Post on 30-Jan-2023
In Search of Green Pastures:
Labour Migration from ColonialMalawi,
1939-1960
Figure 1: Migrants on their way to an Ulere depot, visible in background, fromP. Scott, ‘Migrant Labour in Southern Rhodesia’, Geographical Review, Vol. 44,
No. 1, (January 1954).
1
Henry Mitchell
Pembroke College, Oxford
“...being a man, he said we can’t just stay here and wait – I need to look for greenpasture, for survival. My mother needs to eat, I need to eat, I need to dress – all
these things...”
Jimmy Banda speaking of his father Justin’s migration to Tanzania and Zambia from1939. 1
“We, the Malawians, are by nature and indication travellers. We like adventure...Welike to wander outside our country to see the world beyond our own borders – to
work, to study, to do other things...”
Dr Hastings Banda, May 1970. 2
Introduction
Male labour migration in many ways defined Malawi’s social and
economic history in the 20th Century.3 Following the emergence
1Thanks to Dr G J Deutsch, Dr A Gregory, Dr J McCracken, Dr B A’Hearn, J Wiebel and the Society of Malawi for their valuable guidance. Jimmy Banda interview, Blantyre, 16/08/12.2 Hastings Banda, quoted in Boeder, Malawians Abroad, The History of Emigration from Malawi to its Neighbours, 1890 to the Present, PhD Thesis, (Michigan, 1974), p.5.3 McCracken, A History of Malawi, 1859-1966, (London, 2012) is currently thedefinitive work on Malawian history. Groves, ‘Urban Migrants and ReligiousNetworks: Malawians in Colonial Salisbury, 1920 to1970’, Journal of SouthernAfrican Studies, Vol. 38, No. 3, (2012) provides a good insight into urban lifefor Malawian migrants. Migration is an important process, which continuesto define the country today: Anderson, ‘Informal Moves, Informal Markets:International migrants and traders from Mzimba District Malawi’, AfricanAffairs, (April 2006). Though Asian and European migrations were prevalentfrom 1939-1960 these are not addressed,
2
of mining in South Africa, an initial trickle of emigrants in
the 1890s had transformed into a torrent by the 1940s. In
1948, 40% of Malawi’s able-bodied men were estimated to be
abroad.4 During the Forties and Fifties the experience of
migration underwent remarkable change – with foreign
recruiting offices opening, mechanised transport coming under
wider usage, and wages abroad markedly increasing. Though the
population of Malawi has been remarkably fluid at least since
the inflow of the Ngoni and Yao peoples in the 19th century,
migration accelerated over the period, in the context of
industrialisation across Southern Africa, the intensification
of colonial development, the creation of the Federation of
Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the coming independence of Black
Africa. Whilst migrants consistently sought autonomy and self-
advancement, subjugation and exploitation were all too often
inescapable. Successes were juxtaposed against “a darker
reality of dispossession, social dislocation, disease and
death.”5 In just one example, after his fellow workers had been
beaten to death, one Malawian migrant stranded on a Transvaal
4 Annual Report of the Labour Department, for the Year ending 31st December1948, The Government Printer, (Zomba, 1949), p.4.5 Crush, Jeeves & Yudelman (eds.), South Africa’s Labor Empire. A History of Black Migrancy to the Gold Mines, (Boulder, 1991), p.3.
3
plantation exclaimed in a letter to his District Commissioner,
“we are lost, I weep as I write...Please, please answer me, I
lie at your feet, I clasp your legs.”6
Whilst the often harsh experiences of living and working
abroad in colonial Southern Africa have been well documented, 7
the narratives of Malawians leaving home, travelling by road,
rail or air, and achieving long term life goals - defining
themselves in terms of wealth, masculinity, social standing
and nationality - have not received enough attention. Though
the Nyasaland government appreciated that large numbers of
migrants did travel independently, often clandestinely and
without contracts, little has been written about what this
meant. Alongside and beyond the European economy, extensive
African networks, routes, services, relationships, hardships
and ambitions existed. Reappraising the existing literature on
Malawian emigration using records from the Nyasaland Labour
Department and the accounts of individual migrants retold by
6 Boeder, Malawians Abroad, p.175.7 Crush, & Jeeves (eds.), White Farms, Black Labour: The State and Agrarian Change in South Africa, 1910-1950, (Oxford, 1997), Lunn, Capital and Labour on the Rhodesian Railway System 1888-1947, (London, 1997), Katzenellenbogen, South Africa and Southern Mozambique: labour, railways and trade in the making of a relationship, (Manchester,1982), Harries, Work, Culture and Identity, Migrant Workers in Mozambique and South Africa, c.1860-1910, (London, 1994)
4
their descendants, this article focuses in particular on three
arguments. Firstly, that the pattern of emigration was complex
and highly differentiated across Malawi’s districts; secondly,
that Malawian emigrants often operated entirely beyond the
European colonial and commercial spheres, utilising African
networks, services and social practices; and finally, that the
implications of travelling, living and working abroad on the
development of a Malawian national consciousness were
inconsistent and unpredictable.
