Lat: -8.957818994633600, Long: 39.499435988828000

Kilwa Kisiwani [Quíloa]

East Africa, including Ethiopia, Tanzania

Historical Background and Urbanism

The fortress of Kilwa possibly represents the first European military architecture built from scratch on the Indian Ocean. Its construction derives from the strategic need to control the Indian Ocean to ensure the safety and supply of the major sea routes. In effect, the East African coast and its islands were forever marked by Portuguese presence in the 16th and 17th centuries, from Madagascar to the Persian Gulf, and encompassing the coasts of Sofala and Zanzibar, in a wide geographical context which included Kilwa. During his journey to India, with a stopover in Brazil, Pedro Álvares Cabral stopped at Kilwa on 28th July 1500. In 1502, on the return from his second stay in the East, Vasco da Gama received the first tribute paid by a local lord to King Manuel (the gold was used to produce the famous monstrance of Belém, Lisbon). The early years of the 16th century saw a quick implementation of the logistics on which the operation of the Portuguese Estado da India depended. The first capital was settled on the Island of Mozambique, but it was at Kilwa (Tanzania) that the first military construction from scratch carried out by Europeans in the east, during the outward voyage of the first viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, was erected. According to Charles Boxer, the Portuguese then found in the region cities usually “described as finely built, houses with more than one floor, but with narrow streets and alleys in the Arab style. Kilwa was already significantly decayed, but its huge and nearly ruined mosque was still an amazing testament to its former grandeur” (Boxer, 1960, p. 29). With the permission of the Swahili lord of Kilwa, near his luxurious palace on a coastal island midway between present day Dar-es-Salam and the Mozambican border to the south, the newly appointed viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, ordered the construction of the fort that was aimed at ensuring a base for the supply of Portuguese armadas, but not for the lordship of the lands, as King Manuel recommended by letter of 7th February 1501 and in Almeida’s instructions of 5th March 1505. King Manuel also ordered him to “build some fortresses and use the island of Angediva as a harbour for our fleets and support for the other land bases of the Malabar coast”. The mission also included the strengthening of the ties and alliances with the rajahs of Melinde and Cochin, and required that, next to the fortress he had to build in Kollam, he would erect a church and quarters for friars. Francisco de Almeida should also build the fortress at Cannanor and conclude the one at Cochin, which had already been started; he should erect those on the African coast at Kilwa and Sofala, the latter in charge of Pedro de Anaia, and build another one at the mouth of the Red Sea, for which the island of Suqutrah was chosen” (Farinha, 1991). The Kilwa fortress was abandoned in 1512, however; it was decided that the military and commercial control should be centred in Sofala and Mozambique rather than being scattered across such a wide area. The Omani, who competed fiercely with the Portuguese, seized Kilwa around 1700, after taking Mombasa. Around 1770, local lords regained control of the city. There are accounts mentioning connections with French interests and the king offered the Portuguese fort, as a residence, to a merchant named M. Maurice, with whom he negotiated a treaty of friendship which included the yearly supply of 1,000 slaves for the French possessions in the Indian Ocean. Nonetheless, as early as 1784, Kilwa – along with Zanzibar, Pemba, and Mafia – once again paid tribute to Muscat. A governor and a garrison were settled in the fort until 1843, a date marked by the extinction of the sultanate of Zanzibar and Pemba, and the deportation of the last sultan. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the city started to decline and it soon died.

João de Sousa Campos

Military Architecture

Fort