BRAVE BIIMAAL DIR /PORTUGEES ZANZIBAR

 BRAVA. A coastal city in the South founded probably in the 10th century by Arabs or Persians and governed at that time by a council of chiefs. More Arab and Persian immigrants came to Brava, and by the 12th or early 13th century, Somalis from the north were moving in. By the 15th century, Brava rivaled Mogadishu as a center of trade. In 1503, Portuguese seamen captured vessels carrying some of the leaders of Brava and forced them to place the city under Portuguese protec¬ tion. When the leaders repudiated the agreement in 1506, Portuguese ships bombarded the town and looted it. Brava was defeated, and remained under Portu¬ guese domination until the middle of the 17th century, when the Iman of Oman ousted the Portuguese. The city then remained under the nominal control of the Sultans of Oman and Zanzibar until 1888 and was the center of Zanzibari government for the Benadir Coast. In the 17th century, the Tunni Somali arrived in the environs of Brava. Thereafter, they and the descendants of the original Arab and Persian inhabi¬ tants, who had intermarried with Negroid and Somali Bride Wealth 26 groups, constituted the city's permanent inhabitants. In 1840, the city was attacked by the tariqa of Bardera, which found allies among the BimaL In-rebuffing this attack, the Tunni allied themselves with the Geledi, who ruled the hinterland beyond the port. Brava was some¬ thing of a pawn in the later Bimal-Geledi wars, and in 1871 appealed to the Sultan of Zanzibar for protection. In 1875, Egyptian warships appeared at Brava. They withdrew a year later, under pressure from the British, and the Zanzibari increased their force and built a wall around the city. In 1888, the Imperial British East Africa Com¬ pany obtained from the Sultan of Zanzibar a 50-year concession to Brava and the other Benadir ports. Great Britain transferred this concession to Italy in 1889. Brava was administered by the Filonardi Com¬ pany (1893-1896) and the Benadir Company (1898-1905). In 1905, the Italian government purchased the Benadir ports north of the Juba River from the Sultan of Zanzi¬ bar and placed them under direct government control. From its earliest history, Brava was an im¬ portant center of trade, particularly for livestock and ivory exports, and was at one time the most important Benadir port. The merchants of Brava served as middlemen between Arabian, European, and American merchants (mid-1800s) and the peoples of the interior. When the caravan routes became disrupted, when there was a drought, or when the livestock of the area were struck by disease, Brava suffered. All these factors as well as the abolition of slavery and the development of other ports more suitable for ocean-going vessels combined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to undermine the city's prosperity and led to its decline