Mombasa, Sultanate of
State | Defunct
1746 CE to 1837 CE
Capital
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The Indian Ocean Lands
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The people of Lamu Island are victorious against those from other parts of the Kenya coast.
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.
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.
The long struggle between Said and the Mazar'i for Mombasa ends in spring 1837 when, by a ruse, he takes some thirty of his enemies captive.
All are deported and some are killed.
All are deported and some are killed.
With the assistance of tribal fighters from Oman’s Zubara region, Zanzibar nominally annexes the city on June 24.
A British protectorate over Mombasa, represented by governors, had been in place from early 1824 to mid-1826.
Omani rule had been restored in 1826; seven liwalis* had been appointed.
Lying on the Indian Ocean, Mombasa is today the second largest city in Kenya, with a major port and an international airport.
*Wali, in use in some Muslim countries today, is an administrative title that is used during the Ottoman Empire to designate governors of administrative divisions; the division that a Wali governs is called wilayah.