with land for a mission north of the town, the first mission in East Africa. This caused resistance by the native Zaramo people which was mediated by representatives of Sultan Majid and, after 1870, by Sultan Barghash. Originally the mission was intended to house children who were rescued from slavery, but it soon expanded to a church, a school, and some workshops and farming projects.
But Bagamoyo was not only a trade centre for ivory and copra; it was also a starting point for renowned European explorers. From Bagamoyo they moved out to find the source of the River Nile and explored the African inner lakes. Some of these were Richard Francis Burton, John Hanning Speke, Henry Morton Stanley and James Augustus Grant. Although often believed so, David Livingstone had never been to Bagamoyo in his lifetime.
Only after his death he was laid out in the Old Church's tower (nowadays named Livingston Tower) to wait for the high tide to come in and ship his body to Zanzibar.
Bagamoyo was the first capital of Tanzania while serving as the German headquarters of German East Africa (first under the auspices of the German East African Company and then the German Imperial Government) between 1886-1891. Dar es Salaam became the new capital of the colony in 1891. The town was apparently the (1895) birthplace of SS-Oberführer Julian Scherner. During World War I, in 1916, a British air attack and naval bombardment was launched on Bagamoyo, the Germans were overrun and the German garrison taken.
When the German Empire decided to build a railway from Dar es Salaam into the interior in 1905, Bagamoyo's importance began to decline.
Today, Bagamoyo is a centre for dhow sailboat building. The Department of Antiquities in Tanzania is working to maintain the ruins of the colonial era in and around Bagamoyo and to revitalize the town. The Bagamoyo College of Arts is an internationally famous arts college in Tanzania, teaching traditional Tanzanian
