Protectors and protected: regulating land and labour in the Nyasaland colonial protectorate

Thesis

Issues around land and labour are two of the most pervasive themes in British imperial history. Land was a contentious issue, with competing claims to its possession, access, and use permeating to the core of imperial orders. Similarly, labour issues regarding the abolition of slavery, labour migration and varying levels of unfreedom in labour arrangements reverberated throughout imperial contexts. In British colonial protectorates, where the Crown’s dominion did not extend, and inhabitants were protected persons rather than subjects of the Crown, these conflicts assumed a distinct degree of complexity. This thesis examines the nature of protection and colonial subjecthood in a colonial protectorate through an analysis of the legal regulation of land and labour from the gradual extension of extraterritorial jurisdiction in the late 19th century, to the heavy-handed governmental response to the African uprising of 1915.

This thesis (1) Illustrates the central role of jurisdictional concerns in establishing protection in the region and considers shifts in protectionist rhetoric from the military allegiances and security arrangements of missionaries to the protection of lives and property of British settlers in treaty arrangements, and finally to the governability of Africans and the maintenance of order once a protectorate was established. (2) Examines Commissioner Johnston’s land settlement programme (1892-1893) demonstrating his crude deployment of a pre-emption policy to deny Africans the authority to transfer land in a programme that evaluated settler claims to title and designated Crown land. (3) Argues that the regulation of labour on private estates took the acerbity of master and servant legislation to this rudimentary legal order and compounded it with a dependence on the land of the master and a racialised culture of fear and physical violence resulting in a distinctive form of labour unfreedom. (4) Argues that the colonial government’s heavy-handed response to the native uprising through treason trials, executions and collective punishment highlights the reality of British protected persons in a colonial protectorate facing full subjection and without the protections of the law.

Authors: Jiyani, M

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-6rk6x6obb
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: labour unfreedom; British imperial history; African legal history; colonial property regimes; jurisdictional authority; colonial protectorates
• Subjects: History; Law