Badi III

Who was Badi III?

Badi III, or Badi el Ahmar, was a ruler of the Kingdom of Sennar. James Bruce includes in his account of Ethiopia the translation of a letter the Ethiopian Emperor Tewolfos sent him dated 21 January 1706, wherein he addresses him as "king Badi, son of king Unsa".

According to a manuscript history known as The History of Nuba, Badi was confronted with a pretender, Awkal, whom he defeated.

C. J. Poncet, who passed through Sennar in 1699, left this description of his interview with King Badi:

Poncet's departure from Sennar was delayed at the border for 19 days until 11 June 1699, due to the death of King Badi's mother. A Jesuit residing at Port Said, Jean Verzaeu, wrote on 20 October 1700 that the kingdom and Ethiopia were at war over the assassination of a Sennar national in Ethiopia, and that the trade route between the two countries was closed.

Because of the success of Poncet's visit to Ethiopia, Charles de Maillet, the French consul at Cairo, ordered Lenoir de Roule to visit the Ethiopian Emperor on behalf of Louis XIV. Due to the hostility of the natives of the lands he travelled through, de Roule was unable to get any further than Sennar, where he was murdered with his five companions before the royal palace on November 10, 1705. Although King Badi was seen by many as being responsible for this act, the Scots traveller James Bruce, who travelled through Sennar later in the eighteenth century, accused the Franciscans of having manipulated the events that led to these deaths.