John Chilembwe

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John Chilembwe

John Chilembwe (* 1871 in the Chiradzulu / Nyassaland district , today: Malawi ; † February 3, 1915 in the Blantyre district ) was a Baptist clergyman and missionary . He was best known as a fighter against British colonialism and the founder of Malawian national consciousness. In modern Malawi he is considered a national hero.

Life

Chilembwe was born in Nyassaland, which had been under British colonial rule since 1881. He originally belonged to the Church of Scotland , which maintained a number of mission stations and educational institutions in the wake of British colonization in Nyassaland. It was here that John Chilembwe received his education. Under the influence of the English sheep farmer and free Baptist missionary Joseph Booth , for whom he worked as a housemaid from 1892 and who saw the Presbyterian Scottish Church as a religious instrument of colonial oppression, Chilembwe distanced itself more and more from the national church of Scotland. He was particularly impressed by Booth's view, which was radical for the time, that all people - regardless of skin color, culture and religion - had equal rights.

In 1897 John Chilembwe accompanied his employer Joseph Booth on a trip to North America. He decided to study theology there and enrolled at the Theological Seminary of the African American National Baptist Convention in Lynchburg . Here he dealt intensively with the works of the American abolitionists , in particular with those of John Brown and Booker T. Washington . Around 1900 he returned to his homeland as an ordained Baptist pastor and founded the missionary-diaconal organization Providence Industrial Mission in the Blantyre district , which established seven schools. Around 1912, one thousand young people and eight hundred adult students were studying in them. Chilembwe tried to make hard work, self-respect and self-help basic values ​​in his community.

He also took part in the organization of an active religious group that was formed in East Africa , called the Watch Tower Movement . This was subject to the influence of the Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society of Pastor Charles Taze Russell and his social teaching.

When a famine broke out in 1913, people from Mozambique immigrated to Nyassaland looking for work. Chilembwe outraged the exploitation of the members of his community and the refugees by the owners of the plantations. Wages were withheld from workers and beaten. One of the planters, William Jervis Livingstone, burned down village churches and schools founded by Chilembwe. When locals were called up by the British colonial authorities to fight the Schutztruppe in German East Africa in World War I , Chilembwe turned against it, as he could not see any benefit for the Africans in this war. On the contrary, he complained about racism and exploitation .

On January 23, 1915 , John Chilembwe started an uprising with two hundred supporters. They attacked plantations where they believed African workers were being oppressed. Chilembwe planned to kill all male Europeans. Three white planters were killed, including William Jervis Livingstone, who was beheaded in front of his wife and daughter. Some African workers were also killed, but nothing was done to women or children by order of Chilembwe. The uprising failed due to a lack of support. In letters to the neighboring towns of Zomba and Ntcheu, Chilembwe called for simultaneous surveys there. His appeals did not reach the addressees in time. By the time the appeals finally arrived on Monday, January 25, the authorities had already been informed of the plan and the hasty measures taken by the rebels had no effect. Chilembwe himself was killed trying to flee to Mozambique on February 3, 1915. Many of his followers were also killed by the British colonial authorities.

Nyassaland became independent under the name Malawi in 1964. John Chilembwe's portrait is featured today on the front of all banknotes in the local currency, the Malawi kwacha . January 15th is a memorial day for John Chilembwe ( John Chilembwe Day ) in Malawi .

literature

  • Mark Lipschutz, Kent Rasmussen: Dictionary of African Historical Biography . Berkeley 1986 (2nd edition)
  • Article: John Chilembwe , in: The New Encyclopedia Britannica . Chicago 1988 (15th edition)
  • DD Phiri: Let Us Die for Africa . Central Africana Limited, 1999, ISBN 9-99081-417-1
  • Ralph Ewachue (Ed.): Makers of Modern Africa . London 1991 (2nd edition)
  • George Shepperson and Thomas Price: Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Native Uprising of 1915 , Edinburgh University Press, 1967

Web links

Commons : John Chilembwe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Franz JT Lee: South Africa before the revolution? Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 33
  2. ^ Klaus Fiedler: Power at the Receiving End: the Jehovah's Witnesses' Experience in One-Party Malawi . In: Kenneth R. Ross: God, People an Power in Malawi: Democratization in Theological Perspective . online at www.books.google.de, Mzuzu 2018, pp. 150–151 (see also BSZ: bibliographic evidence .)
personal data
SURNAME Chilembwe, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Baptist cleric, Malawian freedom fighter
DATE OF BIRTH 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Chiradzulu District
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1915
Place of death Blantyre district