Page 31 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 1

MONUMENTS OF AFRICA
influence over the Indian Ocean, and modified the well to enable it probably have slain him where
sailing forth to establish trade to collect rain water sufficient to he stood with the others. Upon
routes and to spread the message supply their needs. entering one of the gun powder
of Christianity far and wide from storerooms, this last man standing
the mid 1400s. In the early 1500s The Fort also had a parade ground, unleashed the unexpected,
Vasco da Gama discovered gun powder and munitions storage blowing himself and his captors
Mombasa and over a period of the areas and eight watchtowers. up using the gunpowder they had
next thirty years, the Portuguese There were multiple canon and so highly prized, martyring himself,
returned from time to time to rifle/archers’ ports along the refusing to deny his Lord, he fell.
attack and raid the thriving port walls facing the Indian Ocean And thus Fort Jesus was taken.
and major city in the Zanzibar and the access way to the Port.
Sultanate. Eventually constructing Portuguese canons, with a range The Omani Arabs oddly enough,
Fort Jesus over 426 years ago and of 200 meters, were backed by the did not destroy Fort Jesus, but
putting an end to Arab dominance diminutive soldiers with rifles as rather did what they could to make
in the area for about 100 years. well as bows and arrows during Fort Jesus ‘their own’ as much as
times of battle. The fort was possible. The Portuguese were
It took three years for the local complete with a main entrance said to be of small stature and
Swahili laborers to complete the way to the street, a passageway, therefore the forts walls were
work using the coral that the Fort now known as the Passage of the erected to a height of only 15
stands on as its base and lime, Arches allowed the Portuguese to meters, which was sufficient for
sand, clay, honey and jaggery, haul their munitions up to one of their needs. The Arabs, were said
for the walls, they completed the the storage areas carved into the to be taller and so extended the
defensive position of the Port of coral with the help of the Swahili. height of the wall to 18 meters.
Mombasa for the Portuguese to A second passageway allowed They also blew up the church,
occupy in them to bring in their food and which is now the only ruin inside
1596. Until then, the dominant medical supplies, and a third the Fort and set up spaces for the
presence was that of the Omani secret passageway would allow Mazrui dynasty and the Sultan
Arabs, who had their base in for a concealed escape in time of to operate from, when needed.
Zanzibar where their Sultan sat. need. The Mazrui room was used for
The arrival of the Portuguese meetings with the British known
represented more than simply Story of love and sacrifice as Barza or Baraza in Kiswahili,
a shift in the balance of power. It’s not stated whether the and thought to be used for the
Their arrival was a declaration passageway was used during the torture of African slaves... three
of a shift in spiritual and cultural time of the siege 100 years later, heavy metal rings fixed
influence. And the Fort stamped when the Omani Arabs mustered firmly to one of
their influence indelibly upon the a force from the seat of the Sultan the b e a ms
Kenyan coast. in Zanzibar and came to reclaim
the territory which they had lost to
Jesus in Architecture the Portuguese soldiers a century
Designed in the shape of a Man - back. What has been shared is
Jesus - with arms stretched out and that the brave Portuguese soldiers
lying on His back facing upwards slowly starved to death until only
- with head and arms close to the 15 were left. The Arabs were able
water and feet inland, the Fort to scale the walls and take the
was outfitted with everything the fort and they demanded these
Portuguese needed to settle down last 15 renounce their faith in
and make a home for themselves. Jesus and convert to Islam.
With two sets of soldiers’ barracks, The 15 refused. And, as the story
an officers’ barracks, a kitchen, a goes, 14 were slain and the 15th in the
dining area, a church, a dispensary, man kept alive in order to show room lending
and a well of sweet water, Fort the Arabs the gunpowder room. credence to this claim.
Jesus became not just a military Accompanied by three or four The Arabs did not trust that the
base, but a home to a new spiritual Omani Arabs, this little Portuguese Portuguese had not poisoned the
reality forming at the tip of Africa. Christian plotted something in his well, and so they dug their own
When this well was first dug, the heart, a thing which none of his well. They also built a wall to hide
water in the ground was found captors could not have imagined, the Portuguese wall art which
to be salty, so the Portuguese else they would not have taken contained the story of how the
sealed the salty water section off another step with him, but would Portuguese had travelled across