1 See, for example, Stokes, Eric, ‘Malawi political systems and the introduction of colonial rule, 1891–1896’, in Eric, Stokes and Richard, Brown (eds.), The Zambesian Past (Manchester, 1966)Google Scholar; Dachs, A. J., ‘Politics of collaboration: imperialism in practice’, in Bridglal, Pachai (ed.), The Early History of Malawi (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Allen, and Isaacman, Barbara, ‘Resistance and collaboration in southern and central Africa, c. 1850–1920’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, x, I (1977).Google Scholar

2 The outstanding example is Van Onselen, Charles, ‘Collaborators in the Rhodesian mining industry’, African Affairs, LXXII, no. 289 (1973). For a comparative perspective seeGoogle ScholarArnold, David, ‘The armed police and colonial rule in South India, 1914–1947’, Modern Asian Studies, II, I (1977).Google Scholar

3 Chanock, M. L., ‘Development and change in the history of Malawi’, in Pachai, Early History, 441.Google Scholar

4 The only previous studies of the police force in Malawi of which I am aware are a commemorative booklet by Marlow, C., A History of the Malawi Police Force (Zomba, 1971)Google Scholar, and an autobiography by a former Deputy Commissioner, Morton, Geoffrey J., Just the Job: some Experiences of a Colonial Policeman (London, 1957).Google Scholar For Malawian soldiers see particularly Moyse-Bartlett, H., The King's African Rifles (Aldershot, 1956)Google Scholar; Page, Melvin E., ‘Malawians in the Great War and after, 1914–1925’ (Ph.D. thesis, Michigan State University, 1977)Google Scholar; Shepperson, George, ‘The military history of British Central Africa’, Rhodes-Livingstone Journal, no. 26 (1960)Google Scholar, and De Guingand, Francis, African Assignment (London, 1953).Google Scholar

5 The confusion was compounded by the fact that the early military campaigns have often been described by historians as ‘police operations’ and that the term ‘askari’ was used of both policemen and soldiers.

6 Diary of Edward Alston, 9 Apr. 1895, MNA; ‘Orders by Major C. A. Edwards for the Zarafi campaign’, 1895, in Wordsworth Poole papers, MNA PO 1/5/1. On Edwards' orders, loot was distributed according to the following shares: Major 64; Captain 48; Lieutenant 30; Sergeant-Major 16; Sepoy 2; Sergeant-Major (Native) 4; Private (Native) I.

7 Major Edwards to Capt. Stewart, 15 Dec. 1895, MNA KAR 2/1/1.

8 Nyasaland Intelligence Report no. 30, to June 30 1914, MNA KAR 3/1/5.

9 Mzimba District Book, vols. I and 2.

10 Resident Fort Johnston to Chief Secretary, Zomba, 16 Mar. 1921, MNA S1/850/20.

11 Resident Blantyre to Ass. Resident Chiradzulu, 22 Jan. 1916, MNA NSB 2/1/1.

12 See file on ‘Native deserters’, 1924, MNA POL 2/19/4.

13 Minute by Smith, G., Governor, on ‘The organisation and training of police in Nyasaland’, 18 June 1919Google Scholar; minutes of Resident's Conference, Zomba, 8–9 Dec. 1913, MNA S1/152/19.

14 See particularly Report of the Commission appointed... to inquire into various matters and questions concerned with the Native Rising within the Nyasaland Protectorate, Zomba, 1916, para. 32; evidence of E. Costley-White, Resident Zomba, to Commission of Inquiry, 2 July 1915, Public Record Office CO 525/66. For the rising itself see Shepperson, George and Price, Thomas, Independent African (Edinburgh, 1958).Google Scholar

15 The argument that professional uniformed police forces were founded in Europe in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century as a means of protecting the propertied classes from the ‘dangerous classes’ emerging in the fast-growing impersonal industrial cities is usefully discussed by Elmslie, Clive, Policing and its Context, 1750–1850 (London, 1983).Google Scholar

16 Minute by Hector Duff, 12 May 1919, MNA S1/152/19.

17 George Smith to Secretary of State for Colonies, 18 Aug. 1919, MNA S1/152/19.

18 Major E. Stephens to Chief Secretary, Zomba, 7 Aug. 1920, MNA S1/850/20; Annual Police Reports, 1921 and 1922, MNA POL 5/1/1.

