Mutapa Empire

From New World Encyclopedia
Revision as of 08:16, 22 September 2008 by Clinton Bennett (talk | contribs)
The Zambesi basin. The Mutapa Empire was bordered by the Zambesi and Limpopo rivers.

The Kingdom of Mutapa Empire (Shona: Wene we Mutapa; Portuguese: Monomotapa) was a medieval kingdom (c. 1450-1629) which stretched between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers of Southern Africa in the modern states of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Its founders are culturally and politically related to the builders who constructed Great Zimbabwe. fabled capital of the Queen of Sheba. In further expeditions, the Portuguese gained control of the country during the first half of the 17th century, but were expelled by tribal warriors after a disastrous defeat in 1693. Monomotapa was rumored to be an area of untold wealth in gold—in fact, the high plateau area does have rich deposits—which probably accounts for the prominence of the name on early European maps of Africa.

Etymology

The name Mutapa means "the conquered lands". The mwene (bantu term for "lord", specifically a conquering king) was the title giving rise to the state being referred to as Mwene Mutapa. This phrase has been preserved in documents as Munhu mu tapa, Manhumutapa and the Portuguese Monomotapa.

History

Towers of Great Zimbabwe.

The origins of the ruling dynasty at Mutapa go back to some time in the first half of the 15th century.[1] According to oral tradition, the first "mwene" was a warrior prince named Nyatsimba Mutota from a southern Shona kingdom sent to find new sources of salt in the north.[2] Prince Mutota found his salt among the Tavara, a Shona subdivision, who were prominent elephant hunters. They were conquered,[3] a capital was established 350km north of Great Zimbabwe at Mount Fura by the Zambezi.<

Expansion

Mutota's successor, Matope, extended this new kingdom into a great empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean.[4] The Mwenemutapa became very wealthy by exploiting copper from Chidzurgwe and ivory from the middle Zambezi. This expansion weakened the Torwa kingdom, the southern Shona state from which Mutota and his dynasty originated.[5] Mwenemutapa Matope's armies overan the kingdom of the Manyika as well as the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda.[6] By the time the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Mozambique, the Mutapa Kingdom was the premier Shona state in the region.[7]

Religion

The religion of the Mutapa kingdom revolved around ritual consultation of spirits and a cult of royal ancestors. Shrines were maintained within the capital by spirit mediums known as "mhondoros". The mhondoros also served a oral historians recording the names and deeds of past kings.[8]

Portuguese Contact

The Portuguese dominated much of southeast Africa's coast, laying waste to Sofala and Kilwa, by 1515.[9] Their main goal was to dominate the trade with India, however, they unwittingly became mere carriers for luxury goods between Mutapa's sub-kingdoms and India. As the Portuguese settled along the coast, they made their way into the hinerland as sertanejos (backwoodsmen). These sertanejos lived alongside Swahili traders and even took up service among Shona kings as interpreters and political advisors. One such sertanejo managed to travel through almost all the Shona kingdoms, including Mutapa's metropolitican district, between 1512 and 1516.[10]

The Portuguese finally entered into direct relations with the Mwenemutapa in the 1560s.[11] They recorded a wealth of information about the Mutapa kingdom as well as its predecessor, Great Zimbabwe. According to Swahili traders whose accounts were recorded by the Portuguese historian João de Barros, Great Zimbabwe was an ancient capital city built of stones of marvellous size without the use of mortar. And while the site was not within Mutapa's borders, the Mwenemutapa kept noblemen and some of his wives there.[12]

Capital

The Portuguese also left information about the capital of Mutapa. They paint a far different scene than that of Great Zimbabwe. The capital was built north of the granite outcrops that had supplied Great Zimbabwe and was composed mostly out of clay, wood and thatch. It was surrounded by a wooden stockade that could be walked around in an hour. Within there were three public enclosure. One was where the mwenemutapa held court, another housed his wives and courtiers whom numbered some 3000 and the last for pages and bodyguards recruited among the young unmarried men throughout the kingdom. These men would later serve as soldiers and administrators.[13]

The Accidental Crusade

In 1561, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary managed to make his way into the mwenemutapa's court and convert him to Christianity. This did not go well with the Muslim merchants in the capital, and they pursuaded the king to kill the jesuit only a few days after the former's baptism. This was all the excuse the Portuguese needed to penetrate the interior and take control of the gold mines and ivory routes. After a lengthy preparation, an expedition of 1,000 men under Francisco Barreto was launched in 1568. They managed to get as far as the upper Zambezi, but local disease decimated the force. The Portuguese returned to their base in 1572 and took their frustrations out on the Swahili traders whom they massacred. They replaced them with Portuguese and their half-African progeny whom became prazeiros (estate holders) of the lower Zambezi. Mutapa maintained a position of strength exacting a subsidy from each Portuguese captain of Mozambique that took the office. The mwenemutapa also levied a duty of 50 per cent on all trade goods imported.[14]

