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The Spectre of a Second Chilembwe: Government, Missions, and Social Control in Wartime Northern Rhodesia, 1914–18*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Edmund Yorke
Edmund Yorke
Affiliation:
Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst
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Extract

The 1915 Chilembwe Rising in Nyasaland had important political repercussions in the neighbouring colonial territory of Northern Rhodesia, where fears were raised among the Administration about the activities of African school teachers attached to the thirteen mission denominations then operating in the territory. These anxieties were heightened for the understaffed and poorly-financed British South Africa Company administration by the impact of the war-time conscription of Africans and the additional demands made by war-time conditions upon the resources of the Company. Reports of anti-war activities by African teachers attached to the Dutch Reformed Church in the East Luangwa District convinced both the Northern Rhodesian and the imperial authorities of the imperative need to strictly regulate the activities of its black mission-educated elite. Suspected dissident teachers were arrested, while others were diverted into military service where their activities could be more closely supervised. With the 1918 Native Schools Proclamation, the Administration laid down strict regulations for the appointment and employment of African mission teachers. The proclamation aroused the vehement opposition of the mission societies who, confronted by war-time European staff shortages, had come to rely heavily upon their African teachers to maintain their educational work. The emergence in late 1918 of the patently anti-colonial Watch Tower movement, which incorporated many African mission employees within its leadership, weakened the opposition of the missions, and served to consolidate the administration's perception of the African teachers as a dangerous subversive force. Strong measures were implemented by the administration soon after the end of the war, with large numbers of Watch Tower adherents being arrested and detained.

Type
Colonial Minds
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , November 1990 , pp. 373 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 See, principally, Shepperson, G. and Price, T., Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Nyasaland Rising of 1915 (Edinburgh, 2nd ed. 1987)Google Scholar, and Rotberg, R. I., The Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa: the Making of Malawi and Zambia 1873–1964 (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), 76–92.Google Scholar For an assessment of the origins of the insurrection, stressing the role of wartime conscription, see Page, M. E., ‘The war of Thangata: Nyasaland and the East African campaign, 1914–18’, J. Afr. Hist., XIX (1978), 90–1.Google Scholar For a brief consideration of the Northern Rhodesian perspective, see Gann, L. H., A History of Northern Rhodesia (London, 1964), 168Google Scholar; in contrast to the argument offered here, Gann contends that the Chilembwe Rising ‘found no echo in the backwoods beyond the [Nyasaland] border’.

2 The Chilembwe rebellion had immediate and serious implications, transforming a small border war into a high risk strategy of defending white prestige over a far wider area. Six months later, Drummond Chaplin, the Southern Rhodesian Company Administrator, bluntly warned his friend Walter Long, a senior Conservative M.P., that it had become ‘a matter which affects the Imperial Government as much as Rhodesia, as, if our forces were seriously beaten on the northern frontier, there would be the devil to pay among natives in Nyasaland, where there is a good deal of unrest’. Papers of W. H. Long, Wiltshire County Record Office, 947/468, Chaplin to Long, 14 September 1915.

3 Roberts, A. D., A History of Zambia (London, 1976), 174–7.Google Scholar For a detailed discussion of the highly pessimistic view of the economic future of Northern Rhodesia taken by the Board of the British South Africa Company in the pre-war period, see Yorke, E. J., ‘A crisis of colonial control: war and authority in Northern Rhodesia, 1914–19’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1984), 7–13.Google Scholar

4 By 1912, Northern Rhodesia's annual administrative deficit stood at £47,620, rising to £51,708 in 1913 and dropping to £48,177 in March 1914 only after a stringent reduction on the Capital/Expenditure Account. Papers of Sir P. L. Gell, B.S.A.C. Director 1899–1925, Hopton Hall, Derbyshire (hereafter GP), BSA/3/361; Wilson-Fox, H., Review of the Political and Commercial Policy of the B.S.A. C. (London, 1918), 13.Google Scholar

5 GP, BSA/10/17, Wallace to B.S.A.C., 27 Oct. 1911.

6 National Archives of Zambia (hereafter NAZ), Shelf 8, Box 1, Dept. of Native Affairs, Annual Report 1911–12.

7 NAZ, ZA 1/14, Sec. Native Affairs to Magistrate Kasama, 23 Jan. 1914.

8 NAZ, KTB/I, Solwezi District Notebook, 1, p. 2, Aug. 1914.

9 Papers of T. R. Williams, Native Commissioner, Rhodes House Library, Oxford (hereafter WP): Williams to Mother, 5 Aug. 1918.

