Page 14 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

2 The Society of Malaŵi Journal

There is unsubstantiated anecdote that Chilembwe was married before
he left for America in 1897 under the sponsorship of his mentor, the Mitsidi
missionary Joseph Booth. On the basis that the pamphlet published by a
2
contemporary American Negro missionary body is correct in that Chilembwe
was born at Sangano, Chiradzulu in June 1871, then at the time of his departure
for the USA he would have been some 27 years old. It would arguably have been
quite unusual within the context of his cultural milieu had he not married by that
age. Indeed, one of John Chilembwe’s early adherents, Maynard Gibson Mbela,
3
claimed such was the case . However, in the absence of hard evidence any such
marriage, whether Christian or traditional, must remain just an interesting
possibility.
4
Even the origins of Ida Zuao Chilembwe, John Chilembwe’s wife and
the mother of his three, possibly four, known children (John, later known as
‘Charlie’, Emma, and Donald) is not lacking in elements of controversy. John
Chilembwe’s niece, Miriam, a daughter of his brother James, claimed Ida was an
American Negro. This assertion was repudiated by Dr. Daniel Malekebu, the
5
Principal of the post-1926 Providence Industrial Mission . Maynard Gibson
Mbela also asserted that Ida was a ‘half-caste’, having a Sena mother and
Portuguese East African father. A similar testimony is repeated in a private letter
to the writer from Desmond D. Phiri, dated 22 October 1997, in which he
nd
testifies:
I spoke to persons who knew her [Ida Chilembwe] intimately. One of them
was Mrs. Mkulichi, popularly known as Gogo [granny] Juwa. She had been
6
close to her, looked after Mrs. Chilembwe during the influenza illness that
sent her to the graveyard in 1918. Rev. Chigomba and two others told me
7
Mrs. Chilembwe’s mother was named Ndulaga from the Lower Shire, her

2 Shepperson & Price. Independent African. Edinburgh University Press. 1958.
p.42.
3 Ibid. Endnote 19, p.455.
4 Zuao was Ida’s family name before her marriage to John Chilembwe, a name
which she appears to have retained after their marriage as a complementary or
subordinate name. See SoMJ Vol 66 – No 1, 2013, pp 46-50.
5 Shepperson & Price. Independent African.
6 The post-WWI ‘Spanish ‘flu’ pandemic which swept the world killing millions
in its wake.
7 This assertion was subsequently proved correct upon the ‘discovery’ of
Chilembwe’s marriage entry in the marriage records at the Blantyre boma in 2013
where, Ida’s father being recorded as ‘deceased’, permission to marry (Ida was
under 21 years of age at the time and so, as a minor, below the age of consent)
permission was given by her mother, Ndulaga. See SoMJ Vol 66 – No 1, 2013, pp