Abrahams Commission

Last updated

The Abrahams Commission (also known the Land Commission) was a commission appointed by the Nyasaland government in 1946 to inquire into land issues in Nyasaland. This followed riots and disturbances by tenants on European-owned estates in Blantyre and Cholo districts in 1943 and 1945. The commission had only one member, Sir Sidney Abrahams, a Privy Counsellor and lawyer, the former Attorney General of the Gold Coast, Zanzibar and Uganda, and the former Chief Justice, first of Uganda and then Ceylon. There had been previous reviews to consider the uneven distribution of land between Africans and European, the shortage of land for subsistence farming and the position of tenants on private estates. These included the Jackson Land Commission in 1920, the Ormsby-Gore Commission on East Africa in 1924 and, most recently, the Bell Commission on the Financial Position and Development of Nyasaland in 1938, but none of these had provided a permanent solution. Abrahams proposed that the Nyasaland government should purchase all unused or under-utilised freehold land on European-owned estates, which would then become Crown land, available to African farmers. The Africans on estates were to be offered the choice of remaining on their current estate as paid workers or tenants, or of moving to Crown land. These proposals were not implemented in full until 1952. [1] The report of the Abrahams Commission divided opinion. Africans were generally in favour of its proposals, as were both the governors in post from 1942 to 1947, Edmund Richards (who had proposed the establishment of a Land Commission), and the incoming governor, Geoffrey Colby. Estate owners and managers were strongly against it, and many European settlers bitterly attacked it. [2]

Contents

Origins of the Land Issue

In pre-colonial times, the rules of customary law in much of what is today Malawi attributed the ownership of land to the African communities that occupied it. Community leaders could allow community members to use specified areas of communal land and to retain it for as long as it was in productive use, but they did not usually grant its use to outsiders. Neither the leaders nor the current members of a community could alienate its land, which they held in trust for future generations. [3]

In the period before a British protectorate was proclaimed 1891, the African Lakes Company and several individuals, notably Eugene Sharrer, Alexander Low Bruce (the son-in-law of David Livingstone) and John Buchanan and his brothers, claimed that they had made treaties of protection or purchase agreements with various chiefs, under which they had become owners of large areas of land. The chiefs had no understanding of English concepts of land tenure and may have intended only to grant a right to cultivate vacant land in exchange for protection. In addition, documentation was often lacking or ambiguous and, in the case of purchases, the buyers gave only trivial quantities of goods in exchange for large landholdings. [4] [5]

Harry Johnston was appointed as the first Commissioner of the British Central Africa Protectorate in July 1891. Johnston did not consider that the Crown had a general claim to sovereignty over any land unless it had been expressly transferred by cession. Without sovereignty, the Crown had no right to alienate that land. However, some treaties made after July 1891 did cede sovereignty over land to the crown, but also granted the communities involved in the transfer the right to retain any land that they actually occupied as Crown tenants, leaving any vacant land free for the Crown to alienate as it saw fit. Johnston also accepted that the treaties and agreements made before the start of the protectorate might be evidence of sales of land. Even though he accepted that the land belonged to its African communities, not the chiefs, Johnston proposed the legal fiction that the people had given their chiefs the right to sell it. This interpretation validated the chiefs’ sales and grants of unused land to Europeans. He also claimed that he was entitled to investigate whether these sales were valid and, if they were, to issue Certificates of Claim (in effect a registration of freehold title over the land) to the new owners. [6]

Johnston stated that a review of land claims was necessary because the proclamation of the protectorate had been followed by a wholesale land grab, with huge areas of land bought for trivial sums and many claims overlapping or requiring adjustment. He sought confirmation that the chiefs who sold the land and had received a fair price, but his estimates of land value were very low, from a halfpenny an acre up to a maximum of threepence an acre. The existing African villages and farms were exempted from these sales, and the villagers could retain their homes and fields under “non-disturbance” clauses in most Certificates of Claim. [7]

When the legality of the Certificates of Claim system was challenged in 1903 on the basis that the agreements made by the chiefs breached the rights of their community members, the Appeals Court upheld their validity. The court did, however, rule that many aspects of the agreements made by the chiefs were unfair and one-sided, favouring the European parties. [8]

In total, 59 Certificates of Claim to land rights were registered, mostly between 1892 and 1894, covering an area of 3.7 million acres, almost 1.5 million hectares or 15% of the total land area of the Protectorate. This included 2.7 million acres, over 1 million hectares, in the North Nyasa District, which the British South Africa Company had acquired because of its mineral potential, and very little of which was ever turned into plantations or estates. Most of the remaining alienated land, some 867,000 acres, or over 350,000 hectares of estates, included much of the best arable lands in the Shire Highlands, the most densely populated part of the country. [9]

