Foreign Relations of Ethiopia 1642-1700

Review
Reviewed Work(s): Foreign Relations of Ethiopia 1642 = 1700. Documents Relating to the
Journey of Khodja Murad. (Vol. XLVI) by E. van Donzel
Review by: Merid Wolde Aregay
Source: Journal of Ethiopian Studies , November 1984, Vol. 17 (November 1984), pp. 175-
177
Published by: Institute of Ethiopian Studies
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41965921
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REVIEW
E. van Donzel. Foreign Relations of Et

ments Relating to the Journey
(Publication of the Nederlands Historisch =
Archaelogisch Instituut te Istambul, Vol. XLVI,)
Leiden, 1979. Pp. XIII =305, 11 plates and 2
maps. £ 16.15.
All serious Ethiopicists have learnt much from E.van Donzel's

meticulous translation and editing of Anqäsä Amin. His scholarly
introduction and notes to this sixteenth century polemic against
Islam have instructed and enlightened many of us with limited
access to Islamic literature. In his recent book E.Van Donzel has
brought together some known and many hitherto unknown docu-
ments on Ethiopia's economic relations with India and the Dutch
East Indies. These documents are translated and annotated with
the author's usual scholarly care and conscientiousness. Even if
Foreign Relations of Ethiopia 1642-1700 does not succeed in clearly
filling in any of the many gaps that exist in our understanding of
sevententh century Ethiopia it throws some light on the concern
which Fasilädäs and his immediate successors had for interna-
tional trade.
The documents do not really refute the general belief that

Fasilädäs' courting in the early years of his reign of his Muslim
neighbours was his fear of an armed intervention by the Portuguese
for the restoration of Catholicism. On the contrary Murad's repeated
warnings against any venture into Ethiopia by any European rein-
forces this belief. But E.van Donzel is probably right in assuming
that the missions to Yemen were connected with developing Baylul
into an alternative port to Massawa. Susenyos seems to have had
more or less the same thing in mind when instructing the patriarch
Alfonso Mendes to use Baylul when coming to Ethiopia in 1625.
What is curious is that Fasilädäs does not seem to have realized
that the hardships on the route to that port were such that if could
never have supplanted Massawa.
As the author regretfully realized Murad, in spite of the many

years he had lived in Ethiopia, was abysmally ignorant of things
Ethiopian. He did not know the names of Iyasu's sons though
they were not living at Amba Wähni. He did not know the year of
the Ethiopian calendar. His information on Iyasu's revenues is very
doubtful. There could not have been two tolls at Adwa and Maygoga,
and definitely he was getting nothing out of Ifat. His geography
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of Ethiopia is all wrong. What he says of Azella and Compella is
incomprehensible. But here and there in the reports of Michael,
Murad and Yohannes there are the titbits that will be so useful
to the specialist of the period.
Fasilädäs' repeated request for cuirasses is quite significan

The cavalry was still the elite of the Ethiopian army. The gift
200 flints for flintlocks shows not only the continued superiorit
of the horse over infantry but also why the flintlock never reall
displaced the more clumsy matchlock. For once we have an id
of the size and build of an emperor, that of Iyasu I. What Mur
has to say of the mild character of Iyasu 's father, Yohannes, and
his assiduity in justice probably explains why the emperor is trad
tionally known as Yohannes the Just. More interesting, howev
is the fact that already towards the end of the seventeenth centur
Ethiopian coffee was beginning to attract the attention of Eur
pean traders. Had Murad been a merchant trading on his own
count and not a passive agent of kings selling Ethiopian slaves
the markets of the Middle East, he might have known whether t
coffee exported through Zayla came from the neighbourhood
Harar or from Enarya.
Murad's ignorance of political and economic affairs demon

trates the consistently poor choice of envoys by Ethiopian rulers
Sixteenth century intellectuals like Damião de Góis could lear
nothing new or accurate from the Armenian Matthew or fro
Säga-ze'ab. Yet, Alvarez, a simple chaplain of the protuguese m
sion of 1620, wrote a book of perennial interest after a stay of on
six years in Ethiopia.
The interrogators were partly responsible for the confuse

reports they obtained from the envoys. Firstly they asked too ma
questions on religion, questions always difficult even for very learn
clerics. Secondly they demanded confirmation of informatio
mostly incorrect, that they had accumulated from casual reading
Many of the place names that E.van Donzel has vainly racked
brains in order to identify were supplied not by Murad hims
but by his interrogators. The passage (p.48) added to the letter w
taken from some work based on Alvarez. The title was that used
by Lebnä Dengel. But somewhere, somehow, serious spelling mis-
takes had crept in, Alvarez's Xoa had become Noa, Angote-Angala,
Baruu- Baeim, Goyame- Gur Ajanoe. The Amazons of classical
times who, through the legend of the Prester John, had found their
way to Alvarez and become a "Manguiste das Suetes" (kingdom
of women) with João de Barros, reappeared as "Maouiste das
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Sguetas", to confound Murad and puzzle E. van Donzel. Murad's
interrogator de Roo had also read something on West Africa (or
had one of those third rate maps of Africa) and he had not hesita-
ted to show off in his reports. The author made only one serious
mistake, chava meant royal regiments not Shäwa (p. 18, also fn.
72, p. 206). Also, the reviewer is of the impression that peter Hey-
ling did not live up to the time of Iyasu I (fn. 77, p. 216). He came to
Ethiopia in 1635 or thereabouts and died some twelve years later,
according to Jesuit reports, or in 1 652 according to Ludolf 's Ethio-
pian informant.
Merid Wolde Aregay
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Review

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41965921

This content downloaded from

E. van Donzel. Foreign Relations of Et

All serious Ethiopicists have learnt much from E.van Donzel's

The documents do not really refute the general belief that

As the author regretfully realized Murad, in spite of the many

This content downloaded from

Fasilädäs' repeated request for cuirasses is quite significan

Murad's ignorance of political and economic affairs demon

The interrogators were partly responsible for the confuse

This content downloaded from

Merid Wolde Aregay

This content downloaded from

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