Kingdom of Butua

The Kingdom of Butua, also called Butwa, was a Kalanga, or western Shona, kingdom in what is now south-western Zimbabwe. It was ruled by the Torwa dynasty from its capital at Khami, near the goldfields of the Zimbabwean plateau. The kingdom rose in the early fifteenth century after a new trade route along the Zambezi bypassed Great Zimbabwe, allowing Khami and its rulers to become a major power alongside Mutapa. Butua was renowned as a source of gold for Arab and Portuguese traders; the Portuguese called it the Mother of Gold, and the first written record comes from the navigator Ahmad ibn Majid in 1502. The Torwa intervened in Mutapa politics in the 1490s and fought alongside a claimant against Mutapa until at least 1512. In the 1640s a civil war between the mambo and his brother, who was backed by the Mwenye merchant community, forced the king into exile; he returned with the help of a Portuguese prazo-holder in 1644. The conflict damaged Khami, and the Hill Complex was probably destroyed and abandoned. Around 1683 Changamire Dombo conquered Butua and founded the Rozvi Empire, ending Torwa rule. The stone walls of Khami remain the kingdom's best-known monument.