The Road to Independence

A History of Zambia to 1964

A multi-media workbook for Zambian students

Multi media 1 - Introductory audio clip with background photomontage - Kaunda speaking on the BBC Radio Programme The Future Guardians broadcast four days before the publication of the Monckton Report 13.58 mins after start “...we do hope our own children and other sympathetic people from other races will help us to write our own history...” - 2 -

Contents

1. An introduction to history skills 2. Early Zambian history 3. Zambia and the Slave Trade 4. The influence of the British missionary and explorer David Livingstone 5. Lewanika, Lobengula, Rhodes - the British start to take control of Zambia 6. The toppling of Giants - the falls and deaths of Lobengula and Rhodes 7. The British Government and its links to the British South Africa Company 8. An Assessment of Rhodes 9. British Rule of Zambia up to 1914 10.World War I and the fighting in and around Zambia 11.The Effects of World War I on Zambia 12.Zambia After World War One, Changing British Attitudes and the Development of the Copper Belt 13. Early Zambian Protest Movements 1929-1953 – the First Steps Towards Independence 14.British Colonial Rule of Zambia to 1939 15.World War II and Zambia 16.British Colonial Rule After World War II 17.Final Steps to Independence 18.Assessments of Kaunda and Nkumbula 19.Some Wider Thoughts

Page 2 - 3 -

Chapter 1 An Introduction to History Skills

This workbook gives an outline of Zambia’s history up to 1964. This was when Zambia secured its independence from Great Britain. Throughout the pages there are some exercises that will help you think like a historian. The exercises will focus on these skills: - Inference - Purpose - Comparison - Usefulness

These skills are very important as they help students to think very carefully about what they read. They will help students learn to question views and opinions. Hopefully they will help students reach their own judgements.

The skill of inference is basically about being able to dig beneath the surface of what someone has said. It means finding out the deeper meaning of something. So, for example, if someone says: “The vegetables have grown well this year and we have a very good harvest” we can infer that the weather was good even if they have not said anything specifically about the weather.

The skill of purpose is to do with working out what the message of a source is, what the context of the source is (in other words what was happening when the source was written or spoken) and the overall purpose of the source. Essentially the purpose of a source is what the person writing, saying or doing something wanted to achieve.

The skill of comparison is about seeing if people have similar or different views about something. So, for example, if a person from Zambia and a person from South Africa were asked to give their views about the Zambian football team they would give very different answers. The Zambian would probably say that the team was good. The South African would probably say that it was not so good.

The skill of usefulness is a very important one. Historians use this to find out how far they can trust someone’s views. Historians would ask some key questions such as: - Was the person there at the time? - Were they talking about all the relevant things? - Were they talking about all the relevant places? - Are they biased (that means being one-sided)? Historians make a distinction between primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources were written at the time of an event. Secondary sources were written afterwards by historians.

The exercises in this workbook are based on historical sources relating to Zambia. Some are primary sources and some are secondary sources. Some are very one-sided. There are two important things about sources. The content is what is said in the source. The caption – usually written in

Page 3 - 4 - italics like this – explains who wrote or said what is in the source and when they wrote or said it. For the caption it is good to ask some important questions:

- What type of source is it: a diary entry, a history book, a newspaper article, etc.? This is known as the ‘nature’ of the source. - Who wrote it? When and why did they write it

Page 4 - 5 -

Chapter 2 Early Zambia History

Long ago, before Zambia existed - in fact before most modern day African countries existed - several groups of people lived in the region of central Africa now called Zambia. The main tribes living in what is now known as Zambia in the eighteenth century were the Chewa, Lozi, Lunda and Bemba, there were also many other smaller tribes who lived here, some of whom were under the control of these larger tribes. The Chewa people lived in the east of the area that is now called Zambia. The Lozi lived in the west, and the Bemba and Lunda lived in the north. These groups were farmers and hunters; they produced cotton and salt, they mined copper and smelted iron to produce spearheads and agricultural tools.

A map of Zambia as it is today Tanzania

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Angola Copper Belt

Malawi

Mozambique

Zimbabwe

Namibia

Add map from Royal Geographical Society of 1933 showing the tribal areas within Zambia

Page 5 - 6 -

Chapter 3 Zambia and the Slave Trade

At this time only Africans lived here, though some European traders had visited the coast of Africa, none had ventured inland very far. These were many Portuguese traders who were exploring the area. They had come from the Portuguese colony of Goa on the west coast of India and around the end of the 1600s/start of the 1700s they established trading posts at Zomba and Feira. [To support the trading posts the Portuguese also set up some farms called plantations.] But the trading stations were abandoned in the 1830s after clashes with an Nsenga chief who lived nearby. Initially ivory was the main goods these people traded, but later slaves became more important. These were people taken by some tribes - sometimes in battles, more often in raids - and sold for goods such as beads and guns. The Chewa tribe particularly suffered from the actions of the slave raiders - [principally the Bemba tribe who were known for their warlike behaviour]. Some African slaves worked on the plantations set up by these Portuguese traders.

The slave trade was not new. It had been going on within Africa for hundreds of years. But in the eighteenth century it expanded massively. This was due to the Europeans who started to use African slaves to work in plantations in the West Indies, and North and South America. West Africa was most badly affected by this trade. The British were the ones who started it off and developed what became known as the ‘Triangular Trade’.

Graphic to be added showing the Triangular Trade

British traders would bring guns, beads, agricultural tools and clothes (all made in Brtiain) to the west coast of Africa. Here they would exchange them for African slaves who would be shipped out to plantations in places like Jamaica. Their journey across the Atlantic was horrific and was referred to as the ‘Middle Passage’ as it was the middle section of the triangular trade. They would usually be chained together and kept in very cramped conditions. The more slaves a trader could get on their ship, the more money they could earn when they were sold on arrival (that is assuming they survived the voyage and many did not). The African slaves would spend the rest of their lives working cotton, sugar or tobacco plantations. The produce of these plantations would be shipped back to Britain - and so completing the triangle. This trade was really profitable as ships were never empty and each journey led to much income for the slave traders, not just British slavers, but also French, Dutch, Portuguese and American. Whole cities prospered as a result of the money made from slavery, including Bristol and Liverpool in Britain. In fact most white countries were involved in this awful trade in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Page 6 - 7 -

Question 1: Why did the slave trade flourish in the mid eighteenth century?

But at first African slaves taken from Zambia did not get shipped out west, they were sent east. These slaves were taken to the east coast where they were put on slave ships - usually chained together in appalling conditions - and shipped out to work on sugar plantations owned by the French in their colonies in Mauritius and Reunion. While the horrors of the western slave trade have been discussed a great deal by historians, those on the eastern side of Africa have not been covered in anything like the same detail and this is an area for more study in the future.

Though the British were among the first to enter into the large scale slave trade, they were also the first to end it. Around the end of the eighteenth century opinions began to change and people in Britain began to think that slavery was wrong. An anti-slavery campaign grew and put pressure on the government. It eventually worked and the British abolished the slave trade in 1807 and banned slavery in1833. Other countries followed and the northern states in the United States of America abolished the slave trade in 1809, France in 1815 and Spain and [Portugal] in 1820. However, the slave traffic did not stop immediately (indeed, some of the southern states of America continued it up until the 1860s).

Though the slave trade was coming to an end, Africans remained working as slaves in plantations in America and the West Indies. Their freedom did not come until later. The first country to free all slaves was Britain, which did so in 1833. Slaves who worked on plantations were given their freedom; in return the British plantation owners were given a lot of money by the British government.

However, slavery continued for a lot longer in parts of America. While slavery was ended in the Northern states, it continued in the Southern States (such as Mississippi). This issue was to divide America and the North and South ended up fighting a civil war over the issue. The North won the war and forced the South to free their slaves in 1865. Though black Americans in the South were now free, they were not seen as equals for another century. Many were prevented from voting in elections until 1965 and were not allowed to go into the same restaurants or the same schools as white Americans until 1964.

However, trade in slaves in the east of Africa continued for longer than that in the west and slavery was still practised among African tribes up to the very end of the nineteenth century.

New Tribes Move into Zambia - Conflict between the Lozi and Kololo

A new group of people moved into [southern Zambia] in the early nineteenth century. They were called the Kololo people who arrived from the south of the

Page 7 - 8 -

Zambezi River. The arrival of the Kololo people was to cause problems as they clashed with people already living in Zambia.

Map of Southern Africa made in 1890

The Lozi were a group of tribes who had migrated into central and southern Zambia from their homelands in the North and were of Bantu decent. [They had lived in southern Zambia for many generations.] They were a pastoral, independent people, suspicious of trade, especially with Europeans. The Lozi were ruled by a king who used his cattle as a form of money. He would loan his cattle to some of the tribes he ruled over in return for some of the products they manufactured, like iron tools. In contrast, the Kololo were a war-like people which were pushed north by the actions of an even more war-like tribe - the Zulus. [Around the start of the 1800s, the Zulus started to expand their empire. Originally from an area in Natal in modern day South Africa, they began to push northwards and [one of their leaders] Shaka pushed into modern day Botswana, (then known as Bechuanaland) and this, in turn, forced the Kololo further north and over the Zambesi River.

Add photograph from Album F9 016247 of Zambian women with huge bundles of hair piled high in amazing styles if they are from one of these tribes

The Kololo fought the Lozi and quickly conquered the land the Lozi occupied around the flood plain of the Zambezi River, which was agriculturally rich with fertile soils.

After this, the two groups – Kololo and Lozi - rapidly merged and as the Kololo influence on the region increased, the areas north of the Zambezi were more willing to trade and co-operate with white traders as they were keen to increase their

Page 8 The east African slave trader, Tippu Tip - 9 - own power in case the Kololo threatened them. [The Europeans called this combination of Lozi and Kololo - the Mekolo people This kingdom can be seen on the map on page 8 [and on this map they have been referred to as the ‘Makolo’]. The Mekolo people controlled the area between the Lokinga Mountains and the Zambezi River.]

The Kololo were not the only tribe to move into Zambia from the South in this period. The Ngoni tribe [also under threat from the Zulus] pushed into Zambia, too. This movement of people into Zambia worried the other tribes in the north - the Chewa and Bemba. They were concerned at what was happening in the south and realised that they needed to become stronger and so this encouraged them to trade more with the outside world.

Question 2: What was the impact of the movement of tribes from the south into Zambia?

Opening up New Trade Routes

Zambia offered some important goods that the outside world wanted. First - it offered lots of ivory, more than other parts of Africa where the once huge herds of elephants had been decimated by the actions of hunters.

Second - it offered slaves. Other parts of central Africa had been heavily raided for slaves, but not the remoter parts of Zambia. In the 1860s the Bemba opened up a slave trade with a notorious east African Trader called Tippu Tuk. He established routes across Africa between Zanzibar and the Atlantic coasts of Angola. But he was interested in more than just trading slaves. Zambia also had its rich ivory trade. It was also very central. So it was a logical location for trading posts. Here caravans could be resupplied with food and water. So, Tippu Tuk and other traders from the East African coast could exchange modern weaponry and other goods with tribes such as the Kololo who gave them ivory in return. The Arab merchants would then the take ivory (and any slaves) either back to the east, or [from the mid nineteenth century] to Angola and here they were [sold to the Portuguese] and others still practising slavery [and now slaves taken from tribes in modern day Zambia might find their way to plantations in places like Mississippi in America]. Slaves and ivory were much sought after by the Portuguese and so the prices of both increased. As a result the Kololo merchants did well. Around this time the Portuguese re-opened their trading post at Zomba.

Question 3 Why do you think some African tribes continued the slave trade even though most European countries had banned it?

Page 9 - 10 -

Chapter 4 The Influence of the British Explorer and Missionary David Livingstone

Some of the earliest white people to visit Zambia were missionaries who felt it was their duty to convert Africans to Christianity. They were also concerned about the slave trade continuing in parts of Africa.

In Britain, the The London Missionary Society was established to encourage Christians to go to Africa. However, it was not just interested in spreading the word about Christianity, these were the organisation’s aims in 1850: • To fight the customs of slavery. • To create and encourage peaceful agreements between local chiefs and white settlers. • To form African lead states which excluded whites (except missionaries and those the missionaries allowed). • To encourage the growth of Protestantism* across the globe.

* a form of Christianity which includes the Anglican Church

Question 1 Do you think that the aims of the London Missionary Society would be good for Zambians in the nineteenth century?

David Livingstone rose to fame in the years after 1850 through his career in Central Africa. He was a Scottish missionary who was slightly different to many others who were trying to spread the word of Christianity in Africa. He was also a keen explorer who had very good mapping skills. He was also a believer in the benefits of factories.

Factories first appeared in Britain in the late 1700s. They were large buildings which produced goods using machines. The first of these spun cotton and wool into yarn for weavers to turn into cloth. Livingstone thought that trade with Africa would lead to it becoming a more economically ‘developed’ country and he felt that this would be very good for Africans. He thought that trade could bring in new developments and this would help Africans who he felt lived a very basic life - often troubled by food shortages and also living under the threat of slave raiders.

