Goshu Zewde

Goshu Zewde of Gojjam (1783 or 1788-1852) was the governor of Damot, Metcha and Ybaba, the most of Gojjam was, indeed, under the government of his son Birru Goshu.

He was elevated to the personal titles of Dejazmatch in 1825 and Ras by Emperor Sahle Dengal in 1848.

Goshu Zewde belonged through his mother to the imperial family; his father, the Dejazmach Zewde, Governor of Gojjam, Damot, Agew Medir, Metcha and Ybaba, had died captive of Ras Gugsa, against which he had fought for several years for his independence. The Dejazmach Goshu, although reduced to the government of Damot, Metcha and Ybaba, was still formidable. Princes, churchmen and farmers all held him in high esteem, as much for his high birth as for the goodness of his character.

Ethiopian warriors during the Zemene Mesafint

Lik Atskoum, a scholarly high dignitary who was one of the four great imperial judges of Ethiopia, describes Goshu as a great ruler:[1]

"This prince is an honest Christian, intelligent, generous. Imagine that you have seen only bandits up to now; you will see in him a real prince. This house of Gugsa is a cave of usurpers, of renegades; that of Goshu Zewde is built on tradition, law, justice."

The French explorer Arnaud d'Abbadie, who was a close friend of the Goshu described it thus:[2]

"Dejazmach Goshu, about fifty years old, was tall and handsome, fat without obesity; but her lower body seemed slender compared to her powerful bust. He had beautiful attachments and a hand of feminine elegance, a coppery complexion, a voluminous head, gracefully leaning on a long neck and of a beauty of silhouette rare in a man, a broad, high and domed forehead, temples delicately drawn, a small nose with movable wings and large protruding eyes. A light down shaded his upper lip; his teeth were small, pearly, and his chin short, thin, padded; his cheeks flat, wide and beardless.

His reserved gaze hinted at a certain complacency. Although his intelligent face was veiled with that impassiveness which befits the exercise of a high power, one discovered in him a great kindness, timid rather than active, perspicacity, playfulness, indeterminacy joined to stubbornness, the spirit of adventure, intrepidity and that melancholy doubt which often overwhelms those responsible for events and people.

Her toga, carefully draped, showed three long necklaces composed of periapts or talismans covered with red morocco or vermeil, intertwined with grains of coral, amber or rare pearls. He wore on his little finger a gold ring, formed of three intertwined rings, each adorned with an emerald; this old jewel, of beautiful craftsmanship, comes from India. A long gold pin, ending in a filigreed ball, had passed through his black hair, bushy, wavy and brought back in a corymb; on his ankles he wore periscelides composed of small threaded gold cones.."

Dejazmach Goshu was a governor subservient to Ras Ali, he actively participated in many battles during the "Zemene Mesafint". However, he found death during The Battle of Gur Amba against the troops of Kassa Hailu future Tewodros II.