Leroy Vail (August 5, 1940 – March 27, 1999) whose birth name was Hazen Leroy Vail, was an American specialist in

African studies African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's History of Africa, history (pre-colonial, Colonisation of Af ...

and educator who specialized in the

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

of Central Africa and later extended his interests to Southern Africa. He taught in universities in

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and his research in the first two countries inclined him toward the view that Central Africa underwent a period of

underdevelopment Underdevelopment, in the context of international development, reflects a broad condition or phenomena defined and critiqued by theorists in fields such as economics, development studies, and postcolonial studies. Used primarily to distinguish s ...

that began in the mid-19th century and accelerated under colonial rule. After his return to the United States, he cooperated with Landeg White on studies of colonial

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

and on the value of African poetry and songs as a source of

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who pa ...

Early life, education and family

Hazen Leroy Vail, known throughout his adult life as Leroy Vail, was born in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

on August 5, 1940, to parents of Canadian origin. His father, Hazen Claude Vail, from Belleisle, New Brunswick, moved to Boston as an adult and his mother, born Mary Teresa MacLean in

Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (, formerly '; or '; ) is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although ...

, arrived there as a young girl. He had one younger brother, born in 1943. Leroy grew up in the

Allston Allston is an officially recognized neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was named after the American painter and poet Washington Allston. It comprises the land covered by the zip code 02134. For the most part, Allston is ...

neighbourhood of Boston, where he attended local public schools. In 1952, he was admitted to the

Boston Latin School The Boston Latin School is a Magnet school, magnet Latin schools, Latin Grammar schools, grammar State school, state school in Boston, Massachusetts. It has been in continuous operation since it was established on April 23, 1635. It is the old ...

, graduating in 1958, and then entered

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

to study Classics, but he changed to studying history after taking a

sophomore In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of Post-secondary school, post-secondary educatio ...

course on medieval Europe, and graduated

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

in history in 1962.Akyeampong, Appiah, Miller and Womack, Jr, (2000). Memorial Minute. Vail attended graduate school at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

, intending to study British imperial history under

Philip Curtin Philip Dearmond Curtin (May 22, 1922 – June 4, 2009) was a Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins University and historian of Africa and the Atlantic slave trade. His most famous work, ''The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census'' (1969) was one of the ...

. However, he quickly moved to the comparative tropical history program led by Curtin and

Jan Vansina Jan M. J. Vansina (14 September 1929 – 8 February 2017) was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa, especially of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. ...

, where he studied African history and historical linguistics.Miller, Jr, (1999). In Memoriam. He was awarded an M.A. in History in 1965, after which he was involved in Bantu language research at Madison, in its newly founded Department of African Languages and Literature. Leroy married Patricia Ann Horochena, who held a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1967. In 1988, she and Vail took a Zambian girl, Sharon Mulenga, into their home as their daughter. Patricia Vail died on 26 February 2007. In 1996, Vail suffered a massive heart attack but recovered and returned to work. However, he was later diagnosed with lymphoma which, in the autumn of 1998, spread uncontrollably. He died at his home in

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other words Arts and media * ''Concord'' (video game), a defunct 2024 first-person sh ...

on 27 March 1999.

Academic career

In Africa

Vail was awarded a one-year traveling fellowship by the University of Wisconsin in 1967 and decided to undertake research in

. He became a Lecturer in History in the newly founded

University of Malawi The University of Malawi (UNIMA) is a public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant funding from a government. Whethe ...

and remained there until 1971. After leaving the country, he became a fierce critic of the regime of its first president,

Hastings Banda Hastings Kamuzu Banda ( – 25 November 1997) was a Malawian politician and statesman who served as the leader of Malawi from 1964 to 1994. He served as Prime Minister of Malawi, Prime Minister from independence in 1964 to 1966, when Malawi was ...

