Malawi

A narrow country along a great lake, poor in minerals and rich in one thing colonial administration could use: people. Nyasaland was established as a British protectorate in 1891, following David Livingstone's mission and the campaign against the Indian Ocean slave trade that operated across the lake. It had no gold, no copper and little land the settlers wanted beyond the Shire highlands tea estates, so its function within the regional economy became labour export - men walked or were recruited to the mines of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa in numbers that at times removed a large fraction of the adult male population. John Chilembwe's rising in 1915, a small revolt against estate conditions and against Africans dying in a European war, is the country's founding nationalist act. Nyasaland was folded into the Central African Federation in 1953 against overwhelming African opposition and its withdrawal helped destroy the arrangement. Independence came on 6 July 1964 under Hastings Banda, who then ruled for thirty years as president for life, banning opposition, imprisoning critics, and maintaining relations with apartheid South Africa when no other African state would. A referendum ended one-party rule in 1993. Lake Malawi holds more fish species than any other lake. Lilongwe replaced Zomba as the capital in 1975. The lake covers about a fifth of the country's area. Tobacco is the dominant export crop. Banda made Chichewa and English the only official languages. The country is among the most densely populated in Africa and one of the poorest.

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