Feitorias - Buildings with hidden secrets

“See this pool here? It is where the stage used to be. Upstairs, in the room area, was the balcony so people could evaluate and buy them.” Dinho reveals that the hotel where we were staying in the Stone City area used to be a commercial trading post (feitoria), in this case, a slave market at a point in its history.

Inhabiting or visiting in a site with many years of history, means that everything has more meets the eyes. Those streets were once walked by someone else, the palace was once a convent, as infrastructure at historical sites are readapted to new functions, renew its typology, and architecture.

The Island of Mozambique's urban fabric is marked by the presence of buildings that once were fortified trading posts (feitorias in Portuguese), constructed as the Portuguese took power over the Island in the fifteenth century. These buildings on the Island are traditionally two-story high, with a regular rectangle plan, with a substantial sized patio in the middle.

The construction of feitorias on the Island increased during the eighteenth century. It is connected to the resurgence of trading, specifically tied to the history of the Atlantic slave trade in Mozambique.

When walking on Island of Mozambique, examples of buildings that were feitorias are "O Escondidinho" and "Feitoria", both hotels in the Stone Town. The most famous one is the "Casa de Camões", a house also associated with the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões, just next to the Casa Girassol, the tourism center.