. In 1967–68 Vail began linguistic research among the

Tumbuka people The Tumbuka (also known as Yombe, Kamanga, Senga, Tonga and Henga) are a group of Bantu peoples, Bantu peoples found in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. followed by later ones reinterpreting Tumbuka history and examining the operations of Portuguese companies in the lower Zambezi Valley of Mozambique. He returned to in Madison in 1971 to complete his doctoral thesis ''Aspects of the Tumbuka Verb'', which was accepted in 1972. He was unable to obtain an African history post in North America, so returned to Africa in 1973 as senior lecturer in history and African languages in the

University of Zambia The University of Zambia (UNZA) is a public university located in Lusaka, Zambia. It is Zambia's largest and oldest learning institution. The university was established in 1965 and officially opened to the public on 12 July 1966. The language of ...

, remaining there until 1978. During his time at this university, he organized an undergraduate course in African Languages and a Masters course in African History, and published several important articles on the history of Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique.

In the US

Vail returned to the United States in 1978, and was visiting Associate Professor successively at Virginia for the 1978–79 academic year, UCLA, for 1979–80 and Ohio for 1980–81. He then gained a Research Fellowship on the Yale Southern African Research Program in 1981-82, returning to Virginia for the 1982–83 academic year. Meanwhile, his first book, ''Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique'' which he co-authored with Landeg White, was published. Its history was based on archival material and also on African women's songs that recorded the African suffering caused by Portuguese rule in the Lower Zambezi. In 1983, he organized a symposium for historians and anthropologists of southern Africa that investigated the historical nature of African ethnicities in a landmark collection, ''The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa''. Vail became visiting Associate Professor of History at Harvard the spring term 1984, and received his first regular American academic appointment there later that year as

Associate Professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

of History, being given tenure in 1990, and becoming Chairman of the Committee on African Studies from then until 1995. His second book with Landeg White, ''Power and the Praise Poem'', was published in 1992. This argued that oral history was real history and that poets and their poetry for played a significant role in transmitting Southern African history. In 1994, after the Banda regime had ended, Vail returned to Malawi as a

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

monitor for the elections of 1994.

Research interests

Underdevelopment hypothesis

In the 1970s, soon after many former African colonies had become independent, two different approaches were taken to the historical treatment of the period of colonial rule, in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa. One, the

Nation-building Nation-building is constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. Nation-building aims at the unification of the people within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable. According to Harris Mylonas, ...

concept saw the colonial period as an episode in building the post-colonial nation. This view weighed the benefits of the physical infrastructure and economic structures inherited by the new nation against colonial restrictions on African political and social advancement. Vail questioned the basis of the evolutionary Nation-building scheme of interpretation and was a strong advocate of the concept of

Underdevelopment Underdevelopment, in the context of international development, reflects a broad condition or phenomena defined and critiqued by theorists in fields such as economics, development studies, and postcolonial studies. Used primarily to distinguish s ...

in Central Africa. His attachment to this concept began with his research among what he called the dispossessed and atrociously exploited

Tumbuka people The Tumbuka (also known as Yombe, Kamanga, Senga, Tonga and Henga) are a group of Bantu peoples, Bantu peoples found in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Vail saw underdevelopment as a step-by-step process of impoverishment and stagnation that started in the middle of the 19th century but accelerated under colonial rule. His theme, developed in four significant papers published between 1975 and 1981, was that the in

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and Tooth, teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mamm ...

and

slave trade Slave trade may refer to: * History of slavery - overview of slavery It may also refer to slave trades in specific countries, areas: * Al-Andalus slave trade * Atlantic slave trade ** Brazilian slave trade ** Bristol slave trade ** Danish sl ...

s created a demand for imported goods among the people to the west of

Lake Malawi Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, () is an African Great Lakes, African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is ...

in the late 18th and early 19th century and prompted social differentiation within their traditional societies. The mid-19th century incursion of

Ngoni people The Ngoni people are an ethnic group living in the present-day Southern African countries of Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. The Ngoni trace their origins to the Nguni people, Nguni and Zulu people, Zulu people of KwaZulu-Na ...

s into what is now the Northern Region of Malawi and Eastern Province of Zambia caused a further loss of status of among many indigenous groups, whose people become Ngoni serfs or refugees with limited access to land.

