John Chilembwe (June 1871 – 3 February 1915) was a Baptist pastor, educator and revolutionary who trained as a minister in the United States, returning to Nyasaland in 1901.

An American pamphlet of 1914 claimed that John Chilembwe was born in Sangano, Chiradzulu District, in the south of what became Nyasaland, in June 1871.

[6] The principal was a radical African-American activist , Gregory Hayes, and Chilembwe both experienced the contemporary prejudice against Africans and Black Americans.

[7][8] After completing his studies at Lynchburg in 1900, he returned to Nyasaland in 1900 with the blessing of the Foreign Missions Board and financial assistance from the National Baptist Convention.

[9] For the first 12 years of his ministry after his return to Nyasaland, Chilembwe encouraged African self-respect and advancement through education, hard work and personal responsibility, as advocated by Booker T. Washington,[10] His activities were initially supported by white Protestant missionaries, although his relations with Catholic missions were less friendly.

In its first decade, the mission developed slowly, assisted by regular small donations from his American backers, and Chilembwe founded several schools, which by 1912 had 1,000 pupils and 800 adult students.

[17] He preached the values of hard-work, self-respect and self-help to his congregation and, although as early as 1905 he used his church position to deplore the condition of Africans in the protectorate, he initially avoided specific criticism of the government that might be thought subversive.

However, by 1912 or 1913, Chilembwe had become more politically militant and openly voiced criticism over the state of African land rights in the Shire Highlands and of the conditions of labour tenants there, particularly on the A. L. Bruce Estates.

[19] There is very little direct evidence of what Chilembwe did preach although, at least in his first decade in Nyasaland, his main message was of African advancement through Christianity and hard work.

[20][21] The evidence that has been interpreted as showing his millenarian views is dated from 1914 onward,[22][23] when he began baptizing many new church members without their first receiving instruction, as was normal Baptist practice.

[24] However this evidence is ambiguous, and Chilembwe's activities have been more closely related to the Ethiopian movement of African churches breaking away, often with black American backing, from the more orthodox but European controlled Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist or other denominations, than being under the influence of overtly millenarian groups such as the Seventh-day Adventists.

[25] In the Shire Highlands, the most densely populated part of the protectorate, European estates occupied about 867,000 acres, or over 350,000 hectares, almost half of the best arable land.

Cotton required intensive labour over a long growing period, and the estate manager William Jervis Livingstone (reputed to be a distant relative of David Livingstone) ensured that 5,000 workers were available on the Magomero estate throughout that five- or six-month period by exploiting the obligations of the migrant labour tenancy system called thangata.

He also recorded his personal dislike for Chilembwe as an educated African; he considered all African-led churches were centres for agitation, and prohibited them being built on the Magomero estate.

[36] The sources cited above agree that, after 1912 or 1913 the series of social and personal issues mentioned increased Chilembwe's bitterness toward Europeans in Nyasaland, and moved him towards thoughts of revolt and genocide.

However, they treat the outbreak and effects of the First World War as the key factor in moving him from thought to planning to take action, which he believed it was his destiny to lead, for the deliverance of his people.

[40] The Governor decided to deport Chilembwe and some of his followers, and approached the Mauritius government asking them to accept the deportees a few days before the rising started.

In a series of meetings held in December 1914 and early January 1915, Chilembwe and his leading followers aimed at overturning colonial rule and supplanting it, if possible.

However, it is possible that he learnt of his intended deportation, and was forced to bring forward the date of his revolt, making the prospects of its success more unlikely, and turning it into a symbolic gesture of protest.

In the third part of the plan, the forces of the Ncheu revolt based on the local independent Seventh Day Baptists would move south to link up with Chilembwe.

The official enquiry needed to find causes for the rising and it blamed Chilembwe for his mixture of political and religious teaching, but also the unsatisfactory conditions on the A L Bruce Estates and the unduly harsh regime of W. J.

This concept may have been what Chilembwe aimed to fight against with his schools and self-help schemes, and ultimately why he turned to violent action,[60] although see also[61] for an alternate viewpoint.

They had two sons, John (nicknamed Charlie) and Donald, who were born at unknown dates, in addition to a daughter, Emma, who died during infancy.