Development of the Land Issue

Customary law had little legal status in the early colonial period, as in 1902 the Parliament of the United Kingdom provided that English Law would generally apply in the British Central Africa Protectorate, and that the Crown had sovereignty over all of the land in the protectorate. Landowners had a title to their land by virtue of a grant from the Crown, but any land which had not been so granted remained as Crown Land, which could be alienated in the future. [3] Under this doctrine, African communities had no existing legal title to the land they occupied, and the colonial administration was free to grant away title to such land until 1936. At that time, it was recognised that much of the remaining Crown Land was unsuitable to be converted into estates and that there were few new European settlers and consequently little demand from new estates. The needs of African communities were given greater prominence and any further conversion of Crown Land to freehold was prohibited. In addition, from 1916, governors of Nyasaland had been able to reserve areas of Crown Land for the African people inhabiting it. These areas were termed “Native Trust Land”, to be held in trust by the British Secretary of State for the Colonies for the benefit of those African communities. The area of Native Trust Land was about 2.5 million acres. [10] [11] From 1936, Native Authorities appointed under the policy of Indirect Rule from among traditional chiefs and appointed headmen were given powers to allocate Trust Land to their communities in accordance with customary law. [12]

John Chilembwe (1871–1915) was a Baptist minister, who returned to Nyasaland after education at the Virginia Theological Seminary and College, (now Virginia University of Lynchburg) in 1900 and founded the Providence Industrial Mission. [13] Initially, Chilembwe avoided direct criticism of the colonial authorities, but after 1913 he had become more politically militant and openly criticised the government over African land rights and the conditions of tenants on European-owned estates. [14] The outbreak and effects of the First World War was the key factor in moving him from vocal criticism to planning an uprising, which he believed would achieve the deliverance of his people. [15] He planned to attack government centres and European estates in the Shire Highlands in January 1915. The plan failed almost completely; Chilembwe was killed and many of his followers were executed after summary trials under Martial law, but the uprising was a severe blow to the colonial authorities. [16] For many years after the initial shock of the Chilembwe uprising, both the Nyasaland and British governments did little to deal with the problem of land grievances, despite recognising that this problem existed. Generally, the supposed needs of the European estate owners were given priority and legislation in 1917, 1928 and 1952 was overtly race-based, as it involved using the categories “Native” or “African” to determine legal rights. [17]

The Land Commission of 1920 sought to address increasing African landlessness and recommended strict observance of the “non-disturbance” clauses contained in the Certificates of Claim. However, these clauses were largely ineffective, because landowners routinely ignored them and because the practice of shifting cultivation meant that the land occupied by tenants had changed since the time the certificate were issued. [18]

Another aim of the 1920 Land Commission was to promote European agriculture by curbing the growing of economic crops by Africans where this competed with Europeans. It also aimed to restrict the amount of land reserved for those Africans living outside the estates to only as much as was currently sufficient for their use, with some allowance for future needs. The remainder was to become available to form small to medium size European plantations. Even though large areas of the original European estates were underdeveloped or completely unused, their owners were unwilling to sell surplus land to new European farmers except for unrealistically high prices, so the commission looked to 700,000 acres of Crown land that it considered was potentially available to create future estates for these expected incomers, mainly outside the Shire Highlands, which contained many existing estates. [19] The commission also estimated that the African population of Nyasaland would double by 1950, but it considered that the very low estimate that 3.2 million acres of cultivable land, with appropriate pasturage, would be sufficient to feed this anticipated future population. [20]

However, in 1924 the governor, Sir Charles Bowring, reported that Nyasaland was unsuitable for settlement by large numbers of Europeans. From then on, the dominant European voices in Nyasaland were those of its colonial civil servants, unlike in the Rhodesias, where the permanent settlers were predominant. This led to the Colonial Office rejecting the Land Commission's report to the extent it promoted further European settlement. To prevent large-scale evictions from private estates, Bowring also suggested that the Nyasaland government should acquire blocks of estate land of a sufficient size to accommodate those Africans who were resident on the estate. [21] The Ormsby-Gore East African Commission of 1924 added that it was anomalous that the Nyasaland government was forcing African residents on estates in southern Nyasaland to accept obligations imposed by landowners which were not specified in the land titles. Similar claims to impose these additional burdens were not upheld by the same Nyasaland government in northern Nyasaland, and such claims were not even recognised by government of Northern Rhodesia. The main causes of discontent among tenants on private estates were their lack of security of tenure and the demands made on them to provide significant amounts labour in lieu of rent under the system known as thangata to which they were subject. The most urgent problem was that tenants did not have security of tenure rather than the levels of labour services or rent they faced. There was also a sense of grievance that Europeans were holding large tracts of undeveloped land while Africans were suffering land shortages. [22]