[Backed by the London Missionary Society] he explored central Africa and was able to probe deep into the heartland of the continent. His accounts of his expeditions were very popular in England and he soon became a celebrity. Born in 1813 in Scotland (a country within and at the very north of Britain), Livingstone was part of a very religious family. He had to work twelve hour days in poor conditions in a cotton factory at the early age of ten years old which made him extremely sympathetic towards slaves and made one of his goals later in life to stop the extortion of the population of Africa.

Page 10 - 11 -

Livingstone’s First Expeditions to Africa

Livingstone’s first journey to Africa involved exploring the continent’s interior (i.e. not just the coast) between 1854 and1856. On this expedition he was the first European to see the Mosi-oa-Tunya waterfall which he named Victoria Falls after the Queen of Britain – Victoria - which is on the modern border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Source 1

Insert audio drama 1 - Livingstone’s account of seeing the Victoria Falls

Source 2

Add Livingstone’s original map of Zambia and the Victoria Falls from the Royal Geographical Society

This account was written in 1858 in a book Livingstone wrote called Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa and he was recounting seeing the Victoria Falls in November 1855.

Question 2 How do you think Livingstone felt when he saw the Victoria Falls for the first time?

Question 3 How reliable do you think this account was?

Question 4 Why do you think Livingstone published this account?

During this period also he became one of the first white men to cross Africa from its West coast on the Atlantic Ocean and the East coast on the Indian Ocean. He succeeded where many whites had failed before him because he travelled lightly and was often helped by local tribes. Heavily armed parties of Europeans had often been attacked by locals protecting their lands from these intruders, but this did not happen to Livingstone. Indeed, [on his first expedition where he travelled from Luanda in modern day Anglo to the Zambesi] he was welcomed by one of the local chiefs - Skelutu - who was keen for Livingstone to settle in his tribal lands [in southern Zambia] and so provide protection from Ndebele raids [from south of the Zambesi]. Skeletu A photograph of even gave Livingstone ivory to trade for goods [on Dr. David Livingstone his trip east across the continent]. Livingstone travelled across the Batoka plateau [in eastern Zambia] and felt it ideal for European settlement and the cultivation of cotton. Cotton was a very important crop which was grown widely throughout the

Page 11 - 12 - southern states of America, the West Indies and in South America. It was used to make cloth and British factories imported large quantities of it to turn it into cloth and clothes and then it exported it to all parts of the world, but especially to countries within the British Empire.

Livingstone’s love of Africa and its people was unparalleled among Europeans at this time and his quest to understand the cultures and geography of the continent is clearly shown in Source A below.

Source A In order to obtain knowledge of the language, I cut myself off from all European society for about six months, and gained by this ordeal an insight into the habits, ways of thinking, laws and language of that section of the Bechuanas…which has proved of incalculable advantage in my intercourse with them ever since ”

An extract from Livingstone’s book “Missionary Travels and Researches of South Africa” which was written in 1858 referring to his time in Africa

Question 5 With reference to source A, do you think Livingstone was in Africa to have a personal adventure or to help people living there?

Livingstone had brought up working in factories in Scotland when he was younger and he believed that economic development - where Africans produced raw materials such as cotton which could be sold to factories in Britain - was a way of ending slavery in Central Africa

Livingstone’s Later Expeditions

In 1857, Livingstone resigned from the London Missionary Society as he wanted to focus on exploring Africa rather than continuing his missionary work and he gained funding from the British government to explore the Zambezi River which passes through Southern Zambia. The aim of the expedition was to bring “Commerce, Christianity and Civilization” to Southern Africa by showing the Zambezi to be navigable by ships which would open trade routes to inland Africa. So he set off on his [third] expedition in 1858 which was to continue until 1864.Unfortunately, the Zambezi was impassable for British ships because of a series of dangerous rapids and the mission failed as the longed-for trade route simply was not there - ships could not progress through this unsurmountable natural obstacle. Livingstone’s lack of leadership was also exposed as he dismissed an artist from the trip as a punishment for theft (which the man strongly denied) and he was turned on by a great supporter John Kirk who said during Livingstone’s Zambezi expedition that:

Source B I can come to no other conclusion than that Dr. Livingstone is out of his mind and a most unsafe leader

John Kirk writing [attribution to be added]

Page 12 - 13 -

Livingstone found himself under greater strain when his now alcoholic wife, Mary, joined him on the expedition from their home in South Africa in 1862. Her death in 1863 then put Livingstone in a fragile emotional state. Much of Livingstone’s support left him and the British recalled the expedition in 1864.

Finding the Source of the River Nile

Livingstone’s later life was consumed by his obsession with finding the source of the river Nile. The source of the Nile was seen by Europeans in the mid and later nineteenth century as the big mystery of the age. To them it was a question that the best explorers, adventurers and cartographers (map makers) simply could not solve. as as it would improve European knowledge of the area and allow trade into inland East Africa and also to end the disagreement between two British explorers, Richard Burton and John Speke, who had attempted to discover the Nile’s origins. Livingstone was also anxious to abolish slavery throughout Africa, but it seems he went about achieving this less actively than his search for the Nile’s source. Livingstone wrote in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald:

Source C ...if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together.

A letter David Livingstone wrote to the New York Herald in the mid nineteenth century

Question 6 Compare sources B and C. To what extent do these two sources suggest that Livingstone was losing the support of western people (people in Europe and America)?

Although Livingstone was clearly against slavery, he had lost most of his support in Britain by 1865 (as a result of his failure to discover the source of the Nile and his Zambezi expedition) and so few experts accompanied him and financial aid given to his final expedition was minimal. This meant he became increasingly reliant on the slave traders (that he condemned) for the porters he needed to continue his explorations. His last expedition was from 1866 to his death in 1873. Now he was acting more as an explorer than anything else and he was determined to find the source of the River Nile - something that Europeans were fascinated in and which no-one had located. Dr. David Livingstone struggled on until he died in Zambia near Lake Bangweulu of malaria and dysentery in 1873. Legend has it that Livingstone lost his medicine bag during a crocodile attack when he tried to save his dog and if he had that bag, he would have survived.

Livingstone died at Chitambo and was accompanied for many years by two faithful companions: Susi and Chuma. These two devoted followers buried his heart at Chitambo and embalmed his body. On a nearby tree an

Page 13 - 14 - inscription was carved saying that Livingstone had died here. Sus and Chuma then did something quite extraordinary which was to go down in history as one of the most remarkable endurance feats of the century. They carrried Livingstone’s embalmed body together with all his notes many hundreds of miles to the east African coast where his remains were then taken by ship back to Britain. He was later buried in London’s oldest and most important cathedral - Westminster Abbey - in April 1874.

Add Photograph 026154 from the Royal Geographical Society showing the tree where Livingstone’s heart was buried plus a shot from now of the tree in situ at the Society’s HQ in London

Despite his death, Livingstone’s legacy remained strong and affected Zambia and the surrounding area in a variety of ways including: • Geographical discoveries of inland Africa. • Inspiring explorers, missionaries and the abolition of slavery. • Helping Africans by organizing education and healthcare facilities and also by creating the African Lakes Company which boosted trade. The education facilities would later supply protestors to fight British colonialism. • He was held in high regard by native chiefs and this helped the British come to otherwise impossible agreements with the Africans. • Began the ideas of racial equality and condemned imperialism which would later partly cause the collapse of the British Empire.

Although Livingstone did many things that benefited Zambia and Africa as a whole, he indirectly and unknowingly supplied the British with knowledge of the African interior which created a reason for the British to expand into the area, as they had already done in the most of Africa, in a process called colonization. Perhaps if Livingstone had never explored Zambia, Europeans would have not known of the valuable ivory that existed there and so would have had no reason to take over the country.

Page 14 - 15 -

Chapter 5 Lewanka, Lobengula, Rhodes and the start of British Influence in Zambia

The end of the nineteenth century was a time of considerable change in Zambia. There were pressures from African tribes to the south of the Zambesi and also from British mining companies keen to exploit any mineral deposits in Zambia as they had in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Three people were to play key parts in the next few years and they were the southern Zambian chief - Lewanika, the [Northern Zimbabwean] chief Lobengula and the British mining magnate, entrepreneur and South African politician - Cecil Rhodes.

Lewanika

The story starts in modern day Zimbabwe were tribes there were being pushed northwards. [The original pressure for this movement north came from the far south where the Zulus in South Africa began to expand their empire and push other tribes out of areas they had controlled.] The result of this was that the Ndebele tribe in Northern Zimbabwe - [an area known as Matabeleland started to move northwards. The Sotho people who lived in this area were taken north by their chief Sebituane to avoid the warlike Ndebele tribe and they crossed the Zambesi river where they were attracted by the large herds of cattle which were tended by the Ila and Tonga people who lived in the northern Zambesi valley. the Sotho people then moved westwards and settled in land owned by the Lozi people. But then things started to go Lewanika, wrong for them. The Sotho people fell in from King of the malaria which was very prevalent in the Mekolo from Zambesi valley. Weakened, they were 1878-1884 defeated in war by a Lozi prince - Sipopa - who then ruled over the Sotho people. He was a tyrant and treated the Sothos really badly and they rebelled against him in 1876 and a new leader - Lubosi - took over, before he too was deposed. However, he returned later and regained control over the Sotho and Lozi people who by now were increasingly living together as one unit and inter marrying between tribes. Lubosi’s return and regaining power was spectacular and for this he became known as Lewanika - ‘the Conqueror’ and he was to rule the combined Sotho and Lozi people [(who now became known by some as the Bulozi and others as the Mekolo)] from 1878 until his death in 1916 and was one of the most important figures in Zambian history at this time.

Question 1 Why do you think Lewanka is dressed in a British-style military uniform in this photograph taken towards the end of the nineteenth century?

Page 15 - 16 -

Lobengula

Source A A picture, drawn by a British artist in the nineteenth century, of Lobengula, king of the Matabele

Chief Lobengula was one of the most powerful leaders in central Africa. He led a fearsome tribe whose strength was based on their warriors. Their victims called them the ‘Ammandebele’ - or ‘people with the long shields’. This name was shortened to Ndebele [(which the British found difficult to pronounce so they referred to them as the ‘Matabele’)].

The Ndebele lived in modern day Zimbabwe and their capital was a large, well defended fortress at Gubulawayo (modern day Bulawayo). The area that Lobengula ruled over was called Barotseland, but he also raided nearby Mashonaland to the east where he had considerable influence over the people living there.

Page 16 - 17 -

Rhodes

A photograph of Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes was a British colonist who was to own diamond and gold mines in South Africa and was to become South Africa’s Prime Minister in the 1890s. As a result of his desire to expand his business empire he was to play a key role in the history of Zambia and it was he whose name was given to Northern Rhodesia (now, of course, Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Rhodes was born in 1853 in Bishops Stortford which is a town about twenty five miles north of London in the United Kingdom. He was the son of a vicar, and had done well in school. However, he was a sickly child and was always in poor health so doctors advised his parents that the climate in South Africa would improve his well being. He sailed out in 1870, initially to live with his brother who had a farm in the Natal colony, not far from Durban.

Co-incidentally, in the same year that Rhodes arrived in South Africa, large quantities of diamonds were found in the area around Kimberley and this was to attract both Rhodes brothers away from Natal Colony.

An adventurer and risk taker, Rhodes was soon drawn into the diamond mining industry in Kimberley where he used somewhat devious tactics to gain a firm control over diamond production there. He was then attracted further north when there were rumours of more diamond fields in Bechuanaland (now Botswana). Rhodes was worried that if diamonds were discovered in Bechuanaland and he was not in control of them it would affect the profitability of his huge diamond mines in Kimberley.

What complicated matters was that there were other Europeans moving into Botswana. These were people known as the Boers who had established settlements in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (Glossary video explanation of Boers and the establishment of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.) Rhodes quickly realised that if he was going to secure control over the Botswana diamond fields he would need to move fast as the Germans had just annexed South West Africa (modern day Namibia) and threatened to make a connection with the Boers as both Boers and Germans saw the British as their rivals.

Page 17 - 18 -

But Rhodes had much influence in South Africa. As well as owning a huge diamond mine he had rapidly become a leading politician in the Cape Colony (Glossary video explanation of Britain in the Cape and Cape politics and their relation to the UK) and this helped him strike deals with Botswana chiefs. He persuaded them that they were under threat from incoming Boer settlers and that the British Cape Colony could ‘protect’ them. He also struck a deal with the Boers through which the British Cape Colony would allow the Boers in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State more freedom in return for which the Boers would drop any claims they had over Bechuanaland. This deal was to prove very important for South Africa’s history as it allowed the Boers to continue with their so called ‘native policy’ in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State which forced Africans to carry passes, live outside towns and not walk on pavements which were reserved for whites. These laws were to form the basis of the system of apartheid which was a central part of life in South African in much of the twentieth century and which was eventually successfully opposed by Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress. As a result of these deals Rhodes established the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland in 1885. This basically said that the British had control over this area and so kept the Germans out. [It also gave Rhodes the right to open up exploration for diamonds there. As always with Rhodes, his business interests were uppermost in his mind more than the interests of Africans and others.]

Lewanika under Threat

In 1884, Lewanika was deposed and expelled by his enemies – the Ndebele tribe. Just one year later though he returned and took back power by force and by the 4th of November 1885 he was king again. However, Lewanika realised that his grip on power was weak [and Lobengula’s empire threatened him]. What made Lewanika even more concerned was a deal that Rhodes made with his arch rival - Lobengula.

