Rural Political Protest: The 1953 Disturbances in Mweru-Luapula

Abstract

scholarship.1 Most scholars have approached this study from the vantage point of a politically conscious elite [rather] than from the viewpoint of an ordinary villager.2 In doing so, as Thomas Rasmussen and Terance Johnston have observed, these scholars have tended to obscure colonial protest in the rural areas.3 Rasmussen studied rural discontent and political protest in Zambia and has argued that growth of nationalism in Zambia was deeply rooted in anticolonial grievances and the success of rural protest contributed much to the ultimate success of the independence movement.4 In his classic study of the rise of Nigerian nationalism, James Coleman noted the importance of local grievances in the rise of nationalism. He stressed that local grievances were often capitalized upon by politicians who linked them to national issues.5 Rasmussen has made the same point for Zambia.6 These local grievances were in most cases sparked off by various regulations and restrictions introduced by the Northern Rhodesia administration and enforced by Native Authorities.7 These regulations prohibited some agricultural practices used by the Africans such as slash and burn (locally known as chitemene), the hunting of game in some areas, and fishing at certain times of the year. In areas where the people depended heavily for their livelihood on these activities, these regulations and restrictions became a constant source of to the local people.8 The amount of irritation varied from one area to another depending on the prevailing economic conditions and the political consciousness of the people. Depending on how the community was affected, they might protest verbally through village headmen and chiefs, Native