Pate Island
Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / area missing
Pate is an island of the Lamu archipelago on the north coast of Kenya. It is the closest island to the mainland. At high tide godfather is divided near the village of Siyu by a tidal creek in two halves, which falls dry at low tide. The island has a length of 24 kilometers, and is about 12 kilometers wide. In the north, it reaches a height of 46 meters.
Godfather is one of the first places that have been visited since the 7th or 8th century AD by Arab traders and sailors. There is no reliable evidence that this was already one of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentioned in coastal towns Azanias.
On the island, important cities of the Swahili culture developed. The earliest settlement of Arab Muslims on the island and the entire East African coast is the Shanga ruins in the southeast of the island. A little later the place godfather was first settled, but expanded in the 13th century to the city, as well as the 20 kilometers east location Faza, where are the ruins of a mosque from the 18th century. The first stone building situated in the center of the island Siyu were built in the 15th century. From the 17th to the 19th centuries was the largest Siyu village on the island. The island towns quarreled occasionally, with Lamu for supremacy in the archipelago, to the Sultan of Oman in 1847 ended the debate in favor of Lamu.
After the victory of the Ethiopian emperor about jihad by Ahmad Gran 1542 and in the following century attracted many Muslims from the Horn of Africa to sponsor. They were devout followers of a Sufi order, which had arisen in the Hadramaut. In contrast, the missionary efforts of Portuguese sailors from 1598 were not very successful, the Augustinian Friars in the wake were not welcome here, as elsewhere on the coast. The island remained under Portuguese rule until it was conquered by the Sultan of Oman in 1698. 1727 but asked the Sultan of Pate the Portuguese Viceroy of Goa to protect and this sent a fleet of six ships under the command of Luis de Melo de Sampaio. Also Mombassa capitulated on 15 March 1728. On 24 August, a peace treaty was concluded and Portugal built a fortress on Pate with 150 man crew. City Commander and Governor was Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho, but already honed end 1729 and again because of the Portuguese commander of Mombassa withheld from him the power. Pate and Lamu were in the 19th century to spread centers for Islam. The island was under the sovereignty of the Sultans of Oman since the displacement of the Portuguese from Mombasa.
In the 17th century, took over Godfather after the decline of Kilwa Kisiwani its role as an economic and religious center. Ships landed here, who were on their way from Mecca to Madagascar. Trade relations existed up to Java. The island population maintained friendly relations with the mainland, the people of Pate operated there as well as farmers. Rice and millet were produced in exportable quantity. The island was a major trading center for ivory and other animal products from the interior, slaves were exported and at the same time committed to their own fields to work. In the 19th century the membership of Pate went over to the Sultan of Zanzibar, who but only had to put in several military campaigns, especially against Siyu. The importance of the island opposite Lamu went back.
Faza is the largest town on the island of Pate. Here you will find the police station, shops, schools, a small hospital and also a tavern. The only vehicle in 2004 was an ambulance.