* * *
A phenomenon both larger and smaller than the nation
On the periphery of the Southern African regional economy,
Malawi was inevitably drawn into the area’s migrant labour
system – a network driven by the growing economic hubs of
South Africa and, to a lesser extent, the Rhodesias and the
Belgian Congo. Throughout the first half of the 20th century,
the successful development of the South African economy, and
later apartheid, was dependent upon the northward expansion of
5
its labour recruiting frontier and the resulting flow of cheap
labour from peripheral countries, as shown by Figure 2, which
kept wage costs artificially low. This encroaching collection
of recruiting bases and officials, spreading from Namibia,
Botswana and Mozambique up to Malawi was, however, also
reciprocated by a ‘ripple effect’ emanating from countries
such as Malawi caused by migrants themselves.8 Undercutting the
wages of local labourers in places such as Zimbabwe,
Zimbabweans as a consequence had to migrate to South Africa in
search of relatively well paid work, leading to multiple
layered dynamics across the region.
8Boeder, Malawians Abroad, p.56.
6
Figure 2: Major migration routes to South African gold mines, 1940-1970,adapted from F. Wilson, Labour in the South African Gold Mines, 1911-1969,
(Cambridge, 1972), p ix.
The increase in emigration was primarily driven by economics -
as the creation of jobs in manufacturing, mines, farms,
domestic services and construction caused the opportunities
available to migrants to change - and transportation
improvements, which made these opportunities more accessible.
7
From the 1930s, gold production in South Africa increased as
previously unviable seams became profitable – due to
devaluation and the development of anti-pneumonial drugs – and
major new gold reefs were discovered. This was matched by an
increase in production by a resurgent Zimbabwe, and the
expansion of copper mining in Zambia, as technological
advances made the extraction of copper sulphide deposits
feasible. Heightening demands for labour meant that already by
1935, migrants constituted “the central labour institution of
South Africa and, increasingly, the entire regional economy.”9
As shown by Figure 3, this labour was drawn from across the
region in substantial numbers. Unable to repress emigration,
states such as Malawi, Mozambique and Lesotho became the
originators of considerable migrant outflows each year,
reconstituting themselves as suppliers of cheap labour for the
continent. These peripheral colonial administrations looked to
manage and generate revenue from migration; charging
recruiting, licence and passport fees, and taxing workers in
South Africa and the commodities that migrants returned home
with.10 Throughout the Forties, Fifties and Sixties Malawians
9 Crush & Jeeves, ‘Introduction’, in Crush et al., White Farms, p.3.10 Katzenellenbogen, Labour, railways and trade.
8
were the third most populous group of workers in South Africa,
numbering over 60,000 - across the subcontinent, the number of
men abroad entered into the hundreds of thousands.
1936 1946 1951 1960 1970Angola 28 6,716 6,322 68 3,859Botswana 4,048 38,559 51,017 21,658 49,469Lesotho 163,838 199,327 219,065 73,639 157,499Malawi 17,657 61,005 63,655 23,608 110,777Mozambiqu 98,031 141,417 161,240 35,857 142,512Namibia 1,879 4,990 4,129 1,073 2,518Swaziland 31,092 33,738 42,914 17,836 29,167Tanzania 118 2,937 7,127 225 288Zambia 12,189 13,515 13,544 2,996 2,194Zimbabwe 2,167 32,034 32,697 11,805 13,392Other 2,730 22,569 4,282 857 4,369TOTAL 333,777 556,807 605,992 189,622 516,044Note: Figures include mineworkers except 1960.
Figure 3: Foreign born workers in South Africa, 1911-1985, from J. Crush, V.Williams & S. Perberdy, ‘Migration in Southern Africa’, p.3
9
Figure 4: Ulere and other labour routes into Southern Rhodesia, showingthe location of depots, camps, food and ferry stations, and mines in the
1950s, from P. Scott, ‘Migrant Labour’, p.35.
The development of transport networks across the subcontinent;
first railways and later roads providing inexpensive, quick,
long-distance mass transportation, similarly encouraged
greater emigration. Although rail networks did not necessarily
match employment centres, they acted as effective channels for
10
the majority of labour, whilst averting the desertion and the
exhaustion associated with long-distance walking.
Comparatively, Malawi was a peripheral state to the Southern
African regional economy, uniquely with a private rather than
government owned railway. High ticket prices meant that even
in 1935, 90% of its migrants to South Africa left on foot.11
From the 1930s, road transport became increasingly commercial
and viable, offering a relatively inexpensive door-to-door
service, initially complementing and later succeeding rail
usage. As shown by Figure 4 throughout Zimbabwe, Malawi,
Zambia and Mozambique migrants were conveyed along extensive
road, river and rail networks during the 1950s. One such
service, Ulere buses, were provided free of charge by the
colonial government of Zimbabwe - an attempt to attract cheap
labour. Modernisation reached its peak when the Witwaterstand
Native Labour Association (WNLA) chartered a 30-seater
aircraft to fly migrants from Lilongwe to Lusaka in 1951.12
11 Pirie, ‘Railways and Labour Migration to the Rand Mines: Constraints andSignificance’, Journal of Southern African Studies, (1993), p.726.12 Ibid, p.727.
