Natives on Private Estates Ordinance 1928

Last updated

The Natives on Private Estates Ordinance, 1928 was a colonial ordinance passed by the Legislative Council of the Nyasaland Protectorate (now Malawi). 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.

Contents

However, the ordinance failed in its intention of encouraging these tenants to increase the production of crops on the undeveloped land within those estates because of the worldwide 1930s Great Depression. Tensions between estate owners and tenants continued in the 1940s and the early 1950s over evictions and the tenants’ desire to market their produce freely.

The legislation was modified in 1952 to meet some of these problems. It was only After the colonial government's purchase of estate lands to resettle former tenants after 1952 and the final abolition of thangata by the Africans on Private Estates Ordinance, 1962, which was passed shortly before independence, that an African peasantry was created with free access to farmland.

Tenants on private estates

In the three decades after 1860, southern Malawi was transformed by a combination of warfare and raiding for slaves and ivory from a region where farming supported a reasonable population to one where the lack of security led to the widespread abandonment of agriculture land. Local chiefs attempted to gain protection from European settlers by granting them the right to cultivate land which, although fertile, was insecure and therefore vacant. Once the British Central Africa Protectorate had been proclaimed in 1891, these settlers gained legal ownership of this land from the protectorate administration. Although many of the grants contained “non-disturbance” clauses allowing resident Africans to continue to cultivate their existing fields rent-free, most owners claimed the right to demand labour in exchange for allowing them farm part of the estate land. The Nyasaland settlers adopted the term “thangata” for this from the Chewa language, where it meant freely-given help with agricultural work, but its colonial meaning was performing labour in lieu of rent. [1]

In the early years of the Nyasaland protectorate, land was abundant but workers were in short supply. The estates needed workers to establish plantations, but many estates had been established in areas where few Africans lived because of insecurity. When the owners attempted to introduce labour rents, some of those who were living there moved to the rent-free land that their community had retained. New workers, often migrants escaping from harsh conditions in Mozambique, who did not belong to any local community, so had no claim to farm communal land, were encouraged to move onto estates and grow their own crops, but were required to pay rent and Hut tax, at first usually satisfied by two months’ labour a year. Before 1905, relatively little estate land was planted, because the owners still searched for economically viable crops. However, cotton was grown commercially in the south of the protectorate from 1905. Cotton needs a great deal of labour, particularly for planting and weeding, throughout its five or six month growing season for successful results. Between 1910 and 1925, tobacco was also grown in plantations and, like cotton, it required a significant amount of labour over several months. On several estates, labour tenants’ obligations were now extended, sometimes to a total of four to six months of thangata, to pay for the tenant's rent and Hut tax, leaving tenants with little time to grow their own food, as labour was demanded in the main growing season. A number of abuses grew up, including under-recording days worked, not making cash payments if tenants performed more than the required thangata and requiring 30 days work (five weeks of six days) for each month of thangata obligation. The wives of absent migrant workers, widows and single women were also forced to do thangata work, in breach of custom. [2] In 1903, the Nyasaland High Court declared the original inhabitants of estates that had received government grants that contained “non-disturbance” clauses were exempt from thangata and had security of tenure. Legislation regulating some aspects of thangata was enacted in 1908, but not implemented in practice. The harshness of thangata was one reasons for the 1915 uprising led by John Chilembwe. [3]

Following Chilembwe's rising, a radical new government ordinance was made in 1917 that attempted to abolish thangata in favour if cash rents by making it illegal for landowners to require labour services in lieu of rent. [4] Had this measure taken effect, thangata would have been abolished, but it failed to be implemented because the estate owners threatened to evict large numbers of tenants who were in excess of their requirements for workers. Those evicted would become a pool of landless casual labour that the estates need only call on when they required. [5] Even though the government acceded to the owners' threats, the latter still chose to expel significant numbers of tenants unable to work or considered to be troublesome in favour of tractable migrants from Mozambique. [6]

