BAGAMOYO

These days, Bagamoyo is a center for dhow sailboat building on the Tanzanian coast. A quiet village with a few German colonial buildings still standing, it was once one of the most important trading ports on the East African coast, and the penultimate stop of slave and ivory caravans travelling on foot from Lake Tanganyika on their way to Zanzibar. Missionaries active in abolishing the slave trade made Bagamoyo a center of their activities. The name ‘Bagamoyo’ means ‘lay down your heart’ in Kiswahili, and this is particularly poignant given that the town was the last stop on the mainland before captured slaves were sent to destinations unknown from Zanzibar, never to return.