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Abstract
Regional migration has played an important role in the development of African nationalist politics in central and southern Africa. However, scholarship on nationalist movements has tended to focus on events within, rather than beyond territorial borders. This article highlights the significance of transnational networks and regional solidarity for the African national congress movements in the Central African Federation. Many early nationalist leaders and prominent members of the 1950s revived African congresses first became active in politics abroad. These experiences later shaped the nature of their involvement in politics back home, and facilitated the establishment of strong external branches, and closer connections between individual territorial movements. Created against the wishes of the African majority, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was viewed as an opportunity to extend white settler domination north of the Zambezi. Yet, anti-federation sentiment also served to unite African political interests, bringing about a moment of Pan-African or regional consciousness, which reached its peak around the time of the All Africa People's Conference in Accra in 1958. As the congress movements strove harder to link up their struggles for their mutual benefit, the federal and territorial governments resolved to crush their efforts. This in part accounts for the declaration of the 1959 state of emergency in Southern Rhodesia.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on a paper presented in 2009 at the 50th Anniversary of the Nyasaland State of Emergency Conference at the Chancellor College, University of Malawi and the Wits Interdisciplinary Seminar in Humanities in November 2012. Another earlier version was published in Phiri et al. Citation(2012). I thank colleagues at Wits for their comments, especially Isabel Hofmeyr and Liz Gunner. I am also grateful to John McCracken for comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Notes
American Historical Review (Bayly et al. Citation2006).
An early example that raises the influence of South African migrants in Southern Rhodesia is Ranger Citation(1970).
For the most recent overview of migration from Nyasaland, see McCracken (Citation2012:108–116;178–188; 256–260).
Malawi National Archives (MNA), Transmittal files, ‘Federation of Nyasaland and Rhodesias: Views of Nyasaland Africans in Northern Rhodesia’.
The majority of this correspondence is found in the Samkange Archive, which remains closed. These archives were used extensively in Ranger Citation(1995).
Charles Matinga founding member of the Nyasaland Congress travelled to South Africa to try and persuade Dr AB Xuma of the South African National Congress to sponsor a Pan-African Congress. He also encouraged Nyasas in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Bulawayo to support congress back at home.
Nyasaland Congress strongholds included Blantyre, Lilongwe, Nkata Bay, Salisbury, Bulawayo, Lusaka and Orlando, Johannesburg. TNA CO 1015/1748 ‘Nyasaland Intelligence Report, January 1958’.
Rhodes House Library, Oxford (RHL) Box 239/8, ‘Statement of the Synod of Blantyre of the CCAP Concerning the Present State of Unrest in Nyasaland, 1953’.
The National Archives (UK) CAB/129/98 ‘Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry, 6 April, 1959’ (The Devlin Commission):11. See also, Power (Citation2010:55–74).
RHL, Welensky Papers Box 239/8, Federal Intelligence and Security Bureau (FISB), ‘Report by Mr Spicer on Nyasaland, September, 1953’.
It has been suggested that while the central body of NAC was experiencing a quiet phase, some of the individual branches were busy building up important grass roots in their localities (Power Citation2002).
Chiume, Musople and Chumia were described by colonial office intelligence as ‘the main driving force’ behind congress in the Northern Province. The National Archives (UK) CO 1015/1748 ‘Nyasaland African Congress Intelligence Reports’, Extract from Nyasaland Intelligence Report for the Quarter Ending 31 December 1957.
Ibid. Extract from Nyasaland Police Intelligence Digest, from November 1957.
The National Archives CO 1015/1980 ‘Extract from Nyasaland Intelligence Report from January, 1958’.
The National Archives CO 1015/1748 ‘Nyasaland African Congress Intelligence Reports’, Letter from Sir Robert Armitage (Governor of Nyasaland) to Alan Lennox-Boyd, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 4 October 1957.