Rhodes’ Deal with Lobengula

So, Rhodes had now secured control of Bechuanaland, but shortly afterwards he again felt threatened by the Boers who made an agreement of friendship with Lobengula. They did this for two reasons. First, they were interested in securing rights to mine for minerals (such as gold, diamonds and metals) in Lobengula’s land. Second, if the Boers had control of this area to the north of Bechuanaland they might be able to link up with the Germans in Namibia and this would block any further British expansion northwards. The Boers were making a clever tactical move with this agreement with Lobengula.

Again, Rhodes needed to move fast. Working through the recently-appointed British assistant commissioner for Bechuanaland - Moffat who happened to be David Livingstone’s brother in law - he signed a far better agreement with Lobengula. This new agreement cancelled out the earlier agreement that the

Page 18 - 19 -

Boers made with Lobengula. This new treaty gave Rhodes exclusive mining rights in Lobengula’s lands. In return Lobengula was promised: - £100 a month - a steamboat on the Zambesi River - 1,000 Martini rifles and 100,000 bullets for them But the deal did not end there. Lobengula was tricked into signing away mining rights not just in his land but also in Mashonaland. [This last agreement was carried out by one of Rhodes’ representatives called Rudd and became known as the Rudd Concession.]

Lobengula had been deceived in a number of ways. [During the negotiations, Rhodes’s representatives gave Lobengula the clear impression that they were acting on behalf of the government of Great Britain, which they were not. Secondly they led Lobengula to believe that no more than ten white men would be mining on his land.] Though unable to read or write, Lobengula was a wise leader and he became suspicious of the deal he had made. Accordingly he sent two of his advisers - the two with the very best memories - all the way to Great Britain to speak with Queen Victoria, the British queen.

Rhodes was not the only one trying to make a deal with Lobengula at this time. Many Europeans wanted to explore the area in search of gold and diamonds. Diamond finds in Kimberley in the Cape Colony and gold finds in Witwatersrand in the Transvaal had led to huge wealth for some people.

Video explanation 1 - whiteboard summary of the strategic value of Lobengula’s land

Now it was a race - who could seal the deal with Lobengula. Rhodes realised that the best way to do this was to get the 1,000 Martini guns delivered. Acting without the permission of the British government, he needed to be careful. He would have to smuggle the guns in and he asked his close friend Dr Starr Jameson to do this. Furthermore, Rhodes bought off an British businessmen and politicians as well as Cape Colony businessmen and politicians who knew about the deception of Lobengula with shares in a new company he set up to exploit any minerals found in Lobengula’s lands. This company was known as the British South Africa Company. Rhodes’s dishonesty continued. When Lobengula’s advisers finally met Queen Victoria and the British government they were told that he had not been acting for the British when he made the deal. Rhodes was able to delay this message reaching Lobengula until after Dr Jameson had delivered the Martini rifles.

Shortly after this Rhodes’ private army marched into Mashonaland and started to set up forts. The take over of central Africa by British South Africa was now well under way. The Bechuanaland Protectorate was established, Lobengula’s Matabeleland was under control and Mashonaland had basically been invaded.

Page 19 - 20 -

Lewanika’s Deal with Rhodes

All this - especially the agreement between Rhodes and Lobengula - put a great deal of pressure on Lewanika. He was right to be worried. Rhodes had never seen his control ending at the Zambesi River and said “If we get control of Matabeleland we shall get the balance of Africa. I do not stop in my ideas at the Zambesi.”

Lewanika felt that the best way to ensure this did not threaten him was to sign his own deal with Rhodes. But Lewanika was hoping for more than just protection from any deal with Rhodes, he also expected the British would set up schools and improve services throughout his land. In 1890 Lewinika struck a deal with one of Rhodes’s representatives - Frank Lochner which stated that: - Lewanika gave the British South Africa Company (which had just been set up by Rhodes, see below) mining rights throughout his kingdom - in return the British South Africa Company would defend Lewanika’s Lozi people from outside attacks, they would pay Lewanika £2,000 per year and they would set up schools and the telegraph system throughout his kingdom.

This deal, which became known as the ‘Lochner Concession’ was a key moment in Zambia’s history which was to have a big effect for the next eighty years.

Question 2 Do you think Lewanika was right in seeking support from the British?

Question 3 What similarities can you find in the way that Rhodes made deals with both Lewanka and Lobengula?

Rhodes and the British South Africa Company

Having bought key supporters off, Rhodes finally secured British approval for his actions and the agreements he had made. He then set up - now with the full support of the British government - a new company to exploit this whole area - the British South Africa Company. This company was granted a royal charter in 1889 which meant that it acted on behalf of the British government. Rhodes could not have been in a stronger position. Rhodes and the British South Africa Company now effectively controlled Bechuanaland, Mashonaland, [Nyasaland???] and had a great deal of influence over Matabeleland. On top of this Rhodes owned most of the Kimberley diamond mines and had significant interests in gold mines in the rapidly growing town of Johannesburg in Boer-controlled Transvaal. His power did not end there. He had [recently] been appointed Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. His power in Africa was great and it was no surprise that the area he had recently grasped control over became known as Rhodesia.

Page 20 - 21 -

However, it is important to note that the British South Africa Company did not control all of modern-day Zambia at this time. Lewanika [only ruled an area in the south of the country]. Other tribes ruled other parts of Zambia, mainly the Bemba, Lundi and Ngoni.

The Bemba still had control over the north east and they remained very powerful there. In an attempt to weaken them, the British South Africa Company tried to cut off the Bemba’s trade route east. In 1896 the Bemba chief Mwamba met with a British South Africa Company representative and allowed him to set up a trading post in Bemba country.

The British South Africa Company took a different and much tougher line with the Lundi under chief Kazembe. They brought in a large force from neighbouring Nyasaland and a machine gun and invaded Lundi lands. Kazembe fled across the Luapula River before he was forced to surrender in 1900.

The Ngoni tribe, which occupied an area east of the Luangwa River, were also defeated in battle by the British South Africa Company.

In contrast, Lewanika’s Lozi empire - under British South Africa Company protection - expanded in the south and west. The Lochner Concession was renewed in 1898 (known as the ‘Lawley Concession’ and ratified in 1900 (known as the Lewanika Concession’). As a result of these Lewanika’s annual payment dropped to £850, but mining was prohibited in most of Lozi held land.

The flag of the British South Africa Company at the start of the twentieth century

Question 4 With this new information about Lewanika’s empire, has your answer to question 9 above changed?

The Fall of Lobengula

After signing the agreement with Rhodes, things did not go well for Lobengula. A bizarre incident in Mashonaland was to lead to his downfall. Some Shona tribesmen cut and removed 500 yards of telegraph cable. They were tracked down by Capt. Lendy of the Northern Rhodesian police and their chief was given the option of handing them over for punishment or paying a

Page 21 - 22 - fine. He chose the fine and paid in cattle. The only issue was these cattle belonged to Lobengula. Angry, Lobengula sent a force to punish the Shona, but this force fell into conflict with troops under the command of Dr Jameson. These troops brutally murdered one of Lobengula’s commanders and then went on - after faking a Matabele attack on his men - to launch an all out attack on Lobengula. Jameson, probably with Rhodes’s backing, probably wanted Lobengula out of the way - he had only given the British South Africa Company mining rights and by now they wanted more control.

In the resulting battles the British South African Company forces used the new Maxim machine guns to devastating effect. Jameson destroyed Lobengula’s capital at Gubulawayo and the British South African Company’s flag was hoisted over the ruins.

Lobengula went into hiding and committed suicide just south of the Zambesi River in 1894. In contrast, in the same year the British government recognised the British South Africa Company’s jurisdiction over Matbeleland and as a result their share price rose sharply and the company’s wealth increased massively.

The Jameson Raid and the Fall of Rhodes

In 1895 the area controlled by the British South Africa Company - Matabeland and Mashonaland was officially named Rhodesia. This same year ironically was the year when Rhodes’ power began to wane. At the start of the decade Rhodes was Managing Director of the Kimberley mining company De Beers, he was Managing Director of the British South Africa Company and Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Most things had gone his way, with the exception of the Katanga area in modern day Republic of Congo. Rhodes tried to get control of this area as he was aware that it contained significant copper deposits. Rhodes’s representative was unable to agree a deal with the local chief (in contrast to what happened with Lobengula and Lewinanka) and instead it was the Belgians who were to control this area. (This area was to be critically important shortly after World War II when it tried to break away from the rest of the country and the white leader of the Central African Federation - Welensky - provided support.)

But Rhodes’s fortunes were to change when he made a major miscalculation in his relations with the Boers. In the past he had managed to get away with dodgy deals, but this time his luck ran out.

In 1895 he made a huge error in his relations with the Boers. He commissioned Leander Jameson – by now a key member of the British South Africa Company - to take an armed force into the Transvaal to support an uprising against the Boer government there. Large amounts of gold had been found in the Transvaal and Rhodes - among others - had significant amounts of money invested in the mines by Johannesburg. The European miners could not vote in the Transvaal - this was restricted to Boers. However, as a result of the gold rush there were more ‘foreigners’ than Boers in the

Page 22 - 23 -

Transvaal. These people were taxed by the Boer government. Rhodes and Jameson used this as an excuse to stir up an uprising by these ‘foreigners’ against the Boer government so that they could send in a force, supposedly to help the rebels but in effect to overthrow the Boer government.

There was however no uprising, and Jameson’s force were met by the Boers, although they tried to run away they surrendered. It was a total fiasco and a massive embarrassment for Rhodes as the German Kaiser sent a telegram of congratulations to the Boer government. Jameson and the raid leaders were subsequently handed to the British authorities. The British authorities, charged those taking part in the Jameson Raid but only gave them token prison sentences, showing their distaste for the Transvaal region. However, the raid increased sympathy for the Boers among many. As a result of the raid Rhodes was forced to resign as the Cape Colony’s Prime Minister-ship.

Rhodes was never to be as powerful again. His reputation took a massive hit. He did regain the confidence of some shortly after the raid as Lobengula’s people used Jameson raid as an opportunity to rise against the British South Africa Company. Jameson had driven many of the Ndebele off their land and given it to white settlers. He had taken their cattle at the end of the war with Lobengula and had forced many men to work for the new white farmers. But with so many men out of the country as a result of the aftermath of the raid on the Transvaal, in March 1886 the Matabele grabbed the opportunity to rebel and killed a number of whites. The white settlers formed defensive camps - know as laagers - with wagons around their main centres and held off the Ndebele. Rhodes personally led part of the counter attack and the suppression of the Matalele Rising and also led peace negotiations himself. But he was never the force he was in the early 1890s and he was to fall ill and die in 1902.

Source A

“The Rhodes Colossus” printed in 1892 in the British satirical magazine Punch. He is holding in his hands a telegraph wire which is stretching from Cape Town to Cairo.

Question 4 How useful is source A in assessing the influence of Cecil Rhodes on Southern Africa?

Page 23 - 24 -

The British South Africa Company and the British Government

The emblem of the British South Africa Company

The British South Africa Company which was set up by Rhodes had the backing of the British government which gave the company a royal charter. The British government did this because Rhodes was offering them a great deal. Through the British South Africa Company, Britain would have control of a large area of southern and central Africa and reap the economic benefits without having to pay for the takeover, or control it after the invasion. In the royal charter the British South Africa Company was allowed to rule, police and make new treaties in the area, with British approval. The British government left it to Rhodes to control matters from inside the country rather than to try to control them from London. This had a further advantage, Britain could not be held directly responsible for anything that happened [(as was the case with the Jameson raid)], and it was a low cost way to stop other European powers gaining the area.

Rhodes was a man of intrigue - a negotiator and deal maker. So it is not surprising that the company he founded - the British South Africa Company - did not always act openly or honestly. It corrupted key politicians to with their support. It handed out shares to win people over and cared little about the many Africans that worked for it. How does it compare to British companies today? See Appendix 1 for some thoughts on this

Question 5 Do you think the British government supported the British South Africa Company mainly because of it was a cheap way of controlling central Africa or because it gave them a quick way to seize control of African lands before other European powers could do so?

