Tewodros II

Kassa Hailu was born around 1818 in Qwara, Dembiya. A brilliant shifta guerrilla commander, he defeated regional warlords in rapid succession, crowning himself Emperor Tewodros II in 1855, thereby terminating the century-long fragmentation known as the Zemene Mesafint.

Tewodros was a passionate modernizer who sought to eradicate feudal corruption, build an indigenous arms foundry at Gafat, and construct the colossal mortar cannon Sebastopol. When Queen Victoria ignored his diplomatic correspondence, diplomatic disputes escalated, culminating in the 1868 British punitive expedition led by Sir Robert Napier. As British troops breached the fortress walls of Magdala on Easter Monday, April 13, 1868, Tewodros shot himself with a pistol gifted by Queen Victoria, dying a martyr to Ethiopian sovereignty.