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Perspective: Africa - September 2016

The Horn’s Mayday
by

Leigh Barrett

The ancient city of Mogadishu has a profoundly rich history. The original hunter-gatherer tribes mingled with agrarian
tribes and formed an Arab aristocracy that
ruled between the 10th and 16th centuries.
An exceptionally important trading empire, Mogadishu, as a Sultanate and then
as the country known today as Somalia,
dominated the gold trade at the time,

minted its own coin, and left an architectural legacy that earned the nickname,
White Pearl of the Indian Ocean.

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Somali traders established a colony in
Mozambique to mine gold found there,
and developed regional trade that made it
a trading empire. In 1871, the Sultan of
Zanzibar opened the door to the Italians
by leasing them Mogadishu’s port. After