(1894) In 1879, the Portuguese government formally claimed the area south and east of the
Ruo River (currently the southeastern border of
Malawi) and then, in 1882, occupied the lower
Shire River valley as far north as the Ruo. It attempted to gain British acceptance of this claim without success, and also failed in a claim that the
Shire Highlands was part of
Portuguese East Africa, as it was not under effective occupation As late as 1888, the British
Foreign Office would not accept responsibility for British missionaries and settlers in the Shire Highlands after the
African Lakes Corporation had tried but failed to become a
Chartered company with interests there and around the western shore of
Lake Malawi. However, in 1885–86,
Alexandre de Serpa Pinto had undertaken an expedition which reached Shire Highlands, which had failed to make any treaties of protection with the
Yao chiefs west of Lake Malawi. To prevent possible Portuguese occupation, in November 1888, Johnston was appointed as Commissioner and Consul-general for the Mozambique and the Nyasa districts, and arrived in
Blantyre in March 1889. On his way to take up his appointment, Johnston spent six weeks in
Lisbon attempting to negotiate an acceptable agreement on Portuguese and British
spheres of influence in southeastern Africa. However, as the draft agreement did not expressly exclude the
Shire Highlands from the Portuguese sphere, it was rejected by the
Foreign Office. Among several pressing problems was the
Karonga War, a dispute between
Swahili traders in slaves and ivory with their
Henga allies on one side and the
African Lakes Trading Company and factions of the
Ngonde people on the other which had broken out in 1887. As Johnston had no significant forces at that time, he agreed to a truce with the Swahili leaders in October 1889, but the Swahili traders did not adhere to its terms. In late 1888 and early 1889, the Portuguese government sent two expeditions to make treaties of protection with local chiefs, one under Antonio Cardoso set off toward Lake Malawi, the other under
Alexandre de Serpa Pinto moved up the Shire valley. Between them, they made more than twenty treaties with chiefs in what is now Malawi. Johnston met Serpa Pinto in August 1889, east of the Ruo, and advised him not to cross the river, but Serpa Pinto disregarded this and crossed the river to
Chiromo, now in Malawi. In September, following minor clashes between Serpa Pinto's force and local Africans, Johnston's deputy declared a Shire Highlands Protectorate, despite the contrary instructions. Johnston's proclamation of a further protectorate west of Lake Malawi, the Nyasaland Districts Protectorate, was endorsed by the Foreign Office in May 1891. Johnston arrived in Chiromo, in the south of Nyasaland, on 16 July 1891. By that time, he had already selected a team of men who were to assist in forming the administration of the new protectorate. They included
Alfred Sharpe (Johnston's Deputy Commissioner), Bertram L. Sclater (surveyor, roadmaker, and Commandant of the Constabulary),
Alexander Whyte (a zoologist who was to discover several new species in Nyasaland),
Cecil Montgomery Maguire (military commandant),
Hugh Charlie Marshall (Customs Officer, Collector of Revenues and Postmaster for the Chiromo district),
John Buchanan (an agriculturalist who had been in Nyasaland since 1876, and was appointed Vice Consul by Johnston), and others. In 1891, Johnston only controlled a fraction of the Shire Highlands, itself a small part of the whole protectorate. He was provided with a small force of Indian troops in 1891, and began to train African soldiers and police. At first, Johnston used his small force in the south of the protectorate to suppress slave trading by Yao chiefs, who had established links with Swahili traders in ivory and slaves from the early 19th century. As the Yao people had no central authority, Johnston was able to defeat one group at a time, although this took until 1894, as he left the most powerful chief, Makanjira, until almost last, starting an amphibious operation against him in late 1893. Before the British Central Africa Protectorate was proclaimed in May 1891, a number of European companies and settlers had made, or claimed to have made, treaties with local
chiefs under which the land owned by the African communities that occupied it was transferred to the Europeans in exchange for protection and some trade goods. The
African Lakes Company claimed more than 2.75 million acres in the north of the protectorate, some under treaties that claimed to transfer
sovereignty to the company, and three others individuals claimed to have purchased large areas of land in the south.
Eugene Sharrer claimed 363,034 acres,
Alexander Low Bruce claimed 176,000 acres, and
John Buchanan and his brothers claimed a further 167,823 acres. These lands were purchased for trivial quantities of goods under agreements signed by chiefs with no understanding of English concepts of
land tenure. Johnston had the task of reviewing these land claims, and he began to do so in late 1892, as the proclamation of the protectorate had been followed by a wholesale land grab, with huge areas of land bought for trivial sums and some claims overlapping. He rejected any suggestion that treaties made before the protectorate was established could transfer sovereignty to individuals or companies, but accept that they could be evidence of land sales. Although Johnston accepted that the land belonged to its African communities, so their chiefs had no right to
alienate it, he suggested that each community had given their chief this right. Despite having no legal training, he claimed that, as Commissioner, he was entitled to investigate these land sales and to issue
Certificates of Claim registering
freehold title to the European claimants. He rejected very few claims, despite the questionable evidence for several major ones. The existing African villages and farms were exempted from these sales, and the villagers were told that their homes and fields were not being alienated. Despite this, the concentration of much of the most fertile land in the Shire Highlands in the hands of European owners had profound economic consequences that lasted throughout the colonial period. In April 1894, Johnston returned to England and was away for a year. He had quarrelled with
Cecil Rhodes, who had so far provided most of his funds, and during the first three years the administration had run up a deficit of £20,000. During his leave, Johnston managed to persuade the British Government to agree to take over the financing of the country. On his way back, he visited Egypt and India with a view to recruiting soldiers, and eventually arrived back in Nyasaland with a flotilla of boats, 202 Sikh soldiers, and more than 400 other men; 4,000 porters were recruited in the Shire Highlands to carry stores and equipment. Johnston reached Zomba on 3 May 1895. Johnston visited Karonga in June 1895 to try to make a settlement, but the Swahili leaders refused either to meet him or to curtail their raiding activities, so Johnston decided on military action. In November 1895, Johnston embarked with a force of more than 400 Sikh and African riflemen, with artillery and machine guns on steamers, to
Karonga and surrounded the traders' main stockaded town, bombarding it for two days and finally assaulting it on 4 December. The Swahili leader, Mlozi, was captured, given a cursory trial and hanged on 5 December, and between 200 and 300 of fighters and several hundred non-combatants were killed, many while attempting to surrender. Other Swahili stockades did not resist and were destroyed. ==North-Eastern Rhodesia and Nyasaland==