Colonial Rule, Missionaries and Ethnicity in the North Nyasa District, 1891-1938

Abstract

The study of Malawi's colonial history has been dominated by the establishment of British rule, the spread of Christian mission influence, and the development of nationalism, among other themes. Perhaps due to the Whiggish approach to history which has influenced many historians of colonial Malawi, critical issues such as ethnic awareness-which was developing in a pronounced way at the same time as the expansion of mission schools and the evolution of national feelings-have been neglected until recently (Vail, 1983: White, 1983). It appears that ethnic awareness has been taken for granted and accepted without a proper understanding of it. This article discusses ethnicity in the old North Nyasa district in the period 1891-1938. It demonstrates how the economic and political changes which took place in the region in the first three decades of the establishment of colonial rule promoted ethnic tension, and it argues that the indirect rule system (which assumed that the African was a tribal man, inwardlooking, with a primary loyalty to so-called traditional authority) was not only divisive, but also a major catalyst for greater ethnicity. It also argues that through certain educational practices which tended to discriminate against some peoples of the region, a number of Karonga-based missionaries of the Livingstonia Synod encouraged the growth of this phenomenon. The article, like some recent studies (Iliffe, 1979: 318-41; Ranger, 1979) pays particular attention to the role played by the elites of North Nyasa in the heightening of ethnicity in the district.