The people of Lamu Island are victorious…
1804 CE to 1815 CE
The Lamu Archipelago is a group of three islands off the coast of what is now Kenya.
The largest and most fertile is Pate, the northernmost.
Manda lies to the south of Pate, separated by a narrow channel from Lamu, the farthest south.
Manda and Lamu are sandy and covered with dunes.
Lamu supports mango and coconut trees.
The islands provide the best anchorages on the coast north of Mombasa.
The battle is one of several between the people of Lamu and Pate during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
At the time of the war the population of Lamu is estimated at between fifteen thousand and twenty-one thousand, and the town is expanding its trade while Pate is in decline.
The sultans of Pate had taken to living in Lamu.
Both the Nabahani of Pate and their allies the Mazrui of Mombasa are recent arrivals with Omani Arab origins.
The conflict had arisen from resentment over domination by Pate by the Suudi elders of Lamu.
When the Sultan of Pate, Fumo Madi, died, a contest for the succession had begun between his son Fumo Luti Kipunga and Ahmad bin Shaykh, a cousin.
The Mazrui of Mombasa had sided with Ahmad and sent troops to support his claim.
The date of the battle is uncertain, but it is some time between 1807 and 1813.
Most of the fighting occurs at Hidabu Hill.
Lamu gains an unexpected victory over the forces of Pate and Mombasa.
The story is that the tide unexpectedly retreated and stranded the invaders' boats, and while they tried to float them they were massacred.
According to the Pate Chronicle, eighty-one "important" people died, as well as numerous slaves and "unimportant" people.
The sands of the battle site will hold the skulls and bones of the dead for many years.
The continued threat from their neighbors prompts the people of Lamu to call for help from Oman.
Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman, sends a governor to Lamu around 1814.
The Sultan assists in construction of Lamu Fort, which begins in 1813 and will be completed around 1821.
The Sultan uses Fort Lamu as a base for defeating the Mazrui rebels in Mombasa, and for establishing control over the East African coast.
He will move the capital of his sultanate to Zanzibar in 1840.
With its strategic importance lost, Lamu will soon decline in economic importance compared to Mombasa and Zanzibar.
Locations
People
Regions
East Africa
View →Subregions