Page 24 - 25 -

Chapter 9 An Assessment of Rhodes

Rhodes in Africa – A Timeline of Key Events

1871- Rhodes arrived in Kimberley, and began to build up his control of gold and diamond exports 1885 - Rhodes persuaded British Government to secure Bechuanaland (now called Botswana). 1888 - The leader of the Ndebele people Lobengula granted Rhodes the mining rights in parts of his territory the ‘Rudd Concession’, Lobengula signed a treaty of friendship with Britain. 1889 - Rhodes formed the British South Africa Company (and the British government gave it certain powers with a royal charter) 1890 - Rhodes made deals with tribal leaders which result in the British South Africa Company gaining two large areas of land – the Lochner Concession and Kazembe Concession. Rhodes also became prime minister of the Cape Colony 1891- The area north of the Zambezi, later named as part of Rhodesia, was put under the British South Africa Company. 1895- The land that is now Zimbabwe and Zambia was formally named Rhodesia. 1896- Jameson Raid, a small force led by Jameson (and encouraged by Rhodes) entered the Transvaal in nearby South Africa to try and support a suspected uprising against the leaders of the Transvaal. 1902 - Rhodes died in South Africa and was, at his request, buried in the Matappo Hills [in modern day Zimbabwe]

Some people think that Cecil Rhodes’ main ambition was to extend his mining fields, solely for the purpose of gaining more gold and diamonds. However the more conventional view is that he wanted to spread the British Empire. He was the main force behind the aim of building a Cape to Cairo railway and telegraph system. Rhodes wanted Britain to take back North America. He believed that the British and their race were the best, and should spread across the globe. It is worth bearing in mind that at this time, this view was not uncommon among many Europeans and that many Africans were being treated purely as dispensable goods. He encouraged Europeans to move to South Rhodesia, not only to spread the white race, but also because he believed that the African civilisation was inferior to the western society and wanted to make it more like Britain.

Audio drama 2 - Rhodes and his Confessions of Faith

His view on this subject is best expressed through sources A and B overleaf:

Page 25 - 26 -

Source A I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race...If there be a God, I think that what he would want me to do is paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible...

Cecil Rhodes, writing to his friend W.T. Stead in August 1891. (W.T Stead was also dreamed of the British seizing more land, and was a close friend of Rhodes)

Source B Africa is still lying ready for us it is our duty to take it. It is our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory and we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes that more territory simply means more of the Anglo-Saxon race more of the best the most human, most honourable race the world possesses.

An essay written by Rhodes called ‘Confessions of Faith’ on the 2 June 1877

Question 1 How useful are these sources to historians finding out about British views of Africa in the nineteenth century?

It may seem that Rhodes had little opposition in his actions. However he had several critics. American writer Mark Twain were opposed to Rhodes as well.

Source C ...with a burden of insult, humiliation, and forced labor for a man whose entire race the victim hates. Rhodesia is a happy name for that land of piracy and pillage...”

From Mark Twain’s book ‘Following the Equator’ published in 1897

Question 2 Compare souces A, B and C. To what extent does source C differ in its views of Rhodes to the views given in sources A and B?

Shortly after Rhodes died, Joseph Chamberlain - a leading British politician - toured South Africa in 1902 shortly after Rhodes’ death and visited Kimberley. This as the town where Rhodes had his diamond mines and here he gave this speech in a banquet in his honour:

Source D

It would be ungrateful of us not to forget the man who sleeps now in the Matoppo Hills and whose name will always be identified with this town... He was not infallible, he made some mistakes which at this time I do not care to dwell upon, but he was a great Englishman. There was nothing mean or petty about him. He had great ideas... But he was ambitious of

Page 26 - 27 - power, ambitious of power because he believed that he would use it for the benefit of South Africa and for the advantage of the Empire.

A speech by Joseph Chamberlain in South African in 1902

Question 3 Which of these sources A, B, C or D do you think gives the best insight into Rhodes?

Source E

Audio clip 1- Memories of Rhodes 19679-83

Question 4 Which source from A to D above is closest to source E in the views of Rhodes?

Page 27 - 28 -

Chapter 9 British Rule of Zambia up to World War One

A map of Africa- in a British School atlas from about 1910. Zambia is within what the British called Rhodesia

Rhodes was confident that Zambia would be developed and he hoped to find mineral deposits there as at Kimberley and Johannesburg. But he did not live long enough to find out about the huge copper deposits in the country.

The British South Africa Company expected more white settlers to move north of the Zambesi at the start of the twentieth century. Indeed, in 1898 the ecause of malaria had been discovered and with it the knowledge of how white settlers could protect themselves from the disease. However, by 1914 only about 3,000 Europeans had settled there. Most of them lived very close to the railway which the British had built north from Zimbabwe to Livingstone and on to the Katanga area of the Congo as by now zinc, lead and copper mining was beginning to be developed in the north and east.

At this time Zambia into two parts by the British: North West Rhodesia and North East Rhodesia. To the new white settlers these two areas had a very different feel. North West Rhodesia had what they described as a ‘frontier’ region. Here, in addition to mining there were a few white farmers and traders, a few officials and a number of missionaries. In North East Rhodesia there was minimal mining, and traders were usually Indians. There were a few white farmers running plantations of coffee, tea, cotton and tobacco and rather more missionaries. Throughout both regions, most Africans followed a communal system of subsistence agriculture. But this ddi not fit in with the way the white settlers operated. The settlers were dependent on Africans to do their labouring, and this meant hiring them and paying them a wage. Up to

Page 28 - 29 - now, Africans had not needed much in the way of cash - their economy functioned totally differently and the white settlers could not understand this. They also did not understand how African society worked at a village level. [African men’s role was clearing land; women’s role was tending the land.] To the Europeans, they saw women working hard, but men seemingly being idle and they felt that this was wrong. To try to break up village culture and agricultural practices and introduce a wage economy, the London manager of the British South Africa company believed that the tribal system should be disrupted by weakening the power of chiefs and bringing in schools. Missionaries thought that idleness was a bad thing and they also wanted to change society by training Africans to work. Zambian culture and society were under increasing pressures to change to fit the needs and expectations of white men.

Perhaps one of the more significant economic developments for Africans at this time was the introduction of a tax to be paid [to the British South Africa Company]. This tax was very different to the old tribute that villagers traditionally paid to tribal chiefs [which could be paid in crops or other goods]. Tax had to be paid in cash and Africans did not use cash in their economy. So, to pay this new tax they had two options - selling produce to the white settlers or working for them. And working for them meant working in plantations in neighbouring Malawi, working on small farms along the new railway or working in the mines in Southern Rhodesia which paid the best wages even if conditions were terrible and this led to a significant amount of emigration of Africans there. Taxation, therefore, became a major reason why Zambian society began to change.

The two parts of Zambia - North West Rhodesia and North East Rhodesia were united in 1911 and the area was called simply North Rhodesia. Livingstone was the capital of North Rhodesia. Lusaka was founded in 1905 to serve a nearby lead mine. During this time there was more development in the copper mines of Belgian Congo to the north and in the mines of Southern Rhodesia to the south and agents of mining companies began to come into Zambia to recruit workers. At around this time some Indians started to move to Zambia and Zimbabwe acting as traders and some European big game hunters moved into the area as it still contained huge herds of elephants that did not exist in many other places due to over hunting.

Change was not limited to Zambia. The Cape Colony and the Boer Republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State had undergone huge upheaval. The Boers and British fought each other in the Boer War of 1899 - 1902. Initially the Boers embarrassed the British by some early, spectacular victories. Eventually large numbers of British troops were shipped out to fight and their numbers proved too great for the Boers and they gave in. During the war the British used a new tactic. In many parts of the country the Boers fought a guerrilla war - making short, quick attacks on the British then retreating into the bush. To counter this the British rounded up Boer families and concentrated them in camps. And so the ‘concentration camp’ - which Hitler and Stalin were to make infamous - was born. After the war, rifts between the

Page 29 - 30 -

British and Boer gradually healed and in 1910 the Union of South Africa was created which included both the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. This new country was part of the British Empire, but had a lot of control over its own affairs - more than it had enjoyed before.

Other neighbours to Zambia also experienced change, this time at the hands of their new imperial owners - Germany. In Namibia....In Tanzania...

Although there is no doubt that the British exploited Zambia in the period to 1914, a few good things did come out of their rule, including: • an end to the slave trade • new schools were built, mainly by missionaries, and many Zambians started to receive an education for the first time

The Lives of the Early White Colonists

There were different type of colonists in Zambia in the period to 1914. There were missionaries, miners, prospectors, game hunters, farmers and administrators from the British South Africa Company. There was also a small police force, largely made up of Indian soldiers.

They tended to live in large houses built of wood or iron, raised off the ground to avoid problems of ants. They employed Zambians to work for them as maids, cooks, gardeners and labourers.

They looked like... [to be added]

Photograph PRO37847 S0006272 from the Royal Geographical Society showing white hunter being carried over a river by 15 Africans two of whom are carrying his guns

Many did not have wives or families, but some did and it was around this time that some white women began to settle in the country.

Their lives were very different from the men and very different from Zambian women. First, they did not work at all. Though they managed the household, they had Zambians to do the cooking, washing and cleaning. They also had no paid work or employment - this was all done by their husbands.

They looked like...[to be added]

Page 30 - 31 -

Some white settlers employed by the British South Africa Company did marry Zambians. J. E Stephenson, for example, had an Ngoni wife in 1901 and had a son with her. But he was to encounter racism from his colleagues when he tried to take his son on a visit to the District Commissioner but was banned from doing so. Stephenson resigned as a result. He moved to a remote area in the central north of Zambia and settled there. And it was here that vast reserves of copper were later found.

There were other issues about the way African women were treated by white settlers. Many men were posted from Britain to very remote places where there were no white women. Many felt lonely and felt that they could take a local woman - or several women - as wives or partners. This practice was known as concubinage. Some officials even had different concubines in each of the districts they administered. R.L. Harrison who was the British South Africa Company’s Native Commissioner of Mkasi sub district in Northern Rhodesia was charged - by a white settler - of using his position to procure African women against their will. He admitted ‘concubinage’ in 1907. He then declared that he had given up this practice, married a European woman the following year and was allowed to stay in his job.

Other incidents became public including C.J. Macnamara who was dismissed in 1910 for having a concubine . A more disturbing incident related to R.A. Osborne who was a British South Africa Company Native Department official in the Luwingue who had a concubine. But just before Osborne’s trerm of duty in Zambia came to an end he sacked her for ‘misconduct’ with his Zambian cook. He then beat the cook and fined him. Osborne was sacked for lacking ‘moral power’. These incidents were to lead to a clamp down on concubinage and relations between white Company employees and Zambians. However, the acting Commissioner for North Eastern Rhodesia - Judge L.P. Beaufort - said that this clamp down might lead to blackmail against colonial administrators and an increase in prostitution. He argued that life was very difficult for young men sent out from Britain to remote parts of the country and even said that concubinage kept them sane. Public and British government opinion was far too conservative and Beaufort’s protestations came to nothing.

Page 31 - 32 -

Chapter 10 World War One and the fighting in and around Zambia

Zambia played an important part in World War One – a great conflict that involved Britain, France, Italy, Russia and USA fighting against Germany, Austro-Hungary and Turkey between 1914 and 1918. Germany had several colonies in Africa by the start of the war: German South West Africa which they claimed in 1884 and German East Africa which they took in 1885. They also had the Cameroons and Togoland in the north west of Africa. In contrast, as the British map of Africa produced in an atlas for school children just before the war overleaf shows, the forces against Germany in World War I - Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and Portugal had much more land in Africa.

Appendix - Summary of the causes of World War I and a brief overview of the fighting.

A British map of Southern Africa just before WW1 - German south west Africa (Modern day Namibia) was where the first action against the

Video explanation 2 - historian on imperialism and the struggle for Africa

Page 32 - 33 -

There were two German colonies either side of Zambia – German Southwest Africa (modern day Namibia) and German East Africa (modern day Tanzania) and fighting during the war took place in both of these. Zambia has a very special place in the history of World War I and one not known about by many. It was the only British territory to be invaded by German forces (it was actually invaded twice - in 1915 and right at the end of the war in 1918. Furthermore, the last fighting in the whole war took place on Zambian territory when a German force - which the British and South African forces had been chasing for over a year attacked from the east. They had not been aware that the German forces had surrendered and did not surrender until two weeks after the actual armistice.

Around 3,500 Zambians joined the British Army in World War One, with a further 50,000 – 100,000 working as porters, some of the porters were forcibly recruited. These men were to play an important part in the British campaign against the Germans in East Africa (Tanzania). The British also took much grain and many cattle from Zambians to provide food for the British army in southern Africa.

The first action in Africa was in the north where British forces attacked German Togoland which surrendered on 27 August 1914; German Cameroons was next to fall. There were relatively few German troops in these colonies, but far more in German East Africa and German South West Africa.

Both the British and German forces tended to be made up in similar ways. The senior and junior officers were Europeans. The bulk of the soldiers were made up of Africans known as ‘askaris’ and some Indians in the case of the British, brought over from their colony in India. Supporting them were large numbers of African porters carrying their supplies. And for every soldier there would be a number of porters. The casualty rates for the conflicts in Togoland and Cameroons reflects the reliance on native troops

Togoland Campaign Cameroons Campaign

British officers killed/ 8 8* wounded

African troops killed/ 66 160 wounded

* includes some French officers from their colonial forces also involved in the fighting.

By far the more significant fighting took place on either side of Zambia. British first moved against the weaker of the two German forces in Namibia. Troops were led by the Union of South Africa and the Prime Minister of South Africa -

Page 33 - 34 -

Botha - commanded the troops himself. This in itself is noteworthy as Botha was a Boer and only fifteen years earlier he and his nation had been fighting against the British. But by now times had changed, the Boer Republics had united with the British colonies and formed the Union of South Africa (see above) and Botha was keen to show loyalty to the British and defeat the Germans. Not all Boers shared his views and a number rebelled against him at the start of the war and joined the German forces in German South West Africa which numbered between 10,000 and 14,000. The South African forces invaded the German colony in early 1915 and soon defeated the Germans who surrendered in July 1915.

