Donald Edward Crummey (1941–2013)

Donald Edward Crummey, professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and former director of the UIUC Center of African Studies, died at his home in Urbana-Champaign on 16 August 2013. He was 72. As Don’s former undergraduate student, graduate student, and longtime friend, I am at a loss where to begin when writing about a person whom I have known for so long. My acquaintance with Don began in the late 1960s, when I left the (then) only secondary school in Gojam and enrolled as a history major at Haile Selassie I University. Don, who was born in Nova Scotia, had completed his PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in 1966 and then started his teaching career at HSIU. He would later tell me that he could tell which of us students had come from the rural schools by the intensity of our attentiveness in class—perhaps borne out of our insecurity. This was the first time that I and many of my classmates were learning history from a professionally-trained historian. It was quite a treat to be introduced to the discipline by someone like Don, even if it meant keeping up with lectures that jumped from Akbar the Great to Emperor Fasilades.

Don arrived in Ethiopia at a crucial time, just as the HSIU History Department was beginning to take shape, and he played a major role in establishing its firm foundations. It also happened that Don’s tenure coincided with the arrival of a group of other talented historians, including Sergew Hable Selassie, Taddesse Tamrat, Merid Wolde Aregay, and Richard Caulk. These able scholars built a department that soon became a showcase for academic excellence. They crafted an excellent curriculum that for the first time produced a generation of well-trained history graduates who began teaching in the country’s secondary schools and teacher training colleges. By introducing a rigorous senior thesis requirement for graduation, Don and his colleagues encouraged history majors to carry out original research on a variety of topics in different regions of the country. The research was usually conducted during the students’ year-long sojourns for their national service (which mostly involved teaching in secondary schools in the provinces). History majors were allowed to do their national service in the area they chose for their thesis research. Upon returning from their fieldwork, students had a year with their respective advisors to turn the material they had gathered into an academically acceptable thesis.

Don and his colleagues created a nurturing environment that encouraged and enabled many history majors to develop the skills necessary for advanced study. They identified promising students early and mentored them closely. Thanks to their unfailing support, scores of outstanding original theses were produced on a variety of topics. Moreover, the substantial number of esteemed historians that the History Department at Haile Selassie I University trained is a testament to the hard work that Don and his colleagues invested at that formative stage.

As a student, I came to know Don more closely when I started participating in his fieldwork for the first time in early 1972, when I had just completed my junior year and was assigned for my national service in Debre Tabor in Begemdir. Don asked me to organize a trip from Debre Tabor to Magdala, following the path that Emperor Tewodros had taken when he hauled Sebastopol (the ill–fated cannon) from Gafat (near Debre Tabor) to Magdala. Accompanied by John Snyder (an aspiring filmmaker) and his wife Joan, we slogged on mule-back for several days up the Checheho, down to the Zhitta valley, and on to the Delanta plains.¹ Our trip opened my eyes to Don’s extraordinary insight as a researcher, his eye for the significant, his attention to detail, and above all, his stamina.

From his readings of the Ethiopian chronicles and nineteenth-century European accounts, Don had mastered the geography and history of the area through which we passed. During our trek I watched him survey the surroundings of Checheho the way an eagle scouts...