Pate

Pate was a Swahili sultanate on an island in the Lamu Archipelago. The Pate Chronicle said the Omani Nabhani family refounded the town in 1203; its dynasty still ruled in 1337.

Pate rose to prominence in the fourteenth century and rivalled Lamu for control of the archipelago. In the eighteenth century merchants built decorated stone houses, and the royal Yunga palace produced the Swahili poem Utendi wa Tambuka. Wars weakened the sultanate: in 1813 its army and Mombasan allies were nearly annihilated at Shela while attempting to subdue Lamu.