The War of Thangata: Nyasaland and the East African Campaign, 1914-1918

During World War I, Africans in Nyasaland were called upon to provide large numbers of soldiers and military labourers for the war effort in eastern Africa. Colonial officials used force to secure the necessary manpower. Africans, therefore, called the conflict ‘the war of thangata’, referring to the growing colonial demands for taxes and for labour rent on European estates. The tasks which the soldiers and carriers were asked to perform were equally likened to thangata, being ‘work which was done without real benefit’. Between 1914 and 1918 wartime manpower requirements and war service gave full meaning to colonial rule throughout the protectorate. The response to these demands and this suffering brought, in the form of both traditional and modern religious and social institutions, the first tentative stirrings of African nationalism in Nyasaland. Notes.