POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT IN ZAMBIA IN 4 POINTS

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In this article we shall look at the political development in Zambia with a particular emphasis on the coming of the British South African Company to modern Zambia and reasons why the Europeans developed an interest in the region.

The BSA Company rule

The British South Africa Company (BSAC ) was established following the amalgamation ofCecil Rhodes‘ Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd which had originally competed to exploit the expected mineral wealth of Mashonalandbut united because of common economic interests and to secureBritishgovernment backing. The company received a Royal Charterin 1889 modeled on that of the BritishEast India Company. Its first directors included theDuke of Abercorn, Rhodes himself and the South African financierAlfred Bait.

Rhodes hoped BSAC would promote colonization and economic exploitation across much of south-central Africa, as part of the “Scramble for Africa“. However, his main focus was south of theZambezi, in Mashonaland and the coastal areas to its east, from which he believed the Portuguese could be removed by payment or force, and in theTransvaal, which he hoped would return to British control.

It has been suggested that Rhodes’ ambition was to create a zone of British commercial and political influence from “Cape to Cairo”, but this was far beyond the resources of any commercial company to achieve and would not have given investors the financial returns they expected. The BSAC was created in the expectation that the gold fields of Mashonaland would provide funds for the development of other areas of Central Africa, including the mineral wealth ofKatanga.

When the expected wealth of Mashonaland did not materialize and Katanga was acquired by theCongo Free State, the company had little money left for significant development after building railways, particularly in areas north of the Zambezi. BSAC regarded its lands north of the Zambezi as territory to be held as cheaply as possible for future, rather than immediate, exploitation.

Northern Rhodesia was a protectorate in south central Africa, formed in 1911 by amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotse land- North eastern Rhodesia. European missionaries came to modern Zambia between the 1870s and 1890s following the travels and reports of Dr Livingstone in previous decades. There reports aroused interest from traders and many other missionaries. The mining of gold and diamonds had started in South Africa so European interest in southern and central Africa grew rapidly.

Agents of Cecil Rhodes, head of the British South Africa Company (BSAC) made agreements or treaties with chiefs in modern Zimbabwe and Zambia. Chiefs who refused to sign these treaties were fought or removed from their positions. In its quest for empire “on the cheap” in the late nineteenth century, the British government was not averse to using commercial companies to exact concessions from African leaders. This is what happened during the 1890s, when Cecil Rhodes’s newly chartered British

South Africa Company (BSAC) made agreements with Lewanika, the powerful monarch of the central African kingdom of Bulozi. The king, or Litunga (“owner of the earth”), anxious to preempt the threat of invasion from the Ndebele, eager to secure British protection as a modernizing force, and mindful of rival factions within his own regime, took the initiative in pressing for BSAC intervention.

At first, though, the company had interest in the region, primarily floodplain on the upper Zambezi, was fleeting and fitful. Rhodes was concerned with forestalling the Belgian advance on mineral-rich Katanga, and the Lozi kingdom was en route. By the time the BSAC’s brash agent had reached the Lozi capital of Lealui, Katanga had been lost. Frank Lochner, however, stayed to negotiate, in mid-1890, one of the many concessions that Lewanika signed with the BSAC over the next twenty years.

The Lochner concession gave the company the perpetual right to mine, trade, and build railways in the Lozi Empire (but not within the central kingdom) in return for British protection, the appointment of a British resident, and an annual salary for Lewanika. The concession was allowed to lapse, in part because the BSAC became embroiled in conflict with the Ndebele, but it illuminates two significant themes in Lozi-Company relations.

First, the BSAC acknowledged Lewanika’s authority, whether real or fictitious, over a wide swath of what later became northwestern Rhodesia (the Lozi Empire, termed Barotseland by the imperialists, was incorporated into northern Rhodesia in 1911 and is nowadays the western province of Zambia), something which would reinforce company claims to possible mineral-bearing areas. Second, the company took a laissez-faire approach to the Lozi kingdom (Bulozi) itself, because the exchange economy of the floodplain offered little prospect for profit and because it was considered imprudent to disturb the internal power structure.

The Lochner concession was followed by seven years of company neglect, despite the repeated protestations of Lewanika’s French missionary ally at Lealui, Francois Coillard, and despite the concerns of the Foreign Office of a Portuguese threat. It was not until late 1897 that Rhodes sent one of his younger associates, Robert Coryndon, to take up the position of resident. Coryndon and four others, representing mighty Albion, were met by hundreds of Lozi, many in ceremonial dress, at Lealui on October 20, 1897.

For the subsequent ten years, it is perhaps more appropriate to talk of Coryndon-Lewanika relations, as the BSAC was concerned only with establishing a nominal presence in Barotseland. A minimal white presence in a militarily powerful central African state offers little guide to power relations, however; most historians see Lewanika’s participation in the Scramble as a fateful ploy that reduced his empire, undermined Lozi sovereignty, and eventually decimated the floodplain economy.

The concessions signed in 1898 (the Lawley concession) and 1900 (Lewanika concession) are a matter of some contention. Lewanika and his senior Indunas (as well as Coillard and a high-ranking member of the Barotse police) charged the company with deceit and intimidation. Even so, Lewanika managed to maintain control of his inner kingdom (company headquarters were far from Lealui) and garner support for his rule (Coryndon dispatched a patrol to the royal capital in 1905 to forestall a coup).

