Cristovão da Gama
Encyclopedia
Cristóvão da Gama was a Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 soldier, who led a Portuguese army of 400 musketeers on a crusade in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 and Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

 (1541–1543) against the far larger Somali
Somali people
Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...

 Muslim army of Imam
Imam
An imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community. Similar to spiritual leaders, the imam is the one who leads Islamic worship services. More often, the community turns to the mosque imam if they have a religious question...

 Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi
Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi "the Conqueror" was an Imam and General of Adal who invaded Ethiopia and defeated several Ethiopian emperors, wreaking much damage on that kingdom...

 (also known as Ahmad Gragn) aided by the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. He (along with the allied Ethiopian army) was victorious against larger forces in four battles, but was killed in his last battle, after which he was captured and killed. Sir Richard Burton
Richard Francis Burton
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his...

, in his First Footsteps in East Africa, referred to him as "the most chivalrous soldier of a chivalrous age."

Early career

Cristóvão (or Christopher) da Gama was the son of Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...

 and younger brother of Estêvão da Gama. He first came to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 in 1532 with his brother, returned to Portugal in 1535, then joined Garcia de Noronha in sailing to Diu 6 April 1538. Many times in these travels he demonstrated a quick mind that saved his companions. In recognition of his usefulness, in 1541, his brother Estêvão, then Viceroy of India, gave him command of a ship in the fleet Estêvão led into the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

 against the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 naval base at Suez
Suez
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...

.

The Ethiopian campaign

Estêvão's raid came to nothing, and he returned to Massawa
Massawa
Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa Massawa, also known as Mitsiwa (Ge'ez ምጽዋዕ , formerly ባጽዕ is a city on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. An important port for many centuries, it was ruled by a succession of polities, including the Axumite Empire, the Umayyad Caliphate,...

 on May 22, 1541, to rejoin the ships he had left there. While at Massawa, he attempted to salvage something from this raid by dispatching an expeditionary force under Cristóvão to assist the beleaguered Emperor of Ethiopia
Emperor of Ethiopia
The Emperor of Ethiopia was the hereditary ruler of Ethiopia until the abolition of the monarchy in 1974. The Emperor was the head of state and head of government, with ultimate executive, judicial and legislative power in that country...

, Gelawdewos
Gelawdewos of Ethiopia
Gelawdewos was Emperor Gelawdewos (Ge'ez ገላውዴዎስ galāwdēwōs, modern gelāwdēwōs, "Claudius"; 1521/1522 - March 23, 1559) was Emperor Gelawdewos (Ge'ez ገላውዴዎስ galāwdēwōs, modern gelāwdēwōs, "Claudius"; 1521/1522 - March 23, 1559) was Emperor (throne name Asnaf Sagad I (Ge'ez አጽናፍ ሰገድ aṣnāf sagad,...

. Four hundred Portuguese men-at-arms were selected, seventy of whom were also skilled artisans or engineers, and 130 slaves for this expedition, equipped with about a thousand arquebus
Arquebus
The arquebus , or "hook tube", is an early muzzle-loaded firearm used in the 15th to 17th centuries. The word was originally modeled on the German hakenbüchse; this produced haquebute...

es, an equal number of pikes
Pike (weapon)
A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear used extensively by infantry both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a counter-measure against cavalry assaults. Unlike many similar weapons, the pike is not intended to be thrown. Pikes were used regularly in European warfare from the...

 and several bombard
Bombard (weapon)
A bombard is a large-caliber, muzzle-loading medieval cannon or mortar, used chiefly in sieges for throwing heavy stone balls. The name bombarde was first noted and sketched in a French historical text around 1380. The modern term bombardment derives from this.Bombards were usually used during...

s. João Bermudes, who had represented himself as the patriarch
Patriarch
Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

 of Ethiopia to the Portuguese, accompanied this expedition. An account of this campaign in the Ethiopian highlands
Ethiopian Highlands
The Ethiopian Highlands are a rugged mass of mountains in Ethiopia, Eritrea , and northern Somalia in the Horn of Africa...

 was later written by Miguel de Castanhoso, who accompanied Gama and was an eye-witness to almost everything he recorded. The men were landed at Massawa and Arqiqo, the next port south of Massawa, and began their trek inland to Debarwa
Debarwa
Debarwa is a market town with a population of about 25,000 in central Eritrea, about 25 kilometers south of the capital Asmara. It is the capital of the Debarwa district in the Debub administrative region...

, the capital of the Bahr negus, or Ethiopian viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...

 for the northern provinces.

