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Great Zimbabwe was also a remarkable
trading empire. Gold and cattle were traded to the surrounding neighbors and
as far as China. Great Zimbabwe
which means “houses of stones” was located in modern-day Zimbabwe near
the Limpopo Riverand was founded by the Shona, in A.D. 1000 and 1300. The
Shona were Bantu-farmers and cattle herders who had migrated into the area
around A.D. 300. They still live in Zimbabwe today. The Shona built
fortified stone enclosures and Great Zimbabwe was probably the largest, most
striking and important of these fortresses.
The Shona settled in Great Zimbabwe for a number of reasons. The area had plenty of rain for growing
crops, many trees, and the area was free from tsetse files. Tsetse files
spread a disease called sleeping sickness which was fatal to humans and
cattle. Also, the earth was rich in granite, iron, copper and gold. The Shona traded their gold for Indian
glass and beads, Persian pottery, and Chinese silk with East African coastal
cities.
The history of Zimbabwe would be hidden from the
world until the twentieth century.
When European explorers came across the immense ruins of Great
Zimbabwe in A.D. 1871, they were astonished and surprise to find such an
impressive structure with 30-foot–high walls made from 900,000 stones. These
structures were built as residential housing. European scholars believed that
Africans could not have developed the technology needed to build Great
Zimbabwe. They believed a “mysterious
white race” who came from other countries built these gigantic structures.
You see, Europeans mistakenly believed that the people of Africa
were inferior to white people because they lived, looked and dressed
differently. Finally in the twentieth
century scholars concluded that the Shona (not white people) were the
builders of Great Zimbabwe.
In the 1450s African chiefs who lived in Zimbabwe’s
declared independence from Great Zimbabwe.
One of the groups was led by King Mwene Mutspa who conquered
neighboring kingdoms and formed a new empire called Monomutapa. Civil war began in A.D. 1490 and the
empire was split in two. Changamire to
the south and Monomutapa in the north.
Monomutapa was weakened in the late 1500s due to civil wars and
attacks by the Portuguese.
Historians disagree as to what caused the
downfall of Zimbabwe.
Some believe that Zimbabwe’s
downfall began with the decline of the East African costal trade and cities.
Others say a drought and the overuse of the land by the cattle was the cause.
While others say it was environmental degradation, the decline in Zimbabwe’s gold trade and
constant civil wars. Nevertheless, the downfall of Great Zimbabwe occurred
and it was abandoned by the Shona who left no written records behind.
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Additional learning resource: http://www.mrdowling.com/609-zimbabwe.html
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE
CURRENT PAGE
Textbooks:
World History - Medieval
and Early Modern Times. Evanston: McDougal
Littell, 2006. (150 – 199)
Across the Centuries.
Boston:
Houghton Miifflin Company, 1997. (108 – 153)
Dasilva, Benjamin, and Milton
Finkelstine. The Afro-American in United States History. New York: Globe Book
Company, 1969. (4 -135)
Internet Websites:
Matshobana, Ezika. "Zimbabwe
History." The history of Shona tribe of Zimbabwe. 1 Mar. 2006
<http://www.bulawayo1872.com/history/shona.htm>.
Hooker, Richard. "Civilizations in
Africa." the Mwenemutapa. 1 Mar. 2006
<http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/CIVAFRCA.HTM>.
"History of Zimbabwe." History of Zimbabwe.
1 Mar. 2006 <http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-zimbabwe>.
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