// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Medri Bahri sea? A shore thing.

Medri Bahri ምድሪ ባሕሪ
12th century – 1890
Medri Bahri (Hamasen, Seraye, Bur, Bogos) within the Ethiopian Empire on the eve of the wars of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. The Mereb River marked its southern boundary with Tigray.
Status	Province of the Ethiopian Empire
Capital	Debarwa Sa'azzaga Addi Taolay Asmara (from 1866)
Common languages	Tigrinya, Ge'ez
Religion	Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
Government	Hereditary/Appointed Governorship
Bahr Negash
• Early 12th century	Unnamed (first attested)
• fl. late 19th – early 20th c.	Abbay Habtä Séyon (last)
History
• Title baher nagasi first attested	Early 12th century
• Bahr Negash title formally established	Mid-15th century
• Battle of Addi Qarro; death of Bahr Negash Yeshaq	1578
• Hab Sellus dynasty founded	1663/64
• Abuna ransom crisis; Bahr Negash-led blockade of Massawa	1745
• Wolde Selassie appointed ruler of Bambolo Mellash	1795
• Wube Haile Maryam consolidates control of Tigray	1835
• Battle of Gura; Egyptian defeat	1876
• Hewett Treaty signed	1884
• Ras Alula Engeda recalled; end of the Bahr Negash title	1889
• Formation of Italian Eritrea	1890
Currency	Amole (salt bars; universal medium of exchange) Gold (measured in waqet) Textiles (shamma; Indian cotton used in caravan trade) Maria Theresa thaler (19th century)
Succeeded by Italian Eritrea
Today part of	Eritrea Ethiopia

Medri Bahri or Mereb Melash was a semi-autonomous province of the Ethiopian Empire, located north of the Mereb River and west of the Bur Province, in the Eritrean Highlands, comprising mainly the historical regions of Hamasien and Seraye. It was governed by the Bahr Negash. The province originally held authority over coastal territories, including the port of Hirgigo and access to Massawa, but lost the coast to the Ottomans in 1557.

The highlands of Hamasien and Seraye had been part of the ancient Aksumite kingdom, whose influence reached the Red Sea port of Adulis. After Aksum's decline in the seventh century, waves of Beja and then Agaw peoples moved into the region, before it came to be dominated by Tigrinya-speaking communities under the early Solomonic dynasty. From at least the twelfth century the coastal region was ruled by local governors bearing various titles, and in the mid-fifteenth century Emperor Zara Yaqob created the Bahr Negash title and extended its authority over Hamasen, Seraye, Shiré and Bur. Control of the trade routes linking the highlands to the coast brought the office into repeated conflict with the Ottomans during the sixteenth century, and Bahr Negash Yeshaq was killed fighting them at the Battle of Addi Qarro in 1578.

By the seventeenth century, the administration of the province was by hereditary local dynasties, most prominently the family of Hab Sellus. Fragmentation of authority between the rival families of Hamasen took place during the Zemene Mesafint era, until the province once again regained its importance in the empire through Yohannes IV, who protected it against an Egyptian invasion at the Battle of Gura in 1876, and subsequently appointed Ras Alula Engeda its governor. Italian occupation followed Alula's recall in 1889, and the territory became the core of the colony of Italian Eritrea in 1890.

Below the Bahr Negash, certain settlements were allowed to govern themselves, and highland communities followed their own traditional laws, administered by councils of elders. Gold, ivory and enslaved people passed along the province's trade routes, and weapons imported helped resist the Ottomans and later the Egyptians.

History

Ancient and Aksumite roots

The territory that would later form Medri Bahri was part of the heartland of the ancient Aksumite Empire. Archaeological evidence shows that the Hamasen highlands had been an area of economically flourishing culture since around 800 BC, with a settlement density among the highest on the African continent, linked to the so-called Ona culture. The name Hamasen itself may be ancient, with a possible identification with MSW ("Amasu"), a province registered in the Egyptian "Lists of Foreign People" of Pharaoh Thutmosis III, ca. 1458 BC. In Aksumite times, Hamasen appears in a pre-Christian fourth-century inscription of King Ezana, who received the homage of the Metin peoples there after subduing the coastal kingdom of Gabaz.

Seraye, the southernmost of the three highland provinces, also has a documented Aksumite presence. A rock inscription at Sehuf Emni, Qwahayn, in Epigraphic South Arabian script and palaeographically comparable to Ezana's trilingual inscriptions, testifies to the region's role in Aksumite times, and Aksumite-period church foundations survive at Enda Mikael in Debarwa, on the border of Hamasen and Seraye. According to the historian Sergew Hable Selassie, the name of the Mareb River itself may derive from the South Arabian settlers who named it after the famous dam of Marib in Yemen, and "Serae" (Seraye) is similarly linked to the South Arabian Sarawat Mountains.According to written and oral traditions, around the end of the 13th and early 14th century, the former Balaw (of Beja origin) and Kunama inhabitants of Seraye were replaced by the Adkama Malga, Agaw immigrants from Lasta, who assumed the Tigrinya language and played a dominant role in the area until the 18th century, when they came into conflict with the Daqqi Tassem of Hamasen.

Adulis remained the principal Aksumite port on the Red Sea throughout this period. The Egyptian merchant and monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, who visited the port in 523, described its trade, together with that of the Ethiopian and Nubian interior, with India, Ceylon and other regions in his geographical treatise, the Christian Topography. According to his account, the Aksumites at the time required all vessels passing through that part of the Red Sea to pay for the right of passage and call at Adulis.

After the decline of Aksum around the seventh century AD, parts of Hamasen came under the control of Beja and other Muslim tribes, possibly responsible for the first exploitation of gold mines in the region. During the last decades of the Zagwe dynasty and the first period of the restored Solomonic dynasty, Agaw groups linked with the Zagwe fled from Lasta into Hamasen, and the ancestors of the Bogos (Bilin) people also migrated through Hamasen at this time. These population movements left traces in many Cushitic-origin toponyms in the region, including the name of Debarwa itself.

Trade routes departing from Massawa and then following the course of the Anseba river northward connected Hamasen with the lowlands of the Sudan. The local Tigrinya groups of Hamasen kept their own petty leaders but were possibly tributary to the maekele bahr (lit. "the middle of the coast"), as the governor of the provinces between the Ethiopian highlands and the Red Sea is called in a series of local 13th- to 15th-century documents from the "Golden Gospel" of Debre Libanos of Ham.

Relations between the Aksumite kingdom and Arabia turned to open conflict in the seventh century. After pirates from the Kingdom of Axum sacked Jeddah in 702, Arab forces retaliated by seizing a string of harbors on the opposite shore, including Suakin, where they dispossessed the Beja who held it, along with Massawa, then still only an anchorage, and the Dahlak islands. Arab control of the ports sharply reduced Aksum's foreign trade and is thought to have spurred the empire's expansion southward into the interior instead, coinciding with growing Beja pressure on the highlands as Beja groups moved into Hamasen from the late seventh or early eighth century.

A tributary relationship with the coast nonetheless outlasted the loss of direct control for some time. The Arab historian al-Yaqubi, writing in 872, described the Najashi's kingdom as still reaching the sea and encompassing the Dahlak islands. Al-Masudi, writing in 935, likewise reported that Dahlak and the neighbouring coastal plain remained tributary to Ethiopia, and that the Najashi had concluded a treaty of friendship with the Yemeni king Ibrahim bin Ziyad, under which ships from Zabid traded freely with Ethiopia. Ibn Hawqal, writing in 977–78, similarly described Zeila as under Ethiopian Christian rule and at peace with its Muslim trading partners. This tributary relationship broke down amid the political fragmentation of the Zagwe era, during which separatist dynasties took control of both Dahlak and Zeila.

Zagwe period

Nayakkweto Layab (left) with king Lalibala (right)

Both Hamasen and Seraye "passed, like much of the northern highlands, under Zagwe suzerainty" according to Taddesse Tamrat, confirmed by a land grant of the Zagwe king Lalibela preserved in the monastery of Debre Libanos of the north. The Zagwe pursued a deliberate strategy for annexing the regions beyond the Mareb River, at one point resettling Agaw groups from Wallo there. The title baher nagasi for a governor of the coast appears even in a land grant of the Zagwe king Tatadim, who ruled during the eleventh century, in a grant issued in the twelfth year of his reign to the church of Ura Masqal; the document threatened excommunication against the seyyuman ("appointed ones") of Agama, Bur, and Sarawe, as well as an officer bearing the title of baher nagasi, described as viceroy of the coast.

The fall of the Zagwe dynasty around 1270 and its replacement by the Solomonic dynasty "sparked off a series of population movements from the Lasta region to north-eastern Tigray, Akala-Guzai, Hamasen, and Saraye," resulting in a struggle for power between newcomers and original inhabitants, and the eventual transfer of political supremacy from the Christian Balaw tribes to new Tigrinya-speaking settlers. The Balaw tribes were of Beja origin and had dominated the Eritrean plateau, including probably some districts south of the Mareb, before this transformation. Local genealogical tradition traces the early Solomonic-period Tigrinya settlement of Hamasen and Akkele Guzai to a single legendary founder remembered as negui Meroni.

