Empress Tewabech Ali

Tewabech Ali was born about 1830 at the Yejju Oromo court at Debre Tabor in the Begemder province, the daughter of Ras Ali II of Yejju — the principal Yejju regent of the imperial Gondarine throne of the late Zemene Mesafint — and Woizero Hirut Welde Selassie of the Begemder Solomonic line. She was raised at the imperial Gondarine court of her father.

She received the classical Ge'ez and Amharic literary education of the daughters of the Yejju-Begemder nobility at the imperial Gondarine court — under the monastic clergy of the Mahdere Maryam monastery near Lake Tana.

She was married to the future Emperor Tewodros II — Kassa Hailegiorgis of Quara — in February 1847 at Debre Tabor at the conclusion of the principal Yejju-Quara political settlement of the Zemene Mesafint period — at the time of the consolidation of Kassa's authority over the principal Quara-Dembiya district.

She followed Kassa across the principal campaigns of the late Zemene Mesafint period — including the principal Kassa-Yejju and Kassa-Gojjami campaigns of 1853 and 1854. She was the principal political adviser to Kassa across the consolidation of the imperial authority of the period.

She was crowned Empress consort at the imperial coronation of Kassa as Tewodros II on the seventh of February 1855 at the Church of Saint Mary at Derasge — at the principal Solomonic imperial coronation of the consolidation of the modern Ethiopian state — and held the title of Empress consort from that date until her death.

She consolidated the Yejju-Quara-and-Begemder political settlement of the early Tewodrosian imperial state — and held the principal Tewodrosian household at the imperial camps of the period.

She died at Debre Tabor on the twenty-first of August 1858 of complications of a long illness, at approximately twenty-eight.

She is honored here as the principal Empress consort of the consolidation of the modern Ethiopian state.