Fishing and the colonial economy: The case of malawi

The Journal of African History

Volumn 28, Issue 3, 1987, Pages 413-429

  McCracken, John ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84928464867     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: 14695138     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853700030115     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. See, for example, Robin Palmer, The Nyasaland tea industry in the era of international tea restrictions, 1933-1950, J. Afr. Hist., xxvi (1985), 215-39; Elias Mandala, Peasant cotton agriculture, gender and inter-generational relationships: the lower Tchiri (Shire) valley of Malawi, 1906-1940, African Studies Review, xxv, ii-iii (1982), 27-44; John McCracken, Planters, peasants and the colonial state: the impact of the Native Tobacco Board in the Central Province of Malawi, J. Southern African Studies, ix (1983), 172–92. Aspects of the fish trade in Northern Rhodesia are discussed in W. V. Brelsford, Fishermen of the Bangweulu Swamps (Livingstone, 1946), and Ian Cunnison, The Luapula Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (Manchester, 1959), 6-16; see also Hugh Fearn, An African Economy: A Study of the Economic Development of the Nyanza Province of Kenya, 1903–1953 (London, 1961), 214–20.
2. See, for example, C. J. Shepherd (ed.), Investigation into Fish Productivity in a Shallow Freshwater Lagoon in Malawi 1975/1976, sponsored by the Ministry of Overseas Development (London, 1977?)
3. Margaret Kalk, A. J. McLachlan, C. Howard-Williams (ed.), Lake Chilwa: Studies of Change in a Tropical Ecosystem (The Hague, 1979); Margaret Kalk (ed.), Decline and Recovery of a Lake (Zomba, 1970).
4. Lonely Kapeleta, The coming of the Tonga and the commercialisation of fishing in Monkey Bay area: a case study, Sociology Seminar Paper, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, 1980; Charles Ralph Kafumba-Utonga, Fishing on Likoma Island: change and development, Chancellor College Seminar Paper, University of Malawi, 1981.
5. Nyasaland Protectorate Report of the Census for 1931, Malawi National Archives, Zomba (MNA), 51/1307/30.
6. Elias Coutinho Mandala, Capitalism, ecology and society: the lower Tchiri (Shire) valley of Malawi, 1860-1960 (Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1983); Megan Vaughan, Social and economic change in Southern Malawi: a study of rural communities in the Shire Highlands and upper Shire valley from the mid-nineteenth century to 1915 (Ph.D., University of London, 1981).
7. Mandala, Capitalism, ecology and society, 261.
8. See C. K. Ricardo Bertram, H. J. Borley and Ethelwynn Trewavas, Report on the Fish and Fisheries of Lake Nyasa (London, 1942). I have also made use of an unpublished manuscript by Jenny Carter on the game-parks of Malawi.
9. David and Charles Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries (London, 1865), 374.
10. William Percival Johnson, Nyasa the Great Water (Oxford, 1922), 59. Useful late nineteenth-century accounts of fishing include: Livingstone, Narrative, 374-6; Reginald Foskett (ed.), The Zambesi Journal of Letters of Dr John Kirk, II (Edinburgh, 1965), 369, 371; Horace Waller (ed.), The Last Journals of David Livingstone, 1 (London, 1874), 91, 95—6; J. F. Elton, Travels and Researches among the Lakes and Mountains of Eastern and Central Africa (London, 1879), 289, 293; Henry Faulkner, Elephant Haunts (London, 1968), 124. For more recent surveys see: Ricardo Bertram, Borley and Trewavas, Report, 65-74: M. C. Hoole, Notes on fishing and allied industries as practised among the Tonga of the West Nyasa district, Nyasaland J., 8 (1955), 25-38; Kapeleta, Coming of the Tonga'; Kafumba-Utonga, Fishing on Likoma Island'.
11. The literature on the changing water levels of Lake Malawi is extensive. Among the most useful studies are: Robert Crossley, High levels of Lake Malawi, University of Malawi Staff Seminar paper no. 2, 1980; J. G. Pike and G. T. Rimmington, Malawi: a Geographical Study (Oxford, 1965), 114-18; J. G. Pike, The movement of water in Lake Nyasa, Nyasaland J, 10 (1957).
12. South Nyasa District Annual Report for 1931, MNA NSF 4/1/3.
13. Southern Province Annual Report for 1936, MNA NS 3/1/6; Mandala, Capitalism, ecology and society, 190–91.
14. H. L. Duff, Nyasaland under the Foreign Office (London, 1903), 111.
15. See N. Lancaster, The changes in the Lake level, in Kalk, McLachlan and Howard-Williams, Lake Chilwa, 43–4.
16. This account is drawn largely from Vaughan, Social and economic change in Southern Malawi, 40–60. See also Megan Vaughan, Food production and family labour in Southern Malawi: the Shire highlands and the upper Shire valley in the early colonial period, J. Afr. Hist., xxm, iii (1982), 351–7, and Zomba History Project texts, University of Malawi, Chancellor College Library, especially Nyanja, Yao and Lomwe Testimonies, collected by Megan Vaughan.
