Bagamoyo
| Jiji la Bagamoyo Bagamoyo Bagamoyo |
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| Coordinates | 6 ° 26 ′ S , 38 ° 53 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Tanzania | ||
| Pwani | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | TZ-19 | ||
| Residents | 35,000 | ||
Bagamoyo is a city and is one of the oldest places in the East African state of Tanzania . The foundation lasts until the 8th – 9th Century back. Bagamoyo was the first capital of German East Africa and one of the most important trading ports on the East African coast. Bagamoyo is a city with currently approx. 35,000 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2005) and the capital of the large Bagamoyo District. Since Bagamoyo is not yet officially recognized as a city, the place does not yet have its own city administration, but is administered by the district. Bagamoyo is proposed by the Tanzanian government with its building certificates as part of a new world cultural heritage "East African slave and trade route".
location
Bagamoyo is 6 ° 26 '24 "south latitude and 38 ° 53' 24" east longitude . The city is located 75 km north of Dar es Salaam on the west coast of the Indian Ocean opposite the island of Zanzibar .
history
The history of Bagamoyo was mainly influenced by traders from Persia, Arabia and what is now the Indian-Pakistani region, as well as by Christian missionaries and explorers and by German and English colonial rule.
Already in the 8th – 9th In the 19th century, Shirazi from Persia settled in the area around Bagamoyo, and more followed in the 14th century after the Mongols conquered the Shiraz state (1362). The Kaole ruins around 5 km south of Bagamoyo, with the remains of two mosques and a few tombs, can be dated back to the 13th century and show the importance of Islam in this region from early historical times.
Up until the middle of the 18th century, Bagamoyo was a small, insignificant trading place in which fish, salt and tree resins were traded, but the population consisted mainly of fishermen and small farmers. At the end of the 18th century it became a trading port for ivory and slaves who were brought in from the hinterland from the regions around Morogoro , Lake Tanganyika and Usambara and transferred to boats to Zanzibar. This explains the current name of the settlement, because Bagamoyo ("Bwaga-Moyo") means "Lay your heart down" in Swahili , because the slaves who were brought to Zanzibar on dhows never saw their homeland again.
When the Sultan of Oman, Said ibn Sultan , moved his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1840 , Bagamoyo became the gateway of the Arabs to the interior. In 1873 the slave trade was officially abolished, but in fact remained until the turn of the century.
In 1868 the Muslims of Bagamoyo gave land to the Holy Spirit Fathers for the establishment of a mission in the north of the city, the first Catholic mission station in East Africa. This happened against the resistance of the local Zaramo population, which after the intervention of the French consul of Zanzibar was put down first by Sultan Majid bin Said and after 1870 by Sultan Bargasch . Originally the mission served as a refuge for children who had escaped slavery; however, a church, a school, workshops and agricultural facilities were soon built.
Bagamoyo was not only a trading center for slaves, ivory and copra , but also the starting point for expeditions by renowned European researchers. From Bagamoyo they went in search of the sources of the Nile and explored Africa's inland lakes. They included, for example, David Livingstone , Richard Francis Burton , John Hanning Speke , Henry Morton Stanley , Franz Stuhlmann , August Schynse and Emin Pascha , James Augustus Grant and Friedrich Bohndorff .
From 1888 to 1891, Bagamoyo was the capital of German East Africa before the headquarters of the central administration was relocated to Dar es Salaam due to the deeper port . Bagamoyo remained the seat of a district administration. The German colonial days of Bagamoyo ended in 1916 after the invasion of British troops during the First World War .
Economy and Infrastructure
Today Bagamoyo lives mainly from fishing and agriculture. Dhow -Segelboote be made on the beach even in the traditional way. The supreme monument authority of Tanzania has taken measures to preserve the monuments in and around Bagamoyo and to revitalize the city. Today the Bagamoyo College of Arts ("Chuo cha Sanaa") is internationally known and teaches traditional Tanzanian art, dance, drama and music. A new road was built from Dar es Salaam to Bagamoyo. Many new hotels are not only available to tourists for a beach vacation, but also for meetings. The former district administration, hospital, school and a military cemetery have been preserved from the German colonial era
In March 2013, a contract was signed with the People's Republic of China, which plans to build a major port and an adjacent special economic zone for 10 billion US dollars.
Picture gallery
church
Kaiser Street (2007)
Mosque and some tombs in the nearby Kaole ruins
"Zanzibar Door"
Old Boma (2004)
German military cemetery on the beach
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Deodatus Balile: Tanzania and China sign port development package. Sabahi, March 27, 2013