Taytu Betul

Today on “black women vs colonialism”: Taytu Betul (aka Wälättä Mikael; c.1851 – 1918), Empress of Ethiopia from 1889 to 1913!

Taytu (sometimes spelt Taitu) Betul was born in Debre Tabor, Ethiopia around 1851. Taytu was the third of five children – an unusual family size in a time and place with extremely high infant mortality. At the tragically young age of only 10 years old, she was married to her first husband, an officer of Emperor Tewedros.

There is no record that Empress Taytu attended school; however, she was taught to read and write in Amharic, which was rare for a time when few women were educated. She also received instruction in diplomacy, politics and economics, preparing her for a life of political aptitude. She could also understand Ge'ez, a language once exclusive to the Ethiopian Orthodox liturgy. She was also known to play the play the begena (a 10-string instrument), and had a keen interest in playing chess and writing poetry.

Historically, her family is claimed to have a ruling foothold in the Northern region of the country, dating back to 1607–32, descending from the daughter of Emperor Susneyos. Her great-grandfather, Ras Gebre of Semen, ruled Semen for 44 years, a period known as Zemene Mesafint, or the "Era of the Princes". He was renowned for making his communities pay taxes in gold, as well as treating his subjects so well – providing an ample amount of food and drink so that they no longer needed to farm to sustain themselves. Her grandfather, Dejazmach Hayle Maryam, also held a respected title. Many of her other ancestors wielded prominent and powerful positions.

Taytu grew up keenly aware that marriage could provide an intelligent woman with a road to power, however narrow.

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In 1883, after four marriages, one of which left her with a favourable divorce settlement, Taytu Betul married the rising Menelik, King of Shoa. She had intelligently perceived the gradual, historic shift in economic and political power from north to south, as Shoa’s expansion throughout southern Ethiopia, initiated in the 1840s under Sahle Selassie and pursued under Menelik, opened up key avenues for trade, and booty. Between them, Menelik II and Taytu Betul personally owned 70,000 enslaved humans – a sad remember that Africans themselves played a prominent part in the slave trade too.

Taytu is acknowledged to have wielded considerable political power, both before and after she and Menelik were crowned Emperor and Empress in 1889. She led the conservative faction at court that resisted the modernists and progressives who wanted to develop Ethiopia along western lines and bring modernity to the country. Taytu had displayed her leadership craft as early as 1886. During one of her husband’s military campaigns in Harar, many soldiers had deserted the army and returned home expecting refuge. Feigning joy, Taytu had secretly prepared for them a deceptive welcome to punish their cowardice. The unsuspecting deserters rushed straight into the trap and were immediately chained, or put in stocks. A fearful precedent had been set.
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In December 1889, Taytu’s brother, Ras Wele, accompanied the newly crowned emperor, Menelik II, to Tigray to assert the new emperor’s authority. His rival, Zegeye, took advantage of his absence to usurp his governorship. When Emperss Taytu learned of the danger to her authority, she adroitly drew on her family’s distinguished history in the region to persuade the local people to reject Zegeye, and swiftly had his key allies arrested. Over the next decade, Empress Taytu would seek to increase her personal influence, eliminating potential threats through a cunning combination of marriage alliances and patronage. By 1900, one observer grandly remarked that she held over half of Ethiopia under her sway.

Her husband always consulted her before making important decisions, such as the signing of the Treaty of Wuchale with Italy. Menelik was unaware that Article 17 of the Italian version of the treaty obliged Ethiopia to go through the Italian government in all of its foreign policy dealings, a deliberate distortion of the Amharic version, which simply allowed for the option of seeking Italian diplomatic support. Thus, what was presented as a treaty of peace and friendship was in fact a deliberate attempt by the Italian government to dupe Ethiopia into becoming an Italian protectorate. When an outraged court discovered this latest act of treachery, Taytu took on a lead role. Resolutely rejecting the honeyed words of Italian diplomacy, she insisted that Ethiopia had her own dignity to defend, and that only a full abrogation (cancellation) of the Treaty of Wuchale would be acceptable.

