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REASSESSING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FIREARMS IN CENTRAL AFRICA: THE CASE OF NORTH-WESTERN ZAMBIA TO THE 1920S*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2011

GIACOMO MACOLA
GIACOMO MACOLA
Affiliation:
University of Kent and Leiden University
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Abstract

Based on a close examination of European travelogues and the evidence produced in the wake of the formulation of colonial gun policies, this article contends that the significance of firearms in Central Africa in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been unduly played down in the existing literature. The first substantive section of the article charts the movement of the gun frontier in nineteenth-century north-western Zambia. It foregrounds the new technology's economic and military applications, the means through which north-western Zambians overcame some at least of its limitations, and the plurality of innovative social roles that they attributed to it. Successive sections centre on the pervasiveness of gun-running in the early twentieth century and the implementation and profound social consequences of gun control laws.

Keywords

AngolaCentral AfricaZambiafirearmsgun lawshistory of technologyhuntingsmugglingtradewarfare
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , November 2010 , pp. 301 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 See, especially, the articles published in two special issues (2 and 4) of the Journal of African History, 12 (1971).

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4 A. von Oppen, Terms of Trade and Terms of Trust: the History and Contexts of Pre-colonial Market Production Around the Upper Zambezi and Kasai (Münster and Hamburg, 1993?), 169–73. Initially produced in the late eighteenth century by the Portuguese manufacturer Lázaro Lazarino of Braga, by the middle of the following century, the bulk of the muskets imported into Angola consisted of Belgian and other northern European imitations: ibid. 170, n. 69, and I. de Castro Henriques, ‘Armas de fogo em Angola no século XIX: uma interpretação’, in Actas de I Reunião Internacional de História de Africa (Lisbon, 1989), 425, n. 44.

5 Miller, Way of Death, 93.

6 R. C. Bridges, ‘Nineteenth-century East African travel records’, in B. Heintze and A. Jones (eds.), European Sources for Sub-Saharan Africa before 1900 (Stuttgart, 1987), 179 (special issue of Paideuma, 33).

7 Consider, e.g., the central position occupied by these sources in Stephen Rockel's recent social history of porterage in eastern Africa – Carriers of Culture (Portsmouth, NH, 2006) – and, to a lesser extent, in the Isaacmans' study of the Chikunda communities of the lower Zambesi valley: Slavery and Beyond (Portsmouth, NH, 2004).

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9 North-Western Rhodesia (or, to use the terminology of the 1899 Order in Council, ‘Barotziland–North-Western Rhodesia’) was governed by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) and placed under the supervision of the British High Commissioner for South Africa. It formed a distinctive administrative unit between the late 1890s and 1911, the year in which it was amalgamated with another BSAC-run territory, North-Eastern Rhodesia.

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13 D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (New York, 1858), 106, 209.

14 For comments on Kololo marksmanship, see Ibid. 228, 279–80. Having repeatedly been asked for ‘gun medicine’, Livingstone eventually volunteered to teach the Kololo paramount, Sekeletu, how to shoot. Livingstone, Private Journals, 143, 147.

15 Livingstone, Private Journals, 143.

16 Cf. Ibid. 232 and Livingstone, Missionary Travels, 235–36.

17 J. Chapman (ed. E. C. Tabler), Travels in the Interior of South Africa, 1849–1863 (Cape Town, 1971; 1st edn, London, 1868), I, 116, 114.

18 Livingstone, Missionary Travels, 217.

19 D. and C. Livingstone, Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and its Tributaries (London, 1865), 292; A. D. Roberts, A History of Zambia (London, 1976), 127; M. Mainga, Bulozi under the Luyana Kings (London, 1973), 84.

20 Livingstone, Private Journals, 16–17.

21 Ibid. 203, and Livingstone, Missionary Travels, 105–6.

22 M. E. Madeira Santos, ‘Introdução (Trajectória do comércio do Bié)’, in A. F. da Silva Porto (ed. M. E. Madeira Santos), Viagens e apontamentos de um Portuense em África (Coimbra, 1986), I, 114–17.

23 Hereditary titles are written throughout in italics. I use standard characters only when the title in question is accompanied by the personal name of its holder, or when the context makes it plain that I am alluding to one particular, if unnamed, individual incumbent.