19 W Wheeler, Acting Chief Secretary to Judge, High Court, Blantyre, 4 Feb. 1919, MNA S1/152/19.

20 Smith to Secretary of State for Colonies, 18 Aug. 1919, MNA S1/152/19.

21 Annual Report for Lilongwe District, 1938, MNA MCL 4/1/4.

22 See especially, Van Onselen, Charles, Chibaro: African Mine Labour in Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1933 (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Kaniki, M. H. Y., ‘Wage labour and the political economy of colonial violence’, African Social Research, 31 (1981), 1–24Google Scholar; Martin, Phyllis, ‘The violence of empire’, in David, Birmingham and Phyllis, M. Martin (eds.), History of Central Africa, II (London, 1983).Google Scholar

23 Bell, R. D., Report of the Commission appointed to enquire into the Financial Position and further Development of Nyasaland (London, 1938).Google Scholar

24 George Smith to Secretary of State for Colonies, 21 Jan. 1921, MNA S1/10/20.

25 Figures calculated from Bell Report. This compares with the situation between June 1891 and March 1896 when 53.8 per cent of government revenues went on the police and the military. See Vaughan, M. A., ‘Social and economic change in southern Malawi: a study of rural communities in the Shire Highlands and Upper Shire Valley from the mid-nineteenth century to 1915’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1981), no.Google Scholar

26 See file on Isa Lawrence, MNA S2/50/23.

27 See ‘Reports on native controlled missions, 1940–3’, MNA S1A/1339.

28 Ibid.

29 Colonial Office minute, 1 May 1953, PRO CO 1015/243.

30 Chanock, Martin, ‘Law and history in colonial Central Africa: Nyasaland and North-Eastern Rhodesia, 1890–1930’ Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, postgraduate Seminar, n.d. (1979).Google Scholar See also Chanock, Martin, Law, Custom and Social Order: the Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Cambridge, 1985).Google Scholar

31 Memo by W. G. Bithrey enclosed in Bithrey to Chief Secretary, Zomba, 16 May 1939, MNA POL 2/17/3.

32 L. S. Norman to Secretary of State for Colonies, 4 Oct. 1920, P.R.O. CO 525/94; G. Smith to Secretary of State for Colonies, 21 Feb. 1921, CO 525/25.

33 See Vaughan, ‘Social and economic change’, 130, where she notes that in 1938 hut tax contributions still accounted for 28.7 per cent of total local revenue in Nyasaland but only 12 per cent in Southern Rhodesia and 8.2 per cent in Northern Rhodesia.

34 Annual Report of Northern Province for year ending 31 March 1926, MNA S1/920/26.

35 K.R.T. to the Governor, 30 Jan. 1934, MNA S1/1379/27. According to this memo, nearly one half of the people sent to prison in 1930 were committed for non-payment of hut tax.

36 Undated memo on ‘Northern Province’, POL 2/17/11.

37 See for example Zomba Monthly Police Report, Nov. 1938, MNA POL 5/2/16.

38 Major Stephens to Provincial Commissioner, Southern Province, 18 July 1924, MNA POL 2/19/4.

39 The Blantyre town police dates from 1899 and the Limbe town police from 1911. See minutes of the Blantyre Town Council, 11 May 1899 and Limbe Town Council, 13 June 1911, MNA BL 2/1/1/1 and 2/1/2/1.

40 The first clause in the Blantyre bye-laws of 1912 runs as follows: ‘No Asiatic or Native shall acquire property either leasehold or freehold or settle or carry on trade on his own account, either directly or indirectly or jointly or in partnership with a European in the Township except in the Asiatic Ward’: MNA S1/3921/19. Some time before 1920 this was modified to allow Asians to reside in any part of the Township, though in practice strenuous efforts were made to prevent them from doing so.

