Protection from the British Empire? Central Africa and the Church of Scotland

Abstract

This article demonstrates that the Church of Scotland did not seek to undermine the Central African Federation from the moment of its foundation in 1953. This misconception derives from many of the church's missionaries in the region who demonstrated open disdain for the Federation throughout its existence. They were upset that it had been imposed by the white settlers of Central Africa and the British government over the objections of the indigenous Africans. The church, however, did not follow its missionaries. Instead, it sought to make the federal scheme work for all concerned. The Reverend George MacLeod, perhaps the most visible church leader of the twentieth century, played an important role in trying to make the Federation function between 1953 and early 1959. It was not until after the declaration of the Nyasaland Emergency in March 1959 that the church passed a deliverance demanding an autonomous, African-run Nyasaland, at the behest of MacLeod's Committee Anent Central Africa. Deliverances are resolutions presented to the commissioners of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The commissioners listen to the deliverances and then choose to accept, reject, add to, or amend each of them. Deliverances accepted, or passed, by the General Assembly become law. These laws determine how the Church of Scotland operates. This divergence between the Church of Scotland and its missionaries before the Emergency resulted from the Church's sense of historical obligation to protect the indigenous peoples of Nyasaland from the possibly deleterious consequences of rapid decolonisation. Afterwards, the church focused on protecting the Africans from the federal government by setting them free from the British Empire.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Michelle Brock, Gregory Barton and Wm. Roger Louis for their helpful feedback as this article went through numerous revisions. I am also indebted to Karly Kehoe and the history faculty at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Dornoch, Scotland, for the invitation to speak at their Faculty Seminar Series and their valuable comments on an earlier draft. Thanks are also due to the two anonymous reviewers who provided me with useful comments that greatly improved the final product. This article was made possible by a research fellowship from the University of Texas at Austin, which allowed me to spend four months in Edinburgh sifting through Church of Scotland archives in the Edinburgh University Special Collections, the National Archives of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland. T. M. Devine was generous in appointing me as a visiting scholar in the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh in the fall of 2010, which included office space, full access to the university library and internet privileges. Esther Breitenbach and Lesley Orr, both of the University of Edinburgh, took time out from their busy schedules to provide me with valuable insights into the Church of Scotland and George MacLeod. Finally, I would like to thank David Ritchie for putting me on to George MacLeod early in my research and kindly inviting me to present my findings to the Diaspora Studies Graduate Workshop at the University of Edinburgh.

Notes

The dangers posed by the possible incorporation of Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia into the Union of South Africa frightened many British officials and gave the white settlers a powerful weapon in their goal of achieving closer association between the Rhodesias. According to Philip Murphy, the spread of Afrikaner influence ‘was also, crucially, a means of seeking to persuade those in Britain who were sympathetic towards the plight of the Africans that, far from federation being an instrument of European oppression, it was a means of blocking the northwards spread of apartheid’. See Murphy, Central Africa, xlv. Nyasaland was added to the mix because, according to civil servant A. B. Cohen, ‘Nyasaland would have to come into the federation in order to justify setting it up’. Otherwise it would look too much like the settlers in Southern and Northern Rhodesia were achieving their long-standing ambition of amalgamation. Amalgamation, or its mere appearance, was not acceptable to the British government. See Murphy, Central Africa, li.

Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, 196.

For an analysis of how the missionaries infused the Scottish population with imperial enthusiasm during the nineteenth century, see Breitenbach, Empire and Scottish Society.

McCracken, Politics and Christianity in Malawi, 31–33.

Ibid., 46.

Macmillan, ‘Notes on the Origins of the Arab War’, 270.

The Portuguese wished to expand their empire from Mozambique westwards into the Shire Highlands and across the continent. This led H. H. Johnston, British consul at Mozambique, to declare a protectorate over the region. The protectorate would safeguard the activities of the Livingstonia Mission of the Free Church of Scotland, the ALC and the Established Church of Scotland's Blantyre Mission from Portuguese interference. For more on the establishment of the protectorate, see Hanna, Beginnings of Nyasaland and North-Eastern Rhodesia, 106–172. The creation of the Nyasaland Protectorate went through a number of stages. It began as the Shire Highlands Protectorate in 1889, expanded into the Nyasaland Districts Protectorate in 1891, was renamed the British Central Africa Protectorate in 1893 and was finally designated the Nyasaland Protectorate in 1907.