The Portuguese reached Debarwa after a march of eleven days on 20 July, to learn that the rainy season (which Castanhoso, as well as the natives, referred to as "winter") made further travel impossible. Cristóvão would not allow his men to pass the months in idleness, employing them in constructing sledges for the bombards and in raiding nearby villages that had accepted Ahmed Gragn's rule. He also learned from the Bahr negus that Queen Sabla Wengel was camped nearby on top of a mountain that Ahmed had not been able to reduce by siege. (R.S. Whiteway identifies this mountain with Debre Damo
Debre Damo
Debre Damo is the name of a flat-topped mountain, or amba, and a 6th century monastery in northern Ethiopia. The mountain is a steeply rising plateau of trapezoidal shape, about 1000 by 400 meters in dimension. With a latitude and longitude of , it sits at an elevation of 2216 meters above sea level...

.) With one hundred men, he marched to the mountain, and invited Queen Sabla Wengel to join him; she did so, bringing her entourage of thirty men and fifty women, all of whom were received with careful ceremony.

Once the rains ended, the Portuguese continued south. After months of being slowed by their equipment, Da Gama decided to leave half of it in an arsenal on Debre Damo. His army passed the Church of St. Romanos around Christmas of 1541, and celebrated Epiphany
Epiphany (Christian)
Epiphany, or Theophany, meaning "vision of God",...

 in the province of Agame
Agame
The Agame is a former province in northern Ethiopia, now part of the Tigray Region. Its inhabitants include the Irob people, a region where tradition states the legendary Makeda was born and raised...

 (January 1542). Gama's first encounter with the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 troops was 2 February 1542 at the Battle of Bacente
Battle of Baçente
The Battle of Baçente was fought on February 2, 1542 when a Portuguese army under Cristóvão da Gama took a hillfort held by Muslim forces in northern Ethiopia...

, which Whiteway located on Amba Senayt in Haramat. The invaders had taken possession of a hill from which they made raids into the countryside. Although Queen Sabla Wengel advised Gama to march around this hill, advising him to wait until her son Emperor Gelawdewos could arrive from Shewa
Shewa
Shewa is a historical region of Ethiopia, formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire...

 and join him, he believed that failing to engage the invaders would make the natives distrust his troops, and that they would then stop bringing food and supplies. Fortunately, the engagement was an unquestioned success, and Gama's men took the hill despite superior enemy numbers, losing only eight men.

At the end of February, two Portuguese arrived from a ship anchored at Massawa, escorted by six people native to the area. Gama responded with a detachment of forty men to make contact, obtain supplies, and exchange news. This group failed to reach the ship before it sailed, and the only outcome was that these soldiers and their captain were absent for the next battle, which was against Ahmad Gragn himself.

As Queen Sable Wengel had feared, the events at Bacente alerted Ahmad Gragn that a hostile army had entered the area, and he marched north to confront it, meeting Gama at Jarte (which Pedro Paez
Pedro Páez
Pedro Páez Jaramillo was a Spanish Jesuit missionary in Ethiopia. Páez is considered by many experts on Ethiopia to be the most effective Catholic missionary in Ethiopia...

 identifies with Sahart, although Whiteway locates it in the Wajirat Mountains). The Imam made the first contact, sending a messenger to Gama to demand that the Portuguese force either leave Ethiopia, join Ahmad Gragn, or be destroyed. On the Imam's orders, the messenger produced the gift of a monk's habit, an expensive insult to Gama. Gama responded with his own messenger, who delivered "a few lines in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

", stating that he had come to Ethiopia "by order of the great Lion of the Sea" and on the "following day he [Ahmad Gragn] would see what the Portuguese were worth", and delivered Gama's own insulting gift: a pair of "small tweezers for the eyebrows, and a very large mirror -- making him out [to be] a woman."

Two battles followed these exchanges at Jarta, the first on 4 April and the next on 16 April. The first battle was a victory for the Portuguese, although Gama lost one of his captains: Ahmad Gragn was wounded, which forced his troops to retire to the far side of the plain. The Portuguese, finding their encampment on the battlefield becoming unbearable, moved across the plain next to the enemy camp, which led to the second battle. This time, the Muslim army was even more soundly defeated, and according to Castanhoso, "The victory would have been complete this day had we only [had] a hundred horses to finish it."

Ahmad Gragn was forced to retreat further south, where with fortune against him, the local population now openly defied him by refusing to provide him supplies or soldiers. Whiteway identifies the Imam's refuge as a village named Wajarat, while J. Spencer Trimingham places it in the Zobil mountains overlooking the Afar Depression
Afar Depression
The Afar Triangle is a geological depression that is caused by the Afar Triple Junction which is part of the Great Rift Valley. It overlaps Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia. The Afar Triangle includes the Danakil Depression and the lowest point in Africa, Lake Asal...