24 A. da Silva Teixeira and J. da Silva Costa, ‘Relação da viagem …’, Arquivos de Angola, 1 (1935); von Oppen, Terms of Trade, 176.

25 ‘Derrota de Benguella para o sertão’, in A. de Albuquerque Felner (ed.), Angola (Lisbon, 1940), II, 25.

26 Livingstone, African Journal, II, 270; Livingstone, Private Journals, 42.

27 von Oppen, Terms of Trade, 59–60.

28 Magyar, L., ‘Ladislaus Magyar's Erforschung von Inner-Afrika’, Petermann's Geographische Mitteilungen, 6 (1860), 233Google Scholar.

29 Storey, Guns, 140.

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31 Phillipson, D. W., ‘Gun-flint manufacture in north-western Zambia’, Antiquity, 43, no. 172 (1969), 301–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Livingstone, African Journal, I, 45.

33 Ibid. II, 270, 271–2.

34 See, e.g., Livingstone, Missionary Travels, 211.

35 Livingstone, Private Journals, 245.

36 Magyar, ‘Ladislaus Magyar's Erforschung’, 234; Madeira Santos, ‘Introdução’, 83.

37 Storey, Guns, 78.

38 Livingstone, Private Journals, 177. In much the same vein, Chapman called the gun a ‘potent peacemaker’ in the early 1860s: Chapman, Travels, II, 149. This, of course, was not an unusual idea among European liberals before the First World War.

39 R. J. Papstein, ‘The upper Zambezi: a history of the Luvale people, 1000–1900’ (unpublished PhD thesis, UCLA, 1978), 171–2.

40 Ibid. 191–2.

41 Direct witnesses of the last stages of Luvale expansion include V. L. Cameron, Across Africa (London, 1885; 1st edn, 1877), 406; F. S. Arnot, Garenganze (London, 1968; 1st edn, 1889), 159, 161, 165, 248; and D. Crawford, in F. S. Arnot, Bihé and Garenganze (London, 1893), 45–6, 51.

42 Livingstone, African Journal, I, 55, 56.

43 Ibid. I, 45; II, 264.

44 Cameron, Across Africa, 405–6; von Oppen, Terms of Trade, 172.

45 Cameron, Across Africa, 407; Arnot, Garenganze, 249; Crawford in Arnot, Bihé and Garenganze, 39.

46 F. Coillard, On the Threshold of Central Africa (London, 1971; 1st edn, 1897), 610–15.

47 National Archives of Zambia, Lusaka (NAZ), NW/HC4/2/1, VI, Harding to Secretary to the Administrator (North-Western Rhodesia) (S. Admin.), 27 Mar. 1900.

48 Silva Porto travelled to Bulozi on an almost yearly basis between 1863 and 1869 (Madeira Santos, ‘Introdução’, 149). After a first visit to Barotseland in 1871, the Englishman George Westbeech inaugurated a trading station at Pandamatenga, some sixty miles to the south of the Victoria Falls, and rapidly became the ‘most influential European’ in the area. G. Prins, The Hidden Hippopotamus (Cambridge, 1980), 174.

49 E. Holub, Seven Years in South Africa (London, 1881), II, 174, 217, 341–2.

50 Ibid. II, 339–40.

51 Ibid. II, 244–5, 256–7.

52 E. Holub, Emil Holub's Travels North of the Zambezi, 1885–6 (Lusaka, 1975; 1st edn, Vienna, 1890), 272–3.

53 G. Westbeech, ‘The Diary of George Westbeech’, in E. C. Tabler (ed.), Trade and Travel in Early Barotseland (London, 1963), 92.

54 Holub, Seven Years, II, 134; Arnot, Garenganze, 90.

55 See, e.g., Holub, Seven Years, II, 125.

56 Ibid. II, 142, 146–7.

57 Ibid. II, 200.

58 Ibid. II, 142, 160.

59 Ibid. II, 228, 238.

60 Ibid. II, 341–2.

61 A. A. de Serpa Pinto, How I Crossed Africa (San Francisco, 1881), 193.

62 Holub, Emil Holub's Travels, 205. For the date of Lewanika's first raid against the Ila, see Westbeech to Arnot, Lealui, 5 Oct. 1882, in Arnot, Garenganze, 62.

