Gugsa of Yejju

Gugsa of Yejju (died 23 May 1825) was a Ras of Begemder ("circa" 1798 until his death), and Inderase (regent) of the Emperor of Ethiopia. According to Nathaniel Pearce, he took the Christian name of Wolde Mikael. [Pearce, "The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce", edited by J.J. Halls (London, 1831), vol. 1 p. 70] He was the son of Mersu Barentu and Kefey, the sister of Ras Aligaz. Both Bahru Zewde and Paul B. Henze consider his reign as Ras and Enderase as the peak of the Yejju Oromo power during the Zemene Mesafint. [Bahru Zewde, "A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1994", second edition (Oxford: James Currey, 2001), p. 12; Henze, "Layers of Time" (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 122.]

He married one daughter to Dejazmach Meru of Dembiya, and his other daughter Hirut to Dejazmach Haile Maryam. [Mordechai Abir, "Ethiopia: The Era of the Princes; The Challenge of Islam and the Re-unification of the Christian Empire (1769-1855)" (London: Longmans, 1968), p. 32.]

Upon becoming Regent, Ras Gugsa reasserted the central power of the Empire (although keeping the Emperor as a figurehead) by dispossessing the nobility of the parts of Ethiopia he controlled, primarily Begemder. He accomplished this by proclaiming in 1800 in the name of the Emperor the legal title of land tenure would be converted from freeholds to state property, held at the will of the Emperor. At first the peasantry welcomed this egalitarian measure, believing that they would benefit from the loss of their masters. However, as Ras Gugsa proceeded in dispossessing the great families each year under one pretext or another, the peasants lost their last defenders. "The dispossessed nobles," writes Pankhurst, "meanwhile, almost all became soldiers of fortune. They were so rapacious that sometimes whole villages abandoned their lands and emigrated to neighbouring territories, many of the peasantry enrolling in the army, as they preferred the perils and independence of a military life to the servitude of the field." [Richard P.K. Pankhurst, "Economic History of Ethiopia, 1800-1935" (Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie I University Press, 1968), pp. 137ff.]

In 1803, Ras Gugsa entered into the ongoing doctrinal disputes that was dividing the Ethiopian Church by joining the Ichege Walda Yona in expelling the advocates of the "Qebat" from Begemder. About the same time, the Ras exploited the helplessness of the ecclesiastical structure on the death of Abuna Yosab III by plundering the episcopal properties 12 September of that year. [Donald Crummey, "Priests and Politicians", 1972 (Hollywood: Tsehai, 2007), p. 25; the date is from H. Weld Blundell, "The Royal chronicle of Abyssinia, 1769-1840" (Cambridge: University Press, 1922), p. 474]

Ras Gugsa had a non-violent death and was buried at the church of Iyasus in Debre Tabor. [Richard P.K. Pankhurst, "History of Ethiopian Towns" (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982), p. 266.]

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