SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis attempts to explain the role of Government policy between 1946 and 1964 in removing the dangers of discontent concerning Africans on private estates in Nyasaland. Introductory chapters outline the geographical and political environment, the original land alienation, the problem of Africans on private estates and attempted solutions, 1900-1945, against a background of rising labour demand, population pressure and discontent. Chapter III covers the 1946 Abrahams Report which emphasised the political threat and recommended purchasing private land for resettlement from estates and trust land, and the 1947 Land Planning Committee Report which found serious flaws in Abrahams' recommendations preventing their full implementation, publicly recommended acquiring blocks of land in Cholo and confidentially recommended negotiating with the London Board for acquiring large areas of British Central Africa Company land. Chapters IV-VI show how the new Governor in 1948 determined to acquire extensive areas not intended for early development, additional to those recommended earlier, concentrating on the BCA Company because of the political dangers. Early areas purchased did little to relieve overcrowding and discontent in the crucial Cholo area. Using the 1953 disturbances, he secured British policy agreement to progressive abolition of tangata and African resttlement by purchasing estate land not scheduled for early development, and he secured BCA Company agreement to negotiate acquisition of their Cholo land. Chapters VII and VIII deal with the steps taken eventually to acquire 50,000 acres of BCA Company land and with resettlement, 1955-1957. Disturbed political conditions halted this progress. The African Government in 1961 amended the law thereby inducing further sales, and in 1964 announced the end of resettlement acquisitions. The Conclusion emphasises the racial conflict inherent in the problem of Africans on private estates, and summarises the steps taken to remove it before it could be disastrously used in the final assualt on colonial rule.