In Ngoni occupied areas

The conversion of migratory Ngoni

pastoralism Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as "livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The anim ...

into a mixed agricultural economy placed, in Vail's view, increasing pressure on subject peoples to produce more cereals, which provoked a series of revolts among these subjects in the 1870s. Vail believed that Ngoni practices of shifting or

slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of shifting cultivation that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a Field (agriculture), field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody p ...

cultivation and extensive cattle herding and their preference for living in large villages rather than in dispersed farmsteads, as the original inhabitants had done, caused

overgrazing Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature ...

and the loss of soil fertility near the villages and the development of uncultivated bush in the areas between villages, into which wild animals carrying

Tsetse fly Tsetse ( , or ) (sometimes spelled tzetze; also known as tik-tik flies) are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus ''Glossina'', which are placed in their own family, Gloss ...

moved and infected nearby cattle. In what became northern Nyasaland, revolts by the oppressed Tumbuka, ecological degradation and the famine it caused undermined the position of the local Ngoni king, Mbelwa. These events predated any significant European presence in the area, but from the 1870s the African Lakes Company began to import European goods into the area and to transport young African men to work in European enterprises the south. Scottish Presbyterian missionaries also arrived in the area and Mbelwa, who had little power over influential Ngoni military leaders, sought an alliance with the missionaries to strengthen his position against those opponents that saw trying to accommodate the increasing European presence around the shores of

as a betrayal of traditional values. At first, Mbelwa saw Christianity and missionary education as more suitable for Tumbuka serfs than polygamous Ngoni warriors, and their first missions were in Tumbuka or

Tonga Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania. The country has 171 islands, of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in the southern Pacific Ocean. accordin ...

areas, although he later saw the missionaries’ value for the northern Ngoni state. Although Mbelwa's Ngoni retained their autonomy until 1904, Vail considers that their social and economic position and those of the Tumbuka were weakened as previous relatively egalitarian class systems became more unequal when they were drawn into the capitalist economy. The Ngoni in

North-Eastern Rhodesia North-Eastern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in south central Africa formed in 1900.North-Eastern Rhodesia Order in Council, 1900 The protectorate was administered under charter by the British South Africa Company. It was one of what were ...

lost most of their cattle, representing their wealth, in the

rinderpest Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) was an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic water buffalo, and many other species of even-toed ungulates, including gaurs, African Buffalo, buffaloes, large antelope, deer, giraffes, wilde ...

epidemic of the early 1890s and many of their remaining cattle were seized by

British South African Company The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was Chartered company, chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capital ...

forces which conquered the Ngoni in that area later in the decade. Restrictions on Africans possessing guns for hunting elephants and other wild animals deprived them, in Vail's view, of sources of income and meat, and the imposition of a hut tax and land expropriation in Northern Rhodesia in the first decade of the 20th century further impoverished this area. According to Vail, the Ngoni invasions and the advent of colonial rule had created the so-called ''Dead North'' in Nyasaland and impoverishment around

Chipata Chipata is a city and administrative centre of the Eastern Province of Zambia and Chipata District. It was declared the 5th city of the country, after Lusaka, Ndola, Kitwe and Livingstone, by President Edgar Lungu on 24 February 2017. The cit ...

. The colonial policies in these areas and in Mozambique resulted in leaving local African men at best little choice but become labor migrants and at worst in their forced recruitment for the mines, farms and other employers of

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

.Vail (1981), p. 247 He considered that the absence of many able-bodied men restricted the ability of those women, youths and older men remaining to produce food or cash crops, and European farmers discouraged the growth of cash crops that might compete with them. As a result of these policies, Vail believed that, for the forty years until 1939, the people the British colonies were impoverished and exploited and that post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

policies came too late to make good the damage caused

Nyasaland's railways

Although Pachai strongly believed that the development of Nyasaland's railways was a positive contribution by the British government to the protectorate's development, Vail considered that the policies of the British government and the local colonial administration turned Nyasaland into an ''Imperial Slum'' and a labor reserve for

and

. He argued the country's economy was burdened by heavy debts arising from colonial railway construction, which he considered was designed to benefit British companies and interests at the expense of Nyasaland and which hindered its economic development. Initially, the landlocked protectorate was reached from the Indian Ocean along the

