The ‘Politics of Trypanosomiasis’ Revisited: Labour Mobilization and Labour Migration in Colonial Zambia: The Robert Williams Company in Lubemba, 1901-1911

This article aims to explain the flow of Bemba ‘voluntary’ labour from the northern territories of Northern Rhodesia (colonial Zambia) to the industrial worksites of Katanga Province, Belgian Congo (colonial Zaire) between 1901 and 1911. In the early years, the appearance of ‘voluntary’ labour on the industrial sites of Katanga resulted largely from the imposition by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) government of monetized taxes on all ‘able-bodied’ males in Northern Rhodesia, which forced these men into the labour market. When Robert Williams and Company was formed in 1906 to recruit labour for the recently formed Union minire du Haut Katanga, it was able to tap into preexisting patterns of labour mobility. The author shows the contradictory nature of BSAC government policy through a reexamination of its ‘politics of trypanosomiasis’ between 1907 and 1911, when it issued the so-called Sleeping Sickness Regulations which imposed restrictions on all travel across river boundaries between North-Eastern Rhodesia and the neighbouring countries, including Katanga. In this way it aimed to rechannel the flow of labour from North-East and North-West Rhodesia south into the arms of the Rhodesian Native Labour Bureau. At the same time, however, the BSAC wanted to benefit from cash earned by Bemba males who defied the border closure. Notes, ref., sum.