The office of the Bahr Negash had roots stretching back to the Aksumite period. The coast around Massawa is recorded as under Beja domination by the 8th century, before the rise of the Dahlak sultanate in the 11th century made the port the main link between the Muslim-controlled Red Sea coast and the Christian highlands.

Local tradition records the existence of a ruler called the shum bahri (also ieyyuma baher, meaning "ruler of the sea"), who controlled trade routes between Massawa and the Christian highlands, and who may originally have been a prefect appointed by the Aksumites. Even after the Sultanate of Dahlak became independent, its sultan continued to be referred to by the Ethiopians using the Aksumite title ieyyuma baher, reflecting the persistence of Ethiopian institutional memory over the coast.

Early Solomonic Administration

During the reign of Amda Seyon I (r. 1314-1344), the northern maritime provinces were brought under tighter imperial control. When a rebellion broke out in Tigre in 1328, the king placed one of his sons over the region with the title of maekele bahr, meaning "between the rivers or seas", covering the territory between the Mareb River and the Red Sea, a title already used in the Zagwe period and probably the precursor of the later Bahr Negash title.

Amda Seyon was deeply concerned about the dangers of Muslim power on the Eritrean coast. His recent campaigns against the Muslims of Ifat and eastern Shawa were resented by their fellow Muslims in the north, who may have cooperated with the rebellious army in northern Tigre. This may have provided an immediate reason for his expedition to the region. A land grant issued by Amda Seyon to the monastery of Debre Hayq Estifanos states: "...And I, King Amda Seyon, went to the sea of Eritrea. When I reached there, I mounted on an elephant and entered the sea. And I took up my arrow and spears and killed my enemy, and I saved my people.

Despite this appointment, the maekele bahr did not yet constitute a formal administrative unit; rather, it remained a descriptive geographic term for the region between the Mareb River and the Red Sea, governed by local chiefs recognized by the Solomonic kings until the time of Zara Yaqob. By the same year, two named officials in Hamasen already appear in the sources as local rulers.

At least four Ethiopian monarchs of this period are recorded granting land to monasteries in the far north. Before Zara Yaqob's formal administrative reforms, Yeshaq I (r. 1414–1430) had already extended imperial presence along the coast by settling a military regiment at Massawa in 1417.

King Zara Yaqob addressing the men who had come to him

The older title maekele bahr ("middle of the coast"), used during the Zagwe period and still in use during the reign of Amda Seyon, was abolished by Zara Yaqob, who sought to unify the administrative system of his kingdom. According to historian Richard Pankhurst, it was during the reign of Emperor Zara Yaqob (r. 1433–1468) when the title Bahr Negash ("Ruler of the sea") appeared for the first time. In a reform datable to between 1436 and 1439, he "increased the power of the bahr nagash" and raised him "much above" all the shums, and he was given authority over the rulers of Shire as well as control over the shum of Saraye, the two kantibas of Hamasen, and the shum of Bur. However, according to the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, it was his Zara Yaqob's son, Emperor Baeda Maryam I, who subsequently established the specific title of Bahr Negash for the three northern provinces of Angot, Qeda, and Tigray.

To strengthen the imperial presence in the area, Zara Yaqob also established a military colony consisting of Maya warriors from the south of his realm. These settlers were believed to have terrified the local population, and it was said that the "earth trembled at their arrival" and the inhabitants "fled the country in fear".

In 1449/50, only one year after establishing the military colonies on the plateau, Zara Yaqob began construction of a seaport at Girar on the mainland opposite Massawa, intending a more permanent occupation of the coastal districts. This activity was met with hostility from the local Muslim population and led to armed conflict. It is reported that the islands of Massawa and Dahlak were pillaged in 1464/5, and that the Qadi of the islands lost his life in the encounter. However, a lasting occupation of the coast ultimately did not succeed.

The capital of the Bahr Negash was Debarwa, located next to the sources of the Mareb River; he occasionally moved to other district centres, including the nearby Addi Baro, which has sometimes been mistakenly identified as the original seat of the office.

Bur Province

Main article: Bur Province

Bur (ቡር) was a large and vaguely delimited historical region across the present-day Ethio-Eritrean border, divided into Upper Bur and Lower Bur. Its territory covered parts of Agame, the entire province of Akkele Guzai, and lands further east, possibly including the Buri Peninsula. From the 14th century, the region fell into the sphere of the Ewostatean monastic movement.

Ewostatean movement

A major factor in the Christianization and political consolidation of the northern highlands was the Ewostatean monastic movement, named after Ewostatewos of Debre Sarabi (ca. 1273–1352), who was born and educated in eastern Tigray. His followers, the Daqiqa Ewostatewos ("Sons of Ewostatewos"), proved significant for the regions of Seraye, Hamasen, Shiré, and Bur. They were initially forced to cross the Mareb River to escape persecution under Emperor Amda Seyon I, and by the end of the fourteenth century had established themselves firmly along the western edge of the Eritrean plateau. The earliest monastic settlement of the Daqiqa Ewostatewos beyond the Mareb was Debre Maryam in Qwahayn (Seraye), founded by Absadi around 1374; it became the cradle of the Ewostatean movement for the entire northern highland zone.

The Ewostatean movement had a deep relationship with local political structures. The leader of the movement in the north, Warasina Egzi of Seraye, headed the Adkama Melga descent group and used the movement for enhancing local autonomy against both the emperor and the metropolitan. The Adkama Melga had initially sheltered Ewostatewos, but conflict arose when he demanded that Warasina Egzi renounce bigamy. According to hagiographic tradition, Warasina Egzi had him jailed, then drove him from Seraye to the land of the Agaw Bilin, from where he was eventually exiled to Nubia.

Icon triptych of Ewostatewos and eight of his disciples

The monastery of Debre Bizen on the edge of the Hamasen plateau overlooking the Sea of Eritrea. It was founded by Abba Fillipos in A.D. 1390/1, and continued to be a strong centre of the House of Ewostatewos

During the reign of Zara Yaqob, the Ewostateans were reconciled with the imperial church. This reconciliation was mediated notably by Fileppos, the abbot of Debre Bizen, the great monastery in Hamasen that "dominates the road that leads from the highlands and the Hamasen plain to the seaboard and the port of Massawa." By this time there were three major Ewostatean centres: Debre Maryam, Debre Bizen, and Debre Daqqi Ita in Maragwez, the southernmost district of Seraye, each with large numbers of monks and affiliated dependent houses.

Francisco Alvares and the early 16th century

Ethiopian royal trade at the coast is attested slightly earlier than Alvares's visit: the Armenian agent Matthew, later sent by the Empress Regent Eleni on her embassy to King Manuel I of Portugal in 1509, had previously traded on her behalf at Massawa, Decamim and Dahlak.

In the 1520s, Medri Bahri was visited by the Portuguese traveller and priest Francisco Alvares. The Bahr Negash of the time, Dori, was an uncle of Emperor Lebna Dengel and resided at Debarwa, with authority extending from the Hamasien highlands to the port of Hirgigo; he was also noted as a generous patron of local churches and monasteries. Alvares witnessed the annual geber, or tax, paid by the Bahr Nagash's domains to Lebna Dengel alongside those of Tigray, Gojjam and Hadeya, consisting largely of horses and of silks and cloth imported from India. Lebna Dengel later described the extent of the Bahr Nagash's domain, in a letter to King Manuel I, as "lord as far as Egypt". Troops from the Bahr Negash's territory were also drawn on for campaigns further south, including the suppression of a rebellion in Hadiyya in the early sixteenth century.

When Alvares and his companions landed at Massawa in 1520, local emissaries from Hirgigo told them the surrounding mainland was governed by the Bahr Negash, and that Christian and Muslim inhabitants alike fled to the mountains whenever Ottoman raiders approached. The Portuguese subsequently proposed removing the Moors from Dahlak and Massawa and building a fortress at the latter port; the Bahr Negash welcomed the idea and offered men and supplies, while Lebna Dengel himself was more cautious, at first proposing that Spain, Portugal and France jointly fortify Zeila, Massawa and Suakin. He eventually agreed to collaborate with Portugal alone, writing to John III of Portugal to propose joint operations against the Turks and granting the Portuguese Captain-General of the Indies, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, permission to build a church and fortress at Massawa and Dahlak.

Other informants of the Venetian Alessandro Zorzi similarly described the Bahr Negash's authority as extending along the coast as far as, but not including, Suakin, from his capital at Debarwa. Suakin remained the preferred route for Ethiopian pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem until Ottoman conquests in Egypt and Arabia made it increasingly dangerous from around 1516.

The region had special significance due to its role as a transit region in international business activities. There were two principal caravan routes in this area, following a shared path via Tamben that split near Asmara: one branch continued towards Suakin on the coast of Sudan, and the other descended the plateau to reach the seaport opposite the island of Massawa. The control of such routes was a major factor behind the wealth of the Bahr Negash.

The goods flowing through Hergigo and Massawa during this period consisted mainly of gold, ivory, slaves, honey and wax, making control of coastal access one of the most economically consequential offices in the northern empire.

