Dawit II of Ethiopia

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Contemporary Portuguese portrait of the Emperor

Dawit II or David II (Ge'ez ዳዊት dāwīt), enthroned as Emperor Anbasa Segad (Ge'ez አንበሳ ሰገድ, anbassā sagad, Amh. ānbessā seged, 'to whom lions bow'), better known by his birth name Lebna Dengel (Ge'ez ልብነ ድንግል libna dingil 1501 - September 2, 1540) was nəgusä nägäst (1508 - 1540) of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty. He was the son of Emperor Na'od and Queen Na'od Mogasa.

[edit] Early reign

Although she was well into her seventies, the Queen Mother Eleni stepped in to act as her step-great-grandson's regent until 1516, when he came of age. During this time, she was aware that the neighboring Muslim states were benefitting from the assistance of other, larger Muslim countries like the Ottoman Empire. Eleni sought to neutralize this advantage by dispatching the Armenian Mateus to Portugal to ask for assistance. However, the Portuguese response did not arrive in Ethiopia until much later, when an embassy led by Dom Rodrigo de Lima arrived at Massawa on April 9, 1520. Transversing the Ethiopian highlands, they did not reach Dawit's camp until October 19 of that year. Francisco Alvarez provides us a description of the Emperor:

In age, complexion, and stature, he is a young man, not very black. His complexion might be chestnut or bay, not very dark in colour; he is very much a man of breeding, of middling stature; they said that he was twenty-three years of age, and he looks like that, his face is round, the eyes large, the nose high in the middle, and his beard is beginning to grow. In presence and state he fully looks like the great lord that he is.¹

Dawit had ambushed and killed Emir Mahfuz of Harar in 1517; about the same time a Portuguese fleet attacked Zeila, a Muslim stronghold, and burned it. In 1523, Dawit campaigned amongst the Gurage near Lake Zway. Contemporaries concluded that the Muslim threat to Ethiopia was finally over, so when the diplomatic mission from Portugal arrived at last, Dawit denied that Mateus had the authority to negotiate treaties, ignoring Eleni's counsels. After a stay of six years, the Portuguese at last set sail and left a governing class who thought they were securely in control of the situation. As Paul B. Henze notes, "They were mistaken."²

[edit] The invasion of Ahmad Gragn

With the death of Sultan Abu Bakr in 1520, a young Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi consolidated his hold on the Adal Sultanate, and undertook a campaign to extinguish the Empire of Ethiopia. Ahmad attacked in 1528, and inflicted a severe defeat on Lebna Dengel on either March 7 or March 9, 1529 at the Battle of Shimbra Kure; Ahmad attacked again in 1531, and sharply defeated Lebna Dengel at the Battle of Amba Sel, where he was almost captured, a reversal, in the words of R.S. Whiteway, that left Lebna Dengel "never in a position to offer a pitched battle to his enemies."³ In the campaign that followed, Ahmad's followers destroyed churches, monasteries, and converted Christians at the point of spear. In April 1533, Ahmad once again assembled his troops at Dabra Berhan to conquer -- or at least ravage -- the northern regions of Tigray, Begemder, and Gojjam.

Both Ethiopia and Dawit suffered heavily from these assaults. Dawit's eldest son Fiqtor was killed at Zara in Wag by a lieutenant of Ahmad on April 7, 1537; another son, Menas, was captured on May 19, 1539, and later sent to Yemen. The royal compound at Amba Geshen was captured in January, 1540, the royal prisoners interred there were slaughtered with their guards, and the royal treasury looted. Later that same year, Dawit was killed in battle near Debre Damo on September 2. The Ethiopian historian Taddesse Tamrat writes, "The Muslim occupation of the Christian highlands under Ahmad Gragn lasted for little more than ten years, between 1531 and 1543. But the amount of destruction brought about in these years can only be estimated in terms of centuries."⁴

One of his younger sons, Yaqob, is said to have stayed behind to hide in the province of Manz in Shewa. Yaqob's grandson Susenyos defeated his various second cousins in 1604 to become Emperor and started the so-called Gondar line of the Solomonic dynasty.

[edit] References

Francisco Alvarez, The Prester John of the Indies translated by C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1961), p. 304. Alvarez's book is an important account not only of the Portuguese mission to Ethiopia, but for Ethiopia at the time.
Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time, A History of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 85.
R.S. Whiteway, The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543, 1902 (Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Limited, 1967), p. xxxvi.
Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (1270 - 1527) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 301.