Mutapa, Kingdom of

…the Great Zimbabwe Mutapa Empire, but engages in little or no transoceanic trade.

To its south lies …

…the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony will sometimes be known as Dongo.

The Mutapa-Shona kingdom flourishes in the region of present Zimbabwe from the mid-fifteenth century.

Nyatsimba Mutota's successor, Mwenemutapa Matope, extends this new kingdom into an empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean.

The Mwenemutapa becomes very wealthy by exploiting copper from Chidzurgwe and ivory from the middle Zambezi.

This expansion weakens the Torwa kingdom, the southern Shona state from which Mutota and his dynasty originate.

Matope's armies overrun the kingdom of the Manyika as well as the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda.

By the time the Portuguese arrive on the coast of Mozambique, the Mutapa Kingdom is the premier Shona state in the region.

Mutota raises a strong army, which conquers the Dande area that is Tonga and Tavara.

The religion of the Mutapa kingdom revolves around ritual consultation of spirits and of royal ancestors.

Shrines are maintained within the capital by spirit mediums known as "mhondoros".

The mhondoros also serve as oral historians recording the names and deeds of past kings.

Relatively powerful Bantu-speaking states on a scale larger than local chiefdoms had begun to emerge between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries in the Great Lakes region, in the savanna south of the Central African rainforest, and on the Zambezi river where the Monomatapa kings have built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex.

The site of Great Zimbabwe declines after 1450.

Causes for the decline and ultimate abandonment of the site have been suggested as due to a decline in trade compared to sites further north, political instability and famine and water shortages induced by climatic change.

The Mutapa state arises in the fifteenth century from the northward expansion of the Great Zimbabwe tradition, having been founded, according to oral tradition, by a warrior Nyatsimba Mutota from Great Zimbabwe, after he was sent to find new sources of salt in the north.

Prince Mutota finds his salt among the Tavara, a Shona subdivision, who are prominent elephant hunters.

The Tavara are conquered and Mutota’s people establish a kingdom three hundred and fifty kilometers north of Great Zimbabwe at Zvongombe by the Zambezi River.

Great Zimbabwe also predates the Khami and …

…Nyanga cultures.

Portugal's main goal on the Swahili coast is to take control of the spice trade from the Arabs.

At this stage, the Portuguese presence in East Africa serves the purposes of controlling trade within the Indian Ocean and securing the sea routes linking Europe to Asia.

Portuguese naval vessels are very disruptive to the commerce of Portugal's enemies within the western Indian Ocean and are able to demand high tariffs on items transported through the sea due to their strategic control of ports and shipping lanes.

As the Portuguese settle along the East African coast, they make their way into the hinterland as sertanejos (backwoodsmen).

These sertanejos live alongside Swahili traders and even take up service among Shona kings as interpreters and political advisors.

One such sertanejo, António Fernandes, has managed to travel through almost all the Shona kingdoms, including the Mutapa Empire's (Mwenemutapa) metropolitan district, between 1512 and 1516.