William H J Rangeley (1910-1958) was an officer in the colonial administration of Nyasaland and a scholar of the oral history and ethnography of the peoples of what is now Malawi.
William H J Rangeley (1910-1958) was an officer in the colonial administration of Nyasaland and a scholar of the oral history and ethnography of the peoples of what is now Malawi.
William Rangeley, who was the son of two early Northern Rhodesia pioneers, Henry Rangeley and Florence (née van Breda), was born at Fort Jameson, (now Chipata, Zambia), in what was then Northern Rhodesia, on 2 July 1909. He attended a school in Plumtree in Southern Rhodesia, and then the Diocesan College at Rondebosch, a suburb of Cape Town, in South Africa. He attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown and, under a Rhodes Scholarship he studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, from which he subsequently received a diploma in Anthropology following study during an extended leave. [1] [2]
After his scholarship at Oxford University ended, he was appointed to the colonial administration of Nyasaland in 1934. He served in many districts and became District Commissioner successively in Nkhotakota District in the Central Province and Mzimba District in the Northern Province. He was promoted to become the Provincial Commissioner for the Southern Province in 1952. He retained his post as Provincial Commissioner until his death in 1958. [3] [4]
Between 1892 and 1904, district officers with the official title of Collectors of Revenue, later that of Resident, were appointed by the Commissioner and Consul-General of the protectorate. From 1904, the Colonial Office assumed responsibility for appointments, but before the First World War these officials included ex-soldiers and ex-missionary employees whose African experience was their main qualification for the post. [5] After the First World War, the preferred candidates were from the British upper middle class, educated in British public schools and, if possible, universities. By the 1930s, most new district officers were graduates; the Colonial Office preferred those from Oxford or Cambridge but graduates of these elite universities usually chose colonies such as Kenya or Southern Rhodesia. Rangeley did not have the usual background of district officers of that time, and he was described as "rough-hewn", but his Rhodes Scholarship to Cambridge made him a suitable candidate. [6]
In 1933, Indirect rule was introduced into Nyasaland, and customary law needed to be understood by what were now called District Commissioners, who had to ensure that local customary law was being correctly applied by each Native Authority in their districts. Up to this point, the customary law of African societies had been evolving in response to rapid changes within themselves, and in colonial society generally, but the colonial administration wanted laws that were codified and consistent with English law, which involved rejecting Trial by ordeal or the recognition of domestic slavery. Rangeley was particularly well equipped for this task through his anthropological training and meticulous recording of information, and also his childhood in an area where the Chewa language, also used in central Nyasaland, was spoken. [7]
The first stadium built in Blantyre was named the Rangeley Stadium after him, but renamed the Kamuzu Stadium after the first president of the independent Malawi, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda. [8]
Rangeley joined the Nyasaland Society, now the Society of Malawi, Historical and Scientific, in 1948 and produced a detailed anthropological study of the Chewa people in the first volume of The Nyasaland Journal. As a trained anthropologist, Rangeley was able to carry out original research into the history and culture of the indigenous peoples of Nyasaland living in the areas where his successive appointments took him and he produced around a dozen articles for the Nyasaland Journal before his death. Two articles published in 1959 and 1960 were completed before his death and six published between 1962 and 1964 were chapters of a proposed comprehensive history of Nyasaland. He also undertook investigation of early habitation sites and rock art [9]
Rangeley died of drowning while on a fishing holiday at Cape Agulhas, South Africa on 20 March 1958. [10] There is no record of him marrying or having children.
Hastings Kamuzu Banda was Prime Minister and later President of Malawi from 1964 to 1994. In 1966, the country became a republic and he became the first president as a result.
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.
Sir Henry Hamilton Johnston was a British explorer, botanist, artist, colonial administrator, and linguist who travelled widely across Africa to manipulate and speak some of the languages spoken by people on that continent. He published 40 books on subjects related to the continent of Africa and was one of the key players in the Scramble for Africa that occurred at the end of the 19th century.
The Kamuzu Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Blantyre, Malawi. It is currently used mostly for football matches. The stadium holds 40,000 people. This can be limited for safety reasons. Big Bullets and Be Forward Wanderers are tenants.
Sir Alfred Sharpe was Commissioner and Consul-General for the British Central Africa Protectorate and first Governor of Nyasaland.
Henry Masauko Blasius Chipembere was a Malawian nationalist politician who played a significant role in bringing independence from colonial rule to his native country, formerly known as Nyasaland. From an early age Chipembere was a strong believer in natural justice and, on his return in 1954 from university in South Africa, he joined his country's independence struggle as a nationalist strategist and spokesman. In 1957, considering that the independence movement needed a strong leader similar to Kwame Nkrumah, and considering himself too young for this task, he joined with other young nationalists in inviting Hastings Kamuzu Banda to return to Nyasaland as the movement's leader.
James Frederick Sangala was a founding member of the Nyasaland African Congress during the period of British colonial rule. Sangala was given the nickname "Pyagusi", which means "one who perseveres".
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 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.
The Devlin Commission, officially the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry, was a Commission of Inquiry set up in 1959 under the chairmanship of Mr.Justice Devlin, later Lord Devlin, after African opposition to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, particularly its farming and rural conservation policies, and demands for progress towards majority rule promoted by the Nyasaland African Congress under its leader Dr Hastings Banda led to widespread disturbances in Nyasaland and some deaths. A state of emergency was declared in March 1959; about 1,300 people, many of whom were members of the Nyasaland African Congress party, were detained without trial, over were 2,000 imprisoned for offences related to the emergency and the Congress itself was banned. During the State of Emergency and the week preceding it, a total of 51 people were killed by troops or the police. Although the four members of the Commission were members of The British Establishment, its findings were highly unfavourable to the Nyasaland Government.
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.
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.
The Blackman's Church of Africa Presbyterian is an independent Presbyterian denomination in Malawi. Each of its three founding pastors had been educated at the Livingstonia, Malawi mission and ordained as ministers of the Scottish missionary-led Presbyterian church based there. Although the Livingstonia mission was transferred to its present site in 1878, the missionaries were very cautious about ordaining African ministers. A theological course was established there in 1896 to train African ministers and the first two students completed it by 1900, but the first ordinations were not carried out until 1914. Of the students involved in the course between 1900 and 1914, only around half were ever ordained, on average, about ten years after completing the course, the other half were suspended, resigned or died. Donald Fraser, one of the leading Scottish missionaries, considered that the theological education of African candidates for ordination was insufficient without an "established christian character", which could only be proven through a lengthy probation. Although all three of the founders were ordained, all fell foul of the church establishment and left to form independent churches.
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.
Leroy Vail whose birth name was Hazen Leroy Vail, was an American specialist in African studies and educator who specialized in the history and linguistics of Central Africa and later extended his interests to Southern Africa. He taught in universities in Malawi, Zambia and the United States and his research in the first two countries inclined him toward the view that Central Africa underwent a period of underdevelopment that began in the mid-19th century and accelerated under colonial rule. After his return to the United States, he cooperated with Landeg White on studies of colonial Mozambique and on the value of African poetry and songs as a source of oral history.
Michael Hill Blackwood CBE was a lawyer and politician who spent most of his working life in colonial Nyasaland and in Malawi in the early years of its independence. Although he represented the interests of European settlers before independence and opposed both the transfer of power to the African majority and the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, he remained in the country as a member of its legislature after Malawi’s independence and until his retirement on 1983.
Samuel Josia Ntara was a pioneering writer and teacher from Malawi. He wrote in ChiChewa and several of his books were translated into English.