According to Who's Who in Zambia (1968) Simon Kapwepwe, Nalumino Mundia and Munukayumbwa Sipalo became involved in congress activities on their return.
Ahlman described the ‘unparalleled optimism both inside and outside the continent about what Ghana's independence meant to the future of Africa and Africa's place in the burgeoning post-war international community’ (2011:24).
TNA CO 1015/1748 Extract from Intelligence Digest No 4, 1957.
Ibid. Action Groups in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Ibid. Correspondence between Robert Armitage and Alan Lennox-Boyd, 4 October 1957.
Ibid. Extract from Nyasaland Intelligence Reports from the Quarter Ending 31 December 1957.
TNA CO 1015/1748 Comments by EM Hall, 7 October 1957.
RHL FISB Affairs Box 239/8 ‘Memorandum concerning Joshua Chirwa Wellington MALIFA’, 1 August 1956.
Ibid. Nyasaland Intelligence Reports, from the Quarter Ending 31 December 1957.
Ibid. Nyasaland Intelligence Report, November 1956 to January 1957.
Ibid.
Dissent was a broadsheet nationalist magazine published in the late 1950s and early 1960s, edited by Terence Ranger and John Reed.
Bulawayo Archives, personal notes from T Ranger, File S.O.8 Vol 4 T Box 150 ‘Annual Conference held in Stanley Hall, Bulawayo, 11 May 1958’.
Zimbabwe National Archives (ZNA) F120/L343/1 ‘Security Situation Reports’, Dr Banda's speech at Chileka Airport in Blantyre, 28 December, 1958.
RHL Box 241, File 1 Letter to Commander Fox-Pitt from Dr Banda, dated 30 December 1958.
ZNA F120/L343/1 Security Situation Report, 1959. RHL FISB Affairs Box 239/8 ‘Expulsion Orders, 20 July, 1956’.
The Nyasaland Times 6 January 1959.
Appendix One, The Devlin Commission, ‘Letter from Chipembere to Chiume, 2 February 1959’.
Ibid.
ZNA Oral/228 Interview with Chigwendere, 24 May 1974.
The National Archives, CAB/129/98, ‘Report of the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry, 6 April, 1959’ (the Devlin Commission).
RHL Welensky Papers 240/1.
The Devlin Commission:48.
RHL Welensky Papers 239/9 Federal PM's meeting, 19 January 1959.
The National Archives CO 1015/1532 ‘Declaration of State of Emergency’, Inward telegram to Commonwealth Relations Office, from Salisbury, 6 March 1959. These figures were published in an issue of Dissent and confirmed by the Devlin Commission Report.
The ‘hard core’ referred to Dr Banda, Henry Chipembere and Dunduzu and Yatuta Chisiza.
Private correspondence with the economist Thandika Mkandawire.
Dissent 6, 25 June 1959.
Ibid.
The National Archives CO 1015/1532 ‘Review Tribunal, Preventive Detentions Act, 1959 General Report’:18–21.
It was decided that the level of cooperation must continue in order to coordinate one general policy of the congress movement. For the full report, see Nyangoni and Nyandoro (Citation1979:17).
Dissent 19, 9 June 1960.
RHL, Tsopano 11, September 1960. One of the pictures from the event was labelled in Tsopano, November 1960 ‘A symbolic picture of unity in politics and culture as two members of Southern Rhodesia's National Democratic Party delegation, Mr. J. Z. Moyo and Mr. Z. Sihwa, from Bulawayo, watch a display of traditional dancing.’ There were four other delegates from Southern Rhodesia. For a short time Banda looked east (instead of south) to forge stronger Pan-African ties with Tanganyika. The PAFMECA became the focus of Banda's extra-territorial attention in 1960, until disagreements with Nyerere over the way forward ended their collaboration. The National Archives CO 1015/2439 ‘H. K. Banda’.
The Malawi News 29 July 1960.
MNA Pam. 1127 ‘Dr Banda's address to Parliament, 8th March 1966’.