Chewa

The Chewa were a Bantu people around Lake Malawi. The Banda clan reached the region in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the later Maravi polity was led by the Phiri clan.

In the sixteenth century the Banda governed at Mankhamba and the Phiri at Manthimba. In the seventeenth century Kalonga Muzura expanded Maravi and conquered Lundu, but failed to expel the Portuguese. Succession disputes broke the polity apart in the eighteenth century.