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Transformations along the Gradienti
Ecological Change in the Mountains and
Plains of Northeastern Tanzania's West
Usambara Mountains, C. 1860-1970

presented by

Christopher Allan Conte

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TRANSFORMATIONS ALONG THE GRADIENT:
ECOLOGICAL CHANGE IN THE MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS
OF NORTHEASTERN TANZANIA'S WEST USAMBARA MOUNTAINS,
C.1860-1970

By

Christopher Allan Conte

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of History

1994

ABSTRACT

TRANSFORMATIONS ALONG THE GRADIENT:
ECOLOGICAL CHANGE IN THE MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS
OF NORTHEASTERN TANZANIA’S WEST USAMBARA MOUNTAINS,
C.1860-1970

By

Christopher Allan Conte

This study presents a history of ecological change in
northeastern Tanzania's Usambara mountains during the late
pre-colonial, colonial, and early independence periods. My
thesis considers long—term changes in the interrelationships
among the region's local agrarian communities, the regional
environment, and the exogenous forces of the world economy
and the colonial state. It explains under what
circumstances indigenous communities alter land management
practices and social relations in the face of changing
market forces, environmental uncertainty, and political
transformation. Moreover, by carefully collating data
collected from interviews with African informants with those
of the European documentary sources, this analysis
demonstrates how Usambara's inhabitants' changing
relationship with nature led to ecological stress.

My study adds to the scholarship on ecological stress
and breakdown by describing a century of ecological change

on a Tanzanian mountain massif where pastoralists and

farmers exploited 3 ecological zones differentiated by
vegetation and climate. In this varied environment,
mountain-based (1600m e1.) pastoralists, who during the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries carved out a mode of
production dependent on forest conservation, had, by the
19609 transformed themselves into farmers on a completely
deforested landscape. In precolonial times, their
neighbors, who lived in permanent villages sited down slope
at about 1400m, had cultivated bananas, sorghum and various
legumes in well-watered mountain basins ringing the Usambara
massif. In response to the opportunities and challenges of
the slave trade and later, colonialism, these farmers
continually reorganized both production systems and their
choice of cultigens. Moreover, on the semi-arid plains
below the mountain escarpments, where a patchwork of forest,
pasture and gardens dotted the landscape in 1850,
agribusiness plantations dominated by the 19403. Thus, by
Tanganyika's independence in 1961, not only had the
precolonial socioeconomic links among the pastoralists and
cultivators been broken, but the mountain population had
become increasingly vulnerable to food shortages and disease
in an environment marked by degradation from accelerated

soil erosion.

Copyright by
CHRISTOPHER ALLAN CONTE
1994

Dedicated to

Sabine and Marcus

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was undertaken with financial support from
the 1.1.3. Fulbright program, Michigan State University's
College of Arts and Letters and Department of History.
Institutional support in Tanzania was provided by the
University of Dar es Salaam, the Tanzania National Archives,
the Lushoto Silvicultural Research Station, and the
Commission for Science and Technology.

Without the assistance of Sufian Shekoloa and Peter
Mlimahadala, the field research in Usambara would not have
been possible. Mr. Shekoloa generously arranged for and
helped carry out the interviews in the Mlalo area, while Mr.
Mlimahadala did the same for the central plateau region.

Mr. Mlimahadala also performed the momentous task of
translating and transcribing the taped interviews into
Kiswahili from Kimbugu, Kipare and Kishambaa. I, and those
who subsequently work with these valuable sources, owe him a
debt of gratitude. In this regard, my sincere thanks goes
out to the people of west Usambara, who tolerated our prying
queries with grace and patience.

For their intellectual input, I wish to thank
Professors David Campbell and David Robinson. Both have

influenced substantially my growth as a scholar. I cannot

vi

adequately express my debt to Professor Harold Marcus, my
mentor. Simply, if, in the sections that follow, the reader
finds moments of precision and clarity, Professor Marcus had
a hand in it. No one could ask for a better editor.

Finally, I reserve my most heartfelt appreciation for
Sabine Barcatta. She lived through this and, by some

miracle of providence, stayed with me all the way.

vii

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

One:

Three:

Four:

Five:

Six:

Seven 8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Environment and History in East Africa 1

Usambara's Early Natural and Human History:
Differential Rates of Change 29

Reorienting Exchange and Production:
Changing Ideologies of Environmental

Control 57
Reorganizing Nature, the British way 90
Conserving the Mlalo Basin: Crises and

Change in Farming Systems, 1940-49 143
Ecological Reform and Transition 195
Conclusions: Degradation and Reform 233

Appendices (Maps)

Bibliography:

Appendix A: west Usambara 247
Appendix B: Mlalo Basin 248

Tanzania National Archives/Files Consulted 249

Secretariat Files Consulted 253
Informants 254
WOrks Cited 255

viii

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

Table

11.

LIST OF TABLES

Tanganyika Sisal: Annual Output in Tons,
1923-41

west Usambara, Population by Ethnicity, 1920

west Usambara Population by Ethnicity, Sex,
Age, 1931

west Usambara, Mountain Population by
Division,Sex, Age, 1931

Mlalo Basin and Plains Population by
Location, 1931

Mlalo Basin and Plains Population by Sex,
Age, Location, 1945

Acreage Devoted to Major Crops on Average
Holding, Mlalo

Acreages Devoted to Major Crops, Old System]
New System, Mlalo Basin

Rainfall and Comments, Mlalo 8/46 - 12/49

Exports from.Native Authority Markets,
W. Usambara Mountains 1955-57

Population in west Usambara by Location,
1957

93

98

99

100

159

160

164

188

193

201

203

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Relationship between Altitude and Distance
from the Coast 31

Figure 2. Relationship between Rainfall and Distance
from the Coast 31

Chapter 1

The Environment and History in East Africa

I. Introduction

The west Usambara mountains form just one of several
highland zones in what today constitutes northeastern
Tanzania and southeastern Kenya. The highlands, although
comprising a relatively small percentage of total area,
support the vast majority of the region's population. Not
surprisingly then, colonial and post colonial governments
have expended a great deal of money and effort in developing
them. In support of these efforts, researchers of all
stripes have visited the area and built up a substantial
corpus of literature. Historical treatments have
concentrated primarily on local political economy, both
precolonial and colonial. Steven Feierman and Isaria Kimambo
in particular have produced important works in this regard.1

This dissertation thus follows many others which have
considered this region. However, my scholarship emphasizes

ecological change in Tanzania's western Usambara mountains

 

1Steven reierman, The Shambaa Kingdan: A History (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1974 and Peasant Intellectuals:
Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1990); Isaria Rinambo, A Political History of the Pare of
Tanzania, c. 1500-1900 (Nairobi: East Africa Publishing House, 1969)
and Penetration and Protest in Tanzania: The Impact of the World
Economy on the Pare (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1991). See
also Ann Frontera, Persistence and Change: A History of Taveta
(Waltham, MA, 1978).

1

2
over the long term, between the mid-nineteenth century and

1970. {As a work of what has come to be called “environmental
history," it joins a growing body of scholarly literature
which seeks to explain how society and nature interact to
alter landscapes.2 It approaches change through an
exploration of the dialectics among plant and animal
husbandry and the region's varying environment and ideologies
which grew out of and governed human/environmental relations.
The thesis reveals how environmental degradation has
proceeded during the past century and argues that it is
rooted in the tension between African and Western notions of

the proper appropriation of nature.

II. Analyses of Ecological Change
Analyses of Usambara's environmental deterioration
define husbandry narrowly and ahistorically. In their 1975

article, "The Development Crisis in the western Usambaras,”

 

2For areas outside Africa see: William Cronon, Changes in the Land:
Indians, colonists, and the Ecology of Wequngland (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1983)and Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great west (New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991); Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy:
A History of Ecological Ideas (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1977); Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion
of.Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986);
Clifford Geertz, Agricultural Involution: The Process of Ecological
Change in Indonesia (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1971).
For Africa see Robert Harms, Ghmes Against Mature: An Ecocultural
History of the NUnu of Equatorial Africa (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1987) Douglas Johnson and David Anderson eds., The
Ecology of Survival: Case Studies from Northeast African History
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987); Jim McCann, From Poverty to Famine
in Nertheast Ethiopia: A Rural History 1900-1935 (Philadelphia, PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987); Helge Rjekshus, Ecology,
Control and.Economic Development: The Case of Tanganyika, 1850-1950
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977) and Juhani Koponen,
People and Production in Late Precolonial Tanzania: History and
Structures (Helsinki: Finnish Society for Development Studies, no. 2,
1988).

3
Lionel Cliffe et a1. suggested that chronic soil erosion and

exhaustion and overpopulation had led to a crisis of major
proportions. They pointed out that traditional crop
husbandry techniques, land tenure arrangements and
sociopolitical structures, which once supported one of the
:most complex and advanced societies in East Africa, had
becomerimpediments to the development of productive forces.
In order to stop the downward spiral to complete ecological
breakdown in the mountains, the authors prescribed the
radical transformation of land management practices, social
relations and political institutions, which would allow the
western Usambara mountains to carry a even larger population.3

Half a century earlier, British administrators, soil
scientists, agriculture officers and foresters had likewise
cited grave imbalances in Usambara's ecology and warned of
impending ecological crisis unless indigenous agricultural
practices were radically altered. Like Cliffe et a1., they
drew up elaborate plans for regional integrated development.‘
Both of these snapshot views of Usambara's environmental
degradation, although 50 years apart, offer similarly
negative views of 'traditional' African husbandry and dire
accounts of ecological disequilibrium.

By presenting African agriculture in stasis, both

pictures obscured change and adaptation in crop husbandry and

 

3Part of TIRDEP (Tanga Integrated Regional Development Project) which
is ongoing in Usambara under the German.Development Corporation (GT2)
and the Tanzanian government.

‘John R. Watson, “Conservation Problems, Policies and the Origins of
the Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme,“ Geographiska Annaler 54a.3.4
(1972), p.

4
failed therefore to clarify the roots of crisis. Imbalances

in the relations between human beings and their environment
have periodically occurred in Usambara, but an argument which
demonstrates causation must account for spatial and temporal
differentials of change in Usambara's environment, where
climate, rainfall, vegetation and modes of production vary

over very short distances.

III. The Case for Change

For centuries, Usambara's societies have reproduced
themselves by cultivating mountain soils. As their neighbors
in the Taita, Pare, Uluguru and Nguu highlands, Usambarans
continuously manipulated their production systems to minimize
risk from environmental calamity. The key to agricultural
success was the exploitation of the varying environments
ringing the massif. Farming systems operated along the
elevation gradient stretching from mountain to plain (1500 m,
to 400 m). Neither the highland nor lowland agricultural
systems were homeostatic, nor did they always function
successfully. Indeed over the past 150 years, severe famines
have victimized Usambara's farmers, who responded with a
general extensification of production, which actually
increased vulnerability to soil erosion and watershed

degradation.5

 

5In ”Social and Political Aspects of Intensive Agriculture in East
Africa: Some Models from Cultural Anthropology,“ Azania 24 (1989), p.
12-20 Thomas Hakansson makes the argument that agriculture has proceeded
from intensive to extensive practices in Usambara and Pare, the reverse
of Boserup's hypothesis, in The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The
Economics of Agrarian Change Under Population Pressure (London: George

5
Although farming communities dominate the scholarly

literature devoted to Usambara's history, late nineteenth
century German observers noted that a patchwork landscape of
forest and pasture, i.e. a landscape derived for grazing,
covered tens of thousands of acres of the central and western
regions of the massif. As recently as the 19303, forest and
grazing habitats still clothed much of West Usambara. For
the herders who created this landscape, survival depended
upon the successful management of the forest ecology and an
ability to procure vegetable foods from their farming
neighbors downslope in a warmer, wetter ecological zone.
Changes in nineteenth-century trade patterns and, later, the
articulation of the world market economy, sent pastoralists
scrambling to create a new relationship with nature. Thus,
radical social change stimulated an unprecedented
simplification of forest biology.

This sketch of western Usambara's agrarian history
argues for a deeper analysis which considers how changing
pastoral and agricultural societies responded to and altered
a number of environmental conditions across the temporal
divide of precolonial, colonial and post colonial frames of

reference.

IV. Literature Review: Environmental History and African
History

There is a very broad historical literature which has

considered human/environmental relationships from a variety

 

Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1965) .

6
of analytical perspectives. Donald Worster argues that the

field evolved from a recent scholarly interest in global and
regional interdependencies and environmental degradation.6
According to WOrster, environmental history seeks to explain
an extremely broad encounter between the human and non-human
worlds and the reciprocal effects of one upon the other.7
Nature, then, becomes a historical actor.

WOrster's environmental history is the product of an
integrated tri-level structure with nature serving as a
foundation for human society and economy which, in turn
buttresses culture, law, ethics, myths and other forms of
meaningz° This approach draws liberally from Annales
history, particularly Fernand Braudel's three levels of
inquiry in his classic analysis of the early modern
Mediterranean world.9 .Annales historians have long advocated
a sustained discussion of nature within the context of long-
term socio-economic change.10 In fact, over forty years ago
Braudel argued against simplistic geographies offered up by

most historians:

I do not wish to make one of those traditional

 

5Donald Worster ed. , The Ends of the Earth: Perspectives on Modern
Environmental History, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
p. 5.

7Worster, “Appendix: Doing Environmental History," Ibid, pp. 292-93.

“Ibid, p. 293.

9Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Hedi terranean World in
the Age of Philip II, translated by Sian Reynolds, 2 vols. (New York:
Harper and Row, 1966, first published in 1949).

"Manuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc, translated by
John Day (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976); Montaillou: The
Promised Land of Error translated by Barbara Bray (New York: George
Braziller, Inc., 1978); Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of
Climate Since the Year 1000, translated by Barbara Bray (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988) .

7

geographical introductions to history, which one
finds placed to such little effect at the beginning
of so many volumes, with their brief reviews of the
mineral deposits, the types of agriculture, and the
local flora, none of which is ever mentioned
again....11

WOrster distances himself from Annales history at the
level of politics. Where Braudel had included the political
”history of events," WOrster substitutes an anthropological
approach which seeks to explain the discourse between culture
and nature.12 But while it would seem that WOrster's
blueprint for environmental history simply carries a slightly
:modified.Annales approach to America, his colleagues in the
history of North America, namely, William.Cronon, Richard
White, Robert McEvoy, Carolyn Merchant and others have
sustained and expanded the scholarly discourse on the
interrelationships among economy, society, culture, law,
climate, flora, fauna, hydrology and soils.13

Any analysis which seeks to combine human and natural
history is problematic. One difficulty stems from the
historian's attempt to fuse the fields of ecology and

history, the former viewing human activity as only one

 

11Fernand Braudel, an History, translated by Sarah Matthews (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 180), p. 3.

12For a discussion of such a layered history see, Fernand Braudel,
“History and the Social Sciences: The Longue Durée," in Fernand
Braudel, on History, translated by Sarah Matthews (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 27.

13See for example, William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians,
Colonists, and the Ecology of Wew‘England (New York: Hill and Wang,
1983); Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence,
.Ehvironment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983); Arthur F. McEvoy, the
Fisherman's Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850-
1980, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986); see also recent
issues of Environmental History.Review.

8
element of environmental change in a closed ecosystem while

the latter considers human agency as central. Because much
variation in restricted ecosystems often remains
inexplicable, ecologists have begun increasingly to argue
that the human impact on ecosystems is of current and of long
term significance, even in supposedly pristine environments.1‘
Moreover, ecological concepts like equilibrium, succession,
stability and balance have been jettisoned by some in favor
descriptions of ecosystems as mosaics of environmental
conditions.15 ‘Unfortunately, environmental historians have
been less circumspect in their acceptance of the
inviolability of the science which they incorporate into

environmental histories.16

Historians thought ecology was the rock upon which
they could build environmental history; it turned
out to be a swamp....For although in popular speech
ecology has been reified into nature, ecology is,
in fact, only an academic discipline.17

David Demeritt's recent post modernist critique of
environmental history chides its practitioners for failing to
realize that ecology, like any other science, is, like nature
itself, socially constructed. Demeritt argues that

environmental historians in accepting a “realist

 

1‘Norman L. Christensen, “Landscape History and Ecological Change,"
Journal of Forest History 33.3 (1989), 116-17.

1”For an epistanological treatment of these trends see Donald
Worster, “The Ecology of Order and Chaos," in Donald Worster ed., The
wealth of Nature (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),
p.164.

16William Cronon, ”Modes of Prophecy and Production: Placing Nature
in History,“ Journal of American History 76.4 (1990), p. 1122. p. 1115.

17Richard White, “Environmental History: Ecology and Meaning. "
Journal of American History 76.4 (1990), 1114.

9
epistemology...remain blissfully ignorant of the unsettling

implication of their social constructivist approach to
knowledge."18 There has been some progress for while most
environmental historians would still submit that nature
exists, they, along with their colleagues in the ecological
sciences, understand that they participate in a dialogue with
it.19

In any event, historians and ecologists, however
tentatively, continue to try to find common ground for

analysis.

One of the ironies of environmental history is that
historians have themselves helped erode ecological
verities even as they used them to evaluate
history. Historians revealed to ecologists how far
back human manipulations of the environment went
and how extensive they were. It became harder for
scientists to think that the communities they were
describing and studying were the results of natural
processes alone. Ecologists themselves turned to
historians to help reconstitute their science to
study human social and economic processes as well
as biological processes. Historians, who had
relied on the scientists to provide their basic
guidelines, and scientists, who saw historians
helping transform their object of study, not [at a
recent conference] in a sort of mutual

bewilderment . 2°

 

18David Daneritt, “Ecology, Objectivity and Critique in Writings on
Nature and Human Societies," Journal of Historical Geography 20 (1994),
pp. 27-28. For a rebuttal to Demeritt see, William Cronon, “Consent:
Cutting Loose or Running Aground," Journal of Historical Geography 20
(1994), pp. 38-43.

19Cronon, “Caunent,” p. 40.

20Richard White, ”Environmental History," p. 1115.

lie

(9'

j.

DWI

10
The Environment in Africa’s History

Africanist historians began increasingly to place
ecology and nature into their histories during the late
19703, when, in response to ongoing ecological crises in the
African Sahel, social scientists of all stripes sought out
historical antecedents and root causes of food deficits,
desertification, and drops in agricultural production.21 In A
Mbdern History of Tanganyika, John Iliffe reflects this

concern when he claims that

One of the central themes of Tanganyika's history
has been its peoples' colonization of the land and
their struggle with their enemies in nature. [I]ts
history is quite literally written on the face of
the land .22

‘Although Iliffe's History considers Tanganyika's rural
agrarian history, it should not be considered an
environmental history per se. It is, rather, a work of
political economy which uses only the broadest of strokes in
portraying relations among Africans, Europeans and nature.
The environmental crises of the 19703 crisis period
stimulated other more sustained attempts to explain East
Africa's environmental degradation with an ecological

approach. Both Helge Kjekshus and Leroy Vail argue that the

 

23lSee Michael Watts, Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in
Northern Nigeria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Paul
Richards, African Environment: Problems and Perspectives, (London:
International African Institute, 1975) ; Sarah Berry ”The Food Crisis and
Agrarian Change in Africa: A Review Essay," African Studies Review 27.2
(1984), pp. 59-112.

22John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press), p. 4.

phi.

F"!

El"

W:
6”

11
physical and biological environments belong in the center of

the historical picture.23 But rather than use nature as a
foil, these historians idealize the “traditionally“ (read
pre-colonial) harmonious relations between rural African
societies and the natural world. In this paradigm, Africa's
Eden disappears as European colonial administrations force
their subjects to bite the apple of commercialization.
Environmental degradation thus becomes a relatively recent
phenomenon, its roots buried in the modern encounter between
Europe and East Africa where the relationships among
Trypanosomiasis, colonialism and capitalism cause ecological
crisis. These early studies point out the important
relationship between population, economics, land use and the
environment, but they overemphasize the control exerted by
colonial administration over African production.“ Moreover
their periodization, which places the beginning of
environmental degradation as contemporaneous with and caused
by colonization, understates dramatic changes in East African
trade, politics and production, which spanned most of the

nineteenth century.25

 

23Helge Kjekshus, Ecology, Control and.Economic Development in East
African History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); and
Leroy Vail “Ecology and History: The Example of Eastern Zambia,“
Journal of Southern African Studies 3.2 (1977), 130-55.

2‘John McCracken, “Colonialism, Capitalism and Ecological Crisis in
Malawi: a Reassessment,“ in Anderson and Grove, eds., Conservation in
(Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 68; for a
recent exception, see Elias Mandala, work and control in a Peasant
.Economy: A History of the Lower Tchiri valley in Malawi 1859-1960
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990).

25D.H. Johnson and D. Anderson, "Introduction: Ecology and Society
in Northeast African History," in D.H. Johnson and D. Anderson, eds.,
The Ecology of Survival: case Studies from Nbrtheast African History
(Bolder: Nestview Press, 1988), p. 2.

12
Notwithstanding the weaknesses of Kjekshus' romantic

view of African ecology, his study raised many important
questions about human/environmental relations in eastern
.Africa. Clearly, “Merrie Africa“ never existed, but the
question remains, how did Africans control their local
environments in precolonial times and how did change proceed?
What kind of evidence reveals biological and/or edaphic
changes? What were the continuities between precolonial and
colonial environmental control and African ideas about
nature? How did differing European and African philosophies
about nature and land-use translate into accommodation,
conflict and change? How can degradation be measured? What
constitutes ecological stress and crisis? Scholars have
recently begun to answer these questions in terms of broad
imperial histories, the history of science and focused case

studies in agricultural history.26

Revising.East.Africa'3 Environmental History: .Micro-Studies
of.Agriculture, Pastoralism

Plant and animal husbandry constitutes the most
important point of human/environmental contact in East
Africa. Rather than following Kjekshus' ahistorical and
evolutionary approach to agricultural change, recent research
has pushed the temporal frame of analysis back well beyond
the nineteenth century. Based largely on linguistic and

archaeological evidence, this scholarship offers a nuanced

251'or a good general work which revises Kjekshus' analysis of
nineteenth-century Tanzania, see Koponen, People and Production.

13
history of land-use and settlement whereby increases in

population densities accompanied by intensification of
agricultural and/or pastoral production can signal impending
ecological stress, breakdown, site abandonment and population
dispersal.27 John Sutton's work, in particular, suggests that
highly specialized technological adaptations in agricultural
systems constituted exceptions in the history of East African
agriculture.23 In fact, the scholarly preoccupation with
technology has masked the more common picture of long-term
adaptation in which African societies learned how to minimize
risk through a continuum of extensive and intensive methods
of husbandry.29 ‘Unfortunately, pre-nineteenth century
histories remain sketchy because of the imprecise nature of
the archaeological and linguistic evidence and the small
number of historians who consider this period.30

For the late nineteenth-century East African
communities, more copious sources have allowed historians to

clarify the history of inter-community exchanges which

 

2"See selections in J.E.G. Sutton, ed., Special Volume of
contributions to the History of African Agricultural Technology and
Field Systems, Azania XXIV (1989)

28J.E.G. Sutton, “Irrigation and Soil Conservation in African
Agricultural History: With a Reconsideration of the Inyanga Terracing
and Engaruka Irrigation Works," Journal of African History 25 (1984),
pp., 2-41; “Toward a History of Cultivating the Fields,“ Azania XXIV
(1989), pp. 98-112. Jim McCann, makes a similar point in “Agriculture
and African History," Journal of African History 32 (1991), pp., 510-
511.

29For a good description of intensive and extensive systems for
nineteenth century Tanzania, see Koponen, People and Production, chapter
6.

3OCT. Jan Vansina, Paths in the Rainforest: Toward a History of
Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa, (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1990); and David Schoenbrun, "We are What We Eat:
Ancient Agriculture Between the Great Lakes," Journal of African History
34 (1993), pp., 32; and in the same volume, J.E.G. Sutton, “The
Antecedents of the Interlacustrine Kingdoms," pp. 33-64.

S?

L? '

14
commonly occurred across ecological zones. Histories of

pastoral societies, in particular, have forwarded a largely
instrumentalist view of the relationship between ecology,
economy and identity.31 The literature builds a textured
portrait of complementary social and economic relations
between groups occupying environments suited either to
pastoralism.or agriculture, or both. The relationship
between elevation (meteorological, flora and fauna complexes)
and trade comes through clearly as, for example, when savanna
herders forge economic and social ties through exchanges with
mountain cultivators. Rather than focus on environmental
control, these works tend to build a case for how identity,
economy and crisis interact. Furthermore, because
ecological/environmental research grew out of economic
history, it placed little emphasis on long-term continuity
and change in local environmental control after the great
ecological catastrophes of the 18903.

Studies which concentrate more closely on production
have shown that, in response to drought or disease, some East
Africans have, over the long term, not only reorganized
society, but production itself. Herders became farmers or

hunters, and communities which employed a variety of

 

31Charles Ambler, Kenyan Cemmunities in the Age of Imperialism: The
Central Region in the Late Nineteenth century (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1988); Richard Waller, “Emutai: Crisis and Response
in Maasailand 1883-1902,“ in The.Ecology of Survival, pp. 73-114;
”Ecology, Migration and Expansion in East Africa," African Affairs 84
(1985), pp. 347-70; “Interaction and Identity on the Periphery: The
Transmara Maasai," International Journal of African Historical Studies
17 (1984), 243-84; J.L. Berntsen, “The Maasai and their Neighbors:
Variables and Interaction," African Economic History 2 (1976), pp. 1-11.

15
production techniques revised production in response to a

number of economic, social and climatic conditions.32 .Ihm
Giblin's adds the political dimension in his study of
ecological change in Uzigua (Tanzania). Giblin challenges
the preoccupation of economic historians with the late
nineteenth century by combining oral sources, mission
documents and archival evidence to show how growing
vulnerability to famine in Uzigua proceeded far across the

precolonial/colonial divide.33

Imperialism, European Science and the History of Ideas

By definition, the regional histories of politics,
exchange and production, although explaining vital parts of
human/environmental relations, do not show how'Western
science and development imperatives operated on broader
scales. Early on in Africa's colonial experience, European
botanists, foresters, and soil scientists began to shape a
discourse about natural resource exploitation. As the
colonial period progressed they began to exert a considerable
influence on development policy, including conservation of
soil and water resources while raising alarms regarding
environmental degradation. Richard Grove, among others, has

drawn attention to colonial efforts to control natural

 

32David Anderson, “Cultivating Pastoralists: Ecology and Economy
among the I1 Chamus of Baringo, 1840-1980,“ in The Ecology of Survival,
pp. 241-260.

33James L. Giblin, The Politics of.Environmental control in
Nbrtheastern Tanzania, 1840-1940 (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1992).

16
resources and indigenous responses to them.“ This very

important branch of imperial studies, which includes a
history of European scientific discourse about nature, will
remain incomplete until supplemented by histories which

describe African understandings (constructions) of nature.

V. The Evidence
TraveleriAccounts

European explorers began to traverse northeastern
Tanzania during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Whether their interests were religious or commercial, they
entered a region locked in the throes of violent political
and economic change. Of all the sojourners who entered west
Usambara, Oscar Baumann provides the most extensive
description of the region's political economy between 1888

and 1892.35 Likely because he undertook his journey with the

 

3‘Richard Grove, “Colonial Conservation, Ecological Hegemony and
Popular Resistance: Towards a Global Synthesis,“ in Mackenzie ed.,
Imperialism and the Natural world (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1990), p. 15-17; John MacEenzie, “Introduction,“ in Imperialism.
See also, Richard Grove, “Scottish Missionaries, Evangelical Discourses
and the Origins of Conservation thinking in Southern Africa, 1820-1900,“
Journal of Southern African Studies 2 (1989) 163-88; Grove and Anderson,
“The Scramble of Eden: Past, Present and Future in African
Conservation,“ in Conservation in Africa; William Beinart, “Soil
Erosion, Conservationism and Ideas about Development: A Southern
African Exploration, 1900-1960,“ Journal of Southern African Studies
11.1 (1984), p. 52-53; Lucile H. Brockway, Science and Colonial
Expansion: The Role of the British Botanical Gardens, (New York:
Academic Press, 1979).

35Dr. Oscar Baumann, Daambara und seine Nachbarbebiete: allgemeine
Darstellung des norddstlichen Deutsch-Ostafrika und seiner Bewohner auf
Grund einer im auftrage der Deutsch Ostafrikanischen Gesellschaft im
Jahre 1890 ausgefflhrten Reise (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1891); In
Deutsch-Ostafrika Wahrend des Aufstandes. Reise der Dr. Hans
Meyer'schen Expedition in Usambara (Wien und Olmfltz: Eduard Helzel,
1890); “Harte von Usambara,“ Petermanns Geographische Mittielungen 35.11
(1889), 257-61; “Usambara,“ Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 35.2
(1889), 41-47; Hans Meyer and Oscar Baumann, “Dr. Hans Meyer's Usambara

I?
express interest of assessing their potential for

agricultural development, Baumann's observations offer

invaluable insight into local ecological conditions.

Archives

Tanzania's National Archive in Dar es Salaam holds the
largest collection of colonial materials which consider land-
use in west Usambara. Annual reports of the Lushoto District
Office, Agriculture, Forestry, Land, Native Affairs all shed
light on trends in land use. In addition, secretariat files,
especially concerning soil and water conservation, show the
Colonial Office's increasing preoccupation with these issues
throughout the late 19303. Several important soil and water
surveys appear in Secretariat files for this period. For
Usambara in particular, G. Milne's soil survey of the
Kitivo/Mlalo region stands out not only by virtue of its
detail, but also because of the acrimonious response it
stimulated among Lushoto district officials.“5 From reading
the report and accompanying correspondence, one certainly
senses the disharmony between colonial science and
administration regarding conservation and agricultural
policy.

For the 19403 and 19503, the archives hold scores of

reports on the Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme and its

 

Expedition,“ Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten 1 (1888),
199-205.

36Also published as G. Milne, “A Soil Reconnaissance Journey through
Parts of Tanganyika Territory. December 1935 - February 1936,“ Journal
of Ecology 35 (1947), 192-265.

18
successor, the Usambara Scheme (the British implemented

similar schemes across East and Central Africa). The monthly
reports especially, illuminate day to day operations,
successes and failures, and problems of the schemes in each
sub-chiefdom. Predictably the reports and letters
concentrate on the most populated areas. Except for the
early years of the scheme, when Agricultural Officers tended
to be extremely blunt, after 1951, they provide mostly
optimistic assessments of the Usambara Scheme's progress.

More detailed sets of reports and correspondence are
located in Lushoto's district offices, but they do not seem
to be organized in any particular fashion and gaining access,
even with research permits, proved almost impossible.
However, I was fortunate to obtain, with letters of
permission, a set of files from a closet in the District
Office of Natural Resources (Mali Asili). Even these few
files included extremely valuable insights into local land
disputes and forestry issues. For example, one file included
a series of letters of complaint from the late 19303 filed by
a British settler at Kwai farm, formerly an important German
research station and experimental farm. The correspondence
provides an extraordinarily detailed description of the
conditions at the farm and reveals historical continuity with
the German period. The Lushoto file set also contained
detailed foresters' safari reports from the 19203 and a set
bf correspondence concerning a serious land dispute at

Nzeregembe.