63 Holub, Emil Holub's Travels, 9.

64 Ibid. 279.

65 Coillard, Threshold, 300.

66 F. C. Selous, Travel and Adventure in South-east Africa (London, 1893), 252.

67 Coillard, Threshold, 356, 387; Mainga, Bulozi, 176; and Prins, Hidden Hippopotamus, 220.

68 Coillard, Threshold, 604.

69 See, e.g., von Oppen, Terms of Trade, 244, 354.

70 Clarence-Smith, W. G., ‘Slaves, commoners and landlords in Bulozi, c. 1875 to 1906’, Journal of African History, 20:2 (1979), 227CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71 F. H. Melland, In Witch-bound Africa (London, 1967; 1st edn, 1923), ch. 22.

72 Ibid. 44, 273, 274, 275; H. Legros, Chasseurs d'ivoire (Brussels, 1996), 92.

73 Melland, Witch-bound Africa, 273–7.

74 S. J. Chibanza, ‘Formation of the Kasempa chieftainship’, in S. J. Chibanza, Central Bantu Historical Texts I (Lusaka, 1961), 49, 52.

75 Ibid. 56, 58, 59, 62; W. van Binsbergen, Tears of Rain (London and New York, 1992), 155; NAZ, KDE 2/36/1, Copeman to Secretary for Native Affairs (SNA), 15 Jan. 1906.

76 Chibanza, ‘Formation’, 63, 59.

77 NAZ, NR/B1/2/368, Hall to SNA, 23 Jan. 1923.

78 NAZ, NR/B1/2/368, Parsons to Hall, 23 Jan. 1923.

79 See Cape of Good Hope Government Gazette, 10 Sept. 1901, Proclamation no. 18 of 1901.

80 NAZ, NR/B1/2/368, Macdonnel to Secretary to the Administrator (Northern Rhodesia), 20 June 1912.

81 NAZ, NW/A3/30, District Commissioner (DC) (Batoka), ‘A system for the voluntary registration of native guns’, encl. in DC to Coryndon, 22 June 1903.

82 British Central Africa Gazette, 31 Jan. 1901, Government Notice no. 4 of 1901.

83 British Central Africa Gazette, 31 Dec. 1900, Government Notice no. 4 of 1900, followed by British Central Africa Gazette, 31 Aug. 1902, Government Notice no. 9 of 1902.

84 North-Eastern Rhodesia Government Gazette, 29 Apr. 1905, Proclamation no. 1 of 1905.

85 See, e.g., Roberts, History of Zambia, 170.

86 See, e.g., R. Pélissier, Les guerres grises (Orgeval, 1977), ch. 16.

87 See, e.g., NAZ, KDE 2/44/1–3, Gibbons to Director of Military Intelligence, 2 Oct. 1899, and Harding to Secretary (BSAC), 4 July 1900.

88 Harding to Secretary (BSAC), 4 July 1900; H. Schomburgk, Wild und wilde in herzen Afrikas (Berlin, 1926; 1st edn, 1910), 187.

89 See, e.g., NAZ, NW/A3/24/9, DC (Lealui) to S. Admin., 4 Feb. 1904, and Acting S. Admin. to Acting DC (Lealui), 7 Mar. 1904. Cf. also Gann, L. H., ‘The end of the slave trade in British Central Africa’, Rhodes-Livingstone Journal, 16 (1954), 49Google Scholar.

90 NAZ, NW/A6/1/1, Harding to Secretary (BSAC), 25 June 1900.

91 Harding to Secretary (BSAC), 4 July 1900.

92 G. L. Caplan, The Elites of Barotseland, 1878–1969 (London, 1970), ch. 4.

93 NAZ, NW/A3/3/2, Aitkens to Coryndon, 17 Mar. 1903, and S. Admin. to Aitkens, 14 Aug. 1903.

94 NAZ, NW/A3/3/2, Aitkens to S. Admin., 7 Mar. 1906.

95 See, e.g., NAZ, NW/A3/30, DC (‘Falls District’) to S. Admin., 4 Aug. 1903; NAZ, NW/A3/24/9, Aitkens to SNA, 24 Aug. 1905.

