Joseph Heathcott

Associate Professor

By 1000 CE, an array of small settlements dotted the East African coast, mostly Bantu-speaking groups such as the Mijikenda and Bajun, along with Cushitic-speaking pastoralists from the North.  These groups were at times fragmented or isolated, and at other times conglomerated in complex political alliances.  Beginning over one thousand years ago, merchants, missionaries, and migrants traveled great distances through the monsoon winds that blew back and forth across the Indian Ocean.  They moved people, ideas, and goods in a triangular circuit linking East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia, India, Indonesia, and China. The cosmopolitan maritime society that emerged from this system established significant port cities by the fifteenth century, and by the eighteenth century a Swahili urban archipelago stretched from Tanzania to Somalia.

Lecture 1. Discussion Questions

Lecture 1. Notes

Lecture 1. Handout

Place-Making and World Seeking 
on the Swahili Coast
 
Lecture 1: 
The Swahili Archip
elago
  
 
By Joseph Heathcott

Limit of
reliable
Monsoon
winds
May - Oct
Nov - Mar

Swahili Goods gathered or produced for 
Markets in India, Arabia, Persia, and China
Tortoise shells, ambergris, and other sea products  
Ivory, rhinoceros horns, lion skins 
Mangrove poles, wood for timber construction
Herbs, aromatic woods, copal gum
Cotton and silk spun in Pate, Zanzibar, and Kilwa 
for markets in Egypt
Silver, lead, and iron produced at 
Pemba, Shela, Malindi, and other locations
Gold imported from Zimbabwe via Kilwa, 
resold on transoceanic market
Spices (clove, cinnamon, pepper, vanilla)
Slaves  
 
TRADE GOODS ON THE SWAHILI COAST, 7
th
 - 19
th
 CENTURIES
Goods produced abroad that made
their way into Swahili Markets
Porcelain from China and India
Coins from China, India, Arabian peninsula
Woven textiles from India, Indonesia
Glass, statuary, and beads from India
Bowls, pots, and other containers from the interior, e.g. Tawa pottery from Taita-Taveta and Dakawa
Cotton, silk from Somali city-states, Aden, and India
  
Spices from India and Indonesia
 

Lecture 1. The Swahili Archipelago

Swahili merchant families built considerable fortunes trading goods via the Indian Ocean.  They exported ivory, spices, carved wood furniture, ebony, coconut oil, and tortoise shell, and in turn imported silk, rugs, textiles, and other goods from as far as Persia, Goa, and Sri Lanka.  Chinese beadwork and plate ware have been found at numerous archaeological sites, indicating connections to the Silk Road.  Wealth accumulation through trade sparked the increased use of resource- and labor-intensive stone in construction, first for mosques, then for civic and commercial buildings, and eventually for merchant homes.  Meanwhile, successive European and Middle Eastern powers sought control over the trading routes plied by the Swahili.  These incursions brought a range of influential architectural and city-building practices.

Lecture 2. Notes

Lecture 2. Handout

Lecture 2. Questions

Place-Making and World Seeking 
on the Swahili Coast
 
Lecture 2: The 
Evolution of Stone Towns
By Joseph Heathcott

Hip roof with high 
peak for maximum 
air circulation.  Ridge = 1 mangrove pole
Makuti
 = thatch 
woven from dried coconut palm leaves
Generous overhang of eves to extend shade
Wattle-and-daub, re-enforced with coral rag, using mangrove poles for wall support
Elevated platform to protect house in rainy season (proto-baraza)
Exterior surfaced with a mortar render and lime whitewash
Doors and windows framed with mangrove poles
Dirt and sand compound with plantings, kitchen garden, cooking area

Lecture 2. Evolution of the Stone Towns

By the eighteenth century, city-states such as Lamu and Zanzibar had built up fleets of dhows--beautifully carved single-masted sailing vessels large enough to traverse the ocean.  As the dhows multiplied, the ports expanded along the waterfronts of Swahili settlements.  In addition to import trade, wealthy landowners developed a monocultural plantation economy for the production and export of spices such as clove, cinnamon, vanilla, clove, and black pepper.  Based on slavery and indentured servitude, the plantation system created an increasingly class-divided society, with the Omani rulers at the top, the local Shirazi elite in the middle, and at the bottom a large population of workers on the docks, plantations, and shop floors.  This import-export economy produced considerable wealth, which is evident in successive waves of investment in housing, customs facilities, quays, esplanades, dry docks, and mosques in the Old Stone Towns.