19
Scientific JOurnals

German environmental thinking is evident in turn of the
century scientific journals like Der Pflanzer, Der
Tropenpflanzer, Mitteilungen aus den Deutschen
Schutzgebeiten, Berichte fiber Land- and Forstwirtschaft,
among others. This literature, which contains numerous
reports of scholarly research on tropical agronomy and
forestry, is especially rich for the Usambaras, where the
Deutsch Ostafrika Gesellschaft launched several experimental
farms. The discourse provides insight into the western
scientific strategies for the development of tropical
landscapes. There is a similar literature from British
colonial science published mostly after werld war II in the
East African Agricultural JOurnal and East African
Agricultural and Forestry JOurnal, although little of it

deals with the Usambaras.

Oral Sources

Much of the evidence for the post 1930 period comes from
testimony from.Usambara's inhabitants. They offer an African
view of resource use and management not available in the
published and archival accounts. The oral evidence for this
study comes from seven months of taped interviews with male
and female elders who identified themselves as either Taita,
Shambaa, Pare or Mbugu. Geographically, I covered the
various ecological niches, but concentrated mostly on the

Mlalo basin for the Shambaa farmers and central plateau

 

II

we

20
region of Mshangai/Malibwi/Kwamekame for the Mbugu herders.37

I conducted interviews with the help of two assistants,
both of whom taught at secondary schools in the mountains.
They helped to locate informants and conduct the interviews.
One of my assistants, who holds a BA in history from the
University of Dar es Salaam, proved an extremely talented
interviewer. we learned that discussions of famines helped
to elicit information regarding land use. Informants
regarded one famine in particular, Njaa ya Chankola (and to
some extent its successor, Njaa ya.Maendaleo) as an important
historical turning point in local history. Generally we
tried to quickly identify the informant's expertise and

direct the questions toward it.

V. The Approach

This study treats its subject from the perspective of
“political ecology," which is a mode of analysis developed in
recent social science literature on land degradation.38 'The

approach assumes, first and foremost, that degradation is a

 

37The list of informants, interview dates and locations and questions
appears in an appendix. Tapes (in Shambaa, Maa'a, and Pare languages),
transcripts (in English for the Mbugu transcripts and in Swahili for the
others) will be deposited with the University of Dar es Salaam oral
history repository.

38See Chapter 1 “Defining and Debating the Problem," in Harold
Brookfield and Piers Blaikie, eds., Land Degradation and Society
(London: Meuthen and Co., 1987), p. 1-26; and D.J. Campbell and
Jennifer Olsen, “The Kite," CASID Occasional Paper no. 10; but for close
antecedents in anthropology, see, Marshall Sahlins, “Culture and
Environment: The Study of Cultural Ecology," in Sol Tax ed., Horizons
of Anthropology (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1964) and Clifford
Geertz, Agricultural Involution: The Process of Ecological Change in
Indonesia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966); Roy Ellen,
Environment, Subsistence and System: The Ecology of Small-Scale
Formations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

21
social problem, and furthermore, that social and

environmental change proceed in a dialectical manner.39
“Political ecology" is thus inherently historical, although
political ecologists seek most often to describe contemporary
problems and focus on current policy rather than on the past.
This dissertation seeks, therefore, to integrate social,
political and natural history in order to build an intricate
long-term picture of changes in Usambara's landscape and
provide the kind of deep history which will supplement social

scientific research on land degradation.

Time

This study draws on Braudel's idea that history is
layered temporally. Rather than use the environment simply
as a determining or limiting element in history, I seek to
show how economic and political processes accelerate change
in physical and biological environments, which, in turn,
stimulate adaptations in human societies. Thus forests,
soils, climate are treated with a dynamism not commonly
present in historical analysis. The argument here is that
the past century and a half constitute a period in Usambara's
natural history when human intervention on the physical
landscape has caused unprecedented acceleration in natural
processes. Some changes in flora, fauna, climate, and the
soil structure, normally reckoned in tens of thousands of

years, can now be remembered as occurring over a couple of

 

39Brookfield and Blaikie, pp. 16-17.

22
generations. This is not to argue that all physical

processes have speeded up, however. The challenge lies in
explaining how political, secular and natural time-scales

interact.

Culture and Nature

In Usambara's mountain communities, long standing
economic and cultural rhythms gave rise to sophisticated
systems of subsistence production, some intensive, some
extensive. Usambara's inhabitants have also developed a
complex cultural relationship with nature. Describing it
involves an assessment of the changing ideological
relationship of a community with nature in a context where
western ideas increasingly encroach on African modes of
settlement and production. To illuminate this, my
dissertation highlights crisis events such as drought and
famine which reveal the inner workings of a society's
relations with nature and with other societies.“o ‘At this

level, oral sources become particularly important.

COnflict over Resources

Negotiation and conflict over soil, timber, water, and
labor is characteristic of Usambara's environmental history.
Moreover, political crises often can be linked to ecological
stress, crisis and breakdown. During the colonial period,

the state's role in negotiation and conflict, as well as in

 

“Johnson and Anderson, p. 4 .

23
the competition over ideas, became all important.

Scale

The question of scale is central. Usambara's history
shows that it has been, for several centuries, part of a
regional economy of exchange which operated in what is today
southeastern Kenya and northeastern Tanzania. As the
nineteenth century progressed, economic and political ties
widened and the regional economy became subsumed in a web of
mercantile capitalism.centered on Zanzibar. Again the scale
widened during the colonial period. Regional and global
economic and political issues thus influenced local decisions
regarding production and land use. In Usambara's case for
example, one can see how depression era drought in the
midwestern United States influenced conservation issues in

Usambara.

VII. Synopsis of Subsequent Chapters

Chapter Two: usambara’s Early Natural and Human History:
.Differential Rates of Change

Chapter two describes, in the nineteenth century the
evolution of west Usambara's physical, biological and
cultural landscapes. After reconstructing the physical and
biological stages, I introduce Usambara's human actors, whose
early iron age economies have been most thoroughly
researched. The evidential basis for this section is

grounded in scientific literature on climate, phytogeography,

24
as well as archaeological and linguistic studies. In this

chapter, I will argue that over the long-term the mountainous
Usambara region constituted a refuge for both people and
plants. By reconstructing the organization of the physical,
economic and cultural landscapes up to the mid nineteenth
century, I set up the argument for accelerated change

described in subsequent chapters.

Chapter Three: Reorienting Exchange and Production: Changing
Ideologies of Environmental Control

This chapter argues that the socioeconomic components of
nineteenth century historical change in northeast Tanzania
persisted across the precolonial/colonial divide. I argue
that historians who correlate environmental degradation with
German, and later, British, colonialism.misunderstand both
local economic and environmental processes. Persistent
ecological changes can be linked with the region's growing
importance as a supplier of food and human beings for mid-
nineteenth century slave caravans. I stress here that
deleterious ecological changes, associated with economic
change, proceeded the epidemics, droughts and famines of the
18903, in themselves signals of a generation of ecological
stress. The ecological aftershocks which rocked Usambara's
local economies and social relations until the 19203 were
thus only partly related to European colonialism.

The second part of chapter 3 describes the inchoate
effect of German notions of nature economics and resource

use. The Germans failed, however, to reorganize nature in

25
their preferred image, as is obvious from the especially rich

sources for this period, including published articles
concerning research conducted at Amani, an experimental

station situated in the Usambara Mountains.

Chapter Fbur: Reorganizing Nature, the British way

After a half century of disruption, Shambaa and Mbugu
communities reorganized indigenous life as the British
government attempted to establish political control during
their post werld war I takeover. This period of ineffective
colonial administrative control, 1916-1928 is clearly
represented in the Archival record. Here I explain how the
Shambaa, Pare and Mbugu peoples reorganized land use in
various ecological zones while, simultaneously, the colonial
government formulated policy imperatives regarding commercial
agriculture and forestry.

From the late 19203, the colonial government became
preoccupied with issues of environmental degradation and soil
and water conservation. Colonial administrators and
scientists forged a policy of resource management that
persisted until independence. I trace the implementation of
environmental policy from the Secretariat down to the local
level, showing how sharp disputes over land highlight the
dissonance between policy and actual practice in Usambara.

An especially interesting aspect of the chapter is the
organization and implementation of colonial forestry. My

Mbugu informants describe the introduction of pine and

26
cypress monocultures as forest sterilization. This

changeover to pure stands created a habitat which today
supports a large population of rodents. They, in turn,
spread bubonic plague, a persistent and very deadly problem

in central Usambara.

Chapter Five: Njaa ya Chankola (Chankola's Hunger): Famine
as Historical Benchmark

This chapter highlights conflicts stemming from European
and African principles of land use, political change,
ecological degradation, drought and famine. It presents a
case study of ecological crisis in the Mlalo Basin during the
19403. The Njaa episodes of 1942-43 and 1946-49 signal the
northern side of the massif's growing vulnerability to food
shortages during rainfall deficits. The period of Njaa also
coincides with the British attempts to reorganize political
power in the mountains by firing Mlalo's sub-chief and
renowned rainmaker, Hassani Kinyassi, and replacing him with
a tax clerk. The discussion highlights indigenous views of
drought and famine mitigation and uses this evidence to argue
that vulnerability and ecological stress have their roots in
a generation of ecological change.

By the late 19403 population increases, changes in crop
choices, and colonial prerogatives had altered precolonial
famine mitigation techniques to the point where they no could
longer function without the infusion of large quantities of
emergency food relief. The Mlalo situation quite clearly

supports Steven Feierman's arguments about the relationship

27
between rainmaking and social health.41

Chapter Six: Ecological Reform and Transition

This chapter shows how modern demographic, ecological
and political pressures led to environmental catastrophes.
Following directly on the principles developed in the Mlalo
Basin Rehabilitation scheme, the colonial government
attempted to impose its conservationist ideology across the
mountains. A coalition of colonial Agricultural Officers,
African Agricultural Instructors, and Native Authorities
doggedly, yet unsuccessfully, attempted to enforce soil
erosion control measures in every mountain subchiefdom.
Ironically, the colonial policies of the 19503 led, in the
early independence period, to the unprecedented destruction
of forests, drastic changes in drought mitigation measures
(esp. breakdown in irrigation systems across Usambara),
changes in stream flow, and rainfall patterns and amounts of
occult precipitation (dews and mists common during certain
seasons).

The chapter charts a transformation of the indigenous
view of land use and resource management. A new generation
comes to accept market-led agriculture based on the
production of fruits, vegetables and maize. Hybrid
varieties of maize and beans and exotic tree species become
accepted as legitimate and necessary. In response to land

shortages spurred by population growth, farmers clear cut and

 

“Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, pp. 5-13.

28
burn over 50 square miles of cedar forest and plant it in

maize and exotic fruit trees (mostly pear), an event
unthinkable in this area at the turn of the century. Clearly
by the 19603, a new set of ecological relationships had been

established.

Chapter Seven: Conclusions: Degradation and Reform

The Conclusion's discussion ties together the historical
threads of ecological change in west Usambara. The Epilogue
discusses post colonial development efforts and their
ideological grounding. The chapter concludes with a
description of the most recent ecological catastrophes in
Usambara: plague epidemics in the forest zone and the floods
of January 1993, which washed away Mlalo town and wiped out

crops throughout the upper Umba river watershed.

Chapter 2

Usambara's Early Natural and Human History:
Differential Rates of Change1

I. Overview

This chapter describes the evolution of Usambara's early
nineteenth century physical, biological and cultural
landscapes. Together these landscapes form a unique
historical environment, which determined the evolutionary
pattern of the region's dominant mountain habitats, the
montane forests. Change is as much tied to climate and
geology as it is to the formation and reproduction of plant,
animal and human communities. To understand such complexity
requires an appreciation of physical, biological, and social
processes and an explanation of the time differential in
their rates of change. What follows is a brief overview of
the more persistent pre-nineteenth century patterns of social
and environmental transformation.

Rising from the dry savanna, the Usambara mountains form
an elevated environment of cooler temperatures and more

predictable rainfall. From the standpoint of natural

 

1 'Usambara' refers to a region which corresponds to the Usambara
mountains, which are divided into eastern and western groups. West
Usambara is a larger and more heavily populated massif. Literally, the
Swahili term 'Usambara' refers to the place where the Shambaa people
reside, the noun for location in Swahili being derived from the noun for
the region's majority ethno-linguistic group plus the prefix 'u. '

29

30
history, the massif's proximity to the stable Indian Ocean

rainfall regime, its geology and soils, and its physical
isolation from the drier, hotter plains surrounding the
massif has engendered the evolution of an unprecedented
diversity of flora and fauna (see Figures 1 and 2).2 It has
provided human communities with refuge from enemies and
droughts, soils for agriculture, and fuel for iron smelting
and forging. Over the past 4 or 5 millennia, human beings
increasingly fired and cut trees, cultivated the forest
soils, collected plants for medicines, and almost everywhere
shaped the secondary growth which nineteenth century European

explorers mistakenly described as primeval.

II. The Context for Human Habitation

The Usambara mountains stand out in stark relief from
the surrounding plains, 4000 feet below the almost sheer
escarpment wall.3 The Pare and Taita massifs, also islands
rising from this savanna, can be easily seen from Usambara's
outer scarps. In fact, the Usambara massif is similar in age
and geologic composition to a chain of partly forested

crystalline basement block mountains stretching southward

 

2Jonathan Kingdon, Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare
Animals and Plants (Princeton, 1989), p. 130; W.A. Rodgers and K.M.
Homewood, “Species Richness and Endemism in the Usambara Mountain
Forests, Tanzania," Biological Jburnal of the Linnean Society 18 (1982),
pp. 197-242; see also “Ecological Islands and Their Conservation,"
Proceedings of the Arusha Symposium, African Journal of Ecology 19
(1981). — Figures 1 and 2 adapted from Rodgers and Homewood, p. 202.

eginald Ernest Moreau, “A Synecological Study of Usambara,

Tanganyika Territory with Particular Reference to Birds,“ Journal of
Ecology 23 (1935), 14.

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from the Kenya/Tanzania border region.‘ In these two

countries, the mountain ranges include Taita, Uzungwe,
Ukaguru, Uluguru, Nguru, North and South Pare, and East and
west Usambara.

These crystalline formations underwent several cycles of
folding, metamorphism and magnetization from 2000My ago to
600My years ago, and they comprise a thick series of highly
metamorphosed sediments (granulates, gneisses and schists)
‘with minor intrusive igneous bodies. Block faulting, a major
structural feature in the area, raised the western Usambara
range up to elevations 2000 meters above sea level. The main
faults, and thus the escarpment faces, travel NNW with
complementary faults diverging to the NNE. The NH tending
Lwengera valley fault cuts between East and west Usambara,
and there are numerous bowl-shaped basins scattered
throughout the mountain plateau. Uplift and dissection
lasted approximately 25My. Compared with the neighboring
volcanic mountains of Kilimanjaro/Meru, whose lava deposits
are only lMy old, the Usambaras are of great antiquity.5

The mountain soils evolved from the acidic bedrock
differ locally in depth, color and composition. Soils on
slopes are red-brown, acid, leached and highly laterized, and
give way to gray-black sandy clay in valleys and basins.

These soils have 30-50% clay content, but are nevertheless

 

4For the sake of clarity, I will refer throughout the chapter to
geographical units using their current names.

5Rodgers and Homewood, “Species Richness and Endanism," p. 198-200.

33
free-draining, loamy and easily pulverized ('friable').

Soils and slopes are resistant to erosion, but cannot
'withstand prolonged crimping without rapid loss of nutrients.6
For millennia, Usambara's soils have nurtured forest
ecosystems of great diversity and complexity, whose evolution

related to global and regional climatic patterns. R.E.
Moreau, an internationally respected ornithologist and long-
time resident of the Usambara mountains, claimed that, in
response to temperature changes, Usambara's forests had
expanded down-slope and contracted up-slope during glacial
and interglacial epochs. According to Moreau's “pluvial
theory,“ worldwide glacial cooling and therefore decreasing
potential evapotranspiration allowed forests to migrate from
the cool upland core areas like Usambara into the lower, now
wetter and cooler savanna zones.7 The higher temperatures of
the interglacial periods, therefore, would have increased
evaporation and caused forest contraction. In their
truncated form, forests provided a ecological and
evolutionary sanctuary for species which could not survive on
the drier plains.

Recent climatic studies, based on pollen samples from
East African bogs and stratigraphical dating of East African
lake levels, confirm that climatic variation played an

important ecological role over the past 20,000 years; but

 

6Ibid, p. 201. Crimping, or crumbling, occurs when soils are exposed
to the cultivator's wooden digging stick or iron hoe.

7Reginald Ernest Moreau, The Bird Faunas of African and Its Islands
(New York: Acadanic Press, 1966), p. 42.

34
assert that water availability, not temperature, played the

decisive role. Sharon Nicholson and Hermann Flohn claim that
during the glaciation of the Pleistocene, climatic
fluctuations expressed themselves in terms of changes in the
hydrological balance among precipitation, evaporation and
runoff, with rainfall clearly the decisive factor.8

Nicholson and Flohn conclude that, coincidental with the
last glacial maximum, tropical and subtropical aridity marked
the period between c.20,000-12,000 BP. In equatorial
regions, where tropical rain forests now prevail, relatively
dry conditions probably characterized the period from about
18,000 years ago. Their evidence for Uganda shows that prior
to 12,500 BP, the evergreen forest virtually disappeared.
.Also, in much of the rest of the Eastern Africa Rift Valley,
the arid conditions which prevailed in the late Pleistocene
caused forest contraction.9 During the subsequent early
Holocene period (c.10,000 BP), however, rapid glacial retreat
and global warming caused a rise in lake levels throughout
tropical Africa, and moderately high lake levels
characterized most of the Holocene from about 12,000 BP until
three of four millennia ago, when a dry phase again resulted
in forest contraction.1°

Although the pollen studies prove Moreau wrong about the

 

8Sharon Nicholson and Hermann Flohn. “African Environmental and
Climatic Changes and the General Atmospheric Circulation in Late
Pleistocene and Holocene.“ Climatic Change 2.4 (1980), 314.

91bid., p. 318-19.

1°Ibid., p. 314; for a similar discussion see A.C. Hamilton, “The
Quaternary History of African Forests: Its Relevance to Conservation,"
African Journal of Ecology 19 (1981), 2-4.

35
causes of forest expansion, his theory of the forest as a

biological refuge still holds. Indeed, botanists recognize
that such Afro alpine regions as Usambara, Uluguru, Pare and
Taita, among others, are phytogeographically distinct. The
vegetation on the lower slopes of the higher mountains and
the upper slopes of the lesser mountains differs so
significantly from the surrounding lowlands that these areas
of high elevation form an archipelago-like Afro—montane,
floristic region.11 ‘As one of these islands, the Usambara's
forests constituted a refuge for plants and animals in the
face of thousands of years of climatic change.12

In the description below, Moreau provides a romantic
view of a closed forest ecosystem, which perpetuates itself

in the face of climatic disturbance.

By the power of its foliage and its epiphytes [non-
parasitic mosses, lichens and some orchids] to
condense moisture from the air, by the beneficial
effect of its shading of its own roots, by the
utilization of nutrients in its own leaf-fall and
by so checking run-off that any rain is fully
effective, a patch of forest on a mountainside may
be capable of maintaining itself long after the
local climate has deteriorated to such an extent
that it would be impossible to establish forest
anywhere in the neighborhood. Hence, on the one
hand, there may in certain cases be a considerable
time-lag before a marked climatic change fully
asserts its effect on the vegetation and, if the
patch of vegetation is big enough, on its

 

11F. White, “The History of the Afromontane archipelago and the
Scientific Need for its Conservation, “ African Journal of Ecology 19
(1981), p. 33.

12Rodgers and Homewood, “Species Richness and Endemism," p. 198. In
fact, of all these highland areas, East Usambara's forests still show
the greatest levels of biological diversity and endemism and provide a
uniqueness of flora and fauna comparable to the Galapagos islands.

36

associated birds; on the other hand plant species
of certain vegetation type may persist locally long
after the associated birds have been wiped out.13

Usambara's rainfall patterns are closely tied to those
of the Indian Ocean. Stretching WNW, 20 to 80 kilometers
inland from the coast, the Usambaras are well situated to
catch the ocean moisture. Most rain occurs during the passage
of the Inter tropical Convergence Zone, an ill-defined low
pressure zone of convectional rainfall, where the NE and SE
Indian ocean trade winds meet. The ITCZ migrates with the
seasonal inter tropical solar migration, pumping moist air
over the East African land mass during two well marked wet
seasons.14

In west Usambaras, rains usually fall between March and
May, and again sometime in either NOvember or December, but
location determines their volume and intensity. The early
rains, coming from the SE, are heaviest on the southern and
eastern slopes, whereas the December rains, moving from the
NE, fall most heavily on the northern and western slopes.
Local disparities in rainfall in the mountains, for example,
can be clearly seen when comparing the relatively dry rain
shadow climate of the central plateau described in this case
study, with Mazumbai only about 30 kilometers to the

southeast (see rainfall figure).

 

13Moreau, The Bird Faunas of.Africa, p. 5.

14A.C. Hamilton, Environmental History of East Africa: A Study of
the Quaternary (London: Academic Press, 1982), p. 13.

37
Distinct communities of forest flora and fauna adapted

to Usambara's patchwork of climatic conditions.15 For
generations of East African farmers, Usambara's reliable
rainfall and cultivable soils provided a living, but only on
very specific sites near the outer edges of the massif at
about 1400 m. elevation. On the preferred sites, farmers cut
and burned forest transforming its biology to suit their
nutritional needs. At the same time, they built up a vast
knowledge of the possibilities offered by local ecological

conditions and adapted land use accordingly.

III. Shaping the Environment

Archaeological evidence confirms the presence of
Neolithic settlements in Usambara and by 1000 - 1500 BP,16 the
ancestors of East Africa's Bantu speaking Iron Age
communities began to occupy and use the montane forest havens
much more intensively than their predecessors. David
Schoenbrun claims that since the introduction of iron working
and pastoralism.in East Africa, human communities
increasingly replaced the old growth forest with secondary
forest, crops or savanna communities. His data for the
interlacustrine region suggest that a period of deforestation

began roughly three thousand years ago and accelerated around

 

15Rodgers and Homewood, “Species Richness and Endemism," p. 205.

158P dates denote radiocarbon dates and are subject to greater
:margins of error with age. Also, they date the death of organic matter
and thus, for example, charcoal remains found in smelting furnaces
reflect the age of wood at cutting, rather than the age of a particular
smelting event.

38
two thousand years ago.“ Given the links between Lacustrine

and Usambara ceramic traditions and the archaeological data
introduced below, similar deforestation in Usambara must have
begun around this time.

By the early nineteenth century Usambara was inhabited
by farmers who spoke Bantu languages and herders who spoke a
Southern Cushitic tongue. Differences in language and in
economy followed the respective ecologies of land use and
settlement patterns. The Bantu (Washambaa, wapare, Wataita)
and Cushitic (Mbugu)1° communities had not completely
segregated themselves however. Over several centuries they
had fashioned a web of economic and social ties which

persisted well into the twentieth century.

The Early Southern Cushites

The great increase in aridity between 5000 and 4000 BP
might well have determined population movements out of
southern Ethiopia into Kenya and Tanzania. Although it
remains to be seen whether other patterns of change,
including linguistic, can be fitted into the scene
accordingly,19 the approximate dates for climatic change
correlate with the linguistic evidence for the increase in

the presence and antiquity of Southern Cushitic languages in

 

17David Schoenbrun, “we are What we Eat: Ancient Agriculture Between
the Great Lakes," Journal of African History 34 (1993), p. 4.

18Bantu and Cushite here refer to linguistic classifications. The
Mbugu people refer to themselves as vamaa'a.

19Gowlett, “Human Adaptation and Long-Term.Climatic Change," p. 45.
Gowlett's modified BP dates correspond with Ambrose's dates cited below.

39
East Africa and the antiquity of their East African

presence,2° Their speakers herded cattle, goats and possibly
sheep, and they cultivated grainsJN- Before the arrival of
the Southern Cushites, there is no evidence for food
production, and the newcomers must have spread rapidly in the
absence of competition for essential resources.22 The
ancestors of Usambara's vamaa people, who trace their
ancestry to central Kenya's Laikipia plateau, were among
these migrants to East Africa, although their arrival in
Usambara was relatively recent.

By AD. 500-1000, Cushitic settlement was of some
centuries standing.23 Given the similarly favorable
environmental conditions in the nearby Usambaras and the
presence of Southern Cushitic loan words in local Bantu
languages, the Neolithic archaeological sites in the
Usambaras are likely southern Cushitic settlements.24
However, important questions of cultural and technological
transfer between these two groups still remain unanswered by

the scant linguistic and archaeological record. Did, for

 

20Stanley Ambrose, “Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstructions of
History in East Africa," in Christopher Ehret and Merrick Posnansky,
eds., The.Archaeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African
History, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), p. 113.
That Southern Cushitic loan words occur in almost every language between
Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean, argues for prolonged and often
intimate contacts between Southern Cushites and the Southern Nilotes,
Eastern Cushites and Eastern Bantu. In many areas of Kenya and
Tanzania, the late-comers displaced or absorbed the Southern Cushites.

21Christopher Ehret and Derek Nurse, “The Taita Cushites," Sprache
und Geschichte in Afrika 3 (1981), p. 127.

22Ambrose, Reconstructions, p. 113.

23Ehret and Nurse, “Taita Cushites," p. 140-141.

24Robert Soper, ”Iron Age sites in Northeastern Tanzania," Azania II
(1967), p. 31.

40
example, the Bantu peoples adopt irrigation and manuring as

the bequests of Cushitic ancestors? Did they cultivate the
same grains? Evidence for Taita suggests that hunting and
gathering played an important role in Cushitic economy and
that Bantu speakers borrowed this technology.25 Was it so in
the Usambaras? How intensively did the Cushites use the

forest since they did not smelt or forge iron tools?

Bantu Expansion into usambara

The Bantu expansion into East Africa is difficult to
date, but it probably began around 2,000 years ago.26
Archaeologists have associated the movement of Bantu peoples
with various types of ceramics and a related iron industry
because decorated bowls were often found near smelting or
forging sites. Pottery from the earliest East African Bantu-
related ceramic tradition, Kwale 'ware', has been recovered
from the North and South Pare Mountains, the Usambara
Mountains, and Kenya's Shimba Hills and has been dated to
between about 1850 BP and 1450 BP. In Usambara, a number of
archaeological sites contain incised 'ware" which is related
to the coastal pottery from sites of the 14th and 15th
centurieslike Kilwa, Manda and Shanga. Also dotted and

graphite sherds have been identified but no sites excavated

 

25Ehret and Nurse, "Taita Cushites,"p. 140.

26Derek Nurse, “Bantu Expansion into East Africa: Linguistic
Evidence," in Posnansky and Ehret, eds. , The Archaeological and
Linguistic Reconstruction of African History, p. 222.

41
or dated .27

Whatever their migratory route and origins, the economy
of the East African Bantu peoples clearly depended on
agriculture and iron working. The picture for Usambara is of
an extensive spread of early Iron Age languages and
technology as early as the second century AD, represented by
Kwale ware, followed by a series of diversified and localized
groups whose cultural and chronological interrelationships
are not yet clear.28 iArchaeologists now refer to these
migratory and technological characteristics as the “Mwitu”
tradition.29 Its inheritors form.the Bantu-speaking
communities of today's Usambara: the Chaga-Taita (Pare,

Taita) and NOrtheast Coast Bantu (Shambaa) groups.3°

Settlement Sites

Archaeological evidence from Taita and Usambara suggests
that early occupation by "Mwitu" communities was confined to
the wetter montane or sub-montane woodland/forest areas.31
Evidence from the distribution of pottery sherds shows a

gradual spread down the hills onto the drier plains.32

 

27David Phillip Collett, ”The Spread of Early Iron Producing
Communities in Eastern and Southern Africa," volume 1. Ph.D. Thesis,
Cambridge University, 1985, pp. 23-24.

28Soper, "Iron Age Sites," p. 19-36.

29Collett, "Spread," p. 131; and Peter Schmidt, "Eastern Expressions
of the 'Mwitu' Tradition: Early Iron Age Industry of the Usambara
Mountains, Tanzania," Nyame Akuma 30 (1987), p. 36.

”Derek Nurse and Tom Spear, The Swahili: Reconstructing the History
and Language of an African Society 800-1500 (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 41.

318chmidt, "Mwitu Tradition," p. 37; Collett, "Spread," p. 50.

321bid., p. so

42
Movements to marginal agricultural areas may have been

spurred by population growth, a wetter climate, movement of
topsoil from hills to plains, or all three.

In the Usambara and Taita hills, sites indicate that
access to valley alluvium was extremely important.33 Robert
Soper describes Usambara sites with Kwale 'ware' around Mlalo
and in the Lwengera valley. The sites on the northern
(Mlalo) and eastern (Lwengera) side of the main range are
generally in upland valleys or basins close to permanent
streams, and none is on a hill-top, suggesting that access to
water and fertile soils, rather than defense, were the
primary considerations in the placement of early
settlements.3‘ In subsequent investigations, Schmidt
discovered similar situations near the southwestern Usambara
escarpment at elevations between 4800 and 5400 feet. He was
able to date the furnace material at mid-second century AD.
In the Taita Hills, Collett found similar settlement patterns
at high and medium.altitudes in the hills. Like Schmidt's
finds, these sites tend to be located on the ends of spurs
projecting into the valley.”

The settlement patterns show that the "Mwitu" peoples
understood the difference between soil composition on slopes
and in valley bottoms and situated themselves to take

advantage of the possibilities offered by agriculture at both

 

33Ibid.
34Soper, "Iron Age Sites," p. 31.
35Collett, "Spread," p. 50.

43
high and low elevations. By locating at areas like Mlalo,

Vuga, Bumbuli, Mlola, and Mbaramo, they could farm the
alluvial soils of the nearby upland basin, or, in a couple of
hours, walk to gardens on alluvium which had washed down to
the plains below the escarpment. Less reliable rainfall in
the plains made agriculture more precarious, but higher
temperatures significantly shortened the growing season

allowing for a quick harvest when rains proved adequate.

Forging and Smelting, Nature and Culture in the 'Mwitu'
Tradition.

The "Mwitu" tradition represents a system of production
practices which spread into East Africa from the Lacustrine
region. Archaeological evidence indicates a two stage iron
production process mostly used decorated cylindrical pit
furnaces associated with special types of rituals.35 David
Collett argues that iron smelting symbolized the crossing of
boundaries between the chaotic natural world and ordered
world of cultured human beings. In other words, through

fire, man brought order to nature.

In its simplest form heat mediated transformations
can be used to convert the raw, natural world into
cultural 'cooked' products. Thus the mode of
thought enables man to 'control' the boundary
between culture and nature and so impose on his
world....This mode of thought provides a plan for
cultural action in the world and consequently it
allows man to 'control' nature.37

This is clearly represented in oral traditions from south-

 

35Ibid., pp. 108, 130.
37Ibid., pp. 121-122.

