Labour and politics in Northern Rhodesia, 1900-1953: a study in the limits of colonial power
Abstract
The thesis examines the politics of labour in Northern
Rhodesia (now Zambia) from the establishment of the British presence
in 1900 to the beginning of the Central African Federation in 1953.
It is argued that the power of governments to control or direct
labour migration or the conditions of labour was severely limited.
The British South Africa Company (which administered the territory
from 1900 to 192-1) lacked the administrative resources to do more
than tax the territory, and the laxity of early Administrators
allowed the criminal conduct of some district officials to go
unpunished. The introduction of labour migration and the cash
economy to the rural areas set off a chain of social changes which
the Northern Rhodesia Government (1924-1934) was similarly unable
to control. Any attempt to change the territory's status as a
labour reservoir for the South, or to improve African opportunities,
met opposition from the entrenched local Europeans, who monopolised
routine posts in the civil service and skilled jobs in the copper
mines and on the railways. The articulation of African grievances
is closely examined in the Copperbelt Strikes of 1935 and 1940,
together with the pressures which resulted in the formation of
African trade unions from 1947. The growing industrial power of
Africans led to hurried concessions in the 1050's, though relations
between African workers, their leaders, and the government remained
complex, and posed development problems for the independent Republic
of Zambia.