People, Transport, and Labour, the Establishment of Colonial Rule in Zambia, 1890-1920
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Forged in the Great War: People, Transport, and Labour, the Establishment of Colonial Rule in Zambia, 1890-1920 African Studies Centre African Studies Collection, vol. 61 Forged in the Great War: People, Transport, and Labour, the establishment of Colonial Rule in Zambia 1890-1920 Jan-Bart Gewald Published by: African Studies Centre P.O. Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden The Netherlands [email protected] http://www.ascleiden.nl Cover design: Heike Slingerland Cover photo: Dr. Marja Hinfelaar. African porters, soldiers, and stretcher bearers, between Makua and Fife April 1915. Courtesy of Livingstone Museum Archives, Zambia Map: Nel de Vink (DeVink Mapdesign) Author has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. Printed by Ipskamp Drukkers, Enschede ISSN: 1876-018x ISBN: 978-90-5448-147-8 © Jan-Bart Gewald, 2015 Dedicated to the memory of Charlotte Elisabeth Gewald 1966-2012 Margaretha Gerarda (Gertie) Janssen 1966-2012 Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland (1922) Contents List of maps and photos ix Acknowledgements xi INTRODUCTION 1 War, people, and labour: The establishement of colonial rule in Zambia, 1890-1920 1 Zambia is not South Africa 3 Zambia’s neglected history 5 The coming of colonial rule 11 Structure of the book 13 1. TISSUE-THIN PAPER ADMINISTRATION 18 Introduction 18 The weak colonial state 19 The Ngoni Campaign 21 BSAC administrators 23 The greatest domestic event, Chitemene 31 Prohibiting a way of life 33 Preservation of natural resources 36 Need for order 37 Failure in the face of on-the-ground realities 39 Conclusion 42 2. NEW ECONOMIC ORDER 43 Introduction 43 Labour and transport in Central African history 44 Labour 48 Tax 54 European adventurers and African transport labour 55 Railroad in Zambia 60 Building the rail line 64 The continued importance of carriers 70 Conclusion 72 vii 3. WORLD WAR ONE 73 Introduction 73 The coming of war 73 The war in Northeastern Rhodesia 76 War and soldiers 78 Carriers 79 The recruitment of labour 80 Turn to chiefs 81 Chiefs and the high demand for labour 83 Support and physical sanction 84 Finance 86 Firearms 87 Evasion 88 Appeals to the abstract 90 Conclusion 91 4. WAR, THE LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGY, THE APPLICATION OF HUMAN LABOUR, AND THE EXTENSION OF COLONIAL RULE 93 Introduction 93 Nsumbu Island 95 Motor transport 102 Hot and bothered 107 Short description of the Tanganyika Naval Expedition 108 Labour recruitment and transport of Spicer Simson 111 In the domain of shattered Msiri 112 Labour recruited in the context of mines and labour recruiters 113 In the domain of intense industrialisation 114 Conclusion 116 5. WORLD WAR ONE AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF COLONIAL RULE 117 Introduction 117 Limitless funds 118 The demand for labour 119 The collapse in food production 123 Influenza 127 Watchtower 134 Conclusion 137 Conclusion 139 Sources and bibliography 144 viii List of maps and photos Maps 1. Map of Zambia xiv Photos 1.1 Cricket and tennis at Fort Rosebery circa 1910 28 1.2 Cricket and tennis at Fort Rosebery circa 1910 28 2.1 Stephen Kappata, People used to walk long distance to look for employment in the railline 60 2.2 Railway building near Broken Hill, c. 1906 69 ix x Acknowledgements As a child in 1977, I accompanied my family in the back of a clapped-out Land Rover on a guided tour of Kansanshi copper mines in northwestern Zambia. It was December, the height of the rainy season, and it rained incessantly; the Land Rover’s canvas canopy failed miserably. Drenched to the bone, we eventually reached the top of a mine dump and looked down upon the world around us. A geologist accompanying us pointed to a stand of trees in the far distance, in what was then Zaïre, and told us that they had been planted by Arabs in the nineteenth century. Later, as we slithered and splashed our way back to Solwezi, we passed the remains of a rusting steam engine. For me, an impressionable child with a passion for history, the presence of trees planted by Arabs in the very heart of Africa, as well as the remains of an abandoned steam engine were the highlights of that cold and sodden trip. Now, nearly 40 years later, I can contextualise the stand of trees and the rusting remnants of the steam engine as the material detritus of a largely forgotten past, but then, as a child, they evoked stirring images of Wilbur Smith’s Shout at the Devil and, later, William Boyd’s The Ice- Cream War, books devoured by flushed