44
central Africa, where fire and cooking are used to

differentiate “cultured" from “wild" man..3a Furthermore, a
metaphorical differentiation of ”wild" (one who eats uncooked
meat) and “cultured" (one who eats boiled meat with starch)
exists also in Shambaa oral traditions.39

The Iron-Age peoples of the Taita, Pare, Nguru, and
Usambara highlands spoke related languages, farmed similar
ecological niches, and smelted and forged iron implements.
Moreover, the very hills they inhabited shared similar
geological and biological histories. The argument for unity
is buttressed by migrations stories in Usambara, in which
Shambaa descent groups claim to have migrated from one of the
other mountain regions. In the northwest around Mlalo, for
example, most Shambaa c1aim.Taita or Pare origins, while in
the southern Usambaras most refer to an ancestral residence
in Nguru,‘° Their choices of settlement show their tendency
to seek out familiar niches appropriate to their farming
technology and cultural constructs.

Over time Usambara's Bantu-speakers adapted their
patterns of occupation and exploitation to local
environmental conditions. In.Ihe Shambaa Kingdom, Steven
Feierman describes how, by two to three centuries ago,

Usambara's farmers had organized their settlements into

 

381b1d., p. 121.

39See Chapter 2, “The Myth of Mbega," in Steven Feierman, The
Shambaa.Kingdom: A History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1974).

401bide' pp. 72-73.

45
permanent towns like Ubiri, Bumbuli, Vuga, Mlalo and Mbaramo,

which served as capitals for various chieftaincies
(lineages). Permanent banana groves immediately surrounded
the town and less permanent and more dispersed gardens were
located anywhere within a five mile radius. Notwithstanding
Feierman's lack of sources for this period, nineteenth
century descriptions tend tentatively to support his
reconstruction. For example, the sophisticated intensive and
extensive husbandry practices described for 18903 Mlalo
suggest a long period of local adaptation ecological
conditions.‘1

Organizing large scale banana production and intensive
farming technologies, which in Usambara included irrigation
furrows and dams, depended on a dense population and the
ability of political leaders to organize labor gangs.
Permanently settled populations would have simplified
recruitment and required farmers to locate swidden
cultivation further from dense populations. Supported by
oral traditions, Feierman argues that before the eighteenth
century, lineage heads allocated plots to their wives and
sons. However, the availability of land allowed a young man
the freedom.to increase his holdings simply by clearing a
section of forest.‘2 .Also in pre-eighteenth century Usambara

farming communities, Feierman's “clan organizations," served

 

41See especially Professor Doctor 0. warburg, “Die Kulturpflanzen
Usambaras,“ Mitteilungen aus den Deutschen Schutzgebeiten 7 (1894), 131-
199.

42For the age of permanent towns, see Feierman, Shambaa Kingdom, p.
29; for allocation of garden plots, see p. 33

46
as the basis for local political unity.‘3 Subsequently,

kingship replaced clanship, and Kilindi overlords fostered a
previously nonexistent political unity among all Bantu
speaking farming communities in West Usambara.

By the early nineteenth century, oral traditions agree
that a Shambaa political and cultural unity existed in
Usambara under the Kilindi king, Kimweri ye Nyumbai. The
ecological situation, however, was less clear in much of
central Usambara, specifically at Shume and Magamba, where
Bantu-style agriculture was undermined by low temperatures
and an aridity hostile to banana cultivation. The niche in
the highest reaches of the mountains became home to herding

people called the vamaa.

Precolonial usambara's Highland Forest People, the wambugut‘
Mbugu informants refer to their ancestors as the vamaa,
who in centuries past occupied Kenya's Laikipia plateau until
Maa-speaking pastoralists pushed them southward and eastward
across the Rift Valley. These movements were punctuated by
interludes with Cushitic- and Bantu-speaking farmers in what

is today northern Tanzania. This history may explain the

 

43Ibid., chs. 3 and 4.

“The Wambugu refer to themselves as Vama'a and speak a language
which has been classified as a branch of Southern Cushitic in Derek
Nurse, “Extinct Southern Cushitic Communities in East Africa," in
Marianne Bechaus-Gerst and Fritz Serzisko, eds., Cushitic—anotic. Papers
from the International Symposium on Cushitic and anotic Languages,
Cologne, January 6-9, 1986 (Hamburg 1988), p. 93-104; see also A.N.
Tucker and M.A. Bryan, “The Mbugu Ananaly," Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies 37 (1974), pp. 188-207 and Morris Goodman,
“The Strange Case of Mbugu," in Dell Hymes, ed., Pidginization and
Creolization of Languages (Cambridge 1971), p. 243-54.

47
traditionally close social and cultural ties the present-day

wambugu maintain with the Pare people and the ritual
importance of certain places in the Pare hills just to the
northeast of Usambara.45 Some accounts also recall a time of
residence among zigua farmers in the region immediately to
the south of Usambara.“S

The traditions suggest a series of conflicts and
accommodations between the vamaa and their neighbors, and a
high degree of adaptability to a variety of environmental,
social and political contexts. Vamaa residence in Usambara
fits this model of contact. In fact, eighteenth-century
Usambara would have presented immigrant herders with an
especially advantageous social, political and ecological
situation.

Mbugu oral histories recount vamaa settlement in
Usambara as a series of movements by affiliated groups into
the mountains from the southern and western sides of the
massif.47 .Although now recalled as specific lineages, Mbugu

community histories might well have been constructed after

 

‘5For linguistic and historical ties to Upare see: E.C. Green, "The
Wambugu of Usambara (with notes on Kimbugu)," Tanzania Notes and Records
61 (1963), 176. Green describes a "colony" of wambugu still residing in
North Pare and occasional Mshitu ceremonies in South Pare; B.D. Copland,
"A Note on the Origin of the Mbugu with a Text," Zeitschrift ffir
Eingeborenen-Sprachen 24 (1933-34), p. 243; Tucker and Bryan, "The Mbugu
Anomaly," p. 190; MUIT Mz. Seuya and Baharia, p. 2-3 and 11, T. Mganga,
at Kwefingo 29/3/92, p. 13.

“MUIT, Daninque Ndala at Batai (Magamba), p. 21; Salim Kadala at
Mshangai 27/4/92, p. 27.

‘7MUIT informants recall these lineage names as follows: the Londo
(Ombweni), Ombeji, Gonja, Nkandu, Ngarito Ngarire and Kwangwana.
Feierman, Shambaa Kingdom, ch. 3 and E.C. Green, "The wambugu," also
note lineage names in their treatments of Mbugu history.

48
settlement. In any event, the migrants, whatever their

affiliation, ended up occupying the driest and coldest of the
massif's micro-climates. Naturally those were areas not
favored by the resident cultivators, the Washambaa, who, like
their iron age ancestors, preferred to remain within reach of
the plains below the massif in order to exploit the region's
warmest and wettest micro climates.

Occupation of central Usambara coincided with a period
in Shambaa history, when farming communities lived in locally
centralized neighborhoods under the auspices of certain
lineage heads, but did not exhibit any degree of political
unity across the massif. By exploiting the potential
pastures of the mountains, the vamaa offered individual
Shambaa leaders in the neighborhoods of Ubiri, Gare, vuga,
Bumbuli and Mlalo easy access to an important source of
wealthda In fact, Steven Feierman argues that Mbugu
migrations into Usambara helped to precipitate a political
revolution which resulted in the unification of Shambaa
communities under the Kilindi dynastya49

Although the wambugu had entered the mountains in
separate groups, they came to occupy a contiguous region,
whose rainfall varied with aspect and elevation. They also

shared a common myth of origin in Laikipia. In addition,

 

“MUIT, Seuya and Baharia, p. 2. Informants claimed that the Shambaa
then had no cattle and that the Wambugu purchased their rights of
residence with cattle.

“Feierman, The Shambaa Kingdom, for Shambaa agriculture see chapter
1, and for Mbugu/Shambaa relations during the eighteenth century chapter
3.

49
their tradition of migration to and residence in Upare

fostered a powerful cultural unity, which was renewed
regularly when Mbugu initiates and elders met in the forests
of the South Pare hills for mshitu (adolescent male
initiation) ceremonies. Moreover, their Cushitic language,
their pastoral economy and their forest enclave clearly
separated them from their Shambaa neighbors.

The ecological transition from plains savanna to
highland forest must have marked the beginning of an economic
and cognitive shift. The Wambugu remained pastoralists in an
economic sense but, having left the more open savanna, the
retooled their land-use practices and their social relations
to fit the highland forest environment. The traditions
recall the forested uplands of central Usambara as a
sanctuary, an ideal place to practice pastoralism.removed
from the disorder of the Rift Valley plains they had

traversed throughout their history.

.Mbugu Culture and Economy in vsambara: Defining the
Human/Environmental Discourse and Neighborly Relations

If the forest offered less immediately available pasture
than the plains, it had the advantage of being an area of
higher precipitation. Oral accounts note that upon arrival
in the Usambara forests at Shume and Magamba, the wambugu

found large open glades suitable for grazing (viringo) .50

 

”MUIT, Seuya and Baharia, p. 3, Dominique Ndala, at Batai, 4/92, p.
21, T. Mganga, p. 14. These glades may have been conditioned by
buffalo, bush buck and other ungulates conmon in central plateau forests
until the 19403.

50
Testimony is contradictory on the subject of pasture

creation, although Mbugu herders probably fired the edges of
these glades and other suitable areas to expand the amount of
pasture.:51 Councils of Mbugu elders regulated access to
pastures in their respective settlement regions, though it
seems that entry was easily negotiated, especially during
droughts.E52

Within the settlement regions, the Wambugu lived in
dispersed homesteads. Each small settlement maintained
exclusive rights to a particular area close to its houses
(mvera), where animals could be herded in the early morning
and evening.53 The houses themselves were built among the
trees and were large enough for the livestock to sleep
indoors, but sturdily built fenced outdoor cattle enclosures
(home) also dotted the landscape. Moreover, Mbugu leaders
sanctioned the construction of large defensible enclosures
called heiboma which, hidden in the forest, served as animal
sanctums and hideaways during times of war."

In addition to pasture, the forest provided fuel and

building materials. Mbugu women foraged for specific species

 

51For evidence of burning forest to create pasture see: B.D.
Copland, "A Note on the Origin of the Mbugu with a Text," p. 244; MUIT,
Paulo Mwavoa and Mlango Msasu at Kinko 3/3/92, p. 39; MUIT, T. Mganga,
p. 14, Mzee Mganga c1aimm that the Mbugu never cleared forest to create
pasture.

52MUIT, Mkanda Shusha, at Mshangai, 2/92, p. 25.

53o. Baumann, "Usambara," Petermann's Geographische Mitteilungen 2
(1889), p. 47; MUIT, T. Mganga, p. 14 and 20; Seuya and F. Baharia,
1/92, p. 11.

5‘MUIT, T. Mganga, p. 16. This feature might have become more common
during the late nineteenth century. Place names in central Usambara
also indicate the former presence of large bomas especially around Kwai,
Mshangai, and Malibwi.

51
of dead trees and shrubs of mihaghio (Maba buxifolia), ngiti,

mziragembe (wild olive, Olea chrysophylla), and muandala
(Ptaeroxylon obliquum) for their cooking fires.55 Just what
effect this had on the nineteenth century forest ecology is
difficult to determine; but because collection was carried
out fairly close to the homestead, the lack of ground litter
and decrease in nutrient cycling may have impoverished nearby
stands of forest. The Wambugu also stripped cedar bark to
use as roofing material and collected it, along with other
forest plants, for medicinal purposes.56

Human and animal population densities would have
affected forest ecology. Mbugu prohibitions on premarital
sex, child spacing and delayed marriage probably slowed
population increase.”7 Control of herd size, essential to the
maintenance of the pastoral economy, was regulated through
the regular ritual slaughter of animals and exchanges between
the wambugu and the washambaa,58 They also exchanged
livestock, hides and dried meat for the vegetable produce and
iron implements available from the neighboring Shambaa
cultivators.59 .After the advent of Kilindi rule in Shambaa

neighborhoods, the wambugu cultivated relations with the

 

55MUIT, T. Mganga, p. 15. As far as I know, no extensive list of
indigenous plant names exists for Mbugu forest areas.

56MUIT, D. Ndala, p. 22. Cedar bark for roofing was used exclusively
by the wambugu. The Shambaa thatched their roofs with grass gathered
from the waterlogged basins (dau) near their neighborhoods. Foraging
for firewood in nearby forests was common practice among Shambaa women.

5"MUIT, Seuya and Baharia, p. 9-10.

58Ibid., p. 11. Maddox also notes herd culling and availability of
meat through regular ritual slaughter of animals. Maddox, personal
coulnunication .

59MUIT, Seuya and Baharia, p. 7.

52
chiefs by paying regular tribute in livestock, labor and

women.5°.

In addition to exchanges outside Mbugu territory,
herders wealthy in cattle could spread their animals across
several Mbugu- controlled localities by marrying several
times and distributing their livestock among their wives'
sons. These marriage patterns fostered Mbugu unity across
the plateau while the dispersal of livestock limited
overgrazing and mitigated the effects of localized rainfall
failure.“1

The wambugu thus built a network of social relations
which suited local rainfall variability and allowed for
movements of livestock and peOple within Mbugu territory in

times of localized drought.

we'd hear that there grazing was abundant and here
‘was a desert‘z..;there would be a cousin there who
would take the animals. In fact all over the
Usambaras we had relatives with animals. People
sometimes moved with their families, sometimes not
if they expected to return. People had their clan
areas, so that when they came back they had their
place that they own.63

Such movements could be temporary or permanent, but only as a
last resort did it involve leaving Mbugu territory
altogether.

Temporary movements (urang'a) were usually no more that

 

soSteven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History
in Tanzania (Madison 1990), p. 49 and The Shambaa Kingdom, p. 155; MUIT,
T. Mganga, p. 20.

61MUIT, T. Mganga, p. 20.

62Informant used the swahili word “jangwa” to describe an area
without adequate grazing.

”MUIT, M. Shusha, p. 25; my translation.

53
a day's walk from the home camp.“ The herders could be

visited regularly by family members, who brought them food
and news of home. During severe droughts, entire Mbugu
families might migrate permanently in search of food.
Playing on their ties with Shambaa farmers, they sought out
areas on the edges of farmlands, where agricultural produce
was readily available in exchange for labor or for livestock,
the latter an important marker of wealth for the Kilindi and
the Washambaa.” Thus, in spite of claims to a cultural
propensity toward reclusiveness, Mbugu economic history in
Usambara is closely tied to that of their farming and herding
neighbors down-slope.“

The relationship between the wambugu, honey and the
forest environment illustrates this paradox. Honey had
cultural importance for the wambugu, since it served as the
main ingredient for the beer brewed for all ritual and social
occasions; and dowries required partial payment in honey,
causing one informant to claim that the wambugu had a “honey
culture."57 Since forest flora greatly facilitated Mbugu
honey production, informants saw a clear relationship between
their identity as forest dwellers, honey production, honey's

cultural significance, and their cultural separation from.the

 

6‘MUIT, Paulo Mwavoa and Mlango Msasu, at Kinko 3/92, p. 39.

55MUIT, T. Mganga, p. 14; P. Mwavoa and M. Msasu, p. 39.

“For reclusiveness see Green, "The Wambugu of Usambara," p. 175.
For another example interactions between pastoralist and farmers in East
Africa see J.L.Berntsen, "The Maasai and their Neighbors: Variables and
Interaction," African Economic History 2 (1976), p. 1-11.

57MUIT, T. Mganga, p. 17-18, and 20.

54
‘W‘ashamban8 Honey, however, had much more than cultural

significance for the Wambugu.

Informants recall honey's importance as a dietary
supplement, especially during seasons of hunger. Honey's
regional economic value was manifest in its importance as a
medium.of exchange in transactions with Maasai pastoralists,
who also used honey ritually. Moreover, Mbugu honey
gatherers purchased their hives from the Washambaa,.69 'The
context of honey production served not only to tie the
wambugu economically to their neighbors, but also to separate
them.culturally.

Over the course of about a century and a half,
Usambara's Cushitic-speaking communities had transformed
themselves into the wambugu. They had shifted successfully
from their tenuous existence as clients and refugees on the
plains to a much less risky forest-based pastoralism.in the
Usambara mountains. The viability of Mbugu pastoralism
depended on reciprocal relations with their neighbors.

This situation of relative stability began to change
with the introduction into the Pangani Valley of a regional
merchant economy based on the East African coast and its

offshore islands. This economic shift, along with the

 

‘BMUIT, T. Mganga, p. 19, D. Ndala, pp. 21 and 22, Mkanda Shusha, p.
27. For honey production in East African forest ecology see R.H.
Blackburn, "Honey in Okiek Personality, Culture and Society," Ph.D.
dissertation, Michigan State University 1971, chs. 1 and 2.

69MUIT, T. Mganga, p. 17-18, M. Shusha, p. 27. Once mixed with maize,
honey could be stored for months until needed; See also Blackburn,
"Honey in Okiek Personality," ch. 3 for honey-related economic relations
between Okiek (highland forest) and Maasai (plains).

55
ecological disasters which affected East Africans during the

18803 and 903, so disrupted their economy and society that
Mbugu relations with their Shambaa neighbors and with their

environment were transformed.

IV. Conclusion

One finds no mention of ecological change or degradation
in the histories, oral or written, of pre-nineteenth century
Usambara. However, because their production systems made
extensive use of mountain forests, pastures and soils, the
ancestors of the present-day Shambaa and Mbugu populations
shaped environments from.the time they entered the mountains.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the
physical, biological and social continuities of the highlands
were about to be broken. The Bantu-speaking cultivators had
already destroyed large areas of upland forests by cutting
trees to fuel their smelters, forges and cooking fires, and
by opening to cultivation slopes and basins near the massif's
outer scarps. To what extent they altered the floristic
makeup of the forest beyond the settlement zones remains
unknown. What is certain is that they cleared parts of the
most luxuriant forests at several elevation levels to take
advantage of temperature and rainfall patterns.

The vamaa herders also actively shaped their highland
environment by firing parts of the drier cedar forests of the
mountain plateau in order to create pasture. Some of the

Cedar forest's evergreen scrub, noted by Moreau in the 19303,

56
may well have resulted from.Vamaa pastoral practices.

The scope of pre-nineteenth century change is difficult
to establish. As long as population densities remained low,
the forest would regenerate in swidden gardens, though in an
altered state exhibiting a poverty of species and different
dominant trees. Nonetheless, by the selective use and
conservation of Usambara's forests, farmers and herders
created a markedly humanized landscape within which
functioned an interactive relationship between nature and
culture. By the mid-nineteenth century, when Kimweri ye
Nyumbai's rule reached its apex, an aerial observation of
Usambara would have revealed a massif largely clothed with
primary and secondary forest with open patches of several
square miles surrounding permanent settlements. Besides the
open patches, human presence would also have been marked by
smoke rising from the smiths' furnaces, the farmers fields in
preparation, and the herders' pastures, all of them.burning a

humanized order onto the landscape.

Chapter 3

Reorienting Exchange and Production:
Changing Ideologies of Environmental Control

I. Introduction

This chapter describes how war, rapid economic change,
and the imposition of German colonial rule combined to alter
human/environmental relationships in northeastern Tanzania's
west Usambara mountains between the mid-nineteenth century
and 1916. It shows that, in the decades before the German
incursion, African farmers and herders had shaped their
physical environment in response to a number of political and
economic challenges. While failing to alter completely the
direction of indigenous ecological change, the imperatives of
German colonial science and administration opened a new
ecological discourse, one which would persist throughout the

colonial period.

II. Changing Regional Political Ecology: an Overview

The mid- to late-nineteenth century constituted the most
violent phase in Usambara's modern history. For much of the
century, the Kilindi kings, ensconced in their mountain
capital at vuga in west Usambara, collected tribute over much
of what is today the northeast corner of Tanzania. During

the late 18603, the ruling family experienced a structural
57

58
crisis when the long-time king, Kimweri ye Nyumbai, died.

The successional dispute between Kimweri's sons precipitated
a regional civil war. Almost simultaneously, the demand for
slaves on the clove plantations of Pemba island and the
‘widespread sale of guns for their procurement led to a period
of unprecedented violence across northeastern Tanzania,
which, in turn, transformed local politics and
human/environmental relations in Usambara.1

The conjuncture of a local political crisis with an
expanding regional slave trade marked the beginning of the
end for Kilindi political legitimacy across much of the
kingdom. Kilindi chiefs who were involved in the
successional war needed soldiers, arms, ammunition, and means
of payment. Slaves were the currency used to purchase these
war goods, and plunder paid for soldiers' services.
Enslavement of outsiders and criminal offenders was not new
to Usambara in the 18603 and 703.2 However, when Kilindi
rulers extended the status to ordinary subjects for very
minor offenses, hired foreign mercenaries to seize slaves and
livestock, they undermined their own legitimacy as the
official arbiters between people and nature. Depopulation
and attendant losses in agricultural production subvented the

chiefs' prowess as rainmakers responsible for the fecundity

 

1For an extensive explantion Kilindi politics during this period see,
Feierman, Shambaa Kingdom, chs. 6 and 7. For an explanation of how this
process operated in Uzigua, just to the south of Usambara, see James
Giblin, Environmental Control, parts I and II.

2Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, ch. 2.

 

59
of the land,3 and centralized rule in the mountains began to

disintegrate. These political and economic transformations
had important consequences for Usambara's colonial ecology.

Following closely on the violence and uncertainty of the
slave trade era, the German invasion presented its own set of
challenges. Early in the 18803, international competition
pushed Germany reluctantly toward colonial adventure in East
.Africa. This imperial hesitation was not shared by Carl
Peters, a young German entrepreneur influenced by British
visions of empire, who, in March 1884, founded the Society
for German Colonization (later the Deutsch Ostafrika
Gesellschaft, hereafter DOAG). By 1886, the Society claimed
60,000 square miles of the East African mainland. ‘Within two
years, Peter's concession had been swallowed up by a powerful
banking syndicate which established eighteen small trading
and experimental stations. When coastal peoples revolted in
1888 and the company's stations were attacked, the German
government responded militarily, with the moral argument that
it intended to eliminate the slave trade. Once the “Bushiri”
revolt had been suppressed, however, a German governor
claimed control of military and civil affairs over what is
today mainland Tanzania.‘

The DOAG concentrated its early development efforts on
the Usambara highlands, which they believed had potential as

a productive coffee-growing region. Further, the mountains

 

3Feierman, Shambaa Kingdom, chapters 6 and 7 .

4W.O. Henderson, The German Colonial Empire, 1884-1914 (London:
Frank Cass, 1993), pp. 50-66; John Iliffe, Modern History, pp. 88-98.

60
lay along a major caravan route and close enough to the

German port at Tanga to lead planners to believe that
transport costs could be kept low. The society held
concessionary rights in Usambara and between 1891 and 1895
had purchased huge tracts of land from local Kilindi rulers,
who claimed they owned lands depopulated during the
nineteenth century disasters5 The DOAG, anxious to exploit
what they believed to be luxuriant mountain soils, initiated
the construction of a Pangani Valley railway which would
serve their interests. Economic success, however, depended
upon the railway's rapid completion and favorable world
market coffee prices. The railway only reached Mombo (129
kilometers from Tanga and main entry point into‘W. Usambara)
in 1905, six years after the government took over its
construction from the failed DOAG effort. To make matters
worse, by then coffee production in Usambara had proved to be
an abysmal failure. Of all the plantation crops, only sisal
made substantial sums for investors. These setbacks limited
Germany's ability to transform the local exchange relations.
Nonetheless, they made substantial inroads toward reorienting
the local human/environmental relations still in recovery.
The difficult ecological conditions of the late
nineteenth century continued to challenge farmers and herders
across German East Africa well into the German colonial
period. During the 18903, rinderpest swept across East

.Africa wiping most of the domestic livestock. As pasturage

 

5John Iliffe, Modern History, p. 126.

61
returned to thicket, tsetse flies multiplied spreading

Trypanosomiasis over much of the colony. Other diseases
followed: small pox, influenza, East Coast Fever, and bovine
pleuro pneumonia.6 In Usambara, effective mitigation of the
natural and man made disasters depended on settlement
location, local and regional social and economic relations,
and flexibility in modes of production. Generally, the
evidence suggests that the period coincided with a general
depopulation and loses of environmental control over much of
the mountain landscape.

As Usambarans tried to rebuild their communities in the
early years of the twentieth century, German colonial
administrators, scientists and settlers attempted to impose
their vision of colonial development across much of the
massif. German administrative policies regarding taxation
and labor worked against the historical continuities of
African agricultural and pastoral production. Nineteenth
century land use patterns use gave way, around mission
stations, DOAG experimental stations, and in forest reserves,
to western notions about the proper organization of nature.
However, European ideas regarding resource management
filtered through to Usambarans only in vague outlines. To
those whose pasture became forest reserve, or who watched

settlers clear hundreds of acres of ancient forest stands to

 

5Residents of Usambara often refer to the period as "njaa ya pato,"
which translates as the hunger of greed. For a discussion of the
broader region see, Juhani Koponen, "War, Famine, and Pestilence in Late
Precolonial tanzania: A Case for a Heightened Mortality," African
Economic History 17 (1988), 637-676.

62
make room for coffee trees, colonial policy must have looked

simply like a land grab.

Although the colonial apparatus seized control over
large swaths of West Usambara's landscape, German suzerainty
lasted only a generation. In 1916 when the British evicted
Usambara's enemy population, farmers and herders moved to
regain control of formerly German areas. However, they did
so in a new ideological and ecological context. In terms of
husbandry, African farmers adopted some exotic cultigens, and
expanded the cultivation of others, especially maize.
Moreover, the Germans had erected new types of legal
boundaries around settler farms and forest reserves, forcing
.Africans to recognize foreign control, albeit temporarily,
over tens of thousands of acres of mountain forest. Inside
the forest reserves, German silvicultural experts had begun a
process of biological simplification which would persist
thereafter. Finally, on the plains alluvium, formerly an
essential component of highland food production, the Germans
had sown sisal and rubber, crops for industrial rather than

human consumption.

Tracing.Ecological Change

Chapter 2 showed that Usambara's natural history
fostered the evolution of very distinct floral communities
which corresponded to elevation and rainfall patterns, and
which supported very different agroecologies. These

observations, based on imprecise oral traditions,

63
archaeological evidence, and extrapolations from biological

descriptions only provide a vague picture human agency.
However, by the late 18803, a clearer picture of human-
induced ecological change begins to emerge from traveler
accounts. For the period between 1888 and 1892, Oscar
Bauman's writings stand out in this regard. Bauman and his
partner, Hans Meyer, geographers operating on behalf of the
DOAG, carefully observed ecological conditions with an eye to
future exploitation. Coupled with subsequent observations of
German scientists, and a remarkable gardener at the Mlalo
Lutheran Mission, the evidence suggests that radical changes
in Usambara's agricultural ecology marked the years between
the mid nineteenth century and the end of German colonialism.
Numerous photographs document the region's most visible
ecological change, the destruction of old growth forests both
in the mountains and on sisal estates.7 Botanical inventories
provide another valuable source for ecological change in both
primary and secondary forests. The floristic makeup of an
areas speaks volumes to the mode and extent of human
intervention. Taken together, these sources begin to
illustrate changes in the environment. However, they also
point out that changes were extremely complex and that they
operated on scales which range from farmers' gardens to

entire river valleys.

 

7See for example, Josef Brunnthaler, "Vegetationsbilder aus Deutsch-
Ostafrika. Regenwald von Usambara," Vegetationsbilder 11.8 (1914),
tafel 43; photos also accompany articles in Mitteilungun aus den
Deutschen Schutzgebieten. The mission archive at Wiippertal holds a vast
collection of landscape photos from the German colonial period.

64
III. Change along the Elevation Gradient.

Plains, from Agriculture to Trade

On the plains a general pattern emerges in which
population movements within and around the mountains resulted
in losses of environmental control in some areas and
intensification of production in others. The differentials
help explain why some mountain farmers, in northern Usambara
for example, managed to expand the plains component of their
farming system, while on the other fertile plains lands,
Shambaa farmers lost the use of an area of supplementary
agriculture.

Stark contrasts in elevation and related rainfall and
vegetation patterns occur throughout East Africa. Its human
history is therefore replete with examples of people from.one
zone seeking to live within close range of another to gain a
measure of food security should local environmental
conditions deteriorate. Moreover, west Usambara's
demographic history suggests strongly that its varied
environment had for centuries attracted various East African
peoples. It is not surprising then to find evidence that,
during the nineteenth century, people who spoke zigua, Pare,
Kamba, Taita and Maasai settled around the base of the west
Usambara massif. They had easy access to mountain produce
when droughts, locusts, or disease killed their millet and
sorghum.crops and/or their livestock. Kamba and Taita

colonists from southern Kenya settled at Lunguza and Mngaro

65
below the Mlalo basin.8 Other Kamba settlers occupied

cultivable sections of the Lwengera valley, the eastern
border of west Usambara. On the southern side of the massif
Iloikop Maasai had established a settlement at Vuruni, near
the Zigua trading town of Mtaarwanda.9 These settlement
ringed the massif along the 400-450 meter elevation gradient
and were almost always located in vitivo, areas of heavy silt
deposits where mountain streams slowed as they entered the
plains . 1°

Although much drier than the uplands, the vitivo offered
opportunities for productive agriculture to resident lowland
farmers or to highlanders moving down to cultivate
seasonally.11 .Along with the periodic floods, abundant ground
water and irrigation furrows leading from streams flowing
down the escarpment provided enough moisture for a riverine

farming system.along stream.courses and their immediate flood

 

aBauman, Uaambara und seine Nachbarbebiete: allgemeine Darstellung
des norddstlichen Deutsch-Ostafrika und seiner Bewohner auf Grund einer
im auftrage der Deutsch Ostafrikanischen Gesellschaft im Jahre 1890
ausgefflhrten Reise (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1891), p. 172. Feierman,
Shambaa Kingdom, p. 126-130, argues that these colonies operated as
ivory collection stations and trading posts throughout the eighteenth
century. Whatever the case, they served as refuges for those fleeing
famine in Ukambani during over much of the course of the nineteenth
century. For a discussion of nineteenth century Kamba migrations, see
Charles Ambler, Kenyan Communities in the Age of Imperialism (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1988).

In fact the Usambara mountains themselves had been peopled by Bantu
speakers fromlTaita, Uzigua, Ukambani and Upare.

9Baumann, Usambara, p. 175 for Iloikop Maasai settlement at Vuruni.
For Mtaarwandasee, Feierman, Shambaa Kingdom, p. 125.

101 believe it likely that increased soil erosion in the mountains
made the Vitivo attractive during the early nineteenth century. The
settlements mentioned above are directly downstream from.Mlalo and
Bumbuli/vuga, centers of dense population and intensive agriculture.

11TNA Sec. 24732, Geoffrey Milne, "Report on a Soil Reconnaissance in
the Neighbourhood of Kitivo, Lushoto District, Tanganyika Territory, and
in adjacent Highlands, September - October 1937," p. 11.

66
plains.12 With an estimated annual rainfall of less than

500mm, these plains agricultural systems depended on ground
water and also on an adequate volume of water in the upper
watershed, where rainfall averaged at least 3 times that
amount . 13

Using both irrigation and swidden systems, nineteenth
century plains farmers produced mainly pulses and drought-
resistant sorghums, and likely various milletscl‘ They also
grew maize and rice in the northern vitivo, but they were
probably nineteenth century additions to the local crop
repertoire.15 ‘When periodic drought hit the mountains,
plains agriculture, tied as it was to mountain runoff,
suffered as stream flows decreased. During these episodes,
mountain surpluses of bananas and livestock sustained plains
farmers.

