The Falasha, who are Ethiopians of Jewish faith, call themselves “Beta Israel” (House of Israel) and claim descent from Menilek I, traditionally the son of the Queen of Sheba (Makeda) and King Solomon.

Their ancestors, however, were probably local Agew peoples in Ethiopia who were converted by Jews living in southern Arabia in the centuries before and after the start of the Christian era.

The Falasha remain faithful to Judaism after the conversion of the powerful Ethiopian kingdom of Axum to Christianity, and hereafter the Falasha are persecuted and forced to retreat to the area around Lake Tana, in northern Ethiopia.

The great Ethiopian emperor Zara Yaqob, reigning from 1434, conducts an unsuccessful military campaign to annihilate the Beta Israel, or Falasha, the group of Agew-speaking Ethiopian Jews who practice a non-Talmudic form of Judaism.

Ahmad Gragn, certain that the surviving Portuguese are scattered, without their firearms, and alone in a foreign land, concludes that this threat is ended, dismisses all but two hundred of the foreign musketeers, and proceeds to his camp at Derasge on the shores of Lake Tana.

However, over one hundred and twenty men have joined Queen Sabla Wengel, who has taken refuge at the Mountain of the Jews.

Ten days later, her son, Emperor Gelawdewos, arrives and they take measure of their situation.

Using the arms stockpiled at Debre Damo, the Portuguese are able to rearm themselves; with the promise of their ability, Gelawdewos is able to raise a new army, which meets Ahmad Gragn at Wayna Daga on February 21, 1543.

The Portuguese musketeers aim 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 Cristóvão da Gama’s men killed Ahmad Gragn to avenge their commander's death.

Gelawdewos had devoted time and energy to rallying his people against Ahmad, a determination his chronicler credits with preventing Ahmad's forcible conversions from being permanent.

With Ahmad's death, Gelawdewos is not only able to eject the leaderless Muslim forces from the Amhara plateau, but also from the lowlands to the east, which include Dawaro and Bale.

The Ottomans, who had in 1541 contributed a force of nine hundred musketeers but have their own troubles to deal with in the Mediterranean, are unable to help Ahmad's successors.

Susenyos manages to first surprise and decimate the forces of Za Sellase at Manta Dafar in Begemder; when Za Sellase escapes to Yaqob's camp, the Emperor's derision causes Za Sellase to defect to Susenyos.

For several days, the armies of the two rival emperors maneuver in the mountains of Gojjam, to at last meet in the Battle of Gol on March 10, 1606, where Yaqob and Abuna Petros II are killed in battle, and his troops slaughtered.

The Beta-Israel, despite attempts by Ethiopian Christian regimes to exterminate the Ethiopian Jews in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, partly retain their independence until the seventeenth century, when the emperor Susenyos utterly crushes them and confiscates their lands.

Susenyos is interested in Catholicism, in part due to Pedro Páez' persuasion, but also hoping for military help from Portugal and Spain (in union at this time).

Some decades earlier, in 1541, Christopher da Gama (son of the legendary Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama) had been in charge of a military expedition to save the Ethiopian emperor Gelawdewos from the onslaught of Ahmed Gragn, a Muslim Imam who almost destroyed the existence of the Ethiopian state.

Susenyos hopes to receive a new contingent of well-armed European soldiers, this time against another enemy, the Oromo who are invading from the south, and to put down constant internal rebellion.

He shows the Jesuit missionaries his favor by a number of land grants, most importantly those at Gorgora, located on a peninsula on the northern shore of Lake Tana.

Susenyos sends a mission heading for Madrid and Rome in 1613, led by Fr. Antonio Fernandes.

The plan is to head south, in an attempt to reach Malindi, a port on the Indian Ocean in what is Kenya today, hoping to break through the effective blockade that the Ottoman conquests have created around the Ethiopian empire by sailing all the way around the southern tip of Africa.

They fail, however, to reach Malindi due to delays caused by local Christians hostile to the mission.

No Spanish or Portuguese soldiers have arrived in Ethiopia, despite several letters from Susenyos to the King of Spain (and Portugal), Philip III, asking for military help.

Even so, Susenyos at last converts to Catholicism in 1622 in a public ceremony, and separates himself from all of his wives and concubines except for his first wife.

The tolerant and sensitive Pedro Paez dies soon afterwards.