Of the estate crops grown by direct labour, coffee had failed by 1905, cotton by 1918, and tobacco by 1925: only tea continued as a profitable estate crop. Some estates in the lower Shire River valley were abandoned and, on other estates, cultivation was scaled back. [7] Most tobacco was now grown by smallholders on Crown land. As the demand for estate labour declined in the 1920s, the owners had insufficient work for their tenants to meet their thangata obligations and claimed that their tenants had become rent-free squatters who should be evicted if they refused to grow economic crops. [8] Larger estates were saved from collapse by replacing direct labour with the scheme of tenants growing cotton and tobacco and selling these to the planters at low prices. This system was formalised in legislation, the 1928 Natives on Private Estates Ordinance, which modified thangata by allowing rents to be paid in cash, by a fixed quantity of acceptable crops or by direct labour. The estates now acted largely as brokers for their tenants’ produce, although the name thangata was now applied to rent in kind as well as labour rent. The older form of labour thangata persisted where owners wished to grow crops through direct labour. [9] [10] It was estimated that about 9% of Malawi’s Africans lived on estates in 1911. In 1945, it was about 10%, or 173,000 residents in 49,000 families. By 1962, this had been reduced to 9,000 families [11]

The legislation

Following the First World War, a Land Commission was set up in 1920 to determine how much of the land in Nyasaland should be made available for future European settlement, which of the existing rights of estate tenants should be preserved and what new ones should be given to them. The Commission recommended that all permanent rent-free tenancies under non-disturbance clauses should end, but that exiting tenants-at-will, who could be evicted without cause or notice under the existing rules, should be given some security of tenure. Apart from the elderly or widows, all tenants should pay rent, which could be satisfied in cash, in kind or by providing labour. The owners should also have the right to evict surplus tenants to stop their estates becoming overcrowded. [12] The Colonial Office opposed abolishing rights under non-disturbance clauses without a long fixed tenancies, and a five-year term was agreed. By the time legislation was prepared in 1928, there was little demand for new European-owned plantations, as the existing estates were ending direct crop production in favour of marketing tenants’ produce. The legislation enacted in 1928 therefore emphasised that rents could be satisfied by delivering a fixed quantity of acceptable crops to the owner as well as by direct labour or in cash. It met some of the estate owners’ demands but also gave some protection to tenants from the worst excesses of thangata. [13]

The question of how rents could be paid was a significant one: a Land Commission of 1903 reported that normal annual rent and Hut tax burden of tenants was six shillings, and from 1911 the legislation provided the option of providing fixed amounts of tobacco or cotton. However, estate owners in the early 20th century expected that their tenants would work for at least two months rather than pay rent in cash or kind. As the demand for labour increased, owners refused to accept cash, so the rent of six shillings, which remained virtually unchanged for over two decades before 1928, was purely nominal. By 1928, the value of the several months’ labour actually provided was roughly £1. [14]

The full title of the legislation was “An Ordinance to Regulate the Position of Natives residing on Private Estates, (No 14 of 1928)” and it was normally called the Natives on Private Estates Ordinance, 1928. The Ordinance created a class of registered “Resident Natives”, who had entered into tenancy agreements: only these and their families had the right to live on the private estate of which they were tenants for the term of their lease. Male children of residents lost the right to live on estates at 16 years old, and owners could refuse to allow the husband of a resident’s daughter the right to settle. Every registered tenant, except the elderly or widows, had to pay a rent which could be satisfied in cash, by labour or by giving produce to the owner. From 1928, District Rent Boards fixed maximum cash rents: most chose a rate of £1 for an eight acre tenant’s plot although some estates charged less. The Boards also designated which crops were acceptable as rent in kind (mainly tobacco or cotton, sometimes maize) and fixed the amounts that had to be delivered to satisfy the cash equivalent of the rent in kind for the district. The required value of the different acceptable crops was generally fixed at between 30 and 50 shillings instead of the £1 cash rent. The value of maize required was fixed at particularly high levels, to discourage tenants from growing maize rather than exportable crops. [15] [16]

