Arrived at Lealui on Behalf of Cecil Rhodes
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CHAPTER 3 THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA POLICE IN NORTH-WESTERN RHODESIA In March 1890 Frank Elliott Lochner(1) arrived at Lealui on behalf of Cecil Rhodes. Fearful of the advance from the North-East of Arab slavers and their allies, the ambitions of the King of the Belgians to the North, the Portuguese from Angola to the West and Mozambique to the East, the Germans from the South-West and of invasion by Matabele impis from the South, Lewanika was anxious to obtain the protection of the British Crown. His fears were not groundless. In February 1890 a force of Portuguese troops under Captain Conceiro had been despatched from Angola to Barotseland but was defeated by the Bihe while en route. In 1893 6,000 Matabele were on their way to Lealui when recalled by Lobengula to fight the Rhodesian settlers. After negotiations and despite opposition from some of his indunas, Lewanika agreed to the 'Lochner Concession' on 24 May 1890, Queen Victoria's birthday. Inter alia Lewanika conceded mining and commercial rights to the British South Africa Company in return for £2,000 per annum, and agreed to welcome a British Resident at his capital, and to suppress witchcraft and slavery. Most menial work in Barotseland was performed by slaves. Rhodes tried to persuade Lewanika's friend and counsellor, Francis Coillard of the Paris Missionary Society, to accept the post of Resident. Coillard declined although he remained well disposed towards the Chartered Company. Harry Johnston was also approached but wa pre-occupied with Nyasaland. The post was offered to one of Rhodes' young disciples, Hubert Hervey, but he was mortally wounded in the Matabele Rebellion of 1896.(2) Lewanika became much concerned at the failure to supply even the token of a resident as evidence of British protection, but the Chartered Company was too pre-occupied with problems south of the Zambezi to give much attention to the requirements of the Litunga of Barotseland. However, in October 1896, Major H Goold-Adams of the Bechuanaland Border Police(3), arrived at Lealui to survey the Western Boundary of Barotseland and finally, in April 1897 Major Robert Thorne Coryndon was appointed Resident Commissioner in Barotseland. Coryndon was given a judicial warrant under the African Order in Council of 1889. In September 1897 Coryndon arrived at Kazungula, accompanied by Frank Worthington, as Secretary, and an escort of the British South Africa Police, consisting of Sergeant Dobson, Corporal Macaulay and troopers Aitkens, Leake and Bird. On crossing the Zambezi the party was met by Lewanika's son, Letia who lived at Sesheke.(4) Escorted up the Zambezi by Letia, Coryndon arrived at Lealui on 20 October and the Protectorate of Barotseland was formally proclaimed. Coryndon, born at the Cape but educated at Cheltenham was twenty seven years of age. He had come to Rhodesia with the Pioneer Column in 1890 and on arrival at Salisbury (Harare) obtained employment in the office of the Surveyor General. He served in the Matabele War of 1893 and in the 1896 Rebellion. During the Jameson Raid inquiry Coryndon became Rhodes' private secretary. Impressed by the young man's skill as a diplomatist, Rhodes chose him as the first Resident in Barotseland. The future Sir Robert Coryndon KCMG remained as Resident Commissioner, except for absence on leave, until September 1900, when he became the first Administrator of North-Western Rhodesia. Frank Vigors Worthington was a former bank clerk who had left Johannesburg in April 1896 to joined the Matableland Relief Force as a trooper. He was an accounts officer at Bulawayo when appointed Coryndon's confidential secretary in May 1897. He remained as such until appointed District Commissioner, Batokaland, in April 1901. From 1904 until his retirement in 1914 Frank Worthington was Secretary for Native Affairs for North-Western Rhodesia and, from August 1911, Northern Rhodesia. James Dobson became the first postmaster in North-Western Rhodesia, a post which included acting as quartermaster for the nascent Barotse Native Police. F C Macaulay was to be a founder member of that force but transferred to the civil administration in October 1903, serving as a native commissioner until leaving in 1914 to join King Edward's Horse and meet his death in France. Ferdinand Aitkens, a veteran of the Riell Rebellion in Canada, had given up a commission in the Rhodesia Horse Volunteers to join Coryndon's party as a trooper. He became Coryndon's personal assistant and from 1900 until retiring through ill-health in 1907, was District Commissioner for Barotseland. Troopers Robert Henry Bird and Robert Leake were soon to be invalided back to Southern Rhodesia. Starting in April 1898 Sub-inspector A P L Cazalet BSAP(6) with an NCO and twelve troopers of theMatabeleland Division made a very extensive patrol north and south of the Zambezi to put a stop to reported dealing in firearms, cattle stealing etc by Europeans. In September Captain Gordon Vallancy Drury was sent up from Bulawayo with thirteen men for 'the purpose of establishing the authority of the Government'(7) and built a fort at Monze some miles from the present town of that name. The troopers patrolled on horseback over the Batoka Valley and the Ila country of the Kafue Flats. Later a post was established by Lieutenant Jameson at Kasungu at the head of the Kaleya Valley east of Mazabuka. Trooper A W Welch died at Fort Monze on 4January 1899. Of his comrades at Monze only troopers A R Ayres, W Beale and A B Timms are known.