Ethiopian-Adal War

Main article: Ethiopian–Adal War

The far north was among the last parts of the empire to face the forces of Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi during the Ethiopian-Adal War. Prior to the invasion reaching the region, troops from Saraye had fought alongside the Tigrayan army in the south, where both the Bahr Nagash Za-Wangel, who was a favorite of the Emperor, and the shum of Hamasen were killed, and the ruler of Saraye was taken prisoner at Damot. The army the Emperor led to the Battle of Shimbra Kure in 1529 itself included a contingent from the country of the Bahr Negash alongside several Agaw troops. When Ahmad pushed into Tigray in 1535 and captured Aksum, part of his army crossed the Marab River into Saraye, installing Tedros, a relative of local nobleman Tasfa Le'ul, as a puppet governor answerable to Ahmad's nephew Vizier Abbas. Tasfa Le'ul fiercely opposed the occupation, killing both Tedros and the Adal general Vizier Addole, whose head was dispatched to the Ethiopian emperor.

Addole's death prompted Ahmad to launch a punitive campaign into Saraye, where local fighters attempted resistance but were overwhelmed and driven back. The population submitted and agreed to pay tribute, and Ahmad installed new administrators over both Saraye and Hamasen. However, in Tigray the Adalite troops were plagued by a famine and an epidemic that was so severe that a number of Muslim soldiers converted to Christianity. Ahmad eventually recognized that holding the region was unsustainable and withdrew to the southwest in Begmeder.

When the Portuguese governor of India stopped at Massawa in February 1541, it was the Bahr Negash Yeshaq who informed him of King Galawdewos's precarious situation, directly contributing to the formation of the Portuguese military company of 400 soldiers subsequently dispatched to aid Ethiopia.

The damage left by the Muslim occupation was documented by the Portuguese soldier Miguel de Castanhoso upon his arrival in 1541. He found a major church near the coast destroyed and the surrounding land devastated. The villages around Debarwa had been abandoned, their inhabitants having fled into the mountains with their livestock. Local monks emerged from hiding to greet the Portuguese "with crosses in their hands, in solemn procession, praying God for pity", pleading for retribution against those who had ravaged their land.

The Portuguese naval commander João de Castro, visiting Massawa in 1541, reported that the island, previously under Ethiopian sovereignty, had recently been seized by the King of Dahlak; Portuguese forces broke the usurper's hold and briefly occupied the port themselves to secure their communications with Cristóvão da Gama's expedition inland.

Ottoman period and Bahr Negash Yeshaq

After the death of Imam Ahmad in 1543, Emperor Gelawdewos soon established control over the country of the Bahr Nagash, where he renewed Emperor Zara Yaqob's land charter in favor of the monastery of Debre Bizen. Gelawdewos also exiled several of the Portuguese who had assisted in the Imam's defeat but were beginning to intrigue against him and attempting to convert the country to Catholicism, sending them to Debarwa, the capital of the Bahr Nagash.

The Ottoman province of Abyssinia, the Habesh eyaleti, had been formally created on 15 July 1555, initially headquartered at Sawakin before expanding inland. In 1557, the Ottoman Turks conquered the port of Massawa and under Ozdemir Pasha led an expeditionary force inland where they occupied the town of Debarwa. The Turkish troops then built a large fort at Debarwa, containing gold and silver vases, precious stones, rich vestments, and other valuables obtained through looting, extortions from trade, and the imposition of a poll tax on the local population. The local populace, having acquired a sizable number of firearms, succeeded in defeating the occupying force, killing an Ottoman military commander named Yeshaq and sending his head to the Emperor in triumph.

Around this time, Bahr Negash Yeshaq became very powerful through his access to imported firearms. In 1560/61 he proclaimed Emperor Minas's nephew Tazkaro as a rival emperor; Minas defeated his forces but failed to capture him, and Yeshaq subsequently submitted to the Ottomans, ceding them Debarwa in exchange for their support. He then installed a second rival emperor, and in late 1561 or early 1562 defeated Minas's army at Endarta with Ottoman and Portuguese help. Minas died in 1563 without having subdued him.

Sarsa Dengel came into power in 1563 during a period of continuous unrest, when an officer working on Yeshaq's behalf attempted to seize the young king. A reconciliation was reached between the two in 1567 through the mediation of Yeshaq's agent Harbo, involving an exchange of gifts and an oath of mutual excommunication; the Ottoman garrison then withdrew from Debarwa, which Yeshaq recaptured. After Harbo's death in 1574, Yeshaq grew openly defiant, and a further mutual oath of excommunication was sworn in 1575–76. He nonetheless continued negotiating secretly with other rebels, and eventually revolted openly, proclaiming a rival king and allying with both the Ottomans and Sultan Muhammad ibn Nasir of Harar.

Sarsa Dengel launched a campaign against Yeshaq in late 1578; rather than storming his fortified capital directly, the king targeted the home villages of Yeshaq's Tigrayan soldiers, provoking a wave of defections as he advanced. After weeks of inconclusive skirmishing, the decisive battle was fought at Addi Qarro on 26 December 1578: Yeshaq's forces were routed, and both Yeshaq and the Ottoman commander supporting him were killed.

The defeat ended the province's aspirations for greater autonomy. Sarsa Dengel reduced the prestige of the Bahr Negash office, briefly merging it with the governorship of Tigray, and subsequent holders of the title were invested in a ceremony that ritually warned against disloyalty.

However, according to the chronicles of Emperor Susenyos I, close contacts between the Bahr Nagash and the imperial interior were maintained during his reign; Susenyos married one of his daughters to the Bahr Nagash, a man by the name of Amda Mikael, for political and strategic reasons. During a punitive expedition against a pretender to the throne, Susenyos visited at least six localities north of the Mareb: Hamasien, Seraye, Akele Guzai, the Debarwa district, the Buri Peninsula, and the "country of the Sahos".

Following the rains of 1587 (dated to 1590 by some sources), the Turks renewed their attack on Debarwa, forcing governor Dejazmatch Daharagot, who held both the Bahr Negash title and the governorship of Tigray, to retreat with heavy losses.

Sarsa Dengel then mobilised his army; as the Turks tried to cross the Mareb River, a local leader named Aquba Mika'el ambushed them, and the Emperor rewarded him with the title of Bahr Negash. The pasha, learning a relief force was approaching, abandoned Debarwa by night.

Sarsa Dengel then advanced on the Ottoman position at Hergigo, where a night assault drove the defenders back into their fortress and ships; the siege ultimately failed for lack of provisions, and the Turks abandoned Hergigo, entrusting the port to a local Beja chieftain given the title Na'ib, or Deputy. This position remained in use for more than two centuries.

Diplomacy with Massawa and Bahr Negash succession

Ethiopian rulers, though, never fully accepted the Ottoman hold on Massawa. On 26 June 1604, Emperor Za Dengel wrote to King Felipe III of Spain asking that the Viceroy of Goa attack the port, promising that the Ethiopian governor of the coastal province would simultaneously advance to retake Hirgigo, since the Turks on the island depended entirely on the mainland for food and water. Za Dengel then declared, "We will not send honey, slaves, or other supplies to Massawa, till we have taken power from the Turks." Pedro Páez believed that the Ethiopians were in a strong position to do this as the Turks on the island were dependent on food and water from the mainland.

Tension over Massawa flared again in 1615, when a Turkish raiding party sent to steal cattle was routed by the Ethiopians, who killed a hundred and ten of the raiders and captured sixty-two rifles. The Pasha of Massawa seized Portuguese goods in reprisal, and Emperor Susenyos responded by ordering the trade route to the port closed until everything taken from the Portuguese was restored; a change of Pasha delayed the dispute's resolution into 1616. Renewed fighting in 1625 ended in a heavy Ottoman defeat, after which Susenyos believed Massawa within his grasp, though he had no wish to govern it directly. The following year an agreement was reached with Jesuit mediation, exempting the Emperor's goods from tribute at Massawa and Suakin, granting his agents free passage to India, exempting Catholic Church property from taxation, and guaranteeing the Jesuits free movement; the treaty specified that if any article were broken, the Bahr Negash would immediately close the trade routes and seize caravans bound for the port until instructed otherwise by the Emperor.

The treaty was soon violated, and Susenyos remained reluctant to reassert Ethiopian control at the coast directly. The Jesuit Barradas records that a nobleman of Seraye, a capable soldier with a substantial following, proposed to seize Hirgigo and Massawa himself, but Susenyos refused him permission; Barradas suspected the Emperor feared that a noble once established at the coast might use the position to break free of central authority altogether. As a result the Naib of Massawa continued to damage the port's trade through his exactions without the Emperor obtaining any share of its revenue, a state of affairs Barradas contrasted with nearby Suakin, whose customs were divided between the coastal ruler and the rulers of the interior.

Difficulties at Massawa and Hirgigo increased Ethiopian interest in the smaller Dankali port of Beilul, whose ruler was a tributary of the Emperor. The port was so little known internationally that Portuguese pilots traveling there in the 1620s could give no account of its location, and it saw correspondingly little use.

The exact date of the first Na'ib's appointment is uncertain; most sources place it in the late seventeenth century, though some have suggested the sixteenth. The Na'ib family originated from the Balaw group, which had a power base at Hergigo from around the fifteenth century. In the mid-eighteenth century, Na'ib Uthman Amir (r. 1741–81) received from highland rulers 44 gwelt lands in exchange for firearms, covering localities near Addi Qayyeh, west of Halay, Emba Derho, Balaza, and Bet Maqa in Hamasen, as well as lands in Seraye and near Adwa. By the early nineteenth century, Na'ib Hasan Idris had famously defied an Ottoman governor of Massawa by declaring that "the Sultan rules in Istanbul, the Pasha in Egypt, and Na'ib Hasan in Massawa." Egypt acquired Massawa from the Porte in 1865 under Khedive Ismail, after which the Na'ib's political autonomy declined sharply.