The Campaign Against the Germans in East Africa

However, German East Africa (Tanzania) posed a far bigger problem as there were more Germans there, they were far better prepared and they were led by an extraordinarily determined commander - Colonel von Lettow-Vorbeck. At his disposal were 2000 German white troops, 14,000 African including many from the Angoni and Wahebe tribes, 60 artillery guns and 80 machine gunes.

A British book documenting World War I and written shortly after the war finished said this about Zambia:

Source A

It was part of Germany’s dream of conquest in Africa that the natives of Northern Rhodesia could be coaxed and bribed to rebellion and so help the Kaiser’s troops... This dream was shattered by...the faithfulness of the native tribes.

From a British history book written shortly after the end of World War I

Question 1 What does this source tell us about British attitudes to Zambians?

The conflict in east African started with a German raid on British held Mombassa in September 1914 which was beaten off by British, Indian and Kenyan troops. Both sides launched raids on each others territory and Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia were particularly vulnerable as both had long borders with the German colony and neither had many Allied troops there to defend themselves.

The Germans launched a number of raids on the Northern Rhodesian border from their bases at Bismarckburg and Neu Langenburg. In June 1915 they nearly took the town of Fife in Northern Rhodesia. But by far the largest raid on east Zambia took place in July 1915 when the Germans attacked the fort of Saisi – about 20 miles east of Mbala (which was then called Abercorn). Saisi was held by 470 soldiers – 450 of whom were Africans. There were 20 British and Belgian officers there and the whole force was commanded by

Page 34 - 35 -

Major J J Sullevan of the North Rhodesia Police. He had been ordered at the start of the war to take his force to the German border and had covered 430 miles in 20 days despite torrential rain - averaging an astonishing 21 miles a day.

Sullevan’s forces were greatly outnumbered by the Germans who attacked on 24 July 1915 with 2000 men armed with rifles, several 12 pounder artillery guns and 10 machine guns. Their attack was repelled and the Germans lay siege to the fort. Throughout the next four days and nights the Germans launched further attacks and their artillery pounded the fort, killing all the sheep, mules, oxen and goats there. But they gave up on 3 August having suffered 60 deaths among their white soldiers, and many more among their African troops.

Add map of 1917 from the Royal Geographical Society which shows Abercorn

Clearly something needed to be done about the German forces in East Africa and once again the British turned to South Africa for assistance. Smuts in South Africa organised a new recruiting campaign and put together a new force of around 20,000 men by the end of 1915. Allied forces in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were united under the command of Brigadier General Northey to assist Smuts.

The main German force was situated to the east of Kilimanjaro and fighting broke out there in early 1916. Fighting was hard and a number of men were killed. Bodies had to be collected before nightfall otherwise they would be eaten by the many wild animals that inhabited this area. One of the Allied chaplains whose job it was to bury the dead said that the whole area around Kilimanjaro was swarming with lions. Another said that ‘two lions roared at me from either side of the road in the tall elephant grass’.

Slowly the Allied forces began to push the Germans back from their stronghold on the slopes of Kilimanjaro and General Northey’s forces left Northern Rhodesia and moved into German territory to cut off the German retreat, capturing the German towns of Neu Lagenburg and Bismarckburg. Despite a number of setbacks, von Lettow’s German forces were gradually pushed back. And then he did something that took the Allies by surprise. In 1917 he took his force out of German territory and moved into Mozambique. Mozambique was held by the Portuguese which had not been involved in the war until March 1916 when the Germans declared war on them.

By now his force had dwindled to 320 officers and Europeans, 2,000 Africans, two artillery guns and 35 machine guns and was hotly pursued by South African troops under General van Dewenter. His numbers increased a little as some Africans in the Portuguese colony joined his forces as they were very anti-Portuguese. During this time the German force lived off the land. This usually meant taking cattle and crops from Africans living in Mozambique. Many local Africans fled as his troops approached, fearful for their lives. The game of chase continued, amazingly, for over a year but eventually von

Page 35 - 36 -

Lettow’s men were forced out of Mozambique and briefly moved back into German East Africa, but only for a matter of weeks.

By now the war in Europe was entering its final stages. On their Eastern front, the Germans had enjoyed much success in their fight against Russia. Th old regime under the Tsar had been toppled by a revolution in early 1917, but the Provisional Government which took over the country after the fall of the Tsar was itself overthrown by an extreme left wing group called the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were determined to pull out of the war with Germany at any price and had signed a peace treaty giving Germany much of its land in the west of Russia in early 1918. However, the loss of Russia was balanced by the entry of America into the war on the Allies side the previous year. With more and more American troops arriving to support the Allies in France, the Germans pulled many of their troops across from the Russian front for one final push against the Allies in the West, but this failed and by the autumn of 1918 the Allies were counter attacking and Germany could not hold on for much longer.

However, von Lettow was not aware that the war was going so badly in Europe and he was keen to carry on the fight in Africa. Briefly back in German East Africa, which was now occupied by South African forces, he was to carry out one last daring manoeuvre. He realised that there were few troops in Northern Rhodesia. He also knew that there had been little fighting in the region so food and supplies would be easy to seize. Furthermore, the last thing the British would expect was for von Lettow to invade their territory. But that is exactly what von Lettow did.

At the start of November he invaded Northern Rhodesia and attacked Fife which was held by the Northern Rhodesia Regiment. Fife withstood the attack which was called off after a few hours. Von Lettow then made for defenceless Kasama, but now some of his African carriers began to desert him. The main body of the German force continued to the Chambezi River where they surrounded a rubber factory, which contained all the supplies hastily removed from Kasama by District Officer Hector Croad. A smaller group under von Lettow remained in the rear and it was this group that was to find out something that they simply could not believe.

On 12 November a British dispatch rider on a motorcycle was ambushed by a group of Germans led by von Lettow and when they found his documents they were astonished to discover that the day before, on 11 November 1918, the Germans had surrendered to the Allies. Von Lettow could not believe this. However, he did cycle twenty miles to his force surrounding the rubber factory and got to them just before they attacked.

There followed a quite extraordinary scene. Croad walked calmly across the river to meet von Lettow to tell him that the war was over. But von Lettow, who had been out of contact with Germany for several months, refused to believe that the war was over, the Kaiser was no longer in charge of the country which had just become a replublic. This was all too much for von

Page 36 - 37 -

Lettow refused to surrender. He was given access by the British to a telegraph machine and he sent a message to the German leader - Kaiser Wilhelm II - to confirm whether Germany had surrendered. His telegraph went unanswered. Kaiser Wilhelm had abdicated three days earlier. Von Lettow formally surrendered on 25 November 1918, some two weeks after the surrender of German forces in Europe.

And so World War I’s final action was not, as most believe, in Western Europe, but in eastern Zambia. The peace treaty which was signed at Versailles in 1919 redrew the map of Africa. South Africa took control of German South West Africa and Britain took control of German East Africa.

Casualty figures are difficult to asses, but one historian has suggested that among fighting troops the British lost 62,220 killed (48,328 to disease, mainly malaria). But it is likely that far more carriers died, and there are no figures for these men.

There is one other noteworthy event of World War I in central Africa. In neighbouring Malawi John Chilembwe led a small revolt against the British. He was enraged about the inequalities between Africans and whites and was particularly annoyed about the recruitment of Africans to fight the Germans. One of his speeches is particularly revealing:

Source A

Let the rich men, bankers, titled men, shopkeepers, farmers and landlords go to war and get shot... Instead the poor Africans who have nothing to own in this present world who in death leave only a long line of widows and orphans in utter want and dire distress are invited to die for a cause which is not theirs.

John Chilembwe speaking in January 1915

Question 1 - from the evidence in this chapter, how accurate do you think Chilembwe’s views in source A were?

The revolt in Nyasaland led to the deaths of a few European settlers, but it was easily suppressed and [Chilembwe was executed] by the British.

Video explanation 3 - WWI and Africa summary video

Page 37 - 38 -

Chapter 11 The Effects of World War I

Source A

German losses were about 2,000. But the black people of East Africa suffered far more as carriers who died from disease, exhaustion and military action. No one bothered to record their fate. One modern estimate is 100,000 dead on all sides. Black civilians also suffered dreadfully. War devastated many localities, bringing hunger, disease and death in its train. Thousands of Africans perished in the outbreak of influenza that swept over their continent at the end of the war. To some Africans at least, long stigmatised as "savages" by Europeans, it was plain that there was often a savage behind the white man's mask of civilisation

An account of the East African involvement in the war written in 1961 by Cyril Fall who was a Military Historian noted for his work on the First World War

Question 2 What can we infer from Source A about the impact of World War One on Zambia?

While African military losses during the war were low, the spread of influenza and the exhaustion killed many Africans and left the black population of Rhodesia weakened. The impounding of animals and grain this also lead to resentment.

On the positive side new cultural issues emerged from the war which were to be very important later. [Many Zambians who served in the war had come into close contact with British officers and began to understand them more. They also began to benefit from training and learning given to them as part of their military training. Perhaps the most significant cultural development was a new dance that emerged - the mbeni dance.

Africans in Malawi and Tanzania had seen large numbers of soldiers marching in columns and were very impressed by this. Dances based on this type of marching were developed and large mbeni dance groups were formed in central Africa, including Zambia, which drew large audiences. These dance groups were to play a very important part in protest movements in the copper belt in the 1930s.

Multi-media 2 - Mbeni dances [to be added by Zambian students/teachers]

Page 38 - 39 -

10.Zambia After World War One, Changing British Attitudes and the Development of the Copper Belt

The Northern Rhodesia Protectorate

After World War I Britain’s attitde towards its empire in Africa, Asia and elsewhere began to change. Before the war many people in Britain were keen to have as large an empire as possible as it was a sign of power. Man were keen to expand this empire to assert Britain’s strength at a time when other countries - notably Germany - were beginning to challenge Britain’s power. But World War I changed all this and British politicians began to see the Empire as very costly and felt a new relationship with its colonies was needed. Some of the larger colonies had begun to have far more control of their government, for example Canada, Australia and South Africa which all had become ‘Dominions’ before the war. In 1922 even southern Ireland which has formerly been part of the United Kingdom now ruled itself.

So, how did all this affect Zambia? The country, which comprised as the British saw it North East and North West Rhodesia, was seen as part of a unit of three central African colonies, the other two being Nyasaland (now Malawi) and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). All three colonies were still under the rule of the British South Africa Company directly after the war.

The fortunes of the British South Africa Company were to be critical to the future of this area. The company was in debt by several million pounds and the British government - which itself was massively in debt as a result of the huge expense of the war - could not afford to bail the company out.

The three colonies had a different make up. Southern Rhodesia had many white settlers; Northern Rhodesia had very few. These settlers had a lot of freedom and were able to influence British South Africa Company through an Advisory Council. But with the British South Africa Company in debt, some funds needed to be raised and - at this stage - only Southern Rhodesia had mineral deposits of any value and not enough to sort out the trouble the British South Africa Company was in. So, as a way forward some British politicians wanted to incorporate Southern Rhodesia into the Union of South Africa which, because of its gold and diamond deposits, was very wealthy. This idea of joining with South Africa was voted on by white - only white - people in Southern Rhodesia (Africans in Southern Rhodesia were not allowed to vote) in 1922. They rejected the plan as they felt that they would lose control of ‘their’ country.

So, in 1923, a different course was decided upon for Southern Rhodesia and it became a largely self governing colony. This left Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland which [both] then became British Protectorates, [which meant that Britain continued to rule them as colonies, but now they ruled them directly through Britain’s Colonial Office (part of the British government) rather than through the British South Africa Company.]

Page 39 - 40 -

The Colonial Office in London – now the home of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Colonial Office Rule

Northern Rhodesia was governed by the British Colonial office and while rule was less harsh it favoured the white population and can not be seen as fair. Five people were elected to be in a new legislative council which was set up in 1925 to help run internal affairs. However, only white people in Zambia were allowed to vote for representatives to this council.

This is how government was structured:

British Secretary of State for the

Colonial Office

Legislative Council Executive Governor of - the law making body comprised of Council Northern ‘Officials’ who were appointed by the made up of Rhodesia Governor and ‘Unofficials’ elected by white senior British appointed by the settlers civil servants British Secretary from the Colonial Office

Page 40 - 41 -

The ‘Unofficials’ had a lot of power and mainly comprised white educated farmers. Some of these ‘Unofficials’ also held executive posts. Though not that organised as a group - and certainly not organised into any political party as such - the Unofficials wanted as much power as they could to preserve their interests. This led to conflicts with the Colonial Secretary which really started in 1930 when Lord Passfield, the Colonial Secretary in the Labour government in Britain, said that the interests of Africans should be more important than those of white settlers. The Labour Party was a left wing party and had different views to the parties that had governed Britain before World War One. This shocked many white settlers and some began to look towards closer links with Southern Rhodesia which was not controlled by the Colonial Office and which put the interests of whites very clearly first.

Source A

Britain is responsible for the trusteeship of native peoples not yet able to stand on their own feet

From a Memorandum on the Native Policy of East Africa written by the Labour Colonial Secretary Lord Passfield in 1930

Question 1 How useful is source A to historians researching the changed attitudes to Zambian by the British government after World War One?