11
Figure 5: Blantyre Railway Station – migrant workers journeying to Zimbabwe,from J.G. Pike & G.T. Rummington, Malawi, a Geographical Study, (Oxford,
1965).The changes to the regional labour market that colonial
governments tried to instigate however were in comparison
often superficial. At a regional level the labour market was
both chaotic and competitive, with numerous supra-national
recruiting bodies such as the WNLA, the Native Recruitment
Corporation (NRC), and the Rhodesian Native Labour Supply
Commission (RNLSC). The NRC and WNLA in particular were able
to exert considerable influence over regional colonial
politics, but at best, government passes were attempts to
12
monitor rather than control political boundaries. Clandestine
migration was particularly prolific with respect to South
Africa, migrants entering either via Mozambique where
Malawians, on payment, could become Portuguese citizens, or
through Zimbabwe often exploiting Ulere buses to travel south
and then crossing the border into the Rand. There they could
obtain South African papers upon payment to a chief. Often
circumvented by migrants, lack of control also led to
exploitation. Thieves, labour touts and ‘black birding’ South
African employers were prolific along borderland southern
migration routes, recruiting or capturing migrants who were
much sought after on the Western Transvaal farms and un-
federated mines.13 Lawlessness characterised these regions for
decades; illegal recruiting was described in 1947 by the South
African Director of Native Labour as “a selling and buying of
human bodies.”14
The dynamics of Malawians’ cross-border movements were far
from simple. One migrant, Justin Banda, whose multi-staged
migratory experience was retold by his son Jimmy, left
13 Boeder, Malawians Abroad, p.156.14 Crush & Jeeves, ‘Introduction’, in Crush & Jeeves (eds.), White Farms, p.23.
13
Blantyre heading to Nkata Bay with his mother following the
breakdown of her marriage in the 1930s.15 He subsequently left
in 1939, via Mbeya, to Dar Es Salam with 4 other men, where he
worked on a cassava plantation, before travelling to Zambia in
1940, where he worked in the mines of Kitwe, and the clothes
factories of Lusaka. At the same time, the Gunde family, from
Dedza, undertook multiple migrations – the father initially
leaving Malawi in 1939 to Zimbabwe, before returning to
collect his family in the 1940s.16 Whilst some sons established
themselves locally as Zimbabweans, the rest of the family
returned back to Malawi during the 1950s. Further, at the
same time as Malawi supplied vast amounts of labour to the
mines and farms of Zimbabwe and South Africa, it also
experienced considerable inflows of migrants from Mozambique.
Similarly, internal migration within the country was prolific
– during the 1950s thousands of short term workers travelled
by rail and lorry from the most congested districts of
Southern Province to tobacco and tea estates in Central
Province. This was reciprocated by a flow of thousands from
15 Jimmy Banda interview, Blantyre, 16/08/12.16 Francis Gunde interviews, Blantyre, 18/08/12 to 20/08/12.
14
marginal districts in Central Province to the tea estates of
Cholo.
Already by 1930, emigration was an established phenomenon as
the population was well aware “that the salary offered in his
own country was generally one half to one quarter of what he
would receive in a neighbouring territory.”17 The exodus
however markedly increased during the 1950s as competition for
labour grew across Southern Africa and the rural economies of
some Malawian districts deteriorated; WNLA recruitment rose
from 7,828 in 1951 to 25,960 in 1960. In 1949, whilst the
minimum wage in the Rand rose from £3-10s to £5 for a 30 day
ticket, plus free rations and quarters, comparatively the
minimum wages on the Cholo tea estates remained stuck around
15s. Overall the increase in emigration was broadly in line
with rapid population growth; migrants constituting 6.8% of
the population in 1937 and 6.2% in 1962 – but whilst migration
had always been prolific from the ‘Dead North’, by the 1950s
migration had become a state wide phenomenon, with the numbers
17 Bottomley, Under Secretary of State in the Colonial Office to the Treasury, 1930,quoted in Crosby, A History of Nyasaland,1895-1935: A Study in Colonial Economic Development, PhD Thesis, (Syracuese, 1974), p. 300.
15
leaving Southern Province markedly increasing, in part due to
population pressure.18
19281931193419371940194319461949195219551958196019631966
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
South AfricaZimbabweZambiaOther CountriesTotal
Figure 6: Official flow of migrants from Malawi to country of destination, per
annum, from the Annual Reports of the Labour Department, for the Years
ending 31st December 1939 to 31st December 1960, The Government Printers,
Zomba, Nyasaland.
Though in some respects limited, identification certificates
do offer a proxy-of-sort for the flow of migrants leaving
Malawi each year, as they had to be used within a 3 month
period. Whilst they do not offer an insight into the stock
18 McCracken, History of Malawi, p.200 & 257-259.
16
abroad, they do point to a changing dynamic in the destination
of migrants, as shown by Figure 6. As a destination, Zimbabwe
dominated until the mid-1950s, when the numbers of migrants
heading to the Colony began to decline sharply. This was
mirrored by the continued rise of South Africa, contending and
overtaking the exodus to Zimbabwe by the 1960s. Notably
official numbers heading to Zambia were also considerable,
comparable even to those migrating to South Africa in the mid-
1950s.
