Angwa

The Angwa runs through gold-bearing country on the northern Zimbabwean plateau. Along its banks stood a group of trading settlements known to Portuguese writers as Ongoe. Their stores and dwellings were enclosed by low earth banks, close to places where gold could be obtained from the river's deposits.

In the seventeenth century traders brought cloth and beads from the Zambezi to exchange with communities in the Mutapa lands. The Angwa settlements formed part of a network of fairs that included Luanze and Dambarare, where African producers brought gold to the merchants. In 1693 Changamire Dombo's Rozvi forces attacked Dambarare, and Portuguese traders withdrew from the Angwa fairs towards their bases on the Zambezi. Commerce with the plateau continued, but the old settlements were not restored.