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