The British government was not prepared to support Bowring's proposal or deal with the anomaly noted by Ormsby-Gore. Instead, legislation passed in Nyasaland in 1928, the Natives on Private Estates Ordinance 1928, provided that each African resident in an estate was entitled to a hut site and a plot of cultivable land, in return for which they had either to work for the landowner for wages or in lieu of rent, or to grow economic crops to give the owner in lieu of rent. This measure failed in practice as it did not provide a permanent solution satisfactory either to estate owners or tenants, particularly during the worldwide economic depression of the early 1930s. [23] The 1938 Bell Report noted that many estate owners had little need of tenants’ labour and could not pay them wages or purchase the crops they produced. Some of these tenants were obliged to find work outside their estate to pay their rents in cash. [24]

During the Second World War and after, the Nyasaland government faced increasing African opposition. Many grievances came from the tenants on European-owned estates who increasingly resented the imposition of thangata, originally a form of labour rent but now often a form of sharecropping. Not only was thangata itself hated, but several estate managers increased tensions by denying the sons-in-law of existing tenants the right to settle in accordance with former practice, delaying payment of wages, demanding that tenants grow cash crops rather than food or by large-scale evictions. Smallholders living on Native Trust Land often suffered overcrowding, made worse by new methods of cultivation and soil conservation advocated by the colonial Agricultural Department and the eviction of former estate tenants. [25] African smallholders widely opposed the imposition of rules designed to limit soil erosion which involved them in considerable extra labour, so the department decided to use compulsion to enforce these rules. [26]

In 1942, many hundreds of African tenants were served with notices to quit in 1943. In the Blantyre District hundreds refused to leave since there was no other land for them. Two years later the same difficulty arose in the densely populated Cholo District, two-thirds of whose land constituted private estates. Eviction notices served on 1,250 tenants were resisted, and the government was forced to intervene to reduce the figure of those actually removed to one-tenth of the number served with notices. [27]

After the Second World War, it became clearer to the British government that its African colonies were moving towards self-government at a faster pace than previously envisaged, so the condition of African residents on the estates could no longer be ignored. African political consciousness was growing and unused and under-used estate land could no longer be justified by an appeal to dubious 19th century claims. The increasing disturbances made resolution more urgent, and a commission of enquiry was set up. [28]

Abrahams Commission

Abrahams spent around 10 weeks in Nyasaland in 1946, taking evidence from colonial officials, estate owners and settlers, missionaries, African politicians and chiefs, and visiting almost all parts of the protectorate. He submitted his report in October 1946 and it was published in early 1947. Abrahams identified the main problem was the conflicting African and European concepts of land ownership. In addition, many European landowners either acted illegally towards tenants or exercised their rights harshly and without consideration of customary practices. In part, this was because the system set up following the 1928 Natives on Private Estates Ordinance neither provided the owners with a reliable pool of labour nor enabled them to reduce the numbers living on their estates. Many African tenants, in Abrahams’ view, failed to understand their obligations or the limits on their legal rights. Many Africans living on Native Trust Land felt strong resentment at the large areas of under-used estate land.

European owners wanted rent in cash, kind or labour at their discretion and the ability to select tenants and workers, evicting those they did not want, without reference to any customs that restricted these objectives. Africans wanted to occupy estate land under the same conditions as Trust Land: rent-free, without any obligation to provide labour or sell crops to the estate owner, and following traditional customs. Abrahams saw these views as irreconcilable and considered that African residents in estates should be “emancipated”, free to leave the estate and be resettled on Trust Land or to stay on terms negotiated with the owner, not imposed by legislation. This could not be done while much Native Trust Land was overcrowded, so he suggested that the unused and under-used estate land should be acquired for the re-settlement of those leaving estates and also to accommodate some of the excess population already on Trust Land. Abrahams thought that the majority of estate residents would choose to leave, so the owners could then develop the remaining largely unoccupied parts of their estates. [29]

Between Abrahams’ visit to Nyasaland and the publication of his report, Edmund Richards, the governor from 1942 to 1947, strongly advocated to the Colonial Office that the Nyasaland government should purchase the Magomero estate of A L Bruce Estates, a single block of approximately 162,000 acres surrounded by very congested areas of Native Trust Land. The Colonial Office was only prepared to allow the Nyasaland government to offer five shillings an acre, a high price for land which a government survey showed had been over-used and deforested, but too low to be acceptable to the owner. [30]

Both the Abrahams report and the earlier Bell report considered that the resolution of the land issue should have been a policy priority for the Nyasaland and British governments. However, neither Kittermaster, who was governor from 1934 to 1939, nor Mackenzie-Kennedy, his successor until 1942, was able to take any significant action. [31] Their successor, Richards, supported Abraham's suggestions but left Nyasaland in early 1947, so it was left to Colby to give effect to Abraham's proposals. The first problem was that these were of a general nature and not based on any detailed surveys of the estates. The second was that Colby believed that compulsory purchase would alienate resident Europeans, deter future European investment and increase racial tensions. [32]