96 NAZ, NR/HC1/3/1, II, Thwaits to McKinnon, 27 Nov. 1911, encl. in Wallace to Gladstone, 7 Feb. 1912.

97 Gibbons to Director of Military Intelligence, 2 Oct. 1899.

98 Harding to S. Admin., 27 Mar. 1900.

99 Venning, J. H., ‘Early days in Balovale’, Northern Rhodesia Journal, 2 (1955), 55Google Scholar, 57.

100 NAZ, NR/HC1/3/1, I, Palmer to McKinnon, 31 Aug. 1911, encl. in McKinnon to Wallace, 3 Oct. 1911.

101 A. St. H. Gibbons, Africa from South to North through Marotseland (London and New York, 1904), II, 33, 38–9, 44.

102 NAZ, NW/HC 1/2/14, ‘Extract from Mr. Carlisle's letter of September 2nd, 1904’, encl. in Coryndon to Milner, 19 Nov. 1904.

103 NAZ, NW/A3/24/9, E. A. Copeman, ‘Extract from report …’, encl. in SNA to S. Admin., 23 Nov. 1906.

104 NAZ, NW/HC1/2/1, Harding to Foreign Secretary, 16 Jan. 1901, encl. in S. Admin. to Imperial Secretary, South Africa (IS), 30 Apr. 1901.

105 NAZ, NW/A2/2/2, Coryndon to Secretary (BSAC), 1 Mar. 1904.

106 NAZ, NW/HC1/2/6, Harding to IS, 16 May 1903, encl. in Coryndon to IS, 18 May 1903.

107 Coryndon to Secretary (BSAC), 1 Mar. 1904.

108 NAZ, NW/IN2/1/11, [Macaulay?] to [S. Admin.?], ‘April’ 1903.

109 NAZ, NW/IN2/1/11, [F. C. Macaulay], ‘Report for year 1902’, 14 Mar. 1903.

110 The relationship between gun legislation and ideas about citizenship in colonial South Africa is the central theme of Storey, Guns.

111 NAZ, NR/HC1/3/1, II, Hazell to Wallace, 25 Mar. 1912, encl. in Wallace to Gladstone, 30 Mar. 1912.

112 Ibid.

113 Wallace to Gladstone, 30 Mar. 1912.

114 NAZ, NR/HC1/3/1, II, H. J. Gladstone, ‘Affairs in the Kasempa District – Northern Rhodesia’, 18 Apr. 1912, encl. in IS to Wallace, Cape Town, 20 Apr. 1912.

115 Macdonnel to Secretary to the Administrator, 20 June 1912.

116 NAZ, NR/ B1/2/368, SNA, ‘Notes on the draft Arms and Ammunition Proclamation’, 2 July 1912.

117 Northern Rhodesia Government Gazette, 1 Aug. 1912, Proclamation no. 9 of 1912.

118 Northern Rhodesia Government Gazette, 29 Aug. 1914, Proclamation no. 18 of 1914.

119 Northern Rhodesia Government Gazette, 6 Jan. 1923, Proclamation no. 21 of 1922.

120 Ibid. and NAZ, NR/B1/2/368, SNA to All District Officials, 18 Jan. 1923.

121 NAZ, ZA 1/9/51/2, SNA to Hall, 18 June 1923.

122 Ibid.

123 NAZ, NR/B1/2/368, Native Commissioner (NC) (Kasempa) to Hall, 25 Jan. 1923.

124 Ibid.

125 NAZ, NR/B1/2/368, Yeta et al. to Resident Magistrate (Barotseland), 31 Mar. 1923, encl. in Resident Magistrate to SNA, 4 Apr. 1923.

126 NAZ, ZA1/9/51/2, Bruce Miller to Resident Magistrate (Barotseland), 4 Sept. 1923.

127 NAZ, ZA7/1/7/6, K. S. Kinross, ‘Kasempa sub-district: annual report for the year ending 31 March 1924’.

128 NAZ, ZA7/1/7/6, P. Hall, ‘Kasempa district: annual report for the year ending 31 March 1924’.

129 NAZ, ZA 1/9/51/2, Hall to Attorney-General, 21 Sept. 1924.

130 NAZ, ZA1/9/51/2, SNA to Hall, 4 Mar. 1924, and P. Hall, ‘Firearms Restriction Proclamation 21/1922: supplementary instructions’, encl. in Hall to SNA, 13 Mar. 1924.

131 NAZ, ZA 1/9/51/2, Rennie to SNA, 22 Apr. 1926.

132 Ibid.

133 Northern Rhodesia Government Gazette, 13 June 1925, Ordinance no. 19 of 1925.