Zambezi The Zambezi (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than half of t ...

and

Shire Shire () is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries. It is generally synonymous with county (such as Cheshire and Worcestershire). British counties are among the oldes ...

rivers, which were free of customs dues to international traffic, but falling Shire river levels in the early 20th century created difficulties in maintaining a continuous service. The first railway project was to link the most developed part of the country, the

Shire Highlands The Shire Highlands are a plateau in southern Malawi, located east of the Shire River. It is a major agricultural area and the most densely populated part of the country. Geography The highlands cover an area of roughly 7250 square kilometers. ...

, to a suitable river port, although this line had to be extended southward as water levels in the Shire continued to fall, and it eventually reached the Zambezi. A railway from Beira in Mozambique to

Salisbury Salisbury ( , ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers River Avon, Hampshire, Avon, River Nadder, Nadder and River Bourne, Wi ...

in Southern Rhodesia had been opened in 1899 and, after a possible alternative rail route from Quelimane toward the Nyasaland border stalled after the First World War, the British government was under pressure from British-owned companies to link Nyasaland's railways to this line. Although, as Vail stated, the primary benefit of the Beira route did not accrue to Nyasaland, the protectorate was expected to pay interest and repay capital on loans for the construction of the railway link and the

Dona Ana Bridge The Dona Ana Bridge spans the lower Zambezi River between the towns of Vila de Sena and Mutarara in Mozambique, effectively linking the two halves of the country. It was originally constructed as a railway bridge to link Malawi and the Moatiz ...

over the Zambezi out of the expected increase in government revenues. By 1935, the country was liable to repay debts of £5.1 million. Vail also notes that the colonial administration abandoned development plans in the 1930s, attributing this to its indebtedness rather than the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

in general. He suggested that this debt burden left its government with insufficient funds to promote the growing of exportable crops by African farmers. The high freight charges levied by the railways to Beira were a further disincentive to agricultural development and forced protectorate to rely on exporting migrant labor, so producing widespread slum-like conditions and making it little more than a labor reserve.

Creation of tribalism

In the 1980s, Vail considered the historical background to the creation of ethnicity and the resurgence of tribalism in Central and Southern Africa. His experience in Malawi suggested to him that, in the late 1960s shortly after the independence of several former colonies, there was a revival of the ethnic and regional consciousness that had been established earlier in the 20th century, but which became less prominent during struggles for independence. This revival reflected the artificial origin of most post-colonial African states and their rapid adoption of one-party rule: the development of regionalism and tribalism was a reaction to the dominant party trying to impose a false unity on the existence of ethnic diversity. Vail did not accept, as other authors had claimed, that ethnicity resulted from the colonial powers’ divide-and-rule tactics, from the rigid classification of African peoples into fixed tribes by European anthropologists or when previously isolated rural groups came together and into conflict in urban or industrial settings. He also questioned whether the growth of ethnic particularism was related to uneven development in colonial times that gave some groups better access to education and employment, or to the creation of myths regarding ancestral political structures that were disrupted in the colonial era. Although accepting that all these explanations might have some validity, Vail considered them unhistorical and pointed to the impoverishment of Central and Southern Africa in the late 19th and early 20th century through ecological catastrophes such as the rinderpest epidemic, disease, locusts and famine, colonial land expropriation and taxes and labor migrancy, all of which amounted to African people losing control of their lives. He believed that the decline of traditional power systems and the growth of both European organized and African initiated churches gave rise to new identities that, for European missionaries or anthropologists or educated Africans themselves, were ethnic identities, each with its language, often fixed by missionaries for used in education, and a rediscovered or manufactured history and traditions. In the decade following independence in 1964, political views in Malawi were frequently expressed in ethnic terms, and groups that had prospered under the colonial regime were stigmatized as being unfaithful to the country's

Chewa Chewa may refer to: *the Chewa people *the Chewa language Chewa ( ; also known as Nyanja ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in Malawi and a recognised minority in Zambia and Mozambique. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for lang ...

