
History of the Chinese in Barawa
We owe the first eye-witness account of Brava to the Chinese travellers of the early fifteenth century. The Chinese fleet, under the leadership of Admiral Cheng Ho (also known as Zeng He), undertook several voyages to the Western Indian Ocean from 1417 to 1431, (Filesi, 1975). These journeys were entirely peaceful ventures, having been promoted by the Ming emperor Yung Lo as exploration and trade expeditions. The Chinese ships cast anchor at Brava more than once, 1417, 1421, and 1430 (Filesi, 1975), and the visitors recorded that it was then a walled town with many stone buildings. Their almost idyllic