41 Ibid, and ‘Township Ordinances, Blantyre and Limbe 1938’, MNA S1/392ii/19.

42 Blantyre Town Council minutes, 27 June 1899, 23 Nov. 1900, 25 Oct. 1915.

43 Limbe Town Council minutes, 28 Aug. 1922 and 29 Jan. 1923.

44 Blantyre Town Council minutes, 26 Nov. 1923.

45 For a description of the operation of the curfew in the late 1940s and early 1950s, see Morton, , Just the Job, 239.Google Scholar

46 Blantyre Town Council minutes, 24 June 1929. For the emergence of gangs in Johannesburg see Van Onselen, Charles, Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand, 1886–1914; II, New Nineveh (London, 1982), 171–201.Google Scholar

47 Blantyre Monthly Police Report, May 1935, MNA POL 5/2/1.

48 Ibid., July-Aug., Nov.-Dec. 1930.

49 Figures calculated from Blantyre Monthly Police Reports and Annual Reports of Nyasaland Police, 1930–4. In the five months from Sept. 1931 to Jan. 1932 not a single case of robbery or housebreaking was reported from Blantyre, Limbe and Zomba.

50 Evidence of Major F. T. Stephens, 20 June 1938, Rhodesia-Nyasaland Royal Commission, Oral Evidence, Volume III: Nyasaland, FCO.

51 Zomba Monthly Police Report, Dec. 1938; interview with former Superintendent Brian Burgess, Zomba Plateau, 22 Jan. 1983.

52 Zomba Monthly Police Report, Nov. 1949.

53 Annual Reports of Nyasaland Police, 1924 and 1925, MNA POL 5/1/1; High Court case re Masule alias Time alias Williams, MNA J 5/5/25.

54 Zomba Monthly Police Report July and Oct. 1949, MNA POL 5/2/16; Nyasaland Times, 17 and 20 Oct. 1949. I owe this reference to Dr William Beinart.

55 For comparative information see Hobsbawm, Eric, Primitive Rebels (London, 1959) andGoogle ScholarIsaacman, Allen, ‘Social banditry in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and Mozambique, 1894–1907’, Journal of Southern African Studies, iv, i, 1977.Google Scholar Most of my information on Mitende's reputation today was gained from participants in the History Seminar, University of Malawi, 7 March 1983, and particularly from Dr Isaac Lamba whose help I am glad to acknowledge.

56 The number of motor vehicles in Nyasaland increased from 623 in 1924 to 2,189 in 1929. See Nyasaland Military Handbook, June 1924 and 31 Dec. 1929, MNA S2/6/27. By 1930 nearly 3,000 bicycles a year were being imported.

57 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police for 1930.

58 Blantyre Monthly Police Reports, Sept. 1944, May-June 1946, MNA POL 5/2/2.

59 Report of Social Welfare Officer, Southern Province, 1951, MNA 2/28/7F 2525. I owe this reference to Dr Megan Vaughan.

60 Ng'wane, H. D., ‘Economics of Kacasu distilling and brewing of African beer in a Blantyre-Limbe village’, in Apthorpe, R. J. (ed.), Present Interrelations in Central African Rural and Urban Life, proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute for Social Research (Lusaka, 1958).Google Scholar

61 Banton, Michael, The Policeman in the Community (London, 1964), 146–147.Google Scholar

62 For a general introduction see Ranger, T. O., ‘Mchape and the study of witchcraft eradication’, Conference on the history of Central African religious systems, Lusaka, 1972.Google Scholar

63 This account is drawn from material in the following two files: MNA S1/522/32 and NS 1/23/2.

64 G. D. Anderson, Provincial Commissioner Southern Province to Chief Secretary, Zomba, 6 Dec. 1932, MNA S1/522/32.

65 Evidence of N. C. Dulana in District Officer, Liwonde, to Provincial Commissioner Southern Province, 12 Nov. 1932, S1/522/32.

66 Minute by Attorney General, 4 Jan. 1933 in S1/522/32.

67 Provincial Commissioner, Southern Province to all District Commissioners, Southern Province, 9 Feb. 1933, MNA NS 1/23/2.

68 McCracken, John, Politics and Christianity in Malawi, 1873–1940 (Cambridge, 1977), 280–281.Google Scholar

69 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police for 1945, 7 and 15.