culture which the ruling party and

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

promoted. Before the ratification of a British protectorate over what became Nyasaland, there were many ethnic groups in the area. Missionaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries homogenized the various local dialects into a relatively small number of standardized languages, so that the

Tumbuka language Chitumbuka (also known as Senga) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language which is spoken primarily in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe.

became the medium of teaching in the north of the country, the

Chewa language Chewa ( ; also known as Nyanja ) is a Bantu languages, Bantu language spoken in Malawi and a recognised minority in Zambia and Mozambique. The noun class prefix ''chi-'' is used for languages, so the language is often called or Chinyanja. In Ma ...

in the centre and Nyanja and

Yao language Yao is a Bantu language of Malawi and Mozambique. In Malawi, the main dialect is Mangochi, mostly spoken around in Mangochi District. In Mozambique, the main dialects are Makale and Massaninga. In Malawi, most Yao speakers live in the Southe ...

s in the south. The Chewa and Nyanja languages are closely related and the official standard was called Chinyanja until 1968, when the president of Malawi

, who came from the predominantly Chewa Central Province insisted on it being called Chichewa. The education provided by Scottish-run missions at several sites in the Northern Province of Nyasaland was superior to that found in most other parts of the protectorate, although other Scottish missionaries at Blantyre Mission also provided educational advancement for some southerners. Those that these missions trained became an educated African elite, who found employment as teachers, in the civil service or in commerce, and whose political aim was African advancement to higher positions in the administration and to obtain a political voice. In contrast, the Yao in the south, including many Muslims debarred from Christian education, and the Chewa in the centre, where fewer missions were founded, were more resentful of the intervention of the colonial state and protective of their traditional culture than motivated by political aspirations. Many of the leading figures in the

Nyasaland African Congress The Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) was an organisation that evolved into a political party in Nyasaland during the colonial period. The NAC was suppressed in 1959, but was succeeded in 1960 by the Malawi Congress Party, which went to on decisiv ...

in the late 1950s and early 1960s were Tumbuka speaking northerners or graduates of Blantyre Mission and, in 1963, in preparation for independence, these took a majority of the ministerial posts in Banda's government. Shortly after independence, in the 1964 Cabinet Crisis, the rejection of their demand for more rapid

Africanisation Africanization or Africanisation (lit., making something African) has been applied in various contexts, notably in geographic and personal naming and in the composition of the civil service via processes such as indigenization. Africanization ...

, a key aim of the mission-educated elite, led to their resignation or sacking and, in most cases, their exile. In the aftermath of this, Banda purged their supporters from positions of influence and replaced them with Chewa nominees from the Central Region, at the same time promoting the Chewa culture as the only authentic Malawian culture. In addition to renaming the Chinyanja language Chichewa in 1968, Tumbuka was abolished as an official language and the medium of instruction in the Northern Region in the same year, and examination results and the secondary school entrance system were manipulated to assist candidates from the Central Region and disadvantage those from the Northern Region.

Later interests

Towards the end of his career, Vail widened his interests, including a return to studying Bantu linguistics and at the time of his death, he had four books in progress, three on Central Africa ''Spirits, Women, and Deprivation,'' in Malawi and Zambia since 1850, a dictionary of Lakeside Tonga, and ''Ideophones as stylistic devices in Tumbuka'', the fourth was on ''ethnogenesis'' in modern Togo. It is possible that his dictionary of Lakeside Tonga may be published in the future.

Alternative views

Vail's research was regarded as innovative when published, but his views in three areas have been reassessed by other scholars or modified by later research: the extent of ecological damage caused by African agricultural practices, the degree of compulsion involved in labor migration and its overall effects, and the cost to Nyasaland of its colonial era railways. Two more recent assessments are that British rule was a mixed blessing for many of the peoples of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, as it brought an end to warfare and slave raiding, yet redirected much of their productive labor toward the capitalism of the south, and that many labor migrants travelled south clandestinely, ignoring governmental restrictions, in search of financial security; although many were exploited, others achieved modest prosperity after their return from their savings out of higher wages earned abroad.