A.critical innovation in plains/hills trade and
production patterns began sometime during the mid-nineteenth
century, when slaving caravans began moving in increasing
numbers up the Umba and Pangani river valleys. Those plains
settlements which could provide slaves, ivory and food gained
access to guns, powder and cloth, the newest forms of wealth

and political prestige. For West Usambara, the newest and

 

12Baumann, Usambara, p. 178.

13Milne, "Report," p. 13;

1“O. warburg, “Die Kulturpflanzen Usambaras,“ Mitteilungen aus den
Deutschen Schutzgebeiten 7 (1894), 141, notes cultivation of sorghum by
Kamba at Kitivo and that surpluses were sold in mountain markets.
Bauman, In Deutsch-Ostafrika Wfihrend des Aufstandes. Reise der Dr. Hans
Meyer'schen Expedition in Usambara. (Wien und Olmfltz: Eduard Holzel,
1890), p. 166, also notes the importance of mtama, which can be
translated as either sorghum or millet.

15Warburg, “Kulturpflanzen," p.135 for maize and p.140 for rice.

67
most important of these settlements, Mazinde, lay below the

massif's northwestern side, directly along the Pangani
Valley's major caravan route. Mazinde existed exclusively
for trade purposes.

Unlike other older plains settlements, which Baumann
could identify according to language group, Mazinde was
populated by a mixed bag of slaves, freebooters, mercenaries
and traders from across the region.16 From here, Semboja, the
town's appointed Kilindi chief and self-styled warlord, took
full advantage of the new regional trade patterns and
gathered around himself the military and political power
necessary to lead a successful coup against the Vuga Kilindi.
During the twenty-year-civil war which followed, the center
of Kilindi political power shifted from mountain to plain,
where the slave-based caravan trade provided the goods and
wealth necessary to modern warfare. In these violent times,
the inhabitants of Mazinde, and of other plains towns allied
with it, began to view the Usambara hills no longer as a
source of trade, but as a repository of plunder for slaves,

foodstuffs and livestock.

Violence in the Mountains, Njaa ya Pato
Local traditions recall this period, which corresponds
roughly to the 18703 and 803, as the “Hunger of Greed," when

hunger, fear of kidnap and violence permeated mountain life.1‘7

 

“Baumann, Usambara, describes each village as "Shambaa, Kamba,
Taita, Kwavi, Pare, etc., but does not explain his criteria for
judgment. ch. 5.

1"See Chris Conte, “Nature Reorganized: Ecological History in the

68
There is evidence that the years of violence led to the

depopulation, with attendant environmental degradation, in
several mountain regions. Those who remained in the mountain
enclaves seem generally to have moved closer together into
heavily fortified towns, even, at times, fencing off entire
areas of cultivation. Other families hid themselves in
isolated mountain glens and eked out a living as best they
could.

The regional violence seems to have penetrated the
Lwengera valley as early as the 18403, when raids from the
south by zigua slavers, and from the north by Iloikop Maasai
scattered the valley's Kamba population. If Baumann's
sources are correct, settlers subsequently returned to the
valley in large numbers until 1865, when, once again, the
valley's inhabitants scattered, this time in response to
attacks during the Kilindi civil war. Thus an important
lowland agricultural area with a permanent water source
became by 1890 an impenetrable thicket of secondary forest.18

Upstream in the mountain district of Bumbuli, an ancient
center of Shambaa settlement, extensive depopulation had
occurred by 1890, when Baumann found much of the town
abandoned and fields neglected.19 Feierman's informants

recall Bumbuli as an area where Kilindi chiefs unjustly

 

Plateau Forests of West Usambara Mountains c.1850-1935,“ in Jim Giblin,
Greg Maddox and Isaria Kimambo eds., Custodians of the Land:
Environment and Hunger in Tanzania (London: James Currey, 1995) .

18For conflict in the 18403 and earlier, see Johann Krapf, Reisen in
Ostafrika ausgefilrt in den Jahren 1837-1855, (Stuttfart: F.A. Brockhaus
KinIn.-Gesch., GmbH., Abt. Antiquarium, 1964), p. 122; For oral evidence
of later abandonment see Baumann, Usambara, p. 170.

19Ibid., p. 173.

69
enslaved the people.20 In fact, German accounts argue for

extensive depopulation over much of the area between Vuga and
Bumbuli. Thus, by the mid 1890s, the core region of Kilindi
rule had reverted to the secondary forest vegetation
characteristic of long abandoned gardens.21

On the central plateau, the regional chaos forced the
wambugu herders out of their regular patterns of social
relations as they sought to avoid the violence. Slave
raiders occasionally kidnapped Mbugu men and women, and at
least one Mbugu lineage reportedly participated in slave
raiding.22 To escape the dangers, the Shume Mbugu fled away
from the western edge of the Usambara escarpment to the more
inaccessible areas around Malibwi, Kwai and Mshangai.23 Here,
in the cedar forests of W. Usambara's central plateau region
(1700m - 2000m, el.), Mbugu families gathered together their
remaining livestock and constructed stockades (heiboma),
where young men of the warrior age-set could protect the
community's wealth. On detecting a threat, herders quickly
brought the livestock into these bomas, where they would be

held until the raiders retreated from.the area.2‘ [Others left

 

20Feierman, Shambaa Kindan, p. 177.

21Buchwald, “Ans dem Ostafricanische," p. 223; “westusambara, die
Vegetation und der wirtschaftliche werth des Landes," Der
Trqpenpflanzer, zeitschrift ffir tropische bandwirtschaft 1 (1897), p.
84.

22Mbugu Interview Trancripts (hereafter MIT), Seuya and Baharia, p.
3, Salim Kadala, p. 28.

23!. Bick, “'Bericht fiber meine Reise ins Kwai und Hasumbailand
(Usambara) vcm.12 bis 16 narz 1896,“ Mitteilungen aus den deutschen
(Schutzgebieten 9.3 (1896), p. 187; Copland, “A Note on the Origin of the
Mbugu with a Text,“ Zeitschrift Fur.8ingeborenen Sprachen 24 (1933-34),
p. 244; HIT, Radala, p. 29.

2‘MI'I‘, T. Mganga, p. 16, P. Mwavoa and M. Msasu, p. 38.

70
the massif altogether, traveling as refugees to East Usambara

and Bondei.25

The crisis intensified again during the early 18908,_
when the Wambugu, along with practically every other
pastoralist community in East Africa, experienced the spate
of animal diseases which threatened pastoralists (especially
the Maasai) throughout East Africa.”5 Wambugu informants
relate that the rinderpest (kidei) epidemic, which struck
just before the Germans arrived (at Mlalo in 1892),
substantially reduced their herds.“ Some Wambugu restocked
by acquiring animals from the herders of the Pare hills,
whereas others likely raided their neighbors.28 For the
Maasai, also desperate to rebuild, raids on the Mbugu cattle
became chronic.29

Baumann's observations suggest that those who remained
in the vicinity of the western side of the massif lived in
fear. Some families found refuge in hidden valleys tucked in
along the escarpment wall above the Mkomazi valley. NOrth of
Shume, in the district of Mbaru, which overlooks the Mkomasi

valley, Baumann found a hamlet called Maringo. The village's

 

25l'eierman, Shambaa Kingdom, p. 166.

2“Sometimes also referred to by informants as njaa ya pato although
most informants recognize a difference between an earlier famine
associated with the slave trade and crisis called njaa ya mchele which
likely occurred in the 1890s. For effects on the Maasai see Richard
Waller, “Emutai: Crisis and Response in Maasailand 1883-1902," in
Douglas Johnson and David Anderson, eds., The.£cology of Survival: Case
Studies from Nbrtheast African History (Boulder, 1988), p. 73-112.

2"MIT, Salim.xadala, p. 29; Dr. Neubaur, “Die Besiedelungsfahigkeit
von westusambara," Zeitschrift far tropische LandWirtschaft 6 (1902), p.
504.

28HIT, Paulo Mwavoa and Mlango Hsasu at Kinko 3/3/92, p. 39.

29HIT, T. Mganga, p. 16; D. Ndala, p. 21; M. Shusha, p. 27; s.
Kadala, p. 28; P. Mwavoa and H. Msasu, p. 39.

71
inhabitants had built their ten ”poor" huts on the edge of a

cliff and had surrounded the entire community - gardens,
pastures and homes - with a thick fence of interlaced thorn
bushes which measured 1/2 hours walk in circumference. Traps
designed against human intrusion (fussangeln) covered the
fields to deter Maasai raiders.3° Similarly fortified Shambaa
settlements ringed the massifs northern side at Mtae,
Mabaramo, Mlola and Mlalo.

The difficulties notwithstanding, some communities in
northern Usambara prospered. The contrasting ecological
conditions in the neighboring areas of Mlalo and Hlola
illustrates the differentials of adaptation to violence.
Mlola, historically an important Kilindi subchiefdom and thus
a population center, experienced regular rainfall deficits
because of its location in a rain shadow of both the NW and
SE monsoon rains. During occasional droughts, Mlola's
viability as a settled agricultural community depended,
therefore, upon its access to the riverine soils of the
plains below the escarpment and trade with more prosperous
neighbors. That Baumann, in 1888, should find the people of
the basin living in intense poverty, fear and hunger signals
a breakdown in mitigation measuresdn' Crisis seems not so
much tied to Mlola's environmental marginality, but to the
threat of political violence with limited free movement up

and down-slope.

 

3oBauman, Usambara, p. 177.
31Baumann, In Deutsch Ostafrika, p. 77.

72
As in mmch of the rest of Usambara, Shambaa traditions

recall violent encounters for the Mlola basin. Sometime in
the late 18608, Taita mercenaries in Semboja's hire, attacked
Mlola in a tactical feint designed to draw fighters out of
Vuga while another Taita force attacked the Kilindi capital
from the west.32 Taita mercenaries' booty would have come
from the sale of captives and stolen livestock. Several
years later, either in the late 18608 or early 18708, the
Bonde of East Usambara attacked the Western Usambara Kilindi.
During this campaign, Bondei soldiers killed Mlola's Kilindi
chief. In the late 18708, the western Kilindi placed another
chief at Mlola to deflect the eastern Kilindi, who had a
stronghold at nearby Makanya.33 Hlola's inhabitants, like
those of Bumbuli to the southeast, found themselves caught in
a vortex of terror and uncertainty, which crippled production
and trade. In this militarized context, where war captives
constituted a major medium of exchange, travel to the plains
gardens would have left farmers liable to kidnap. Thus in
September 1888, Baumann found them unwilling even to open
village gates to discuss provisioning his caravan.

Everything about the village spoke to its poverty:

There lay the miserable hamlet of Uandani at the
foot of a steep slope [near present day Mlola]
surrounded by miserable, half-dried crops. The
people, shy and dirty, were as unfriendly as their
surroundings. When we approached they closed the
village gates.... It was so sad and barren that we

 

32Abdallah bin Banedi'lhjjemy, The Kilindi (Nairobi: East African
Literature Bureau, 1963), p. 236-37.
33Feierman, Shambaa Kingdom, p. 193.

73
must ask ourselves if such a land is even worth

exploring and exploiting.34
NOnetheless, Baumann's party needed provisions, and when
villagers quoted high prices, members of the caravan fired a
off a mortar round, whereupon the price dropped.35 To the
people of Uandani, Baumann must have seemed like another in a
long line of violent visitors.

Baumann's party skirted the northern edge of the massif
and arrived two days later at Mlalo, fortified like Mlola,
but looking southward over a lush upland basin and northward
out across an ocean like savanna 1000m below. .After his
difficulties in Hlola, Baumann indicated that his
preoccupation with food procurement had ended. However,
caution still ruled at Mlalo, and when guards saw the
Germans' caravan, they sounded the alarm which sent people
scrambling toward the safety of the town walls. The basin
was heavily settled: Baumann estimated that Mlalo town alone
contained 150 huts and additional walled villages lay
scattered along the basin's surrounding hilltops.36 The well
clothed and apparently well-fed denizens grew a variety of
crops under both swidden and intensively irrigated
arrangements, which produced surpluses even in the middle of
the dry season (Sept. 1888).

Bananas figured in both the intensive and extensive

 

3MBaumann, In Deutsch-Ostafrika, p. 75.
35mm.
35Ibid., p. 78.

74
production systems.37 Carl Holst, amateur botanist and Mlalo

mission gardener, placed the amount of land devoted to banana
production (several varieties) at eighty percent of arable
land. Banana trees of several varieties were planted in
virgin fields, or in fields which supported intercroppings of
maize, beans, pumpkins, potatoes, sugar cane, and tobacco.
Bananas were dried and ground into flour, eaten raw or
cooked, and the tree fibers and leaves served as material for
making various containers.

It appears that, in addition to the swidden system,
farmers invested labor in intensive irrigated gardening.
Farmers surrounded their gardens with fences. Along stream
banks, they organized gangs of laborers to dig and maintain
furrows and dams. Moreover, farmers invested in their
gardens by planting shade trees and walling them with field
stones, which they also used to line the paths which marked
field boundaries. Agriculture in Mlalo suggested permanence
and stability.

This complex system suggests strongly that Mlalo's
political leadership had been able to avoid at least some of
the region's generational violence since there was surplus
labor and a relatively dense population. Moreover, the Mbugu
on the central plateau, also independent of Kilindi control,
buffered Mlalo from the political violence. The basin's

dense population suggests that Mlalo may have attracted

 

3I’The following description of Mlalo's agriculture is based on O.
Warburg, “Kulturpflanzen.” Warburg's article based on the writings of
Carl Bolst, gardener at the Mlalo mission in the early 1890s who
conducted extensive botanical inventories for W. Usambara.

75
political refugees from places like Mlola and Bumbuli and

Shume.3° .A population increase would help explain the labor
intensive gardening.

Location also provided Mlaloans with food security. A
permanent river, the Umba, rose in the heavily forested hills
of Shagai northwest of the town, then traversed the basin in
a meandering circular sweep. With the upper watershed
covered in ancient closed canopy forest, the Umba's flowed
continually through the basin and down to the plains at
Kitivo. Although rainfall was less abundant than on the
southern and southeastern sides of the massif, Mlalo caught
the November - December northwesterlies, which brought the
Vuli rains. Finally, Mlalo town, situated within easy
walking distance from both the productive lowland vitivo and
the Mbugu highlands had become by the late 1880s, a center of
regional trade in livestock and produce.39

Bauman found another pocket of productive agriculture at
Tewe and Mbaramo on the northern side of the Shagai forest .‘0
Too high up for banana production, Tewe's farmers grew yams
in abundance.‘1 Tewe ironworkers , famous throughout Usambara,
added to the northern region's trade. Further north, the
Mbaramo river allowed farmers to engineer a hydroculture both

in the mountains and on the plains below.

 

3'1'Ajjemy, Kilindi. A reading of the many war suras reveals large
numbers of refugees.

39Baumann, In Deutsch Ostafrika. p. 168, notes that Mlalo constitutes
the only operational market in the western mountains, though Gare must
have been operational at this time.

4°Ibid., p. as.

‘1Ibid.

 

76
In the northwest region then, pre-war patterns of

interaction still operated. Mlalo, although having suffered
from the slave trade and the Kilindi civil war, seems to have
attracted, through its periodic market, access to animal
products from.Mbugu pastoralists and drought-resistant tubers
and iron products from nearby Tewe. Moreover, northern
farmers insured themselves against droughts with hill-furrow
irrigation cultivation along the Umba river and in their
Kitivo on the plains below the town. A dense population,
which was likely augmented by refugees from Pare or other
parts of the mountains, would have facilitated labor
intensive agriculture. Finally, the presence of nearby
mature forest helped to protect the Umba watershed and thus

the irrigation lifeline both in the hills and in Kitivo.

A new Ideology of.Environmental Control

With all the zeal characteristic of late nineteenth
century positivism, missionaries, concessionaire companies
and the German colonial government moved confidently into
Usambara early in the 18903. Each of these groups acted to
alter the local ecology within the precepts of market-led
agriculture and resource management. Missionaries, most
notably at Gare (Weu Koln) and Mlalo (Bohenfreidberg),
experimented with coffee and market gardening and introduced
new cultigens to local farmers. Similarly, a few well
capitalized plantation societies received thousands of

hectares of leasehold properties from the government and

77
began to experiment with cash crops and animal husbandry.

Meanwhile, the concessionaire firms began to explore the
possibility of culling indigenous species of trees and
replacing them with fast growing species introduced from the

Americas and Australiad2

Early Research

Following Oscar Baumann's lead, Eick, the Deutsch
Osfafrika Gesellschaft's (hereafter DOAG) economy director
toured West Usambara in mid-1890, in search of Africa's
Switzerland. He found it at Kwai, on the central plateau at

about 1700 meters.

From there, traveling in a northerly direction, I
arrived at the highland plateau of Kwai, a true
paradise for the German farmer. All of the
vegetation and mountain formations were as if
transformed. Between the hills there were large
grassy plains, broken here and there by small or
large stands of trees. On the mountains one sees
in places, thick, beautiful primeval forest, which,
as one climbs higher, loses its tropical character
and at 1600 meters and above is mixed with numerous
conifers, podocarpae, falcata, and Juniperus
procera. The plains are cut by many small streams,
which, due to the slight gradient, have a swampy
appearance and are surrounded by thick stands of
reeds and rushes. The inhabitants of this land, as
well as of the bordering regions with the same
vegetation, are the wambugu, exclusively cattle
herders, who cultivate their luxuriant shambas only
for their own needs.‘3

Mbuguland's pasture, forest and luxuriant gardens so

 

42This trend captured for German East Africa in a number of German
colonial periodicals. For Usambara in particular see Berichte fiber
Land- und Forstwritschaft, Der Tropenpflanzer, Der Pflanzer, Usambara
Post, and Mitteilungen aus den Deutschen Schutzgebeiten.

“My translation of Sick, “Berichtefl' p. 186.

78
impressed Eick, that he began the DOAG's experiment in

agricultural production at Kwai.

Although suitable for experiments with European grains
and vegetables, Kwai's relatively dry, temperate climate and
high elevation precluded experiments in lowland tropical
agriculture. Therefore, in the late-18903, the DOAG erected
several additional experimental farms at various elevations
around East and west Usambara (for example, Mombo 450m,
Sakarre, Amani 900m, Lwengera 500m). By 1900, economic
necessity drove the DOAG's scientists to push for one large
centralized station with labs, experimental gardens,
meteorological and cartographic research facilities. Because
investment had been concentrated at Kwai, it seemed the
logical choice for a larger station, with a link to the
lowland station at Mombo, a day's ride away. Hindorf, the
DOAG's chief agronomist, argued that instead of Kwai, the
research station should be in East Usambara's tropical rain
forest zone, where the DOAG (and other plantation societies)
already held in freehold tens of thousands of hectares of
ancient forest stands.‘4 .Moreover, at this point, German
scientists believed that closed tropical rain forest, so
abundant in East Usambara, clothed the colony's richest soils
appropriate for coffee production.‘5 At 900m elevation, Amani

also offered easy access to both highland (>1000m) and

 

“R. Bindorf, 'Die Versuchsstation fur Tropenkulturen in Usambara, "
Der Tropenpflanzer, Zeitschrift fur tropische Landwirtschaft 5 (1901) ,
pp. 268-69.

‘51.. Sander "Usambara.“ Der Tropenpflanzer, Zeitschrift far
tropische Landwirtschaft 7.5 (1903), p. 203.

lwlan
opport
to 10:
the C!
garde

scien

farms
Saka:
ecol<
agri:
both

EXOt

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916

51}:

15's.?

it:

79
lowland (<500m) ecozones and thus gave agronomists the

opportunity to set up experimental gardens anywhere from 400m
to 1000m and reach them easily on horseback,‘5 In June, 1902
the colonial government chose Amani as its central botanical
garden and research station, and Kwai farm faded into the
scientific background.

Nonetheless, at Kwai, and other large west Usambara
farms like Balangai (2000 ha), Ambagulu, Sakarre (5000 ha),
Sakarani, German farmers continued their attempts at
ecological management with experiments in highland
agriculture and animal husbandry. Ludwig Illich, who managed
both Kwai and Sakarre farms, experimented with numerous
exotic vegetables, grains and horticultural crops.
Furthermore, he brought into the mountains European swine and
poultry.‘7 In 1905, he acquired canning equipment, a butcher
and began shipping sausage, bacon and canned pork, to (wfirst-
starved) Germans in Tanga and Dar es Salaam.‘8

These farms proved without doubt that European
vegetables and horticultural products could be produced in
great variety and profusion.‘9 .Africans noted some of these
successes, particularly with Irish potatoes and cabbages, and

quickly incorporated them into swidden systems around the

 

‘5Bindorf, “Versuchsstation,” p. 270.

‘7Dr. Neubaur (no first name provided), “Die Besiedelungsfhhigkeit
von Westusambara,' Der Tropenpflanzer, Zeitschrift far tropische
Landwirtschaft 6 (1902), p. 502-505.

‘80n milk production, Neubaur, p. 498; on meat processing see Herman
Paasche, Deutsch Ostafrika (Rusch'sche Verlagsbuschhandlung, 1927), p.
252. Paasche's account based on a 1905 trip.

‘9Neubaur, “Besiedelungsfihigkeit,” p. 500.

Mlalc
prof.
an

'ith

KOIC

HOST

80
Mlalo and Gare basins.5° By 1903, however, the chances for

profitable European agriculture in the West Usambara
mountains had become problematic. Periodic drought coupled
with its inability to get produce or milk products to market
led the DOAG to declare failure and to sell Kwai in 1902.51

Delays in railroad construction had left the railhead at
Korogwe, at the southern end of the western massif, far from
most W. Usambara's farmers, who complained that produce
simply could not be transported economically to coastal
markets until rails reached Mombo. For small holders in west
Usambara, like Hedde at Kwamkusu, the expense of transporting
goods to the Korogwe railhead by porter caravan and the
difficulties in procuring local labor precluded any export
reducing them to subsistence agriculture.”2 Eindorf went so
far as to suggest that west Usambara be abandoned by settlers
altogetherfi’3

In addition to transport woes, German unfamiliarity with
local ecosystems hindered production. For example, livestock
diseases plagued Illich's attempts to manage a cattle herd at
Kwai in Usambara's pastoral heartland. Rinderpest epidemics
among wambugu cattle of had restricted Illich's ability to

build a herd of local Zebu cattle. Zebus brought in from

 

5"Teichmann, ”Ausztige aus en Jahesberichten der Bezirksfimter und
Militarstationen fur die Zeit van 1. Juli 1900 his 30. Juni 1901, 2.
Bezirksamt Wilhelmstal (West Usambara)," Berichte uber Land- und
Forstwirtschat’tt 1 (1903), p. 27-38. See also report from Gare and Kwai
in same volume.

s”Price based on assessed value of farm's tin roofs.

52Eedde, Report on the farm at Mkusu, June 12, 1901 in Berichte fiber
Land und Forstwirtschaft in Deutsch-Ostafrika l (1903), p. 45-46.

53Eindorf, “Versuchsstation,” pp. 268-69.

81
outside to stock Kwai's pastures proved particularly

susceptible to East Coast Fever and yearly mortality rates
went as high as 80%.5‘

The presence of German settlers in the Kwai/Mkuzi area
also played havoc with indigenous patterns of work and
residence. Settlers desperately needed farm laborers, but
could not always procure them locally because many Wambugu
managed to evade corvée requirement.s.5s 'The local resistance
to forced labor induced settlers to bring in outside help
from other regions of German East Africa. Informants
remember the Nyamwezi in particular, as farm laborers whose
presence reduced settler dependence on local labor, which, in
turn, allowed Europeans to force the Wambugu away from the
vicinity of their estates by confiscating their cattle and
destroying their homes. These evictions spurred Mbugu
migrations away from Kwai and Mkusu to the plains at Mombo
and Mazinde, to Shambaa agricultural areas at nearby Gare,
and to remote high mountain areas like Kinko and Mgwashi, far
from effective German colonial control.56 Kwai remained a
symbol of Mbugu disaffection well into the British period.

In another example of ecological mismanagement, coffee
planters not only destroyed thousands of hectares of
indigenous forest, but their limited knowledge of forest

soils also doomed to failure their hasty experiment in coffee

 

5‘Paasch, Deutsch Ostafrika, pp. 250-51.

55MIT, D. Ndala, p. 23; and for Salim.Radala on Mlimahadala, see also
Eedde, Report, pp. 45-46.

56MIT, T. Mganga, p. 13; F. Baharia and Seuya, p. 6; D. Ndala, p. 23.

1c
th
co
su
se

13'

Th.

Us

ar

tr

82
growing. At Ambagulu and Balangai and on Gare mission land,

hundreds of thousands of coffee trees stood on what had been
several thousand hectares of cleared and burned over primary
forest. The young trees proved susceptible to wind damage,
root fungus and coffee borers. Moreover, by 1903, Adolph
Engler, a renown botanist, advised against further coffee
cultivation in rain forest clearings.” Cultivators revised
their earlier prognostications noting that the forest soils
lost most of their fertility after four years.58 Thus in less
than a decade thousands of hectares of forest cover had been
completely cleared and stripped of fertility.” Not
surprisingly this situation caused headaches for the forestry
service, which had a keen interest in conserving Usambara's

watershed . 5°

The Timber Industry

German scientists quickly understood the importance of
Usambaras forests as reserves of great species diversity and
argued for the conservation and propagation of indigenous

trees both for timber and watershed conservation.61 The

 

57A. Engler, “Bemerkungen fiber Schonung und versthndige Ausnutzung
der einzelnen Vegetationsformen Beutsch Ostafrikas," Berichte fiber Land
- und Fbrst wirtschaft in Deutsch Osthfrika 2 (1904), p. 3.

58For Bemileia see Warburg, 'Die Notwendigkeit einer Versuchsstation
fur Tropenkulturen in Ssambara und ihre Rosten,‘ Der Tropenpflanzer,
Zeitschrift far tropische Landwirtschaft 2 (1898), [check p. no.]; for
soil fertility see Sander, "Usambara," p. 207.

59For an excellent description of the degradation process, see G.
Milne, “Essays in Applied Pedology, I Soil Type and Soil Management in
Relation to Plantation AGriculture in East Usambara," The East African
Agricultural Journal 3 (1937), p. 16.

6°Th. Siebenlist, Fbrstwirtschaft in Deutsch-Ostafrika (Berlin,
1914), p. 54

61G. Volkens, “Zur Frage der Aufforstung in Deutsch-Oat Afrika,"

to:

50:12

[.7be
ll

‘a

83
forestry service, however, emphasized economy over

conservation.

Left unattended, the forest will renew by its own
force, be it via seeds, coppices or root suckers.
This new “urwald” with its mass of trees and
bushes, vines, tree fern and other weeds allows for
a pictoral image, but doesn't make any profit. The
goal of forest administration must be to make
profit out of existing woods and to increase it in
the future; therefore this virgin forest [emphasis
author's], after using up all the usable old woods,
has to make space for a planned, profitable
artificial forest.

In the mountain forests there is a variety of
species; those are usually found in single stands;
only a few are found in groups or in larger area;
the African cedar (Juniperus procera) and the
Podos; of deciduous trees there are Mkulo (Ocotea
Usambarensis) and Mnyassa (Piptadenia buchananii)
Takula (Ochna Holstii) and others. Age of trees
varies constantly. Here you see low bushes in a
smaller area, grown over by kresserpflanzen; there
you can see medium sized holes and weak trunks.
One must further consider the difficulty of
terrain, where draught animals cannot be
practically used, the distance of the forests from
existing railways, and inaccessibility of much of
the forest, then one can understand why present
quality requirements cannot be fulfilled. To
satisfy them completely will not be possible until
we grow them artificially in large areas in closed
stands, pure or in mixture.“2

The colonial government defined forestry service's
sphere of ecological dominance over all unused, or unoccupied
lands it deemed suitable for its uses.” Usambara figured
prominently in the forestry service plans for exploitation,

and, by 1909, had laid claim to 15,600 sq. kilometers of W.

 

Notizblstt.xdniglicher Botanische Garten und MUseum Berlin 2.11 (1897),
13.

62Siebenlist, Forstwirtschaft, p. 39 and 50 [my translation].
‘3Ibid., pp. 9-10.

84
Usambara, mostly in the Shume/Magamba area. The Mbugu had

begun in small numbers to recolonize the area, but under
forestry service rules, individual huts or pastures did not
grant usufruct rights.5‘

Within the German reservation scheme, the Wambugu
retained their usufruct rights only in those forest glades
which showed continual use over time and which had settled
populations. In areas of recent occupation, indigenous
peoples were required to leave immediately after harvesting
their crops.55 This had the effect of evicting from the Shume
forest those Wambugu frontiersmen who had returned to
reestablish pasture after the troubles of the 18808 and
18908. In forest pastures where the wambugu could remain,
surveyors marked the viringO‘with stone cairns and designated
them “free settlements." Although literally ringed in, these
wambugu maintained an important foothold, however small, in
their former range which would prove useful when the Germans
evacuated Usambara in 1916. The de jure restrictions
hindered, but did not halt the movement of animals into and
out of the government forest reserve. Nonetheless a clear
cognitive boundary between Public Land (raiya), over which
they had some control, and completely restricted government
Crown land, and private settler land, became part of Mbugu
consciousness.

Aside from their survey and marking of forest

 

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551bid., pp. 7-8.

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85
boundaries, and numerous silvicultural experiments, German
foresters never managed to exploit much of the central

plateau forests. The government did grant a 3,000 acre

concession at Shume/Magamba area to Wilkins and Wiese Co.,

who constructed a sawmill at Hornrow (Shume). The colonial

government also subsidized commercial forestry by building a
spectacular funicular railway which ran between the western

escarpment edge and the plains 1,400 meters below.

The Plains
Among crops Germans experimented with in the lowlands,

sisal became the most successful. In his search for crops

suitable for production in German East Africa, R. Eindorf
came across an article in the 1892 issue of the Kew Bulletin
which praised sisal as an industrial crop which nullified

labor strikes because of its ability to remain in the ground

for months without injury. An intrigued Eindorf eventually

found a source of sisal in Florida and sent for 1000 bulbils,

200 of which survived the trip to Germany. He immediately

sent the specimens off to Usambara where 62 arrived in good

Condition. These plants became the parents of German East

Africa ' s sisal industry.

ll“lilslziplied to 63,000 plants in plantations around Korogwe
By 1908 the DOAG had

By 1898, Eindorf's 62 bulbils had

(Southern extremity of W. Usambara) .

machines capable of processing 100,000 leaves a day and over

1:000,000 sisal plants growing.“ Sisal's success would

\

66Lucile E. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of

CO!

C111
OD
911?

ra:

leg

the

79.

86
continue throughout the colonial period.

The expansion of plains acreage devoted to it gradually

cut off access to mountain farmers who had used the lowlands

on the southern side of the massif. Sisal, and to some

extent rubber, expanded right along the Pangani Valley
railway, the site of the older caravan route. Although Sisal
cultivation required large labor inputs, Usambarans proved
very reluctant to respond. In any event, migrants from
other regions did come to work the sisal in numbers large
enough to create a demand for agricultural produce on the
plantations. Even though, by converting the vitivo into

industrial croplands, the Germans had cut off vitivo grain

PrOduction, enough land remained available in the moutons for
farmers to produce surpluses to sell on the sisal

Plantations .
An important side effect was a shift crop choices in

mountain agriculture. Formerly intercropped with a variety
of Staples including bananas, maize, sweet potatoes, beans,
and Yams , farmers living near concentrations of migrant
1a1301‘ers began to produce maize in response to demand on
818a1 plantations and on European farms in the mountains.
Maize thus became an important cash crop early on in
Usalubara ' s colonial experience .

