Susenyos from Ethiopia — Wikipedia

Suenyos (born in 1572 and died in 1632) – in the Guèze language ሱስንዮስ ( Sussinyōs ) – was Negusse Negest of the Ethiopian Empire under the names of Seltan usually And Malak from 1604 to 1632.

He is the son of gram Fasil, a grandson of the king ( Negusäs ) LEBNA DENGEL (1508-40) known as the reign of Dawit II . He had to fight to access the throne in 1607. As a child, he fell into the hands of the Oromo, whose chief, before he was resumed, raised him like his own son. As a teenager, he escaped the usual fate of the princes candidates for the succession, locked up in the monastery-the fortress of Guéchén. He accompanied the sovereign Sarsa Dengel in his last expedition, and fled to the death of the latter when the big ones put on the throne Yaqob, still a child, considered more handy. He then took refuge with the monks of Godjam and Choa, then to the Oromo, who provide him with his first armies. Thanks to these allies, he gradually submits Choa and Bizamo, ransom Muslim governors, ensures Oualaqa, Merabiety and IFAT.

Meanwhile the young Yaqob hardly supports the tyranny of nobles and struggles with them. It is deposited and exiled under the pretexts of paganism and magic.

Za Dengel, intelligent and courageous, succeeds him. But as he inclines to Catholicism, Abuna Pétos exudes him, the greats chase him and, despite the support of the descending soldiers of the Portuguese, the emperor is left for dead without burial on the battlefield (1604).

On the death of Za Dengel, Susneyos has enough support among the big ones to receive the crown at Martula Maryam (December 1604). But other lords recall Yaqob. The most powerful ally of Yaqob, Za-Sellasié, is defeated and submits. Yaqob himself is defeated in Godjam. Susneyos immediately established his residence in Gubaé.

Susneyos was crowned in Aksoum in 1608. He was fighting against enemies from outside: he stopped the thrust of the Oromo and brought the assimilation of some of them. He fights the Agaw and represses the revolt of the Falacha Gédéon. He entered the war against the Muslim kingdom of the Foundj, in Sudan, where the road to the Sennar caravans passed, which joins the Nile. He sends as present in Baâdy, Sultan des Foundj, among other gifts, gold bracelets, emblem of vassalage. In return, Baâdy offers him two blind and lame old horses, which causes a series of punitive expeditions from the Negus.

In 1613, Susneyos was decided to hold the promise that he considers that his predecessors made to join the church of Rome during the Portuguese intervention of 1541. The Red Sea being impracticable, Father António Fernandes proposes to win By way of Mélinde land, at the Bouches du Zambeni, where the Portuguese have establishments, or four thousand kilometers. The expedition works to the limits of Kaffa, but must turn around after reaching the Guibié course ^{[ first ]} And visited the king of the Gingéro, perched on a kind of observatory from which he performs spells.

Despite the failure of the expedition, despite the opponents who try to excommunicate it publicly by the Abouna, Susneyos persists and begins by prohibiting the observation of the Sabbath. The greats of Ethiopia rally rally in number at the Catholic Church of the Jesuits who have made religion accessible by expressing it in the language of the people, which advance architecture and sacred painting. The political action of the last Coptic metropolitan and the relaxation of their customs, who oppose the rigor and the science of the Jesuits, ends to convince them ^{[ 2 ]} .

In 1621, Susneyos confessed to the Jesuit Father Pedro Páez, thus making a profession of Catholic faith. Then, the November 2nd , he proclaimed the Roman religion in Aksoum where the great butler reads the imperial edict in the presence of the great, many of which are already converted ^{[ 3 ]} .

The patriarch Afonso Mendes, appointed by the King of Portugal (under the principle of ‘Padroado’), imposes rigid and uncompromising measures which are immediately unpopular: re-baptism of Ethiopian Christians, re-conscription of churches whose arches (the arches ( Tabot traditional), are banished. He makes the traditional liturgy in the Ge’Ez language abandon without transition for mass in Latin that no one understands, and renounce the cult of the Ethiopian saints, which sometimes the remains are unearthed and thrown out of the sanctuaries. Terrible sanctions (cut tongue, stuck or hanging) strike those who rebel against the emperor, causing a general revolt in return. From 1621, Ras Sela-Christos, the most Catholic of the great, had to cut into pieces a rebellious crowd comprising a number of religious.

In 1632, the rebellion against the Roman religion imposed in 1621 became a civil war. Under the orders of Mélkas-Christos, an army, consisting mainly of mountain in Lasta, walks against the imperial troops, who first experience a failure. The soldiers are willing to save the Empire, but refuse to defend the foreign religion. Susneyos cede, and the imperial troops crush the twenty-five thousand rebels in Ouaïna-dega. The battle made eight thousand victims. Susneyos then abdicated in favor of his Fasiladas son the June 14, 1632 and restores national religion. He died the September 17 following.

• Paul B.Henze History of Ethiopia, the work of time Translation of Robert Wiren. Publisher: Moulin du Pont Paris (2004) (ISBN  2845865376 ) .
• Hubert Jules Deschamps, (under the direction). General History of Black Africa from Madagascar and its archipelagos To that I : Origins to 1800. p. 411-412 P.U.F Paris (1970);
• Jean Dresse, In the country of the Queen of Saba: Ethiopia, ancient and modern , A. Guillot, 1956 ( read online )

• Notes in generalist dictionaries or encyclopedias :

Ethiopia Susenyos
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