The pattern of migration was nevertheless also heavily
dependent upon locality, with districts displaying distinct
biases towards different countries of destination (Figures 7,
8 & 9). Whilst access to higher wages raised the earning
potential and independence of young men across the country,
the impact this had locally and over time varied considerably.
Though Northern Province before WWII harboured only 14% of the
population and produced 50% of all migrants, by 1945 this
percentage was reduced to 28%, and in 1966 the Province
accounted for only 17.6% of all emigrants.19
19 Vail, ‘Agricultural Economy’, pp 71-72.
17
Figure 7: Official numbers of migrants leaving each district to South Africa in(A) 1939, (B) 1957, (C) 1959, from the Annual Reports of the Labour Department,for the Years ending 31st December 1939, 31st December 1957 & 31st December
1959, The Government Printers, Zomba, Nyasaland.
18
Figure 8: Official numbers of migrants leaving each district to Zimbabwe in (A)1939, (B) 1957, (C) 1959, from the Annual Reports of the Labour Department, forthe Years ending 31st December 1939, 31st December 1957 & 31st December 1959
.
Figure 9: Official numbers of migrants leaving each district to Zambia in (A)1939, (B) 1957, (C) 1959, from the Annual Reports of the Labour Department, forthe Years ending 31st December 1939, 31st December 1957 & 31st December 1959.Unsurprisingly, migration to Zambia was focused in northern
districts, however notably Central Province was the
established origin of those heading to South Africa. The
increase in migration to Zimbabwe was rooted in the south of
Malawi, whilst numbers heading to the Colony from north tailed
off from 1939 to 1957. Though this data does not reflect the
length of time spent abroad, the proportion of males absent or
the number of Malawians abroad at any one time, it does show
that by the 1940s the number leaving each year was
19
considerably greater in the south. Although the colonial state
had a greater presence in this area, migrants from the south
consistently numbered in their thousands compared to the
hundreds which left from the north. Still, overall migration
from Northern Province if anything increased from 1939 to
1957, and only declined in the period from 1957 to 1960.
Despite emphasis on the ‘Dead North’ as one of the main
origins of migrant labour in the 1940s, migrants from the
south were consistently a larger group.
.
Figure 10: A Ulere bus. The sign reads "Southern Rhodesia government freefacilities for migrant labour”, from P. Scott, ‘Migrant Labour’, p. 39
20
Notably, the phenomenon of migration was more focused towards
certain destinations, rather than simply a mass exodus in
every direction. In 1960 migration from Fort Johnson went
almost entirely to Zimbabwe, whilst labour from neighbouring
Dedza predominantly went to South Africa. This bias in
destination was exhibited consistently by districts. Migrants
thus did not simply disperse from the country, but were
influenced by network effects – whether they were railway
lines, Ulere depots, or established social patterns of
migration.
Economic factors played a central role in the fluctuating rate
of the migration. The numbers of Malawians travelling annually
to both Zimbabwe and South Africa took off in the 1950s as
industrial expansion significantly increased the countries’
labour demands and wage levels. Though wage differentials do
offer some insight into the incentives to migrate, these must
be considered in the wider context of job availability and
living costs, the increased numbers migrating to Zimbabwe
point to expanded labour demand as the country industrialised
rather than simply wages increasing in given sectors of
21
employment. When this expansion curtailed in the second half
of the 1950s, as shown in Figure 11, this in turn meant that
new employment opportunities were limited. Notably, from 1957
to 1960 official migration as a whole to Zimbabwe markedly
decreased, and this originated principally from a reduction in
migrants from the Protectorate’s southern-most districts,
notably Ncheu and Chikwawa.
1945
1947
1949
1951
1953
1955
1957
1959
1961
1963
1965
1967
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
GDP growthNon-African Agri growthMining growthManufacturing growth
Figure 11: Growth of overall GDP and various sectors as components of GDPgrowth in Zimbabwe, from G Key, ‘The Distribution of the African Populationin
Southern Rhodesia: Some Preliminary Notes, The Rhodes-LivingstoniaCommunication, XXVIII, (1964), p.10.
Though Malawians were not dominant in the mining industry
which was the epicentre of the deceleration following a fall
in the price of copper, the resulting deterioration in the
22
Federation’s balance of payments initiated a government credit
squeeze to reduce imports. Much of the subsequent pressure
heavily dampened secondary industries, where Malawians
dominated the work force. Migrants returning to Malawi in 1958
complained of the lack of work.20 Rising unemployment led to
the restriction of ‘non-Federal Africans’ after 1957, but this
also noticeably affected flows within the Federation as well.