17. Livingstone, Narrative, 380.
18. Vaughan, Social and economic change in Southern Malawi, 219.
19. Ricardo Bertram, Borley and Trewavas, Report, 80.
20. Vaughan, Food production, 361–64.
21. South Nyasa District Annual Report for 1931, MNA NSF 4/1/3.
22. Department of Agriculture, in letters to J. McClounie, Head of the Scientific Department, 1898–1901, MNA 1/3/1; Charles Seed, Trout in Nyasaland, Nyasaland J, II, ii (1949), 23–4.
23. As early as 1888 the Blantyre missionaries recorded that caravans of fish from Lake Chilwa, bringing likewise crates of fowls, have supplied the children and the Europeans with food'. Life and Work in British Central Africa, August 1888, quoted in Vaughan, Social and economic change in Southern Malawi, 210.
24. Life and Work in British Central Africa, July-December 1915, 6; Zomba History Project, Gravelo Njala interviewed by Megan Vaughan, 15 Sept. 1978.
25. This is particularly vividly documented in Life and Work in British Central Africa, January-March 1917, April-December 1917, June-March 1918, July 1918-June 1919. For the impact of the war on Fort Johnston, see Cleo J. C. Malambo, Aspects of the socio-economic history of Mangochi township in the colonial period, History Seminar Paper, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, 1984-85.
26. C. B. Nichols to Attorney-General, 6 January 1930, MNA 81/14371/30.
27. S. S. Murray, A Handbook of Nyasaland (London 1922), no; Norman H. Pollock, Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia: Corridor to the North, (Pittsburgh, 1971), 304.
28. South Nyasa District Annual Report for 1931, MNA NSF 4/1/3.
29. Nyasaland Protectorate Report of the Census for 1931, MNA S1/1307/30.
30. Minute by R. C. Wood, 26 April 1930, MNA 81/4371/30.
31. District Commissioner Fort Johnston to Provincial Commissioner Southern Province, 14 November, 1932, MNA S 1/437i/30.
32. C. B. Nicholls to Attorney-General, 6 January 1930; P. C. Southern Province to D. C. Fort Johnston, 17 June 1930, MNA S1/437i/30.
33. D.C. Fort Johnston to P.C. Southern Province, 16 March 1931, MNA S1/4371/30. S1/437i/30.
34. There is a brief introductory note on the origins of the Greek community in Malawi in D. Brian Roy, The Malawi Collection (Blantyre, 1985). See also Mangochi (Fort Johnston) District Book, vol. 5, 1933-7; Dr Lamborn to Mr Tucker, 23 October 1935, MNA S1/1437i/30. By the 1940s the Luapula fish industry in Northern Rhodesia was run mainly by a community of Greeks who themselves started life as fishermen on the island of Rhodes (Cunnison, Luapula Peoples, 9).
35. Lamborn to Tucker, as cited in n. 35. Ricardo Bertram, Borley and Trewavas, Report, 76-77; South Nyasa District Annual Report for 1940; Cecil Barker to P.C. Southern Province, 6 August 1936, MNA S1/1437i/30.
36. Mangochi (Fort Johnston) District Book, vol. 6, 1938–42, Fishing Permits.
37. Ricardo Bertram, Borley and Trewavas, Report, 76–7.
38. Cecil Barker, D.C. Fort Johnston to P.C. Southern Province, 6 August 1936, MNA S1/1437i/30.
39. Southern Province Annual Report for 1939, MNA NS 3/1/8.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., and Southern Province Annual Report for 1933 MNA NS 3/1/3.
42. South Nyasa District Annual Report for 1938, MNA NSF 4/1/5. These figures should not be accepted uncritically. In 1933 the District Commissioner came up with figures of 2, 480 fishermen and 674 fish curers in the South Nyasa District. (Annual Report for 1933, MNA NSF 4/1/4.)
43. See John Mccracken, Peasants, planters and the colonial state: the case of Malawi, 1905-1940, J. Eastern African Research and Development, xii (1982); Robin Palmer, White farmers in Malawi: before and after the Depression, African Affairs, liv (1985), 211–45.
44. Dr Cuthbert Christie, British Museum Nyasa Expedition, to Chief Secretary, Zomba, 10 November 1925, MNA S1/1470/25. See also P.C. Northern Province to Chief Secretary, 23 January, 1926, ibid.
