Chilembwe, the forgotten hero: the aim of John Chilembwe's Uprising was twofold: first, if successful, the creation of an African state in Nyasaland, with strongly theocratic elements and selected European guidance; second, if unsuccessful, a gesture of protest at what were conceived as the intolerable aspects of European rule.

Trouble with the colonial government was the last thing that John Chilembwe wanted. But, sadly, the going-son at the Bruce Estates at Magomero near his home area and the grievances that were coming to the surface throughout the protectorate gave him no alternative.

In fact, Chilembwe's troubles with the Bruce Estates started in 1909. First, the Estates management burned the small grass-hut churches that his flock had built on the Estates. These members were all workers of the Estates, and they had built the churches because of the distance between their work places and Chilembwe's main church at Chiradzulu.

The churches were burnt down partly because of the animosity that the management had for Chilembwe as a person, and partly because of the policy of the Estates in make the Africans understand that they were squatters on alien-owned land, and that they would not be permitted to build up settled communities which might compete with the European use and ownership of the land.

These grievances sadly built up, gradually, and exploded in the form of the Uprising. In their 1958 book, Independent African--John Chilembwe and the Nyasaland Rising of 1915, George Shepperson and Thomas Price give another reason for the Uprising:

"The important fact for the development of Chilembwe's grievances against the Europeans," they write, "was that many members of his flock on the Bruce Estates believed that they were underpaid, not only in the actual amounts that were given to them, in cash or kind, for work done when they were labouring directly as hired hands, but also as a result of various manipulations by the management of the 'thangata' (labour-rent) squatter system so that the African labourer often gave to his employer more work titan he was regally bound to do. In fact, in the opinion of African witnesses, at this time the Africans on the Estates were becoming no more than cattle.

"By 1912, it is clear that these grievances were beginning to focus themselves in the figures of John Chilembwe and William Jarvis Livingstone, manager of the Bruce lands ... Livingstone, it may be appreciated, was often guilty of impatience which sometimes turned into harshness in the treatment of his labour force. Chilembwe, perhaps, became a personification to him of all these difficulties."

In 1913, the British government sent a new governor, Sir George Smith, to Nyasaland. It was a time for general self-congratulation among the Europeans. Before Sir George's arrival, the colonial government had passed the District Administration (Native) Ordinance of 1912 which replaced what it called "the archaic system of tribal rule" with the "gradual formation of subsidiary focal government by means of Sectional Councils oft Headmen chosen as far as possible by the natives themselves and presided over by the District Resident."

On the surface, the new law was a good thing, but beneath the rhetoric, the colonial government had other plans. It published a report for the period 1912 13 in which it said it hoped that "the people [will] recognise that they are being given some measure of responsibility for their own affairs and that they will be afforded full opportunity of following a path of progress on lines which the government will control and regulate."

In effect, the government was ceding control of native affairs with one hand and taking it hack with the other. This enraged politically conscious Africans of Chilemhwe's ilk.

And not only that: The government went on to increase the hut tax around the same time by 8 shillings, with a 4 shillings labour rebate, which, according to Shepperson and Price, "made it seem that the hut tax had been instituted with the express purpose of getting the African to work for the Europeans ...

"Abuses grew up in the issuing by Europeans to Africans of the labour certificates which, on the statement that a native had worked for a month for a European employer, entitled him to a rebate of half the hut tax. Often more than the statutory minimum of labour was taken from the African by unscrupulous European employers."

On top of all that, the European landowners were empowered by the Land Ordnance of 1904 to charge rent from the African "residents" on the European-owned lands. But what the European landowners really wanted was not rent but work.

"Thus", as Shepperson and Price put it, "if an African resident on a European estate did not provide his quota of labour as rent-in-kind (the 'tangata' system), many Europeans felt that they ought to resort to their only means of disciplining their labour force: eviction from his land-holding."

Alarmed by the rapidity of the evictions, the government tried to stamp our the abuses by introducing the 1914 Native Tenants (Agreement) Ordnance, but it was soundly ignored by the European landowners, especially A. L. Bruce, owner of the Bruce Estates. This increased the bad blood between the management and the Africans on the Estates, many of them members of Chilembwe's flock.

In 1914, the American Seventh-Day Baptist missionary, Walter B. Cockerill, visited Nyasaland and was soon writing home: "The government taxes the natives more than they can stand, for there is practically no work in this country and no good way to earn money. If the natives cannot pay their two dollars per year, they are taken by the magistrate and compelled to work about six months in irons."