As noted in 1960
in May some 4,000 to 5,000 were out of work in Bulawayoalone...[causing] local authorities to request that theSouthern Rhodesian government should suspend the Uleretransport service. Due to unemployment problems MalawianAfricans found it more difficult to obtain work...21
Malawians remained numerous in Zimbabwe; in 1966 there were an
estimated 39,000 Malawians in Zimbabwe, compared to 69,000 in
South Africa.22 Nevertheless the data does show that the
numbers of migrants travelling annually out to Zimbabwe did
dramatically curtail in the late 1950s.
African politics may also be one of the main causes of decline
in migration to Zimbabwe in the second half of the 1950s. In
20 Annual Report, 1958, p. 12.21 Annual Report, 1960, p. 13.22 Correspondence with McCracken, 11/02/13.
23
the wake of the damning African opinion voiced in the 1956
report on working and living conditions at the Kariba Dam
construction site in Zambia, considerable political
campaigning took place attacking migration as one of the main
props of the hated Federation. Malawian inspectors made clear
their belief that permits should no longer be granted to the
RNLSC, noting that “the treatment meted out to recruited
labour at Kariba may be going on elsewhere, even to a worse
extent, and therefore recruiting should be stopped
immediately.”23 African activism seriously damaged the RNLSC’s
reputation, hurt by poor publicity it turned to Mozambique for
its labour supply.
The policies of the state were all too often impotent in
comparison. Official interest in the outflow of migrants from
Malawi markedly increased in the 1930s, clarifying the limited
expediency of established restrictive policies that aided
European planters who claimed that they suffered from chronic
labour shortages. After the Depression the sale of labour
23 Report by a Party of Nyasaland African Members of the Legislative Council and Chiefs on their visit to Kariba on 23rd July 1956, quoted in Boeder, ‘We won’t die for fourpence: Malawian Labour and the Kariba Dam’, Journal of Modern African Studies, (1977), p. 312.
24
abroad became increasingly attractive, especially in the
Northern Province whose tax revenues fell from £73,541 in 1931
to £51,747 in 1933.24 Following the 1935 Travers-Lacey Report
which found migration to be far more extensive than had been
previously thought, the newly founded Labour Department
published Annual Reports from 1939.
The official stock of Malawians abroad however has only ever
been given by figures which were biased by the conflicting
interests of various committees and self-confessedly
inaccurate. Comprised of a missionary looking to retain his
flock and planters looking to maintain a low wage economy, the
Travers-Lacey Committee actively exaggerated figures so as to
gain maximum public impact and limit emigrant quotas, stating
120,000 migrants were abroad and claiming “uncontrolled
migration brought misery and poverty to hundreds and thousands
of families...”25 J.A. Calder of the Colonial Office however
saw the Travers-Lacey Report as “sensational and
unbalanced...whether the Committee’s remedies are the right
24 Paton, Labour Export Policy in the development of Southern Africa, (London, 1995). p.200.25 Report of the Committee appointed by His Excellency the Governor to Enquire into Emigrant Labour, 1935, Nyasaland Protectorate, (Zomba, 1935), p.7.
25
ones is very doubtful.”26 Another report published within a few
months put the total number of migrants abroad at a more
conservative 90,087.27 In 1950, officials noted “full reliance
cannot be placed upon emigration figures since many leave the
Colony without reporting; either to avoid tax or to enter the
Union clandestinely.”28 Travelling across Tanzania and Zambia,
Justin Banda never had a pass as,
people were migrating from one country to anothercountry, but there was not too much of a governmentsystem. Because it seems people they did not know muchabout government...people were doing almost whateverthey wanted to do...documentation and other things forthem to travel was not very structured because theycould use any place to get where they wanted. There wasnothing – what brings government close to the people isnetworks – roads, big roads of tarmac and others...29
Even as European-run transport services and the colonial state
expanded, independent migrations were increasing. Government
officials complained that,
many thousands of Nyasaland natives accustomed to workabroad have established their own connections, and partlyto the known tenacity of the African in retaining hisfreedom even at the cost of some inconvenience tohimself.30
26 Calder, quoted in Boeder, Malawians Abroad, pp.142-143.27 Boeder, Malawians Abroad, p.138.28 Annual Report, 1949, p. 10.29 Banda interview.30 Annual Report, 1941, p. 9.
26
The numerous bilateral and multilateral labour treaties, such
as the 1937 Salisbury Agreement, were also often impotent;
although Zimbabwean immigration officers at Mwera did finger-
print and ask for names, villages and chiefs, despite
officially agreeing to only admit migrants with identification
certificates, they did not ask for passes and thus labourers
could give any name they wanted to.
Recruiting bases should also not be seen as central to these
migration patterns. The opening of WNLA recruitment bases in
Malawi the late 1930s did not have any impact on overall
migratory flows for at least a decade. Whilst an estimated
120,000 migrants left the country in 1936, this total had
risen to only 121,700 by1946.31 Similarly, despite the RNLSC
gaining permission to recruit across the entire Protectorate
in 1955 (having previously been restricted to the Northern
Province) it is after this date that migration to Zimbabwe
considerably declined, with a notable fall in the proportion
of able-bodied males migrating to the Colony from the Southern
Province Districts – in particular Port Herald. Whilst the
RNLSC recruitment quota was increased to 14,000 in 1957, it31 McCracken, History of Malawi, p.200.
