasus and supported a buffer region in the area of the Yejju- and Wollo-Oromo in the north. This helped him to keep Shoah out of the reach of warlords in the north like Ras Ali II of Yejju , who continued their civil wars.
After a few years of his rule, Sahle Selassie believed himself safe enough to be proclaimed Negus (king) of the Shoah, Yifat , the Omoro and Gurage peoples without the authorization of the Ethiopian emperor , although he was tolerated by him. In 1829 a famine broke out over the Shoah, only two years later cholera took away two thirds of all sick people in Sahle Selassie's castle alone. Thereafter , Selassie's General Sedoko rebelled against him. He managed to get a number of elite soldiers on his side, who threatened the existence of Schoas and burned Angolalla. Around the same time that Sahle Selassie was fending off this rebellion, a two-year drought broke over the Shoah. This killed a large part of the livestock and brought famine to the residents of Schoas. The historian Richard KP Pankhurst (1927-2017) also reported records of a second cholera epidemic in 1834, which caused great deaths from Weli in the south. Sahle Selassie responded to the famine by opening the royal storehouses to the needy. With the end of the famine, General Medoko launched a second attempt at rebellion. Even if this ended quickly, Sahle Selassie was now confronted with a church crisis.
In the dispute over Christology in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church , the Shoah took over the doctrine of the Sost-Lidet , which was opposed to the Wold Qib theory , which was represented in the north . Sost-Lidet was also represented in the Shoah by the influential Debre Libanos monastery . Sahle Selassie tried to increase his influence on the Church of Shoah by assigning his confidants to the ecclesiastical monasteries as administrators. This aroused resistance from the monks and the abbot of Debre Libanos, the second most important ecclesiastical representative of Ethiopia. Under the threat of excommunication , Sahle Selassie withdrew his people from the monasteries, whereupon he was violently attacked by representatives of the Wold Qib in Menz , Marra Biete and other districts. After Sahle Selassie had just managed to calm the discussion, the dispute was worsened by the arrival of the new abbot Salama III. rekindled. In 1845 the abbot Sahle Selassie excommunicated. Despite the mediation of the Ethiopian regent, Ras Ali II, the abbot refused to withdraw the interdict . In 1846 the Ras arrested the abbot and banished him from Gonder .
At that time, Sahle Selassie's health was deteriorating so much that he was unable to pursue his goals in the government. Only through encouragement from the ranks of his advisers and friends did he stop giving up in favor of his son. The last years of his reign were without significant events.
Performance as ruler of Shoah
Despite many conflicts with political rivals inside and outside the Shoah, Sahle Selassie was a benevolent and progressive ruler compared to previous rulers. Visitors to the country at this time tell of his understanding of justice and the wellbeing of its citizens. Another example of Sahle Selassie's skill as a regent is his judicial reforms. During the reign of his predecessors Asfa Wossen and Wossen Seged, the courts followed the traditional Ethiopian legal system, the Fetha Negest , as well as customary law procedures, which were viewed as extremely cruel. The death penalty , limb cutting and branding were commonplace. The Negus limited executions to cases of high treason , sacrilege and murder . If convicted as a murderer, the traditional punishment was to hand the murderer over to the victim's relatives, who could carry out their punishment. Sahle Selassie tried to persuade these bereaved families to accept blood money instead of killing the perpetrator.
The reforms of the Negus affected not only the judiciary but also administrative changes. He developed a new form of taxation that was not only fairer, but also guaranteed higher and safer government income. Around 1840 these were estimated to be between 80,000 and 300,000 Maria Theresa thalers in cash alone . In the Shoah, legends circulated about stores full of gold, silver and ivory in its castles and hidden mountain caves. The historian Abir thinks that the Shoah can be described as a kind of ancient example of a welfare state .
Sahle Selassie also worked on modernizing his country. He made contact with European countries such as France and Great Britain in the hope of receiving educators, craftsmen and, above all, weapons. He understood the value of armor and increased during his reign the number of arms factories from a few to 1,000 in 1842. He befriended agreements with France and Great Britain (1841) and encouraged foreigners with various incentives to get in Shoah to settle .
Pankhurst noted that despite his interest in foreign technologies and craftsmen, Sahle Selassie did not want missionaries in the Shoah.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Selassie, Sahle |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Meridazmatch and Negus from Shoah, Ethiopia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1795 |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 22, 1847 |