A year before Cockerill's visit, Chilembwe had built another church at Cikomwe on government land next door to Magomero Estate. W. J. Livingstone, manager of the Estates, burned this down too. Chilembwe was so incensed that this time he went to the government in Zomba to complain, but his complaint was nor received with any sympathy.

Rather, the assistant magistrate at Chiradzulu, a Mr Cruise, who received Chilembwe's compliant supported W. J. Livingstone's action. Thus, from a local dissatisfaction, Chilembwe's bitterness widened to include the colonial government itself, which, to him, was doing nothing to rectify what he considered to be just grievances.

As time went on, the "Africans could not help noticing that the Bruce Estates, with the labour force of a thousand Africans, covered some 300 square miles, a great block of land over which many of them had at one time been accustomed to move as they wished but on which their movements were now subject to all manner of restrictions."

Even the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the government to investigate the conditions leading to the Uprising, was scathing of W. J. Livingstone and how he ruled the roost on the Estates: "We are of the opinion that Mr Livingstone's treatment of natives was often unduly harsh, and apart from this the general system of Estates management was unsatisfactory," the Commission reported.

"The tenant system," the Commission continued, "was that natives living on the land were compelled to work for the Estates. No money was accepted. Natives were compelled to work one month in the wet season for rent and another month in the wet season for hut tax, that is two months' work.

"A month was reckoned at 28 days' actual work, and it was stated before the Commission that by various devices, natives were compelled to work considerably longer periods, e.g, if a native did ,not complete his day's task, no credit was given to him for the time he had worked, and occasionally he had to work several days extra to make up for the day lost."

From the Estates' labour toll books, the Commission found that the safeguards laid down in the Employment of Natives Ordnance for ensuring the proper payment of natives were not complied with. "While the native evidence must be received with caution," the Commission said, "we are of the opinion that the treatment of labour and the system of tenancy on the Bruce Estates were in several respects illegal and oppressive and that the conditions on the Estates, more especially in the Magomero Estate, directly conduced to the Uprising."

Another reason for the Uprising was the effect of the First World War on the Africans in Nyasaland. Certain clauses of the Berlin Act of 1885 (the first important international agreement to try to formalise the European scramble for Africa) had said that "in time of war, the African territories would be neutralised", but the First World War did not spare Nyasaland.

Against the spirit of the Berlin Act, the British colonial government recruited Africans in Nyasaland into the Kings African Rifles to fight in the First World War.

Say Shepperson and Price: "The War had nor been in existence for six weeks, when the Nyasaland contingent of the King's African Rifles at the northern end of Lake Nyasa was in action on 8 and 9 September 1914 against the Germans at Karonga. The casualties on both sides were heavy, each lost about 400 rifles--the British lost 60 men, of whom 49 were Africans; and the Germans 122, of whom more than 100 were Africans ...

"Though both the casualties and horror seem slight beside the losses of more recent wars, it was the first battle of modern, international war in which Nyasaland forces were participants and it made a deep impression on Africans in the Protectorate. They did nor fall to notice that the majority of casualties were African. Once again, Chilembwe was stung to protest against the use of native troops in European wars, as he had done on his return front America about the use of Nyasaland askari in the Ashanti and Somaliland campaigns.

"This time his protest carried the additional force of increased bitterness against the Europeans, and a feeling of despairing confusion about the War. It also provided the last public document to which Chilembwe set his hand [in the form of a letter to the Nyasaland Times, in November 1914]."

He wrote: "We understand that we have been invited to shed our innocent blood in this war ... On the commencement of the war, we understood that it was said indirectly that Africa had nothing to do with the civilised war. But now we find that the poor African has ,already been plunged into the great war. A number of our people have already shed their blood, while some are crippled for life ...

"We ask the honourable government of our country, will there be any good prospects for the natives after the end of the war? Shall we be recognised as anybody in the best interests of civilisation and Christianity after the great struggle is ended? Because we are imposed upon more than any other nationality under the sun ...

"Everybody knows that the natives have been loyal to all Nyasaland interests and institutions ... But in time of peace, the government failed to help the underdog. In time of peace, everything for Europeans only. And instead of honour, we suffer humiliation with names contemptible. But in the war, it has been found that we are needed to share hardships and shed our blood in equality. It is true that we have no voice in this government ...

"Let the rich men, bankers, titled men, storekeepers, farmers and landlords go to war and get shot. Instead, the poor Africans who have nothing to own in this present world, who in death, leave only a long line of widows and orphans in utter want and dire distress are invited to die for a cause which is not theirs ...

"We leave all for the consideration of the government, we hope in the mercy of Almighty God, that some day things will turn out well and the government will recognise our indispensability, and that justice will prevail."

