The area of modern Malawi received many invasions from different tribes as it was on a lucrative trade routes. So the local Maravi faced attacks from the Achawa friends of Arab traders from the north and refugees from the Zulus from the South. The British sided with the Maravi but to them they were all just natives. It was only the missionairies that could figure it out or make it worse. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp was a common design type that was issued throughout the British Empire in celebration of the Coronation of George VI. Nyasaland was a Protectorate rather than a Colony but natives can be forgiven for wondering what a stamp like this has to do with them.
Todays stamp is issue CD302, a half penny stamp issued by the Protectorate of Nyasaland on May 12, 1937. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.
The area of modern Malawi was once the Maravi Empire. The maravi people were mainly farmers of grains on the fertile land near Lake Nyassa and also had acquired skill in ironwork. Maravi means working with flame. Nyasa means lake in local language and the British took this name for the area. Pre Europeans, the area was on Arab trading routes for ivory and slaves heading to Zanzibar. The Arabs converted the Achawa African tribe to Islam and there were then many clashes with the Maravi. The first Europeans were Scottish missionaries that brought Christianity and the end of slavery. They found a ready market from the Maravi and much less from the Achawa. Thus the signing up as a British Protectorate. There was a hope that it would then be the maravi benefiting from the trade. It did not work out that way.
Slavery was abolished and white planters acquired great plantations of tea and corn. For workers, the plantations found that guest workers from Mozambique would work for much less than local workers while locals worked much less productively on less valuable land. The Christian missions were offering some schooling to natives and these newly educated found no place in the area. In 1915, Baptist educated John Chilembwe formed a political movement and an armed uprising against the British. He had an Achawa father and his mother was an enslaved to the Achawa Maravi. His rebellion was quickly put down and Chilembwe was killed. His movement, which had been modeled on the ANC in South Africa and inspired by John Brown in the USA continued and was eventually the group to whom the area it was turned over to upon independence. The lake became of less importance and so Malawi became a modern pronunciation of Maravi.
The British were always a tiny minority in the area but the so were the self styled “New African Men” that were the products of the western educations given in charity. The Maravi agreed to Protectorate status from the British. A strong friend who could help a people being attacked from all sides. To then bypass the tribal system and turn over power to these created by themselves, New African men like Chilembwe, because they were the only natives they could relate to shows the British falling short as protectors. Independent Malawi had a 30+ year President for life that had previously spent 30 years abroad being educated.
Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.
