Ras Makonnen Wolde Mikael Wolde Melekot, known simply as Ras Makonnen, was an Ethiopian military commander, provincial governor and diplomat, and the father of the future Emperor Haile Selassie. Through his mother, a daughter of Negus Sahle Selassie of Shewa, he was a first cousin of Emperor Menelik II, at whose court he was raised from the age of fourteen. He rose through a series of campaigns in the 1870s and 1880s to become, in January 1887, governor of Harar, a post he held until his death, and the Russian poet and traveller Nikolai Gumilev later called him one of the greatest leaders of Abyssinia.
- Occupation
- politician
- Citizenship
- Ethiopian Empire
- Born
- May 8, 1852
- Died