Decline and Collapse

Mutapa proved invulnerable to attack and even economic manipulation due to the mwenemutapa's strong control over gold production.[15] What posed the greatest threat was infighting among different factions which led to opposing sides calling on the Portuguese for military aid. In 1607 and 1629 Mutapa signed treaties making it a Portuguese vassal and ceding gold mines, but none of these were ever put into effect.[16] Another problem was that Mutapa's tributaries such as Kiteve, Madanda and Manyka ceased paying tribute. At the same time, a new kingdom called Barwe was the rise. All of this was hastened by Portugal retaining a presence on the coast and in the capital.[17] At least one part of the 1629 treated that was acted on was the provision allowing Portuguese settlement within Mutapa. It also allowed the praezeros to establish fortified settlements across the kingdom. In 1663, the praezeros were able to depose a sitting mwenemutapa and put their own nominee on the throne.[18]

Butwa Invasion

By the 1600s, a dynasty of Rozwi pastoralist under the leadership a changamire (king) were leading transforming the Butwa kingdom into new regional power. The Rozwi not only originated from the Great Zimbabwe area, but still resided tehir and built their capital towns in stone. They were also importing goods from the Portuguese without any regard for the mwenemutapa.[19] By the late 17th century, Changamire Dombo was actively challenging Mutapa. In 1684 his forces encountered and decisively defeated those of Mwenemutapa Mukombwe just south of Mutapa's metro district. When Mukombwe died in 1693, a succession crisis erupted. The Portuguese backed one successor and Dombo another. In an act which effectively made Mutapa a Butwa vassal, Changamire Dombo razed the fair-town of Dembarare next to the Mutapa capital and slaughtered the Portuguese traders and their entire following. In 1695, Changamire Dombo over-ran the gold-producting kingdom of Manyika and took his army east and destroyed the Portuguese fair-town of Masikwesi. This allowed him complete conrol of all gold-producing territory from Butwa to Manyika, supplanting Mutapa as the premier Shona kingdom in the region.[20] The reign of the last mwenemutapa to rule from the rump state ended in 1698, and his position was never filled. Remnants of the government established another Mutapa kingdom in Mozambique that is sometimes referred to as Karanga. The Karanga kings styled themselves Mambos (singular Mambo) and reigned in the region until 1902.

Mutapa as Ophir

The empire had another indirect side effect on the history of Southern Africa. Gold from the empire inspired in Europeans a belief that Munhumutapa held the legendary mines of King Solomon, referred to in the Bible as Ophir.[21].

The belief that the mines were inside the Munhumutapa kingdom in Southern Africa was one of the factors that led to the Portuguese exploration of the hinterland of Sofala in the 1500s, and this contributed to early development of Mozambique, as the legend was widely used among the less educated populace to recruit colonists. Some documents suggest that most of the early colonists dreamed of finding the legendary city of gold in Southern Africa, a belief mirroring the early South American colonial search for El Dorado and quite possibly inspired by it. Early trade in gold came to an end as the mines ran out, and the deterioration of the Mutapa state eliminated the financial and political support for further developing sources of gold.


References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  1. Oliver, page 203
  2. Oliver, page 203
  3. Oliver, page 204
  4. Oliver, page 204
  5. Oliver, page 204
  6. Oliver, page 204
  7. Oliver, page 204
  8. Oliver, page 205
  9. Oliver, page 206
  10. Oliver, page 207
  11. Oliver, page 203
  12. Oliver, page 204
  13. Oliver, page 205
  14. Oliver, page 208
  15. Oliver, page 208
  16. Oliver, page 208
  17. Oliver, page 208
  18. Hall, page 133
  19. Oliver, page 208
  20. Oliver, page 209
  21. Elkiss, page.16.

References

  • Chigwedere, A. S. 1980. From Mutapa to Rhodes, 1000 to 1890 C.E. London: Macmillan. ISBN 9780333281581
  • Elkiss, T.H. 1981. The Quest for an African Eldorado: Sofala, Southern Zambezia, and the Portuguese, 1500-1865. Waltham, MA: Crossroads Press. ISBN 9780918456410
  • Oliver, Roland & Anthony Atmore. 1975. Medieval Africa 1250-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521204135.
  • Pikirayi, Innocent. 2001. The Zimbabwe culture: origins and decline of southern Zambezian states. Walnut Creek, Calif: AltaMira Press. ISBN 9780759100916
  • Wills, Alfred John. 2001. An introduction to the history of Central Africa: Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198730767

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.