“nowhere else did the Portuguese arrive with such violence and yet build such intimate relationships with regional populations”
Studies of the era following the arrival of the Portuguese on the east African coast are shrouded in misconceptions, the relation between the Swahili and the Portuguese had for long been characterized as antagonistic and destructive but a closer examination of the era reveals a much more dynamic picture, one of mostly equal and mutually beneficial relationship in which the Swahili came to regard the Portuguese as an important political partner while the Portuguese came to regard the Swahili as an indispensable trade partner. After decades of wrestling and negotiating control of the east African coast, the Portuguese were relegated to the south of the Swahili world, but maintained a robust cultural and economic relationship with the Swahili; living, trading, marrying and fighting alongside them, gradually absorbed into the cosmopolitan society that characterized the Swahili city-state.
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“nowhere else did the Portuguese arrive with such violence and yet build such intimate relationships with regional populations”
Studies of the era following the arrival of the Portuguese on the east African coast are shrouded in misconceptions, the relation between the Swahili and the Portuguese had for long been characterized as antagonistic and destructive but a closer examination of the era reveals a much more dynamic picture, one of mostly equal and mutually beneficial relationship in which the Swahili came to regard the Portuguese as an important political partner while the Portuguese came to regard the Swahili as an indispensable trade partner. After decades of wrestling and negotiating control of the east African coast, the Portuguese were relegated to the south of the Swahili world, but maintained a robust cultural and economic relationship with the Swahili; living, trading, marrying and fighting alongside them, gradually absorbed into the cosmopolitan society that characterized the Swahili city-state.