By now, the dire was gradually being cast. The first clear warning to reach the authorities that Chilembwe was planning a rebellion came at the end of July 1914. A native teacher of the Roman Catholic Mission at Nguludi, one Eugenio from the village of Matuta, told his superior that Chilembwe was planning an uprising, and that he intended to kill all the Europeans in the country, as well as those Africans who would not join him, after which he would make himself the spiritual and temporal head of Nyasaland.

Eugenio said Chilembwe was holding secret meetings at night, and was gathering arms for a first objective: a march on Zomba and Blantyre where he would obtain more arms and ammunition. According to Eugenio, he had heard this form one Paulos, a teacher from Masanjala village, who in turn, had heard it from a certain Morson, a member of Chilembwe's church.

As the rumours kept growing, the government was forced to take the threat seriously. It even launched an investigation but found nothing untoward against Chilembwe, who, in Fact, was planing an uprising!

According to Shepperson and Price, Chilembwe's objectives appeared to be twofold: "first, if successful, the creation of an African state in Nyasaland, with strongly theocratic elements and selected European guidance; second, if unsuccessful, a gesture of protest [at] what were conceived as the intolerable aspects of European rule."

Chilembwe had taught his politics straight from the Bible, and, for months, had preached "Africa for Africans" to his folowers. According to one of them, John Gray Kufa (who was executed by the government after the Uprising), when issuing orders for the Uprising, Chilembwe has said he "wished W. J. Livingstone's head to be brought to his church as he was so well known to the natives."

As Shepperson and Price reveal in their book, "Chilembwe himself does not seem to have been present in person at any of the arracks which actually took place. He was, it seems, directing and co-ordinating activities from the Mbombwe church. The 1916 Commission of Inquiry noted that he had 'undoubtedly, for a native, exceptional administrative gifts'."

Before he sent out his foot soldiers on the night of the Uprising, Chilembwe had given them clear instructions that European women and children were not to be harmed. And his orders were scrupulously followed.

"The secret manner in which the group which attacked the ammunition store in Blantyre arrived on their objective was evidence of effective march discipline," say Shepperson and Price. "Despite its few successes, Chilembwe's 'army' was no rabble. The one fact above all which has often given rise to accusations of this sort was the decapitation of W. J. Livingstone in his own house and before his own family at Magomero. This singular action seems to have been on Chilembwe's orders, and it is doubtful whether it was quite the result of personal vendetta which is often assumed.

"For, though the 1915 Rising was much more than a one-man or one-group affair, nevertheless, it was John Chilembwe who provided much of its immediate force. He was its general, its high priest, its martyr, all in one."

The Uprising started on Saturday evening, 23 January 1915. It was crushed in less than two weeks, on 3 February, when Chilembwe was shot and his body later found by government troops.

"In this short period," write Shepperson and Price, "Chilembwe's forces had killed three Europeans and seriously wounded two others. His following had broken up quickly, and no other Africans inside the Protectorate came to his support. For a rebellion against foreign rule, it had been, on the face of it, singularly ineffective. But, as has already been suggested, it was the quality rather than the quantity of Chilembwe's movement which gave it significance."

On the first night, Chilembwe had sent out two main attacking parries. The first headed for the Bruce Estates, eight miles away. It was to deal with the European management of the Estates, and particularly William Jarvis Livingstone, the manager and bete noire of the Africans on the Estates. The assault was successful. W. J. Livingstone tried to defend himself and put up a good fight, using a clubbed rifle. Unfortunately for him, he had no ammunition handy. Yet, he fought his way through three rooms before he was hit on the head with an axe. Then, in the presence of his distraught wife, his head was cut off, stuck on a pole and taken back to Chilembwe's headquarters at Mbombwe.

The assault party made no further attacks on the other European estates or on the neighbouring private planters. The head of W. J. Livingstone was enough.

The other assault party (or Assault Parry No.2), attacking the African Lakes Corporation armoury in Blantyre, was not so successful. Due to an unforeseen delay, the assault did not start until about 2.30am on 24 January. They had cut the telephone lines between Blanytre and Mikalongwe, and Zomba and Tete. Their plan was to attack the armoury first, where they hoped to capture enough weapons and ammunition to launch further operations.

But luck was not on their side. An African night watchman of the African Lakes Corporation's bank spoiled it all for them. Intrigued by the presence of so many natives at that time of night, the watchman followed them and forced them to make their first mistake.

In a moment of panic, they shot the watchman. The element of surprise was gone. The sound of the gun alerted the staff of the Corporation who quickly mounted a counter-attack. Assault Party No.2 pressed on regardless and broke into the armoury, but found only a few weapons and ammunition. They were soon beaten back by the staff of the Corporation. And the chase was on.