0n the northern side of the moutons, plains cultivation
remained in the hands of Africans. In response to demand in
the mountains, rice cultivation seems to have increased

th .
79° British Botanical Gardens (New York: Academic Press, 1979), p. 178-

87
greatly during the late 18908 and early 19008. K. Braun

described for the plains below the northern massif an
intensive system of rice cultivation. Both permanent
residents on the plains and entire families moving
temporarily down from the mountains area below Mlalo,
cultivated three varieties of rice on irrigated fields. To
ward off marauding birds, Farmers had covered their fields

with a complex of scarecrows and sound alarms made from

cowrie shells. Significantly, most of the rice ended up in

the mountain markets, especially Mlalo's.”

The 18903 Breakdown: Njaa ya Mchele

Between 1897 and 1899, much of Usambara suffered another
killing famine.‘58 In Mlalo, the time is know as Njaa ya
”allele, in other words, the famine when rice from the plains
Saved their lives.69 Drought certainly helped increase local
Vulnerability, but it was not the only factor contributing to
twine. Where depopulation had been most severe, production
had suffered and no reserves remained. Meat and milk
8nPplements were unavailable because Rinderpest had wiped out
Mbugu herds.7o Feierman notes that when the missionaries

brought in food aid, their stations swelled with the hungry.71

\
6
73- Braun, “Der Reis in Deutsch Ostafrika," Berichte fiber Land- und

Porgghtirtschaft in Deutsch Ostafrika 3 (1907), p. 177-79.
areierman, Peasant Intellectuals, p. 127.
R “11' Kasisi and Ruambaza Sheiza at Mlalo, 1/18/92, p. 10; Juma
lefmkao Ringazi, Boseni Eamsini, Salimu Shekulwavu at Shita, 2/13/92, p.
'70Qfeth Ralata at Mlalo, 3/13/92, p. 23.
de: 3 . Johanssen, ‘Missionsarbeit unter den Wambugu," Nachrichten aus
7fatafrikanische Mission 11 (1897), p. 126.
r'Qierman, Peasant Intellectuals, p. 130.

 

88
Another disaster struck in 1902-03, when locusts invaded the

mountains killing European potatoes and maize. Thus
potatoes, a European introduction adopted so readily as a
staple in many areas of high elevation, proved more
vulnerable than their predecessor, sweet potatoes, whose
leaves locusts ignored.

There is little data about the spatial differential of
the Njaa ya Mchele, but likely the rice production described
above helped mitigate it in the Mlalo area. Another
adaptation is evident in the increase of the number of new
mountain markets founded after 1900.72 Another response

included the extensification of production, as on the plains

near Mlalo and Mbaramo.

Cone lus ion

From the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of
the German period Usambara had become an area where famine
had become common.73 Indeed, Njaa became the unifying
metaphor for informants describing Usambara's history.
Although drought often contributed to the difficulties,
political arrangements, changing patterns of land use and the
WideHing scale of economic exchange added to growing

vuluerability. The development imperatives of German

\

7
2Patrick Fleuret, “Farm and Market: A Study of Society and

:Eréculture in Tanzania," (Ph.D. dissertation, Univeristy of California
7‘nta Barbara, 1978), pp. 180-83.

Peri Jafeth Kalata , p. 23, describes four separate famines for this
Od. Njaa ya Pate, Njaa ya Kigogo (where people ground banana roots

f
N3: fOOd), Njaa ya Mnyime Afe (where one left his neighbor to die), and
e Ya Mchele.

89
colonialism, although unsuccessful in facilitating an

economic takeoff, nonetheless, introduced new notions and
patterns of resource exploitation that would persist into the

British colonial era .

Chapter 4

Reorganizing Nature, the British Way

Introduction
Chapter four covers the early years of the British

mandate in Tanganyika. This period is marked as a time when

Britain's colonial governments began to attach importance to
their ability to shape human/environmental relations. In West
Usambara, the colonial administration divided the landscape
into Private, Public, and Government realms. Once the
boundaries were set, the various organs of government, i.e.
forestry, agriculture, government, determined how land use
would proceed, often on an ad hoc basis and without any
Understanding of African methods and rationales of land use.
on the Public Lands , where Africans retained some autonomy in
their relationship with nature, the colonial government
became increasingly preoccupied with what they regarded as
9°03: husbandry techniques and environmental degradation.

Accordingly, the colonial government began to intervene more

fotCqully at the point of production.

girt- I . Organizing Space: Public, Private and Government
mains

In its attempt to organize Usambara's landscape,
Tanganyika's British administration showed a decided

9O

91
continuity with its German predecessor. On the Pangani

valley plains estates, where German entrepreneurs had planted
the seeds of the sisal industry in the 18908, successor
commercial capitalists of the 19208 expanded production as
price increases on the world market encouraged investment.

In the mountains, the colonial administration was indecisive
allowing some former German plantations to deteriorate, while
others were leased or sold outright to interested Europeans.
All, however, remained legally in European hands, either as

private property, or under the auspices of the Custodian of
Bit-Enemy Properties. On Usambara's high plateau, British
foresters used the German survey line, defining a realm of
Commercial timber production and watershed conservation.
Survey beacons subdivided both mountains and plains into
8Peoified areas of land-use and distinct types of ownership.
Confined to so-called Public Lands, African farmers and
heI'ders continually tested colonial interpretations of
Usambara's space and the survey beacons became markers of

conflict and negotiation over soil, water, pasture and

fox-est .

The Plains
Prior to World War I, the railway had connected the

PanQani Valley below Usambara with the wider world of
international Capitalism. Europeans raised rubber, teak, and
Sisal, the last of which actually succeeded. When the

Britlish began to administer Usambara in 1916, the Custodian

92
of Enemy Property assumed ownership of the German sisal

estates and let them short-term - until after the war, when
they would be sold at auction.1 Ten years later, the Pangani
Valley's slightly acid soils, semi-arid climate and gentle
topography contained the largest sisal growing region in
Tanganyika.2 In Usambara district, the acreage under sisal
actually declined between 1920 and 1924 from 9000 to 8500.
Meanwhile weeds grew over much of what had been formerly
German rubber and sisal estates.3 However, as sisal prices
rose in the mid-twenties, estate owners cleared extensive new
areas hoping that the crop would thrive on virgin soils.
BGtWeen 1924 and 1940, Usambara district's sisal output
increased significantly along with the rest of Tanganyika.‘
There is no direct evidence regarding indigenous
cultivation in the Pangani Valley, but the most productive
soils were in private hands and plains grain cultivation must
have suffered. Thus mountain farmers, who in pre colonial
days had traded their bananas and tobacco for plains-grown
grain at valley markets like Tarawanda, Mazinde, Mombo, and

l‘lak‘llnyuni, lost a valuable source supplemental food supplies.

\

Tanleullebaud, C.W., An Economic Survey of the Sisal Industry of
19 g‘flijraé Third edition (Digswell Place: James Nisbet and Co. Ltd.,
1). .

“‘1:R3Wa Tambila, “A Plantation Labour Magnet: The Tanga Case, " in

Ten 91' 'Rodney, Rapepwa Tambila and Laurent Sabo, Migrant Labour in

Conga-“"9 during the Colonial Period: Case Studies of Recruitment and

Mriltlon' of Labour in the Sisal Industry (Hamburg: Institut fiir

an kQ-Runde), p. 29-30. Pangani Valley sisal plantations could be

“here fran 1200 to 3000 ha.

“lid 1733/10 and 1733/28, Annual Reports, Usambara District, for 1920

1924 respectively. In 1920, some 17,000 acres of former rubber

plggtfition land lay unused.
G‘lllebaud, C.W., Economic Survey, p. 8.

93
Table 1: Tanganyika Sisal: Annual Output in Tons, 1923-415

 

Year Out ut Year Output

1923 12,800 1933 69,600

1924 18,400 1934 72,500

1925 18,300 1935 82,700

1926 25,000 1936 80,600

1927 33,000 1937 90,600

1928 26,200 1938 101,400
1929 45,600 1939 103,200
1930 50,000 1940 102,300
1931 55,900 1941 81,000

1932 60,600

 

 

A8 in German times, manual labor constituted one of the
most important inputs in sisal production. In the industry's
expansion years, migrant workers from all over East Africa
performed almost all estate work. The dependence on manual
labor and the growing size of the plantation sector called
for an increasing number of these workers, with 4000 in 1925
. and steady expansion after that.6 .Although plantation work

was difficult and dangerous, wages (24/= per month) were

51bid.

6TNA 1733/11, Annual Report, Usambara District, 1925, p. 7; neither
census data nor annual reports, at least the ones I have seen, provide
numbers of migrant workers specifically for W. Usambara, but for figures
from Tanga Province, see Kapepwa Tambila, ”A Plantation Labour Magnet:
The Tanga Case,“ in Walter Rodney, Kapepwa Tambila and Laurent Sabo,
Migrant Labour in Tanzania during the Colonial Period: Case Studies of
Recruitment and Conditions of Labour in the Sisal Industry (Hamburg:
Institut Fur Afrika-Runde, 1983), p. 31.

94
higher than those for casual labor in the mountains (12/= to

15/= shillings per month).7 Despite the relatively good
wages, Usambara's resident mountain population avoided sisal
plantations, where infectious diseases and work-related
accidents caused scores of deaths each year.8

The plains south of the W. Usambara massif became, once
and for all, the privately owned space of European commercial
capitalism. Its inhabitants were migrant workers - outsiders
nicknamed ”manumba" (the numbers) by Usambara's mountain
people. The dangerous, miserable lot of the migrants
reinforced the Usambara prejudice that, if possible, the
plains should be avoided, as they had been during the
troubled years of the slave trade. Nonetheless, this area
continued to present mountain farmers with a ready market for
food products.

Unlike the Pangani Valley lowlands, where rail and road
links favored commercial production, the plains alluvium
below the massif's northern escarpment remained the domain of
indigenous cultivation. African farmers concentrated their
efforts on the five major "kitivo" lands which resembled
inland deltas, or bays, where streams, which ran down from
the steeper hills, periodically flowed over their banks

depositing their load of eroded mountain top soils.9 Certain

7TNA 1733/11, Annual Report, Usambara District, 1925, p. 21.

QKapepwa Tambila, ”A Plantation Labour Magnet,” p. 30, for hazardous
conditions see pp 33-42.

9This definition and the discussion which follows comes from TNA
24732, Geoffrey Milne, Soil Scientist, East African Agricultural
Research Station, Amani, “Report on a Soil Reconnaissance in the
Neighbourhood of Kitivo, Lushoto District, Tanganyika Territory, and in
Adjacent (West Usambara) highlands, September - October 1937,” pp. 2-25.

95
sections of the kitivos contained great fertility;

nevertheless, intense heat, aridity and malaria kept
permanently settled populations sparse and confined
agriculture to specific, locally well known sites. Permanent
water was a particular problem; only one kitivo, which held
the Umba River, contained a permanent stream; the others
often dried out between rainy seasons.

Kitivos sloped gently away from the steeper mountain
foothills forming soil catenas, or sequences of soil types
down an incline. Vegetation on the catena indicated both
arable soils and points of prior cultivation and farmers had
developed different cropping patterns to suit the various
soils. Nearest the massif, farmers planted in maize and
bananas. A few hundred meters down slope, where the kitivo
flattened out and became inundated during floods, farmers
planted combinations of rice and maize depending on
rainfall/stream flow conditions.10 Over generations, farmers
carefully adapted cultivation techniques to local soil,
climatic and flood conditions to assure productivity under
various weather scenarios. Interestingly, in 1937, Milne
found maize where Baumann in 1892 had seen millets and

sorghums.

[The] peripheral zone (outside regularly flooded
areas) carried a great deal of standing maize,
nearly mature at time of visit, with cotton fields
along outer margin. Here was some maize on land
that had already borne rice in central parts of
kitivo. Some of this was so immature that it will
only be harvested if normal November floods do not

__

mTNA 24732 Milne, ”Report," pp. 11-12

96

occur. There was even fresh maize seed being
planted (29th Sept.) Late planting form of
insurance. If river rises normally maize will be
lost, but ground will be fitted by floods to carry
rice. If the river does not rise, or not till
later, rice will fail or will be late, but in the
meantime there will be maize. Premium paid is
value of seed and labor and is a light one. There
is water at about 1 meter so that growth is assured
throughout the dry season if germination can be
effected.11

Farmers had successfully incorporated new cultigens into
the plains farming system. Citing land shortages around
Mbaramo and Mlalo, informants note that in spite of the
presence of malaria and the heat, people moved down to the
northern plains kitivos more or less permanently during the
19208 and 308.12 Milne describes them as ”fully occupied, or
at any rate allotted and cultivated from time to time -some
of it being held by residents on the highland plateau who
grow rice and between season maize down below and kept cattle
and maize up above.”3

In contrast to the large-scale, commercially oriented
sisal plantation systems on the southern kitivos, small scale
indigenous land use technologies dominated the productive
soils of the northern plains and augmented mountain
agriculture. Thus the Mlalo subchiefdom, with the lowest

annual rainfall totals of W. Usambara's farming regions,

 

11TNA 24732 Milne, ”Report," p. 14.

12UIT Jafeth Ralata, at Mlalo, March 13, 1992; Musa Sembe at Lunguza,
Feb. 8, 1992, p. 15; Bakari Panduka, Abdallah Mdoe, Musa Athumani,
Ahamadi Rashidi Ridumi, at Ritivo, Mng'aro. February 8, 1992. p. 15.
The last group argue that many of the kitivo settlers had worked at the
coast and thus had developed some resistance to malaria.

13Milne, TNA 24732, ”Report,"

97
supported the region's densest population. A significant

part of that success stemmed from a degree of continuity with
pre-colonial land use patterns on the plainséur In spite of
its achievements, ecological reform in Mlalo subsequently

became an obsession with the District administration.

The Mountains Farming.Areas

With the inception of colonial rule in 1916, the British
administration attempted simply to gain control of mountain
politics and resources. As the 19308 drew to a close, the
colonial penchant for control extended down to movement of
the mountain soils themselves. The administration' failure
fed into an empireawide perception of political, demographic
and ecological crisis, which would preoccupy its bureaucrats
and scientists for a generation.

In the context of Tanganyika's population increases,
access to land and water resources became an overtly
contentious issue which fed the crisis mentality. Land use
and ownership revolved around the western notions of "Public"
”Government," and "Private" control. Land tenure
arrangements on "Public Lands" (known as 'raiya' to African
residents) continued to operate under the auspices of locally
appointed chiefs, who parceled out rapidly dwindling
secondary forest lands. When land availability became
strained on public lands, privately owned estates and

government forest reserves came under pressure. Increasingly

 

mTNA 4/183/2 Volume 1, Census, 1931.

98
over the 19208 and 308, African farmers and herders,

missionaries, and colonial administrators and scientists, all
participated in a contentious discourse over dwindling

resources .

Table 2. West use-para, Population by Ethnicity, 1920

 

no. of

rou inhabitants
Shambaa 54,000
Kilindi 9,000
Mbugu 6,000
Nyamwezi and Sukuma 5,000
Maasai, Kamba, Kwavi 1,000

 

total 75,000

99

Table 3. West Usambara, Population by Ethnicity, Sex, Age,

 

 

 

15Includes following groups:
Nyassa, Wemba, Mabwe, Nyammanga, Kings, Nyakyusa, Yao.

1931
male female total

group male female total child child child total
Shambaa 16,264 16,472 32,736 11,579 10,947 22,526 55,262
Kilindi 3,056 2,400 5,456 2,592 2.508 5,100 10,556
Zigua 1,190 1,039 2,229 802 724 1,526 3,755
Pare 2,441 2,363 4,804 1,544 1,577 3,131 7,935
Mbugu 2,117 1,561 3,678 1,087 1,034 2,121 5,799
Migr 1,546 186 1,732 209 192 401 2.133
workers15

Taita 22 16 38 16 13 29 67
Segeju 39 64 103 30 47 77 180
Kamba 114 97 211 46 28 74 285
_2igo 8 9 17 2 5 7 24
total 26,797 24,207 51,004 7,907 17,075 34,982 85,986

Manyema, Sukuma, Bondei, Iramba, Ngoni,

Table 4. west Usambara, Menntain Population by Area, Sex,

100

 

 

Age, 1931

area males females children total
Lushoto 2,078 1,943 2,637 6,658
Vuga 3,138 3,279 4,339 10,801
Gare 1,097 1,098 1,676 3,871
Mlola 2,699 2,621 3,090 8,410
Bumbuli 3,479 3,237 4,637 11,353
Mlalo 5,912 5,235 7,792 18,939
Mtae 1,691 1,907 3,851 7,449
Mgwashi 732 689 879 2,300
Lushoto 212 217 345 774
town

Total 21,093 20,226 29,246 70,555

101
As early as 1921, the District Officer at Lushoto noted

that land alienation for mountain estates under the Germans
had been excessive and asked that the Secretariat approve
government purchase of ex-enemy properties for the purpose of
restoring some of the land to Usambara cultivators and
herders.

In the vicinity of all the farms [10 listed in
report] above referred to and some other not
mentioned there is insufficient pasturage for the
natives' cattle and in some areas the arable land
at the natives' disposal is also inadequate for
their food requirements. This has caused many
natives to leave their homes and settle in foreign
villages - to the mmtual dissatisfaction of both
inhabitants and immigrants.16

When the British government evacuated Usambara's
remaining German population during 1919 and 1920, the
Assistant District Officer (hereafter A.D.O.). had allowed
indigenous farmers to use estate land and clearly believed
that they should be permitted to continue doing so.
Nonetheless, estate land either remained in European (non-
German) hands or became the property of the Custodian of Ex-
Enemy Properties. The extensive use of these tracts by
African farmers, often thousands of hectares of overgrown and
abandoned coffee plantations, suggests that they were making
a case, successful in the eyes to the A.D.O., for usufruct
rights and conversion to Public Lands." Clearly, the

government came under some pressure; under the Land Ordinance

 

1‘TNA 72/21/1, ”Deceased Estates, Non-Native,“ A.D.O. Lushoto to
Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 2/8/21.

17Land which remained in continuous cultivation for seven years could
be designated as Public Land.

102
of 1923, the British Government stopped all further

alienation of land in Usambara.18

Cultivating and herding on estate lands was nonetheless
a gamble; African farmers risked eviction if the Custodian
decided to sell to a private buyer. Many farmers therefore
began to clear and cultivate available Public lands which had
been abandoned during the late 19008 famines. However,
settlement on Public Lands, where appointed African chiefs
controlled access, could bring difficulties as well. On
Public Lands, one faced a tax liability and often
unscrupulous collection practices by African chiefs (called
Zumbe and Jumbe). Administrative reports suggest that many
farmers sought to escape colonial control altogether by
opening up new gardens out of range of effective

administration in isolated mountain glens.19

Controlling.Agricultural Space: The Politics of Control.

The British colonial administration attempted to control
the local political landscape by appointing headmen to each
administrative subdivision in Usambara. For the ”men on the
spot," the District Officers and their assistants, judicial
matters and tax collection became the overriding concern of
their efforts in the 19208 to establish effective Indirect
Rule. British administrative officers claimed that the

Akidas, political functionaries whose powers had been

 

18E.B. Dobson, “Land Tenure of the Wasambaa,‘ Tanganyika thes and
Records 10 (1940), p. 3.
19TNA 1733/25, Annual Report, Usambara District, 1923.

103
established under German administration, had used their

powers as judges and tax collectors to enrich themselves. By
1924, the D.O. observed that the akidas experienced
”considerable difficulties" in their administrative duties,
"owing to the complete indifference of the native population
generally to orders emanating from them. "20 Fryer lay partial
blame on the new settlement patterns wherein, as mentioned
above, farmers had, in 1917, begun to diffuse across the

countryside.

There is a steady and growing tendency among the
people to scatter and live an isolated existence in
huts dotted on the crests of hills.... Akidas
continually urge the desirability of Government
action to reconstruct the old village communities
that existed before the occupation of the country
by Europeans, and which were insisted upon by the
late German government in order to facilitate
administration.21

By 1925, the local administration had assumed
responsibility for overhauling the German inspired political
arrangements and began to replace the akidas with their own
”chiefs” who, after the training period, supposedly espoused
British ideals.22 ‘Under German colonial suzerainty some
wakilindi had held chiefly appointments, but the Germans
administration had seriously undermined Kilindi political
legitimacy by forcing chiefs to confiscate land for sale to

European planters and to recruit forced labor.23 Under the

 

20'I'NA 1733/25, Annual Report, Usambara District, 1923.

21TNA 1733/25, Annual Report, Usambara District, 1923.

zzwna 1733/11, Annual Report, Usahmara District, 1925, p. 6.

23Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History
in Tanzania (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), p. 124.

104
British system of Indirect Rule, Kilindi power received the

official sanction of "traditional paramounts." The Usambara
Administrative Officer went so far as to call his political
machinations a ”restoration" of Kilindi political dominance.24
The British administration actually restored a chiefship
which, by 1925, was essentially moribund.25

The colonial mind of the 19208 linked a Chief's (or Sub-
Chief's) political efficacy to his ability to collect tax and
adjudicate petty civil matters, organize labor, and perform
other elementary bureaucratic duties such as registering
births and deaths.26 .Agricultural production remained an
economic matter, tied to market forces and the weather.
Nonetheless by 1925, chiefs appointed by the District
Administration, or the Governor, had extensive powers to
control daily life, including agricultural production. For
example, they were authorized to confiscate home brewed beer
and attendant equipment and thus could interfere with the
organization of communal farm labor, invariably rewarded with
food and beer.” Chiefs could confiscate cattle caught
grazing near roadways. They could prosecute their
constituents for cutting trees, coerce them to labor, and
control their movements into or out of a location.28 Such

powers could impinge on one's ability to clear land for

 

2‘TNA 1733/28, Annual Report, Usabmara District, 1924.

25Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, p. 122.

26TNA 1733/11, Annual Report, Usabmara District, 1925, “Regulations
Issued Under the Native Authority Ordinance.”

27Dobson, “Land Tenure," p.

28TNA 1733/11, Annual Report, Usabmara District, 1925, ”Regulations
Issued Under the Native Authority Ordinance.”

105
cultivation. By sanctioning chiefly interference in daily

life, indirect rule gave the Kilindi the opportunity to
reconstruct and expand their political power beyond its pre-
colonial boundaries.

Their additional powers to interfere at the point of
production gave the Kilindi kings at Vuga an opportunity to
reassert political power over the sub chiefdoms by appointing
their own supporters. In the indigenous view, Kilindi
political legitimacy and their right to tribute in labor and
livestock, depended largely on their local prowess as rain
makers and thus, their ability to keep the land fecund.29
Showing a complete lack of knowledge, the British in 1929
appointed Shebuge Magogo, a member of Semboja's line, as
paramount. Magogo had not inherited the major rain charms,
and he had a deformity which traditionally, would have
prohibited him from entering the royal enclosure or even from
coming into contact with t he most important royal charms.3°
As the king tried to remove chiefs and install his own men,
he met with resistance, especially if the deposed chiefs were
popular rainmakers, such as the Mlalo Kilindi. When in 1932
and 1933, locusts and then drought covered the mountains in
hardship, discontent with Magogo's rule linked political
unrest to ecological stress.

A letter attached to administrative correspondence of

the drought year 1933 explains how Kilindi legitimacy

 

29Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, ch.3.
3°Ibid., p. 146.

106
weakened as the chiefly appointees squabbled over hereditary

rights to political power. In a letter signed ”All citizens

of Usambara," the problems are attributed to Kilindi rule:

[W]e should only get rain and obtain a good crop.
Because if the rain fell we should obtain
sufficient food and enable us to get out tax at
once. But now there is a great famine that is why
we are spending all our money in purchasing
foodstuff[s] and it is impossible for us to get
tax. The source of all this trouble is the
wakilindi. They are quarreling amongst themselves
on account of the country. Everyone says the
country belongs to my father, everyone tells the
same story, and therefore all the Wakilindi are not
on good terms.... Honestly speaking and according
to God's arrangements this country does not belong
to them. The rightful owners are the wakinatuli.
The Wakilindi are only aliens, their home is
Nguu.... Just remember sir, that [the] wakilindi
‘wish that all people would die of hunger....31

This was a direct challenge to chiefly power and its
obligation to feed the people. By the following year, the
Usambara district administration began to realize that chiefs
and sub-chiefs had to play a role in famine relief. Although
the Colonial Administration probably did not understand that
rain making had been a central feature of pre-colonial
Usambara political legitimacy, they seem to have grasped the
fact that rulers had a duty to provide succor during
difficult times. Rather than bring rain, however, they
instructed their appointed Chiefs and Sub-Chiefs to construct
maize granaries and plant cassava as a hedge against future

famines. Curiously, the report makes no mention of bananas,

 

31TNA 4/6/2 Native Administration - Usambara District. Acting P.C.
to D.O. Lushoto 8/1/33, p. 70.

107
Usambara's nineteenth century staple and chief source of

drought relief . 32

"All the citizens of Usambara” may have believed that
rain would have alleviated the hunger of 1933, but from the
inception of colonial rule farmers had altered significantly
crop repertoires and marketing strategies toward the
acquisition of cash as a hedge against drought. One strategy
was the increase in acreage devoted to maize and European
potatoes at the expense of bananas. As noted in Chapter 3,
African farmers living around mission stations had quickly
incorporated European potatoes into their agricultural
regime. The District Annual Reports note additional
increases of potatoes, along with maize, during 19208 and
308.33 At elevations at around 1400 meters, farmers
substituted the new crops for bananas. In higher, colder
regions, where bananas did not grow well, European potatoes
quickly gained popularity as a substitute for a local variety
of sweet potato. Patrick Fleuret contends that European
potatoes offered higher yields and require less labor than
sweet potatoes. Moreover, EurOpean potatoes allowed an
expanding population to bring into cultivation areas

previously considered marginal to a mountain agriculture

 

32TNA 4/6/2 Native Administration, Acting D.O. Lushoto (C.M. Coke) to
P.C. Tanga 8/3/34, p. 93.

33TNA 1733/25, Annual Report for Usambara District, May 30, 1921;
1733/28, Annual Report, Usambara District, 1924, W. Fryer; TNA 72/62/6
vol. I “Annual Report, Usambara District, Lushoto Division, 1937; TNA
72/62/6 vol. 1, Annual Report, Lushoto Division, Rorogwe Dist., 1938;
TNA 72/62/6, Rorogwe District, Annual Report, 1939; for dominance of
maize see also R.E. Moreau, 'A Synecological Study of Usambara,
Tanganyika Territory, with Particular Reference to Birds.“ Journal of
Ecology 23 (1935), p. 31.

108
centered around a banana staple.3‘

Maize, the other cultigen gaining rapidly in popularity,
had supplemented Usambara agriculture at least since the
nineteenth century, especially around Mlalo. In fact,
Kishee, the main maize variety grown in Usambara, derives its
name from the dominant lineage of Mlalo. Having evolved on
the relatively dry northern side of the massif at Mlalo and
Kitivo, kishee was relatively drought resistant. By the
19208, farmers had begun to plant it as the major staple
throughout the district~35 Given the fact that it required
more labor input than bananas, yet yielded fewer calories per
acre (ll-14 million for bananas, 5-7 million for maize), the
rise of maize seems curious. Maize's spread must, however,
be explained in the context of the growing cash economy in
the mountains, rather than by labor efficiency.

As noted above, during the 19208 and 308, sisal
production on the plains south of the Usambara massif spurred
the immigration of thousands of laborers from other parts of
Tanganyika and East Africa. Most workers hailed from drier
regions where maize, millet and sorghum constituted the
staple food. Preference for maize on sisal estates quickly
drove up maize production in the hills. Choosing maize over
other cash crops, like coffee for example, was advantageous

because it served both as a staple and a cash crop. These

 

3‘Patrick Charles Fleuret, “Farm and Market," p. 86.

35"UIT Rasisi Kuambaza Sheiza, Mlalo, January 18, 1992; Rhadija Mdoe,
Mlalo, Feb. 26, 1992; Sabuni Mbilu and Epiphan John Mntangi, Kwelnashai
(near Gare), Feb. 23, 1992; Mashambo Mavoo, Kirete (near Rwai), Feb. 21,
1992.

109
features enhanced its cultural prestige as a rich man's crOp.

Maize sales to the plains during the 19208 solidified the
cash economy in the hills and allowed Usambara's farmers to
meet cash needs without laboring on the plains estates.35
Indeed cash was readily available in the mountains; hut and
poll taxes for 1923-24 topped half a million shillings.37
Thus within the context of the relationship between
economy, politics and production patterns, the so-called
”spreading out" of Usambara's population becomes clear. By
adopting maize and potatoes farmers could move into new lands
away from the 1400 meter elevation zone which fostered the
traditional banana growing centers like Bumbuli,‘Vuga, Ubiri,
Mlalo. POpulation dispersal reflected not only economic
opportunities, but also resistance to the restoration of an
oppressive Kilindi political power. However, given an
increasing population, agricultural extensification could

only succeed so long as additional land remained available.

Ordering the Forest: Shifting thions of.Land Ownership and
08e

On the central plateau forest region, forest ecologies
underwent radical transformation both inside and outside the
forest reserve. The 19208 and 308 witnessed the bounding of
forest space as Government Land and an attempt strictly to

manage husbandry within it. On public land bounding the

 

3‘sFleuret, “Farm and Market," p. 92, cites senior agricultural
officer Northeast Circle, who reported that 800 tons of maize had been
exported to sisal estates alone. One must remember however, that
Usambara included 8. Pare and part of present day Handeni district, so
the 800 tons did not come exclusively from Usambara.

37TNA 1733/28, Annual Report for Usambara District, 1924.

110
reserve, African herders and farmers (predominantly Wambugu

and Wapare) struggled to create a workable relationship.

The First WOrld War provided a hiatus of sorts for the
Usambara forest dwellers. Between 1914 and 1921 many Wambugu
returned to their pre-colonial settlement areas inside the
boundaries of the former German forest reserve and in some
settler areas. At Kwai and Magamba, several tracts alienated
to settlers were reoccupied by the Wambugu. The incoming
British district officer even suggested that a large German
estate near Kwai be purchased and transferred to the wambugu
as Public Land.38 This concession to Mbugu needs did not,
however, change the legal distinction between public, private
and government land.

The forestry service in particular maintained the German
former forest boundaries and restricted access. In 1921 and
22, A.S. Adamson reported encroachment in the forest reserve,
where both grazing and cultivation took place. Adamson was
particularly indigent that most of the boundary markers had
either been destroyed or rotted away, and he immediately set
about re-cutting the boundary lines and giving notice to
indigenous cultivators and herders to clear out.39

The evidence of increased Mbugu cultivation suggests

 

38TNA. 72/21/1 A.D.O. Lushoto to Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam,
Feb. 8, 1921, no page number. The British administration designated
former German estates “ex-enemy property" and resold than.