Economic Development

Copper discoveries and the Railway

Around this time Zambia began to develop economically and this was to be of huge significance in the country’s future. Some of the changes had started before the war. A railway was built from Livingstone to the Congo between 1904 and 1909 and zinc, lead and copper mining operations started to appear. And later in the 1920s huge copper deposits were discovered at the headwaters of the Kafue River.

White Settlers and Farming

Settlers were encouraged into the county and many farmers set up alongside the railway. They were also encouraged to settle around Abercorn and Fort James. In the 1920s Africans living in these areas designated for white settlers were forced to leave their land and move into reservations. It is estimated that around 60,000 people were moved during this time. The problem was that the reserves did not have that much cultivatable land and this put a lot of pressure on Zambians relocated there.

Page 41 - 42 -

Taxation

One further development was taxation. This was not new as Africans were first taxed in 1912, but [it was only after World War I that the impact became apparent]. For decades Zambians had been used to making payments to tribal chiefs. But these payments - or tributes - were paid in kind (animals, crops, etc.). Tax had to be paid in cash, and Africans did not have any cash. They had no need of it - their lives were based on a non-cash economy. So the demand for money put many of them in a great dilemma - how could they get hold of money? Essentially there were three options open to them: - work on plantations run by white settlers, many of which were in Nyasaland - work on the smaller farms run by white settlers along the railway - work in the mines of Southern Rhodesia where pay was best, but conditions poor

So, all this led to much social change as many men left their villages in search of work. [This was fuelled by the poor land in African reserves, where families could no longer provide enough food for themselves to eat.]

But there was one small change in Africans’ favour. A tax on polygamous wives which had been introduced earlier was abolished in 1929

The Development of Copper Mines

Perhaps the more significant development in Zambia in this period which was to shape Zambia for the next fifty years was the development of large scale copper mining. Huge deposits of copper were found and Kitwe was established as a mining centre in the mid 1930s. Within three years, Zambia became the world’s main source of copper. Surprisingly, the British Government did not profit much from the copper mines which flourished after 1930, the British South Africa Company took the majority of the profits from the mines and as a result little real investment in the development of Zambia happened. A massive opportunity to improve the lives of ordinary Zambians was missed.

In the 1930s four new large mines were built: Nkana, Nchanga, Roan Antelope and Mufulira. These mines dramatically increased the output of Zambian copper. Even though the price of copper briefly dropped in the early 1930s Zambia’s exports increased by 500% and between 1931 and 1933 copper made up 90% of Zambian exports (by value). This huge increase in the Zambian copper industry attracted many Europeans. The number of white people in Zambia increased from 4,500 in 1929 to around 13,000 in 1938. Many of these emigrated from South Africa. The clearing of malaria from the copper belt in this time greatly assisted European migrants. An even larger number of Africans were drawn into the area. While Europeans took skilled and highly paid jobs, there were many lower paid unskilled jobs on offer and

Page 42 - 43 - as early as 1930 around 22, 000 Africans worked in the mines (about one third of all Africans employed in the whole country).

These African workers were housed in segregated compounds which were essentially townships. But, unlike Africans working in mines in South Africa, they could bring their wives with them - migrant male workers in places like Johannesburg who lived in townships such as Soweto lived in male-only dormitories. Indeed the owners of the copper mines [which by now included several British and American companies as the British South Africa company had given them mining rights in return for...] realised that if men brought their wives with them their efficiency would be better; they would also stay working for longer - married men worked on average two more years in the mines than single ones. These townships were relatively well supplied and wives were provided with rations. But long-term settlement in these townships was discouraged. The Europeans wanted to keep them to keep ties with their villages as they thought that if these townships became permanent then an urban African culture might develop which could threaten white control. For this reason the government encouraged tribalism in this period and recognised the rule of the chiefs.

Rural Zambia suffered as a result of the loss of men. Traditionally it was men who cleared fields for women to till them. Without men to do this, food production dropped and there was increased malnutrition.

However, the large numbers of Africans working in the mines and the detachment from their local area led to the creation of a more coherent black population which developed the union movement and began to put more pressure on the British Government to act more fairly. Work in the mines was hard... and Africans were paid far less than Europeans.

Page 43 - 44 -

Chapter 13 Early Zambian Protest Movements 1929-1953 – the First Steps Towards Independence

A key event happened in 1935, which some see as marking the start of the Zambian independence movement.

Living and working conditions in the copper belt were not good and from the late 1920s African Welfare Societies were set up to draw attention to this. These societies campaigned for better living standards for industrial workers, increased wages and equal rights for Zambians. Although they were too small to challenge the government, they were successful in raising awareness of the problems caused by industry and colonial power in Zambia. The first big crisis which was to start the road to Zambian independence happened in 1935 when some Zambian miners went on a strike. The strike started when a notice appeared in the Nkana beer hall in the Cibemba language saying the following:

Source A

Listen to this all you who live in the country. Do we live in good treatment - no; therefore let us ask one another and remember this treatment, because we wish on 29th April ever person not to go to work. Know how they cause us to suffer, they cheat us for money, they arrest us for loafing, they prosecute and put us in jail for tax. Many brothers of ours dies for 22 shillings and six pence. Is this money we should lose our lives for?

However, nothing happened on 29th April. But this showed that tensions were growing between African worker and the copper mine employers. Things rapidly got worse when in May 1935 the government increased tax for copper belt workers and strikes followed. At Mufulira mine workers demanded

Source B You have to make our tax 7 shillings and 6 pence and we want free boots and other things.

Attribution to be added

Question 1 What similarities and differences are there between sources A and B?

The organisation behind these strikes was based on the mbeni dance societies. These dances attracted large audiences and strike plans were agreed without the knowledge of the employers at these events.

The police were called to an incident at Roan mine and their over-reaction to strikers let to a riot at which six people were killed and 22 were wounded.

Page 44 - 45 -

Interestingly, the strikers did not attack any Europeans during the strikes; the only people who were targeted were African strike breakers.

Shortly after this the government set up an enquiry into the deaths and the strikes. At this enquiry an African clerk gave the following evidence:

Source C

The first thing I wish to speak about as being the cause of the disturbances is the natives’ wages on the mines. The natives have seen that they started work at the same time as the Europeans and the European is able to buy a motor car and he gets a lot of food at the hotel. The natives complain about this. They compare the wages of the Europeans with the wages of the natives. They do the same kind of work, for instance, the natives working underground are supervised by a European who only points out to them places where they should drill holes. After this the European sits down and lets the natives drill the holes. The natives know where the holes should be drilled, they have been doing the work for some time.

The testimony of an African clerk to the government enquiry set up to look into the incident at the Roan copper mine

Question 2 To what extent does source C agree with sources A and B about difficulties experienced by African workers in the copper mines?

But the strike had little positive impact. One unexpected effect was that European mineworkers felt threatened by the organisation of the strikers and formed their own union (the Northern Rhodesian Mineworkers Union). The commission investigating the strike and the rioting that followed concluded that:

Source D

..the wages are considered to be good by the number of natives who are ready to accept employment on the mines.

The report of the government investigators into the incident at the Roan copper mine

Question 3 Do you think that the argument put forward in source D is a strong one?

Question 4 Which of the sources - A, B, C or D - do you think is the most reliable?

Increased development and investment in road, healthcare and schools were encouraged by Sir Alan Pim, a financial expert from England when he visited

Page 45 - 46 -

Zambia in 1938, but sadly much of what he said was ignored. Even by 1942 only 35 Zambians were receiving secondary education.

Video explanation 4 The early protest movements

Page 46 - 47 -

Chapter 14 British Colonial Rule of Zambia to 1939

In the years preceding World War II two very different groups began to oppose colonial rule. On the one hand there were white settlers who were concerned that the Colonial Office was paying too much attention to the needs of Zambians. This group was further annoyed by the British when the administrative centre for Northern Rhodesia moved from Livingstone to Lusaka in 1935. The following year white representatives from Northern Rhodesia met with white settlers in Southern Rhodesia at the Victoria Falls and agreed in principle to the idea of amalgamating the countries, which they thought would be the best way to defend their way of life and their power. A Royal Commission was set up by the British to look into amalgamation of the two Rhodesias in 1938 and agreed that it should go ahead, but not yet as both countries had different attitudes to Africans [(the copperbelt in Northern Rhodesia was fairly liberal and even enlightened compared to the far tougher and repressive treatment of Africans in Southern Rhodesian mines)]. Amalgamation was now on the agenda and it was to be an issue that dominated political events after the war. As well as amalgamation, these settlers wanted to gain major representation in the Legislative Council and try to combat the power of the Officials. And they wanted to end the payment of mining royalties to the British South Africa Company. It was in the late 1930s that Stewart Gore-Browne and Roy Welensky were elected to the Legislative Council, both of whom were to be key figures in the post war era.

On the other hand there were Africans who were beginning to find a political voice - so far through strike action. In 1937 the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress was formed. At first it was a very local organistion, mainly based on the Tonga plateau.

Page 47 - 48 -

Chapter 15 World War II and Zambia

Unlike World War I, there was no actual fighting in Zambia in World War II. But Zambia troops were involved in the fighting outside Africa. A Zambian regiment fought in the 11th East African Division alongside British forces against the Japanese in Burma during the war. The division was formed in February 1943 and included troops from Kenya, Uganda and Malawi. In 1945, it played an important role in the Battles of Meiktila and Mandalay in Burma, in which most of Japanese forces in Burma were destroyed, and the capital was recaptured by the allied forces.

The 11th East African Division on the road to Kalewa taking part in the advance against the Japanese Army in January 1945

During the Second World War of 1939-45, Britain relied heavily on copper production in Zambia and the industry expanded, although Africans remained unable to work in the well-paid jobs, which were reserved for Europeans.

But it was during this time that Zambians began to make their views heard more effectively. This was partly due to the appearance of new, able and educated leaders. One of these was Harry Nkumbula. He was brought up as a methodist and educated at the Native Training Institute at Kafue Methodist Mission from which he graduated in 1934. He then went on to teach in the Copper belt and this was where he began to get involved in politics. He was - along with most Zambians - very opposed to amalgamation of North and South Rhodesia and in the early 1940s he wrote a letter to Mutunde, a government newspaper produced for Northern Rhodesian Africans saying:

Page 48 - 49 -

Source A

We in Northern Rhodesia loathe the idea of amalgamating Northern Rhodesia with Southern Rhodesia...The policy of the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia is to make it a white man’s country.

A letter written by Nkumula in the early 1940s

But the letter was not published.

Question 1 Why do you think that Nkumbula’s letter was not published?

In 1942 Nkumbula founed the African Teachers’ Association of the Copperbelt which aimed to study the problems of African life and promote the advancement of Africans. It also tried to promote female education and criticised African parents for not punishing their children who played truant from school.

Nkumbula spoke at a range of events and impressed his audiences. Among them was Stewart Gore-Browne. Stewart Gore-Brown, who had been elected to the Legislative Council to represent African interests in 1938, tried to make improvements to life for Zambians. He said that his speeches proved that Africans should be given more political power.

The Strike of 1940

Gore-Browne was an enlightened setter. Not all whites shared his views. And events in 1940 were to worry many in the white community. Again, it was the copperbelt which was the stage for disturbances. Wages for Europeans had risen since the mid 1930s, but pay for Africans had not changed. They continued to suffer physical and verbal abuse. Tensions among African mineworkers increased when white miners went on strike and secured a 5% increase in their pay but this was not known by Africans for a while.

During this strike by white workers a scuffle broke out at a grain store. An African wife of an African mineworker argued with the black store owner who then assaulted her. The woman was taken to the white compound manager to resolve the argument.

An eye witness then reported what happened next:

Source A

Now we saw that the feeding store worker was beating a woman and took her to the compound manager’s office. The worker made a statement to the European who listened to him, but the woman was never asked to make a statement, but she was merely being beaten without her statement and she was handcuffed. The husband came and

Page 49 - 50 - was instantly handcuffed, then the compound manager...started beating them with a sjambok (rhino whip) without reasons.

An eye witness’ account of the mistreatment of an Africa copper belt miner and his wife

The treatment of the woman and her husband outraged African mineworkers. In a later testament one said:

Source B

Now, before we go to work, a European must handcuff his wife and be beaten, both the European lady and her husband together.

Another eye witness’ account of the mistreatment of an Africa copper belt miner and his wife

Africans refused to return to work until the compound manager was punished. However, later disturbances escalated when African workers found out about the pay increase given to white miners [and went on strike]. Tensions were great and Stewart Browne tried to mediate between the two sides, but this failed.

Source C

A few of the speakers were reasonable, but were howled down. The crowd were not violent, but they were certainly not polite,and it would surprise people who only know the obsequious government employee or house-boy to see what a tough crowd of Bantu, fired by long-standing grievance, can really be like

Stewart Gore-Browne’s report of the meeting

Question 2 What ‘long standing grievance’ did African mineworkers suffer?

Question 3 What can we learn about the contact most Europeans had with Africans from what Gore-Browne says?

