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The town of Bagamoyo,
Tanzania, was founded at the end of the 18th
century. It was the original capital of
German East Africa and was one of the most
important trading ports along the
East African coast. Today the town has about
30,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the
District of Bagamoyo, recently being considered
as a
world heritage site.
Location
Bagamoyo is located at
6°26′S, 38°54′E. It lies 75 km north
of
Dar-es-Salaam on the coast of the
Indian Ocean, close to the island of
Zanzibar.
History
Bagamoyo's history has been influenced by Indian
and Arab traders, by the German colonial
government and by Christian missionaries. .
About 5 km south of Bagamoyo, the
Kaole
Ruins with remnants of two
mosques and a couple of
tombs can be dated back to the
13th century, showing the importance of
Islam in those early Bagamoyo times. Until the
middle of the 18th century, Bagamoyo was a small
and insignificant trading center where most of
the population were fishermen and farmers. The
main trading goods were fish, salt, and gum,
among other things.
In the late 18th century Muslim families settled
in Bagamoyo, all of which were relatives of
Shamvi la Magimba
in
Oman. They made their living by enforcing
taxes on the native population and by trading in
salt, gathered from the
Nunge coast north of Bagamoyo. In the first
half of the 19th century, Bagamoyo became a
trading port for
ivory and the
slave trade, with traders coming from the
African interior, from places as far as
Morogoro,
Lake Tanganyika and
Usambara on their way to
Zanzibar. This explains the meaning of the
word Bagamoyo ("Bwaga-Moyo") which means "Lay
down your Heart" in [[Swahili]. It is disputed
whether this refers to the slave trade which
passed through the town (i.e. "give up all
hope") or to the porters who rested in Bagamoyo
after carrying 35lb cargos on their shoulders
from the Great Lakes region (i.e. "take the load
off and rest"). Since there is little evidence
supporting that Bagamoyo was a major slave port
(Kilwa, much further south, has earned this
status), and that tens of thousands of porters
arrived at Bagamoyo annually in the latter half
of the 19th century, it is more likely that the
name of the town derives from the latter
interpretation.
The slave trade was officially prohibited in the
year 1873, but continued well to the end of the
19th century.
In 1868, Bagamoyo local rulers, known as majumbe,
presented the
Catholic "Fathers
of the Holy Ghost" with land for a
mission north of the town, the first mission
in East Africa. This caused resistance by the
native
Zaramo people which was mediated by
representatives of Sultan Majid and, after 1870,
by Sultan
Barghash.
Originally the mission was intended to house
children who were rescued from slavery, but it
soon expanded to a church, a school, and some
workshops and farming projects.
But Bagamoyo was not only a trade centre for
ivory and
copra; it was also a starting point for
renowned European explorers. From Bagamoyo they
moved out to find the source of the River Nile
and explored the African inner lakes. Some of
these were
David Livingstone,
Richard Francis Burton,
John Hanning Speke,
Henry Morton Stanley and
James Augustus Grant.
Bagamoyo was the German headquarters of German
East Africa (first under the auspices of the
German East African Company and then the German
Imperial Government) between 1886-1891. During
World War I, in 1916, a British air attack
and naval bombardment was launched on Bagamoyo,
the Germans were overrun and the German garrison
taken.
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When the German Empire decided to build a
railway from Dar es Salaam into the interior in
1905, Bagamoyo's importance began to decline. |