Environmental degradation

Much of Vail's account of

environmental degradation Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

in Northern Nyasaland is based on the views of 19th century missionaries who regarded Ngoni farming practices as environmentally destructive, wasteful and therefore morally wrong, and also the attitudes of colonial officials from the 1930s onward who accepted the missionaries' views without any supporting

empirical evidence Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how the ...

. Read regarded the Ngoni as having an efficient agricultural system based on the labor of their serfs, and accounts from the 1870s to 1890s mention extensive cultivation and cattle herding, and the apparent health and prosperity of the Ngoni people. The main objection of missionaries and colonial officials was to the Ngoni shifting or

cultivation, which a few tropical agriculturalists from the 1950s began to recognize them as sympathetic to the environment, and which many modern-day tropical agriculturalists consider may be more efficient than fixed cultivation of many tropical soils. Vail expressly rejected Read's views, claiming she had been misadvised by Ngoni informants, but he did not consider the efficiency or otherwise of slash-and-burn cultivation. Recent research supports Read's views, showing that, in 1998, most soils in Malawi were adequate for growing maize, as fertility had declined much less rapidly than forecast between the 1930s and 1950s.

Labor migration

Vail's suggestions that the forced recruitment of labor and the forced consumption of foreign goods were imposed on the Tumbuka and Ngoni in northern Nyasaland in the later 19th century,Vail (1981), p. 247 or that other African men in Nyasaland, eastern Northern Rhodesia or Mozambique had little or no option but to become labor migrantsVail, White and Penvenne (1979), pp. 247-8 seem overstated. The first labor migrancy from the area between the north-western shores of

Lake Nyasa Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, () is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is the fourth largest ...

and the Luangwa valley predated these areas becoming British dependencies, and was initially directed to the

. However, in the mid to late 1890s, some workers travelled voluntarily to Southern Rhodesia and South Africa where wages were much higher. Rather than consistently promoting labor migration, the Nyasaland government opposed all migration of workers outside the protectorate before 1903 and from 1913 to 1936 and, when it did allow migrancy, the government insisted on enforcing controls on the numbers recruited by licensed labor organizations and a system of deferring part of the men's pay until they returned to Nyasaland. However, many workers left independently, disregarding government restrictions and licensed recruitersMcCraken (2012), pp. 85-7 For much of the first half of the 20th century, there was a debate on whether Nyasaland should have as its main economic function agriculture on European owned estates, peasant cash-crop production or the supply of migrant labor. Although labor migration was predominant in the Northern Province of Nyasaland and Eastern Province of Northern Rhodesia, regarding them simply as labor reserves ignores the increasing importance of peasant cash crop production in these areas and government attempts to find suitable cash crops which could replace migrant laboring as the main source of local cash incomes. Peasant cash-crop production in Nyasaland's Central Province and this together with agriculture on European-owned estates in the Southern Province were far more important than labor migration to their local economies and that of Nyasaland as a whole in the colonial period. Vail and White considered that the colonial administration of Mozambique pressured local Africans into migrant labor by discouraging them from growing cash crops and requiring them to engage in productive labor. However, Penvenne argued that Vail and White did not clearly distinguish between coercive labor conscription for work within Mozambique and migrant labor recruitment, where workers actively sought higher wages outside its territory. This external migrant labor was voluntary and often the subject of disapproval by officials or companies based in Mozambique.

Railway finance

Vail's argument that the cost of railway links impoverished Nyasaland, preventing the government from promoting efficient peasant agriculture has also been questioned. The Nyasaland government only had to pay interest and repay capital on the loans for constructing the Trans-Zambezia Railway or Zambezi Bridge if its revenues exceeded target figures. During the period 1930 to 1947, it only paid interest in 1936 and repaid no capital, and all the accrued debt liabilities passed to the

Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, also known as the Central African Federation (CAF), was a colonial federation that consisted of three southern African territories: the Self-governing colony, self-governing British colony of Southern ...