45. Minutes to Baraza held at Fort Johnston, 17 February 1933; D.C. Fort Johnston to P.C. Southern Province, 17 February 1933, MNA S1/4371/30.
46. Senior P.C. Zomba to D.C. Fort Johnston, 17 January 1930; D.C. Fort Johnston to Chief Secretary, 24 August 1938, MNA S1/437i/30.
47. Minutes 14 and 20 December 1932, ibid.
48. D.C. Fort Johnston to P.C. Southern Province, 12 May 1937, ibid.; Mangochi (Fort Johnston) District Book Vol. 6.
49. South Nyasa District Annual Report for 1944, MNA NSF 4/1/6.
50. South Nyasa District Annual Reports for 1943 and 1944.
51. Southern Province Annual Report for 1947, MNA NS 3/1/16.
52. Circular letter by J. H. Thomas, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 18 April 1936; Report on Nutritional Research in the Colonial Empire, (London, 1938), MNA S1/138/36.
53. B. S. Platt, Report on a nutrition survey in Nyasaland, duplicated [1940?], MNA Library Q. 267.
54. Quarterly reports on the work of the Nutrition Unit, to 30 September 1940; 31 December 1940; 30 June 1941; Memo on Continuation of Fishery Work by H. B. H. Borley, MNA NCK 3/6/2.
55. An additional factor was the severe shortage of labour that hit Nyasaland tea estates in the 1940s and encouraged owners to make conditions more attractive. See Robin Palmer, Working conditions and worker responses on Nyasaland tea estates, 1930-1953, J. Afr. Hist., 27 (1986), 116–18.
56. Precis for Executive Council. Fish supplies and export, 9 December 1949, MNA 4-12-10F/3631315930.
57. Minute by W.J.R.P., 17 February 1950, ibid.
58. F. L. Brown to Hon. M. P. Barrow, 4 April 1950, ibid.
59. Chief Secretary to Deputy Director of Agriculture, 15 May 1950, ibid.
60. H. B. H. Borley, Notes for working party on the development of the fishing industry, 1961, MNA 4-6-8F/4858/37031. The inherent profitability of the export market is revealed in the fact that when the ban was lifted, sales to Salisbury totalled £56, 435 in 1960, about 25 per cent of the European firms catch.
61. Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Fishing Industry, 1956, MNA COM 9/4/2; Report of an Economic Survey of Nyasaland, 1958-1959 (Salisbury, 1959), 255–64.
62. Evidence of Christos Yiannakis to the Commission of Inquiry, Blantyre, 17 July 1956, MNA COM 9/3/1. 64 Ibid.
63. Evidence of A. D. Sanson, Fisheries Officer, to the Commission of Inquiry, Fort Johnston, 8 June 1956, ibid; Report of the Commission of Inquiry. Ibid.
64. Evidence of Crispo Gwedala to the Commission of Enquiry, Fort Johnston, 8–9 June, 1956, ibid.
65. Evidence of Amos Charles, ibid.
66. Evidence of H. B. Chipembere, ibid.
67. Kapeleta, The coming of the Tonga and the commercialisation of fishing'. For related developments on Lake Chilwa see Pauline E. Phipps, The “Big” fishermen of lake Chilwa: a preliminary survey of entrepreneurs in a rural economy, in M. E. Page (ed.), Land and labor in rural Malawi, Rural Africana, 21 (1973).
68. Evidence of Namango Nacuma to Commission of Inquiry, Blantyre, 17–19 July 1956, MNA COM 9/3/1.
69. Evidence of Laison Grant Nkhwafi and Jonas Joseph Kajawo, Zomba, 17 May 1956, ibid.
70. Evidence of Sanson, ibid. Borley, Notes for a working party.
71. Megan Vaughan, The politics of food supply: colonial Malawi in the 1940s, in Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, Malawi: an Alternative Pattern of Development (Edinburgh, 1984), 70. Dr Vaughan questions the view expressed in this quotation.
72. Martin Legassick, Gold, agriculture and secondary industry in South Africa, 1885-1970: from periphery to sub-metropole as a forced labour system, in Robin Palmer and Neil Parsons (eds.), The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (London, 1977), 175.
73. Figures taken from Swanzie Agnew and Michael Stubbs (eds.), Malawi in Maps (London, 1972), 142 and from The National Atlas of Malawi (1985), 58.
74. See Clement Ng'ongola, Malawi's agricultural economy and the evolution of legislations on the production and marketing of peasant economic cropss J. Southern African Studies, 12 (1980), 240–62.
75. Vaughan, Social and economic change in Southern Malawi, 56; D. R. Mackenzie, The Spirit-Ridden Konde (London, 1925), 142.