The Early History of the Maravi

Abstract

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.

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