The news of the two attacks reached Zomba, the capital, on Sunday morning, 24 January. At Mbombwe, Chilembwe's headquarters, he held his usual Sunday morning church service, during which the head of W. J. Livingstone, which had been delivered to him by a member of Assault Party No. 1, was exhibited on a pole in the congregation.

The colonial government hit back ruthlessly. It rallied its forces--soldiers, policemen and friendly Africans--to attack Chilembwe and his followers, who in panic, had broken up in a disorderly retreat. The government troops reached Chilembwe's abandoned headquarters unchallenged, and sacked it. "One item which was discovered was a book on military tactics; it was much thumped," say Shepperson and Price.

"As a symbol of their conquest and as a measure of safety, in case a counter-attack should come, the huts and houses of the village were burnt, after the intelligence material was taken away, and attempts were made to set Chilembwe's church on fire. But it was too stout a building to succumb to simple flames, and had to await demolition by dynamite a week later."

On Wednesday, 3 February 1915, a small police force which had been sent out to patrol the Portuguese (Mozambican) border, encountered a group of fleeing rebels in the bush. It was a light engagement but it was enough to cause the death of Chilembwe. His body was taken to Mulange the following day where more witnesses identified him.

"He was buried so quietly," according to Shepperson and Price, "that many Africans refused to believe that Chilembwe had dead. He had escaped from his pursuers, they claimed, and one day would return to liberate them from European rule in the Protectorate. It was the beginning of a John Chilembwe legend." He was about 40 when he died.

Thus, by 4 February 1915, Chilembwe's Uprising was over. The colonial government scoured the country for his followers. "The ruthless and summary way in which the rebellion had been put down scared away the Africans. The rebels, now prisoners, were flogged, shot and hanged. Some of the bodies were put out for days as a lesson in the Africans," write Shepperson and Price.

Some of Chilembwe's men, though, managed to remain in hiding for a long time, but, thanks to a series of tip-offs by the Africans themselves motivated by the official rewards promised by the government, the rebels in hiding were all apprehended.

But betraying the rebels did not help the Africans in the long run. Stung by the depth of the Uprising, the government used the Collective Punishment Ordinance of 1909 to impose a levy of four shillings on every male African hut-owner in parts of Mulanje, Zomba, Ncheu and Chiradzulu areas for "colluding with, or harbouring, or failing to take all reasonable means to prevent the escape of rebels".

In all, the government spent 2,200 [pounds sterling] to put down the Uprising. Though the Uprising made hardly a dent in dethroning the Europeans, it had succeeded as "a gesture of protest at the intolerable aspects of European rule". Even the governor at the time, Sir George Smith, later wrote that the Uprising "opened a new phase in the existence of Nyasaland." In fact, it made the colonial government and the Europeans in the country to take a critical look at themselves and their behaviour towards the Africans.

As A.G.B. Glossop, the Anglican archdeacon of Likoma who sat on the Commission of Inquiry into the Uprising observed: "The old African way of life was based on a 'communistic not the individualistic' system. When this collapses, as it was collapsing under the impetus of the new European system of values and political and economic relationships, moral restraints on the individual African disappear."

Before the Uprising, education in Nyasaland was primarily the responsibility of the churches. The government grant for education was less than twopence for each pupil, as compared with 15 shillings in the Cape Colony. Of the 11,000 [pounds sterling] that was spent on education in Nyasaland, less than one-tenth came from the government.

Even then, the few Africans who had had formal education like Chilembwe, would not take the injustice of colonial rule lying down. As Sir Harry Johnson, the first commissioner and consul-general in British Central Africa wrote in his 1916 book, The Bitter Cry of the Educated African:

"The white man who controls in every direction the negro's destinies would in his collective opinion like to thrust the negro back into helotry and into exclusively manual work of a more or less unskilled kind, in connection with land, with mining, and the general development of the money-making resources of Africa, the moneymaking to remain chiefly with the white controller.

"In short, all governments, most government officials, and nearly all the masters of Europe's trade and industry connected with Africa, would prefer if they spoke their utmost thoughts to re-establish slavery all over Africa ... But the time for such a phase in African history has gone by. The missionaries have sown the dragon's teeth of education."

Shamed by the Uprising, the colonial government appointed the protectorate's first director of education in 1926, and in the same year set up the protectorate's first Education Department.

But the greatest achievement of the Uprising was in the area of land ownership. As Shepperson and Price put it: "It speeded up consideration of, and action on, a number of difficult problems which were recognised before the Uprising but which, for various reasons, had been neglected."

Chilembwe and his rebels had, in deed, not died in vain!