THE INDIPENDENCE STRUGGLE

The Lomwe of Malawi

The Lomwe of Malawi are a recent introduction having arrived as late as 1914, during the first World War. The Lomwe came from a hill in Mozambique called uLomwe, north of the Zambezi River and south east of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. Theirs was also a story of hunger largely instigated by the Portuguese settlers moving into the neighbourhoods of uLomwe.^[1] To escape from the ill-treatment (including the Portuguese physically pounding to death live infants in wooden mortars to extract local allegiance), the Lomwe headed north and entered Malawi through the southern tip of lake Chilwa; settling in Phalombe and Mulanje areas. In Mulanje they found gainful employment on teas estates that various British companies were establishing on the foothills of Mount Mulanje. Later they spread into Thyolo [again getting employment on tea estates] and Chiradzulu. The Lomwe readily mixed with the local Manga'nja tribes, as there are no reported cases of tribal conflict. Indeed, the tribal network with the Manga'nja was very good so that when John Chilembwe, the revolutionary clergyman, ran foul with the British planters at Nguludi in Chiradzulu, he used this network to escape towards Mozambique. Unfortunately, the British terrirotial forces caught up with him before he could cross the border.

[edit] European explorers, missionaries and traders

Although the Portuguese reached the area in the 16th century, the first significant Western contact was the arrival of David Livingstone along the shore of Lake Malawi in 1859.
Subsequently, Scottish Presbyterian churches established missions in Malawi, such as the one in Blantyre founded in 1876. One of their objectives was to end the slave trade to the Persian Gulf that continued until the end of the 19th century. In 1878, a number of traders, mostly from Glasgow, formed the African Lakes Company to supply goods and services to the missionaries. Other missionaries, traders, hunters, and planters soon followed.

[edit] British Central Africa Protectorate

Main article: British Central Africa Protectorate

In 1883, a consul of the British Government was accredited to the "Kings and Chiefs of Central Africa" and in 1891, the British established the British Central Africa Protectorate.

[edit] Nyasaland

Main article: Nyasaland

In 1907 the name was changed to Nyasaland or the Nyasaland Protectorate. (Nyasa is the Chiyao word for "lake").

[edit] The independence struggle

The history of Nyasaland was marked by a number of unsuccessful Malawian attempts to obtain independence. A growing European and US-educated African elite. This included John Chilembwe; taken and educated in the USA by a missionary family. Later he returned to Nyasaland to resist the British practices of 'recruiting' African men into the Kings African Rifles (KAR) as forced labor and carriers. After John Chilembwe's tragic death other more vocal and politically active groups-first through associations-emerged. In 1944, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC), inspired by the African National Congress [South Africa] Peace Charter of 1914, emerged. NAC soon spread across Southern African with powerful branches emerging among migrant Malawian workers in Salisbury (now Harare) in Rhodesia and Lusaka, in Zambia. When the cash strapped NAC Executive Council voted to send a team to London to persuade Dr. Banda to return to Malawi and lead the movement, the powerful Salisbury Branch raised the funds required for the two men, Masauko Chipembere and Harry Bwanausi, to make the boat trip to England.^[2] They finally rendezvous with Dr. Banda at the Port of Liverpool (on his way from Ghana) to sort out the mess in his private life over the former Mrs. French. Banda agreed to return to Malawi whereupon the team returned to Nyasaland. However, it would be months before Dr. Banda's whereabouts could be known leading to his scheduled arrival at Chileka Airport in 1958 being postponed twice; causing the local white Police to forcefully remove 'disappointed' crowds that had threatened to storm the BOAC flight, inside of which they had believed Dr. Banda was being held hostage! Finally Dr. Banda arrived in Nyasaland on 6 July 1958 and proceeded to cause a storm and a shiver among the local British settlers with his powerful speeches and demand that the 'Stupid Federation' be abandoned 'Now! Now! Now!' His trips across the country attracted large crowds of Africans and the country was in a state of turmoil. However, the British weathered some of his vociferous talk and Dr. Banda gradually settled for a long slog by opening a medical surgery in Limbe where, to thank John Kadzamira (one of the main organizers of the Harare NAC Branch), Dr. Banda dutifully took in Cecilia Kadzamira (a newly trained nurse from Salisbury Hospital) as his first nursing staff member! To control the volatile political situation Dr. Banda created, through an emotive public speech (while suffering from a rare bout of malaria): that the British intended his death,^[3] the Federation Government arrested Dr. Banda and sent him to Gwelo in Rhodesia.
It took a different kind of tinder to ignite the struggle for political independence in Malawi. Alec Russell says: '...for the many colorful episodes in Banda's rise to power..[one can be attributed to the] tale of 'the bruising of Miss Phombeya's toe' [Alec Russell - Big Men, Little People]. She was a young woman who came to the Ryall's Hotel in Blantyre, where Harold Macmillan was lunching on the homeward leg of his famous 'wind of change' tour in Cape Town. A junior officer in Macmillan's advance entourage owed Miss Phombeya some money for 'services rendered'. But instead of paying up, local police officers panicked and tried to get rid of Miss Phombeya (now visibly parading her anger in front of the verandah restaurant) in the process hurting her toe; whereupon a crowd soon gathered outside Ryall's Hotel and quickly the mood shifted from the 'hurting toe' to protesting the imprisonment of Banda and other local leaders by the federation government.