Aftermath of the Abrahams Report

As a result of the Abrahams report, the Nyasaland government set up a Land Planning Committee of civil servants in 1947 to advise on implementing its proposals and deal with the acquisition of land for re-settlement. Its original official members co-opted six representatives of the estate owners and six missionaries, but no Africans, although it took evidence from several chiefs. The committee realised the difficulty of its task, and considered it would be expensive and time-consuming to complete. However, it was pressed to achieve results and decided to concentrate on the Shire Highlands. [33] The committee did not go as far as Abrahams proposed, and its guiding principle was that land should be put to the best use possible, whether as working estates or African farmland. It recommended that government should only re-acquire land which was either undeveloped or occupied by large numbers of African residents or tenants. On the other hand, land capable of future “European development” (the phrase used by the Land Planning Committee) should be “protected against indiscriminate settlement and unorganised cultivation” (in Abraham's words). [34] [35]

The main problem was that those areas where the Native Trust Land was most overcrowded were also those where there was the least available under-used land on estates. If the most under-utilised estate land were acquired for resettlement, it would involve the significant population movement of those residents leaving estates. The Land Planning Committee advocated compulsory resettlement to distant areas if necessary. Another problem was that, if parts of smaller estates were earmarked for resettlement, the remaining parts might not be economically viable: this meant that the whole estate would have to be bought. This difficulty had not been foreseen by Abrahams. [36] The committee was conscious of the political repercussions that might arise if African expectations were not met.

The land it thought should be acquired included about two-thirds of the land held by the British Central Africa Company, most of which was had never been developed. [34] The committee's official members expected that the major estate owners, whose representatives they had co-opted, would be willing to sell parts of their land voluntarily. However, both A L Bruce Estates Ltd and particularly the British Central Africa Company Ltd proved very reluctant to comply. The committee considered that the local management of the British Central Africa Company did not realise how discontented its tenants were, nor that it needed to sell much of its estates, but it did not wish to acquire the company's land compulsorily. [37]

The programme accelerated after 1951, and within six years the government had re-acquired most of the land it had targeted by negotiated purchase. By June 1954, 350,000 acres had been re-acquired leaving only 3.7% of land in the protectorate in estates. At independence in 1964, this had been reduced to less than 2% per cent. [34] The Abrahams report stated that, in 1946, 173,000 Africans in 49,000 families were resident on estates. Land acquisition and re-settlement reduced this to 9,000 families by 1962, most of which had opted to stay as workers or tenants on the estates when offered re-settlement, often at some distance from their estate. [38]

A L Bruce Estates Ltd was under-capitalised, but before the 1940s it had refused to sell off any of its land to raise new funds. However, in 1945, the company announced it wished to sell its main estate, and the governor felt it was necessary to negotiate to buy it, even though it had been badly managed and deforested. Bruce Estates wanted a price sufficient to wipe out all its past losses since 1925, but this was considered excessive, and in 1947 the company tried to sell its land to a private buyer, but the sale fell through. [39] Some of the A L Bruce Estates land was sold to private buyers, but the government's need for land for re-settlement after the 1949 famine caused it to restart negotiations with the company in 1952. Around 75,000 acres was bought by the government, much of which was of poor quality. [40]

In 1948, the British Central Africa Company Ltd was unwilling to sell the better parts of its land to the government. [34] However, it was prepared to sell inferior land, and in 1948 the government bought freehold land from the company in the Chingale area in the western part of Zomba District to convert it into land held by customary tenure and resettle Africans evacuated from other estates in the Shire valley and highlands on it. The Chingale resettlement scheme took place from 1948 to 1954. [41] Following a serious famine in 1949, Geoffrey Colby, the Governor of Nyasaland from 1948 to 1956, attempted to get this company to sell its under-used land to the government for resettlement. However, Colby made it clear he would not use the compulsory purchase powers he had been granted, preferring voluntary agreement. By ruling compulsion out, he gave unintended encouragement to the British Central Africa Company's plans to retain its estates. [42] In 1955, the Nyasaland government agreed to purchase almost 36,470 acres in Cholo District with 24,600 residents from the British Central Africa Company for resettlement. Before this, the company had owned 74,262 acres with 36,400 residents. The company retained 38,143 acres, but of the 11,800 residents, 3,240 were moved onto Crown lands. [43] It was only in 1962, when independence was clearly in prospect, that the company accepted the need to sell its surplus land, retaining only its most profitable assets. [44]