Susenyos's own chronicle traces a further line of Bahr Negash holders earlier in his reign. By 1608, his half-brother Se'ela Krestos governed Tigray while also holding the Bahr Negash title, with authority said to extend "up to the Eritrean Sea," but his harsh rule drove the Tigrayans into revolt. The nobleman Gabra Maryam kept faith with both Se'ela Krestos and the Emperor through the unrest, and once Susenyos removed Se'ela Krestos from his post, Gabra Maryam took over as Bahr Negash. Sent to southern Sudan in 1619 to the "country of Arom", he forced the submission of a local ruler known as Queen Fatima, and went on serving Susenyos loyally even after the Emperor's conversion to Catholicism, before eventually losing the Bahr Negash title to Susenyos's son-in-law, Takla Giyorgis.

Takla Giyorgis had risen through Susenyos's service over more than two decades. A nobleman from Endarta, he first appears in the chronicle in 1605 as shum of Dahana, north of Lasta, and by 1614 governed Semen, where he put down a rebel claiming to be the dead Emperor Yaqob. By 1619, he was already tegre makwannen, leading a Tigrayan force into the region of Taha, possibly near Kassala, and the following year, he joined Susenyos in battle against Oromo raiders in Tigray. He later guided the Jesuit traveler Jerónimo Lobo during a search for the remains of Cristóvão da Gama.

By 1628, Takla Giyorgis held both the Tigray governorship and the Bahr Negash title at once, and that September he rebelled against Susenyos over the Emperor's continued support for the Jesuit mission. Two other men holding the Bahr Negash title joined him, Yohannes, based between Debarwa and Massawa, and Gabra Maryam, while at the same time he was feuding separately with another Tigrayan chief and Bahr Negash, Amda Mikael, who instead allied with Susenyos against him. The rebellion fell apart after Takla Giyorgis had a Jesuit priest serving as his chaplain killed, prompting Gabra Maryam to abandon him out of fear of royal punishment. Takla Giyorgis was captured by Qeb'a Krestos and taken to Gannata Iyasus, where he was tried and executed, while nothing further is recorded of Gabra Maryam's fate.

The expelled Catholic Patriarch Afonso Mendes later petitioned the King of Spain that Massawa and Hirgigo be occupied by a Portuguese garrison, with a fortress and permanent troops, as the only remaining means of converting Ethiopia by force; nothing came of the proposal. Emperor Fasilides, once the Jesuits had been expelled, concluded treaties with the Ottoman pashas of both Massawa and Suakin closing the ports to further European contact.

Hab Sellus dynasty

Main article: Hab Sellus dynasty

Beginning in the 17th century, the governorship of Hamasen (and, at times, the wider Mereb Melash) passed to a hereditary family loyal to the Gondarine kingdom known as the Hab Sellus dynasty, Daqqi Tassem, or Ad Daggiyat, founded by Dejazmatch Hab Sellus, following his appointment by Emperor Fasilides around 1663/64. After Hab Sellus's death, the dynasty split into two rival branches located at Sa'azzaga, and Hazzega, whose fight for control of Hamasen continued for more than two centuries. The rivalry eventually produced the well-known feud between Sa'azzaga, under the leadership of Hailu Tewolde Medhin, and Hazzega, under the leadership of Wolde Mikael Solomon, which ended with the death of Dejazmatch Hailu Tewolde Medhin at the Battle of Wakki Dabba on 17 July 1876 against Wolde Mikael Solomon.

Zemene Mesafint

The decline of the Gondarine monarchy coincided with the rise of Ras Mikael Sehul of Tigray, who, as ruler of the north, inherited the imperial interest in the land of the Bahr Nagash and Massawa. In 1766, he crossed the Marab River to control Hamasen and Saraye, residing briefly at Debarwa. By the end of the 18th century, Ras Wolde Selassie of Tigray held nominal sovereignty over the region, and when he planned an expedition to Saraye and Hamasen in 1800, people from these districts arrived bearing tribute. Pankhurst concludes that the country of the Bahr Nagash "thus remained as for so long in the past a major tributary territory."

Map of Tigray, probably 18th century, from the Mashafa Aksum (Book of Aksum), showing Aksum at center surrounded by the principal regions of northern Ethiopia. Hamasen and Saraye (core territories of Mereb Melash) appear in the outer ring.

As governor of a province astride the direct route to the coast, Ras Mikael Sehul controlled the greater part of Ethiopia's external trade, profited from the customs dues it generated, and was able to secure the best firearms entering the country.

In November 1769, the Scottish traveller James Bruce became acquainted with the Bahr Negash while staying in the village of Hadawi (near Segeneiti). He described the unnamed ruler as a "very simple, good-natured man" and a deputy of Ras Mikael Sehul, but he also considered the land to be a "barbarous and unhappy country." Bruce later revealed that the influence of the Bahr Negash had significantly declined due to the loss of Massawa and Hirgigo to the Turks, stating that it was formerly of great importance; "Before the Abyssinians lost the maritime district of Arkeeko, and the port of Masuah, the office of Baharnagash was one of the most important in the kingdom. It is now nearly a nominal one, under the governor of Tigre." He also reports that the district had only been recently incorporated into the province of Tigray by Ras Mikael Sehul with the use of "violence and oppression." By the time of Bruce's visit the seat of the Bahr Negash was the village of Hadawi, which had only eighty houses, a striking contrast to Debarwa's former size and standing.

On later coming to power at Gondar, Ras Mikael Sehul took a harder line with the Na'ib, reportedly warning him that he would lay waste Hirgigo and Massawa and reduce them "to a desert like Samhar"; traders at Massawa, aware of the Ras's reputation for keeping such threats, fled to Arabia or to Debarwa in response. The Na'ib nonetheless continued to withhold dues from both Ethiopia and the Pasha of Jeddah. Bruce observed that the barren Samhar strip behind Massawa and Hirgigo was seasonally abandoned by its herding population every year between April and November, during which time it passed effectively into Ethiopian hands, allowing the governor of Tigray and the Bahr Negash to blockade the ports and cut off their supplies without ever needing to march an army against them.

The core region of the Mereb Melash, Hamasen, was for centuries led mostly by two rival families from the villages of Hazega and Tsazega. The local elite groups enjoyed relative independence. Despite this, Tigrayan lords at various points subdued and exercised authority over the region. In 1795, Emperor Takla Giyorgis I appointed Wolde Selassie ruler of all the country from the Angarab river, just outside Gondar, to Massawa, an area corresponding to the greater Bambolo Mellash, while Sabagadis Woldu and Wube Haile Maryam similarly held authority over the region in subsequent decades.

Sabagadis specifically exercised his authority over the region through local intermediaries rather than direct rule: having subdued Mereb Melash, he appointed Embet Ellen, wife of the Hazzega lord Solomon, as ruler over the whole of Hamasen. Following Sabagadis's death in 1831, the old rivalries of Mereb Melash broke out again, and Ellen secured the backing of Wube Haile Maryam, who confirmed her in office.

Wube Haile Maryam with his wife and abuna Salama; Darasge Maryam Church

Wube had briefly been Sabagadis's son-in-law, marrying his daughter Denqe, but switched allegiance to the Warrasek ruler Mareyye Gugsa in 1831 after feeling abandoned by him; when Sabagadis invaded Semen that year to reverse the betrayal he was defeated and killed, after which Wube crushed Sabagadis's sons and had consolidated control over the whole of Tigray by 1835.

In Hamasen itself, the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica describes him as the de facto head of the region between 1839 and 1855, a period in which he put down a rebellion of local Hamasen chiefs in a battle near Gura and afterward installed a local chief as his deputy over the Karnessem district. The town of Keren, for example, had previously been administered by local notables paying tribute to the governor of Hamasen while guarding their own autonomy, an arrangement only broken by Wube's raids in the 1840s, after which Keren still paid tribute to Hamasen rather than to Wube directly. Wube also extended this pressure toward the coast as Egyptian power grew there, raiding Bogos and the approaches to Hergigo; in 1849, his troops attacked Hergigo and looted Catholic mission property at Emkullu, where the French consul also kept his house.

The integration of Mereb Melash into the Ethiopian imperial system is further confirmed by documentary evidence: the province is listed in the tax records of Emperor Tewodros II as one of the northern provinces paying tribute to the crown, alongside Welkait and other Tigrinya-speaking territories not considered part of Tigray proper.

The scale of this tribute was considerable: of the roughly 200,000 Maria Theresa thalers Tewodros collected annually from Tigray and its dependent regions of Hamasen, Seraye and Akele Guzai, about 32,000 thalers, or over 16 percent, came from Hailu Tewolde Medhin's government of Hamasen and Seraye alone, compared with under 50,000 thalers from the whole of Begemder.

