Spanish Jesuit priest and missionary. Born 1564 in Olmeda near Tolosa, died 1622 in Gorgora, Ethiopia.
Pedro Páez joined the Jesuit order in 1582. After studying at the University of Coimbra, he was made a missionary in 1587. Preaching in Goa in India (from 1588 to 1589) and Hormuz (1589), he decided to travel to Ethiopia.
Along the way, he was captured by slave traders, and spent between three and seven years as a slave in Sana'a in Yemen. His release from slavery did not come until 1596, when his freedom was bought by the Portuguese Viceroy of India. For another five years, until 1601, he again worked as a missionary in India.
In 1603, he once more set off for Ethiopia - this time arriving safely. Páez worked successfully as a missionary in Ethiopia, converting the royal family and large parts of Ethiopia to Roman Catholicism (for a while). He was the first European to see Lake Tana, at the source of the Blue Nile, before dying of a fever in 1622.