The Established Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland, which had separated with the Disruption of 1843, reconciled in 1929.

Quoted in Ferguson, George MacLeod, 11.

His biographer, Ron Ferguson, states that MacLeod's ‘most notable quality has been his radical political vision wedded to his passionate pacifism’. Ferguson, George MacLeod, 416.

Iona holds a special spot in Scottish Christianity. Iona is where St Columba set up the first Christian Church in Scotland in 563 AD. His work to convert the pagan Picts and Gaels who lived in the region at the time allowed Christianity to gain a foothold.

For a comprehensive account of the Emergency in Nyasaland, see Baker, State of Emergency. According to Baker, the ‘murder plot’ involved ‘widespread sabotage, murder of the Governor and other senior civil servants, missionaries, and other Europeans and Asians, including women and children’. See esp. 19, 20.

Proctor, ‘Church of Scotland and British Colonialism in Africa’, 477.

In 1959, there were 45 Church of Scotland missionaries in Nyasaland with 89,688 communicants. Although there were more missionaries in India (92 for the entire subcontinent), they could boast only 22,003 communicants in 1959. Nyasaland was the centre of Scottish missionary activity in the 1950s. For statistics on the location of missionaries and the size of their congregations, see ‘Report of the Foreign Mission Committee’, CH 1/8/95, 511–523, National Archives of Scotland (hereafter NAS).

The literature on Scottish involvement in the British Empire in general is much more substantial and should serve as a starting point for anyone interested in the subject. In terms of twentieth-century involvement, the most important works are: Devine, ‘The Break-Up of Britain?’; Finlay, A Partnership for Good?; ‘“For or against?”’; and ‘The Rise and Fall of Popular Imperialism in Scotland’; Fry, The Scottish Empire; Gibb, Scottish Empire; MacKenzie, ‘Essay and Reflection’ and ‘Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English Worlds?’.

Devine, ‘The Break-up of Britain?’, 167.

Proctor, ‘The Church of Scotland and British Colonialism in Africa’, 485–6. Proctor has a major problem in this article. He states that the Church of Scotland and its leading ministers were not against empire, believing that the Africans needed additional training by the British before the realisation of self-government (see text corresponding to note 13 above). This assertion is followed nine pages later by the contention that the church wanted to transfer power promptly to the African nationalists or risk losing them as parishioners after the end of empire. Opinions differed among individual churchmen as to the course to take throughout the 1950s, but the church remained behind the Central African Federation specifically and empire in general until May 1959. Without this delineation, Proctor's argument appears disjointed and contradictory.

Maxwell, ‘Decolonization’, 290. The Church of Central Africa Presbyterian is a denomination that originally formed in 1924 when the Livingstonia Synod of the Free Church of Scotland (in present-day northern Malawi) and the Blantyre Synod of the Church of Scotland (in present-day southern Malawi) joined. They prefigured the reconciliation of Protestantism in Scotland with the reunion of the two churches in October 1929. For a recent and concise description of the reunification, see Cameron, Impaled upon a Thistle, 135–7.

Nyasaland was a protectorate, never a colony, of Britain. George MacLeod took this status literally. In his mind, it was the mission of the Church of Scotland to protect the peoples of Nyasaland from harm being imposed by any regime. With the imposition of apartheid a distinct possibility for an independent Central African Federation, protection of the indigenous Africans became a central rallying cry of MacLeod and many others. For one such testimony, see the letter from Miss Helen Taylor, principal at the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Teacher Training College at the Overtoun Institution, Livingstonia, to Jo Grimond MP. The letter, written in the wake of the declaration of a state of Emergency in Nyasaland, and dated 24 April 1959, asked for Grimond's assistance in reminding the British people of ‘their responsibilities as “Protectors” of this unhappy country’. Letter from Miss Helen Taylor to J. Grimond, 24 April 1959, Gen. 2180/3, Edinburgh University Library Special Collections (hereafter EULSC).

The Scottish Decolonisation Project, a joint venture between the National Library of Scotland and the late Professor D. C. M. Platt of the University of Oxford, preserved the oral testimonies of Scots who were working in the empire as decolonisation occurred.

Interview with Rev. Dr. Andew Ross, Acc. 10809/74, 31, National Library of Scotland (hereafter NLS).