Rioting then broke out and 13 rioters were killed and 69 were wounded

Page 50 - 51 -

Source A

The place was just a shambles-bandaged and wounded soldiers, broken glass everywhere, shattered doors and windows, huge stones lying about everywhere, white-faced Europeans, and stolid African soldiers standing and sitting about with their rifles in their hands, cartridge cases everywhere, and blood-outside the barbed wire a sullen, angry mob, cursing, cursing, cursing and shaking their fists.

An extract from a letter from Stewart Gore-Brown to Ethel Locke-King on 30th April, 1940. Gore-Brown had tried to prevent troops from being used to contain riots. Locke-King was Gore-Brown’s aunt.

Question 4 How reliable is source A to historians studying rioting during the 1940s?

The Colonial Secretary set up an independent commission to look into the rioting which recommended a modest pay increase for African workers, free essential work clothes, the same overtime pay as white workers and an improved diet. This time strike action worked.

Page 51 - 52 -

Chapter 16 British Colonial Rule After World War II

Stewart Gore-Browne realised that more needed to be done to give Africans a political voice. He called for reforms and some small steps forward took place in this period. Urban AfricanCourts were established which helped to modify tribal law and shape it for town life. African Advisory Councils were also set up, which gave Africans an opportunity to advice the government. Towns elected representatives for these councils; villages appointed representatives.

Stewart Gore-Brown learned to speak Bemba, so was able to communicate with Zambians in the North, and often spoke to the African Welfare Societies. He encouraged the growth of the nationalist movement and fought against the oppression of Zambians.

Improvements for Zambians

Educational opportunities for Zambians were also improved; primary education was made compulsory and new government schools were set up. One of these schools was Munali Secondary School, in Lusaka, which was attended by Kenneth Kaunda, who went on to become Zambia’s first President, and 11 of his Cabinet Ministers.

Radio also developed in the immediate post World War II period with national broadcasts starting in 1948. The studios were no more than a single room at Lusaka airport, but programmes were listened to by many Zambians who grouped around loudspeakers hung on trees and poles by district commissioners, missionaries and mining companies. These programmes were put together by Northern Rhodesia’s first Information Officer - Kenneth Bradby. Bradby’s successor - Harry Franklin - went further and proposed a radio station that broadcast exclusively to Africans. His idea was backed by the British government who provided aid and its area of broadcast included Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland (already suggesting that the British government saw these three countries as being linked in some form of federation.

The real innovation came in the creation of cheap radios that Africans could buy and so listen to programmes at home. These cheap sets were known as the ‘saucepan radio’ as its shape resembled a saucepan. Sold at minimal profit to the manufacturer, these radio sets [were the basis for a mass African audience]

[In the immediate post war period, more roads were built in Zambia as the map overleaf shows.]

Page 52 - 53 -

A map showing the roads and the railway line – built during the post World War One period

Source A

The Territory is fortunate in the natural attractions which it offers to the tourist: two of the world’s great waterfalls and numerous smaller falls; two large and beautiful lakes; vast quantities of big game; a number of rivers teeming with game fish; mighty gorges and rugged hill scenery; the Empire’s richest copper mines, hemmed in by miles of virgin bush and fascinating native tribal life.

Wording used on the map above, printed around 1950

Question 1 With reference to source A who can we infer was going to use this road map of Zambia?

Page 53 - 54 -

Question 2 What can we learn about Zambia’s economic development from Source A

The Colonial Officials in Zambia after World War II

Audio drama 3 Robin Short on life as a District Officer

Audio drama 4 Veronica Short on life as a District Officer’s wife

Page 54 - 55 -

Chapter 17 Final Steps to Independence

Few Zambians would have thought that within twenty years of the end of World War II Zambia would have secured independence. But that is what happened.

There were signs of a growing nationalist feeling among Zambians. Protests against poor wages and conditions were beginning to broaden into calls for more political power. But it would take more than this for Zambia to become independent. Arranged against them were many Europeans who were determined to keep as much power as possible. In between these two groups was the British government and its Colonial Office. And here is where one of the big changes took place.

During World War II Winston Churchill was Britain’s Prime Minister. He had proved a brilliant leader who was prepared to stand up against Hitler and who had been central to Hitler’s defeat. He was the leader of the Conservative Party - a right wing group. But, in the general election that followed the war, Churchill was not re-elected. Instead the Labour Party formed a new government. And this Labour Party was determined to create a new society in Britain.

Many African nationalists - not only from Zambia - went to Britain in this post- war period. Nkumbula, with the support of Gore-Browne, went to the Colonial Department of the University of London’s Institute of Education where gained a British teaching qualification. He then moved on to the London School of Economics where he started to read a degree, but got drawn into wider debates about the future of British colonies and failed his exams.

Nkumbula worked with Hastings Banda from Malawi when he was in Great Britain and they wrote pamplets and letters opposed to the idea of an amalgamation of Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia. Both Nkumbula and Banda believed that any move to amalgamation - or ‘federation’ as it became increasingly called by Europeans - would be a first step towards granting Dominion status to European settlers there and Dominion status had proved disastrous for indigenous peoples in Australian and South Africa.

Source A

We are told that we cannot be given universal or adult suffrage because most of our people are primitive and ignorant. We reject the notion...that because of the supposed backwardness and ignorance of our people, any group of self-appointed aristocrats...has any right to deny us a voice in the affairs of the county we call our own and our home.

A pamphlet written by Banda and Nkumbula in the late 1940s

Page 55 - 56 -

Source B

If we have this Federation, tomorrow we shall have a Dominion in Central Africa. What will then happen to all these safeguards? We are quite aware of what happens to these safeguards which the British Government gives to the Colonial peoples, they are never honoured, they have been violated...how much more when you have gone to Dominion status

Nkumula speaking in 1951

Question 1 How similar are sources A and B in their attitudes to the British government?

The debates about the British Empire split opinion in Britain. On the one hand were the Conservatives who wanted to hold on to the Empire in some form. On the other was the Labour Party which wanted to give local people far more say in the running of their countries.] India secured its independence from Britain in 1948 and this encouraged African colonies to call for independence. Foremost among these was the Gold Coast (now Ghana).

More specifically, the debate about a Central African Federation also split the two main political parties in Britain. Initially the Labour Party had liked the idea as it would prevent Southern Rhodesia being sucked into South Africa, which was then under the horrific apartheid regime. But the Labour Party were insistent that if a Federation was established, Africans had to have real power within it. As time went on, the Labour Party increasingly moved away from the idea of Federation as they were suspicious of the motives of whites

In contrast the Tories were less worried about the Africans’ position. Many Tory party politicians genuinely believed that Europeans would look after the interests of Africans.

Nationalist feeling began to sweep through educated Africans at this time and also spread to the semi-skilled workers. Villages began to share these feelings when mineworkers returned from the copperbelt, many of whom had been involved in or were very aware of the 1935 and 1940 strikes.

In 1947, the British Labour Party sent out a trades unionist - William Comrie - to help Africans for their own unions. Unions were quickly formed as a result of this throughout the Copper belt and they were amalgamated into the Northern Rhodesian African Mineworkers Union. Other African unions were formed for roads and railway workers. The Northern Rhodesia government recognised these unions by law [in stark contrast to Southern Rhodesia and South Africa were such unions were prohibited]. The success of the African union movement was evident in 1952 when 37,000 mineworkers went on strike for a pay increase. The strike lasted for three weeks and unlike similar events in 1935 and 1940, there were no disturbances and the strike was successful.

Page 56 - 57 -

In 1948 the British government made a change to the way Northern Rhodesia was ruled. Two African members were elected by the African Regional Councils and took up seats on the Legislative.

Though these reforms were steps in the right direction, Zambia was still very much ruled by whites. The feeling of injustice was growing and was made clear by Nkumbula in a speech on Christmas Day 1951:

Source A

Therefore we must tell white speakers in our Protectorate and the British government that we cannot trust them anymore. We have been humiliated... There is now a rising tide of nationalism among our people. Our national spirit, now rife, is an upshot of our long suffering. There is no going back. We are a race and like any race on earth we love to rule ourselves. How shall we achieve a home rule? There must be economic and political reforms. We must have our own Parliament in which the Europeans and Indians will have reserved seats...We shall respect and protect the interests of the minorities in our nation.

Nkumbula speaking on 25 December 1951

Question 2 What is the purpose of Nkumbula’s speech in source A?

But the Labour government fell from office and in 1951 was replaced by a Tory government and this was to have a significant impact on the growing nationalist movement in Northern Rhodesia. It was under pressure to create a Central African Federation from many groups, especially the British South Africa Company and mining companies in the City of London. So, despite the protests of nationalists such as Nkumbula and Kaunda, [Nkumbula’s deputy in the Zambian National Congress.] the Central African Federation came into being in 1953.

But the CAF was welcomed by many Europeans in Zambia, chief among these was Roy Welensky:

Source A

My overriding desire then was to get the two Rhodesians together in a political association which would produce a government dynamic enough, and with proper constitutional authority, to harness the great, virtually untapped resources of Central Africa, and thereby advance the cause of all its people.

An account from Sir Roy Welensky’s autobiography about his life as prime minister of the Central African Federation written in 1964. The extract refers to his desire for the creation of the Central African Federation

Page 57 - 58 -

Question 3 How useful is source A to historians studying the reasons why some whites wanted Northern Rhodesia to become part of the Central African Federation?

The Central African Federation put North and South Rhodesia together with Nyasaland. This new block of countries now had a combined government with overall control of the economy and the armed forces. Britain remained in charge and appointed Lord Llewellin as the first Governor General of the Central African Federation and Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia was to be the capital. The Southern Rhodesian leader, Geoffrey Huggins, formed a temporary government with Roy Welensky from Northern Rhodesia and together they formed the Federal Party which took control of the Federation.

Each individual country - North Rhodesia, South Rhodesia and Nyasaland - retained its own government. So, Northern Rhodesia still had a government that worked out of Lusaka, but now it had fewer powers than before. These individual governments retained control over the police and [what the Central African Federation’s constitution referred to as ‘African administration].

The Federal Assembly had 59 members, 44 of which were elected members of any race [but in practice they were whites][whose job it was to discuss all issues] and there were 15 members (12 Africans and three Europeans) elected just to discuss African issues. Voting rights for the new Federation were incredibly complex and varied from country to country. IN Northern Rhodesia the electorate was divided between ‘general voters’ and ‘special voters’. To qualify as a general voter people had to be over 21 and had an educational or property qualification. In practice these were richer people almost all of whom were white who had two votes - one for a member of any race (and they voted, of course, for whites) and one for an African member. Special voters had to have an annual income of £150 and have the same literary skills as general voters (or a slightly lower annual income and have been in secondary education for at least two years. Special voters had just one vote for an African member.

So, in Northern Rhodesia the electorate remained largely white as very few Africans met the educational or property qualification to vote (indeed, in 1957 only 11 Africans were able to vote). It seemed, therefore, as if the CAF embodied all that Zambian nationalists had feared and its constitution appeared to rule out any chances of black majority rule. Welensky was pleased that Northern Rhodesia was breaking free from colonial control. He looked to Southern Rhodesia which had largely governed itself since 1923 and believed that it had gone from strength to strength, while he believed under colonial control Northern Rhodesia “had been stagnant and desperately poor”.

Beliefs such as these worried Zambian nationalists who saw in Southern Rhodesia [repressive laws and strict restrictions on Africans]. They now feared that Northern Rhodesia would be heading the same way and they would suffer social and educational discrimination and lose their land rights.

Page 58 - 59 -

But nationalists did have a few glimmers of hope to cling on to. The CAF’s constitution, right at the outset, did say that its operations would be reviewed after seven years. Furthermore, before the CAF was set up there were a series of conferences to decide how it would function. Some Africans had been invited to these meetings, but at the last one in early 1953 no Africans attended it. They boycotted it in protest. The British Labour Party, uneasy at the lack of opportunities open to Africans, joined these protests. Zambian nationalists now had an important ally. In addition, Ghana - which had been ruled by the British and had been known by them as The Gold Coast - had achieved independence at this time mainly due to the inspirational leadership of the Ghanaian nationalist Joseph Nkrumah. Zambian nationalists hoped that their resistance to the CAF could lead to Zambia following Ghana to independence.

Video explanation 5 The CAF and the North Rhodesian Consitution - made simple

Nkumbula’s and Kaunda’s African Congress started to organise mass protests against the CAF, emulating Nkrumah’s protests used so successfully on the Gold Coast.

Source A

I have time and time again stated that the imposition of this scheme against the wishes of ... Africans will make life intolerable for whites in Central Africa.

Harry Nkumbula speaking in June 1952

Source B

Opponents of the Federation had attributed to us the worst and most crooked of motives and to African nationalists the noblest and purists

Roy Welensky [attribution to be added]

Source C

Europeans must be told we are no longer babies. We do not hate the colour of the man, but his conduct. We want the franchise now. What can we do against people with the mentality of Welensky.... As long as power rests with the whites it is a police state and no peace can prevail.

Kaunda speaking in 1953

Page 59 - 60 -

Source D

The Federal Government at Rhodesia House was using very intensive propaganda to hoodwink the British public into believing that the economic case they were giving wide publicity to, was advantageous to all inhabitants of the Federation. They painted us as extremists who had no regard for human values and whose sole interest was to gain political power so we could drive white people into the sea.

