A New Look at the History of Pate

Abstract

This article, based on a critical examination of the Pate Chronicle in the light of archaeological and external historical evidence bearing on the subject, presents a case for a revision of the early history of the town. It maintains that Pate was the latest of the settlements to rise to importance in the region, being of little importance before the sixteenth century, and preceded by other city-statés, the earliest of which was Manda. The origins of Pate do not go back before the fourteenth century; the first dynasty there, the Batawi, was ruling up to around the seventeenth century, after which the Nabahani took over the sultanate.