10 For the grave administrative problems arising from the appointment of chiefs and headmen to, for instance, acephalous societies in Northern Rhodesia see Yorke, ‘A crisis of colonial control’, 29–31.

11 GP, BSA/10/5, Hichens, W. L., Report on the Administration of North-west and North-east Rhodesia, 24 Jan. 1910 (London, 1910), 40.Google Scholar

12 NAZ, ZA 7/1/1/4, Petauke Annual Report 1913–14.

13 NAZ, ZA 7/1/1/9, Fife Annual Report 1913–14.

14 For a detailed discussion of the political role of the various missionary societies in Northern Rhodesia during the early colonial period see Rotberg, R. I., Christian Missionaries and the Creation of Northern Rhodesia 1880–1924 (Princeton, 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For their role in the north-east, see Roberts, A. D., A History of the Bemba (London, 1973), especially 229–84Google Scholar, and Garvey, B., ‘Bemba chiefs and Catholic missions, 1898–1945’, J.Afr. Hist., xviii (1977), 411–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 See, for example, the dependence of the Kasama magistrate upon the Chilubula missionaries for information regarding the Nandola succession dispute, NAZ, KDH/I, Kasama Dist. Notebook 11, p. 134.

16 NAZ, Shelf 8, Box 1, Dept. of Native Affairs, Annual Report 1911–12, p. 5; also quoted in Snelson, P. D., Educational Development in Northern Rhodesia, 1883–1945 (Lusaka, 1974), 127.Google Scholar

17 NAZ, ZA 7/1/1/4, Ft. Jameson Annual Report 1913–14.

18 GP, BSA/10/11/19, P. L. Gell to Sec. Church of Livingstone, undated, 1911.

19 Lusaka Anglican Cathedral Archives (hereafter LACA), Presidential Address to the Northern Rhodesia Missionary Conference, June 1914.13

20 NAZ, ZA 7/7/1, Governor of Nyasaland to Sec. of State Colonies (encl. in Buxton to Wallace, 12 July 1915).

21 NAZ, ZA 7/7/1, Assistant Magistrate Ft. Jameson to Sec. Native Affairs, 3 May I9I5.

22 NAZ, ZA 7/7/1, Wallace to High Commissioner, 7 June 1915.

23 NAZ, ZA 7/7/1, Resident Commissioner to High Commissioner, 18 June 1915.

24 NAZ, ZA 7/7/1, Wallace to Buxton, 20 July 1915.

25 NAZ, ZA 7/7/1, Native Commissioner Ft. Jameson to District Magistrate Ft. Jameson, 11 August 1915, and Asst. Native Commissioner Ft. Jameson to District Magistrate Ft. Jameson, 26 September 1915. This matter is overlooked by Gann, , History of Northern Rhodesia, 168–9.Google Scholar

26 NAZ, ZA 7/7/1, District Magistrate, Ft. Jameson, to Principal, Dutch Reformed Mission, 6 October 1915.

27 NAZ, ZA 7/1/2/3, Lundazi Annual Report 1914–15. This was presumably Charles Domingo, leader of the Seventh Day Baptists at Mzimba; in 1916 he was deported by the Nyasaland Government to S. Province.

28 White Fathers Archives, Rome (hereafter WFA), Kapatu Mission Diary 25 Oct. 1914, 8 Oct. and 14 Oct. 1917. For more direct acts of defiance against the colonial authorities, penalties could be harsh. In 1916, at Fort Rosebery, one Isaac Mayuni, described as a ‘mission-educated native and a clever rogue’, was sentenced to whipping and six months imprisonment for burning down the post office and, more significantly, a military grain store. Public Record Office, Kew (hereafter PRO), CO 417/587; Justice L. P. Beaufort, ‘Report on Whipping returns for period June to December, 1916’, 12 April 1917.