70 Ibid.; Morton, , 238.Google Scholar

71 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police for 1948.

72 Ibid.

73 Morton, , Just the Job, 242.Google Scholar

74 Note of meeting between the Governor and Mr Kaye Nicol, General Manager of the British Central Africa Company, 15 May 1948, MNA 2/8/9F 1476.

75 Annual Reports of the Nyasaland Police Department, 1947–52; Blantyre Monthly Police Reports, June 1948, MNA POL 5/2/2; Morton, , 236–242, 257–258 and 284–288.Google Scholar

76 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police for 1952.

77 For two contrasting views of this episode see Morton, , 299–312 and Scott, Michael, African Episode (London, 1953).Google Scholar

78 For a comprehensive account see White, Landeg and Vail, Leroy, ‘Variations on the theme of ethnicity: the Malawian experience’, paper delivered at the conference on ‘Malawi: an alternative pattern of development’, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, 24–25 May 1984.Google Scholar

79 Munro, R., ‘Riots and disturbances - 1953’, Chiradzulu District Book, vol. VI, 1953–1955.Google Scholar

80 Ibid.; Nyasaland Times, 20 Aug.-21 Sept. 1953. See also Westrop, Arthur, Green Gold (Bulawayo, 1955), 341–353.Google Scholar

81 See Nyasaland Times, 6 Dec. 1953, which provides an account of the 2nd Battalion's activities in September and October.

82 Munro, , ‘Riots and disturbances’.Google Scholar

83 Altogether, 220 policemen from outside Nyasaland were recruited to put down the disturbances: 100 from Northern Rhodesia, 50 from Tanganyika and 70 from Southern Rhodesia (including 30 Europeans). See Nyasaland Times, 27 and 31 Aug. 1953.

84 Munro, , ‘Riots and disturbances’.Google Scholar

85 Morton, , p. 237.Google Scholar

86 ‘Proposal for the unification of the police services of Central Africa, 1952’, PRO CO 1015/37; Wood, J. R. T., The Welensky Papers: a History of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Durban, 1983), 176–7, 257–8, 325–7.Google Scholar

87 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1954; memoir by John M. Le Mesurier, 1 Feb. 1982, Rhodes Houses, Mss. Afr. S. 1784 (46).Google Scholar

88 Chidzero, C. Z., ‘Thangata in Thyolo District’, History Seminar Paper, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, 1980/1981.Google Scholar

89 Unattributable source.

90 Short, Philip, Banda (London, 1974), 106–108.Google Scholar

91 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1958 and 1959.Google Scholar C. H. F. Apthorpe, the architect of the last phase of expansion, retired in 1958 along with the Deputy Commissioner and the Officer Commanding Special Branch. There were thus virtually no experienced senior officers to assist the new Commissioner, Mullin, J. V., during the Emergency of 1959.Google Scholar

92 P. L. Brown to C. E. Lambert, Colonial Office, 22 Dec. 1949, PRO CO 537/4413.

93 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1959, 5.Google Scholar

94 Wood, , Welensky Papers, 635–643.Google Scholar

95 Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Enquiry, 1959, Cmd. 814Google Scholar; Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1959Google Scholar; Author's interview with Sir Glyn Jones, July 1980.

96 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1959.Google Scholar

97 According to the Bell Report, the total European establishment in 1938 was 238, including not just the staff of the Secretariat, Treasury, Provincial Administration and Development Departments, but also the P.W.D. (28), Posts and Telegraph (14), Police, Military and Customs.

98 For a comprehensive analysis see Vail, and White, , ‘Variations on the theme of ethnicity’.Google Scholar

99 Wordsworth Poole to his mother, 21 August 1895, MNA POL/I. The full quotation is worth providing as illustration of the simplistic stereotypes to which European officials resorted: ‘There are certain recognised ideas about the different races which are repeated by everyone. They are passed from one whiteman to another originating I fancy from the Commissioner. For instance, the Yao is the essence of cowardice and laziness and never will be any good. The Atonga are the faithful servants of the white man or Azungu as they call us, plucky and reliable. The Mang'anja timid and fearful. The Angoni Zulu raiders. Whether this is all gospel I don't know.’