39File no. 11/B/1/3 of Lushoto Department of Natural Resources
(hereafter LF), A.S. Adamson, forester, Shume Station, Safari Reports
for 19/12/21 to 23/12/21, 14/8/22 to 19/8/22, 13/7/21 to 18/7/21.
Recutting the boundary line involved finding the German markers and
clearing the underbrush between them. Sisal, Aloe or Eucalyptus were
often planted as markers of the boundaries.

111
that they were attempting to re-claim the formerly evacuated

areas of their range, under the assumption that clearing,
bounding and planting crops on land implied ownership.
Indeed, Adamson's reports state that the Wambugu around
Mshangai, Ndabwa, Longoi, Rangwi, Shume had successfully
cleared large tracts for cultivation.‘0 Growing crops became
a strategy for claiming land, although the forest service did
not consider such claims legitimate.

By 1923 the brief respite from colonial control ended
for the wambugu when the British forest service began to
reorganize the forest environment for commercial
exploitationd1 ‘Usambara timber was needed to meet the
colony-wide demand for fuel (especially for the railroads),
building materials, and high grade exports.“2 'The Forest
Department was charged with ensuring that Tanganyikan timber
would be cheaper than imported Burmese Teak.‘3 Thus the state
determined a forest's value in commercial terms.

The colonial state also defined forest use and access.
For R.S. Troup, Director of the Imperial Forestry Institute
from 1924-39, local forest use by Africans, which threatened
the entire colony's timber supplies, was unjustifiable.
Gaining control of forest land was not easy, however. Troup

discusses some problems of forest reservation in his classic

 

“LF 11/B/1/3, A.S. Adamson, Safari Report for Shume Reserve 14/8/22
to 19/8/22, p. 3.

“See for example H.M. Gardner, ”East Afrian Pencil Cedar,“ Empire
Forestry Journal 5 (1926).

”Tanganyika Territorry, Third Annual Report of the Forest
Deptartment, 1923 (Dar es Salaam: Government Printer, 1923), p. 2.

”Tanganyika Territory, Forestry Department Annual Report (1924) , p.
4.

112
Colonial Forest Administration (1940).

Forest reservation is usually unpOpular with the
local inhabitants as it imposes restrictions which
are seldom understood. The process of reservation
is considerably easier where the land belongs to
Government than where it belongs to native
communities....The difficulty of carrying it out
varies directly with the density of the population
and the demand for land. In sparsely populated
tracts there is usually little difficulty in
reserving forest to the extent considered
necessary. Here timely reservation, before
pressure on the land becomes acute, can be carried
out with the minimum.of hardship and friction, and
at a much lower cost than after rights of user have
been established. Where possible, therefore,
reservation should proceed in advance of any
immediate pressure on the land.“

In addition to acting against the interests of Mbugu
herders, British forest policy attacked the integrity of the
forest community itself. The health of Usambara's forest
depended upon a complex association of trees, herbs, creeping
vines, orchids and wildflowers. These forest conditions
cannot be regenerated artificially. In place of the natural
forest, colonial foresters created tree plantations where one
species of tree, usually an exotic, replaced hundreds of
plants species .‘5

Such a dramatic transformation of nature required an

available pool of workers inside the reserve. In Usambara,

 

“R.S. Troup, colonial Forest Administration (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1940), p. 127.

‘5Personal communication with A.J. Lubango, forester, Magamba forest
station, and M. Mrecha, forester, Mazumbai forest research station,
Mazumbai forest reserve; Bjorn Lundgren, ”Soil Conditions and Nutrient
Cycling under Natural and Plantation Forests in Tanzanian Highlands,"
Reports in Forest Ecology and Forest Soils 31 (Uppsala, 1978), ch. 2.

113
the Tanganyika Forests and Lumber Company, a government

subsidized timber concession (60,000 acres) which reopened
the old German site at Hornrow, almost immediately faced
labor shortages. To meet demand, the Forest Service
introduced a “squatter system" which kept labor in the forest
but allowed no permanent cultivation.“S Under this plan
registered “squatters" were permitted to cultivate in clear
felled coupes which had recently been replanted with
seedlings, or in areas scheduled for replanting. The
squatters moved on to other plots three or four years after
seedlings had been planted. In return for permission to
cultivate, “squatters" became laborers for the forest service
and received a modest wage (11/= per month). By 1927, after
several years of operation, the “squatter system? had not yet
attracted a sufficient labor force.‘7

Only the Wambugu poorest in livestock chose to become
squatters. Because of severe restrictions placed on the
number of animals squatters could possess, wambugu with more
than a few animals generally preferred to stay on raiya land
near the reserve boundary. Grazing licenses were also
granted for the forest reserve, but restricted to those
deforested zones scheduled for replanting. By bribing forest
guards, however, the wambugu would send their animals into

the Government forestm‘3 The squatters, on the other, hand

 

“The “squatter systen" was an adaptation of the system popular with
the British forestry service in India, called Juming or Taungyar.

"Tanganyika Territory, Forestry Annual Report, (1924), p. 3.

“Usambara Mbugu Interview Transcripts (hereafter MUIT), M. Shusha,
p. 24.

114
experienced considerable hardship. They farmed

agriculturally marginal areas where relatively cold
temperatures and unreliable rainfall led to a precarious
existence. A series of crop failures drove squatter families
to depend primarily on wages to meet subsistence needs.‘9
Throughout the 19208 and 308, the Wambugu continued
illegally to establish pastures and areas of cultivation
inside the forest reserve, though the government attempted,

‘whenever possible, to restrict encroachment.5°

Within recent years there has been a large increase
in the number of cattle, goats etc. permitted in
the Reserve, and the available grazing is quite
inadequate for the number allowed with the result
that grazing has taken place in many parts of the
forest and damage done e.g. trampling and extension
of grass areas. This state of affairs can not be
allowed to continue and grazing must only be
allowed in the open grass glades in charge of herd
boys under strict supervision of the forest guards.
Forest guards should be instructed to report any
case of cattle found grazing in the forest and the
owner and his cattle turned out of the reserve. In
this way cattle will be reduced or they will
starve. As an instance at Kwekangaga there are
over 50 cattle and at the moment there is scarcely
a blade of grass left in the open gladeJ"1

In 1935, related problems led the forestry department to
issue, Government Notice 103, which amended the 1933 Forest

Rules, prohibiting all grazing in Forest Reserves.52

 

‘9Tanganyika Territory, Forestry Annual Report (1933), p. 8.

5°LF ll/B/l/3, Conservator of Forests to the Assistant Conservator of
Forests, Magamba, May 27th, 1930, p. 15.

51LF 11/B/1/3, Assistant Conservator of Forest to D.A. Fletcher,
Forester, Shume, June 19, 1930.

52Tanganyika Territory, Forestry Annual Report, (1935) p. 4.

115
Part II. Disputes over Resources

Boundary Dispute in Kwambugu

Land ownership and use arrangements described above
precipitated conflicts over natural resources. Conflicts
recorded in the official record of the late 19208 and 19308
show a pattern in which farmers and herders continually
tested colonial-imposed boundaries, and the government's
interpretations of land ownership and resource use. The
disputes described below occurred in a context of population
growth, but not exclusively in areas of dense population.
What they do show is how, in varying environments, African
farmers adapted to the colonial arrangements over which they
had no control and, at the same time, forged their own

political ecology in an increasingly limited arena of action.

.A. Mzeragembe (central Plateau)

One particular dispute at Nzeragembe“3 (near Mshangai
mentioned in Ch. 2) highlights both the shift in Mbugu land
use and the philosophical gulf between Mbugu and colonial
notions of forest value. In August 1935, a forest guard
pointed out to the Forester D.A. Fletcher a portion of the
outer reserve boundary where “there is constant trouble with
the residents over the boundary line."5‘ :Fletcher found that
the dispute dated from at least 1931, when the last survey

had been carried out in poor weather conditions with a

 

1”Actually the name of a tree (wild olive) often used as firewood.
5‘LF ll/B/1/3, D.A. Fletcher, forester, Shume to Assistant
Conservator of Forests, Lushoto 30/8/35, p. 64.

116
'misaligned compass'. Fletcher's own survey of September

1935 determined that 60 acres of maize gardens and pasture
used by Mbugu "squatters” belonged to the forest reserve.
Land-use in the so-called "encroachment” area matched
general conditions found outside the reserve boundary.
Fletcher described the topography as a patchwork of pasture
and both primary and secondary forest, a landscape his
supervisor in Lushoto believed inimical to the interests of
forest protection.55 Forester Fletcher argued that the
wambugu, as 'excellent exponents of shifting cultivation',
could be accommodated on these adjacent 'public lands'.56
Certainly the wambugu of Nzeragembe were not convinced
of their farming prowess, and shortly after Fletcher's new
survey a delegation met at Malibwi, the headquarters of Jumbe
Kidala, with the A.D.O.. The Mbugu representatives stressed
that the families at Nzeragembe believed they were within
their rights as long-term users of the area. Obviously
concerned about the Mbugu land claims, the D.O., in his
letter to the Assistant Conservator of Forests, requested
that the wambugu be allowed to remain. He worried that, the
wambugu, as "shifting cultivators,” would naturally leave the

reserve once restricted from.encroaching furtheru57 'The

 

55LF 11/B/l/3, Assistant Conservator of Forests, Lushoto to District
Officer Lushoto, 17 October 1935. “Boundary dispute at Nzeragembei," p.
70.

56LF 11/B/1/3, Forester, Shume to Assistant Conservator of Forests,
Lushoto, 16/11/35, p. 69.

57LF 11/B/1/3, District Officer R.E. Seymour to Assistant Conservator
of Forests, Lushoto, 19/10/34. The D.O. had reason to support Mbugu
claimm in light of a difficult land dispute between a British settler
and wambugu at nearby Rwai.

117
Assistant Conservator of Forests at Lushoto, true to the

conservationist doctrine of the Forest Service, countered
'with a strident letter arguing that the Wambugu long had been
aware of the boundary and had been reminded of it again
during the survey of May 1931, when Fletcher's predecessor
had inspected Nzeragembe farms and pointed out the boundary

to Jumbe Kidala.

To condone continued residence until present houses
and shambas shall become untenable would, in my
opinion, incur unwarrantable delay, whilst it might
later be taken as strengthening the native claims
by virtue of their still longer
establishment....The forester has reported ample
ground available on nearby Public Lands for the
absorption of these families and I would therefore
ask if you can please allow my proposals to be
adopted , unopposed . 5°

The Assistant Conservator ordered that Nzeragembe residents
quit the reserve after harvesting their crops (by the end of
March 1936) and as a concession offered free issues of timber
to be used in building their new houses elsewhere.

By claiming that long-term.use buttressed their claims
to residence at Nzeragembe, the Mbugu contingent at Malibwi
made their case in legal terms understood by the colonial
government. However, the Forestry Service would only
entertain the land claims of those wambugu who had been
living on the same site or near it for more than seven years

and who had kept the area under permanent cultivation. For

 

58LF 11/B/1/3, Assistant Conservator of Forests to D.O. Lushoto,
25/10/35.

118
the Wambugu, this decision must have set a disturbing

precedent, since their evolving land-use system of
pastoralism and maize cultivation did not guarantee them
usufruct rights under colonial law. Clearly only permanently
settled and cultivated land could remain inviolate, while
landscapes featuring pastures and forest and impermanent
gardens simply invited further reservation by the Forestry
Service.

Ironically, Forestry officials failed to recognize the
role of forest conservation in Mbugu culture and economy.
The wambugu recognized the forest's ritual importance and its

role as protector and keeper of secrets.

Also when I asked one man who had been the most
forward in cutting into the Reserve why the huge
stretch [of forest] toward Majiwa was left he told
me that it was the chief's portion and was left
untouched so that the people could have refuge
during the Maasai invasion! It is a far cry to the
Maasai invasion and I relate these stories to show
‘with what facts they back up their claims to this
part of the Reserve.59

That the Wambugu still feared a Maasai invasion seems
highly unlikely, especially since during the mid-19208 they
had peacefully sold livestock and honey to them at the nearby
Kwekanga livestock market.60 However, the fact that the Sub-

Chief Kidala, who controlled access to Public Land, refused

 

59LF 11/B/1/3, Forester Fletcher to Assistant Conservator of forests,
Lushoto, 28/10/35. p. 69.

60MUIT, M. Shusha, p. 24 and 27; T. Mganga, p. 17. Mzee Mganga notes
that the livestock market at Kwekanga, the main livestock market in
Usambara until the 1970s, began in 1928. The mnada (livestock market)
was regularly attended by Maasai livestock buyers from the plains and
during the late 20s the Mbugu began to sell animals for cash.

119
to allocate a particular forested area for cultivation

suggests that forest cover retained importance. Perhaps it
was used as a hiding place from tax collectors and census_
takers, but likely also as a place where important rituals
and honey collection could continue.

Since the turn of the century Mbugu land use practices
had nevertheless changed dramatically. In the same region
where Eick, Baumann, Meyer, and Johannsen had noted little or
no cultivation in the 18908, the government forester saw in
1935 a patchwork of primary and secondary growth forests,
pastures, and cultivated fields - an agricultural area, in

his opinion, which was largely underutilized.

There are altogether __ families [number crossed
out] and 10 houses approx. in this disputed area.
The natives are practically all wambugu who are
excellent exponents of shifting cultivation; the
whole of the areas outside the Reserve is a
chequered patchwork of pori and “mbuga' [pasture]
with a few shambas scattered here and there. There
is therefore plenty of room in my opinion for them
on Public Lands and I ask that steps may be taken
to have them removed form Forest Reserve.“1

The presence of pastures and secondary forest suggests
that Mbugu pastoralism had not yet been completely
subordinated to cultivation as a means of subsistence, but
that a transition to a more intensive system of land use was
in progress. Moreover, colonial land designations actually

encouraged this trend and with it deforestation on Pubic

 

51LF 11/8/1/3, Forester Fletcher to Assistant Conservator of forests,
Lushoto, 28/9/35. p. 69.

120
Lands. Eick's Wiesen and weiden, occupied exclusively by

herders, had come to be regarded as underutilized farming

area inhabited by shifting cultivators.

B. Paranoia at Kwai Farm

Just a few miles from Nzeragembe, Kwai farm set the
scene for a bizarre contest over land and water resources.

As noted in Chapter 3, Kwai had served as an agricultural
research station and a profitable stock farm during the
German colonial period. In 1924 J.T. WOodcock bought the
1327 acre farm and leased an additional 756. Over a ten year
span between the late nineteen twenties and the late
thirties, woodcock chided and insulted District and
Provincial Officers in a copious set of correspondence, which
reveals one lonely man's progression toward complete mental
breakdown. Wbodcock tried continuously to define and defend
what he considered to be legally his in a context where
boundaries came under contest.

Having spent a ”considerable amount of money its
upkeep,” the Custodian of Enemy Properties decided to sell
the farm.to a private buyer rather than to the government,‘2
thus fueling local resentment by preventing Kwai's reversion
to Public Lands. In 1921, the Custodian sold the farm.to a
Mr. Whiting, who sold Kwai to woodcock "at a considerable

profit."53

 

“TNA 72/21/ 1, Deceased Estates - Non-Natives. A.D.O. Lushoto to
Chief Secretary, Dar es Salaam, 2/8/21.

”TNA 4/309/29 Kwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. Woodcock, concerning
estate boundaries. D.O. Lushoto (R.E. Seymour) to P.C. Tanga 11/18/36

121
The new owner requested a government survey, which the

Lands Office badly mishandled. First, it sent out an
incompetent surveyor who never finished the job. Moreover,
he made large errors which required correction by a second
surveyor. Next, the Lands Office delayed a decision on the
accuracy of the original German survey until 1928.5‘ This
episode sparked ten years of complaints from woodcock which
continued for ten years.

In 1929 WOodcock's complained that Africans neighbors
living above his farm had diverted the Dindila, a stream
which rose in the Magamba forest and from which Kwai farmfs
main furrow ran.65 ‘Woodcock worriedly wrote, "[the] Natives

are taking possession of Kwai lands."

I now find that there are ten natives with their
families and cattle and all declare that the
government have advised them and gave them
permission to occupy this land, the local Jumbe
also tells me the government have given permission
through Jumbe Daffa [Native Authority Chief for
Lushoto] and then it came to him [through the D.O.
Lushoto] .55

This, and subsequent correspondence from woodcock, prompted a
visit to Kwai from.the Lushoto D.O., the Chief, Lushoto, and

the Sub-Chief, Kwai, in February 1931. They determined that

 

(confidential), p. 67.,

5‘TNA.4/309/29 Rwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. woodoook, D.H.
Hutchinson, Land Officer, 'Precis of Papers Relating to Mr. Woodcock's
Complaint Regarding Survey of Rwai.‘ p. 81.

55mm 4/309/29 Rwai — Complaints of Mr. J.T. Woodcock ,J.T. Woodcock,
Kwai to the D.C., Tanga, 1/6/31, p. 1; D.O. Lushoto (RJE. Seymour) to
P.C. Tanga, 6/15/36, enclosed Minutes from Water Board:meeting, 9/1/32,
p. 58

6GTNA 4/309/29 Rwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. Woodcock, J.T. WOodcock,
Kwai to P.C. Tanga, 1/9/31, p. 2.

122
WOodcock had claimed land beyond his survey boundary by

setting up his own boundary markers, charged trespass of
African herders, then blamed the Lushoto District Office
Lushoto for allowing unauthorized use of what he claimed as
his land.‘5'7

A frustrated woodcock confiscated 118 cattle and 46
sheep found grazing on his land, even though the livestock
owners had a legal contract with him for grazing rights in
return for payment in ghee (butter), cash and labor. The
District Officer ordered the superintendent of Police to
return the animals to their owners and instituted criminal
proceedings against woodcock for theft. His attorney managed
to get the case transferred out of Lushoto and correspondence
indicate indirectly that Woodcock won the case. In the end,
he sued the government for his legal expenses and won £120.68

In a move to prevent the return of 756 acres of Rwai's
property to Public Lands, Whodcock applied in 1933 to turn
his leasehold property to freehold. The lease, due the
expire in November 1934, required boundaries to be fenced
'with wire, hedges, walls or ditches providing they are
effective at keeping cattle in or out. Cognizant of these
conditions, Whodcock had made minimal attempts to fence 35%
of the five mile border by plantinnggave (sisal plants), but

the cuttings had not taken and the border had been trampled

 

67TNA 4/309/29 Rwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. Wbodcock, D.O. Lushoto
(Hartnoll) to P.C. Tanga, 2/26/31, p. 13.

‘aTNA 4/309/29 Rwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. WOodcock, Sub-
Magistrate, Lushoto (A.V. Hartnoll) to P.C. Tanga, 5/21/31, First Class
case No. 13 of 1931, Rex vs. Mr. J.T. Woodcock, p. 18; Chief Secretary
to Mr. Wbodcock, 16/4/36, p. 56.

123
by cattle from.Mbugu settlements located on Kwai farmfs

borders. As far as improvements, about 140 acres (18%) had
been conditioned for grazing, presumably by local Mbugu
herders who rented from.WOodcock. In addition, he had
planted 50-60 acres of coffee on the leasehold property, then
left it completely unattended.69 Nevertheless, the D.O.,
Lushoto recommended in Feb. 1934 that woodcock be granted
freehold rights.70

The African population objected, ”Generally speaking
the washambaa have every objection to the alienation of land
and their dislike of this particular alienation dates from
the pre-war days and is still active.” However, the D.O.
found no legal grounds for the objection."1 To the Mbugu, who
had lost tens of thousands of grazing acres in the nearby
Magamba forest reserve, woodcock's continued occupation of
grazing land, which he did not use, must have struck a sour
note, especially during the drought year of 1933. Kwai held
particular historical significance as the site of a famous
late nineteenth century battle in which marauding Maasai had
been driven out by Mbugu men and women. The colonial
government, which in the early 19208 clearly noted land
shortages among African cultivators and had allowed them to

occupy European freehold properties, now interpreted

 

59TNA 4/309/29 Kwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. WoOdcock G.W} Lock,
District Agricultural Officer, Lushoto to D.O. Lushoto 10/4/33

7°TNA 4/309/29 Rwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. Woodcock D.O. Lushoto
(Callaghan) to Lands Officer, Dar es Salaam, 2/3/34, p. 37.

71TNA 4/309/29 Kwai - Complaints of Mr. J.T. Woodcock D.O. Lushoto
(R.E. Seymour) to P.C. Tanga 10/19/34, p. 43. Seymour mistakenly uses
“Shambaa.“ Rwai area was in 1933 occupied mostly by Mbugu herders and
Pare cultivators.

124
ownership in favor of European interests.

C. Land and water Disputes on the Escarpment Edges

On the southern tier, estate owners, African farmers and
missionaries began to argue over land and water. On sisal
estates, fiber processing required large amounts of water
during decorticating (removing fibers from leaves) and
washing.72 Thus the sisal estates below the W. Usambara
escarpment depended on continual and adequate stream.flows
from the mountains. Meanwhile, above the estates, the
mountain farmers opened new gardens, spreading across the
hills around Vuga. Although cropping repertoires had changed
from the pre—colonial days, farming techniques still
incorporated irrigation in dry years.

In his 1925 annual report, the Administrative officer,
Mr. W;S.G. Barnes, reported that the year ”owing to irregular
rains, was a bad one for native agriculture" with 40% of
crops lost.73 In the same year, sisal estates in the plains
and African farmers 1000 meters upslope came into conflict
over rights to irrigation furrows on the lower Mkuzi riveru74
Responding to complaints from the Mombo estate, the
Administrative Officer informed the chiefs of Mombo and vuga
that people without hereditary rights to the water (Mkuzi

furrow) had no right to interfere with water going to sisal

 

7ZG.W. Lock, Sisal: Thirty Years' Sisal Research in Tanzania
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1962), p. 295.

73TNA 1733/11, Usambara District, Annual Report, 1925, p. 9.

"TNA 72/5/4 Complaints: Water Supply and Disputes. etc. M. Mailer,
Mambo Estate to Admin. Officer in Charge Lushto 11/14/25, p. 22.

125
plantations.75

What the Administrative Officer meant by hereditary
rights is not clear. In W. Usambara, one's rights to furrow
use depended on continual use of a plot along the furrow and
participation in communal furrow maintenance. Farmers opened
furrows as a strategy for drought mitigation, so in good
years they often went unused, thus reverting to open access.
In 1925, a dry year, farmers simply followed time tested
mitigation measures by tapping a major irrigation canal.76

More complaints regarding depleted water supplies from
the Mkuzi irrigation furrow came from the Mombo sisal estate
in 1928. The Chief at Vuga, offered the simple plausible
explanation that the furrow had been destroyed by heavy
rains. Whatever the case, water rights became increasingly
important to plains plantation owners and to the Lutheran
missionaries as Shambaa farmers living in the vicinity of the
Vuga mission expanded the area of cultivation."'7

Shambaa farmers had begun to reclaim lands bordering the
Vuga mission because the presence of mission furrows allowed
them easily to incorporate irrigation technology into their
farming systems. The missionaries themselves noted concern

over their putative water rights, which they had enjoyed

 

75TNA 72/5/4 Complaints: Water Supply and Disputes A.O. in Charge to
Akidas Rayambo and Bernard of Mambo and Vuga, 11/25/25, p. 17.

7GUIT, Japhet Kalata, Mlalo, December 23, 1991, pp. 1-2; Rajabu
Shemzinghwa, Mlalo, Dec. 28, 1991, p 4; Ali Gembe and son, Shemboza bin
Shemndola, Mlalo, old town, Jan. 18th, 1992. p. 6; Kasisi Kuambaza
Sheiza, Mlalo, January 18, 1992, p 9, et al.

77TNA 72/5/4 Complaints: Water Supply and Disputes. etc. M. Mailer,
Mambo Estate to D.O. Lushoto 4/12/28, p. 43; Ritala cha Rinyassi, vuga
to D.O. in Charge, Lushoto 5/12/28. p. 48.

126
since 1903, when they tapped the tributaries of the Mkuzi.78

The mission pastor claimed ownership of the furrow arguing
that the Bethel Mission had built the furrow and that the_
German Colonial Government, in granting leasehold, had also
made specific mention that the furrow was mission property.
Farmers claimed, on the other hand, that no rights were
ceded because the area's inhabitants were absent when the
mission was granted leasehold rights; and now that they had
returned, they wished to use one of the two furrows.79 This
simple response masks the complexity of the conflicts at
Vuga, the former capital of the mountain kingdom. In 1895
the Germans executed the Kilinidi king and installed a
succession of puppets. The third, Kinyassi, leased out huge
tracts near Vuga to the mission and coffee planters. Then,
in 1896-97, rinderpest wiped out cattle, locusts and drought
decimated crops, and many Shambaa either died or left the
areae°° Clearly, the Shambaa sought to reestablish not only
their rights to this land, but to the water on it as well.81
Indeed, in 1932, the A.D.O. found, along the mission furrow,
71 irrigated gardens which served about 200 people. In the
same year, at the nearby European estates of Mponde and
Sakulla, Africans complained about estate boundaries and

asked the government for another survey.82 In 1936, yet

 

78TNA 72/5/4 Complaints: Water Supply and Disputes, J. Gleiss,
Pastor, Vuga Mission to D.O. Lushoto 7/19/30, p.65; TNA 72/5/4 J.
Gleiss to D.O. Lushoto, 10/1/30, p. 66

79TNA 72/5/6 Usambara Water Board. D.O. Hartnoll, Lushoto to Hon.
Land Officer, DSM 11/6/30, p. 109.

8°Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, p. 126-27.

81TNA 72/5/6 A.D.O. Lushoto to D.O. Lushoto, 5/20/32, p. 190.

82TNA 4/107/4 Boundary Disputes, Mponde Estate, 1932, D.O. Lushoto to

127
another dispute surfaced between Shambaa farmers and the Vuga

mission, this time over two acres of land, which the Shambaa
believed had been mistakenly included in the mission land.83

The droughts of the mid-19308 brought into the
administrative view the importance of irrigation to
indigenous farming, as well as the difficulties. By 1935,
irrigation technology was being employed as an important
mitigation technique across the massif. Several letters
regarding furrows had reached the Lushoto District Officer's
desk. In one, the sub-chief Majita of Mgwashi in 1935
requested permission to tap a stream rising in the Mazumbai
forestm9‘ Majita consulted the D.O. because the stream passed
through a large estate, thus showing cognizance of the
division between Public and Private Land."5 Also in 1935, the
District Officer summoned King Magogo, to accompany him to
the plains below Mlalo/Mbaramo to observe the construction of
a large furrow.“

The conflicts on the Southern tier, reveal a measure of
ecological stress in the mountains, but not one which would

reach crisis proportions so long as farmers could irrigate

 

P.C. Tanga, 8/8/32.

83TNA 4/107/7 ”Boundary Dispute between Vuga Mission and Natives,
1936.“ D.O. Lushoto to Secretary, Department of Lands and Mines, Dar es
Salaam, 3/31/36.

8‘TNA 72/5/30, Water and Irrigations. Zumbe Salim.Mjata, Mgwashi to
A.D.O. Lushoto, 2/4/35, p. 38.

85TNA 72/5/30, D.O. Lushoto (Seymour) to Zumbe RSalim Mjata, Mgwashi
2/5/35, p. 39.

86TNA 72/5/30, Water and Irrigations. D.O. Lushoto to Kimweri
Magogo, vuga, 8/8/35, p. 39. Correspondence suggests that this was a
large project and that labor consisted of scores of tax defaulters.
Milne, in 1937 report cited above, describes large abandoned furrow, 6
ft. deep and 4 ft. across and over a kilometer long.

128
gardens in dry years. However, to the north at Mlalo, the

sheer scale of the irrigation project suggests the necessity
of a large extension of food production on the plains
kitivos. Furthermore, oral evidence for the 19308 states
that the Mlalo Sub Chief seriously considered expelling from

the basin people of Taita ancestry.87

D. COmmercial Agriculture on the Kitivos:.A Dispute
over7Kauzeni

‘With alluvial lands below the massif's southern side
monopolized by sisal interests, the colonial administration
and private entrepreneurs explored the possibilities for
commercial agriculture on the northern plains. Of course,
the permanent residents at Kauzeni, Lunguza, Kitivo, Mngaro,
Mnazi, and periodic migrants from.the mountains already knew
the value of plains cultivation for maize and rice. An
argument between District Officer for Lushoto, Callaghan, and
the Provincial Commissioner at Tanga over Kauzeni highlights
a growing tension in the administration over the future needs
of Usambara's African agriculturalists.

In October 1933, an unnamed entrepreneur, who sought to
develop a rice plantation along a four mile stretch (1560
acres) on either side of the Mdando river below the Mlola
basin, approached the administration for leasehold rights to
the former German estate. The Provincial Commissioner

balked, citing the future needs of the Shambaa.°° Further, he

 

87UIT Ali Gembe and son, Shemboza bin Shemndola, Mlalo town, Jan.
18th, 1992, p. 6.
BSTNA 4/651/2 “Land Lushoto.“ p.c. (r. Langland) to 0.0. Lushoto

129
argued that riverine rice cultivation would jeopardize water

access for the 30-35 African farmers downstream.89 In a terse
response, his ”man on the spot," Callaghan, argued that a
little private enterprise would offer employment to natives
and increase the availability of cash in an area he believed
to be economically backwardt9°

In a decision that notes African interests, the
Provincial Commissioner offered the entrepreneur a five year
renewable lease for just 250 acres along the river.91 The
Provincial Commissioner believed that a imminent population
overflow of mountain people onto the plains necessitated the
reservation of all suitable farm land. Official concerns
about the future of mountain farming surfaced again in 1937,
when the Provincial Commissioner, Tanga and the District
Officer, Korogwe (J.W. Bonavia), asked the Amani Institute's
soil scientist to conduct a soil survey of Usambara. They
hoped to ascertain both the damage to mountain soils due to
accelerated erosion and the suitability of the soils below
the escarpment for future settlement.” The belief among
administrators and scientists that there was a problem.of
overcrowding, erosion, and destruction of valuable watershed

resources grew out of a much broader mentality of ecological

 

(Callaghan) 10/31/33 ”concerning land for lease along the Mlola river.“
p. 193

89TNA 4/651/2, P.C. Tanga to D.O. Lushoto 12/4/33; for presence of
Shambaa farmers see, A.D.O. to D.O. 11/28/33.

9°TNA 4/651/2, D.O. Lushoto to P.C. Tanga, 12/8/33.

91TNA 4/651/2, P.C. Tanga to Land Office, Dar es Salaam, no date.

92TNA 24732, “Report on a Soil Reconnaissance in the Neighbourhood of
Kitivo, Lushoto District, Tanganyika Territory, and in adjacent (west
Usambara) highlands, September - October 1937' by Geoffrey Milne, Soil
Scientist, East African Agricultural Research Station, Amani, p. 7.

13o
crisis sweeping the empire's scientific and administrative

communities.

Part III. The Crisis Mentality
Defining the Problem

Radical change to Usambara's physical and biological
landscape had begun during the 19208, and by the late 19308
the bureaucratic and scientific communities charged with
managing these landscapes perceived that change had led to
serious ecological problems in the mountains. They
constituted, in the colonial mind, a crisis so serious that
it threatened the actual survival of the mandate's European
interests and the African residents themselves. Moreover,
the growing sense of crisis permeated all corners of the
colonial landscape in Africa. Tanganyika, and Usambara
within it, made up only part of the problem.