white boarding-school boys in search of titillation and adventure in southern Africa at the time. Here, in the heart of Africa, at the furthest reaches of the South African Empire, lay a history far beyond the endlessly repetitive school histories of the many and varied treks that had gone to make up the mind-numbingly boring Groot Trek (Great Trek) so beloved of Christian Nationalist education in apartheid South Africa. Here lay a history of Swahili traders, Arab sailors, African slaves, American gun-runners, Afrikaner mercenaries, and cynically cruel German soldiers, in short, a schoolboy’s dream come true. Fortunately, with the passing of time, the exoticism of youth has passed and my appreciation of Wilbur Smith has evaporated; none the less the images of a history beyond the one taught at school inspired me to make the study and career choices of my life, and thankfully I have never regretted my decision to study African History. Countless academics have attempted to teach me, but two stand out in particular: Julian Cobbing and Robert Ross, maverick historians, but certainly the most inspiring teachers, mentors, colleagues, and friends that I could have ever wished for, but for them I would never have ended up as a happy archive rat. There are a number of historians who have unselfishly contributed to this work, whilst never losing sight of my family and providing me with a bed. In xi Cambridge and Canterbury, Giacomo Macola will always amaze and inspire me, and I treasure his uncompromising friendship and support. In Lusaka and Chilanga, Marja Hinfelaar has consistently gone out of her way to help not only me but so many more. In London and Gaborone Neil Parsons has consistently cared for me and my family. In Johannesburg Karim Sadr has taken time to feed and care for me. In Oxford Jan-Georg Deutsch remains a true comrade. In Edinburgh Paul Nugent continues to inspire me and an ever-increasing host of historians. In Providence Nancy Jacobs has been my friend and confidante. Beginning in the early 2000s Zambian historiography took off again after many years of being stuck in the doldrums. In Zambia itself, Professors Phiri and Musambachime, and Doctors Kalusa and Mufuzi have steadfastly continued to work as historians in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. Miles Larmer, David Gordon, Jamie Monson, Luise White, Karen Trandberg Hansen, Lawrence Dritsas, Joan Haig, Joanna Lewis, John McCracken, Ken Vickery, Hugo Hinfelaar, the many Central African Research Theme (CART) participants, and many many more have all contributed to this book, and they are to be thanked for this. In Leiden former students Enid Guene, Iva Pesa, Mary Davies, Sander Wellens and David Drengk have all become true historians in their own right. My many colleagues and office mates, Rijk van Dijk, Mirjam de Bruijn, Klaas van Walraven, Sebastiaan Soeters, Jan Jansen, Sabine Luning and others have provided support and debate through the years. In dark times Rita Kesselring was my muse, providing me with love, support, and all the right reasons to carry on. Zambian studies will be so much the richer with her presence. I wish to thank Mike and Ingrid Puffett, on their farm near Chilanga, for unselfishly providing a place for my family and I to stay whilst in Zambia, and for consistently supporting us throughout the years. My father, although we have worked together on fieldwork in Mali, Namibia and South Africa, I still hope that we may one day once again climb to the top of a mine-dump in Zambia, and that your wish for one pick-handle wide, three pick-handles long and four pick-handles deep in the earth of Zimbabwe will not be granted too soon. Shortly after our trip to Kansanshi in December 1977, my sister and I lost our mother. The memory of that last trip as a close-knit family has influenced my life ever since, and undoubtedly accounts for the fact that I chose to return to Zambia as an adult. My return to Zambia coincided with the slow but inevitable demise and death of Gertie Janssen in February 2012, to be followed by the death of my sister in the following month. Their illnesses have dogged and haunted me throughout the research and writing of this book. Every chapter is linked in my mind to a stage or event in their final years. I thus dedicate this book to Gertie Janssen and Charlotte Gewald: independent, strong, and intelligent women, but above all two caring and loving mothers who died long before they could grow xii old. My daughters, Sieme Mariama and Meta Liesbeth, have always supported me, as has my nephew, Christopher Callum; it is my sincere hope that we shall travel far and grow old together.