Fort Jesus Mombasa

The Fort Jesus in Mombasa

The Portogise Vasco Da Gama arrived in 1498 for the first time to Mombasa, where he found no friendly reception and its relationships with the people of Mombasa were so unpleasant that he preferred after a week on the much more hospitable Malindi to sail. Malindi was thus the first base of the Portogiesen in East Africa.

Since Mombasa has a natural harbor, it did not take long until interesierten other nations for this place. And so in 1598 a Turkish expedition, and built a fortress. The Portogiesen saw jeopardize their journey home and assaulted in 1593 Mombasa successfully at the harbor entrance and began to build a large fortress.

At that time, the Portuguese saw themselves primarily as representatives of Christianity wärend the homeland, as such, came in second place. Therefore, they sailed under the flag of the Order of the Christian “Jesus” and, understandably named the new fortress of Fort Jesus.

The fort, whose rectangular form imposed by military defense rules and was built by an Italian architect from Goa, now lies peacefully in the tropical sun.

This peace was not always present. Fort Jesus experienced periods of murder, siege, starvation, bombardment and betrayal in such dimensions, which makes our current period with robberies and kidnappings appear to be mild. In those ancient times when there was no radio or radio links must not times when it emerged that a ship on Horuiont have caused great concern, because the little colony had seldom more than 100 men and they were ready for the defense of your home by 6 months long to sail away. Fort Jesus still has the same basic shape as 400 years ago. To clear insight into the past are very rare.

They may therefore very much regret this landmark in the history of East Africa have not seen it.

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