Stuart, ‘Scottish Missionaries and the End of Empire’, 411–430. In his 2011 book, Stuart further develops this argument. See British Missionaries and the End of Empire, 98–115. For additional testimonies from missionaries in Nyasaland see interview with Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Bell, Acc. 10809/4, NLS, interview with Mr. George Patrick Hall, Acc. 10809/33, NLS, and the letters of Miss Helen Taylor and the Reverend Fergus Macpherson, Gen. 2180/3, EULSC. The missionaries in Nyasaland were not alone in their enthusiasm for decolonisation. Of the 107 interviews included in the Scottish Decolonisation Project, ten were given by missionaries. Four of these missionaries were posted in Nyasaland with the remaining six located in other colonies. All except one of the missionary respondents displayed enthusiasm for decolonisation. For testimonies by missionaries located in colonies outside Nyasaland, see interview with Miss J. D. Auchinachie, Acc. 10809/3, NLS, interview with Miss Myra Brownlee, Acc. 10809/8, NLS, interview with Rev. A. K. Mincher, Acc. 10809/63, NLS, interview with Rev. T. W. Tait, Acc. 10809/91, NLS, interview with Rev. Colin and Mrs. Forrester-Paton, Acc. 10809/25, NLS. For the testimony of the one pro-imperial missionary, see interview with Miss C. H. Denham, Acc. 10809/16, NLS.

Dougall to Canon M. A. C. Warren, confidential, 19 Nov. 1958, Acc. 7548/A140, NLS. Most tellingly, this letter was written before the declaration of the state of Emergency in March 1959. For additional information on Dougall's thinking regarding the Church of Scotland's role in the decolonisation of Nyasaland, see Dougall, Christians in the African Revolution, 46–7.

Interview with A. B. Doig, Acc. 10809/17, 32, NLS.

The historiographical consensus is that Iain Macleod was a strategic decoloniser. His goal of decolonising so quickly stemmed more from a desire to keep these nascent countries within the British sphere of influence than because he believed they were ready to rule their affairs effectively. For Macleod, the British sphere of influence was highly preferable to the Soviet. In their highly influential article, ‘The Imperialism of Decolonization’, Wm. Roger Louis and Ronald Robinson state that, under the auspices of Macleod and Macmillan, ‘The British were scrambling out of colonialism before the combination of anarchy, pan-Africanism, and pan-Arabism opened the door for Soviet penetration.’ This quote is based on the colonial secretary's account of progress in Africa, Cyprus, Malta and the West Indies: Minute by Macleod to Macmillan, 31 May 1960, Prime Minister's Office (PREM) 11/3240. Quoted in Louis, Ends of British Imperialism, 496. Macleod's calculations about the importance of decolonising in Africa when Britain did are also laid bare in Hargreaves, Decolonization in Africa. Macleod's thought processes regarding the speed of decolonisation in Africa are discussed in the two biographies written about him: Fisher, Iain Macleod, 143; Shepherd, Iain Macleod, 189–90.

‘Report by the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs on a Visit to the Territories of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from the 12th to 21st March, 1959’, CO 1015/1976, The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA).

The discourtesy Dalhousie faced occurred before the declaration of the Emergency, but, even though Perth claims he found evidence of the Church of Scotland fomenting opposition to Federation in March 1959, his trip predated the open announcement of MacLeod and his Committee Anent Central Africa against the Federation and for immediate independence for the Africans of Nyasaland.

‘Nyasaland Intelligence Report’, Aug. 1958, CO 1015/2044, TNA.

Welensky, Welensky's 4000 Days, 48.

Stuart, ‘Scottish Missionaries and the End of Empire’, 416.

The Church and Nation Committee was responsible for giving guidance to the Church of Scotland on a number of issues of interest including the British Empire. The reports of the Foreign Mission Committee also provided a great deal of information on the workings of the church overseas to the General Assembly.

‘Report of the Committee on Church and Nation’, May 1945, CH 1/8/81, 271, NAS.

The policy of apartheid was instituted under Dr Malan's National Party government in South Africa beginning in 1948.

‘Report of the Committee on Church and Nation’, May 1951, CH 1/8/87, 266–7, NAS.

‘Report of the Committee on Church and Nation’, May 1953, CH 1/8/89, 340–1, NAS.