While the 1950s saw the beginnings of the policy of actually re-acquiring lands for African occupation, it was only in the 1960s that the programme was completed and schemes for the allocation of land acquired to be formulated. In the 1940s aggrieved African residents objected to having to pay rent to the estate owners, as their counterparts on African Trust Lands lived rent free. They complained of a reduction in the size of their gardens and of the difficulties experienced by their children in building their own huts and starting new gardens. On the other hand, the planters in the Cholo Tea Association complained of shortages of labour, which they claimed was due to the increase of income in the villages through increased wages, financial assistance from relatives working abroad and the proceeds from the sale of cash crops. There was a conflict of interests: “. . . natives feel they have a strong customary right to settle their families in their home village, while on the other hand the landlord would do anything to contest that he was legally obliged to find accommodation on his land for the descendants of his tenants.” [45]

Abrahams reached the conclusion that the only solution was to end the status of resident native, leaving him free to quit the estate or to stay there on terms satisfactory both to himself and the landlord, substituting contractual rights for statutory ones. The 1948 Land Planning Committee of senior civil servants did not wholly agree with Abraham's recommendations, holding the view that 'African and European enterprise in Nyasaland are complementary and inter-dependent; neither can progress without the goodwill of the other; both must be prepared to co-operate for their mutual benefit and progress'. Under this two-fold policy land could still, under certain conditions, be alienated to non-Africans. [34]

The main provisions of the Africans on Private Estates Ordinance, 1952 were that the presence of all resident Africans on estates was to be legalised; a register was to be kept of all resident Africans and every resident was entitled to that extent of cultivable land already under his crops at the time of the implementation of the Ordinance in 1952. The quinquennial period of evictions was abolished, and future evictions could only take place if approved by an Arbitration Board consisting of three representatives of estate owners and three Africans, under the chairmanship of the Provincial Commissioner. However, the resident's land could be taken away if not put to good use. There were other details which provided for controlled rent, graduated rent for females, the right of unmarried women who were daughters of a resident to permanent residence (a resident's son, however, could only remain on an estate after reaching the age of eighteen with the owner's permission) and for the growing by Africans of cash crops only by contract with the owner. [34] [46]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nyasaland</span> British protectorate from 1907 to 1964

Nyasaland was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. After the Federation was dissolved, Nyasaland became independent from Britain on 6 July 1964 and was renamed Malawi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Central Africa Protectorate</span> British protectorate from 1893 to 1907

The British Central Africa Protectorate (BCA) was a British protectorate proclaimed in 1889 and ratified in 1891 that occupied the same area as present-day Malawi: it was renamed Nyasaland in 1907. British interest in the area arose from visits made by David Livingstone from 1858 onward during his exploration of the Zambezi area. This encouraged missionary activity that started in the 1860s, undertaken by the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland, and which was followed by a small number of settlers. The Portuguese government attempted to claim much of the area in which the missionaries and settlers operated, but this was disputed by the British government. To forestall a Portuguese expedition claiming effective occupation, a protectorate was proclaimed, first over the south of this area, then over the whole of it in 1889. After negotiations with the Portuguese and German governments on its boundaries, the protectorate was formally ratified by the British government in May 1891.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Chilembwe</span> Independence leader in Malawi (1871–1915)

John Nkologo Chilembwe was a Baptist pastor, educator and revolutionary who trained as a minister in the United States, returning to Nyasaland in 1901. He was an early figure in the resistance to colonialism in Nyasaland (Malawi), opposing both the treatment of Africans working in agriculture on European-owned plantations and the colonial government's failure to promote the social and political advancement of Africans. Soon after the outbreak of the First World War, Chilembwe organised an unsuccessful armed uprising against colonial rule. Today, Chilembwe is celebrated as a hero of independence in some African countries, and John Chilembwe Day is observed annually on 15 January in Malawi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chilembwe uprising</span> 1915 rebellion against British rule

The Chilembwe uprising was a rebellion against British colonial rule in Nyasaland which took place in January 1915. It was led by John Chilembwe, an American-educated Baptist minister. Based around his church in the village of Mbombwe in the south-east of the colony, the leaders of the revolt were mainly from an emerging black middle class. They were motivated by grievances against the British colonial system, which included forced labour, racial discrimination and new demands imposed on the African population following the outbreak of World War I.

Thangata is a word deriving from the Chewa language of Malawi which has changed its meaning several times, although all meanings relate to agriculture. Its original, pre-colonial usage related to reciprocal help given in neighbours' fields or freely-given agricultural labour as thanks for a benefit. In colonial times, between 1891 and 1962, it generally meant agricultural labour given in lieu of a cash rent, and generally without any payment, by a tenant on an estate owned by a European. Thangata was often exploited, and tenants could be forced to work on the owners' crops for four to six months annually when they could have cultivated their own crops. From the 1920s, the name thangata was extended to situations where tenants were given seeds to grow set quotas of designated crops instead of providing cash or labour. Both forms of thangata were abolished in 1962, but both before and after independence and up to the present, the term has been used for short-term rural casual work, often on tobacco estates, which is considered by workers to be exploitative.