The company’s actions were also circumscribed by Colonial Office overrule, at least in a legalistic sense, once the 1899 Order in Council incorporated Barotseland into northwestern Rhodesia. The concessions (another followed in 1906) were also significant in sorting out the technical arrangements of rule between the BSAC and the British government.

Lewanika often complained that the BSAC did not live up to its agreements to modernize his kingdom, to build schools, promote infrastructural development, and ensure the financial security of the Lozi aristocracy. British “protection” did not live up to its early, or even written, promises. The BSAC, as an imperialist and capitalist corporation, made severe inroads on Lozi independence. This should not obscure the fact that Lewanika secured the best terms of collaboration than any central African leader, as well as the continuation of a separate Lozi identity in colonial and independent Zambia.

In 1924 the BSA handed over its administrative role in northern Rhodesia to the British colonial office because it found it difficult to operate a government and a mining business. BSAC feared a crush in future and decided to concentrate on its business interests. Northern Rhodesia hence became a crown colony of Britain. This meant that the area was controlled by Britain in a way that was meant to protect the local people. Although it was not the case in reality, this angered the Zambian people who later began to protest against colonial rule.

Reasons why African protested against colonial rule

• The chiefs lost their independence and became agents of the colonial government (the system of ruling through the chiefs on behalf of the British government was called indirect rule
• Africans were not allowed to participate in politics. They had no right to vote and they couldn’t stand as candidate in elections
• Taxation was imposed and people had to work to raise money to pay tax. Taxation speeded up labor migration and by 1908 taxation on Africans was completely enforced. In 1902 Lewanika went to Britain and requested that 10% of tax should be given to Litunga. They agreed and Lewanika became the only chief who benefited from the tax paid by the people.
• Economy run by whites, crops and minerals produced were destined for Europe , money generated was for Europe not Africans because there interest was to improve the living standards of whites and to entice white come and settle
• Africans were not allowed to move from one part of the country to another without the permission of the colonial government. There were required to show British officials a pass document called chitupa to be allowed to move or live in towns.
• High paying jobs were reserved for British settlers who moved the new colony while Africans were only employed to do low job such as clerical work, watch men, mining, farm labor etc.
• There was segregation in schools African children went to separate schools with poor condition while white children went to schools which had better facilities.
• Africans who were employed in mines were not allowed to live with their wives and children while European workers had their wives and children with them.
• Africans were not allowed to own big businesses. The only form of business Africans were allowed to run were t-carts
• Africans lived in separate residential areas from whites. The areas had no proper roads nor electricity and no security for people while the whites lived in good areas with better facilities such as water, electricity, good roads, and hospitals
• Europeans were allowed to shops and buy what they wanted while African people were saved through the pigeons hole.
• Land: the blacks were meant to live in native reserves while land along the line of rail was sold or given to white settlements. They didn’t care were blacks lived. The whites came to acknowledge that the land in northern Rhodesia was good for cattle keeping, crop production and citrus growing. The whites also found themselves at fort Jameson so the land was divided into white owned land and black owned land (native reserve). There were absent landlords who had land in the northern Rhodesia but were living in England

NOTE; In early of colonialism, a department of agriculture was created but only helped farmers e.g. it gave chemicals, credit was also available and it made white benefit from research.

Indirect rule

Indirect rule is a system of government used by theBritishandFrenchto control parts of theircolonial empires, particularly inAfricaandAsia, through pre-existing local power structures. These dependencies were often called “protectorates” or “trucial states”. By this system, the day-to-day government and administration of areas both small and large was left in the hands of traditional rulers, who gained prestige and the stability and protection afforded by thePax Britannica, at the cost of losing control of their external affairs, and often of taxation, communications, and other matters, usually with a small number of European “advisors” effectively overseeing the government of large numbers of people spread over extensive areas.

The system allowed the colonies to be ruled through the African chiefs. Chiefs had authority to make rules for their own people, to correct tax etc. the chiefs ruled on behalf of the BSA Company. Where there were no chiefs, the BSA Company itself created new chieftainships. However the system failed in northern Rhodesia because of the following reasons:

• With the development of mining in the copper belt and the growth of many urban areas, people went to look for jobs and there were no chiefs to exercise control over them in those urban areas
• The establishment of non tribe organizations in the African reserved lands further weekend the authority of chiefs.
• The status of chiefs was reduced by the BSAC and this made people to have little respect to chiefs.
• The political structure of indirect rule gave power only to the chiefs living out the people who worked in various mines. This led to formation of welfare societies, trade unions and political parties.

The difference between an indirect rule and direct rule

In direct rule, the central government invokes a strong relationship between its laws and its citizenry. Direct rule provides for greater control, because a central authority makes all of the laws for another country, state or province. No decisions are left to the people under direct rule.

Indirect rule is a weaker form of government, because it allows some of the local people under appointment to make decisions regarding the codification of the law. Usually, administrative and social laws not pertaining to the ruling authority’s interests are left to the citizens under this system. The central authority has less control over the outcomes of these laws under indirect rule.

One of the most well-known examples of indirect rule is the British system of governmental rule in the countries of Nigeria and South Africa in the late 1800s. The French used direct rule in West Africa in the late 1800s.

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