The first European to arrive in Mombasa was the Portuguese Vasco da Gama. His fleet of 4 ships by order of King Don Manuel of Portugal was to find a sea route to India. After two years of wandering, in April 1498, the ships Vasco da Gama left anchor in Mombasa. Since then, the history of the east coast of Africa has become a continuous war between the Turks and the Portuguese...
Even 500 years before that, the coast was controlled by the Great Ottoman Empire. East Africa was then known as the "Zane Empire", or "Black Land". Most of its Arabs called Zanzibar...
The Portuguese were about to make Mombasa the capital of their East African possessions. In 1593, they built a fort from the local coral, which they called Fort Jesus. The fort was to protect Portuguese merchant and naval ships, guarding the entrance to the old harbor. For the Portuguese architect Giao Batisto Chiaratto, the construction of Fort Jesus became the main business of his life...
During the whole XVII century the fort was fought by fierce battles. Despite the huge losses, neither the Turks nor the Portuguese did not want to concede. For a hundred years, the fort passed from the hands of the Turks to the hands of the Portuguese 9 times and back. The longest Turkish siege of Fort Jesus lasted almost three years. It began in March 1696 and ended in December 1698. At the end of the siege, only eight Portuguese soldiers, three Indians, two African women and a teenage boy survived the siege. They resisted desperately, losing any hope of waiting for reinforcements...
When the Turks entered Fort Jesus, everything was dotted with corpses. The last surviving Portuguese soldier lured his enemies to the gunpowder depot, saying that Portuguese gold was hidden there. There he blew himself up with two dozen Turks. Later, the new owners restored the tower, but the gunpowder was stored elsewhere...
The first thing the Turks did was destroyed the Portuguese church standing here. Nearby, they dug a 23-metre deep well, at the bottom of which salty sea water was accumulating. The defenders of the fort used it for washing. Both sides were preparing for new battles... The Portuguese tried several times to regain control of Fort Jesus and Africa...
After 30 years — in March 1728 during the bloody operation they managed to capture the fort for a short time. But a year later, under the onslaught of the Turks, without waiting for reinforcements, the garrison had to surrender.
For the next 160 years, the Turks owned Fort Jesus and Mombasa inseparably. At that time, Mombasa became the center of the East African slave trade. Its population increased to 25,000 people...
When the Portuguese were just beginning to build Fort Jesus, the British, who were neutral in the Portuguese-Turkish war, discovered a new business in Africa - the slave trade. For almost 200 years, this was considered the most profitable business on the continent. In the struggle for "spheres of influence" the British even waged local "slave trade wars" with other Europeans in Africa. It was not until 1807, when the British Parliament banned the slave trade, that the British drew attention to Fort Jesus. Britain was to preserve its face and become the sole owner of the region!
On January 18, 1875, the British warships Rayfleman and Nassau approached the fort. After long shelling the fort was captured by heavily armed English troops. And in 1895 Kenya was declared a British colony. The new owners found a peculiar application for Fortu-Jesus: it became a prison for especially dangerous criminals...
By the way, everyone who ever managed to seize Fort Jesus considered it his duty to bring something to his appearance: for example, to complete or repair the walls, to install new cannons, to blow up the temple or to dig a well. The English also contributed: iron bars appeared in the fort...
Fort Jesus remained a prison for sixty years. It was only in October 1958, shortly before Kenya's independence, that he was declared a national monument. The fort was open to visitors...
Since then, Fort Jesus has been restored many times. For example, a few years ago, drawings were restored, which in the early XVII century drew coal on the walls of one of the bastions of an unknown Portuguese soldier. The names of many of the warships depicted here, of course, can no longer be restored...
During the last restoration of the fort in January 1990, one of the workers, accidentally knocking on the wall of one of the bastions, heard a strange sound. The wall was opened and a grave was found in it. And the skeleton of a Portuguese soldier buried at the end of the XVI century was extracted from it. Probably, it was one of the first builders or defenders of the fort. Archaeological research continues here. Probably, Fort Jesus — the silent witness of bloody battles, feats and betrayals — till now keeps many riddles...