The origins of the ruling dynasty at Mutapa goes back to the first half of the 15th century. According to oral tradition, the first "mwene" was a warrior prince named Nyatsimba Mutota from the Kingdom of Zimbabwe sent to find new sources of salt in the north. Prince Mutota found his salt among the Tavara, a Shona subdivision, who were prominent elephant hunters. They were conquered, a capital was established 350 km north of Great Zimbabwe at Zvongombe by the Zambezi.
Mutota's successor, Matope, extended this new kingdom into a great empire encompassing most of the lands between Tavara and the Indian Ocean. The Mwenemutapa became very wealthy by exploiting copper from Chidzurgwe and ivory from the middle Zambezi. This expansion weakened the Torwa kingdom, the southern Shona state from which Mutota and his dynasty originated. Mwenemutapa Matope's armies overran the kingdom of the Manyika as well as the coastal kingdoms of Kiteve and Madanda. By the time the Portuguese arrived on the coast of Mozambique, the Mutapa Kingdom was the premier Shona state in the region.
The Mutapa Empire worshipped a supreme god called Mwari, the creator of the world and everything in it. The religion of the Mutapa kingdom revolved around ritual consultation of spirits and a cult of royal ancestors. During these ceremonies "Yaka mask" were worn. A central role in Shona-Karanga religion was played the mhondoro, the spirits of the ancestors of the ruling families. It was through these spirits that the Shona could talk to Mwari. Remembering the names of all the spirits and the task of calling on them in times of need was the responsibility of the nobles. Thus, the king of Mwene Mutapa played the role of high priest as well as acting as day-to-day ruler. The mhondoros also served as oral historians recording the names and deeds of past kings.
From roughly the 10th to the 18th century, Great Zimbabwe and the area of Central Africa around Lake Kisale (in present-day Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) were the region’s centers of production and intra-African trade. Beginning in at least the 1st millennium, however, people of this region traded with various non-Africans. The earliest and most important external trade link for Mozambique was with Middle Eastern and South Asian peoples who traded beads and cloth for gold across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
By the 14th century, African Arab, or Swahili, trade cities were flourishing along the coast from Somalia in the north to Kilwa in what is now southern Tanzania. Smaller Swahili sultanates developed along the northern coast of Mozambique as far south as Angoche. A series of markets had arisen throughout the region by the 16th century, sustained by intraregional trade in raw materials and long-distance trade in gold, copper, ivory, and slaves.
By 1515 The Portuguese dominated much of southeast Africa's coast, laying waste to Sofala and Kilwa. Their main goal was to dominate the trade with India; however, they unwittingly became mere carriers for luxury goods between Mutapa's sub-kingdoms and India. As the Portuguese settled along the coast, they made their way into the hinterland as sertanejos (backwoodsmen). These sertanejos lived alongside Swahili traders and even took up service among Shona kings as interpreters and political advisors. One such sertanejo managed to travel through almost all the Shona kingdoms, including Mutapa's metropolitican district, between 1512 and 1516.
The Portuguese finally entered into direct relations with the Mwenemutapa in the 1560s. They recorded a wealth of information about the Mutapa kingdom as well as its predecessor, Great Zimbabwe. According to Swahili traders whose accounts were recorded by the Portuguese historian João de Barros, Great Zimbabwe was an ancient capital city built of stones of marvellous size without the use of mortar. And while the site was not within Mutapa's borders, the Mwenemutapa kept noblemen and some of his wives there.
Great Zimbabwe is a ruined city that was once the capital of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe, which existed from 1270 to 1550 during the country’s Late Iron Age. The monument, which first began to be constructed in the 11th century and which continued to be built till the 14th century, spanned an area of 1,784 acres and at its peak could have housed up to 18,000 people. Great Zimbabwe acted as a royal palace for the Zimbabwean monarch and would have been used as the seat of their political power. One of its most prominent features were its walls, some of which were over five metres high and which were constructed without mortar.
Eventually, the city was largely abandoned, and fell into ruin, first being encountered by Europeans in the early 16th century. Investigation of the site first began in the 19th century, when the monument caused great controversy amongst the archaeological world, with political pressure being placed upon archaeologists by the then white supremacist government of Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe) to deny that it could have ever been produced by native Zimbabweans. In this way archaeology and anthropology which in many ways were created to prove the superiority of the white race, began to undermine this myth. The Great Zimbabwe was one of the greatest strikes against the supremist mythology that would later be a leading factor in the development of Apartheid.
Great Zimbabwe has since been adopted as a national monument by the Zimbabwean government, with the modern state being named after it when Rhodesia went to majority rule in 1980. It is also a UNESCO world heritage site. The word "Great" distinguishes the site from the many hundred small ruins, called Zimbabwes, spread across the Zimbabwe highveld (high prairies). There are 200 such sites in southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manekweni in Mozambique (which is now in a national park), with monumental, mortarless walls. Great Zimbabwe is the largest.
