Yohannes II (Ge'ez: ዳግማዊ ዮሐንስ; 1699 – 18 October 1769) was Emperor of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty.
There are two versions of his reign and life: one that follows the history provided by James Bruce in his Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, the other based on other contemporary records as assembled by Shiferaw Bekele in a 2002 article.
[2] However, in his edition of Bruce's work Alexander Murray replaced Bruce's words with a summary of the Royal Chronicle, which records Yohannes had lost his hand for escaping from Wehni prior to this event, and instead, along with the other royal prisoners of Wehni, had refused to descend and be made Emperor.
"Hence," Shiferaw concludes, "Bruce was very close to accuracy (as much as one could be in these things) when he estimated his age at the time of enthronement to be 'past seventy years'.
Most importantly is that the Royal Chronicle of Bakaffa's reign lacks any mention of such an act, which "is not bashful about the people the king mercilessly slaughtered let alone those he amputated.
"[8] There are two near-contemporary sources that contradict Bruce's account of Yohannes' reign: a contemporary chronicle that has escaped notice of historians,[9] and the researches of Henry Salt.
It also provides the detail that Ras Mikael and Yohannes murdered the young Iyoas together and secretly buried him the night of 10/11 May.