29 WFA, Chilonga Mission Diary, 22 Aug. 1917.

30 Archives of the Congregational Council for World Missions, S.O.A.S., London (hereafter CCWM), London Missionary Society (hereafter LMS), Box 3; Kawimbe Mission Annual Report 1916 and Kambole Mission Annual Report 1917, Box 17; W. Freshwater to Hawkins, 11 Aug. 1916.

31 NAZ, BS3/80, Wallace to Buxton, 9 May 1917.

32 For the full provisions of Government Circular No. 15 of 1917, see copy enclosed in W. G. Robertson to Hawkins, 18 Jan. 1918, CCWM, LMS Box 18.

33 Northern Rhodesia Government Gazette, Vol. 8, No. 5, 16 April 1918. The 1918 Native Schools Proclamation is discussed in Snelson, Educational Development in Northern Rhodesia, 129–31, but this account does not explicitly link the proclamation either to the impact of the Chilembwe Rising or to the fears of interference in war labour recruitment by African teachers.

34 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 18, J. A. Ross to F. Lenwood, 24 December 1917.

35 WFA, Chilonga Mission Diary, 27 October 1917.

36 LACA, Chipili Mission Logbook, 4 April 1918.

37 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 18, W. G. Robertson to Hawkins, 19 Feb. 1918. Missionary protests mounted when the Proclamation was promulgated without any official consideration of a major critique of the measure drawn up at a special conference held in April 1918. For details of this critique see LACA, E. H. Lane-Poole, ‘Conference of the Heads of Missions held on 5th April, 1918’.

38 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 18, W. G. Robertson to Hawkins, 24 Sept. 1918.

39 NAZ BS3/261, Sec. Native Affairs to Dist. Magistrate, Kasama (enclosing Bishop Larue's comments), 11 April 1918, and Dist. Magistrate, Kasama to Sec. Native Affairs, 2 May 1918.

40 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 17, W. Freshwater (Secretary, LMS District Committee) to Administrator, 8 Sept. 1918, and W. Freshwater to High Commissioner, 8 Sept. 1918.

41 See Pirouet, L., ‘East African Christians and World War I’, J. Afr. Hist., XIX (1978), 117–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a parallel situation in Kenya, Uganda and German East Africa.

42 See, for example, CCWM, Primitive Methodists Central Africa Box 1140, Quarterly Report Kasenga and Nambala Missions, 11 March to 14 May 1915.

43 NAZ, ZA 7/1/2/1, Luwingu Annual Report 1914–15.

44 Central Africa, Vol. 36 No. 428, Aug. 1918, ‘Anniversary speeches’.

45 CCWM, Wesleyan Methodist Society, Central Africa Box 614, Rev. S. D. Gray, ‘Report of work in the Rhodesian District, 1918’.

46 WFA, Rapport Annuel, Chilubula Mission 1917–18.

47 Central Africa Vol. 34, No. 405, 1916; Chilikwa (Chipili) Mission Post bag, 16 Aug. 1916.

48 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 3, Kawimbe Mission Annual Report, and Box 17, W. Draper to Hawkins, 27 Oct. 1915.

49 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 3, Kambole Mission Annual Report 1915.

50 Petit Echo, No. 24, Sept. 1915.

51 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 18, B. R. Turner to Hawkins, 4 Sept. 1918.

52 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 18, Wareham to Hawkins, 12 Jan. 1918.

53 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 3, Kambole and Kafakula Mission Annual Report, 1916.

54 CCWM, Wesleyan Methodist Society, Central Africa Box 614, Rev. S. D. Gray, ‘Report on North-West Rhodesia during 1918’.