Colonial science struggled to understand exactly where
the problem areas were and how ameliorative efforts should be
carried out. Unfortunately, even among those who had studied
aspects East Africa's ecology there was little understanding
of how East Africans had used land historically. For
example, at an early 19308 meeting of the Royal Geographic
Society, a panel on soil erosion in Eastern and Central
Africa characterized the core problematic as one of a

primitive society confronting the modern world.93 Panelists,

 

”Royal Geographic Society nesting 1933, Panelist included
Swynnerton, Tan. Terr. director of Tsetse research, Grantham, member of
Tan.Terr. Soil Erosion Commission.

131
with decades of experience in southern, central and eastern

Africa, argued that until the pax Britannica, wandering
tribesmen and women, who ”never gave a thought to preserving
the productivity of the soil,” had carved a path of
destruction across Africa's landscapen9‘ In the colonial
mindset, so long as these intrinsically migratory African
farmers remained few in number, nature could, over centuries,
repair the damage of ”primitive" and "destructive" methods.95
The colonial epoch witnessed a surge of population growth
which had devoured productive lands leaving them permanently
degraded.

In East Africa, the historical paradigm blended into a
broader picture in which global economic depression, drought
and dust bowl imagery fed the political and economic fears of
East Africa's settlers, who believed that grants of land to
African farmers would be carried out at their expense.“ Thus
in 1933, when the Kenya Land Commission held hearings to
collect evidence regarding East Africa's environmental
problems, colonial science actually legitimated settler
testimony which blamed African husbandry rather than their
own mistakes.97 The Land Commission hearings both publicized

the issue and solidified resource conservation in areas of

 

9‘A.M. Champion, “Soil Erosion in Africa: A Paper Read at the
Afternoon Meeting of the Society on 8 May 1933 by Mr. C.W. Hobley on
behalf of A.M. Champion,“ Geographical Review 82 (1933), 135.

”Champion, p. 135; C.W. Hobley, "Soil Erosion: A Problem in Human
Geography. A Paper Read at the Afternoon Meeting of the Society on 8
May 1933,“ Geographical Review 82 (1933), 140.

96David Anderson, ”Depression, Dust Bowl, Danography, and Drought:
The Colonial State and Soil Conservation in East Africa during the
1930s,“ African Affairs 83 (1984), p. 323.

97Ibid., p. 324.

132
African land use as a overt administrative issue.98

As concerns about soil erosion began to surface at the
Colonial Office, Tanganyika formed a Standing Committee on
Soil Erosion which convened in 1931. Taking its cues from
the Ceylon Soil Erosion Committee, the Tanganyika counterpart
formulated soil and water conservation recommendations
designed to help Agricultural Officers in the field.” The
committee decided that, in the absence of funds and the
support of public opinion, their efforts should be to educate
rather than to coerce.100 As their recommendations filtered
down to the District Administrations across Tanganyika,
Agricultural Officers and Foresters began to preach the evils
of soil erosion and to demonstrate proper land use on small
experimental plots.

By the mid-19308, the attack on soil erosion in
Tanganyika had become centered on its highlands. Clement
Gillman, a geographer with decades of experience in
Tanganyika under both the German and British administrations
and a Soil Erosion Committee member, then wrote and spoke

'widely on the topic.101 His most influential analysis of

 

”Ibid.

99TNA 4/1071 Minutes of the First Meeting of the Standing Committee
on Soil Erosion appointed by His Excellency the Acting Governor. Held
at the Secretatiat, DSM, June 15th, 1931. Those present Those present:
Dir. of E.A. Research Station, W. Nowell; Dir. of A., E. Harrison;
Acting Dir. of Public Works, C.U. Stevenson; Acitng Dir. of Vet
Services, H.E. Hornby; Dir. of Geological Survey, E.O. Teale;
Conservator of Forests, D.K.S. Grant; Chief Engineer of Railways, C.
Gillman.

1”TNA 4/1071 Soil Erosion, 'Memorandum.on Soil Erosion,“ E.
Harrison, Director of Agriculture, Tanganyika Territory, 1937. p. 3.

1MFor a complete list of Gillman's scholarly articles and reviews
see B.S. Hoyle, Gdllman of Tanganyika 1882-1946 (Brookfield, Vt: Gower
Publishing, 1987), pp. 424-428.

133
Tanganyika's ecological imbalances appeared in his 1936

article, "A Population Map for Tanganyika Territory."102 His
map showed that Tanganyika's population had consolidated _
itself on and around granitic up thrust mountains and
volcanoes. Gillman explained this phenomenon by maintaining
that the link between high population density and high
elevations could be found in the natural history of mountains
where climate had nurtured forest growth and ensured water
availability. Thus environment determined a particular
population distribution as well as, for those living in the

mountains, a higher cultural standard.

[favorable defensive topography and ample water
supplies] have also led to the gradual evolution of
a higher cultural standard than that of shifting
cultivation as practiced in the surrounding
savannas and steppes, including permanent crops
such as bananas and coffee, irrigation, stabling of
cattle, manuring and the beginnings of individual
tenure . 103

water availability fostered intensive agriculture
despite widely varying mountain soils and the physical
difficulties of removing mature forest cover to plant crops.
Gillman's deterministic model explained why two thirds of
Tanganyika's population occupied 10% of its land. Besides
Africans, European planters had clustered on and around these
mountain regions where, given the enormous size of some of

their farms, they exercised an environmental impacts out of

 

1(’ZClanent Gillman, ”A Population Map of Tanganyika Territory, "
Geographical Review 26 (1936), 353-375.

134
proportion to their small numbers.““ Tanganyika's congested

"oases“ raised in Gillman's mind a number of red flags.
First, research then current at the Amani Institute in East
Usambara had proved beyond a doubt that forest soils, once
cultivated, lost fertility within a few years.105 Moreover,
the heavily populated mountain areas carried all of the
Territory's forest, which regulated stream flows down slope
onto the alluvial plains.106 Second, forest removal, Gillman
argued, led to accelerated erosion which, in turn, changed
the stream regime from permanence to intermittence “which
means excessive and often destructive floods in the wet and
dearth of water in the dry season.“107 Third, decreased water
flow diminished the viability of agriculture on the
cultivated lands surrounding the mountain blocks.108 As
Gillman's argument took hold in the administration, Usambara
emerged as one of the centers of colonial preoccupation with
soil erosion and deforestation.

In Usambara official worry intensified as anti-erosion
demonstrations proved ineffectual. He requested that the
government require in Usambara the adoption of anti erosion

rules. In September 1937, the government adopted the

 

1“As mentioned in Ch. 3, Germans had cleared huge tracts of
rainforest for coffee plantations.

105H.H. Storey, Basic Research in Agriculture: A Brief History of
Research at Amani 1928-1947 (Nairobi: East African Standard, no date);
for the actual study see Geoffrey Milne, “Essays in applied Pedology.
I.- Soil Type and Soil Management in Relation to Plantation Agriculture
in East Usambara,“ East African Agricultural Journal 3 (1938), 7-20.

1“Gillman, “Population Map". p. 359.

107Clement Gillman, “Problems of Land Utilisation in Tanganyika
Territory,“ South African Geographical Journal 20 (1938), 14.

1°°Ibid.

135
following orders:

Section 1:

a. Persons opening up new shambas on sloping land shall
whenever the D.A.O. deems it necessary take such measures to
prevent erosion as D.A.O. or his nominee may prescribe.

b. Occupier of any existing land under cultivation which in
opinion of D.A.O. is insufficiently protected from erosion
shall take such measures to stop erosion as the District
Agricultural Officer or his nominee may prescribe.

c. Prescribed measures are:

i. contour ridging;
ii. terracing.

d. Soil erosion measures shall be maintained.

e. Cultivation on steep slopes along banks of rivers is to be
prohibited by Native Authority where advised by the District
Agricultural Officer or the Forest Officer.

f. Penalty: fine not exceeding 40/= or 1 month hard labor;
person may be prohibited from cultivating land until anti
erosion measures taken.

Section II

a. Where District Agricultural Officer considers that land
not in occupation by individuals is in danger of erosion, the
chief of the area may, with the prior permission of the
Provincial Commissioner, order his people to undertake such
work communally as may be prescribed by the District
Agricultural Officer. Such work shall be limited to a period
not exceeding 7 days at any time and not more than two
periods in any one year.

b. Any person not in compliance shall be liable to 40/= or 1
mo. hard labor.109

 

1(”TNA 4/1071 D.O. (Seymour) Lushoto to P.C. Tanga Jan. 25, 1937, p.
29

136
Studying the Problem

Several months after the adoption of the rules, Geoffrey
Milne, an internationally recognized soil scientist of the
Amani Institute, traveled at the request of the Tanga
Provincial Commissioner to W. Usambara to reconnoiter its
soils. The year before, he had finished putting together a
provisional soil map of Tanganyika which resulted from years
of research experience in the field.110 Eschewing the broad
geographical determinism of his eminent colleague Gillman,
Milne's research focused on intricate ecological
relationships at the most basic level, soil chemistry. He
noted carefully how cultivation and soil interacted in a
variety of settings. Milne's report on Usambara, therefore,
represents the careful thoughts of a renowned scholar who had
traveled at length in the Territory observing land use and
soils. Furthermore, Milne's report on Usambara provides a
more nuanced view of land use than appears in any of the
Annual Reports of the Agriculture department, whose
representative visited Usambara only intermittently.

In his explanation of soil erosion, Milne noted that
Usambara's topography determined that farmers had little
choice but to cultivate slopes since only a few upland
valleys held arable alluvial bottoms broad enough for
cultivation.t“. Milne assumed, therefore, “that the greater

part of cultivated Usambara has suffered loss of soil in some

 

110G. Milne, A Provisional Soil Map of East Africa (Amani,
Tanganyika: East African Agricultural Research Station, 1936) .
11111111 24732, Milne, “Report." p. 28-29-

137
degree, and that losses [were] continuing."112 He notes

further that as cultivation spread, it tended to creep
upslope until a hillside and ridge had been completely
denuded of trees. This phenomenon occurred particularly
around the Umba headwaters, a situation he clearly believed
dangerous to river flow.113

In contrast to agricultural departments blanket
treatment of the problem, mitigation of soil erosion was to

Milne a complex endeavor.

The tactics of defense on each hillside require to
be thought out in regard to the particular set of
circumstances found there. No simple universal set
of soil protection rules is possible, for however
well adapted certain measures may be to a given
case, they may be ill advised, or even directly
mischievous, if applied without discrimination to
another . 1 1‘

For example, where the Native Authority rules simply
forbade all cultivation along stream banks, Milne saw room

for maneuver.

Principal object is to keep clear water flowing
perennially in streams. If cultivation near the
banks of streams is compatible with this then a
non-cultivation rule enforced dogmatically must be
in serious error; for the banks of Usambara streams
often carry fertile accumulations of colluvium
material that has gathered there by soil creep from
the slopes above and has found its stable resting
place near the bottom. . .115

 

112TNA 24732, Milne, “Report," p. 29.
113TNA 24732, Milne, “Report," pp. 30-31.
11‘TNA 24732, Milne, “Report," p. 30.
J'1-"TNA 24732, Milne, “Report," pp. 36-37.

138
He argued that cultivators should not be evicted

wholesale simply in the interest of a rule. Milne also
believed that the Native Authority rules had been applied

with discrimination in favor of Europeans.

At Mlalo I saw Mission land being ploughed to the
brink of the main stream at the very time that the
native-owned stream-side land was being flagged by
the instructor for preservation from the hoe under
the N.A. rule. Mission ploughing was crude and no
precautions against soil loss were evident, so this
particular case would cause bewilderment to the
native riparian owners and might well alienate
goodwill from soil conservation measures

general 1y . 11‘

Milne argued that Usambara had experienced accelerated
erosion in the vicinity of Mlola, Mlalo, Bumbuli, Kwai, Vuga,
Baga, and Gare. In fact, his list included most of W.
Usambara's agricultural zones. Milne chided Agriculture
Department for not having assigned an assistant to Usambara
for at least a decade. He contended that before the
government could attempt to mitigate the problem, agriculture
assistants and instructors should actually live for a time in
the densely populated areas, where ecological problems were
most severe.117 Finally, Milne maintained that with adequate
supervision and training, Usambara's highlanders could

successfully farm the highlands.

But the most immediately profitable field of work
towards the desired end, namely towards putting the
sambaa tribe in permanent possession of enough

 

115TNA 24732, Milne, “Report," p. 37.
11"TNA 24732, Milne, “Report," p. 39.

139

productive land for their needs, lies on the
highland plateau rather than on the arid
lowlands . 11°

Milne's report prompted a flurry of correspondence up
and down the bureaucratic hierarchy. In a letter to the
Chief Secretary, the Provincial Commissioner backed Milne's
conclusions that further research be carried out and in this
regard, requested a permanent agricultural assistant for
Usambara .119 Harold Gillman (Clement's son), Agricultural
Officer for the Northeast Circle, wrote to Usambara's
District Officer to dispute Milne's conclusions regarding the
efficacy of the Native Authority rules. Milne's report also
struck a nerve with the Director of Agriculture, who, when
asked to send an agricultural assistant to Usambara,
complained with vitriol to the Chief Secretary. The tenor of
the letter suggests that the Director of Agriculture resented
the fact that the District Officer and the Provincial
Commissioner, rather than he, had commissioned Milne's
survey. Furthermore, he took issue with Milne's conclusion
that the work of his staff had been inadequate.12° In the
light of this controversy, the Secretariat buried the report
and decided not to approve an agricultural assistant for

Usambara . 17“

 

1131113 24732, Milne, “Report," p. 43.

“W 24732, Provincial Commissioner, Tanga to Chief Secretary, Dar
es Salaam, 5/16/38.

12°TNA 24732, Director of Agriculture to Chief Secretary, June 6,
1938.

131nm 24732, Acting Chief Secretary to p.c. TAnga, June 28, 1939.
Milne's report was published in 1944, after his death, see Milne, “Soils
in Relation tothe Native Population in West Usambara,“ Geography 29
(1944), p. 107-113.

140
Although Milne's report lay buried at the Secretariat,

colonial science kept the crisis mentality alive.122 However,
the impetus for direct and massive action in Usambara began a
few years later, in 1942, with the Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation
Scheme. The prophesy of crisis was finally fulfilled in the

Mlalo Basin with Njaa ya Chankola, the subject of Chapter 5.

Conclusion

This chapter has examined Britain's early attempts to
control the human/environmental dialectic in Usambara.
Clearly Usambara formed only one part of a much broader and
ever increasing colonial preoccupation with ecological crises
throughout the empire.123 Nonetheless, Usambara emerges as a
clear example of how imperial power, commercial capitalists
and western science collaborated in an overt attempt to
determine how a particular region's natural resources should
be used. The collaborators showed a decided ignorance of
African conceptions of nature and ecological practice.

With their arena of action circumscribed, African
farmers and herders adjusted land use to new realities. On
their Public Lands Africans responded in a variety of ways to
changing ecological arrangements under colonialism.

Following a trend established in the nineteenth century,

farmers continued to incorporate new crops into their farming

 

122See especially, G.V. Jacks and R.O. Whyte, The Rape of the Earth,
(London: Faber and Faber Ldt., 1939) and a review by Clement Gillman in
Tanganyika Notes and Records 8 (1939), 104-107.

123See the essays in John M. Mackenzie ed., Imperialism and the
natural world (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990).

141
system. Maize, in particular, began to dominate farmers'

gardens because it served both subsistence and cash
requirements in the colonial economic context. Nonetheless,
new crops were incorporated into a rather persistent farming
system which included both intensive and extensive methods
and which still operated, at least on the massif's northern
side, across ecological boundaries. More radical change
occurred on the central plateau, where the forestry service
drew a survey line around much of the Mbugu grazing lands.
With their relegation to Public Land on the forest margins,
the Mbugu began a shift completely out of pastoralism and
into farming as a means of subsistence: pastures became
gardens. Many contested colonial boundaries, but did so
largely within what the colonial administration considered to
be accepted avenues of protest.

On Government and Private lands, those which Europeans
dominated, a complete reorganization of the nature proceeded.
On the Pangani Valley plains tens of thousands of acres of
savanna forests were removed and planted with one commercial
cash crop, sisal. As the processed sisal fibers moved down
to the port of Tanga for shipment abroad, the effluent from
plains processing factories poured into the streams flowing
from Usambara's mountains toward the Pangani River. The
fouled waters contaminated drinking water.124

As a European conception of resource control took hold

 

12‘TNA 72/5/4 D.O. Lushoto to Manager, Mambo Sisal Estate, 4/23/30,
p. 48; D.O. Lushoto to Exec. Water Board, Usambara dist. to manager,
Mambo Sisal Estate. 6/16/30. p. 57;

142
within designated forest reserves, the species diversity of

the forest was quickly and consciously impoverished. Unable
to regenerate naturally occurring tree species, the Forestry
Service sanctioned the clear-felling of indigenous forest
communities dominated by camphor, podo and cedar and
replanted them with fast growing exotic species such as
eucalyptus, cypress and pine. This commodification of the
forest ultimately rendered it useless for grazing because
clear felling and replanting eliminated forest glades. In
addition plantation forestry erased the variety in plant
species, contributed to soil erosion and micro climatic
drying . 125

Europe's domination of Usambara's environment could only
be completed through a shift in focus to the Public Lands.
In west Usambara this incursion began in the Mlalo Basin,
where prophesies of crisis were fulfilled in 1942 with the
most infamous famine in recent memory, Njaa ya Chankola

(Chankola's Famine).

 

125A.J. Lubango, "Report on Forestry in the Usambara Mountains,“
unpublished, April 1992, p. 7. Mr. Lubango, Chief Forester at Magamba
Forest Station, notes the drying factor especially in areas cropped with

cypress.

Chapter 5

Conserving the Mlalo Basin:
Crises and Change in Farming Systems, 1940-49

Part I . Introduction

This chapter reconciles the varying accounts of the
crises in agriculture, politics and ecology on Usambara's
northern side during the 19408. In the oral record,
informants remember these years as a difficult time of
drought, insect infestation, crop failures and famine which
resulted directly from the firing of Mlalo's sub-chief,
Hassani Kinyassi. For the colonial government, the 19408
marked the period when the state began to invest substantial
sums of money in its attempt to dictate human/environmental
relations on Public Lands in northern Usambara's Mlalo basin,
which colonial experts believed to be severely degraded
through inappropriate methods of husbandry. Thus, the
mitigation of soil erosion, perceived by the colonial state
as the key element in stopping Usambara's environmental
deterioration, became a volatile social, political and
economic issue which carried into the 19508 and affected the
nationalist push for independence. Below, I argue that a
current of misunderstanding swirled around the issue of

degradation in Mlalo. It grew from.the colonial government's

143

144
failure to comprehend the long-term relationship among

population growth, indigenous technological innovation in
agricultural systems, and environmental degradation.
Further, it began a half century of failures in ecological

reform in Usambara.

Part II. The Context of Crisis

In his seminal work on Tanganyika's history, John Iliffe
has characterized the years between 1929 and 1945 in
Tanganyika as a period of general crisis in colonial society.
In this broader context, Mlalo's 19408 crisis in political
ecology appears as one of several cases of agricultural
decline in which downturn in economic activity, changing
European perceptions of African agriculture, continuing
ecological change, and the special pressures of depression
and war contributed significantly to a general malaise. As
noted in Chapter 4, colonial officials and scientists saw'W.
Usambara's Mlalo basin as one of the particularly striking
manifestations of agroecological decline in the Territory.
The food shortages which struck between 1941 and 1946,
reinforced these conclusions in the colonial mind, and
justified, in the three years that followed, a massive
intervention in local farming systems.

If, as Iliffe has written, “famine was the point at
‘which long-term ecological change met short-term.crisis," the
19408 saw the repeated collision of these forces in

Tanganyika Territory. Famines, including killing famines,

145
broke out across the country.1 .Although mild in comparison to

the deadly hungers in central Tanganyika, Mlalo's crisis
nonetheless offers an instructive example of how ecological
change and stress fostered vulnerability to food shortage.
However, in this case the evidence argues for a society
adapting their farming system relatively successfully, at
least over the short term, to significant long-term local
population growth and regional political and economic forces
infused by colonialism.

Furthermore, the contrast in oral and documentary
evidence offers a view into the mentalities surrounding
ecological crisis in colonial Usambara. That the indigenous
informants see Mlalo's 1942-46 famine as primarily a
political issue, affecting, but not caused by ecological
conditions, is testimony to their understanding of a powerful
connection between politics and the natural world. However,
the oral tradition's preoccupation with crisis politics masks
the complexity of indigenous responses to drought, insect
infestations and food deficits. A deeper look at local
coping strategies through the oral testimony and the written
record shows clearly that the people of Mlalo had a history
of mitigating the effects of natural disasters, a fact the
colonial administration would have done well to consider
during its attempt to reform agricultural practices in

Usambara.

 

1John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika, (Cambridge: CUP,
1979), p. 351.

146
The Political Crisis

As noted in Chapter 4, colonial concerns with
environmental degradation intensified in the early 19308.
Colonial science and government had concluded that in some
areas, such as Tanganyika's Usambara mountains, the situation
demanded action. Therefore, even before Milne's 1937 report
alerted the district and provincial administration to signs
of accelerated erosion at Mlalo, agricultural and forestry
officers had been trying to convince farmers via propaganda
to alter their cultivation techniques. However, as Milne
noted in his report, the lack of even one permanent
agricultural officer in the Usambaras showed that government
rhetoric went unmatched by financial commitment. Lacking the
manpower to enforce conservation government codes, district
authorities had granted Native Authorities sweeping powers to
control human/environmental relations, an authority, however,
they seemed generally reluctant to undertake. Thus, seeking
to shake Mlalo's populous out of what they saw as its decline
into ecological disaster, but lacking the funds and
agricultural expertise for an assault on indigenous
agricultural practices, Lushoto's administration chose to
manipulate those with legal power over land use, the Native
Authorities.

In this light, the Lushoto District Officers' continuous
hand wringing over the state of Mlalo's finances becomes
clear. Between 1940 and 1942, European officialdom gradually

built toward a vendetta against the sub-chiefdom's "Native

147
Authorities." However, maneuvering local politics in the

context of Indirect Rule required subtlety. Beginning in
1940, Fairclough, Lushoto's District Officer, blamed the_
shortfall in Mlalo's tax receipts on the incompetence of the

local Native Administration, headed by Hassani Kinyassi.

Complaints have been regular and loud since Zumbe

Hassani took over in 1935. He is idle and supine

generally and that in particular his collection of

tax is not all that it should be, that he fails to

answer correspondence, that fees for muzzle

loading guns are not collected regularly, and that

judgments given in his court are not sound. I may

add that the Shebuge [i.e. the Kilindi paramount

king] is also of the opinion that Hassani is not

pulling his weight.2

Fairclough's replacement, K.B.A. Dobson, continued to
stress the fiscal angle, but linked official inaction to
potential political troubles. He worried that Kinyassi's lax
attitude toward tax collection and Mlaloans' predilection
toward tax dodging “may be converted into...passive
resistance."3 Anxious to avoid any type of resistance, Dobson
recommended that Kinyassi be replaced, or, that at least a
substantial section of the Mlalo subchieftancy be hived off
and placed under the suzerainty of a sub chief at the hamlet
of Mbaramo. According to Dobson, the move would ease
Kinyassi's tax collection burden, allowing him to concentrate

his collection efforts on Mlalo's immediate vicinity.

 

2TNA 4/6/2, Native Administration, Usambara District, D.O.
(Fairclough) Lushoto to P.C. Tanga, Tanga Province 2/30/40, p. 149.

3TNA 4/6/2, Assistant District Officer, Lushoto (R.H.A. Dobson) to
the District Officer, Rorogwe, 8/23/40. p. 173. His fears are not
unfounded considering the Mbiru tax revolt in nearby Pare mountains.

148
While the colonial administration lamented its lost tax

revenue, the “Shebuge," had his own political reasons for
seeking Kinyassi's ouster. Kimweri Magogo's legitimacy as
Paramount Chief depended on his ability to establish hegemony
over Mlalo, the district's largest population center and over
Kinyassi, a rainmaker with a reputation for success. This
meant bringing into line an area which had maintained de
facto independence from.Vuga's rule since at least the late
nineteenth century.

Kinyassi resisted the attempts to curb his power. The
loss of Mbaramo would deprive him his rights over the
distribution of valuable agricultural lands on the plains at
Lunguza, where, under temperatures warmer than in the
mountains, grain crops matured in three months and, in lean
years, supplemented mountain harvests. Any limitation on the
amount of kitivo lands Kinyassi could allocate to Mlalo's
mountain dwellers would create more pressure on mountain
communal lands which, by 1940, were in short supply.‘ In the
end, Kinyassi lost Mbaramo and when the District
Administration received permission to separate the two
chiefdoms, Magogo immediately volunteered to install his
choice for sub-chief at Mbaramo.5

In January 1942, Dobson again called for the removal of

Hassani Kinyassi citing his poor record of tax collection and

 

4Usambara Interview Transcripts (Hereafter UIT) Hasain Singano
Mbuguni, Musa Hasani, Mbwana anari Shemzighwa at Mlalo, Jan. 3 1992,
para. 8, p. 19; Henedi Ngereza, at Mlalo, March 19, 1992, p 21b;

5TNA 4/6/2, D.O. Lushoto (R.H.A. Dobson) to the District
Commissioner, Rorogwe District, Rorogwe, 11/29/40, p. 181.

149
his inability to round up and prosecute tax defaulters.6

Kinyassi's reluctance to punish his constituents becomes
clear in the light of wartime conditions in which wages were
low and money scarce. In spite of Dobson's protests, the
Provincial Commissioner remained unconvinced of Kinyassi's
incompetence and suggested that the D.O. appoint a commission
of inquiry to investigate all of Mlalo's “Native
Authorities." The commission consisted of a member of the
Paramount Chief's Executive Committee and Dobson's choice of
“six of the most intelligent elders of Mlalo."7 ‘With the
elders presumably in his pocket, the commission provided
Dobson with the official cover he needed to fire Kinyassi.
By early May 1942 this "Commission on the Jumbes of
Mlalo" had finished its work. They recommended that eight of
the sixteen Mlalo headmen be replaced, although Hassani
Kinyassi did not appear on the list. Dobson reported that
immediately after the commission submitted their evaluation,
the Mlalo elders ask to meet him in private, away from the
Executive Committee appointee, i.e. the Shebuge's observer
from Vuga. Dobson stated that during this interview the
Mlalo elders expressed concern over the political situation
in Mlalo, but refused to implicate Kinyassi directly.
Nonetheless, in this meeting they supposedly disavowed their

own report. Whatever transpired in the private meeting, the

 

6TNA 4/6/2, D.O. Lushoto (Dobson) to D.C. Korogwe, 1/5/42,
"Administration of Mlalo Zumbeate." p. 206.

7TNA 4/6/2, P.C. Tanga (Bonavia) to D.C. Rorogwe, 2/7/42, “The Mlalo
Subchiefdom," p. 208.

150
elders likely found themselves caught between the desires of

the D.O., the Paramount Chief and Hassani Kinyassi's local
popularity. Dobson decided to make further inquiries “in
private." His final report to the District Commissioner,
based on these “inquiries," states simply that the commission
had intended to tell him that Hassani's maladministration was
at the root of all of their troubles.8

The high level of anxiety in Mlalo during 1942, which
Dobson argued resulted from a general dissatisfaction with
Kinyassi's regime, more likely grew out of difficult
agroecological conditions. In 1941 the rains had failed
across much of NE Tanganyika, including the Usambara
mountains. Resulting food shortages induced the District
Administration to invoke the Natives Foodstuff Ordinance,
‘which restricted removal of food from the district without
the permission of the D.C. The ordinance also suspended,
without permission, the purchase or barter of foodstuffs from
.Africans for resale in the district. Given the growing
importance of regional markets in and around Usambara, this
act, if enforced, would have hindered the movement of food
from areas of abundance to those of shortage. Oral evidence
suggests that marketers disregarded the ordinance, but its
imposition nevertheless shows how little the administration
at district headquarters understood about regional exchange.

On July 29, 1942, at the height of the dry season

 

8TNA 4/6/2, A.D.O. Lushoto (Dobson) to D.C. Korogwe, 5/19/42,
"Commission on the Jumbes of Mlalo,"p. 224.

151
following a poor agricultural year, the D.O. informed Hassani

Kinyassi, renowned rainmaker, that his services as sub chief
were no longer required.

The natives of Mlalo are in such a chaotic state,
all squabbling amongst themselves, that the time
has arisen for a native with a strong personality
to take charge and endeavor to make them realize
that their lazy and indolent habits of the past
have been the cause of the present disastrous state
of the Zumbeate.9

Dobson nominated for the position Ali Mashina (a.k.a.
Chankola), the head tax clerk for Lushoto division.
Chankola's appointment fits with the then prevailing view in
the British Administration that educated clerks best served
their conception of effective administration.1° Dobson thus
drew the political battle lines in Mlalo between tradition
and modernity, Kinyassi and Chankola. No stranger to Mlalo
politics, Chankola was a Kilindi from Dule, a small hamlet
about a half hour's walk from the Mlalo chief's compound. He
'was not, however, a rainmaker, nor did he hold legitimate
authority in the eyes of his constituency. Informants recall
that when Chankola moved into the Mlalo chief's quarters, the

worst drought in living memory began.111

 

9TNA 4/6/2, D.O. Korogwe to P.C. Tanga Province 7/29/42, "Appointment
of New Zumbe for Mlalo Bumbeate, p. 233.

10Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, p. 140.

111T, Japhet Kalata at Mlalo, December 23, 1991, p. 2; Rajabu
Shemzinghwa at Mlalo, Dec. 28, 1991, p. 4; Ali Gembe, and son, Shemboza
bin Shemndola at Mlalo ), Jan. 18th, 1992, p. 6; Kimako, Juma Kingazi,
Hoseni Hamsini, Salimu Shekulwavu at Shita, Feb. 13, 1992, pp. 17-18;
Athumani Shemweta, joined by Athumani Kikoi, Abeid Athumani and Hasani
Mlimnahadala at Rwedeghe, Jan. 21, 1992, p. 71. For an alternative
view, see Hemedi Ngereza, at Mlalo, March 19, 1992, p. 21a. Mzee
Ngereza argues that Chankola was a scapegoat and that poor farming

152

Chankola’s Famine: understanding Scarcity in Cultural Terms,
1942-46.

Informants invariably recall the years between 1942 and
1946 as Njaa ya Chankola, i.e. Chankola's famine. In the
oral record, Njaa ya Chankola constituted a crisis with clear
causes and an equally clear resolution. Almost without
exception, informants recall that the drought which caused
the famine began because of the enmity between the deposed
chief, Hassani Kinyassi, and his replacement, Chankola.
According to one informant, Kinyassi, the rainmaker, offered
prayers to God whereupon "the sun increased in intensity and
famine came into the country."12 .Another characterized it as
"a story of bitterness between Kinyassi and Chankola."13 In
the narrative, not only did Chankola lack the powers of a
rainmaker, he also supposedly went so far as to extinguish
the perpetual fire kept in the small banda used for the
rainmaking ceremony.1‘

In Shambaa cultural discourse, drought, and thus food
deficits, grew out of such political turmoil, and thus it
logically followed that once the situation had reached crisis
proportions, the people of Mlalo moved to remedy food

shortages by solving the political problem, the rule of a

 

practices caused the famine.