Sir Charles Calvert Bowring was a British colonial administrator, mainly in Kenya, who was later Governor and Commander in Chief of the Nyasaland Protectorate from 1923 to 1929.

A. L. Bruce Estates was one of three largest owners of agricultural estates in colonial Nyasaland. Alexander Low Bruce, the son-in-law of David Livingstone, acquired a large estate at Magomero in the Shire Highlands of Nyasaland in 1893, together with two smaller ones. On his death, these estates were to operate as a trust to bring Christianity and Commerce to Central Africa. However his two sons later formed a commercial company which bought the estates from the trust. The company gained a reputation for the harsh exploitation and ill-treatment of its tenants under a labour system known by the African term "thangata", which operated in the plantation cultivation of cotton and tobacco. This exploitation was one of the causes of the 1915 uprising led by John Chilembwe, which resulted in the deaths of three of the company's European employees. After the failure of its own cotton and tobacco plantations, the company forced its tenants to grow tobacco rather than food on their own land and significantly underpaid them. Following almost three decades of losses, the Magomero estate was in poor condition, but the company was able to sell it at a profit between 1949 and 1952 because the government needed land for resettlement of African former tenants evicted from private estates. The company was liquidated in 1959.

The Natives on Private Estates Ordinance, 1928 was a colonial ordinance passed by the Legislative Council of the Nyasaland Protectorate. The body was composed mainly of senior colonial officials, with a minority of nominated members, to represent European residents. The ordinance regulated the conditions under which land could be farmed by African tenants on estates owned by European settlers within that protectorate. The legislation corrected some of the worst abuses of the system of thangata under which tenants were required to work for the estate owner in lieu of paying rent.

Eugene Charles Albert Sharrer was a British subject by naturalisation but of German descent, who was a leading entrepreneur in what is now Malawi for around fifteen years between his arrival in 1888 and his departure. He rapidly built-up commercial operations including wholesale and retail trading, considerable holdings of land, cotton and coffee plantations and a fleet of steamers on the Zambezi and Shire rivers. Sharrer was prominent in pressure groups that represented the interests of European planters and their businesses to the colonial authorities, and was responsible for the development of the first railway in what had become the British Central Africa Protectorate, whose construction was agreed in 1902. In 1902, Sharrer consolidate all his business interests into the British Central Africa Company Ltd and became its principal shareholder Shortly after this he left British Central Africa permanently for London, although he retained his financial interests in the territory. Very little is known of his history before he arrived in Central Africa but he died in London during the First World War.

Certificates of Claim were a form of legal instrument by which the colonial administration of the British Central Africa Protectorate granted legal property titles to individuals, companies and others who claimed to have acquired land within the protectorate by grant or purchase. The proclamation of the British Central Africa Protectorate was endorsed by the British Foreign Office in May 1891, and Harry Johnston as Commissioner and Consul-General examined and adjudicated on all claims to the ownership of land said to have been acquired before or immediately after that date. Between late 1892 and March 1894, Johnston issued 59 Certificates of Claim for land, each of which was equivalent to a freehold title to the land claimed. Very few claims were disallowed or reduced in extent, and around 3.7 million acres, or 15% of the land area of the protectorate, was alienated, mainly to European settlers. No Certificates of Claim were issued after 1894, but this form of land title was never abolished, and some land in Malawi is still held under those certificates.

Blantyre and East Africa Ltd is a company that was incorporated in Scotland in 1898 and is still in existence. Its main activity was the ownership of estates in the south of what is now Malawi. The main estate crops it grew were tobacco until the 1950s and tea, which it continued to grow until the company’s tea estates were sold. Blantyre and East Africa Ltd was one of four large estate-owning companies in colonial Nyasaland which together owned over 3.4 million acres of land, including the majority of the fertile land in the Shire Highlands. The company acquired most of its landholdings between 1898 and 1901 from several early European settlers, whose title to this land had been recognised by Certificates of Claim issued by the administration of the British Central Africa Protectorate. After the boom for Europeans growing tobacco ended in about 1927, the company retained one large estate in Zomba District where its tenants were encouraged to grow tobacco and others where it grew tea. It was also left with a scattering of small estates that it neither operated nor effectively managed but obtained cash rents from African tenants on crowded and unsupervised estates. Many of its estates, excluding the tea estates which it continued to manage directly, were sold to the colonial administration of Nyasaland between 1950 and 1955.

The British Central Africa Company Ltd was one of the four largest European-owned companies that operated in colonial Nyasaland, now Malawi. The company was incorporated in 1902 to acquire the business interests that Eugene Sharrer, an early settler and entrepreneur, had developed in the British Central Africa Protectorate. Sharrer became the majority shareholder of the company on its foundation. The company initially had trading and transport interests, but these were sold by the 1930s. For most of the colonial period, its extensive estates produced cotton, tobacco or tea but the British Central Africa Company Ltd developed the reputation of being a harsh and exploitative landlord whose relations with its tenants were poor. In 1962, shortly before independence, the company sold most of its undeveloped land to the Nyasaland government, but it retained some plantations and two tea factories. It changed its name to The Central Africa Company Ltd and was acquired by the Lonrho group, both in 1964.