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Menelik, who often dithered and procrastinated unpleasant decisions by answering "Yes, tomorrow" (Ishi, nega), his wife was a welcome voice of authority who did not hesitate to say "Absolutely not" (Imbi) to people he did not want to personally refuse.

When talks eventually broke down, and Italy invaded the Empire from its Eritrean colony, Taytu marched north with the Emperor and the Imperial Army. Enjoying unprecedented unity among the ruling elite and vital popular support from the peasantry who provided food, the Ethiopian army swelled during the march, reaching up to 100,000 soldiers.

Ethiopian troops had their first taste of victory at the Battle of Amba Alage. Taytu immediately saw that the Ethiopians would lose countless lives in staging a frontal attack, despite their superior numbers. However, she astutely ordered a plan to cut off the Italians’ water supply, thereby transforming their fort into a prison. The parched Italians were thus forced to surrender after a short siege.

The main battle, however, took place at Adwa on 1 March 1896. Throughout the battle, Empress Taytu instructed the 10,000–12,000 women in the camp to fill jugs of water to reinvigorate tiring soldiers, and tirelessly urged the soldiers to fight to the last. She rode at the head of her own army of 5000 infantry and 600 cavalrymen.

By midday, the Italians had been resolutely defeated, leaving Ethiopia as the only African country to successfully defend its sovereignty at the height of European imperialism

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In the final decade of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth, Ethiopia underwent a process of modernization under Taytu’s reign. The new capital of Addis Ababa, founded at Taytu Betul’s behest in 1886, quickly became a stable centre of economic and political activity, attracting commercial interest and technical expertise. Gradual improvements in transport – macadamized roads, stone bridges and, above all, the railway line between Djibouti and Dire Dawa led to the expansion of trade, and greater variety in imports. Communication was improved by the rail-based telegraph-telephone system linking Addis Ababa to Djibouti, opening up business contacts with the rest of the world. The first national currency, postal system, hospital and newspaper publications also emerged in this period.

Empress Taytu also turned her eyes beyond Ethiopia’s immediate borders. An Ethiopian Orthodox Christian community had long resided in Jerusalem, living in difficult conditions in the roof-monasteries of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre since the sixteenth century. Building on the important legacy of Emperor Yohannes IV, the Empress made sure that they received enough money to live in dignity, and commissioned comfortable housing outside the old walls of the city, which exists even today.

She was also responsible for funding the completion of the dome of the impressive church, Debre Genet.
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When Menelik's health began to decline around 1906, Taytu began to make decisions on his behalf. Despite her military and economic successes, however, she was not popular. She was viewed as nepotistic and overly ambitious. She was also widely resented for her alleged xenophobia. Thus, she was forced from power in 1910 and instructed to limit herself to the care of her stricken husband. Resuming a woman’s place as a meek caretaker of her husband,  Taytu faded from the political scene. Menelik died in 1913 and was succeeded by his grandson from a daughter of a previous liaison, Lij Iyasu (he and Taytu had no children). Taytu was banished to the old Palace at Entoto, next to the St. Mary's church she had founded years before, and where her husband had been crowned Emperor.

While some believe Taytu may have played a part in the plot that eventually removed Emperor Iyasu V from the throne in 1916, replacing him with Empress Zauditu, the price for Zauditu's elevation was a divorce from Taytu's nephew Ras Gugsa Welle, who became governor of Begemder. Zauditu, Menelik II's daughter by yet another previous marriage, had always been close to Empress Taytu and invited Taytu to live with her. Although Taytu declined, she resumed advising rulers "in a modest way."

Compelled to remain in the palace until her ailing husband finally died in 1913, she then retired to the mountains of Entoto, where she passed away in 1918. However, her legacy lived on…