The Chilembwe Rebellion

Abstract

Much has been written on the ‘Chilembwe rising’, the short-live rebellion of the evangelist John Chilembwe (and associates) in January 1915. What is significant and seminal with regard to Morris’s account of the rebellion is that he focusses specifically on land issues, and the economic aspects of the revolt. For Chilembwe closely identified with both the Lomwe tenants working on the Magomero cotton estates of Alexander L. Bruce, who were experiencing the thangata system of labour rent in its most oppressive form, and with the emerging class of African planters, many of whom were ‘ringleaders’ of the rebellion. For these African planters, like Chilembwe, resented both the economic restrictions placed on them by the colonial state, and the racial animosity expressed towards them by many European planters.