Rozvi Empire

The Rozvi Empire was a Shona state that dominated the Zimbabwean plateau from about 1683 until 1866. It was founded by Changamire Dombo, a powerful leader, possibly a Mutapa governor, who used royal cattle herds to build a following. In the 1670s and 1680s he defeated the Portuguese and the Mutapa, then conquered Butua around 1683. During the 1690s he came to the aid of a Mutapa ruler and massacred Portuguese traders, driving the Portuguese from the plateau, and he also conquered Manyika before his death around 1696. The state was headed by a mambo of the Changamire dynasty, and its capital was Danamombe, known to the Ndebele as Dhlo Dhlo. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Rozvi struggled to control groups that settled within their sphere and sometimes stopped paying tribute, and a severe drought in 1795–1800 triggered civil wars. Nguni invasions during the Mfecane in the 1830s shattered the army; Changamire Chirisamhuru was killed around 1835, and the state was subdued by Mzilikazi's Ndebele around 1838. His son Tohwechipi rebelled but surrendered in 1866.