1
THE DIOCESE OF GOA:
THE PORTUGUESE IN EAST AFRICA
1.2 The northern coastal towns
Military intervention
The proud and prosperous Arab settlements on Africas east coast at first treated the Portuguese visitors with cool disdain. Their days of distress began in 1505 when dAlmeida took and sacked Kilwa, the most flourishing of these city-states, and went on to sack and burn Mombasa and in the next year Brava. Zanzibar paid tribute and was not attacked, while Malindi became an ally of the Portuguese. By 1530 the whole coast was under Portuguese direct or indirect rule.
Portugal in fact did not gain much by controlling these towns. Taxes and repressive measures all but killed the trade and prosperity of the area. The townspeople naturally resented Portuguese rule, and when `Alī Bey came in 1585 claiming to represent the Turks and promising aid to the towns that would revolt, Mombasa and all the towns to the north except Malindi did so. The promised aid did not come, and in 1586 `Alī sailed off with a ship full of gifts and loot. In 1587 the Portuguese reimposed their authority on the towns, sacking Mombasa and destroying Faza (on Pate island). In 1588 `Alī Bey returned once more and the towns rose again in his support. `Alī tried unsuccessfully to take Malindi which remained loyal to the Portuguese, and then tried to fortify Mombasa. The Portuguese arrived again and stormed the town, but the migrant Zimba people, who had destroyed Kilwa the year before and massacred its people, turned on Mombasa and eliminated `Alīs base. The Portuguese then decided to make Mombasa their central base for the northern coast and in 1593 began building Fort Jesus on Mombasa island. But their control of the northern coast did not revive its prosperity and by 1600 Portuguese power in the Indian Ocean was in serious decline.
The Franciscans and Augustinians
Franciscan chaplains accompanied the first Portuguese explorers and settlers. The Muslims of the coastal towns were not receptive to their preaching, and the Franciscans did not venture into the mainland.
Towards the end of the 16th century Portuguese Augustinians were active in Mombasa and Malindi. Seeing the openness to Christianity of the non-Muslim Africans surrounding the Arab-Swahili towns, and feeling the need to pursue their evangelization seriously, one Augustinian in 1590 asked for the creation of a separate diocese for East Africa, independent of the archdiocese of Goa. Although an Apostolic Vicariate was established in 1612 for Mozambique, Mombasa and the rest of the north continued to be administered by a representative of the archbishop of Goa. In 1624 this administrator, who was an Augustinian, reported that in Mombasa and the towns of Faza and Pate there was a total of 1,000 Black Christians, while on Zanzibar island there were 500, and in Kilwa a large number.