in 1953. Rather than draining Nyasaland's admittedly meagre public funds, as Vail suggests, the railway and Zambezi Bridge cost it relatively little and provided a more effective, if underutilized, link to the outside world than the previously used option of river transport. Although Vail mentions that various development projects were shelved in 1935, he does not provide a direct link between this and the increased public debt. A more detailed review of the Nyasaland government's actual revenue and expenditure in the 1929 to 1939

showed that revenue was maintained in the first part of that decade and rose in the second half, and that ordinary government expenditure rose by 50% in the period, with significant increases in Social Services and Natural Resources spending and staff, although the amounts were small.Baker (1974), pp. 11-12, 15

References

Sources

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Memorial Minute – H. Leroy Vail

The Harvard Gazette Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learni ...

15 June 2000. *C Baker, (1974). Depression and Development in Nyasaland 1929 — 1939. The Society of Malawi Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1. *Boston Globe, (2007)
Obituary of Patricia Ann (Horochena) Vail
*W Beinart, (1984). Soil Erosion, Conservationism and Ideas about Development: A Southern African Exploration, 1900–1960. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1. *G C Bond, (2000). Historical Fragments and Social Constructions in Northern Zambia. Journal of African Cultural Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, p. 81. *A G Irvine, (1959). The Balance of Payments of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 1945–1954. Oxford University Press. *J McCracken, (2002). The Ambiguities of Nationalism: Flax Musopole and the Northern Factor in Malawian Politics, c. 1956-1966, Journal of Southern African Studies Vol.28, No.1. *J McCracken, (2003). Conservation and Resistance in Colonial Malawi: the 'Dead North' Revisited, in W Beinart and J McGregor (editors). Social History and African Environments, Oxford, James Currey. . *J McCracken, (2012). A History of Malawi, 1859–1966. Woodbridge, James Currey. . *J C. Miller, (1999)
In Memoriam H. Leroy Vail (1940–99)
Perspectives on History, November 1999. *H Mitchell, (2013). In Search of Green Pastures: Labour Migration from Colonial Malawi, 1939–1960. The Society of Malawi Journal, Vol. 66, No. 2. *H L Moore and M Vaughan, (1994). Cutting Down Trees: Gender, Nutrition, and Agricultural Change in the Northern Province of Zambia, 1890–1990. London: James Currey, 1994. . *D K Mphande, (2014). Oral Literature and Moral Education among the Lakeside Tonga of Northern Malawi, Mzuzu, Mzuni Press. . *B Pachai, (1973). Malawi: The History of the Nation. London, Longman. . *M Read, (1956). The Ngoni of Nyasaland. Oxford University Press for the International African Institute. *S S Snapp, (1998). Soil Nutrient Status of Smallholder Farms in Malawi. Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis Vol. 29. *T J Thompson (1995). Christianity in Northern Malawi: Donald Fraser's Missionary Methods and Ngoni Culture. Leiden, Brill. . *L Vail, (1975). The Making of an Imperial Slum: Nyasaland and Its Railways, 1895–1935. The Journal of African History, Vol. 16, No. 1. *L Vail (1977). Ecology and History: The example of Eastern Zambia. Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. III, No.2. *L Vail, (1981). The Making of the "Dead North": A Study of the Ngoni Rule in Northern Malawi, c. 1855-1907', in J.B. Peires (ed.), Before and After Shaka: Papers in Nguni History. Grahamstown, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Rhodes University. *L Vail, (1989). Introduction: Ethnicity in Southern African History, in L Vail (editor), the Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa. Oxford, James Currey. . *L Vail and L White, (1989). Tribalism in the Political History of Malawi, in L Vail (editor), the Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa. Oxford, James Currey. . *L Vail, L White and J Penvenne, (1979). The Struggle for Mozambique: Capitalist Rivalries, 1900–40 (with Comments and Discussion) Review of the Fernand Braudel Center, Vol. 3, No. 2. {{DEFAULTSORT:Vail, Leroy 1940 births 1999 deaths Writers from Boston Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni American Africanists Historians of colonialism Harvard University faculty Historians of Malawi 20th-century American linguists People from Allston–Brighton Boston Latin School alumni Academic staff of the University of Malawi