100 Jhala, Violet, ‘The Yao in the Shire Highlands, 1861–1915: the establishment of their authority and adjustment to changing socio-economic conditions’, B.A. Honours research paper, University of Malawi, 1980Google Scholar; Vaughan, , ‘Social and economic change’.Google Scholar

101 ‘Information for military handbook of Nyasaland, 1922’, MNA S2/6/27. See also Intelligence Report for half year ending June 30 1937: ‘The Yaos have a magnificent war record, and it is safe to say that they could be employed satisfactorily for warfare in any tropical or semi-tropical country. They were found during the Great War to be more satisfactory in conditions in East Africa than white South African Troops': S2/6iii/27. For a comparative study of the ‘ethnic security maps’ created by imperial regimes and of their efforts to locate and utilise ‘martial races’ in their defence, see Enloe, Cynthia H., Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in a Divided Society (Penguin Books, 1980).Google Scholar

102 Memo on ‘Nyasaland Police. Organisation, conditions of service, pay, etc.’, 1926. MNA S1/645/26.

103 Ibid.; Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1930.Google Scholar

104 Percentages calculated from Annual Reports of the Nyasaland Police. Clearly there are dangers involved in attempting to define individuals in ethnic terms in an area like colonial Malawi where tribal identity was very fluid. The ‘Lomwe’ for example, as at present defined, are essentially a creation of the 1940s. However, it is important to note (a) that the recruitment policies of the colonialists were considerably influenced by these tribal categories and (b) that many soldiers and policemen accepted and utilized them for their own purposes.

105 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1939. As early as 1928 it was noted in the annual report: ‘It is very doubtful whether the ordinary African ex-soldier makes a good policeman; his military training and surroundings are inclined to make him domineering and aggressive towards other Africans and a man of these traits is useless as a policeman': MNA POL 5/1/2.

106 loe Memo by W. B. Bithrey, 16 May 1939. MNA POL 2/17/3.

107 See particularly Nyasaland Times, 7 Sept. 1953.

108 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1970, 7.Google Scholar

109 Sir D. Mackenzie-Kennedy to Secretary of State for Colonies, 12 May 1941, PRO CO 525/188/44006/4 1941–3.

110 Onselen, Van, ‘Collaborators on the Rhodesian mining industry’, 408–412.Google Scholar

111 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1921, MNA POL 5/1/1.

112 Blantyre Monthly Police Report, Feb. 1938, MNA POL 5/2/1.

113 See ‘Grievances of educated natives of Blantyre to the Magistrate Blantyre’, 1923, MNA NC 1/3/2.

114 Morton, , Just the Job, 258.Google Scholar

115 Interview with Mr Brian Burgess, 22 Jan. 1983.

116 Annual Report of the Nyasaland Police, 1959.Google Scholar

117 Evidence of Major Stephens, 20 June 1938, Rhodesia-Nyasaland Royal Commission; Colby to Secretary of State for Colonies, 11 Sept. 1953, PRO CO 1015/378.

118 Annual Report for Chiradzulu District, 1939, MNA NSD 2/1/4. Career details of policemen serving under district officers are contained in the Nyasaland district books.

119 Lilongwe District Books, 1918–23 and 1923–38.

120 Morton, , 279–281.Google Scholar

121 Onselen, Van, ‘Collaborators in the Rhodesian mining industry’, 403.Google Scholar

122 Quoted in Vail, Leroy, ‘Ethnicity, languages and national unity: the case of Malawi’, in Bonner, P. (ed.), Working Papers in Southern African Studies, II (Johannesburg, 1981), 127–128.Google Scholar

123 Cooper, Frederick, ‘Africa and the world economy’, in African Studies Review, xxiv, 2/3 (1981), 31.Google Scholar

124 For a striking example of the latter view see Gann, Lewis H., Central Africa: the Former British States (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971), 102–103.Google Scholar

125 Bithrey, Memo on police reorganization, 16 May 1939, MNA POL 2/17/3.

126 ‘Grievances of educated natives of Blantyre’, 1923, MNA 1/3/2.

127 Geo. S. Mwase for Central Province Universal Native Association, 19 Nov. 1927, MNANC 1/3/2.