The Portuguese then attempted to negotiate British acceptance of their territorial claims, but the convening of the Berlin Conference (1884) ended these bilateral discussions.

[4] In 1885-86 Alexandre de Serpa Pinto undertook a Portuguese expedition which reached the Shire Highlands, but it failed make any treaties of protection with the Yao chiefs in territories west of Lake Malawi.

[7] On his way to take up his appointment, Johnston spent six weeks in Lisbon in early 1889 attempting to negotiate an acceptable agreement on Portuguese and British spheres of influence in Central Africa.

[14] It seems probable that Buchanan's action, made without reference to the Foreign Office, but following instructions that Johnston had left before he departed for the north, was to prevent any further advance by Serpa Pinto rather than to establish British rule in the area.

Salisbury was also influenced by the offer by the British South Africa Company to fund the administration of the protectorate, which convinced him to bow to popular pressure.

The treaty also granted Britain a 99-year lease over Chinde, a port at one of the Zambezi delta mouths where sea-going ships could transfer goods and passengers to river boats.

Its western border with Northern Rhodesia was fixed in 1891 at the drainage divide between Lake Malawi and the Luangwa River by agreement with the British South Africa Company, which governed what is today Zambia under Royal Charter until 1924.

[22] In 1891, Johnston only controlled a fraction of the Shire Highlands, itself a small part of the whole protectorate, and initially had a force of only 70 Indian troops to impose British rule.

[25] Mlozi had defeated two attempts which the African Lakes Company Limited in the Karonga War had made between 1887 and 1889, with some unofficial British government support, to dislodge him and his followers and end the slave trade.

[27] The Maseko Ngoni kingdom in the west of the protectorate had been the most powerful state in the region in the 1880s but was weakened by internal disputes and a civil war.

Initially, Gomani, the victor in the civil war that ended in 1891, was on good terms with British officials and missionaries, but he became concerned at the number of his young men going to work on European-owned estates in the Shire Highlands and by Johnston's forceful reaction to Yao resistance.

[28] In November 1895, he forbade his subjects either to pay taxes to, or work for, the British, and he was also accused of harassing nearby missions which had told their members not to obey Gomani's instructions.

[31][32] British Consuls for the Nyasa District ("to the territories of the kings and chiefs in the districts adjacent to Nyassa") The offer by the British South Africa Company to fund the administration of the newly-formed protectorate was part of an attempt by Cecil Rhodes to take over the administration of all the territory claimed by Britain north of the Zambezi.

This was resisted, particularly by the Scottish missionaries and, in February 1891, Salisbury agreed to a compromise under which what later became Northern Rhodesia would be under company administration and what later became Nyasaland would be administered by the Foreign Office.

This arrangement lapsed in 1900, when North-Eastern Rhodesia was formed as a separate protectorate with its own Administrator[18] Harry Johnston, who became Sir Henry at the end of his term, was Commissioner and Consul-General from 1 February 1891 to 16 April 1896.

Although the first Consul appointed in 1883 had used Blantyre as his base, the second moved to Zomba because it was closer to the slave route running from Lake Malawi to the coast.

Johnston also preferred Zomba because of its relative isolation, healthiness and superb scenery, and it became the governor's residence and administrative capital throughout the colonial period although Blantyre remained the commercial centre.

[33] In 1896, Johnston set up a small government Secretariat in Zomba which, with the addition of a few technical advisers appointed soon after, formed the nucleus of his central administration.

For up to 25 years before the protectorate was formed, a number of European traders, missionaries and others had claimed to have acquired often large areas of land through contracts signed with local chiefs, usually for derisory payment.

As a result, Johnston accepted the validity of those claims where the signatory was the chief of the tribe occupying the land, provided that the terms of the contract were not inconsistent with British sovereignty.

This included 1,093,614 hectares (2,702,379 acres) in the North Nyasa District that the British South Africa Company had acquired for its mineral potential and which was never turned into plantation estates.

Settlers wanted labour and encouraged existing Africans to stay on the undeveloped land, and new workers (often migrants from Mozambique) to move onto it, and grow their own crops.

[46] British occupation did not significantly change African society within the protectorate until the First World War, with most people continuing to live under the social and political systems that existed before 1891.

No attempt was made to remove or limit the powers of the Yao, Ngoni or Makololo chiefs (who had first entered the area in the 19th century) over the original inhabitants they had displaced, subjugated or assimilated, although the Swahili slave traders had been killed in the warfare of the 1890s or had left.

Although slave-trading had been eliminated, and Johnston issued instructions that domestic slaves were to be emancipated, this particular form of slavery endured, particularly in the Central Region, well into the first quarter of the 20th century[48] Throughout the period of the protectorate, most of its people were subsistence farmers growing maize, millet and other food crops for their own consumption.

Transport of goods to river ports was by inefficient and costly head porterage, as the Shire valley was unsuitable for draught animals.

[50][51] Shallow draught steamers carrying 100 tons or less had to negotiate Lower Shire marshes and low-water hazards in the Zambezi and its delta to reach the small, poorly equipped coastal port of Chinde in Mozambique.