The owners of estates over 10,000 acres would be allowed to expel up to 10% of their tenants starting in 1933, and at five yearly intervals thereafter, without showing any cause: those expelled were to be re-settled on Crown Lands. There was provision for future compulsory purchase of up to 10% of estates over 10,000 acres as a last resort, if no Crown Lands were available. All owners could expel other tenants for cause at any time, including boys reaching the age of 16 and widowers of residents' daughter [17]

The effects of the legislation

The Natives on Private Estates Ordinance was intended to encourage African tenants to increase production, particularly of the more economically important exportable crops, on the large amounts of undeveloped estate land within Nyasaland. It failed because, in the world-wide economic depression of the early 1930s, estate owners could not buy all the crops offered in lieu of rent or employ all the labour that was available. It also failed to provide a permanent solution to the land question, as it neither deal with the problem of estate land that was under-utilised but not freely available to African farmers, nor with the owners' ability to evict tenants. The first evictions allowed under the Ordinance were due in 1933, but no large-scale evictions took place then. There were few evictions in 1938 either, because District Commissioners refused to enforce them where no land for the resettlement for those to be evicted was available. [18]

Evictions in 1943 were also limited, as hundreds of Africans told to leave estates in the Blantyre District refused to leave, as there was no land for them to go to, and the colonial authorities declined to use force. The Governor expected that more evictions would take place in 1948 and also anticipated considerable trouble, as had happened in 1943. However, because of the serious famine in late 1948 and 1949, eviction notices were suspended until 1950. By September 1950, the government had obtained enough land for the resettlement of those to be evicted, and the evictions proceeded, although they were resisted. The Governor of Nyasaland therefore set up a committee to review the 1928 ordinance and to suggest amendments. The committee proposed to end 5-yearly evictions and growing economic crops in lieu of rent, and to increase cash rents to an economic level, but with reductions for unmarried and other single women. [19]

Tensions between estate owners and tenants continued in the 1940s and early 1950s. The two main issues in contention were evictions and the tenants’ wish to grow the produce of their choice and sell it in local markets, not through the estate owners. New legislation was introduced in 1952, and the tensions were lessened by government land purchases, mainly of former tobacco estates, after 1952. The number of Africans resident on the estates also declined sharply in this period, from about 173,000 individuals in 49,000 families in 1945 to 9,000 families in 1962. [20] However, many of the remaining tenants were in the overcrowded Cholo district, the main area of tea estates, which required large numbers of estate workers. Here, grievances over thangata in 1953 led to major disturbances in which eleven people died. In 1962, shortly before independence the 1928 Ordinance was replaced by a 1962 Africans on Private Estates Ordinance that granted tenants security of tenure and abolished all forms of thangata requiring labour or the production of designated crops, replacing them with cash rents. [21]

See also

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agriculture in Malawi</span>

The main economic products of Malawi are tobacco, tea, cotton, groundnuts, sugar and coffee. These have been among the main cash crops for the last century, but tobacco has become increasingly predominant in the last quarter-century, with a production in 2011 of 175,000 tonnes. Over the last century, tea and groundnuts have increased in relative importance while cotton has decreased. The main food crops are maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, sorghum, bananas, rice, and Irish potatoes and cattle, sheep and goats are raised. The main industries deal with agricultural processing of tobacco, tea and sugar and timber products. The industrial production growth rate is estimated at 10% (2009).

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.

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.

The Abrahams 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. 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, and the incoming governor, Geoffrey Colby. Estate owners and managers were strongly against it, and many European settlers bitterly attacked it.

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.

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.

Cotton in Malawi is an important part of the agricultural history of Malawi. Cotton is not indigenous to the country, but was introduced into warmer lowland areas no later than the 17th century. Production in the late pre-colonial and early colonial period was limited but, from the early 20th century, it has been grown mainly by African smallholders in the south of the country. For a brief period during the First World War, cotton was the most valuable export crop, and it has remained an important earner of foreign exchange.