55 LACA, St. Paul's Log Book, Ft. Jameson, 15 Feb. 1915.

56 PRO, CO 417/603, Kawambwa Annual Report 1916–17.

57 CCWM, LMS Central Africa, Box 17, W. Freshwater to Hawkins, 17 June 1916.

58 LACA, Chipili Mission Logbook, 25 June and 2 September 1918. I wish to thank Professor R. E. Robinson for stressing the importance of explaining the divergent attitudes evident amongst these mission teachers.

59 NAZ, BS3/110, Wallace to BSAC, 20 March 1917.

60 PRO, CO 417/588, minute by E. Marsh, 10 July 1917.

61 NAZ, BS1/148, C. R. B. Draper (Tanganyika District Commissioner) to Assist. Magistrate, Fife, 10 April 1919.

62 The 1918–19 Watch Tower disturbances in Zambia have been examined in Cross, J. S. W., ‘The Watch Tower movement in South-Central Africa 1908–1945’ (D.Phil, thesis, Oxford, 1973) 188–200Google Scholar, Meebelo, H. S., Reaction to Colonialism: a Prelude to the Politics of Independence in Northern Zambia (Manchester and Lusaka, 1971), 133–85Google Scholar, and, more recently, Fields, K. E., Revival and Rebellion in Colonial Central Africa (Princeton, 1985), 128–62.Google Scholar All stress the role of wartime social disruption as a potent catalyst to the expansion of Watch Tower activity. For an analysis of Watch Tower's challenge to white authority and the counter strategies adopted, see Yorke, , ‘A crisis of colonial control’, 362–402 and 408–13.Google Scholar

63 NAZ, ZA I/I0/I Chunga indaba notes, 30 Dec. 1918.

64 Ibid.

65 NAZ, ZA I/I0/I, C. R. B. Draper to Administrator (Tel.), 16 Jan. 1918.

66 WFA, Chilubula Mission Diary, 17 July 1917, and Chilonga Mission Diary, 6 April 1915. General Northey himself paid a glowing tribute to the collaborative role of the Missions. ‘Most’ of his carrier transport work ‘was done by Missionaries belonging to the different British Societies and…the White Fathers’; the latter were ‘among the best’ of his carrier-transport conductors. Northey, E., ‘The East African campaign’, J. African Soc., XVIII, 70 (1919), 81–8.Google Scholar

67 PRO, CO 417/603, Fife Annual Report 1916–17. For a brief discussion of this wartime void in European mission authority at Mwenzo, see also McCracken, J., Politics and Christianity in Malawi, 1875–1940 (Cambridge, 1977), 221–2.Google Scholar

68 WFA, Chilubula Mission Diary, 6 Feb. 1919.

69 WFA, Rapport Annuel 1918, ‘Meeting of the missionaries in Northern Rhodesia’.

70 NAZ, BS1/148, statement by Father Tanguy (enclosed in D. Mackenzie-Kennedy to Native Commissioner, Fife, 13 Nov. 1918).

71 NAZ, ZA 1/10/1, Report by Lt. Sibold 10 Jan. 1919 (enclosed in Acting Governor Nyasaland to Administrator, 8 Feb. 1919). On the basis of this report, his commanding officer insisted that it was a ‘matter of necessity that the Watch Tower Movement should be checked’. ZA 1/10/1, Lt. Col. L. H. Soames to Act. Chief Secretary, Zomba, 6 Jan. 1919. One veteran later graphically recalled the impact of Watch Tower propaganda upon military units. ‘Soldiers were told that Jesus Christ did not fight, that's what they were preaching’. Interview, Ndezemani Phiri, 16 May 1980.

72 NAZ, ZA I/I0/I, P. Macdonnell to Administrator, 5 May 1919.

73 Ibid.

74 See, principally, NAZ BS3/423, Abercorn indaba report, 13 May 1919.

75 NAZ, BS3/424, ‘The Northern Rhodesia Missionary Conference 1919’. The minor amendments were designed chiefly to distinguish between ‘educational’ and ‘religious’ work. For details of the 1921 Native Schools Proclamation see Northern Rhodesia Government Gazette, Vol. 12, No. 1, 18 Jan. 1922.