Kaunda writing about his visit to London in 1956

Question 4 How to Nkumbula and Kauda criticise a) Welensky? b) the British government?

Question 5 To what extent are Welensky’s opinions about opponents of the Federation accurate?

Question 6 How far do sources A, B, C and D agree on opinions about the pro and anti-Federation supporters?

Question 7 Which source out of A, B and C do you think carries the most weight to historians studying views of those who were for and against Federation?

The Anti-CAF Campaign

The ANC organised a series of protests quite unlike anything seen outside the Copperbelt. The campaign targeted the colour bars in shops, restaurants and hotels. This [informal] bar meant that many restaurants and shops run by whites were restricted to white only customers; these shops had separate counters for black Africans, often through hatches in the side of walls. The first wave of boycotts in 1952 targeted butchers shops and there were actions in Lusaka, Broken Hill and in the Copperbelt towns. Picket lines were set up and most of the boycotts were successful. The ANC also tried to close down the municipally-run beer hall in Lusaka.

In response in January 1955 Nkumbula and Kaunda were both imprisoned for two months with hard labour on a trumped up charge of having prohibited publications in their possession from the British Communist Party.

In turn, both Nkumbula’s and Kanuda’s tone change:

Source A

A social life among them is so luxurious that they are rapidly becoming enfeebled by it. The live in gorgeous and lofty houses and bungalows.

Page 60 - 61 -

In their houses they don’t even know how to make a cup of tea. All...they do is to sit in soft chairs and shout: ‘Boy. Tea!’

Harry Nkumbula speaking in 1955

A second wave of protests took place in 1956, targeting colour bars in stores and was especially effective in Broken Hill.

Source B

There was a trader at Kasama in North East Rhodesia , who had a chain of stores throughout the district. We received numerous complaints about his treatment of African customers. They were ... bullied, ill- treated and insulted. He was said, on one occasion, to have caused the death of an African. Congress instituted a boycott which was so effective that, after enduring it for some months, the trader sold out... Our Congress organiser, Makasa, however, went to jail for 18 months for organising this boycott

Kaunda in Zambia Shall be Free published in 1962

Question 8 How far do sources A and B agree about the actions of the Zambian nationalists?

[A further attempt to close down the Lusaka beer hall took place later and this turned violent] and was only ended when Nkumbula flew back from meetings in London with the Colonial Secretary to calm the situation.

Reforming the Northern Rhodesian Constitution and the Split between Zambian Nationalists

As well as bringing in the CAF the British government also tied to reform the Northern Rhodesian constitution. The proposed that the Legislative Council in Northern Rhodesia was elected as a result of two electoral rolls. Of the 22 members of the Legislative Council, most were Europeans, but Africans could be elected. Two seats were reserved for Africans living in mainly European areas (as, indeed, two seats were reserved for Europeans living in mainly African areas). Africans could stand for election for other seats, but they had to secure the support of two thirds of the chiefs in the area. Many Europeans in Northern Rhodesia felt that this went too far, whereas many Africans felt that it did not go far enough.

Both Nkumbula and Kaunda wanted to change the proposed constitution, but they differed in their tactics. Nkumbula, taking a pragmatic view, wanted to fight elections to the new Northern Rhodesian Legislative Council. Kaunda did not want to do this. He wanted to boycott the election. Kaunda and Nkumbula could not agree on what to do and so they went their own way. Nkumula continued to lead the Zambian African National Congress, but Kaunda formed a new party called the Zambian National Congress.

Page 61 - 62 -

Kaunda’s party was banned and in 1959 he was arrested. Nkumbula remained free, but this proved to be a disadvantage as when he was released, Kaunda was seen as a hero and attracted more and more support. Soon Kaunda became the focus of the Zambian nationalist movement rather than Nkumbula. Kaunda also adopted the slogan ‘kwaca’ or ‘dawn’ - a slogan that had been used extensively by Malawian nationalists as a rallying cry.

The split between Nkumbula and Kaunda widened. Kaunda renamed his party the United National Independence Party (or UNIP) and there were clashes with Nkumbula’s ANC.

Source A

UNIP are creating absolute hatred with their fellow Africans. The are committed in a way to violence of all kinds while we are committed to non-violence. Our people are attacked every now and again and are seriously beaten while we...do not make any tit for tat

An ANC member in Lusaka [speaking] in 1960

Source B

We all know and appreciated how much Mr Nkumbula had done ever since he took over from Mr Mbikusita [a previous leader of the ANC]. But I take the view that it would have been national suicide politically to have allowed Mr Nkumbula to continue to guide the nation the way he was.

Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia Shall be Free published in 1962

Question 9 How useful are sources A and B to historians studying the division of the Zambian nationalist movement in the later 1950s?

Nkumbula said that UNIP believed in a totalitarian form of government whereas he believed in private enterprise. In response, Kaunda said “Mr Nkumbula began to brand anyone who opposed anything he wanted as either a communist or a sell out”. But, critically, the British Labour Party backed UNIP.

Question 10 Why did the Zambian nationalist movement split into two groups?

Video explanation 6 The fall out between Nkumbula and Kaunda - who was to blame?

Page 62 - 63 -

The Royal Commission into the CAF

Partly to assuage the Zambian nationalists and partly to respond to criticism at home in Britain, the British government set up a Royal Commission to look into the future of the CAF in 1959. Lord Monckton was appointed its chairman.

Alongside this, in 1960 the Conservative Party in Britain which had been in power for much of the 1950s, began to change its policy towards Africa. The British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, signalled a new view of empire in his famous ‘winds of change’ speech which he made at Accra in recently- independent Ghana.

Source A

The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaking in 1960

Question 11 What can we learn about the British govenment’s attitudes to African nationalist movements at the start of the 1960s?

Essentially, Macmillan was suggesting that many British colonies could become independent of Britain.

Shortly after making this speech, Macmillan visited Northern Rhodesia where he met John Roberts who had taken over as leader of the country when Welensky moved to head up the CAF. Macmillan also met Nkumbula and Kaunda.

Monckton’s Royal Commission report appeared in October 1960 and it suggested that the CAF’s Assembly should be equally divided between African and European representatives. The report also said that African voting rights should be widened and any form of colour discrimination made illegal.

Northern Rhodesia Under Pressure

While Kaunda and Nkumbula argued, the Northern Rhodesian constitution remained unchanged. This lack of progress led to an increased frustration among Africans and in the period July to September 1960 schools and hospitals were burnt and there were skirmishes with the police. By February 1961 tensions were great.

Source A

Over the previous months, the Europeans of Northern Rhodesia, encouraged by Welensky and his Northern Rhodesian leader, John

Page 63 - 64 -

Roberts, have been behaving in a manner likely to cause tension and crisis. Troops had openly carried arms in the streets. The gun shops in the Copperbelt were doing a roaring trade in firearms to the European population.

Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia Shall be Free published in 1962

Question 12 What can you learn from Source A about the actions of Welensky and Roberts?

Source B

..over twenty of the most fanatical thugs were shot dead by the security forces.

A British colonial district officer in his account of life in Zambia referring to the troubles in 1961

Source C

It was more a war of nerves, to try to convince the government, and the outer world, that the Party [UNIP] enjoyed the massive support of the bulk of the people... At no time, despite the election figures, did it do so. The mass of the people remained neutral as they usually do.

The same district officer as in source B above

Question 13 How far do sources A, B and C agree on the situation in Northern Rhodesia in the early 1960s?

The Final Steps to Independence

With the Monckton Report suggesting major changes to the CAF, Kaunda seized the opportunity to call for further reform of the Northern Rhodesian constitution. Much to Welensky’s disgust, this was achieved in 1962 through an incredibly complex voting arrangement based on ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ electoral rolls, which gave far more power to African voters. Welensky called it a ‘sell out’.

Elections to this new [Legislative Council] were held in [October 1962] and the results were as follows:

UNIP 60,000 votes 12 lower roll seats ANC 17,000 votes 3 lower roll seats UFP* 21,000 votes 13 upper roll seats

*the whites-only United Federal Party

Page 64 - 65 -

Despite their differences, Kaunda persuaded Nkumbula to form a coalition government and Kaunda became the first Prime Minister under the new constitution.

With the seccession of Malawi and Northern Rhodesia, the CAF was no more and it came to an end in 1963. A new order now existed in central Africa. Kaunda led a new government in Northern Rhodesia and Dr Hastings Banda led a new government in Malawi. But the picture was very different in Southern Rhodesia which continued to be ruled by a white minority government.

Independence

A new constitution for Zambia was set up in 1963 which provided universal adult suffrage. The constitution also included Bills of Rights.

Audio clip 2 on the Northern Rhodesian constitution DD04291062 and Richard Hornby’s comments on the new constitution in May 1964

The following year Britain granted Northern Rhodesia succession from the British Empire and a ceremony was held in 1964 to mark, formally, the end of British rule. Zambia had become an independent country ruled by Africans.

Audio clip 3 LP29029/1LP0194563 of the independence ceremony

On 24 October 1964, the Republic of Zambia was declared. In the election in January 1964, UNIP won 55 seats to the ANC’s 10 seats. Kaunda, as the leader of the UNIP, therefore became Zambia’s first President.

Chapter 17 Assessments of Kaunda and Nkumbula

Harry Nkumbula - a Biography

Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula was born in Maala in the Namwala district of Zambia’s southern province, in January, 1916.

Page 65 - 66 -

He was educated at a Methodist missionary school and went on to teach at schools in the Namwala district. In 1938 Nkumbula joined the Northern Rhodesian governments teaching service and later worked in Kitwe and Mufulira on the Copperbelt. During World War II he became involved in African nationalist politics and held the position of Secretary of the Mufulira Welfare Association and co- founded the Kitwe African Society. In 1946 Nkumbula went to Kampalas Makerere University College in Uganda. This was made possible by the support of Sir Stewart Gore-Browne a pro- Black British settler politician. From Makerere, Nkumbula went on to study at the Institute of Education, University of London, in England. In 1950, Nkumbala returned to Zambia and was elected president of the Northern Rhodesian African Congress in 1951. The party was soon renamed the African National Congress (ANC). Nkumbala was a fierce opponent of the Central African Federation, and was involved in the organisation of strikes and boycotts. This led to his imprisonment with Kenneth Kaunda in 1955 for two months. After his release, he continued to campaign against the Federation, but his methods became increasingly moderate. Nkumbala died on 8 October 1983. His son, Baldwin Nkumbula was also a politician, and was widely tipped to become the next president of Zambia until he was killed tragically in a road accident.

Kenneth Kaunda – A Biography

Kenneth Kaunda was born on April 28, 1924 at Lubwa in Northern Zambia. He was educated at Lubwa Mission School and Munali Secondary School in Lusaka, and became the Headmaster of a school in Chinsali in 1947. In 1948, he became welfare officer for Chingola Copper Mine and began his political career as the Secretary of the Lubwa Branch of the Northern Rhodesia African Congress (NRAC). In 1949, Kaunda began a bicycle tour of Zambia with guitar, singing freedom songs. His unique political efforts resulted in the establishment of 116 branches of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1953, the ANC elected him Secretary General of the party.

Page 66 - 67 -

Kaunda formed the Zambia African National Congress (ZANC) in 1958, which changed its name to the United National Independence Party in 1960. When Zambia’s first black government was formed in 1962, Kaunda became Minister of Local Government and Social Welfare. In 1964, Kaunda became President of Zambia, a post which he held until 31st October 1991.

Audio clip 4 from the BBC Radio programme The Future Guardians on Kaunda and Nkumbula

Chapter 18 Some Wider Thoughts

The story of ivory and poaching

The David Livingstone story - how views about Livingstone changed over time

A summary of the causes of World War

How did British Colonial Rule compare with German Colonial Rule? German Rule of Tanzania and Namibia before 1914

A different route to independence - how Ghana became the first African country to break away from British rule

The Role of Trade Unions

In the period 1945-50, trade unions expanded rapidly; by 1949, half of African mine workers in Northern Zambia belonged to trade unions. In 1949 the African Mineworkers’ Union (AMU) was formed by leading figures in the trade union movement, including Lawrence Katilunga. Lawrence Katilunga became leader of the AMU.

In 1952, the AMU organised a general strike, which lasted three weeks. The strike was largely peaceful, which was due to the mature and determined leadership of African mineworkers, including Robinson Chisanga Puta Chekwe, who played an important role in organising the event. As a result of the strike the wages of Zambian mineworkers were increased. A law was also passed which gave African unions the same bargaining rights as those of white workers.

The African Welfare Societies continued to grow; Kenneth Kaunda, who later became the first President or Zambia, worked as an assistant at the Welfare Society in Mufulira from 1948. In the same year the Northern Rhodesia African Congress (NRAC) was formed by the societies, and some of its members sat on the African Representative Council, and were able to advise the government on how towns should be run. Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika, the son Lewanika, was elected the first President of the NRAC.

Page 67 - 68 -

The NRAC was initially moderate. It proposed minor reforms and attempted to establish good relations with the government and European settlers. However, it won little support and represented educated, wealthy Zambians rather than the masses.

Page 68