| Munhumutapa Empire |
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Information About ™Munhumutapa Empire |
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The rulers were:
The empire had another indirect side effect on the history of Southern Africa . Gold from the empire inspired in Europeans a belief that Munhumutapa held the legendary mines of King Solomon as referenced in the Bible . The belief that the mines were inside the Munhumutapa kingdom in Southern Africa was one of the direct causal factors that led to the East India Company founding the Cape colony, which would eventually lead to the creation of the country of South Africa . This is not to suggest that the legends were the primary cause for founding the colony (its purpose was to be a half-way stop where EIC ships could pick up supplies to and from India) but it was widely used among the less educated populace to recruit early colonists. Some recordings suggest that most of the early colonists dreamt of finding the legendary city of gold in Southern Africa, a belief mirroring early South American colonists search for El Dorado and quite possibly inspired by it. Ironically South Africa did have the greatest known gold reserves on earth in what is now Johannesburg , but it would take well over two hundred years before it was discovered and the city founded. In other words Southern Africa's legendary city of gold didn't exist, but the descendents of those colonists would end up building one. Johannesburg is still often referred to a the "city of gold" and in fact it's name in nearly all indigenous languages translates as exactly that (compare Gauteng in Sotho and Egoli in Zulu ). REFERENCE
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