Susenyos became Emperor following the defeat of first Za Selasse, then on 10 March 1607
Yaqob at the
Battle of Gol in southern Gojjam. In 1608, a rebel appeared near
Debre Bizen. Because the body of Yaqob had never been found after the Battle of Gol, there had been some doubt that the previous Emperor was truly dead, and a
pretender announced that he was the dead Emperor Yaqob. The pretender managed to disguise the fact he did not resemble Yaqob by keeping part of his face covered, claiming that he had suffered grievous wounds to his teeth and face from the battle. With the Oromo threat dealt with, Susenyos now could turn his attention to Yaqob the pretender; he marched to
Axum by way of the
Lamalmo and
Waldebba, where he was formally crowned Emperor 18 March 1608, in a ceremony described by João Gabriel, the captain of the Portuguese in Ethiopia.
Badi I of Sennar, son of
Abd al-Qadir II and successor of Adlan I, however, outraged by the shelter given in
Chilga to his father by the Ethiopians, severed these ties, sending as an insult two lame horses and an army led by the Nail Weld Ageeb from
Atbara, to pillage the border areas. The hostilities between the two kingdoms increased when the governor of the
Mazaga, Aleko, who was a servant of Emperor Susenyos, fled to Sennar with a number of the Emperor's horses and kettledrums. Susenyos complained of this to Badi, who refused to reply; further insulting him. In 1615, Susenyos, this time allied with the Nail Weld Ageeb, on the
Sennar Sultanate borderlands. The emperor sent priests to renew the Orthodox Christianity of the province, though the missionaries seem to have become mired in doctrinal disputes, and their accomplishments were limited. Susenyos finally sent
Bahr Negus Gebre Mariam to attack Mandara, whose queen controlled a strategic caravan road from Suakin.
Catholicism Susenyos' reign is perhaps best known as the brief period in Ethiopian history when
Catholic Christianity became the official religion. Some Ethiopians consider the fact that the Emperor proclaimed the Catholic Church as the official state religion as against his title of defender of the faith, thus de facto forfeiting his title and making the proclamation illegitimate. By that reasoning, some Ethiopians see the Catholic Church as never formally having been recognized as a state religion. The Emperor became interested in Catholicism, in part due to
Pedro Páez's persuasion, but also in hope for military help from
Portugal and
Spain (in union at the time of Susenyos' reign). Some decades earlier, in 1541, Cristóvão da Gama had led a military expedition to save the Ethiopian emperor
Gelawdewos from the onslaught of
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, a Muslim
Imam who almost destroyed the existence of the Ethiopian state. Susenyos hoped to receive a new contingent of well-armed European soldiers, this time against the Oromo, who were ravaging his kingdom, and to help with the constant rebellions. Two letters of this diplomatic effort survive, which he entrusted to Páez to send to Europe: the one to the King of Portugal is dated 10 December 1607, while the other is to the Pope and dated 14 October of the same year; neither mention his conversion, but both ask for soldiers. He showed the
Jesuit missionaries his favor by a number of land grants, most importantly those at
Gorgora, located on a peninsula on the northern shore of
Lake Tana. In 1613, Susenyos sent a mission heading for
Madrid and
Rome, led by Jesuit priest
António Fernandes. The plan was to head south, in an attempt to reach
Malindi, a port on the
Indian Ocean in what is
Kenya today, hoping to break through the effective
blockade that the
Ottoman conquests had created around the Ethiopian Empire by sailing all the way around the southern tip of Africa. However, they failed to reach Malindi, due to delays caused by local Christians hostile to the mission. In addition to the strategic logic behind Susenyos's conversion, some historians point out that the Oromo crisis had undermined the legitimacy of the traditional Ethiopian social order based on feudalism and religious orthodoxy. The monk
Bahrey, who wrote a treatise on the Oromo in 1593, attributed their success to the failures of feudalism which had produced too many privileged classes and not enough warriors. Susenyos in his court showed a willingness to break with social as well as tradition. Critics claimed he debased the imperial mystique after abandoning practices such as remaining behind a curtain to protect the emperor from the gaze of commoners and requiring his subjects to prostrate themselves before him. He withdrew privileges given to the sons of nobility and favored Jesuit-educated boys from outlying regions. Susenyos at last publicly converted to Catholicism in 1622, and separated himself from all of his wives and concubines except for his first wife, Wäld Śäʿala. However, the tolerant and sensitive