In 1569, Sebastian of Portugal made a grant of arms to the Mwenemutapa. These were blazoned: Gules between two arrows Argent an african hoe barwise bladed Or handled Argent - The shield surmounted by a Crown Oriental. This was probably the first grant of arms to a native of southern Africa; however it is unlikely that these arms were ever actually used by the Mwenemutapa.
In 1561, Gonçalo da Silveira, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary managed to make his way into the Mwenemutapa's court and convert him to Christianity. This did not go well with the Muslim merchants in the capital, and they persuaded the king to kill the Jesuit only a few days after the former's baptism. This was all the excuse the Portuguese needed to penetrate the interior and take control of the gold mines and ivory routes. After a lengthy preparation, an expedition of 1,000 men under Francisco Barreto was launched in 1568. They managed to get as far as the upper Zambezi, but local disease decimated the force. The Portuguese returned to their base in 1572 and took their frustrations out on the Swahili traders, whom they massacred. They replaced them with Portuguese and their half-African progeny who became prazeiros (estate holders) of the lower Zambezi. Mutapa maintained a position of strength exacting a subsidy from each Portuguese captain of Mozambique that took the office. The mwenemutapa also levied a duty of 50 percent on all trade goods imported.
Mutapa proved invulnerable to attack and even economic manipulation due to the mwenemutapa's strong control over gold production.[11] What posed the greatest threat was infighting among different factions which led to opposing sides calling on the Portuguese for military aid.
In 1629 the mwenemutapa attempted to throw out the Portuguese. He failed and was overthrown, leading to the Portuguese installation of Mavura Mhande Felipe on the throne. Mutapa signed treaties making it a Portuguese vassal and ceding gold mines, but none of these concessions were ever put into effect. Mutapa remained nominally independent, though practically a client state. All the while, Portugal increased control over much of southeast Africa with the beginnings of a colonial system. The Portuguese ran one of the most brutal colonial systems in Africa and were the last of the “Great Powers” from the Berlin Conference to give up their control of their African colonies. The often brutal wars only ended with the end of the last fascist Portuguese dictatorship overthrow in the 1970’s.
The Internet was all abuzz today about the Treasury Department replacing dead president and slave master Andrew Jackson with freedom fighter Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Dozens of outlets reported on it as if it was a done deal although the official announcement from Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew hadn't come.
Well, around 4 p.m. ET, Lew did announce that Tubman is going to be on the front of the $20 bill. But in a surprise twist, Treasury will keep Jackson on the currency—just on the back.
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Portland, Oregon, has become one of the country's worst examples of Black displacement and gentrification in the country. A look how Black-led and multiracial coalitions are trying to come up with their own solutions. Color Lines: GENTRIFICATION SPOTLIGHT: How Portland is Pushing Out Its Black Residents (Part 2).
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The media has paid a lot of attention to the White “urban pioneers” ditching the city of Portland in search of greater affordability. But the city’s people of color—and particularly, Black residents—have been hardest hit by a major housing crisis there.
From 2000 to 2013, White incomes grew from about $55,000 to $60,000; Black incomes fell from $35,000 to less than $30,000. One study from last year found that there is not a single neighborhood in the city where an average African-American can afford a two-bedroom apartment.
Due to the combination of falling incomes and rising housing costs, the number of homeless Black people grew by 48 percent in 2015 Though they make up only 7 percent of Portland residents, Black people constitute a disproportionate 25 percent of the homeless population.
This isn’t a new problem for Black Portlanders. From 2000 to 2010, the city’s core lost 10,000 Black residents. In the historically African-American neighborhoods of the Northeast such as King, Woodlawn and Boise-Eliot, Whites became the new majority in most census tracts.
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Women who had lost everything to conflict came together in their struggle for survival, learning the skills to build a neighbourhood of 102 homes. The Guardian: Colombia's City of Women: a haven from violence
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As with most Colombian cities, the roads of the busy northern town of Turbaco are laid out in a grid of numbered streets and avenues. But in one particular neighbourhood the main thoroughfare has a special name: Street of the Women Warriors.
The designation is a fitting tribute to the indomitable spirit of the women – all victims of Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict – who came together, organised themselves and built the neighbourhood of 102 homes with their own hands.
The community, known as the City of Women, has been an experiment in empowering women who had lost everything to the country’s rampant violence. It could prove a model for the future as Colombia prepares to sign a peace deal with leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), who have been fighting the state for more than 50 years.
The idea for the City of Women was born in El Pozón, a poor, crowded and impoverished neighbourhood of Cartagena, far from the stunning colonial architecture that draws tourists from around the world. The city’s marginal neighbourhoods instead attract hundreds of thousands of people forcibly displaced from other areas of the country.
Nationally, more than 6 million Colombians have been forced from their homessince 1985, when records began. More than half of those displaced are women, many of whom were widowed by the war and face raising their children alone.