. Gama marched after him as far as Lake Ashangi, where on the advice of Queen Sable Wengel, he made camp on a hill in Wofla as the rainy season started.

At some point late in the rains, Gama was approached by a Jew (possibly one of the Beta Israel
Beta Israel
Beta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...

), who told him of a mountain stronghold that Ahmad Gragn's followers controlled weakly (identified by Whiteway as Amba Sel. It was also at this time that Gama was accurately informed about the Emperor Gelawdewos's true strength: the Ethiopian monarch was living as an outlaw in the south, with only sixty to seventy men in his army. However, the mountain was the major barrier between the two allies, and Gama also learned that the garrison had a large number of horses—a resource he had badly needed at the second battle of Jarta. Gama swiftly marched south with about a hundred men, and seized control
Battle of the Hill of the Jews
The Battle of the Hill of the Jews was a battle fought in Ethiopia in August of 1542 between the Portuguese forces of Cristóvão da Gama and the Somali Muslim followers of Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi...

 of the mountain.

Leaving thirty men behind to bring the horses, Gama led his victorious men back to Wofla, to find Ahmad Gragn in position to attack that next morning. Having successfully petitioned the governor of Zabid
Zabid
Zabid is a town with an urban population of around 23,000 persons on Yemen's western coastal plain. The town, named after Wadi Zabid, the wadi to its south, is one of the oldest towns in Yemen...

 in South Arabia, as well as offering "much money" and submission to the official, Gragn received 2900 musketeers (2000 from Arabia & 900 handpicked Ottomans), many more than Gama had. Despite their bravery, the Portuguese were heavily defeated 28 August at the Battle of Wofla
Battle of Wofla
The Battle of Wofla was fought on August 28, 1542 near Lake Ashenge in Wofla in the modern Ethiopian Region of Tigray , between the Portuguese under Cristóvão da Gama and the forces of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi...

, with only 170 surviving the assault (counting the thirty men escorting the horses from the Hill of the Jews). And Gama, his arm broken from a bullet, was captured that night with fourteen companions by a Somali patrol.

Gama's death and aftermath

Cristóvão da Gama was brought to Ahmad Gragn's camp, where the Imam produced the tweezers Gama had given him and began to pluck out his beard. There Gama was tortured in an attempt to force him to convert to Islam. Castanhoso's -- and Jerónimo Lobo
Jerónimo Lobo
Jerónimo Lobo was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.He was born in Lisbon the third of at least five sons and six daughters to Francisco Lobo da Gama, the Governor of Cape Verde, and Dona Maria Brandão de Vasconcelos. He entered the Order of Jesus at the age of 14...

's account after him—describe Gama's fortitude and death in language worthy of a hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...

, complete with miracles. In the end Ahmad Gragn chopped off Gama's head and tossed it into a nearby spring, whose waters Castanhoso reported gained a reputation for giving "health to the sick". Lobo elaborates upon this story, claiming that upon hearing of this miracle the Imam had a dead dog tossed into the spring and the spring covered with a cairn of stones; Lobo confirms this detail in describing the account of a party sent to retrieve Gama's remains and send them to his nephew, Vasco da Gama Conde da Vidigueira. (Lobo gives the impression that he accompanied this expedition, but a letter of Manuel de Almeida
Manuel de Almeida
Manuel de Almeida was a native of Viseu, who entered at an early age into the Society of Jesus, and went out as a missionary to India...

 states otherwise.)

Certain that the surviving Portuguese were scattered, without their firearms, and alone in a foreign land, Ahmad Gragn concluded that this threat was ended, dismissed all but two hundred of the foreign musketeers, and proceeded to his camp at Derasge on the shores of Lake Tana
Lake Tana
Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile and is the largest lake in Ethiopia...

. However, over 120 men had joined Queen Sabla Wengel, who had taken refuge at the Mountain of the Jews. Ten days later her son, Emperor Gelawdewos, arrived and they took measure of their situation. Using the arms stockpiled at Debre Damo, the Portuguese were able to rearm themselves; with the promise of their ability, Gelawdewos was able to raise a new army, which met Ahmad Gragn at Wayna Daga
Battle of Wayna Daga
The Battle of Wayna Daga occurred 21 February 1543 east of Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Led by the Emperor Galawdewos, the combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated the Muslim army led by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi. Tradition states that Ahmad was killed by a Portuguese musketeer,...

. The Portuguese musketeers aimed their fire only at the Muslim musketeers, who had played a decisive part at Wofla—and at Imam Ahmad himself. While the sources differ on the exact details, all agree that Ahmad Gragn was killed by the men of Cristóvão da Gama to avenge their commander's death.
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