Battle of Bacente
The Battle of Baçente (also: Battle of the Amba Senait ) took place on February 2, 1542 in northern Ethiopia. A Portuguese force under the command of Cristóvão da Gama conquered while the Muslims of the Adal Sultanate defended hill fort on the Amba .
prehistory
In 1541 the Portuguese decided to send a military expedition to Ethiopia to support the Christian Negus Claudius against the attacks of the Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi from the Sultanate of Adal . By then the imam had already conquered large parts of Ethiopia and incorporated them into his sultanate, the most important ethnic groups of which were the Afar and Somali . 400 Portuguese soldiers were selected for the expedition, including 70 skilled craftsmen and engineers, and 130 slaves. This expeditionary force had about 1,000 arquebuses , just as many pikes and several mortars . Miguel de Castanhoso , who accompanied da Gama, later wrote a report on the expedition.
Queen widow Sabla Wengel, the mother of Negus Claudius, who had placed herself under da Gama's protection, was against the Portuguese attack on the Muslim base, from which the surrounding area was regularly raided. She advised da Gama to wait for her son, who was at that time with his troops in the Shoah . However, Da Gama was concerned that waiting or even marching past the Muslim base would be viewed as a weakness by the local nobles and the population and that they would stop supplying his soldiers.
The battle
After a test attack on the fortification, which served to assess the strength of the enemy, da Gama ordered an attack from three sides the following day. The action was a complete success, not least because the Muslims had next to no firearms. The Portuguese lost only eight men, while most of the hill fort's garrison were killed.
After the battle, the victors showed no mercy towards the captive Muslim defenders and their wives. The men were all executed on the orders of da Gamas, and the women, if they were Christians, were released. Da Gama sent the remaining Muslim women to see the queen widow Sabla Wengel, who refused to see them and ordered their immediate execution . The former church, which had been converted into a mosque by the Muslims, was re-established as the church of "The Holy Mother of God of Victory". The following day a mass was celebrated and the Portuguese stayed in the area until the end of February.
literature
RS Whiteway: The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541-1543 , 1902. Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus, Neudruck, 1967, p. 32.