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Since taking power in a bloodless coup in 1994, Yahya Jammeh has presided over the worst dictatorship you’ve never heard of. The eccentric Gambian president, who performs ritual exorcisms and claims to heal everything from AIDS to infertility with herbal remedies, rules his tiny West African nation through a mix of superstition and fear. State-sanctioned torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary executions — these are just a few of the favored tactics employed by his notorious security and intelligence services.
Elsewhere in Africa, rights advocates have increasingly lamented a plague of “third-termism” as more and more leaders move to scrap constitutional limits in order to remain in power. But in Gambia, Jammeh will probably cruise to a fifth five-year term in elections scheduled for December. That is, of course, unless the unprecedented wave of protests that began last week boil over into a full-fledged popular revolt.
Tensions have been slowly building in Gambia for years, not least because of the repressive security environment, widespread corruption, chronic food shortages, and terribly mismanaged economy.
Gambia ranks dead last in West Africa in terms of GDP per capita, the only country to experience a decline since 1994.) But Jammeh has mostly succeeded in keeping discontent in check, in part because of Gambia’s Indemnity Law — signed by the president in 2001 — occasioned by an incident the previous year in which security forces opened fire on a group of student protesters. In total, 14 people were murdered in broad daylight. The new law gave the president sweeping powers to prevent security forces from being prosecuted for quelling “unlawful assembly.”
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Debi Thomas, the best African American figure skater in the history of the sport, couldn’t find her figure skates. She looked around the darkened trailer, perched along a river in a town so broke even the bars have closed, and sighed. The mobile home where she lives with her fiance and his two young boys was cluttered with dishes, stacks of documents, a Christmas tree still standing weeks past the holiday.
“They’re around here somewhere,” she murmured three times. “I know I have a pair,” she continued, before trailing off. “Because — what did I skate in? — something. They’re really tight, though, because your feet grow after you don’t wear them for a long time.” Her medals — from the World Figure Skating Championships, from the Olympics — were equally elusive: “They’re in some bag somewhere.”
Uncertainty is not a feeling Debi Thomas has often experienced in her 48 years. She was once so confident in her abilities that she simultaneously studied at Stanford University and trained for the Olympics, against the advice of her coach. She was once so lauded for the lithe beauty she expressed on the ice that Time magazine put her on its cover and ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” named her athlete of the year in 1986. She wasn’t just the nation’s best figure skater. She was smart — able to win a competition, stay up all night cramming, then ace a test the next morning.
She wanted it all. And for a time, she had it. After Stanford came medical school at Northwestern University, then marriage to a handsome lawyer who gave her a son — who in turn became one of the country’s best high school football players. Higher and higher she went.
Now, she’s here. Thomas, a former orthopedic surgeon who doesn’t have health insurance, declared bankruptcy in 2014 and hasn’t brought in a steady paycheck in years. She’s twice divorced, and her medical license, which she was in danger of losing anyhow, expired around the time she went broke. She hasn’t seen her family in years. She instead inveighs against shadowy authorities in the nomenclature of conspiracy theorists — “the powers that be”; “corporate media”; “brainwashing” — and composes opinion pieces for the local newspaper that carry headlines such as “Pain, No Gain” and “Driven to Insanity.” She thinks that hoarding gold will insulate us from a looming financial meltdown, and recruits people to sell bits of gold bullion called “Karatbars.”
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This is an issue I’ve tried to draw more attention to for years. I’ve even tried to start White House petitions for years to no avail (dopper0189), kids under the age of ten getting Handcuffed and arrested is troubling to say the least, under the age of 8 it should be banned. DAILY NEWS JOURNAL: TN police arrest kids ages 6-10 yrs old at school for not stepping in to stop a fight off-property.
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More than 150 people called for action Sunday after parents said at least five students, ages 6 to 10, were handcuffed at Hobgood Elementary School on Friday.
The students were arrested, accused of not stopping a fight that happened earlier off-campus and later released from the juvenile center on Friday, said the Rev. James McCarroll, pastor of First Baptist Church on East Castle Street in Murfreesboro. The church hosted a community meeting Sunday afternoon about the incident. In addition to angry parents and supporters, Murfreesboro Police Chief Karl Durr and City Manager Rob Lyons were in the crowd.
"There are innocent kids that have been arrested that have been entered in a system they have no business in," said Zacchaeus Crawford, who said three of his children were handcuffed at the school.
"If something needs to be corrected, it will be," Lyons told the crowd."Out of this, we want to learn and make things better so they don't happen again," Durr said. Durr said the city's police department will review the situation, though he did not go into specifics in front of the standing-room-only crowd at the First Baptist Church fellowship hall.
Parents and community members sharply criticized the arrests of the students. They were taken into custody after they did not intervene in an incident that took place in their neighborhood, the parents said.
"This is nonsense, and it is nonsense in the fullest definition," Crawford said.
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