A. L. Bruce Estates

Alexander Low Bruce, the son-in-law of David Livingstone, acquired a large estate at Magomero in the Shire Highlands of Nyasaland in 1893, together with two smaller ones.

The company gained a reputation for the harsh exploitation and ill-treatment of its tenants under a labour system known by the African term "thangata", which operated in the plantation cultivation of cotton and tobacco.

In 1875, Alexander Low Bruce's second marriage was to Agnes (1847–1912), the daughter of David Livingstone and his wife Mary (née Moffat).

[2] Alexander Low Bruce shared Livingstone's views on the role of legitimate trade in combating the East African slave trade and, after his marriage to Agnes Livingstone, Bruce's interests turned towards the support of commercial and missionary organisations in East and Central Africa, and in 1888 he visited Kuruman, where Robert Moffat established his mission, and where his wife had been born.

The provisions of their father's will expressed his wish about how his sons, as trustees, should manage the estates: "…in the hope and expectation that they will take an interest in the opening up of Africa to Christianity and Commerce on the lines laid down by their grandfather the late David Livingstone.

Instead of local people, workers at Magomero were generally "Anguru", a term employed by Europeans to describe as a number of different Lomwe speaking migrants from the parts of Mozambique to the east of the Shire Highlands.

[12] In order to ensure that 3,000 to 5,000 workers were available throughout the five or six month long growing season of cotton, the obligations of labour tenants were exploited, wages were withheld, not paid in full or only in kind, and violent coercion was used.

Additional labour services were also required in lieu of Hut tax which the estate owner paid on behalf of tenants.

Following the uprising, the protectorate government passed an Ordinance in 1917, which sought to displace thangata by prohibiting labour in place of cash rents.

However, Alexander Livingstone Bruce, who was a member of the Governor's Executive Council, led estate owners in threatening massive evictions if this were implemented, and thangata remained [15] It was Bruce rather than the murdered Livingstone who had banned schools from the estate and prevented Chilembwe from building any churches there, and he stated his opposition to all schools for African workers.

Although after 1925 the company chose to take tobacco or cash instead of labour, the potential thangata obligation only ended when A. L. Bruce Estates Ltd. sold Magamero and the tenants were released from what seemed to them to be a form of serfdom [17] John Chilembwe was born in southern Nyasaland in 1870 or 1871.

With the financial backing of the National Baptist Convention of America, Chilembwe started the Providence Industrial Mission in Chiradzulu district.

He preached the values of hard-work, self-respect and self-help and deplored the condition of Nyasaland Africans, at first avoiding direct criticism of the government.

From around 1910, he faced several problems in the mission and personally, including debts, the loss of funds from America, the death of a daughter, asthma and his declining eyesight.

However, it was the outbreak and effects of the First World War that moved him from verbal protest to planning to take action, which he believed it was his destiny to lead, for the deliverance of his people.

Soon after, he gathered together a small group of educated Africans, who began with him to organise a rebellion against British rule in December 1914 and early January 1915.

[27] At the end of the First World War, Major Sanderson became W. J. Livingstone's eventual successor as manager and pioneered growing flue-cured tobacco at Magomero.

The A. L. Bruce Estates Ltd accounts first showed a deficit in 1920, and Sanderson attempted to stop further settlement, claiming there was insufficient work for tenants to meet their labour obligations or to pay rent.

Sanderson argued that such tenants become rent-free squatters, and wanted to use the threat of eviction to compel them to grow saleable economic crops.

However, it was more profitable for African farmers to grow dark-fired tobacco on Crown land, and from 1925 A. L. Bruce Estates was permanently in deficit.

[28][29] The company's decline was partly arrested by the Natives on Private Estates Ordinance 1928, which made rents in cash or kind an alternative to labour under thangata.

Bruce's insistence on competing against African farmers on Native Trust Land who were more efficient because of lower overheads, caused increasing tension between the company and its tenants.

Many tenants preferred to grow maize or cassava for sale on local markets rather than tobacco, which had to be sold to A. L. Bruce Estates Ltd at a low price, with payment deferred.

[33] Kincaid-Smith, the general manager, ordered the food crops to be uprooted, but met fierce opposition, and the government condemned his actions.

Bruce Estates wanted a figure that would wipe out its accumulated losses since 1925, but this was considered excessive, and in 1947 the company provisionally agreed to sell Magomero to a private buyer at a price of £80,000.