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Colonial and Settler pressures and the African move to the politics of representation and union in Nyasaland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Roger Tangri
Roger Tangri
Affiliation:
Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone
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Extract

In 1938, African political leaders in Nyasaland began seeking direct African representation on the Legislative Council and also moved towards creating a nation-wide political organization. The simultaneous emergence of these two political strategies represented a rational African attempt to refine previous techniques in the face of changing circumstances. Hitherto, district-wide Native Associations had sought to influence directly the central government secretariat. At the same time these Associations had begun centralizing their activities, with the Representative Committee, in particular, acting as a national-type pressure group. From 1930, however, the government denied the Associations direct access to the centre of its administrative system and insisted that they work through the district chiefs. Some associationists now sought to create a national movement which could circumvent the chiefs and gain access direct to the central government. But the idea was not followed up. Only after Africans had spontaneously become united on a national level and had through unified action successfully opposed the European settler demand for a Central African Union, did a growing feeling emerge that a territorial organization offered a more promising way for solving African problems. In the meantime, the government was beginning to take greater action in the fields of economic

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 291 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

1 For details of these Native Associations, see van Velsen, J., ‘Some Early Pressure Groups in Malawi’ in Stokes, Eric and Brown, Richard, eds., The Zambesian Past: Studies in Central African History (Manchester, 1966), 376–412;Google ScholarRoger, Tangri, ‘Inter-War Native Associations and the formation of the Nyasaland African Congress’, Transafrican Journal of History, I, no. I (1971), 84–102.Google Scholar

2 Levi, Z. Mumba, ‘Native Associations in Nyasaland’, Zo Ona (Blantyre), 24 04. 1924, 1.Google Scholar

3 This argument is based on an examination of a number of files relating to Native Associations in the Malawi National Archives.

4 Mumba, L. Z. to Msimang, H. Selby, 8 03. 1937. This letter is contained in the I. M. Jere papers which are now deposited at the University of Edinburgh Library. The emphasis in the above quotation is mine.Google Scholar

5 Mumba, L. Z., ‘Native Associations’, op. cit.Google Scholar

6 My date of the founding of the R.C.N.P.N.A. is based on an article on this organization in the Bantu Mirror (Bulawayo), 8 08. 1936. I am indebted to Mr I. M. Jere (a leading office-bearer of the Representative Committee during the inter-war period) for showing me his copy of this particular issue.Google Scholar

7 van Velsen, J., ‘Some Early Pressure Groups’, op. cit. 379–80.Google Scholar

8 S1/1529/26, Acting Chief Secretary to all Provincial Commissioners, 13 Nov. 1926. (All archival sources in this paper refer to the Malawi National Archives.)

9 van Velsen, J., ‘Some Early Pressure Groups’, op. cit., 399–407,Google Scholar and Tangri, R., ‘Inter-War Native Associations’, op. cit. 91–3.Google Scholar

10 S1/3263/23, minute by Abraham, J. C., Senior Provincial Commissioner, dated 15 08. 1935.Google Scholar

11 Nat. 12/3, minute by Abraham, J. C., S.P.C., , to Chief Secretary, 29 07 1935.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. Chief Secretary to R.C.N.P.N.A., 20 05 1935.

13 Unlike the Northern Province where a number of important paramount chieftaincies existed which formed district-wide councils, there were numerous Native Authorities to be found in each of the Southern Province districts, and, in the absence of district councils of chiefs as in some northern districts, the government agreed to consider minutes of southern Native Associations provided they were countersigned by any one Native Authority. This was easily achieved, and southern Associations therefore remained politically operative though, apart from the Blantyre Native Association, most were not very active and held only irregular meetings.

14 Timothy, Kiel Barnekov, An Inquiry into the Development of Native Administration in Nyasaland, 1888–1939 (New York, 1967), Syracuse University Program of East African Studies Occasional Paper, No. 48, 71–5, 85.Google Scholar

15 See, for example, NS1/2/2, Circular No. 15 of 1934 entitled ‘Production of Native Economic Crops’ and Governor Hall to Colonial Office, 12 June 1934 See also NS1/2/3, Topham, P. (Soil Officer), to S.P.C., 15 08. 1937.Google Scholar

16 Mumba, L. Z. to Banda, H. K., 15 02. 1939 in I. M. Jere papers.Google Scholar

17 Bantu Mirror, 8 08. 1936, 1.Google Scholar

18 See, for example, editorials in the following issues of the Nyasaland Times, 4 05 1916, 1; 9 03. 1922, 2–3 13 and 16 09. 1927, 2.Google Scholar

19 The Nyasaland Times, 7 09. 1916, 1; S1 /1455/27, Nyasaland Chamber of Agriculture and Commerce to C.S., 7 10. 1927.Google Scholar

20 See memoranda submitted by European associations to the 1928 Hilton-Young Commission in Memoranda and other papers circulated to the commission, vol. 4, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library, London.Google Scholar

21 See Nyasaland Times, 16 12. 1930, 2, for resolutions passed at meeting of 9 12. 1930.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. 10 12. 1931, 4.

23 Ibid. 12 Apr. 1929, 2; 24 10 Oct. 1930, 2; 13 Feb. 1931, and 2 Dec. 1932, 2.

24 Ibid. 5 Feb. 1932, 4, for minutes of meeting of Cholo Planters' Association. See also issue of 2 Feb. 1932, 4, where the Association resolved to call itself the Cholo Settlers' Association to emphasize that Europeans had come to settle permanently ‘in this country of our domicile’. See also issues of 20 June. 1935, and 19 Aug. 1935, 4.

25 Ibid. 24 June. 1935, 1–2, 5–6.

26 Ibid. 2 Dec. 1932, 2 and 30 Nov. 1934, 2.

27 See Nyasal and Times, 2 06 1938, 4.Google Scholar

28 Ibid. 9 May. 1938, 5–6 and 30 May. 1938, 5, 8.

29 Ibid. 27 June. 1938, 5, 6, and 30 June. 1938, 59.

30 See Com. 3/1 for African memoranda submitted to the Bledisloe Commission, and also for details of cooperation between members of different Native Associations.

31 Interviews with J. F. Sangala in Blantyre, Malawi.

32 See, for example, Richard, Gray, The Two Nations: Aspects of the Development of Race Relations in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland (London, 1960), 341–2.Google Scholar

33 See Tangri, R., ‘Inter-War Native Associations’, op. cit. 94–9.Google Scholar

34 Mumba, L. Z. to Banda, H. K., 15 02. 1939, Op. cit.Google Scholar

35 Memorandum cited in full in the Nyasaland Times, 30 06 1938, 2–3.Google Scholar

36 Ibid. The present discussion is also based on interviews with the late Mposa, K. E. and Sangala, J. F. in Blantyre.Google Scholar

37 Letter by unknown Malawian to Mumba, L. Z., 27 06 1938, in papers, I. M. Jere. This report of Mposa's response is confirmed by the record of oral evidence heard by the Royal Commission at Blantyre on 24 06 1938, vol. 3, in Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library, London.Google Scholar

38 Oral evidence to Royal Commission, vol. 3, op. cit.

39 Ibid. see also Nyasaland Times, 30 06 1938, 2–3 for evidence.Google Scholar

40 Nat. 12/39, Colonial Office to Governor Mackenzie-Kennedy, 15 Oct. 1941, enc., confidential report by Lord Hailey entitled Native Administration and Political Development (1940–1942), section 16 of chap. 8.Google Scholar

41 Ibid.