Ibid., 363. Despite this plea from the church, the House of Commons approved the formation of the Federation on 24 March 1953. On 9 April a referendum passed in Southern Rhodesia and shortly thereafter the formation of the Federation was approved by the Legislative Councils of both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, but with all those representing Africans voting against it.

Ibid., 363–4.

Ibid., 364.

Ibid., 365.

‘The Church of Scotland Report of the General Assembly's Committee Anent Central Africa’, May 1959, CH 1/8/95, 668, NAS.

Ibid. In this report, the authors George MacLeod and Kenneth MacKenzie state that the Church of Scotland was not aware that preambles could not be enforced in a court of law when these were added to safeguard the indigenous African population.

Sir Roy Welensky as reported in the Johannesburg Star, 14 Aug. 1957. Taken from ibid.

MacLeod's opinion of the scheme was, no doubt, dealt a further blow when the prime minister of Southern Rhodesia, Mr Garfield Todd, was replaced by his party on 17 Feb. 1958 for being too liberal for the white settler population. In an article that appeared in Life and Work magazine from March 1958 entitled ‘Africans Harden into Opposition’ it was stated that ‘[h]is fall is taken by the Africans as a sign that there is no hope of success on the “white” side for any policy giving speedy advancement to the African’. ‘Africans Harden into Opposition’, 65.

MacLeod, ‘Last Chance in Nyasaland?’, 83.

Ibid., 84.

Many vocal critics of MacLeod specifically and the Church of Scotland in general argued that it was not their right to interfere in politics. These detractors believed that the church should concern itself only with spiritual and moral matters. Perhaps that helps explain MacLeod's approach here.

At the end of this quote he is referring to the passage of the Constitutional Amendment Bill and an Electoral Bill in the Federal Parliament to further reduce African representation within the said Chamber. See MacLeod, ‘Churches Must Move Now’, 112.

Zomba congregation of the Church of Scotland to editor of Life and Work, 21 July 1958, Acc. 9084/68, NLS.

For a description of what was understood by the self-determination clause (Article III) of the Atlantic Charter when Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to it in 1941 and what it came to mean over time. see Louis, Imperialism at Bay, 121–33.

Sir Gilbert Rennie served as governor of Northern Rhodesia prior to his appointment as the Federation's first high commissioner in London. According to A. J. Hanna, Rennie had ‘been ardent in championing its fair name against its critics, notably in the Church of Scotland’. Hanna, Story of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, 252–3.

Rennie, ‘“Ambition Outstrips Capacity”’, 167–8.

Dr Hastings Banda was the leader of the Malawi Congress Party and the first president of the independent country. Trained by Scottish missionaries and subsequently in the United States and at the University of Edinburgh, Banda was public enemy number one in the eyes of the white settlers when he arrived home to a rapturous reception by indigenous Africans on 6 July 1958 after forty-two years abroad. From Britain, Banda had been the driving force behind African opposition to the Central African Federation (see Nyasaland Times, 31 Jan. 1952). Following his arrival home, Banda set about extricating Nyasaland from the Federation. For more on Banda's colourful life and career, see Short, Banda. For an excellent account of the rise of black nationalism in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, see Rotberg, Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa. For an understanding of the importance of the Federation as the catalyst for widespread political activity by the Nyasaland African Congress, see McCracken, ‘African Politics in Twentieth-Century Malawi’, 203.

George MacLeod to Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton, 27 June 1960, Acc. 9084/68, NLS.

‘Nyasaland at a Standstill’, The Economist, 27 June 1959. Taken from MacLeod of Fuinary and Iona Community Papers, Acc. 9084/67, NLS.

‘Church Accused in Nyasaland’, published for restricted circulation by The Economist, 18 June 1959. Taken from MacLeod of Fuinary and Iona Community Papers, Acc. 9084/67, NLS.

MacLeod, ‘Churches Must Move Now’, 112.

‘Church Accused in Nyasaland’, taken from MacLeod of Fuinary and Iona Community Papers, Acc. 9084/67, NLS.

Tom Colvin was denied re-entry to the Federation after standing on a platform next to a Labour politician in Scotland and making disparaging remarks about the Federation. He had been elected general secretary of the Africanised Church of Central Africa Presbyterian and he could not take up the post as a result. Not only was this creating animosity among the Church in Nyasaland, it also showed that the Africanised church sought partnership with Europeans and not a mad dash for African independence, as demanded by the Nyasaland African Congress.

