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The Society of Malaŵi Journal

historian, whom he accuses of ignoring hundreds of sources which very likely would
have led to a different analysis and conclusions. For example, he points out that had
Hanna widened his sources, including books by missionaries such as the Rev David
Clement Scott’s on the Man’ganja, his description of, and appreciation for, their
reaction to the British, and their relations with their African neighbours would have
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been different. He is also not impressed with the author for minimizing the
importance of economic factors at play in Nyasaland at the time What renders his
assessment of the book particularly powerful is that while pointing out sections of the
book that he finds troubling, he also suggests a broad range of sources that would
have made a difference to the thrust of the book. An acclaimed bibliophile, he does
this throughout the article, in the main text and in the footnotes. Also, in the process
of doing all this, he identifies possible areas of further research.
I will now focus briefly on two other articles, “External factors in the
development of African Nationalism, with particular reference to British Central
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Africa’, and “Nyasaland and the millennium.” In the former, Shepperson was joining
in the debate on the essence of nationalism in Africa, one dominated mostly by
political scientists. In the article, he justifies the application of the term nationalism to
African situations in the twentieth century and, using Nyasaland as an example,
proceeds to articulate coherently the manner in which exogenous factors contributed
to the growth of this phenomenon in the British Protectorate. Among them are the
nature of the colonizing authority, western missionary influence, and external travel or
residence. The essay appeared at a time of major changes in Africa as nations were
being forged after decades of imperial and colonial rule, and as the character of
nationhood was soon to face its challenges. The article was to inspire generations of
students of Malawi history including Robert I Rotberg, The Rise of Nationalism in
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Central Africa: The Making of Malawi and Zambia.
In “Nyasaland and the millennium,” Shepperson continued with the theme of
external influences in the history of Nyasaland, this time, specifically religious
movements, the prime example of which is Elliot Kenan Kamwana Chirwa’s ministry
which began in 1908. Millennial movements came to attract thousands of converts in
early twentieth century Africa, and this article shows clearly why this was the case. In
this regard, it is an analysis of the migration of ideas and of a world view that were
different from mainstream Christian missionary teaching; it is also about the reception
and articulation of such ideas by Africans under imperial rule. As he did in
Independent African and other publications where he introduces us to stories about
John Chilembwe, John Gray Kufa, David Kaduya, Peter Nyambo Filipo Chinyama,
Alexander Makwinja, and numerous others, he devotes space to personal details of
Kamwana and others. As with everything that he wrote, this is a well annotated article
and, again, typical of him, it looks at the bigger picture, that is, it places Kamwana in
the wider context of the issues that he was analyzing. I must say that as an
undergraduate, I found his articles particularly helpful for the sake of knowledge and,

7 David C R Scott, A Cyclopaedic Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language Spoken in British Central Africa,
Edinburgh: Foreign Mission Committee of the Church of Scotland, 1892
8 Phylon, 22, 3 (1961), 207-225
9 For example, Roger Tangri, “The development of modern African politics and emergence of a nationalist
movement in colonial Malawi,” PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1970; Joey Power, Political Culture and
nationalism in Malawi: Building Kwacha, Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press, 2010. For the period the
Federation of Central African Federation and race relations drew the attention of scholars and journalists alike.
Here is a sample of the pre-1964 literature; Patrick Keatley, The Politics of Partnership: the rise of Federation of
Rhodesia and Nyasaland, London: Penguin, 1963; Clyde Sanger, Central African Emergency. London:
Heinemann, 1960; Richard Gray, Aspects of the Development of Race Relations in the Rhodesias and Nyasaland,
London: Oxford University Press, 1960. This rich book covers the period 1919-1953.
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