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The Early History of the Maravi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

M. D. D. Newitt
M. D. D. Newitt
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Extract

This article seeks to re-examine the contemporary evidence about the early history of the Maravi chieftaincies of northern Zambesia. It challenges the view that the Maravi were long established in Zambesia and became aggressive and expansionist in the late sixteenth century when the Portuguese interfered with the ivory trade. Instead it suggests that these chieftaincies were only formed in the second half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century by a number of different groups who migrated into the region north of the Zambezi and who conquered the existing population. Some of these intrusive groups crossed the Zambezi and attacked the wealthy Karanga states to the south, but these invasions were frustrated by the Portuguese who blocked all attempts to settle south of the river. Defeated in their efforts, the Maravi chiefs turned aside to invade the Mozambique lowlands. It was one of these incursions that in the 1580s gave rise to the legend of the marauding, cannibal Zimba.

The establishment of settled Maravi states occurred only as a result of the rise of Muzura in the first half of the seventeenth century. He defeated his rivals with Portuguese aid but was, in his turn, frustrated in his attempts to interfere in Karangaland, and in the end was badly defeated by the Portuguese in 1632. Thereafter he concentrated his activity on developing the ivory trade with the Portuguese on the Zambezi and in Mozambique Island, while the region south of the Zambezi became subject to Portuguese warlords and the trade monopoly of the captain of Mozambique.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , April 1982 , pp. 145 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Alpers, E. A., Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa (London, 1975).Google Scholar The extracts are taken from pages 46–9 and page 53.

2 Alpers, E. A. and Ehret, C., ‘Eastern Africa’, Cambridge History of Africa, iv (Cambridge, 1975), 517.Google Scholar

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9 Abraham's footnote in fact says: ‘… Informants from the Pimbi section of the a Maravi living in P.E.A. east of Mount Darwin District have explicitly stated to me that in their opinion the vaMbire of Southern Rhodesia are their clan-fellows, but are unable to demonstrate the connection genealogically…’.

10 Langworthy, , ‘A History of Undi's kingdom’, 117, 126.Google ScholarPhiri, K., in his thesis ‘Chewa history in Central Malawi and the use of oral tradition, 1600–1020’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1975)Google Scholar has on page 52 the magnificently enigmatic remark ‘It is now apparent that Kalonga's kingdom was established some time before or after 1480’.

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18 E.g. Ibid. 144, 149, 150, 167, etc.

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21 Ibid.

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24 There are major problems about the identification of Muzura which are discussed below.

25 de Monclaro, Francisco S.J., ‘Relação da Viagem…’ is published in Theal, (ed.), Records…, iii, 157–253Google Scholar, and in Documents on the Portuguese in Mozambique and Central Africa, viii (Lisbon, 1975), 324–429.Google Scholar

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39 Ibid.

40 Miller, Joseph, ‘Requiem for the Jaga’, Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, xiii (1973), 121–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For criticism of Miller's article see Hilton, Anne, ‘The Jaga reconsidered’, Journal of African History, xxiii (1981), 191–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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43 Alpers, , Ivory and Slaves, 49.Google Scholar

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61 Cacegas, Luis (‘Extracts from a History of the Order of Saint Dominic’, in Theal, (ed.), Records…, 1, 399)Google Scholar says that the army raised by the Portuguese for the defeat of Kaparidze was obtained ‘from the other side of the river’. However, this account was written only in 1767 and contemporary sources only say that they were vassals of the Portuguese. See Axelson, , Portuguese in South East Africa 1600–1700, 70.Google Scholar

62 Francisco de Lucena to the king, n.d., in Theal, (ed.), Records…, iv, 274–81.Google Scholar

63 See the account of Gaspar Bocarro's journey in António Bocarro, in Theal, (ed.), Records…, iiiGoogle Scholar, and the letter of Mariano. In the Archivo Histórico do Estado da India in Goa (Livros dos Monções, no. 17) is a letter from the king to the viceroy dated 27 February 1633, referring to a letter from the Castellan of Mozambique, Cristovão de Brito e Vasconcellos, which had mentioned ‘the Marave cafres who have conquered a great part of the mainland adjoining Mozambique and have passed on to Mombasa’. Later he mentions the ‘Macuas cafres enemies of the Maraves’. These references might be taken as further evidence for the identification of the Zimba with a section of the Maraves, and they might also be seen as implying a fairly recent Marave occupation of the hinterland of Mozambique.