27
recruited only 6,943 in 1957 and 8,647 in 1958. This was
mirrored by an increase in the proportion of able bodied males
leaving the Protectorate to South Africa from Mlanje, Cholo,
Blantyre, Ncheu and Fort Manning. Whilst WNLA was granted
larger recruiting quotas by the Nyasaland government
throughout this period, this was in reaction to extensive
recruitment year on year. Colonial labour policy must thus be
seen as reacting to the flow of migrants rather than imposing
influence on the magnitude and direction of flows.
* * *
Brotherhoods, Donkeys & Taboos
Networks may go a long way to explain the differences in
numbers emigrating from different districts, but they came in
a considerable variety of forms. European run recruitment
corporations, railways and Ulere buses were complemented by
African networks, services and social practices that often
went unnoticed. Migration really needs to be understood at the
level of the district or village to explain individualised
28
responses to the wider changes of the labour market. For
example George Bettison’s case study of 17 villages in
Blantyre District shows ethnic affiliation, a social network
of sorts, as being an important determinant in the propensity
to migrate (Ngoni constituting 42.6% of migrants, whilst only
33.9% of the total population)32 – bringing in wider
perspectives not encompassed by the aggregate level of
colonial records. Typically leaving after the planting season
in April or May, small groups of migrants defined by
‘traditional institutions’ – clans, joking relationships,
clientage and youth associations migrants - would travel in
‘brotherhoods’ often formed around masculine identity and the
provision of entrepreneurial services such as hair cutting,
bike repair, tailoring, herbal medicine and religious
practices. Pioneer groups were composed of like-minded
men – and by men it means physically fit men, no women.The first journey could be composed of men fromdifferent villages within or around Dedza. From whereyou are coming from it would be this village would betwo men; enough to take on this route.33
32 Bettison, ‘The Demographic Structures of Seventeen Villages in Peri-Urban Area of Blantyre-Limbe, Nyasaland’, The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, Lusaka,(1958), p.81.33 Gunde interview.
29
Social networks were thus an important impetus for migration,
with migrants talking to one another about their experiences
and desires. The transference of knowledge was crucial,
colonial officials commenting in 1937 that
the native usually returns home for a time and thencomes back again...Thus the returning labourer, insearch of work, knows where he is going or isadvised by his more experienced friends where tofind the best employers. The story is told of agang of Nyasaland natives who, when accosted on theroad by an unpopular employer, consulted a list –and walked on...34
Such information was essential for the Gunde family’s
multiple migrations; after the father “went to Zimbabwe in the
company of other determined men who were willing to take on
this journey…they would come back and take the villagers,
because they had a civil life in Zimbabwe they would say, OK I
go [back] home I take my cousin or my son so that he could
also find his fortune in Zimbabwe.”35
The make-up of migrant groups was consequently also
contextualised by the situation in which migrants found
themselves – initially “they travelled in well defined groups,
unlike the later times when they could come to greet the
34 Annual Report, 1937, pp. 20-21.35 Gunde interview.
30
family now that they knew the route.”36 As noted by a
contemporary reporter for Geographic Review, “in practice
migrants are not normally accompanied by their wives at first,
but if they find suitable employment and congenial housing
they often send for their wives later.”37 In 1957, 8,567 women
were issued with travel permits or accompanied their husbands
– though this compared to 74,346 men who were issued with
identification certificates that year.38 For many men whose
families remained rooted in Malawi, migration was not a one-
off undertaking, but endemic and cyclical; a result of
economic underdevelopment. As recounted by Jimmy Banda,
migrants
would not invest in something, because there was not alot of people who had money to buy in whatever theywould invest. So it was like; he goes outside, he worksfor two years, he brings the money – so maybe this moneywill take care of me for three years. So he buys enoughclothes for himself, he buys some social things, maybebicycle which he can use to ride…when they see OK mymoney is getting finished now they decide to go outside.That is why at that time, a lot of Malawians they usedto travel a lot, because the demands of things hereespecially where work was concerned, there was notenough work...39
36 Gunde interview.37 Scott, ‘Migrant Labour’, p.48.38 Annual Report, 1959, pp. 58-61.39 Banda interview.
31
With long-terms prospects limited, migration was a mechanism
allowing individuals and families to lead what they saw as
socially acceptable lives for a given period of time, with the
experience migration involving a diverse number of distances,
time spans and undertakings.
Survival mechanisms - social norms, taboos and practices -
were also crucial whilst on the road. Travelling through
Tanzania, Justin Banda had no need for money at all. As
recounted by his son “when they were hungry they would just
walk into someone’s field...They would just go there, get
food, eat, eat, eat, eat and leave...The owner would see -
those guys are hungry, they need to eat.”40 Whilst travelling,
rituals defined migrants’ experiences, with men singing and
carrying charms to protect themselves against witchcraft and
animals, which were then passed on to neighbours and younger
generations.
