Gugsa of Yejju

Who was Gugsa of Yejju?

Gugsa of Yejju was a Ras of Begemder, and Inderase of the Emperor of Ethiopia. According to Nathaniel Pearce, he took the Christian name of Wolde Mikael. 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.

He married one daughter to Dejazmach Meru of Dembiya, and his other daughter Hirut to Dejazmach Haile Maryam.

When Gugsa became Ras of Begemder, as mentioned in the contemporary Royal Chronicle and later in Gabra Sellase's chronicle of Menelik's reign, he made his capital at a place called Lebo, a mountainous district some 60 kilometers south-east of Gondar. Upon becoming Regent, Ras Gugsa reasserted the central power of the Empire 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."