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Thangata in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Systems of Land Tenure in Southern Malaŵi with Special Reference to Chingale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Extract

A contrastive account of pre-colonial and colonial systems of land tenure in Malaŵi cannot avoid adopting thangata as its central concept. The 1921 Land Commission of Nyasaland asserted that the practice of thangata:

seems to have had a foundation in the conditions of purely [African] life under which the member of the village community worked for a certain period in the gardens of his chief, the latter assuming towards the former a responsibility which has its parallel in the relations of the best European landlords towards their native tenants today. The practice was known from the beginning by the [Cheŵa] word ‘thangata’ meaning ‘to assist’. In return for his right to occupy certain land the [African] ‘assisted’ his chief or his European landlord in the latter's work upon his own land.

There is a whole world of difference between traditional thangata and colonial thangata. The former is nothing other than a social institution which embodies a pre-colonial notion of reciprocal labour. In the colonial situation the term came to mean forced labour. In this paper I analyse the term in its colonial form. My aim is to show that thangata is a colonial institution in that it originated from processes of British colonisation of Malaŵi. This aim requires that the pre-colonial system of land tenure be characterised first before tracing the formation of the colonial system.

Résumé

LES REGIMES FONCIERS COLONIAUX ET PRE-COLONIAUX THANGATA DANS LE MALAŴI MERIDIONAL ET LE CAS DU CHINGALE

En 1921, la Commission Territoriale du Nyassaland déclara que l'existence du thangata était rattachée aux modes de vie en vigueur en Afrique. Il apparaissait aux enquêteurs que les rapports entre chefs africains et villageois sous leur dépendance étaient semblables à ceux qui existaient entre les colons européens et leurs tenanciers. Dans un cas comme dans l'autre, les premiers semblaient avoir aidé les autres en retour de leur statut de tenanciers. Cependant, les régimes fonciers différant, le thangata sous sa forme traditionnelle est une forme de travail réciproque, tandis que le thangata de l'époque coloniale correspondait à un travail de contrainte. Dans la plus grande partie de l'Afrique, la terre appartenait autrefois aux communautes et l'individu en avait le libre usage a perpétuité. Dans le système colonial, la terre appartenait en propre au colon européen. La propriété individuelle fit son apparition au Nyassaland en 1891 lorsque l'administration décida de faire progresser l'agriculture par le biais des européens, ce qui entraina des antagonismes d'ordre racial. On essaya de résoudre ces conflits en achetant le Chingale à la British Central Africa Company en 1948 et en effectuant le reclassement des individus qui avaient dû quitter les autres terres. Mais là aussi, les droits de distribution des terres aux nouveaux arrivés devinrent l'objet de rivalités entre africains.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1977

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References

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