Wider ranging services and cultures also supported migrants -
as well as transmitting union traditions, anarchism,
syndicalism and religions, such as the millennial Malawi Watch40 Banda interview.
32
Tower doctrine, throughout the continent. Across Tanzania and
Zambia, hired donkeys for instance were important modes of
transport across Tanzania and Zambia; for those migrating in
the 1940s, “if you want transportation, you need to go on
donkeys...bicycles were made by Europeans they are very
expensive and very scarce. Donkeys were very common because
they were animals that could very easily be kept at that
time.”41 These donkey transport networks do not appear in
official sources, demonstrating just one of the numerous
aspects of migration that they do not encompass.
In Zimbabwe, extensive networks of African stores also made
migration feasible – colonial officials noted that even had
the Ulere service not been in place flows would have been
considerable. Reporting on the Mwera route in Zimbabwe,
officials noted that migrants
seem to prefer to camp out on their own if theycan. At Batsonnire 16 miles north of Mtoko there isa native store which sells food; 20 natives hadjust spent the night under the trees across theroad when I arrived there...Further on anenterprising Salisbury native named Adam has anative store and has built some huts in whichnatives may rest free of charge; he recompenses
41 Banda interview.
33
himself selling them cups of tea and other articlesfrom his store.42
Alongside these African owned services, Zimbabwe’s renowned
Ulere service was itself almost entirely be African-run, except
for two Europeans stationed in Barotseland.43
* * *
Implications for nationalism
Coming into contact with Africans from across the sub-
continent, migrants often coalesced with those from the same
country, defining themselves within national groups and aware
of their contrast to other nationalities. Employers, further,
typically grouped migrants with diverse ethnic backgrounds;
whether Cewa, Tongan or Yao, Malawian migrants were typically
labelled ‘Nyasas’ or ‘Nyasalanders’. Especially within the
prejudiced confines of the South African mines and urban
centres such as Salisbury, ideas of nationalism, trade
unionism and religion conversed and clashed, helping to define
42 Annual Report, 1937, p. 22.43 Scott, ‘Migrant Labour’.
34
newly emerging nations.44 The 1938 Blendisloe Commission found
that present and former Malawian migrants were already in
opposition to the possibility of the Federation and in support
of an embryo nation state. By 1957 half of the total
membership of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) lived in
the Rhodesias and South Africa; their financial support
crucial to its success.45
Personal identification however was varied and complex. Even
when migrants were aware of contrasts, this did not guarantee
that nationalistic identity developed; two sons in the Gunde
family became entirely estranged from Malawi;
they were more or less Zimbabweans because they hadmarried Zimbabweans. Now they are able to ownland....They were Malawians so to say because they - youknow when you are a foreigner - the sense of being theMalawian was there...[but] they farmed and lived assuccessful Zimbabweans and that is why they were notwilling to come back to Malawi.46
Language barriers could certainly have contributed to the
‘otherness’ of non-Malawian mine labourers; in one account in
the 1937 annual Labour Department report a
44 Groves, ‘Urban Migrants’, pp.505-507.45 McCracken, History of Malawi, pp.233 & 316.46 Gunde interview.
35
Nyasaland native entered a room full of Xhosanatives and asked for a beer. Some altercationensued in various languages only partiallyunderstood by the disputants, until a Xhosa nativecalled the Nyasaland native ‘Mkalanga’ – the nameof a somewhat inferior tribe in south-east Rhodesiaand regarded by the full-blooded Ngoni warrior fromNorth Nyasaland as an insult...the Nyasaland nativecalled his friends and besieged the Xhosa in theirroom throwing stones at the door and windows untiltheir Xhosa friends arrived and joined the fray.47
Yet nevertheless, divisions also occurred between Malawians -
along the lines of ethnic affiliation. In 1941 on the
Rustenburg Platinum mine, “750 Atonga...entered into conflict
with 930 natives of other Northern Tribes, including 700
natives of Nyasaland. The trouble arose over the alleged
misdeeds of a Nyasaland overseer who was of non-Tonga
stock...the Atonga threatened to strike unless the overseer
was removed and replaced by a member of their own tribe...”48
Further many were ambivalent to a sense of national identity;
officials in 1948 noting that “an increasing number of young
Nyasaland natives...are by intermarriage becoming absorbed in
the local tribes whose language they speak and whose tribal
customs they acquire.”49 Although migrants were a fundamental
47 Annual Report, 1937, p. 16.48 Annual Report, 1941, p. 12.49 Annual Report, 1948, p. 10.
36
component of Malawian nationalism, this sentiment cannot be
said to have been universal – as noted by McCracken “the
experience of being a migrant both stimulated a sense of
national consciousness and also gave rise to an intensified
sense of ethnic identity.”50 Indeed the Nyasaland Official
recording these events would have only been drawn to them
because they involved what he saw as ‘Nyasas’; the people he
had set out to survey. Though these fights were with or
between Malawians, they could have equally been fought on the
basis of friendship, kinship or working teams – although due
to the categorisation of employers these boundaries may have
fallen between nationalist lines, this may not have been the
motivation behind the fights, where other relationships may
have been relevant or even dominant. As “experience is
symbolically mediated...different individuals, groups and
societies...may interpret the same incidents in very different
ways.”51 Migration not only elicited different responses, but
the same processes involved could be experienced in completely
different ways by different people.
