Malawi Emigration and Immigration


 * Soon after 1600, Malawi native tribesmen began encountering, trading with and making alliances with Portuguese traders and members of the military.
 * The Indian Ocean slave trade reached its height in the mid- The 1800s, when approximately 20,000 people were enslaved and considered to be carried yearly from Nkhotakota to Kilwa where they were sold.
 * Missionary and explorer David Livingstone reached Lake Malawi (then Lake Nyasa) in 1859 and identified the Shire Highlands south of the lake as an area suitable for European settlement. As the result of Livingstone's visit, several Anglican and Presbyterian missions were established in the area in the 1860s and 1870s.
 * The African Lakes Company Limited was established in 1878 to set up a trade and transport concern working closely with the missions.
 * A small mission and trading settlement were established at Blantyre in 1876 and a British Consul took up residence there in 1883.
 * In 1889, a British protectorate was proclaimed over the Shire Highlands, which was extended in 1891 to include the whole of present-day Malawi as the British Central Africa Protectorate.
 * In 1907, the protectorate was renamed Nyasaland, a name it retained for the remainder of its time under British rule.
 * In a prime example of what is sometimes called the "Thin White Line" of colonial authority in Africa, the colonial government of Nyasaland was formed in 1891. The administrators were given a budget of £10,000 (1891 nominal value) per year, which was enough to employ ten European civilians, two military officers, seventy Punjab Sikhs and eighty-five Zanzibar porters. These few employees were then expected to administer and police a territory of around 94,000 square kilometers with between one and two million people.