Africa
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For hundreds of years Kenya's coastal regions have been staging posts for different peoples and cultures, especially the Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula who came to trade and ultimately settle.
The Arab grip on the economy was temporarily lost to the Portuguese who fought the Arabs in a series of naval bombardments and street battles between the 15th to 17th Centuries. However, with the Portuguese colonies stretching as far India, maintaining a forceful presence was a constant struggle and the Arabs wrestled back control of this coastal area.
The Sultans of Oman then enjoyed a period of stability and economic expansion until the European colonialists, namely Britain and Germany, started to take an interest in the area. The Omani Sultan moved his power base to Zanzibar in 1832 and the British had made the coastal region a Protectorate by the end of the 19th Century.