50 Correspondence with McCracken, 11/02/13.51 Harries, Work, Culture and Identity, p.xvi.
37
* * *
Conclusion
The flipside of emigration’s ambiguous implications for
Malawian nationalism in the 1950s is the question of
emigration’s relationship with Malawian nationalism today.
When I was in Malawi in August 2012, the first dozen people I
asked about their parents’ involvement with migration,
answered that they did not know. Phiri’s History of Malawi, a
textbook widely available in Malawi currently, similarly makes
scant reference to a phenomenon that he himself claims
involved over half the country’s able-bodied men in 1949.52
Positive narratives of these widespread movements need to be
known and discussed; as put by Steve Biko, one of the founders
of the Black Consciousness Movement, “part of the approach
envisaged in bringing about Black Consciousness has to be
directed to the past, to seek to rewrite the history of the
black man and produce in it African heroes...A people without
52 Phiri, History of Malawi, Volume II, (Blantyre, 2010), pp. 50-53, 76 & 101.
38
a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine...they
always live in the shadow of a more successful society.”53
Oral sources certainly have biases, but hopefully go some way
in constructing this positive history. Inevitably, oral
accounts are coloured by the influences of the press,
government and the wider community’s narrative, rather than a
direct account of the experience of the individuals themselves
- as noted by Marian Hirsch’s work on post-memory, narratives
reproduced by the second generation are not from the
interviewee’s own memories, but their re-imagination of their
parent’s experiences.54 Whilst projecting migration as a
broadly positive experience, it is likely that those willing
to speak would have an overly positive view of migration. In
the case of Jimmy Banda his father’s migration was perceived
as crucial to his own identity;
whatever I have achieved now it has come because of myfather. Because if he did not travel I do not think that hewould have married my mother, and I don’t think that hewould have had the chance of bringing up a son who wouldone day be somebody – because me, I was once a minister inthis country...migration helped a lot in many ways, becauseit created new things, new ideas, new excitement. And what
53 Biko, I Write What I Like, ed. Stubbs, (Oxford, 1988), p.4454 Hirsch, ‘The Generation of Postmemory’, Poetics Today, Vol. 29, No. 1,(Spring, 2008).
39
he did, it is what it is today, most people still rememberabout him because through me, he exists.
Further, their descendants are likely to have only relayed
limited aspects to the interviewer. As noted by Jimmy Banda;
you are going to learn a lot from us – unlike someone whoyou are going to tell the story, because now you aregetting a lot of information, some of the information, youmight not be able to tell others. So you find that as Itell you information, some of the information will be left.Some of the information that I was given is more than whatI was going to tell you.55
Yet whilst this article is constructed using subjective
narratives from memory, such subjectivity is inevitably also
present in newspapers, committee reports and meeting minutes
which are bread and butter sources for historians. Indeed,
“the importance of oral testimony may lie not in its adherence
to fact but rather its departure from it, as symbolism,
imagination and desire emerge.”56 Although excessively positive
and inevitably from a restricted cross-section of migrants,
crucially the interviews provide information and answer
questions that are not available in even an authentic diary or
eye-witness report – as sources they are unsurpassed in
revealing hidden forms of consciousness, expression and social
55 Banda interview.56 Portelli, ‘What Makes Oral History Different?’, in Perks & Thomson(eds.), Oral History Reader, p. 68.
40
identity; “historical memory is valuable precisely because it
is not necessarily an accurate memory – that is, it is not the
historical veracity of a statement or memory that gives the
statement or memory constitutive power.”57
Concurrently, with clandestine migration widespread, Labour
Department records cannot escape that even many of those who
took passes to Zimbabwe, would then illegally cross the border
into South Africa. In 1940, against 18,771 who were registered
as entering Zimbabwe, an estimated 14,000 clandestinely left
the Colony and entered South Africa.58 Nevertheless, the
records do confirm the impotency of colonial government policy
and the complexity of migratory patterns, if only through a
hazy, half restricted view.
This article has attempted to specifically address the broader
migratory experience. Though inevitably inter-related with
numerous processes, it has looked distinctly at labour
migration focusing in particular on three arguments. Firstly,
patterns of migration were highly distinct between districts,
57 Cohen et al., ‘Introduction’, in Cohen et al., African Voices, pp.15-16.58 Annual Report, 1940, p.3.
41
and as highlighted by the colonial records, oral evidence and
complementary contemporary materials, migrations were complex;
often not just one-off occurrences, but cyclical and multi-
generational. Secondly, although migrants moved from
metropolis to metropolis, they did not simply ‘hop’ from one
to another. African networks, relationships and taboos were
especially crucial in defining the experience of clandestine
migration, on which to date very little is known. Thirdly,
nationalism was just one political and social entity among
many to which emigrants could identify – an identity to which
this article hopefully contributes.
42