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The War of thangata: Nyasaland and the East African Campaign, 1914–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Melvin E. Page
Melvin E. Page
Affiliation:
Murray State University, Kentucky
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Extract

During World War I, Africans in Nyasaland were called upon to provide large numbers of soldiers and military labourers for the war effort in eastern Africa. Although a few willingly volunteered, many more objected, and some resisted. In this situation, colonial officals used force to secure the necessary manpower. Africans, therefore, called the conflict ‘the war of thangata’, referring to the growing colonial demands for taxes and for labour rent on European estates. The tasks which the soldiers and carriers were called upon to perform were equally likened to thangata, being ‘work which was done without real benefit’. So far from receiving rewards, Africans found that inadequate food, clothing, and medical care contributed greatly to the sufferings associated with a military campaign. Between 1914 and 1918 wartime manpower requirements, and war service, gave full meaning to colonial rule throughout the protectorate. The response to these demands and this suffering brought, in the form of both traditional and modern religious and social institutions, the first tentative stirrings of African nationalism in Nyasaland.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1978 , pp. 87 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 Questionnaire MC/9, Chikani Mtali, 21 Apr. 1973; also interview 118, Petro Zeni-zeni, 6 Aug. 1973. Details of this and other oral historical data which forms the bulk of the evidence for this article may be found in my doctoral dissertation; Page, Melvin E., ‘Malawians in the Great War and After, 1914–1925’ (Ph.D. thesis, Michigan State University, 1977).Google Scholar

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5 Colonel C. W. Barton diaries, notebook 34, 2 Dec. 1914, in Museum of the Northamptonshire Regiment, Northampton. The principal source on the participation of men from Nyasaland in the K.A.R. remains Moyse-Bartlett, H., The King's African Rifles (Aldershot, 1956).Google Scholar

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33 This figure is derived from the best official estimates, found in H. L. Duff (Acting Governor), to Colonial Office, 27 Jan. 1919, C.O. 525/82, in Public Record Office, London (hereafter P.R.O.). During his brief term as Acting Governor, Duff carefully sought out information on the African contribution to Nyasaland's war effort, taking upon himself the difficult task of compiling, calculating, extrapolating, and revising wartime manpower statistics. See Duff, H. L., ‘Nyasaland and the World War, 1914–1918’, unpubl. typescript, in I.W.M.Google Scholar

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