A Brief History of Malawi

Hey guys its Alice here. Outside of this project my main interest is in history and archaeology and that’s what I’m going to be studying at university next year. Since I came to Malawi a couple of weeks ago I have been thinking a lot about the history of the country and its people so I’ve asked lots of questions and done some research and I present you with “A Brief History of Malawi (but mostly just the bits I find cool).”

Malawi in all its glory!

Let’s start right at the beginning with the forming of Africa. Now I’ll admit science isn’t really my strong point so much of this was explained to me by Cicely and I’m a bit vague on the details but let’s give it a go. Africa was essentially the first continent to form on earth. Continents form when all the hot liquid in the middle of the earth comes up to the surface in little blobs (islands) solidifies and then gets squished together into really big blobs (continents). Because of these islands being squished together we get a lot of mountains on continents that then slowly get eroded away. One of the ways we can see how old Africa is is that it is now very flat, meaning that many of the mountains have had long enough to disappear. Africa isn’t only interesting cause it’s old either. It is also the place where humans are believed to have evolved. Because of this it’s often given the name “Cradle of Humanity”. Evidence of this can be found right here is Malawi; a humanoid jaw bone that is between 2.3 and 2.5 million years old, one of the oldest humanoid remains ever found. Malawi has been populated for a long time then. Possibly because of the stability coming from living by a big old lake that doesn’t look like it’s gonna dry up any time soon. By let’s skip forward a couple of million years and look at some comparatively resent history.

In the 15^th century a pretty major empire began to grow in Malawi. It was founded by invaders from the Republic of Congo that arrived, hunted down and killed the other inhabitants. Pretty grim right? These people mostly worked at forges and were called the Marvani which is thought to come from a word meaning flame. Marvani is thought to be where the name Malawi comes from. The Marvani Empire grew and grew until it encompassed all of modern Malawi and parts of Mozambique and Zambia. There was one main dude in charge called the Karonga and there were lots of sub-chiefs who were more like modern day village chiefs with responsibility over a smaller group of people. While this may sound like a decent system, infighting between the sub-chiefs was in fact one of the things that led to the empires downfall in the 18^th century. Another factor was the large increase in slave trade (particularly to America and the Caribbean) taking place at that time.

However the biggest factor that led to the Marvani downfall was the arrival of two other groups of people called the Angoni and the Yao. The Angoni arrived because they were fleeing the mighty Zulu empire and they ended up mostly settling in the areas now called Ntchea and Dedza. In a mad coincidence we also have two teams of volunteers placed in these areas. Hi guys if you’re reading!! The Angoni either forced the Marvani to join them or forced them into slavery and in this way took over large sections of the country. Later the Yao arrived from Mozambique and they also claimed large areas of the country for themselves.

This is where my people, the Scots, come into the picture. David Livingston, who I’ve heard a huge amount about since I got here, arrived in Malawi in 1959 with a plan for British colonisation. As has been common throughout history he decided to do this using religion; more specifically the introduction of Christianity. Resistance to Christianity was pretty strong, especially from the Yao who were Muslims, but in the next 20 years or so a large Christian following had been created across Malawi and 1891 British rule was established. From people I’ve spoken to since I got here it seems that the general opinion of Livingston in this country is a good one. This could perhaps be because a large part of his history seems to be left out of textbooks here. When the Yao resisted Christianity it was largely through burning their houses and crops and other forms or cruelty that Livingston and his people managed to convert them. Livingston also spread the idea that the Yao were uncivilised and murderous when they could in fact read, write, use advanced farming methods and very rarely used firearms except to protect other Malawian groups from prosecution.  Sadly this violence and spreading of misinformation does not feel out of place in the history of the British Empire.

Hastings Banda "President for Life"

Luckily for the Malawians the gained independence in 1964 and Hastings Banda became president under their new republican constitution. In 1970 Banda was declared President for Life and I have been told by my host mum that people thought he would live forever. Malawi under the rule of Banda was a very different place than it is now as he enforced strict rules on clothing and haircuts, outlawed certain religions, and censored and edited magazines, movies and even private mail. Despite all of this he is still seen as hero by many Malawians and people were very shocked when he died. In 1993 a multiparty, democratic system was put in place that is still being used today. The current president of Malawi is Peter Mutharika and he is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party.

So, there you have it, A Brief History of Malawi. While I know this topic may not seem directly related to our project I find that understanding the history of a country is very important when it comes to understanding its people and culture. Malawi has a fascinating history and that was only a small taste of it. I’d definitely encourage anyone reading this to do a little research of their own as it really does make up a huge part of everyone living here. Thanks for reading! x