Lecture 3. Handout

Lecture 3. Notes

Lecture 3. Discussion Questions

Place-Making and World Seeking 
on the Swahili Coast
 
Lecture 3: 
Reaching
 Out to the World: 
				
Dhows
, Ports, and 
Waterfronts
 
By Joseph Heathcott

Lecture 3.  Reaching Out to the World: Dhows, Commodities, and Ports

Between the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries the 'classic' Swahili Stone Town landscape emerged.  However, against the many claims that this landscape derives from a uniform imposition of 'Arabic' architectural and urban forms, it is far more accurate to approach the Swahili town as a series of experiments, innovations, amalgams, and contingent developments.  The renowned 'Stone House,' for example, has been shown to be a variant of the much older makuti house.  The urban form of Stone Town does not follow a prescribed Arab pattern; rather, it reflects the piecemeal development of kinship-based clusters of homes built around an access path.  The artisanal and merchant shops that line most waterfronts are largely Gujarati in origin, with production and commerce on the ground floors and residents above.  Working-class and poor families continued to live in 'makuti' (thatch) houses on the periphery of the Stone Town.  Meanwhile, variant forms of Islam compete for influence through the design and construction of mosques and madrasas in the different precincts of the Swahili town.

Lecture 4. Handout

Lecture 4. Notes

Lecture 4. Discussion Questions

Place-Making and World Seeking 
on the Swahili Coast
 
Lecture 4: 
Building the Town: 
			    
Home, Shop, and 
Mosque
 
  
 
By Joseph Heathcott

court
veranda
street
roof line
open space

Former court 
covered over
New stairs (steep pitch)
New 
window
New 
window

Lecture 4. Building the Town: Home, Shop, and Mosque

German and British officials struggled for influence over the Omani Sultanate at Zanzibar.  By the end of the nineteenth century, the British declared the East African Protectorate, and exerted direct control up through the post-World War II decades.   Colonial planners left their marks in a variety of architectural and urban planning projects, from Art Deco office and apartment buildings to centralized market facilities to Modernist mass housing developments.  Tanganyika gained formal independence in 1961 and Kenya in 1963.  Zanzibar gained independence in 1963 as a constitutional Sultanate, then united with mainland Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania.  Throughout the 1970s and 1980s leaders of the East African nations attempted a variety of development initiatives to jumpstart their economies, while coastal cities began to expand with migrants from the hinterlands.  Since the 1980s, heritage tourism on the Swahili coast accounts for a substantial part of Kenyan and Tanzanian GDP, and the stone towns of Lamu and Zanzibar both became UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  Meanwhile, larger cities such as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa built expanded port facilities and opened up new areas for urban expansion, while large numbers of migrants continue to flow into the informal settlements that ring the peripheral areas.

Lecture 5. Handout

Lecture 5. Notes

Lecture 5. Discussion Questions

Place-Making and World Seeking 
on the Swahili Coast
 
Lecture 5: From Colonial Outpost to 
				Post-Colonial Metropolis
By Joseph Heathcott

Lecture 5. From Colonial Outpost to Post-Colonial Metropolis

This module presents the architecture, infrastructure, and material culture of the Swahili Coast of East Africa as it developed from around 1200 CE through the twentieth century. We examine the development of Swahili architecture and urbanism as a constant tension between rootedness and cosmopolitanism, place-making and world-seeking.  The overarching theme is that of dynamism, where Swahili landscapes are approached as always recombinant, unfinished, absorptive, innovative, and changing, rather than as static or pure or archetypal.  Lectures consider sequential architectural and townscape developments in a variety of locations, including Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, Malindi, Lamu, and the ruins at Gedi, Kilwa, and other sites.

Menu

General Information

Interactive Map

Member Directory

Follow us

Place-Making and World Seeking on the Swahili Coast

Created by

Lectures (5)

The Overview