Ras Makonnen Welde Mikael

Ras Makonnen Welde Mikael was born on the eighth of May 1852 at Derefo Maryam, near Ankober, in the province of Menz (Manz) within the Shewa highlands of Ethiopia. He was the son of Dejazmach Welde Mikael Welde Melekot, a lord of Menz and Doba of the Shewan Solomonic line, and through his mother, Woizero Tenagnework, he was a grandson of Sahle Selassie of Shewa and a cousin of the future Emperor Menelik II.

He entered Menelik's service early and rose steadily through the ranks — Balambaras in 1876, and elevated to Ras by 1890 — becoming the emperor's most trusted and loyal lieutenant. In 1887, after Harar was incorporated into the Ethiopian Empire, Makonnen was appointed its governor, a post he held until his death. From Harar he oversaw the empire's administration and its expansion toward the Somali lands and the Ogaden.

Makonnen won his greatest renown as one of the leading commanders in the First Italo-Ethiopian War. In December 1895 he helped crush an Italian detachment at Amba Alagi, and at the Battle of Adwa on the first of March 1896 his forces mauled Albertone's brigade on the slopes and pressed the assault that shattered the Italian army — a victory that secured Ethiopia's independence against European conquest.

In 1892 his son Tafari Makonnen was born; that child would one day reign as Emperor Haile Selassie I. Makonnen died of typhus on the twenty-first of March 1906 at Kulubi, in Hararghe, having given his son a final blessing. A statesman, soldier, and faithful servant of his nation, Ras Makonnen is remembered with abiding honor as a pillar of Ethiopian history.