Dejazmatch Hailu Tewolde Medhin of Hamasen with his wife Warka

From the late 18th to mid-19th centuries, there was a long-standing rivalry between the rival Hazega and Tsazega villages. Ato Tewoldemedhin of Tsazega constantly fought to reduce his rivals to obedience. His son, Dejazmatch Hailu Tewolde Medhin, had governed Hamasen since the 1830s. The Encyclopaedia Aethiopica describes him as "a local lord and an ally of ase Tewodros II," and he was eventually forced to flee to Gondar to seek the Emperor's support during the factional fighting. In September 1858, he fought in Hamasen on the Emperor's behalf, and later pushed back on the Egyptian advance. In 1860, he was reinstated as ruler of Hamasien and Seraye. He maintained this loyalty for years: a letter from Emnata Maryam to Antoine d'Abbadie on 3 October 1867 described him as "the only one loyal to the king." Only as Tewodros's position collapsed did Haylu switch allegiance to Kassa Mercha, the future Yohannes IV. In December 1868, Kassa Mercha imprisoned him on account of his secret dealings with Egypt, and appointed Wolde Mikael Solomon in his place.

Mid-nineteenth century and the shift to Asmara

Map of Ethiopia at the time of Emperor Tewodros II (1855-1868)

Emperor Tewodros became the first nineteenth-century Ethiopian ruler to make a concerted effort to recover the port. As early as June 1855, only four months after his coronation, he informed British consul Plowden of his intention to make himself master of the coastal tribes and, if possible, seize Massawa. The British Foreign Secretary Lord Clarendon was persuaded to concur with an Ethiopian annexation, but the plan came to nothing when it became clear the Ottomans would not cede the port.

Debarwa had served for centuries as the residence and seat of the Bahr Negash, but by the middle of the nineteenth century, it had been overshadowed by Asmara, a settlement in Hamasen that had been known since medieval times. In the mid-nineteenth century, the reigning Bahr Negash, Gurade Zaray, who died in 1866, chose Asmara as his headquarters, with the result that the place soon acquired a position similar to that earlier held by Debarwa.

Asmara at this period was a modest settlement. Visitors described its buildings as cave-like dwellings dug into the soil and covered by terraces on a level with the higher ground, closed in front by dry-stone walls, with a single opening serving simultaneously as door, window, and chimney. Furniture was minimal, consisting mainly of large seats cut into the earth beside the walls and covered with ox-hides. The traveller Wylde estimated the population at around 5,000 inhabitants.

Egyptian–Ethiopian War

Main article: Egyptian–Ethiopian War

The enduring prestige of the Bahr Negash office was acknowledged even by Ethiopia's rivals during this period. When Egypt established its own Red Sea province in 1866, its deputy in the Semhar plains was deliberately given the new title Naýib Al-Bahr, styled directly after the Bahr Negash title, reflecting Egyptian recognition of the institution's historical legitimacy.

When Kassa Mircha (later Yohannes IV) assumed power over Tigray and Mereb Melash as Dejazmatch in 1867, he inherited a province whose local rulers had already developed a pattern of seeking foreign patrons against each other. Woldemichael Solomon, head of the Hazzega family and one of the first to support Kassa, was given the command of Hamasen and Bogos in 1869, but soon fell into Munzinger's orbit and began to send secret letters to France. In one such letter to Napoleon III, Wolde Mikael asserted that he was Hamasen's rightful hereditary ruler through three generations of his family, citing his proximity to Massawa and Bogos and his acquaintance with the French consul. When Kassa learned of Wolde Mikael's communications with Napoleon III, he stripped him of his governorship and had him imprisoned at Adwa from late 1869.

Kassa's relations with Munzinger himself remained warm through these same years, unlike his falling-out with Wolde Mikael. In September 1869, a rifleman named Yohannis shot Munzinger with a double-barrelled rifle as he travelled between Bogos and Massawa; four bullets struck Munzinger and two more hit his mule, though he survived and recovered. Munzinger blamed the Catholic priest Abba Imnetu, previously active in efforts to place Tigray under French protection, for paying Yohannis to carry out the shooting, and Kassa took personal charge of the resulting inquiry. Writing to Munzinger that November, Kassa expressed sorrow at the attack on his friend and reported that he had already imprisoned Wolde Mikael for plotting against him with Wagshum Gobeze, using the occasion to warn Munzinger against placing too much trust in his rival.

By early January 1870 Kassa had Abba Imnetu placed under arrest, telling Munzinger that harm done to him was harm done to Kassa himself, but a hearing later that month ended in a conditional release after Abba Imnetu argued that the witnesses against him were personal enemies. Munzinger seems to have received the release with some irritation; Kassa explained the following month that it had only been a ploy to draw out Yohannis, who remained at large in Seraye, and assured Munzinger that "your feud is my feud." Both men were back in custody within weeks, and by March 1870 Kassa concluded that Abba Imnetu was guilty and handed him over to Munzinger rather than punish him under Ethiopian law himself, so as to preserve good relations between Ethiopia and foreign powers.

In 1871, Munzinger himself entered Egyptian service, becoming governor of Massawa and subsequently of the whole northern frontier zone. Writing to Queen Victoria in August 1872, Yohannes IV complained that the Khedive had placed Munzinger Bey in authority over half of Tigray and the empire's border regions, and separately protested that Munzinger's troops had entered Mensa, Halhal and Hamasen, land he considered to lie between Ethiopian and Egyptian territory. Writing to the British foreign secretary Earl Granville in May 1873, Yohannes IV set out in detail the territories he considered rightfully Hamasen's: Barya, Sellim Mare'a, Bogos, Habab, Mensa, Aylet, Asgede Beqla, Zula, Tora, Samhar and the country below Anfila, all of which he said Egypt had by then occupied, leaving the province's noblemen only a single district on the plateau. He asked Granville to help him secure an outlet on the coast, insisting that Zula and Anfila had been his territories from early times. By July 1873, Ras Gebre Sadiq was writing to the French consul at Massawa to protest that Munzinger had occupied several named districts of Hamasen: Dekandu, Adi Hamene, Dembe and Mellasenay, with Egyptian troops, years before the outbreak of open war.

In December 1875, a local ruler of the province, Woldemichael Solomon, submitted to the Egyptians at Massawa. This allowed the Egyptians to occupy the entire province with minimal resistance and build a large fort at Gura.

The occupation was not incidental. In a letter of September 1875, the Khedive had outlined plans to organize Hamasen either as a vassal state or an independent government under Egyptian protection, intended as a permanent buffer between Ethiopia and Egypt. The Khedive separately promised Wolde Mikael that Egypt would annex neighboring regions to Hamasen and name him their ruler.

Mereb Melash would gain international significance during the reign of Emperor Yohannes IV when it was defended against Egyptian expansionism during the Egyptian–Ethiopian War.

The Battle of Gundet, November 1875, where an Ethiopian army routed the Egyptian force under Arendrup

A first clash had already occurred at the Battle of Gundet in November 1875, when an Egyptian force of around 2,000 men under the Danish commander Arendrup, advancing from Bogos, was almost annihilated by an Ethiopian army of over 20,000 north of the Mareb River; Woldemichael Solomon fought on the Egyptian side in this engagement before later changing sides. In his letter to the French consul, written two days after the battle, Yohannes said unequivocally, "Of all the Egyptians who had invaded my country not a single one has survived; all are dead." He gave a longer account in his letter to Queen Victoria, describing the Egyptians as advancing into Seraye from Hamasen with their camp only six hours' march from Adwa when he went to attack them; when he offered to send the captured Sudanese soldiers back across the frontier, many refused, saying the land belonged to them.

Gundet comprised just one part of a three-fold offensive strategy of Egypt. Another force, commanded personally by Munzinger Pasha, marched through Danakil territory and threatened to encircle the highlands from the southern direction, but was wiped out that very month by the natives of Aussa. One of those killed was a cleric from Bagemder who had betrayed Yohannes in favor of Menelik of Shewa to join the force of Munzinger. A third army under Prince Hassan, the son of Khedive Ismail, was entrenched at Akkele Guzai and was similarly defeated by Yohannes in February 1876; the captured arms helped him subdue his own interior in the coming years.

Stung by the defeat, the Khedive dispatched a much larger force of roughly 15,000 men under Muhammad Ratib Pasha, advised by American Civil War veterans including General Loring, leading to the three-day Battle of Gura in March 1876. Yohannes IV would defeat the Egyptians at the Battle of Gura, forcing them to withdraw from the province. Writing to Ratib Pasha shortly afterward, Yohannes listed Wolde Mikael's betrayal and defection among his grievances, and complained that the Egyptians had also turned the population of Akkele Guzai against him.

After the Battle of Gura, Yohannes did not immediately install Alula. Hamasen was governed in the intervening years by Dejazmatch Gabru Wubet, who held authority over the territory beyond the Mareb from 1871 until 1875. After Hailu Tewolde Medhin was killed by Wolde Mikael at the battle of Wakidba in July 1876, Ras Bariau Gabre-Tsadiq was sent as the new governor of Hamasen.

Ras Alula, the governor of Mereb Melash (9 October 1876–1889)

On 9 October 1876, Yohannes appointed Alula as governor of the whole Mereb Melash and promoted him to Ras. It was the first time in many centuries that an outsider had been placed over the province's established local families. Alula was promoted directly from the rank of shalaqa, and his rise provoked resentment among the Tigrayan nobility; one rival, Dejazmatch Debeb Araya, harassed his administration as a shefta along the Massawa coast until submitting in 1888.

