Mentewab

Mentewab, baptised Walatta Giyorgis, was born around 1706 in an obscure district of Qwara, in the northwest of Ethiopia. According to a well-known story told by the Scottish traveller James Bruce, she met Emperor Bakaffa when he fell ill while travelling in disguise and was cared for in her family home. She married him on 6 September 1722 and became his second wife and empress.

She gave birth to the future emperor Iyasu II in 1723. Mentewab built her own independent base of power in the palace of Gondar, then the capital, and was given the honorific Berhan Mogassa, Glory of Grace. When Bakaffa died on 19 September 1730 she moved quickly to secure the succession of her infant son, and on 23 December 1730 was crowned empress and co-ruler, a role which she held, with unprecedented power over government, throughout his reign.

Her rule was marked by shrewd alliances. She married Iyasu to the daughter of a leading Oromo chief from Wollo, opening a new era in which Oromo nobles became influential at court, and she married her daughters into the family of Mikael Sehul, a rising lord in Tigray. She also built. Empress Mentewab's Castle in the royal compound of Gondar is a part of the UNESCO-listed Fasil Ghebbi, and she built a church and palace complex at Qusquam, on a mountain overlooking the city, to which she retired in 1750.

When Iyasu II died in 1755 she established a regency for her grandson Iyoas I, but she lost influence to his mother's family. Ras Mikael Sehul, who she had helped to power, became the most powerful man in Ethiopia, deposed Iyoas on 7 May 1769 and had him killed a week later, a murder that appalled Mentewab. Critics blame her nepotism for weakening the empire, and historians still debate how much of the later chaos should be laid at her door.

Mentewab opposed Mikael, and in 1770 fled to Gojjam, returning to Gondar in 1771. She died there on 27 June 1773, and is remembered as one of the most powerful women in Ethiopian history. Her castle and the church at Qusquam still stand, a reminder of the Gondarine age.