The Livingstone Bruce Plantation Raid was an attack on the European owned and run cotton and tobacco plantation, which was situated at Magomero. The attack on the plantation was only major action of the ill fated Chilembwe uprising.

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 famine of 1949 was a famine that occurred in the Shire Highlands in the Southern Province of Nyasaland and also in a part of the Central Province in 1949: its effects extended into the early part of 1950. The immediate cause was severe droughts in December 1948 to January 1949 and in March 1949 that destroyed much of the maize crop on which the people of the affected areas relied during its main growing season. This followed two years of erratic rainfall and poor harvests which had depleted the reserves in farmers’ granaries. The effect of crop failure was intensified by the failure of the colonial government to maintain a suitably large emergency grain reserve, delays in importing sufficient relief supplies and its requirement that most of the relief provided was paid for by its recipients. The official death toll from starvation was some 200 people, which may be an underestimate, and it excludes those dying of diseases exacerbated by malnutrition.

References

  1. J. A. K. Kandawire, (1977). Thangata in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Systems of Land Tenure in Southern Malawi, with Special Reference to Chingale, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 185-7.
  2. L. White, (1987). Magomero: Portrait of an African Village, Cambridge University Press pp. 79-81, 86-9, 111-17. ISBN   0-521-32182-4
  3. L. White, (1987). Magomero: Portrait of an African Village, Cambridge University Press pp. 133-5. ISBN   0-521-32182-4
  4. C. Newbury, (1980). Ubureetwa and Thangata: Catalysts to Peasant Political Consciousness in Rwanda and Malawi, Canadian Journal of African Studies, Vol.14, No. 1 (1980), pp. 107-9.
  5. J. McCracken, (2012). A History of Malawi 1859-1966, Woodbridge James Currey p. 146. ISBN   978-1-84701-064-3
  6. J. McCracken, (2012). A History of Malawi 1859-1966, Woodbridge James Currey p. 168. ISBN   978-1-84701-064-3
  7. J. McCracken, (2012). A History of Malawi 1859-1966, Woodbridge James Currey p. 163. ISBN   978-1-84701-064-3
  8. C. A. Baker (1962) Nyasaland, The History of its Export Trade, The Nyasaland Journal, Vol. 15, No.1, pp. 15-16, 19-20, 25.
  9. J. A. K. Kandaŵire, (1977). Thangata in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Systems of Land Tenure in Southern Malaŵi, pp. 188.
  10. L White, (1987). Magomero: Portrait of an African Village, pp. 173-4.
  11. J G Pike, (1969). Malawi: A Political and Economic History, London, Pall Mall Press, p. 188.
  12. Nyasaland Protectorate, (I920) Report of a Commission to enquire into and report upon certain matters connected with the occupation of land in the Nyasaland Protectorate, Zomba, Government Printer, pp. 34-5, 51, 88.
  13. L White, (1987). Magomero: Portrait of an African Village, pp. 173-4.
  14. R. I. Rotberg, (1965). The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa : The Making of Malawi and Zambia, 1873-1964, Cambridge (Mass), Harvard University Press, pp. 33-5, 44.
  15. The Native Tenants on Private Estates Ordinance, 1928 Articles 4- 7, 21 in C Matthews and W E Lardner Jennings, (1947). The Laws of Nyasaland, Volume 1, London 1947, Crown Agents for the Colonies.
  16. L White, (1987). Magomero: Portrait of an African Village, pp. 173-5, 196.
  17. The Native Tenants on Private Estates Ordinance, 1928 Articles 15-16.
  18. B Pachai (1973) Land Policies in Malawi: An Examination of the Colonial Legacy, The Journal of African History, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 688-70.
  19. C Baker, (1993) “Seeds of Trouble: Government Policy and Land Rights in Nyasaland, 1946-1964” London, British Academic Press pp 40, 42-4.
  20. J G Pike, (1969). Malawi: A Political and Economic History, London, Pall Mall Press, pp.128-30, 188.
  21. J G Pike, (1969). Malawi: A Political and Economic History, pp.128-30.