The port of Mombasa is an important…
April 1498 CE
The port of Mombasa is an important center for the trade in spices, gold, and ivory.
Its trade links reach as far as the Indian subcontinent and modern-day China and oral historians today can still recall this period of local history.
There had been trade links between Mombasa and Cholas of South India.
A key node in the complex and far reaching Indian Ocean trading networks, Mombasa’s agricultural key exports are millet, sesamum and coconuts.
Vasco da Gama’s expedition, traveling north from Mozambique, resorts to piracy in the vicinity of modern Kenya, looting Arab merchant ships that are generally unarmed trading vessels without heavy cannons.
The Portuguese become the first known Europeans to visit Mombasa from April 7 to 13, 1498, but are met with hostility and soon depart.