William Jervis Livingstone (1865–1915) was the manager of the Magomero Estate in Nyasaland owned by A L Bruce Estates Ltd and was killed in 1915 during the uprising against colonial rule led by John Chilembwe. Livingstone, from the Isle of Lismore in Argyllshire, Scotland, was born in 1865 and appointed as manager of Magomero in 1893.

John Buchanan (1855–1896), was a Scottish horticulturist who went to Central Africa, now Malawi, in 1876 as a lay member of the missionary party that established Blantyre Mission. Buchanan came to Central Africa as an ambitious artisan: his character was described as dour and devout but also as restlessly ambitious, and he saw in Central Africa a gateway to personal achievement. He started a mission farm on the site of Zomba, Malawi but was dismissed from the mission in 1881 for brutality. From being a disgraced missionary, Buchanan first became a very influential planter owning, with his brothers, extensive estates in Zomba District. He then achieved the highest position he could in the British administration as Acting British Consul to Central Africa from 1887 to 1891. In that capacity declared a protectorate over the Shire Highlands in 1889 to pre-empt a Portuguese expedition that intended to claim sovereignty over that region. In 1891, the Shire Highlands became part of the British Central Africa Protectorate. John Buchanan died at Chinde in Mozambique in March 1896 on his way to visit Scotland, and his estates were later acquired by the Blantyre and East Africa Ltd.

Alexander Livingstone Bruce was a capitalist of Scottish origin, a director and major shareholder of A L Bruce Estates Ltd, one of the largest property owning companies in colonial Nyasaland. His father, Alexander Low Bruce, was a son-in-law of David Livingstone and urged his two sons to use the landholding he had acquired for philanthropic purposes. However, during over 40 years residence in Africa, Bruce represented the interests of European landowners and opposed the political, educational and social advancement of Africans. After the death of his elder brother in 1915, Alexander Livingstone Bruce had sole control of the company estates: his management was harsh and exploitative, and one of the main causes of the uprising of John Chilembwe in 1915. During the uprising, three of Bruce's European employees were killed and one of them, William Jervis Livingstone was held partly to blame for the revolt. Although Livingstone was carrying out Bruce's orders, Bruce, as a leading landowner and member of the governor's Legislative Council, escaped censure. Despite Bruce's striving for profits, A L Bruce Estates lost money but was saved from insolvency by the colonial government's need for land for resettlement following a famine in 1949. Shortly before his death in 1954, Bruce was able to sell the company's Nyasaland estates, repay its debts and realise a surplus.

The Native Tobacco Board, or NTB, was formed in Nyasaland in 1926 as a Government-sponsored body with the primary aim of controlling the production of tobacco by African smallholders and generating revenues for the government, and the secondary aim of increasing the volume and quality of tobacco exports. At the time of its formation, much of Nyasaland's tobacco was produced on European-owned estates, whose owners demanded protection against African tobacco production that might compete with their own, and against the possibility that profitable smallholder farming would draw cheap African labour away from their estates. From around 1940, the aim of the NTB was less about restricting African tobacco production and more about generating governmental revenues, supposedly for development but still involving the diversion of resources away from smallholder farming. In 1956, the activities, powers and duties of what had by then been renamed the African Tobacco Board were transferred to the Agricultural Production and Marketing Board, which had powers to buy smallholder surpluses of tobacco, maize, cotton and other crops, but whose producer prices continued to be biased against peasant producers.

Native Trust Land in colonial Nyasaland was a category of land held in trust by the Secretary of State for the Colonies and administered by the colonial governor for the benefit of African communities. In pre-colonial times, land belonged to the African communities that occupied it, and their members were free to use it in accordance with local customary law. In the late 19th century, large areas of fertile land were acquired by European settlers, and the remainder became Crown land, which the colonial government could alienate without the consent of the resident communities. To give a measure of protection to those communities, in 1916 land in Native Reserves, which then amounted to about a quarter of the land in the protectorate, was designated as Native Trust Land, to be held in trust for the benefit of African communities. Later, in 1936, all Crown Land except game or forest reserves or that used for public purposes became Native Trust Land, and Native Authorities were authorised to allocate Trust Land to their communities in accordance with customary law. After 1936, Native Trust Land constituted over 80% of the land in Nyasaland and most African farmers farmed Native Trust Land from then until Nyasaland gained independence as Malawi in 1964 and after.

