COULBEAUX, JEAN-BAPTISTE. - A Lazarist missionary in East Africa, born in 1843 and died in Paris on 22 October 1921. He reached Africa at the age of 27 and was among the first collaborators of Bishop Giustino de Jacobis in what is now Eritrea, gaining rich firsthand experience of the people and affairs of that region and of neighboring Ethiopia. Later, due to the incidents of 1894 (the rebellion of the chief Bàhtà Hàgos of Akkala Guzâj), difficulties arose with the military authorities of Eritrea; and the Holy See arranged for the Lazarists to be assigned only the Apostolic Vicariate of Abyssinia, while the newly established one of Eritrea was transferred to the Capuchins. Coulbeaux thus moved with his mission to the new seat of Alitjena (in Agàmè), where he remained for another seven years, until 1901.
His principal work is the *Histoire politique et religieuse de l'Abbassini*, published posthumously by the Lazarist J. Baeteman (3 vols., Paris 1929), an interesting and lively account from the perspective of one who, like Coulbeaux himself, often effectively substitutes specialized scholarly preparation with personal knowledge of the ethnic, political, and religious environment in which that history unfolded.