Both Manda town and Takwa were probably abandoned due to a lack of water in the first half of the 19th century.

In the 1960s the Kenya Department of Agriculture recommended building several concrete catchments called jabias to capture rain water on the island.

Two jabias were built and many families moved onto the island, farming maize, cassava, simsim and cotton.

Early inhabitants of Manda constructed buildings with burnt square brick and stone and set with a lime mortar.

These bricks probably arrived on Manda Island as ballast in sailing ships entering the port.

The large scale excavations in 1966, 1970, and 1978 revealed a prosperity unrivaled in East Africa for the period.

[6] The location of the analyzed burials next to mosques is indicative of an elite status in the Manda society.

Part of the events in the novel Our Wild Sex in Malindi (Chapters 14 and 15) by Andrei Gusev takes place on the Manda Island and in neighboring Lamu.