Notice: This is the official website of the All Empires History Community (Reg. 10 Feb 2002)

  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Register Register  Login Login

Mwene Mutapa

 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Decebal View Drop Down
Arch Duke
Arch Duke
Avatar
Digital Prometheus

Joined: 20-May-2005
Location: Canada
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1791
  Quote Decebal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Mwene Mutapa
    Posted: 13-Mar-2007 at 13:11

This is part of my own initiative to open up more topics on areas that are under-represented in the forum, in this case the history of Africa.

This topic's introduction, along with the other ones, is pulled from the webiste of one of our members, Berosus, who has this site below. I find his entries on Middle-Eastern history somewhat arguable (since he's writing from a Bibilical viewpoint), but his articles on the history of the rest of the world are quite good.

http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/

And now, the feature article:


Mwene Mutapa

After 1400 one clan of the Shona tribe, the Rozwi clan, became dominant over the others. One of its kings, Nyatsimba Mutota (1420?-1450), expanded northward to the Zambezi River. This prompted him to move the Shona capital from Great Zimbabwe to Khami in 1440; Khami was also closer to the gold deposits that were still being worked. Because he was successful in his military endeavors, the Shona began calling him Mwene Mutapa, meaning "Great Plunderer." Ultimately, this became the name of his kingdom, too; the Portuguese spelled it Monomotapa.
The next king, Matope Nyanhehwe Nebedza (1450-80), pushed the kingdom's frontier to the east coast, though he didn't conquer the Swahili city-states there. He was in turn succeeded by two sons, Mavura Maobwe and Nyahuma Mukombero. Under them, one of the provincial governors, Changamire, acquired enough power to launch a revolt. Nyahuma was killed in battle (1490), Changamire became the new king, and the capital was moved back to Changamire's home base--Great Zimbabwe. However, four years later Changamire was also killed and the crown returned to Mutota's descendants. The restored Mwene Mutapa was weaker than its predecessors; it couldn't subdue the descendants of Changamire, who now had a kingdom of their own named Urozwi, with Great Zimbabwe as its capital.

When the Portuguese arrived on the coast, they replaced the Swahili as trading partners of the two Shona kingdoms. A military expedition up the Zambezi River lost 800 out of 1,000 men, but succeeded in building two more outposts, Tete and Sena, on the sites of older Arab trading posts, to monitor the commerce in gold and ivory (1572). However, there were a few Arab merchants left in Mwene Mutapa, and they managed to kill Gonalo de Silveira, the first Christian missionary to go there. This Portuguese priest traveled up the Zambezi in 1569, arriving at lean and fever-ridden at Khami. He spent a month teaching, and succeeded in baptizing the king and more than three hundred members of his court. But then the Arabs denounced Silveira as a spy and an evil magician, and persuaded the king to strangle him in his sleep. Despite this short-term success, Moslems failed to stop Christian activity in central and southern Africa, though during the period covered by this chapter, it was confined mostly to the coast; most of the tribes of the interior were out of reach of both Islam and Christianity.

Besides becoming customers, the Portuguese also gave military aid to Mwene Mutapa. In the long run, this didn't provide much of a benefit for either party. For the Portuguese, profits from the gold trade were down to a fraction of what they got from the Gold Coast. For Mwene Mutapa, outlying parts of the kingdom broke away in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, forcing the core to become a Portuguese protectorate in 1633. Even so, European influences were changing the continent, and disrupting the old order of things; Mwene Mutapa, like Kongo, had trouble coping under these conditions. The remnant of the kingdom was overthrown by Urozwi in 1693; Urozwi managed to hold on until the Mfecane of the next chapter.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Napoleon Bonaparte

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi

Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Bulletin Board Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 9.56a [Free Express Edition]
Copyright ©2001-2009 Web Wiz

This page was generated in 0.109 seconds.