The Armitage Report was a report into the actions of the Nyasaland government in declaring a State of Emergency in March 1959 and actions of the police and troops in the aftermath of that declaration. It was supposed to have been a despatch prepared in Nyasaland by the Governor of that protectorate, Robert Perceval Armitage, but was in fact prepared in London by a working party that included Armitage, British government ministers and senior Colonial Office officials, in an attempt to counteract various criticisms contained in the Report of the Devlin Commission. Both reports accepted that a State of Emergency was necessary in view of the level of unrest in Nyasaland, but the Armitage Report approved of the subsequent actions of the police and troops, whereas the Devlin Report criticised their illegal use of force and stigmatised the Nyasaland government's suppression of criticism as justifying it being called a "police state". Although the Armitage Report was used by the government of the day to discredit the Devlin Report initially, and to justify its rejection of many of the Devlin Commission's findings, in the longer term the Devlin Report helped to convince the British Government that the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was not acceptable to its African majority and should be dissolved. Devlin was vindicated and approached for advice on constitutional change, but Armitage was seen as an obstacle to progress and asked to leave Nyasaland prematurely.

Since 1933, various traditional chiefs in Nyasaland have been designated as Native Authorities, initially by the colonial administration, and they numbered 105 in 1949.. They represented a form of the Indirect rule which had become popular in British African dependencies in the second quarter of the 20th century, although Nyasaland's Native Authorities had fewer powers and smaller incomes than similar institutions in other African colonies. The Native Authority system worked reasonably effectively until after the Second World War, when they were obliged to enforce unpopular government agricultural policies and, in some cases, their support for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland made Native Authorities unpopular with many of their people. After 1953, many of the powers of individual chiefs were transferred to councils which became the Native Authorities, although the chiefs sat on these councils. After independence, the authorities were renamed Traditional Authorities and continued to operate, and the status and influence of many of the chiefs revived through their cooperation with the Malawi government of Hastings Banda.

The Nyasaland emergency of 1959 was a state of emergency in the protectorate of Nyasaland, which was declared by its governor, Sir Robert Armitage, on 3 March 1959 and which ended on 16 June 1960. Under the emergency powers that operated during the Emergency, over 1,300 members or supporters of the Nyasaland African Congress (Congress) were detained without trial, and most of the party's leaders including its president, Dr. Hastings Banda, were imprisoned in Southern Rhodesia after being arrested on 3 March. Many other Africans were jailed for offences related to the Emergency, including rioting and criminal damage. In the week before the Emergency was declared and during its first month, over 50 Africans were killed and many more wounded by the colonial security forces, which included many European troops from Southern Rhodesia. Others were beaten by troops or armed police or had their huts destroyed and their property seized during punitive operations undertaken during the Emergency.

References

  1. Tenney & Humphreys (2011), pp. 10, 17–18.
  2. McCracken (2012), pp. 306–307.
  3. 1 2 Pachai (1973), p. 685.
  4. Pachai (1978), pp. 36, 151–157.
  5. McCracken (2012), pp. 77–78.
  6. Pachai (1973), pp. 682–683, 685.
  7. Johnston (1897), pp. 107–108, 112–113.
  8. Pike (1968), p. 127.
  9. Pachai (1978), pp. 36–37.
  10. Hansard (1943).
  11. Hansard (1946).
  12. McCracken (2012), pp. 222–225.
  13. Shepperson & Price (1958), pp. 85–92, 118–123.
  14. Tangri (1971), pp. 306–307.
  15. Shepperson & Price (1958), pp. 234–235, 263.
  16. Tangri (1971), pp. 312–313.
  17. Baker (1993), p. 217.
  18. Silungwe (2009).
  19. Nyasaland Protectorate (1920), pp. 14–15, 23–24, 88.
  20. Nyasaland Protectorate (1920), pp. 7–9.
  21. Barber (1961), pp. 11, 16.
  22. Hansard (1954).
  23. Pachai (1973), pp. 687–688.
  24. UK Colonial Office (1938), p. 36.
  25. McCracken (2012), pp. 304–306.
  26. Kettlewell (1960), p. 240.
  27. Palmer (1986), p. 122.
  28. Baker (1993), p. 218.
  29. Baker (1993), pp. 47–50.
  30. White (1987), pp. 202–203.
  31. Baker (1994), p. 38.
  32. Baker (1994), pp. 223, 228.
  33. Baker (1993), pp. 53–54.
  34. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pachai (1973), pp. 691–692.
  35. Baker (1993), pp. 54–55.
  36. Baker (1993), pp. 59–61.
  37. Baker (1993), pp. 62–64.
  38. Pike (1968), p. 188.
  39. White (1987), pp. 142–146, 149–151, 196–197.
  40. White (1987), pp. 202–205.
  41. Kandawire (1977), p. 188.
  42. McCracken (2012), pp. 306–309.
  43. Baker (1994), p. 217.
  44. McCracken (2012), p. 393.
  45. Pachai (1973), p. 691.
  46. Kettlewell (1960).

Sources