Alula was then authorized to crush the remaining opposition in the province, which resulted in the defeat of the followers of Woldemichael Solomon. But, Woldemichael, with Egyptian backing, repeatedly regained control of the Mereb Melash whenever Alula was recalled south to assist Emperor Yohannes, holding the province from April 1877 until September 1878 before again retreating when new governors arrived. In December 1878, Woldemichael submitted to Emperor Yohannes. He was then confirmed as Ras in an effort to appease him, remaining as governor under Alula's authority.

Historian Zewde Gebre-Sellassie's chronology has Wolde Mikael killing Ras Bariau Gabre-Tsadiq in May 1877 after being sent fresh supplies of arms from Osman Pasha Rifki, who was the deputy governor of Sudan. On the contrary the Encyclopaedia Aethiopica dates the battle that claimed his life in 1878 which took place at a site known as Bet Maqa, which corresponds to today's village of Haz Haz, a name meaning "catch catch" in reference to the engagement.

In the 1870s, Akkele Guzai was incorporated as a sub-province of Marab Mallash under Ras Alula Engeda, before regaining its status as a separate province in its own right in the 1880s and recovering a degree of its traditional autonomy. Warfare and famine also virtually depopulated Hamasen during this period.

Finally in December 1879, Alula imprisoned Woldemichael and convinced Yohannes to have him jailed in Tigray, eliminating the last hereditary local chief of Hamasen. Wolde Mikael remained detained through the rest of Yohannes's reign and was only released on the eve of the Metemma campaign in 1888; he subsequently lived out his remaining years in Axum, where he was buried in 1905. Alula then imposed central government and experimented with land reform aimed at establishing his followers from Tigray, many originating from his home region of Tamben, as Hamasen's new elite, while cultivating commercial relations with Muslim traders and attempting to renew trade with Massawa.

In a letter Yohannes wrote to Mahdist commander Hamdan Abu Anja in December 1888, reflecting on the war with Egypt, he described it himself:

"They come via Massawa and entered Hamasen. I fought them. God gave me power and I defeated them in two battles."

Hewett Treaty and Italian occupation

The Hewett Treaty was signed in June 1884 by Emperor Yohannes IV, Queen Victoria (represented by Rear-Admiral Sir William Hewett), and the Khedive (through Mason Bey, governor of Massawa). The terms of the treaty included the exemption of goods transiting via Massawa, such as arms, from any duties; the restoration of the province of Bogos to Ethiopia once Egyptian troops had been withdrawn from Kassala, Amedib, and Senhit; the provision of free passage for the retreating Egyptian garrisons to the coast; permission for Ethiopia to recruit bishops from Alexandria; and the referral of any disputes between the two states to Britain. A companion treaty signed the same day committed both rulers to ending the slave trade, requiring British patrols to return any freed Ethiopian found aboard a slaving vessel.

Ras Alula had been actively involved in the formulation of the treaty and according to British reports, was fully in favor of it. Emperor Yohannes IV, however, was reportedly skeptical and only agreed to meet with the British mission in the final week of May, signing on 3 June 1884. The Encyclopaedia Aethiopica notes that the British ultimately interpreted the treaty wording as an Ethiopian abandonment of their claim to Massawa, a reading that served British strategic interests in preventing French domination of the Red Sea by allowing Italy to fill the vacuum left by the Egyptian retreat. Yohannes himself did not treat the matter as settled: within weeks he wrote asking Victoria to put Hewett's verbal proposal to split Massawa's customs revenue in writing, and complained directly to the Khedive that the status of Massawa remained unresolved despite the port having recently been taken from him.

In late 1884, recognising the new opportunities presented by the Hewett Treaty, Alula moved his capital within the Mereb Melash from Addi Taqlay to the small trade center of Asmara, which was better positioned for developing the commercial route to Massawa.

Massawa was taken over by Italy on 3 February 1885, eight months to the day after the signing of the Hewett Treaty.

In one of the letters sent to Queen Victoria, six months after the arrival of the Italians, Yohannes explained his grievances. According to the agreement, the Egyptian garrisons should have relinquished their armory as they departed, but they only left behind a few cannons. Yohannes had gone to great lengths, paying from his own pocket for their provisioning and ensuring that they departed from Ethiopia safely, acting in good faith throughout. The Italians, however, immediately moved into Massawa, which Yohannes claimed was rightfully part of his ancestral territory. The Italians also denied him the passage of rifles and pushed patrols toward his territories where the Salt pan were located. Yohannes wanted to know from the queen whether she had consented to the occupation, and demanded that Massawa be returned to him.

On 23 September 1885, Alula marched west and engaged a Mahdist force under the amir Uthman Diqna at the Battle of Kufit. The Mahdist army which was estimated at between 6,000 and 12,000 men, was routed; between 3,000 and 5,500 Mahdists were killed, at a cost of around 1,500 Ethiopians, including most of Alula's senior commanders. After his victory, Alula considered advancing to relieve the besieged Egyptians at Kassala, but the gathering Italian presence on the coast was, in Erlich's analysis, the main reason he chose not to proceed.

Kufit became the first instance of Alula commanding an imperial army on the border without the emperor accompanying him, with only his subordinate Belatta Gabru among the notable Tigrayan nobility present. Figures for the troops he commanded range from 8,000 to 20,000 soldiers. According to Haylu, an Ethiopian interpreter in Italian employ who visited the encampment before the battle, he commanded 10,000 men, "all armed with Remingtons." This led to him being called "Abba Nagga," an epithet that can still be found in a song kept at Debre Bizen monastery. The Mahdist leadership under Caliph Abdullahi eventually declared a holy war on Ethiopia, which in turn fed into the pressures that led Yohannes to march on the Mahdists at Matamma, where he died in March 1889.

Frustrated and distrustful of the local tribes, Alula permitted his men to massacre many of the Nara and Kunama tribesmen in November 1886 and also embittered the Beni-Amer. In January 1887, before the fighting began, Alula wrote to the Italian military commandant General Gene demanding the withdrawal of Italian troops from the post at Uaa by the 21st of that month and from Zula within one month, warning that "if friendship is to continue, you must do this. Otherwise, you must know that friendship is at an end." Gene refused, replying that his soldiers would remain at Uaa because "they are necessary for the peace of the country." Within a fortnight, conflict broke out.

Alula's longtime rival Dejazmatch Kefle Iyasus defected to the Italian side just days before this battle, a move that likely pushed Alula to strike first. On 23 January 1887, Alula launched a direct assault on the fortified Italian base at Saati; hundreds of Ethiopians died under Italian artillery fire, at a cost of only four Italian casualties. The next day, at the Battle of Dogali, he encircled a 500-man Italian column marching to relieve Saati and routed it; only about eighty wounded Italians managed to escape. Whether Yohannes had ordered the attack was unclear: a letter he wrote to the Italian commander that same day still spoke of seeking a peaceful resolution, even as Alula later told Italian officials he had acted on the emperor's explicit orders. Dogali is considered one of the most important events in late nineteenth-century Ethiopian history, since it entrenched the enmity between Italy and Yohannes and so contributed to the eventual dominance of the Shoans under Menelik.

In January 1888 an Italian force was entrenched around Saati, facing Yohannes's imperial army directly. The Ethiopians could not storm the Italian positions or draw them into the open. On 25 March 1888, Alula rode up to the Italian fortifications in full ceremonial dress, a gold crown and gilded shield among them, and challenged the garrison to come out and fight; when the Italians refused, he withdrew. According to Italian observers, the appearance of an Italian observation balloon over the battlefield panicked the Ethiopian rank and file, several of whom reportedly fled rather than face what they took for a heavenly army. After exhausting their supplies, the imperial army retreated in late March 1888 beyond the Mareb, leaving Alula in Asmara. The failure at Saati, coming so soon after Dogali, led Yohannes to seriously consider removing Alula from the governorship altogether; his brother Dejazmatch Tasamma was stripped of office and had his property confiscated, and even the late crown prince Ar'aya Sellase reportedly urged his father not to heed Alula's counsel any further. Only the outbreak of the Mahdist invasion of Amhara, which required Alula's generalship on a new front, kept him in place.

One of the important reasons for the fall of Mereb Melash was the combination of internal rivalry and external pressure. One such rival was Debeb Araya, a Tigrayan noble who resented Yohannes's choice to appoint an outsider over Mereb Melash's own established local families rather than one of their own. By 1888, Debeb was working with the Italians. When the Mahdist army, led by Hamdan Abu Anja, invaded Amhara and destroyed Gondar in early 1888, Yohannes, urged on by his clergy and senior officers, including Alula, decided it was time to abandon the standoff with the Italians and turn to face the Mahdists. On 14 June 1888, Alula left Asmara with barely a thousand soldiers to join the emperor. This was the last time he ever left Asmara to govern the province. Wary of placing another outsider in command over his own Tigrayan nobility, Yohannes instead named his nephew, Ras Hayla Maryam Gugsa, commander-in-chief of the combined army.

