Changamire Dombo

Changamire Dombo (died c. 1696) was the Shona ruler who founded the Rozvi Empire on the Zimbabwean Plateau. Mutapa had become a Portuguese vassal earlier in the century, and Portuguese settlers raided its Shona subjects.

Dombo used royal cattle herds to build a following, defeated Portuguese and Mutapa forces in the 1670s and 1680s, and conquered the gold-rich kingdom of Butua about 1683.

In the 1690s, answering a Mutapa ruler's call for aid, he massacred Portuguese traders and drove every Portuguese off the plateau, later conquering Manyika before his death about 1696.