MacLeod to Greenfield, 10 July 1959, Acc. 9084/68, NLS.

Given that this correspondence took place after the momentous 1959 General Assembly where MacLeod demanded immediate independence for the peoples of Nyasaland, his rhetoric against imperialism makes sense.

Did MacLeod still believe that the CCAP was a moderating influence after his own calls for African independence less than two months before? The answer is unknown, but it is probable that MacLeod was relying on his pre-Emergency beliefs when addressing the federal politician with the power to grant Tom Colvin re-admittance to Nyasaland.

Rev. Allan Thipa, Moderator, Synod of Blantyre, Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, ‘Statement of the Synod of Blantyre of the C.C.A.P. Concerning the Present State of Unrest in Nyasaland’, May 1958, Acc. 9084/68, NLS.

Letter from Tom Colvin to the Rev. J. W. Stevenson, 30 July 1958, Acc. 9084/68, NLS.

‘Minutes of the Third Meeting of the General Assembly's Committee on Central African Questions’, 7 Nov. 1958, Acc. 9084/67, NLS.

‘Then Why This Appeal?’, 168, 170.

The British government appointed the Devlin Commission on 6 April 1959 to enquire ‘into the recent disturbances in Nyasaland and the events leading up to them and to report thereon’. The commission's report was officially published on 22 July and claimed that the tactics used by the government in enforcing the Emergency had turned Nyasaland into a temporary ‘police state’. See Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry, 1. According to Philip Murphy, the parliamentary debate about this report on 28 July 1959 occurred just one day after the British government ‘faced fierce criticism in the Commons over the deaths of eleven detainees in the Hola detention camp in Kenya’. The critical findings of the Devlin Commission, combined with public castigation over the Hola deaths, worked together to convince Prime Minister Macmillan and his future secretary of state for the colonies, Iain Macleod, that ‘the political price of maintaining settler privileges in East and Central Africa was one their government could no longer afford to pay’. See Murphy, Central Africa, lxxiii–lxxiv. Macmillan's famous ‘Wind of Change’ speech lay just around the corner, setting off mass decolonisation in Africa. Led by George MacLeod, the Church of Scotland had anticipated this governmental turn against the continuation of empire in Central Africa in May 1959.

For excerpts from this speech in which MacLeod ended by stating that ‘someone must speak for the Africans, and that someone will be the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland’, see Ferguson, George MacLeod, 302–3.

‘Supplementary Report of the General Assembly's Committee Anent Central Africa’, 6 May 1959, CH 1/8/95, 682, NAS. The historian of the Federation, J. R. T. Wood, claimed that the arguments of the Committee's experts, particularly George MacLeod, were superficial but yet had a major impact at home. Wood posited that the committee's report may have determined for the Labour Party the need to exploit the African situation in the 1959 General Election. Wood, The Welensky Papers, 669–70.

It is interesting to note that the Committee Anent Central Africa submitted its report to the General Assembly in January of 1959 before the declaration of a state of Emergency in Nyasaland. In this report there is no mention of the need to push for African independence, just a recommendation ‘that there should be adequate and proper representation of Africans’ opinions' at the 1960 Constitutional Review Conference. The supplementary report was written in light of the Emergency so the committee and the Church of Scotland could live up to their obligations to protect the Africans of Nyasaland. See ‘Supplementary Report of the General Assembly's Committee Anent Central Africa’, 6 May 1959, CH 1/8/95, 677, NAS.

In fact, in their initial report for 1959, MacLeod and the Committee Anent Central Africa were willing to see Nyasaland revert to British colonial rule at the 1960 Constitutional Review Conference rather than have the territory engulfed in a self-governing dominion that might impose systematised discrimination on the people. See ‘Report of the General Assembly's Committee Anent Central Africa’, May 1959, CH 1/8/95, 663–76, NAS. Please note that this report is dated May 1959 even though it was submitted in January 1959.

This argument may also be found in Finlay, ‘Rise and Fall of Popular Imperialism in Scotland’, 19.

Devine, ‘The Break-Up of Britain?’, 174.

Membership in the Church of Scotland peaked in 1957 with 1.32 million communicants. See Brown, ‘Kirk Failing in its Moral Obligation to Parishioners’, The Herald, 12 May 2008.

Devine, ‘The Break-Up of Britain?’, 167. For a confirmation of the political clout of the Church of Scotland in the 1950s, see Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland, 159.