Pedro Páez died soon afterwards, and he was replaced by
Afonso Mendes, who arrived at
Massawa on 24 January 1624. E. A. Wallis Budge has stated the commonly accepted opinion of this man, as being "rigid, uncompromising, narrow-minded, and intolerant. Strife and rebellions over the enforced changes began within days of Mendes' public ceremony in 1626, where he proclaimed the primacy of Rome and condemned local practices which included
Saturday Sabbath and frequent fasts. Yet a number of Ethiopians did embrace Catholicism:
Richard Pankhurst reports 100,000 inhabitants of Dembiya and Wegera alone are said to have converted. The most serious response was launched by a triumvirate composed of his half-brother
Yimena Krestos, a eunuch named Kefla Wahad, and his brother-in-law Julius. Susenyos avoided their first attempt to assassinate him at court, but while he was campaigning against
Sennar they raised a revolt, calling to their side "all those who were friends to the Alexandrian faith". However, Susenyos had returned to
Dembiya before the rebels expected, and quickly killed Julius. Yimena Krestos held out a while longer on
Melka Amba in Gojjam, before Af Krestos captured him and brought him to
Dankaz where Susenyos had his camp; here the Emperor's brother was tried and sentenced to banishment. More revolts followed, some led by champions of the traditional
Ethiopian Church. One revolt which resisted all of Susenyos' efforts to put down was by the
Agaw in
Lasta. Their first leader was
Melka Krestos, a distant member of the Solomonic dynasty, whom the Agaw had sued to be their leader. Susenyos' first campaign against them, which began in February 1629 with raising an army of 30,000 men in Gojjam, was defeated and his son-in-law
Gebre Krestos slain. While Melka Krestos' master of horse was slain along with 4000 men not long after while pillaging
Semien Gonder, at the same time the men of Lasta made a successful raid out of their mountains into Susenyos' territory. When he attempted a second expedition against the rebels in Lasta, Susenyos found his men's morale so low that he was forced to allow them to observe one of the traditional Wednesday fasts—which brought an immediate reproach from the Catholic Patriarch. Although Susenyos eloquently defended himself, Bruce notes that "from this time, it plainly appears, that Socinios began to entertain ideas, at least of the church discipline and government, very opposite to those he had when he first embraced the Romish religion." Despite this concession to his troops, and despite the fact they reached Melka Krestos' headquarters, his forces fell to an ambush and Susenyos was forced to return to Dankaz with nothing to show for his effort. Susenyos attempted one more campaign against the rebels, only to find his men mutinous. They saw no end to unrewarding expeditions to Lasta, and when at home confronted by the executions used to enforce Catholicism on Ethiopia. While expressing some skepticism at the matter, Bruce states the
Royal Chronicle reports his son told the troops that if they were victorious in Lasta, the Emperor would restore the traditional Ethiopian practices. However, as they marched behind Susenyos to Lasta, his scouts reported that Melka Krestos had descended from Lasta with 25,000 men, and were at hand. On 26 July 1631 the armies clashed; 8,000 of the rebels were dead and Melka Krestos had fled the field. Upon viewing the field of battle, Susenyos' son
Fasilides is reported to have said, These men, whom you see slaughtered on the ground, were neither Pagans nor Mahometans, at whose death we should rejoice—they were Christians, lately your subjects and your countrymen, some of them your relations. This is not victory, which is gained over ourselves. In killing these, you drive the sword into your own entrails. How many men have you slaughtered? How many more have you to kill? We have become a proverb, even among the Pagans and Moors, for carrying on this war, and apostatizing, as they say, from the faith of our ancestors. Less than a year afterwards, on 14 June 1632 Susenyos made a declaration that those who would follow the Catholic faith were allowed to do so, but no one would be forced to do so any further. At this point, all Patriarch Mendes could do in response was to confirm that this was, indeed, the actual will of the Emperor, his protector. Catholic Ethiopia had come to an end. == Succession ==