Ibo

Ibo lies among the Quirimbas Islands off northern Mozambique, sheltered by mangroves and coral reefs. Its Swahili-speaking community belonged to a maritime world that linked the East African coast with Arabia and India. Merchants and sailors crossed between the island and the mainland, carrying the goods of the interior into the Indian Ocean trading network. By the late eighteenth century Ibo was an important Portuguese port in the archipelago. The fort of São João Baptista was built at the end of that century to strengthen its defences. Ibo also became a point of departure for enslaved people brought from the mainland and transported overseas, a trade that tied the island's prosperity to coercion and suffering far beyond its shores.