At the Battle of Gallabat on 9-10 March 1889, Alula was wounded in four places but continued fighting; Ras Hayla Maryam was killed, and Yohannes himself was shot twice while advancing to rally his line, dying of his wounds the following morning. On his deathbed, Yohannes declared Ras Mangasha his son and successor and charged Alula with protecting him. The retreating Ethiopians were caught again by Mahdist forces at the Atbara River, and the Mahdist commander Az-Zaki Tamal falsely claimed to have sent the heads of both Yohannes and Alula to the Khalifa in Omdurman.

With Alula and most of his Tigrayan troops absent at Gallabat, Debeb Araya seized his chance. He marched on Mereb Melash in late January 1889 and, on 9 February, defeated and killed Dejazmatch Hayla Sellase, Alula's son-in-law and the officer left in charge of the province, at Addi Baro, entering Asmara that same day and setting up his headquarters in Alula's own house. Weakened by desertions and the famine gripping Tigray, Alula and Mangasha spent the spring of 1889 trying unsuccessfully to win back the province through diplomacy, including an attempt to turn Debeb's rival, Dejazmatch Kefle Iyasus, against the Italians. In July 1889, Debeb captured the Tigrayan capital of Adwa and reportedly declared himself king for three days before being tricked into visiting Mangasha's camp at Maqalle, where he was arrested by Alula. Yet with the rivalry inside Mereb Melash resolved in Alula's favor but the province itself left undefended, Italian general Baldissera easily occupied Asmara on the night of 2-3 August 1889, establishing his headquarters in what had been Alula's palace.

Formation of Italian Eritrea

Italian soldiers at a railway in Massawa, 1890

Tigray was by now completely exhausted from decades of uninterrupted wars. It could no longer challenge the Italians to the north or the Shewans to the south. Menelik II was later recognized as the new emperor, thus cementing Shoan domination over Ethiopia. The loss of Mereb Melash was recognized by Menelik in the Treaty of Wuchale.

In 1890 (royal decree of 1 January 1890, n. 6592) Eritrea was officially declared an Italian colony, with its capital in Massawa. Its first governor was General Baldassarre Orero, replaced a few months later by General Antonio Gandolfi, a trusted friend of Francesco Crispi. The colony was named Eritrea (which came from the ancient Greek name of the Red Sea) by plenipotentiary minister Carlo Dossi, replacing the previous intended name of "New Ethiopia".

By the late 19th century, the old Bahr Negash capital had fallen into ruin; the British visitor James Theodore Bent found little left of Debarwa but a handful of stone piles, a half-ruined church, and a few poor dwellings.

Customary law

The three highland provinces of Medri Bahri each had its own customary laws (heggi), compiled at different times and applied via their local assemblies of elders. Of greatest significance was the Heggi Hab Sellus Gara Kestos ("Code of Hab Sellus"), attributed to the time of Dejazmatch Hab Sellus (reigned 1663/64-1704) and compiled in consultation with the council of elders of Hamasen. The code established norms for land ownership, litigation, and government within the villages of Hamasen. There are still several copies of Heggi Hab Sellus in existence, and the code was used up to the Italian colonial era. There were also other regional codes, such as the Ser'at Karnessem for the Karnessem region of Hamasen. The province of Akkele Guzai used the Ser'at Adgena Tagalaba, whereas the Eggala lineage of northern Akkele Guzai and southern Hamasen used the Statute of May Adgi, which was formally amended in 1861 and again in 1902.

There was a unique process that was followed in the case of a court session under the Heggi Hab Sellus. There were three people who had to work together, an appointed judge (danna), a peasant, and a qes (priest). The danna was not allowed to have a copy of the law at home; the document had to come from an (often illiterate) peasant from the family of the law holders, and then the qes read the law aloud. All three were needed for the danna to judge. This arrangement, separating secular power, the church, and the peasantry, worked as a system of checks and balances so the law couldn't be manipulated by any single authority. Under the time of the Italian colonization, the code remained valid, and in 1918 it was officially published in Asmara for 18 pages, with signatures from local representatives of the villages of Sa'azzaga, Addi Musa, Qushat, Sa'da Krestiyan, Wekidebba, and Addi Asfeda, as well as from the qes of Addi Qonsi. Because of the recognition of customary laws by the government of Eritrea after independence, the civil law of the Heggi Hab Sellus was preserved and is used in courts in the villages of Hamasen.

The customary laws of the Seraye, known as the Ser'at Adkama Malga, had always been linked to the Adkama Malga lineage, which held sway over the region from the end of the 13th century up to the 18th century, when their influence and independence were greatly diminished due to wars with the Daqqi Tassem of Hamasen. There has been much academic research done on the code, especially as it relates to land ownership.

Society

Debarwa's size and design reflected its role as both a stronghold and a trading center, as was shown by accounts from visitors of different eras. According to Alvares, more than fifty towns could be counted between Debarwa and Barra within the space of three or four leagues, and flat roofs, which are unusual anywhere else in the highlands, were the standard as far inland as Debarwa itself. Moreover, Debarwa was estimated to have 300 households, a majority of them women, and many wealthy men, though Christians, kept two or three wives. In turn, the French doctor Charles Poncet said Debarwa was two leagues round and was "the bureau and general magazine of the commodities of the Indies"; its houses were built of square stones with level roofs, with Christians living in the upper town and Muslims in the lower.

Even though the role of Bahr Negash was highly vulnerable and existed at the sole mercy of the Emperor, the office still carried ceremonial and social standing. According to Alvares, four different people held the title within the six years of his stay in Ethiopia. It began with Dori, who died in office and was briefly succeeded by his son Bulla, before Lebna Dengel transferred the position to a nobleman, who was later promoted to Bitwaded and in turn replaced by another lord. These individuals were reportedly deposed for supposedly plotting against the monarch and were exiled to unknown locations. A loyal officeholder, however, could rise even further: Ros Nabyat received an elevation to qenné bitwaded (qäññ bəhtwäddäd) in 1522 at the hands of Lebna Dengel, showcasing one way of attaining high government positions through this post. The office of the Bahr Negash also held significant judicial authority. A judge was stationed outside the Bahr Negash's house and handled ordinary cases, but only referred the more serious ones up to the Bahr Negash himself.

Drink being served, from an eighteenth-century Ethiopian manuscript

Status was also shown through different dresses and acts of homage. For example, the Bahr Negash was known for his elaborate dress, as was his subordinate Ras Aredam, who was described as richly dressed by early Portuguese visitors. When a royal messenger came to visit, the Bahr Negash was expected to rise and greet him. And when Empress Sabla Wangel fled through the region during the Ethiopian-Adal War, the Bahr Negash showed his submission to the crown by personally leading her mule, covered with a silk canopy.

Gender relations and religious customs in the area were distinct from general Ethiopian Christian practices in specific ways. In the 16th century, the Portuguese wrote about how married women in the Bahr Negash's territory covered themselves with black or colored woolen cloth with fringes, different from the lighter dress worn by women further south. The Bahr Negash's wife, meanwhile, was allowed to attend church with just one maid accompanying her, an exception to the more general restrictions placed on women. It is also important to note that Alvares observed how, in the area of the Bahr Negash, in contrast to farther south, nuns were not cloistered but lived in villages alongside laywomen, sharing monastery lands with the resident monks.

Slaughtering cattle, from an eighteenth-century Ethiopian manuscript

There was also a specific, distinct Lenten custom among the people of Tigray and Bahr Negash. They ate meat on Saturdays and Sundays during the fast, unlike the rest of the kingdom, killing, according to one account, "more cows than in all the year." In the north, and specifically in Hamasen, women would mix up with soldiers during battle, crying out "Sellase, Sellase" ("Trinity, Trinity") in a mournful tone that turned into a celebratory song if their side won.

Religion

Debre Bizen monastery had an important economic and social standing in the region, though its privileges weren't always secure. Portuguese visitors in 1520 recorded twelve to fifteen orphan boys, aged ten to fourteen, being raised there by the monastery's priests for the love of God. And when Alvares visited the town of Caina in the Bahr Negash's country, five days' journey from Debre Bizen, he found it belonging to the monastery alongside about a hundred surrounding villages, each of which paid one horse every three years, amounting to thirty-three horses annually. The monastery's Alaqa (chief priest) explained that the Emperor had originally been owed the horses but had transferred the right to the church. However, the author of the Carta das Novas reported that Debre Bizen's monks complained that the Bahr Negash himself collected tithes from much of the surrounding country that rightfully belonged to the church. Reports on the number of monks, though, varied, ranging from about 300 to 500. Alvares himself believed the true figure did not exceed 200, with about a hundred permanently residing at the main site. The two churches at Debarwa were each said to have around twenty-two resident clergy. During his campaign to introduce Roman Catholicism in the early seventeenth century, Emperor Susenyos took a substantial part of the lands belonging to Debre Bizen monastery. The monastery did not regain this land even after the later restoration of the Orthodox faith.

The monastery's fortunes fluctuated sharply in the centuries that followed. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, after 1780–81 according to the Annals of Addi Nazammen, Debre Bizen suffered serious devastation. The Scottish traveler Henry Salt, visiting before 1810, found the monastery "deserted and in ruins." The French travelers Edmond Combes and Maurice Tamisier, who passed through in 1837, encountered a similar scene. The monastery was rebuilt from the mid-nineteenth century onward, eventually housing the greatest manuscript collection in Eritrea, amounting to around 572 pieces according to the resident monks.