(8) According to the BSAP half yearly report of 30 September 1898 there were then eight members of the Force stationed with Robert Coryndon at Lealui. In April 1899 Captain John Carden led his 'F' Troop, about 20 strong, across the Zambezi at Walker's Drift or Sjoba's, nearly a hundred miles downstream from the Falls, to take over from Drury and his men. Capt. Drury went with a detachment to serve in the South African War and finished his police career as Acting Commissioner of the BSAP. We can identify most of Carden's men. His second-in-command was Lieutenant W P E Murray, like Drury a Jameson raider. The troop was accompanied by a medical officer, Surgeon Captain Lunan. Nevertheless three men joined Tpr Welch in the cemetery at Fort Monze. Corporal M G Hare died on 13 July 1899, Sergeant-Major Josiah Norris, another Jameson raider, died of fever on 1 December 1899 and Trooper A E Rice on 14 February 1900. Captain Carden had joined the BSAP as a trooper in 1890 and been commissioned in July 1892. He left the police shortly before the Matabele War in which he served as a scout and then a remount officer before rejoining the police as a captain. Capt. Carden, Sergeant-Major F A Hodson, Hospital-Sergeant H L Byas, Sergeant E J Toulson and Trooper H O Worringham were all to join the Barotse Native Police after resuming duty in Southern Rhodesia. Tprs Franklyn, Lucas and Martin remained with the Barotse Native Police after the rest of the troop retunred south in August 1900. Other members of 'F' Troop were Sgt Joseph Ford, Cpl Magnus Spence, Cpl Bootland and Tpr Peter Stopforth.(9) Cecil Rhodes, concerned for economy, was firmly of the view that the police force north of the Zambezi should be African. In a letter to Lord grey dated 8 February 1898 he had written of the suggestion for a white police force in North-Western Rhodesia: "Their day's work would be - eating three meat meals, lying on stretchers for the balance, reading Tit Bits and devoting their conversation to cursing the country and the Chartered Company". The British South Africa Company was, of course, a commercial concern. It had financed the occupation of Southern Rhoesia and the extension of its interest to the North, not merely to fulfil Rhodes' dreams, but to make a profit for its shareholders. White policewere expensive and Rhodes and Jameson had been concerned for some years to reduce expenditure by cutting the number of European police in Southern Rhodesia. When they did, trouble broke out, which caused even greater expense. The mineral resources of Southern Rhodesia had proved less than anticipated. Those north of the Zambezi were either not yet discovered or still untapped. In fact the administration of its territories was to be a drain on the Company's resource right up until it surrendered its responsibility for the government of Southern and Northern Rhodesia in 1924. The main duties of the police at Monze were to ensure the safety of European traders and prospectors, coming up from the South and to prevent tribal fighting. There waslittle unrest. Once Sankamonia, a Mashukulumbwe (Ila) chief, stole a bale of blankets from a Jewish trader, who complained at the Fort. A patrol went out to Sankamonia's village on the Kafue The chief was fined six head of cattle and some of his indunas (councillors) were detained for a month at Monze. On another occasion Chief Umgailla made an allegation against his rival, Mgala. A few troopers rode out and charged Mgala's village, scattering the inhabitants. The news reached Lewanika at Lealui. The Litunga complained that the police were attacking his friends. An official apology followed and Umgailla was compelled to surrender five cattle to his enemy. In his annual report for 1899, Coryndon wrote; "White police do not prove to be suitable for this territory. Under circumstances which necessitate frequent prolonged patrols at all seasons, and often on very limited or unsuitable rations, I have found them subject to a very large amount of general sickness and fever, and the difficulty of providing transport for white police, the expense of mounting them, and their natural inability to perform the duties required among natives quite unaccustomed to white men, have convinced me that it is becessary to police the territory with natives controlled efficiently by responsible white officers and instructors."(10) The Colonial Office, which did not have to pay for them, favoured leaving the BSAP in place, one official referring to the proposed Barotse Native Police as, "This dangerous force".(11) NOTES CHAPTER 3 (1) Frank Elliott LOCHNER Lt Salisbury Horse 1893.