From the 1840s, Mereb Melash became a site of competing Catholic and Protestant missionary activity. Catholic presence in Hamasen grew under the French Lazarists and later the Italian Capuchins, operating within the Apostolic Prefecture of Abyssinia, raised to a Vicariate in 1847. In Akkele Guzai, the French missionary Justin de Jacobis founded a Catholic community at Segeneiti under the patronage of Daggiyat Wube Haile Maryam, which became the core of a significant conversion movement from the 1860s onward, with several villages partially or entirely converting to Catholicism. Starting from the late 1860s, a religious reform movement known as the "Bible readers" emerged in Hamasen, establishing close ties with German and Swedish Protestant missionaries. An important number of priests close to the Hamasen leadership declared themselves Protestant, especially in Sa'azzaga. Emperor Yohannes IV responded with punishment raids against the affected villages; in the long term, however, Protestantism became permanently established in several communities.

This missionary presence also carried a political dimension. In 1865, the French consul in Massawa proposed to Napoleon III that Akkele Guzai be proclaimed a French protectorate. In 1868, the governor of Marab Mallash, Wolde Mikael of Hamasen, appears to have agreed to this proposal, and in 1869, the Catholic population of Akkele Guzai refused to pay taxes to Ethiopia because they were French subjects.

Economy and military

Control of the trade routes linking the highlands to the coast was the main source of the Bahr Negash's wealth and political leverage, shaping everything from caravan traffic to the flow of firearms into the region.

Major Routes in the Ethiopian Region

Caravans traveling between Debarwa and the port of Hergigo could have been very large and were sometimes attacked by the Doba people of the area. Alvares described the Massawa road as crowded twice a week by caravans of a thousand people or more. On one occasion he counted as many as two thousand people bound for the market at Hirgigo. Massawa's principal exports in this period were gold, slaves, and agricultural produce; grain from the Debarwa region, difficult to transport far inland, was instead carried to the coast for sale at Mecca, Zabid, Jeddah and Mount Sinai. Ivory later became a major export by the early nineteenth century, and in 1841 alone, twelve caravans carrying some 800 mules laden with tusks passed through Adwa going to Massawa, while two further caravans of twenty loads each travelled via Antalo and Saraye.

The same coastal access that carried trade goods also carried weapons. Local rulers of Tigray acquired firearms through secret purchase as well as gifts, despite multiple Ottoman efforts to restrict the arms trade at Massawa. Bruce identified Dixan, a town on the frontier of the Bahr Negash's territory, as Tigray's principal center for the slave trade. Christian residents though, brought children stolen elsewhere in Ethiopia to the town, where Muslim traders received them for sale at Massawa and shipped them to Arabia or India. The Naib of Hirgigo levied a tax of six patacas on every slave exported through the port, a trade that Bruce believed was tolerated by Ras Mikael Sehul because it financed his firearms imports. Contact with Ottoman forces at Debarwa left its mark beyond the arms trade itself. During the Ethiopian-Ottoman war, the Turkish garrison there kept a practice of firing a cannon and rifles whenever their commander returned to the fort. And after Sarsa Dengel defeated the garrison, they surrendered and honoured him with a fusillade identical to the one normally reserved for their own leader. He was so impressed by this salute that he may have been the first Ethiopian ruler to introduce gun-fusillades into the imperial coronation ceremony.

Massawa had its own currency system, separate from that of the interior. It used coins current on the opposite Arabian shore, a result of close commercial ties across the Red Sea. The Venetian sequin was the basic unit of account, subdivided into patacas, harf, diwani and kibeer. Broken glass beads called Borjooke served as small change. The gold sequin of Constantinople did not circulate at Massawa at all. It could only be sold to women, who used it as jewelry.

Villagers and the highlands near Digsa, one of the customs posts on the Massawa–Adwa route

Debarwa, the capital of Mereb Melash, had a weekly market every Tuesday and served as a commercial center for the region. As recorded by James Bruce, imports arriving via Massawa and Hergigo in the eighteenth century included wheat, durrah, honey, and butter, and by Bruce's time, traders who travelled the roughly 200 kilometer road between Massawa and Adwa had to pay customs at five different posts along the way: Samhar, Digsa, Darghat, Balez and Kella.

Hamasen and Saraye saw significant commercialization of agriculture by supplying wheat, durrah, and other cereals for sale to Red Sea shipping at Massawa and for export to Arabia. Pastoralist people north and east of Hamasen similarly produced butter that was shipped from Massawa to Jeddah. In a tax contribution contest between different chiefs, Dajazmach Nayzgi of Walqayt supplied a large quantity of cattle, but Dajazmach Mammo of Hamasen outdid him by contributing a substantial quantity of gold obtained from trade passing through his district on the route to the coast.

Government and taxation

The Bahr Negash province had an administrative system of its own, separate from that of the empire. According to Ludolphus, the province consisted of seven prefectures. One of them, Hamasien, consisted of three cities, which, despite being under the sovereignty of the Emperor, had the liberty of choosing their own magistrates and having their own laws, sometimes providing asylum for outlaws from other regions of the empire. Centrally appointed judicial officials known as azzaž also operated alongside this local autonomy, serving as members of regional juries within the Bahr Negash's territory. This administrative arrangement varied from time to time. Bruce noted that Tigray was always defined as being surrounded on the northeast side by the Bahr Negash, which bordered the Mareb River; however, in the years leading up to Bruce's travels through Abyssinia, Tigray had expanded westward, annexing Enderta and Antalo and absorbing a large part of the Bahr Negash's former territory.

The duties of the province to the Crown were significant and have been recorded in considerable detail for the early seventeenth century, when two independent witnesses documented the breakdown of tributes from the territories of the Bahr Negash region, together with the remaining part of Tigray and its dependent regions. Pero Pais mentions that the tribute of the Bahr Negash was 5,000 cruzados per year, equal to the tribute of the governor of Tigray but higher than the tributes of the regions of Seraye and Tembien, which were 4,000 each. Barradas mentions a different amount of tribute as 200 oqueas for the same region and the highest one after the tribute of the governor of Tigray, 300. The total breakdown of the tributes by the districts as recorded by the two witnesses is as follows:

Tribute owed to the crown by northern districts, early 17th century

District	Tribute in cruzados (Pais)	Barradas equivalent (cruzados)
Abargale	3,000	—
Agame	1,000	1,200
Aksum	—	400
Amba Sanayt	2,000	700
country of Bahr Negash	5,000	2,000
Bur (greater)	—	300
Enderta	300	1,400
Gralta	—	400
Land belonging to the Abuna	—	400
Sahart	1,000	1,300
Salicit	—	600
Senafe	—	300
Sera, belonging to the Queen	—	300
Seraye	4,000	1,500
Shire	—	2,000 (maximum)
Tembien	4,000	2,000
Tigray (the governor)	5,000 (or a little less)	3,000
Wajarat	—	1,400
Zama	300	400

Tribute could be paid not only in money but also in kind: Pais observes that the Bahr Negash provided forty horses of significantly superior quality to those contributed by Gojjam, while the chronicle of Sarsa Dengel similarly describes the region's tribute as large quantities of imported silks and cloth, porcelain, and fine horses.

In his own territory, the Bahr Negash had economic authority that extended beyond the simple act of sending tribute upwards. As Alvares explains, he controlled the trade in gold through the prohibition of the use of any weight for purchasing and selling gold other than those set by him, requiring the people of his territory to obtain the weights only from himself or from his agents in order to keep track of the quantity of gold being used in his territory. In addition, taxation in the region could be challenged openly. In Tsazzega and Hazzega oral tradition, for instance, it is said that the ruler Ras Walda Sellase called the chiefs of the region to the market center of Kodofalassi and asked each one of them how much taxes they owed following the previous taxation by Iyasu I. The people of Karnesem undervalued their taxes, but Kantiba Zar'ay corrected them publicly, forcing them to pay more and imposing this tax on their neighbors too.

The more recent tax records offer a better perspective on how the revenues have varied through time. According to Combes and Tamisier, by the 1830s, Hamasen and Saraye together offered the Tigrayan ruler Webe annual revenues of 30,000 dollars. The tax records during the rule of Emperor Tewodros II during the early 1860s reveal that the total revenue was about 240,000 Maria Theresa dollars, out of which 190,000 (about 80%) had been contributed by Tigray; out of this, 32,000 dollars had been collected from "beyond the Marab" river, i.e., Hamasen and Saraye.

Bahr Negash

Main article: List of holders of the Bahr Negash title

"Bahr Negash" became an official title in the middle of the fifteenth century under Emperor Zara Yaqob but it already existed in the twelfth century as "baher nagasi". The title was in use till the removal of Ras Alula Engeda in 1889. Notable holders of this title were Dori (who was visited by Francisco Álvares in the 1520s), Yeshaq (c. 1541–1578), Aquba Mikael (fl. 1589–1590), Hab Sellus (fl. 1663/64–1704), and Anda Haymanot (fl. 1729–1759). A complete list of known and attested holders is available at List of holders of the Bahr Negash title.

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Further reading

• d'Avray, Anthony (1996). Lords of the Red Sea. The History of a Red Sea Society from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries. Harrassowitz.