121T Athumani Shemweta, joined by Athumani Kikoi, Abeid Athumani and
Hasani Mlimahadala, Rwedeghe, Jan. 21, 1992.

13:? Rajabu Shemzinghwa, , at Mlalo, Dec. 28, 1991, p. 4. For other
similar arguments for the famine's cause, see Kimako, Juma Kingazi,
Hoseni Hamsini, Salimu Shekulwavu, at Shita, Feb. 13, 1992, para. 1, p.
18; Ali Gembe, and son, Shemboza bin Shemdola, at old Mlalo , Jan. 18th,
1992, para. 3, p. 6.

14IT Ali Gembe, and son, Shemboza bin Shemdola, at old Mlalo, Jan.
18th, 1992, p. 6;

153
chief who had no rain.15

Early in April [1946] the people at Mlalo
expressed, at a mass meeting of about 6000 people,
their dislike of this Zumbe and asked that he
should be removed. They were led by a group of men
which gained the name of the 'Chama.’ WOmen also
demonstrated and nearly ransacked the house of the
Zumbe and set it on fire. The disturbance subsided
by the end of the day but there ensued a policy of
passive resistance to the Zumbe which eventually
led to his resignation in June....After careful
inquiry this request was finally granted and
Hassani bin Kinyassi was installed as Zumbe in
August to the general satisfaction of the
population of Mlalo....15

To informants, the end of the drought coincided with
Chankola's removal and Kinyassi's return to Mlalo, whereupon
”the rains fell all the way to Europe.“”’ But the traditional
ruler's triumphant return after four years of exile capped a
period in which, in terms of mountain political ecology,
everything had changed. By 1946, the colonial government was
prepared to make the financial commitment necessary to go
beyond the forest reserves and to control the agricultural
landscape, beginning with the Mlalo basin. At the same time,
indigenous political forces had begun to coalesce in
opposition to the Native Authorities and their mentors in the
District Administration.

At Mlalo, women played a central role in the opposition.

They had demonstrated against Chankola in substantial numbers

 

15See Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, chs. 3 and 4.

16TNA 72/62/6 vol. III. Lushoto Division-Korogwe District, Annual
Report 1946, D.O. C.C. de Rosamund, p. 207b.

171T Japhet Relate, at Mlalo, December 23, 1991, p. 2.

154
and in a militant fashion.18

WOmen led the struggle against Chankola because
they were very close to the hunger because the
stayed with the children. Also they were used to
working and meeting together, like when they
gathered firewood, or at the market. In fact
attendance at markets was mostly by women.19

That was a very rough time. There was hunger and
hoards of locusts. Once the hunger became evident,
Mashina was to be removed by the strength of the
women. The women of Dule, Mwangoi, Mlalo joined
hands and drove the protest forward. The women
climbed [to] the Kitala, and entered singing....2°

The women's protest, moreover, reflected a growing
confidence, at least in the greater Pangani Valley, that
colonial government policies could be resisted. For example,
informants claim that Mlalo's Shambaa women joined together
'with recent Pare immigrants who passed along news of the 1945
.Mbiru tax revolt centered in the nearby Pare mountains.21
Male informants claim that the protest was more of a

joint effort.

The men were behind the women's revolt. Indeed the
men of Mlalo, Rangwi, Fwizai, Shume, Mtae, Lushoto,
Bumbuli, Mlola...laid a plan to put the women
forward and the women were only assistance. The
plan was kept a secret at Mwangoi.22

 

191T Ali Gembe, and son, Shemboza bin Shemdola, at old Mlalo, Jan.
18th, 1992. p. 18; Rhadija Mdoe, at Mlalo, Feb. 26, 1992, p. 20; Amine
Ritindu Mdoe, at old Mlalo, Jan. 18, 1992, p. 8.

191m Khadija Mdoe, Mlalo, Feb. 26, 1992, para. 6, p. 20.

2OIT Amine Ritindu Mdoe, , at old Mlalo, Jan. 18, 1992, p. 8. For
information on Mbiru, see Isaria Rimambo, Penetration and Protest in
Tanzania (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992),. ch. 6.

211T, Amine Mdoe, at Mlalo, Feb. 26, 1992, p. 8.

22IT Athumani Shemweta, joined by Athumani Rikoi, Abeid Athumani and
Hasani Mlimnahadala, at Rwedeghe, Jan. 21, 1992.

155
Indeed colonial correspondence mentions the presence in the

Mlalo basin of the chama, or simply, “the party," which
actively sought Chankola's ouster.23

C.C. de Rosemund, Dobson's replacement, noted the
chama's presence as a political force “capable of influencing
and expressing public opinion.“M However, even if the
chama’s male leadership played a role in the revolt, women
certainly harbored legitimate complaints.25 'Their grievances
grew out of their increasingly difficult task of managing
Mlalo's agriculture in a milieu of deteriorating ecological
circumstances. With increasing numbers of men away working
for cash remittances in the cities of Tanga, Mombasa, and
Nairobi, women increasingly bore the brunt of producing

subsistence.

The women took these steps because the famine had
forced many of the men to go to Tanga, Mombasa and
Nairobi to find work. women had great difficulties
at home trying to feed the children and felt bitter
about it. Also women generally have more courage
than men .35

 

23TNA 72/62/6 vol. III. Lushoto Division—Korogwe District, Annual
Report, 1946. D.O. C.C. de Rosemund, p. 207b.

241816.

251a Peasant Intellectuals, Feierman argues that the Mlalo crisis
reflects a larger pattern in Usambara's politics in which so-called
intellectuals begin to challenge Kilindi legitimacy as Native
Authorities and to shape the political discouse. There is certainly a
great deal of evidence to the effect that the Chama and did participate
in resistance to the Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme (1946-49). Like
Feierman, I would argue that the Chama reflected an amalgamation of
elders and younger, educated men. However I believe their support grew
more from the droughts of the 1940s in northern Usambara than from
their "discursive" abilities.

26IT Amina Ritindu Mdoe, at old Mlalo, Jan. 18, 1992, p. 8. For
information on Mbiru, see Isaria ximambo, Penetration and Protest in
Tanzania (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992),. ch. 6.

156
Nor had the difficult times ended with the return of the

rainmaker. The short rains fell in late 1946 after
Kinyassi's return, but difficult agroecological conditions
continued in northwestern Usambara through 1949. The story
of survival and adaptation to the decade-long drought, though
not as deeply embedded so the community's collective memory
as the metaphors of conflict between Kinyassi and Chankola,
show a food production system and a landscape stretched, at
times, beyond the absolute limits of its capability to meet

the needs of the population.

The Realities of Scarcity: Coping Strategies

Recent research has shown that rural Africans employ so-
called "coping strategies" to reduce the impact of recurrent
food deficits. Moreover, farmers apparently adopt coping
strategies in a particular sequence ranging from more to less
palatable alternatives as a shortage intensifies, ultimately
resulting in the liquidation of productive assets, migration,
and in the worst cases, death.27 IEffective risk reduction
often calls for the adoption of a combination of
agricultural, economic or political practices already well-
known to a community. Further, investigations of famine-
prone communities have described very specific potential

crisis indicators which can reveal both the potential for

 

27David Campbell, "Strategies for Coping with Severe Food Deficits in
Rural Africa: A Review of the Literature," Food and Foodways 4.2
(1990, p. 143-162; "Community-based Strategies for Coping with Food
Scarcity: A Role in African Famine Early-warning Systems," GeoJournal
20.3 (1990), 231.

157
famine and its severity at any particular time.28

Such “coping strategies" have deep historical roots
across East Africa. In Usambara, Mlaloans responded to
increasingly difficult ecological conditions, in part, by
time tested manipulation of the agroecological production
system. However, this, the first major ecological crisis in
the context of capitalism and colonial agricultural reform,
required that farmers also fashion new responses. In fact, a
close look at Njaa ya Chankola (1942-46) and its follower,
Njaa ya Maendaleo, (1948-9) reveals a historical conjuncture
between long-term ecological change and short-term crises in
politics, climate and economy which marked the beginning of a
decided alteration in the operation of farming systems.

Although the official record contains no reference to a
famine called Njaa ya Chankola in Usambara during the early
19408, official correspondence indicates that an alarming
situation was developing. The imposition of the "Native
Foodstuffs Ordinance" in 1941, after the failure of that
year's rains, constituted the earliest evidence of official
concern. By December 1943, the Provincial commissioner
informed the Chief Secretary that food supplies were
"dangerously scarce" across much of west Usambara,
particularly around Mlalo, Mbaramo, Mtae, and Mlola, where
blight had devastated the potato crop and dry weather limited

maize harvests.29 The Provincial Commissioner estimated that

 

28Campbell, "Consnunity Based Strategies," p. 232.
29TNA 13079 P.C. Tanga to Chief Sec., " Report on food position"

 

158
39,000 people had been affected and requested 430 tons of

food aid. Three months later, in March 1944, the Provincial
Commissioner again requested food aid owing to poor short
rains and locust depredations. In his Annual Report for
1944, the D.C. noted “severe drought" at Mlola, Mlalo and
Mtae, which, along with poor harvests and more locust
depredations, continued into 1945 and 1946.30 .Again, in 1949,
severe food shortages hit Usambara's northern tier prompting
farmers to eat their seed and the District Administration
import food aid.31

Drought, crop diseases, insect infestations and
resulting hunger strained coping mechanisms over the short-
term. However, risk reduction strategies, as they played
themselves out over the decade, functioned in a context of
long-term change in environment, technology and demographics.
A look at environmental conditions, especially rainfall,
suggests that given the regularity of periodic drought,
rainfall during these years, although perhaps below normal,
did not fail altogether, nor did it affect as adversely other
farming communities on the northern tier such as Tewe and
Mbaramo. Mlalo's pre-19408 ecological history argues for
rather steady population growth and attendant adjustments in
agricultural technologies which temporarily increased the

basin's carrying capacity, but which failed, by the early

 

12/30/43.

3°TNA 72/62/6 Vol. III, Reports, District Annual, 1944, 1945 and
1946.

31TNA 72/62/6 Vol. III, Reports, District Annual, 1949, no page
numbers.

159
19408, to mitigate what had been normal periodic rainfall

deficits without inputs of food aid.32

Demographic Change

Population records indicate that between 1931 and 1945
the Mlalo Sub chiefdom's population had grown dramatically
and by 1949, the densities had reached 461 persons per square
mile. With extremely steep slopes and rocky outcrops
factored out of the area, the density translated into 994 per
square mile of arable land.33 Immigration from regions‘with
long-standing ties to Mlalo, like the Taita hills and Upare,

probably accounted for much of the increase.34

Table 5. Mlalo Basin and Plains Population by Location, 1931

Mwan oi Mlalo Handei Shita Dule Zaizo Mn aro Lun za
2366 3115 2819 285 1135 446 744 N.A

Total: 10,910. 1931 census indicates that 32% of the total
population were non-Shambaa.

 

32For a synopsis of the arguments surrounding population and
agriculture see Daniel E. Vassey, An Ecological History of Agriculture
10,000 E.C. - A.D. 10,000 (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press,
1992), chapter 8; see also Ester Boserup, "Environment, Population, and
Technology in Primitive Societies," Population and Developnent Review 2
(1976), p. 21-36.

33TNA 4/269/5 Vol I. "Report of the Mlalo Rehabilitation Scheme,"
J.B. Clegg 10/29/49.

3‘4Patrick Fleuret, Farm and Market, p. 98-99.

160

Table 6. Mlalo Basin and Plains Population by Sex, Age,
Location, 1945

Mwangoi Mlalo Handei Shita Dule Zaizo Mngaro Lungu35

 

 

men 968 1275 1098 81 435 175 175 145
women 1099 1317 1282 105 518 206 150 123
girls 866 916 1024 59 471 134 80 66
boys 872 1010 944 93 375 186 82 66
totals 3805 4518 4348 338 1799 701 487 400

 

Total: 16,39636

Population increase placed stress on the system of land
tenure operating at Mlalo, which had been designed to assure
everyone, including newcomers, enough land to procure
subsistence. Each community such as Mwangoi, Shita, or
Handei would hold certain lands (Dezu ) for allocation.37
.Dezu grants, often to landless immigrants, were made by the
‘village official known as the Mdoe. Upon allocation, Dezu
became classified as Ngau, land held in temporary usufruct
only. After two generations of use, Ngau land reverted to
.Dezu, and was again liable for reallocation. The system
tended maximize available land. For example, if a property

owning family emigrated from the basin, their land became

 

35Lunguza figures taken from TNA 4/6/2 which shows number of
taxpayers (adult men) only. Other figures based on percentages of
females and children at Mngaro, another nearby plains settlement.

35Source for population figures: TNA 72/3/25, “Comparison of
population figures for Mlalo Basin 1931 and 1945, p. 24a.

37Dezu formed part of a broader designation of lineage communal lands
known asTundui.

161
Dezu, i.e. liable for allocation. However, if they returned

they could reclaim their former lands once any standing crops
had been harvested. Thus families of long-standing residence
could be held in trust, though not wasted.38

By the mid-19408, Dezu lands were in extremely short
supply and in an adjustment to the tenure system, a
relatively new system of borrowing fields had come into

existence.

A man who has no land of his own borrows fields for
cultivation from neighbours, relatives or friends,
who have more than they are using. There are a
considerable number of land owners who have more
than enough land for their own needs. They are
usually descendants of the original settlers or
sons of men who acquired land by purchase. By
custom an owner cannot refuse to loan his land on
the score that it is under fallow.39

In 1946, under questioning by the government
sociologist, the elders of the Mlalo Basin refused to
acknowledge that these changes in land tenure and reductions
in fallow had reduced soil fertility and yields. Their
refusal, although likely disingenuous, probably reflects both
their fear of removal to the plains and the fact that food
deficits could still be supplemented by purchases from nearby

Mbaramo or by opening fields in Kitivo.‘0 In any event, the

 

38TNA 4/269/6 Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme. ”Addendum to monthly
Report for August, 1947," no page number; see also IT Hasain Singano
Mbuguni, Musa Hasani and Mbwana Qnari Shemzighwa at Mlalo, January 3,
1992.

39TNA 4/269/5 Vol. I. Hans Cory "Report on the Position of Mlalo
Basin after a Stay of 2 1/2 months," no page numbers.

40TNA 4/269/5 Vol. I. Hans Cory, "Report on the Position of Mlalo
Basin after a Stay of 2 1/2 months," no page numbers; for a similar
arugment see IT, Japhet Kalata at Mlalo, December 23, 1991 , p. 2.

162
prevalence of borrowing undermined the long-fallow system and

likely contributed to the kinds of degradation noted by
observers during the 19308 and 19408.

By 1949, on average a family in the Mlalo Basin held
3.43 acres which were split into seven separate fields, all
within a half hour's walk from home. However, over 50% of
Mlaloans held less than 2.03 acres.‘1 Thus for many families,
fallow of any kind could not be maintained in good times or
bad. All available land had to be used for subsistence, at
the very least, and during adequate rains, perhaps a surplus

for the local market.

Intercropping

Given their extremely small holdings, farmers on
Usambara's northern tier historically sought ways to increase
productivity by introducing new cultigens into regional
farming systems. At the turn of the twentieth century,
bananas, a borrowing from Asia, made up the bulk of caloric
intake. During the first four decades of European rule
farmers in Usambara had incorporated two European introduced
crops, maize and potatoes, which by the 19408, had replaced
bananas as the dominant staples. As documented in chapter 3,
farmers had quickly adopted European potatoes, but this
innovation backfired during the 19408 when blight attacked

the crop. In Mbaramo and Mlalo farmers counteracted potato

 

41TNA 4/269/5 Vol I. "Report of the Mlalo Rehabilitation Scheme,"
J.B. Clegg 10/29/49.

163
shortages by increasing the acreage devoted to indigenous

varieties of sweet potatoes, which, although lower yielding
than the exotics, proved more drought resistant.‘2 Sweet
potatoes had been a popular staple during the nineteenth
century and in high elevations too cold for bananas, farmers
had developed several varieties appropriate to a number of
ecological niches and rainfall conditions.‘3

Cassava, another exotic drought resistant, starchy
tuber, gained popularity in the Mlalo and Mbaramo area during
the 19408.‘4 Largely unknown in Mlalo up to the 19308,
cassava came to account for more planted acreage than bananas
or maize.45 Cassava's growing importance during the 19408
signaled a response to declining soil moisture. During
drought, the tubers could remain in the ground in a dormant
state until soil moisture again became available. They also
flourished in soils low in nitrogen.45 However, even cassava
failed to feed Mlalo in 1948 and 1949, when food imported
from the southern side of Usambara provided the bulk of food

supplies.47

 

42IT, Japhet Ralata, at Mlalo, Dec. 23, 1991, p. 2; Rajabu
Shemzinghwa, Mlalo, Dec. 28, 1991, p. 4; Hemedi Ngereza, Mlalo, January
25, 1992, p. 12; Rhadija Mdoe, Mlalo, Feb. 26, 1992, p. 20; Mwanakombo
Shechambo and Mama Majuma Lukindo, Mlalo, Feb, 26, 1992, 21 (Mzee notes
drought resistant variety as Mpome ya xwicho).

43TNA 4/269/5/vol. 1, Annexure IV to "Report of the Mlalo
Rehabilitation Scheme," J.B. Clegg 10/29/49, p. 172.

4“IT Hemedi Ngereza, at Mlalo, January 25, 1992, p. 22; Rhadija Mdoe,
at Mlalo, Feb. 26, 1992, p. 20.

45TNA 4/269/5 Vol I. "Report of the Mlalo Rehabilitation Scheme,"
J.B. Clegg 10/29/49, p. 146.

46Daniel E. Vasey, An Ecological History of Agriculture: 10,000 E.C.
- A.D. 10,000 tunes, Iowa: Iowa Stae University Press, 1992), p. 52.

47TNA 72/62/9B, Monthly Reports for October 1948, p. 29;
November1948, p. 29; February 1949, p. 34; March 1949, p. 35; May 1949,

164
Because farmers recognized that each crop had particular

vulnerabilities to climatic or epidemiological conditions,
they planted a variety of cultigens in each garden. Know as
inter cropping, this agricultural technique had been
practiced around Mlalo at least since the late nineteenth
century. With land in extremely short supply, wide
agricltural application helped farmers make the most of their
meager holdings by stretching each garden's productive
capacity to the limit. The table below shows the actual
acreage devoted to each crop on the average holding of 3.43
acres. The fact that the table acreage adds up to over 5
acres is accounted for by inter cropping and seasonal

rotation of the various crops.

Table 7. Acreage Devoted to Major Crops on Average Holding,
Mlalo

 

Bananas 0.90 acres
Cassava 1.23 acres
Sugar cane 0.56 acres
Maize 1.01 acres
Beans 1.27 acres
Sweet potatoes 0.73 acres

 

Total Acreage = 3.43 acres

 

p. 35; June 1949, p. 37; July 1949, p. 37; August 1949, p. 37; October
1949, p. 40; November 1949, p. 42. By no means a miracle crop, Cassava
proved very vulnerable to attach to "mosaic," a combination of viruses
spread by White Fly and autumn across East Africa. For description of
research see: H.E. Storey and R.F.W. Nichols, "Studies of the Mosaic
Diseases of Cassava," Annals of Applied Biology 25 (1938), p 154.

165
Clearly, Mlalo's dynamic farming system had evolved in

complex ways. Maize and cassava, exotic crops of relative
novelty, had been incorporated in response not only to market
demand, as was the case with maize, but also as an adjustment
to demographic change and alterations in the region's

carrying capacity.

Planting in the Swamps

Up until the 19408, highland marshes (sing. dau), were
an important element in Usambara's mountain landscape. As
water catchment they slowed runoff and helped maintain
constant stream flows. The reeds and grasses which grew
there provided occasional grazing for livestock and thatching
for roofs. Most informants agree that the dau became an
important feature in arable agriculture only during Njaa ya
Chankola.‘8 In fact, farming in daus came to be known as kija
.mshare (delivery from.hunger).‘9 In his 1944 reconnaissance
of the Mlalo basin, F.J. Nutman noted, "The bottom is
relatively level, but is by no means flat; and forms a
series of hills separating grassy vleis and drained swamps.
These latter are traversed by the many rivulets forming the

tributaries of the Umba river."5° That Nutman found drained

 

‘eFor a few examples, see IT, Mavoo, Mashambo (mpare, c. 90), at
Rirete, Feb. 21, 1992, p. 48; Hemedi Ngereza,, Mlalo, March 19, 1992, p.
22; Shechambo, Mwanakombo and Mama Majuma Lukindo, Mlalo, Feb, 26, 1992,
p. 21; Kimako, Juma Ringazi, Hoseni Hamsini, Salimu Shekulwavu, Shita,
Feb. 13, 1992, p. 1?.

491T, Mavoo, Mashambo (mpare, c. 90), at Kirete, Feb. 21, 1992, p. 48

5°TNA 72/3/25 vol. 1 "A Study of the Mlalo Basin - An Area Forming
Part of the W. Usambara Development Scheme," Sept. 6, 1945, p. 14b.

166
marshes implies that some planting had commenced there. Five

years later, J.B. Clegg, the colonial Agricultural Officer
charged with Mlalo's rehabilitation, strongly encouraged dau
cultivation as a permanent feature of agriculture in Mlalo.51
Indeed, during the late 19408, headmen allocated these areas
to farmers, and at least in the case of Nyassa, a marshland
draining into the Umba, the traditional tenure arrangements
under Dezu and Mgau did not apply in the dispersal. Those
who got the plots were simply those who could pay the
necessary bribes.52

Without doubt, the draining of the dau lands helped
ease the regional hunger, but the long-term ecological
effects remained a complete mystery to both Mlalo's farmers

and to the colonial agricultural officer.

Irrigation
Farmers of East African highlands had employed

.irrigation technologies for centuries.”3 .Around.Mlalo, a

 

51TNA 4/269/5 Vol I. "Report of the Mlalo Rehabilitation Scheme,"
J.B. Clegg 10/29/49, p. 16.

521T Salim Saguti, Asmani Mdoe and Juma Msagati, at Nyasa (Mlalo),
1/29/92 (interview not recorded).

53W.M Adams, T. Potkanski and J.E.G. Sutton, "Indigenous Farmer-
Managed Irrigation in Sonjo, Tanzania," The Geographical Journal 160
(1994), 17-32; Patrick Fleuret, "The Social Organisation of water
Control in the Taita Hills, Kenya," American Ethnologist 12 (1985), 103-
18; David Anderson, "Agriculture and Irrigation Technology at Lake
Baringo," azania 24 (1989), 89-97; F.T. Masao, "The Irrigation System in
Uchagga: An Ethno-historical Approach," Tanzania notes and Recorde 75
(1974), p. 4-8; and J.E.G Sutton, "Sonjo and Engaruka: Further Signs of
Continuity," 25 (1990), 91-93, "Irrigation and Soil Conservation
inAfricnaAgricultural History: with a REocnsideration of the Inyanga
Terracing (Zimbabwe) and Engaruka Irrigation werks (Tanzania)," Journal
of African History 25 (1984), p. 25-41.

167
hill-furrow system predominated.“ The area's major furrow,

known as Hambalawei, had its off take on the Umba below Mlalo
town. It's local fame notwithstanding, groups of farmers
from the basin's other population centers also constructed
less substantial dams and furrows on the Umba's tributaries.55
A successfully functioning irrigation system required
seasonal labor organization and strict supervision of the
construction and maintenance of dams and furrows.
Responsibility for control of each particular furrow fell to
a particular male elder from an area's controlling lineage.
Usually during June, he called out the all-male labor gangs
in a ceremony known as Shashi, during which workers cleaned
the section of the furrow which watered their respective
gardens. Failure to turn out for shashi would result in
sanctions and possibly the withdraw of right to use the
furrow.”6 In August 1946, Burrows found Mlalo's irrigation
systems in full operation and even suggested that they "be
officially sanctioned for water conservation and erosion

control."57

 

54See Adamo, Ptokansik and Sutton, "Indigenous Farmer-Managed
Irrigation in Sonjo," p. 18-19 for discussion of technical terminology.

5511, Ali Gembe, and son, Shemboza bin Shemndola, Mlalo, Jan. 18th,
1992, p. 6

55 IT, Sheiza, Rasisi Kuambaza Sheiza at Mlalo, January 18, 1992, p.
9; Shechambo, Mwanakombo and Mama Majuma Lukindo at Mlalo, Feb, 26,
1992, p. 12. See also Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, p. 65.

57TNA 4/269/5 vol. I. Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme. Extract
from Burrow's report titled, "The Mlalo Basin, A Rural Sociological
Survey covering 14 days in the Field." 8/24/46. p. 196.

168
Markets

Periodic markets have long existed in Usambara, the most
permanent of which were located near established towns like
Bumbuli, Mlalo, Vuga (Soni) and Gare, i.e. places of
regularly assured harvests. The markets linked contiguous
ecological zones and served to counteract the rather erratic
rainfall distribution within the mountains and between the
mountains and plains. The market system assured food
availability under climatic conditions in which localized
crop failures might occur in any agricultural season.5° Up to
the early twentieth century, this could be accomplished by a
relatively small number of mountain markets.

Between 1900 and 1933, in response to population
increases and decreases in available arable land, the number
of Usambara marketplaces grew from a handful to over thirty.
Patrick Fleuret links the increase (from 1900 right up to the
late 19708) to the reduction in the total acreage of
household holdings and thus the number of fallow plots (see
above). In such constrained circumstances, farmers would be
forced to makeup subsistence shortfalls through barter or
purchase of foodstuffs in the market.'«‘9 Local administrators
recognized the importance of the marketplace system in
lessening the effects of local seasonal food shortages and
noted that without the market system in good working order,

they would be forced to import famine relief supplies during

 

58Fleuret, Farm and Market, p. 165 s 189.
59Ibid., p. 183.

169
poor seasons.5° Food imports were needed during Njaa ya

Chankola, which simply overwhelmed the ability of the market
complex to meet food needs. One reason for the inability of
the market system to redistribute surpluses may have been the
invocation in 1941 of Native Foodstuffs Ordinance, which
limited the amount of produce which could be moved from one
sub chiefdom to another. But it is also likely that the
money needed to purchase surpluses was not readily available
to people at the economic margins. As Cory reported in 1946,

at.i1

weekly gulio [market] in Mlalo, held on
wednesdays, at which hundreds of women assemble,
large quantities of muhogo (cassava), bananas and
other non-staple foodstuffs are bought and sold.
The buyers are the wives of wage earners and the
sellers come from fertile areas and particularly
from irrigable country.61

In any event, the mountain market system alone proved
inadequate during Njaa ya Chankola. Between 1944 and 1946,
the colonial government brought to the northern parts of
Usambara well over a thousand tons of food relief, with
additional imports in 1949.62 However, the hungry had to
purchase this food.“3 Thus, Njaa ya Chankola marked the

beginning of a period in which cash became one the most

 

5°Ibid., p. 184.

61TNA 4/269/5 Vol. I. Hans Cory, "Report on the Position of Mlalo
Basin after a Stay of 2 1/2 months." no page numbers.

62TNA 72/62/6, vol III, Lushoto Division, Annual Report for 1949.

63TNA 72/62/6 Vol. III, Lushoto Division-Korogwe District, Annual
Report for 1946. C.C. de Rosemund, p. 207e; IT Rajabu Shemzinghwa at
Mlalo, Dec. 28, 1991, p. 4.

170
important mitigators of famine in Usambara.

Coping with Fbod Deficits: McVing FUrther away from Heme

Expanding Kitivo Farming

Farmers in Usambara had for generations farmed the
lowlands in order to supplement highland harvests, but this
practice had clearly intensified on the massif's northern
side by 1944.54 .At Mkundi, below Mtae, 1000 acres of maize
had been planted. At Mnazi below'Mbaramo and at Ritivo below
Mlalo farmers had also increased production. Not all of
increases had been voluntary. Colonial records imply that in
some cases headmen forced some cultivators into plains
production to meet grain quotas for the war effort-55
However, as Milne had explained several years earlier,
productive plains lands were limited and environmental
conditions difficult.

Increased lowland farming led to health problems.
Malaria carrying mosquitoes thrived in the plains swamps and
the increase in lowland farming helps explain the drastic
jump in malaria cases in Lushoto district during the mid
408.56 By the late 408, a survey at the Mwangoi (2)

dispensary showed that, of all patients who walked in for

 

64TNA 72/62/6 vol. III, Lushoto Division-Korogwe District, Annual
Report, 1944, p. 201.

55Ibid.

551hia., pp. 201d and e.

171
treatment, 21.4% carried the malaria parasite.67 In

addition, as cultivators inexperienced in plains farming
became more numerous, ecological degradation began to
decrease yields. In the same areas Milne had identified
several years earlier as filled to capacity, newcomers opened
gardens indiscriminately, especially along the Umba river at
a former German rubber plantation, where one informant
recalled that deforestation and stream bank cultivation

interrupted the river's regular flow and flood patterns.68

Day Labor: Working for Fbod

Another indicator that Mlalo's subsistence farmers could
not meet food needs was the fact that increasingly, people,
especially women, walked from the Mlalo basin to Tewe and

Mbaramo to perform day labor in return for cassava.

Tewe and Mbaramo still had trees so that mists
brought some water to the area. Also folks at
Mbaramo and Tewe planted cassava in great
quantities even though they didn't know that the
drought was coming. This in particular helped the
people of Mlalo . 59

Cory reported in 1946,
The procedure at Mbaramo is that women from the

villages of shortage go to work there as day
laborers and are paid in kind. In May and June I

 

67TNA 4/269/5 Vol I, J.B. Clegg. "Report of the Mlalo Rehabilitation
Scheme," 10/29/49, p. 148.

68IT, Bakari Panduka (82), Abdallah Mdoe (78), Musa Athumani (70),
Ahamadi Rashidi Kidumi (71)at Kitivo, Mng'aro. February 8, 1992, p. 15.

691T Bakari Panduka (82), Abdallah Mdoe (78), Musa Athumani (70),
Ahamadi Rashidi Ridumi (71), at Ritivo, Mng'aro. February 8, 1992,
para. 6, p. 13.

172

saw many women laborers returning daily with their
loads of muhogo (cassava) after work at
Mbaramo.....It is difficult for the people so long
as their supplies are assured, to recognise loss of
fertility in any particular area. p. 4.70

werking Outside the Basin

Cash remittances from relatives working in urban centers
often meant the difference between eating and going hungry.
Since the nineteenth century, Mlalo's men had left the
mountains to work for wages at seaside towns like Mombasa and
Tanga. This practice increased significantly during Njaa ya
Chankola.71 One observer concluded that labor was the area's
main export and that cash remittances were of vital import.72
In the absence of young men, the mashamba ya kigoshi, i.e.
the men's gardens (usually of bananas, and by the 19408,
cassava as well), stood neglected while women and young
children found it impossible to carry out all the work in
their fields and keep the huts in good repair.73 ILabor for
irrigation works would also have been short. A 1949 estimate
put the percentage of Mlalo's men working outside the

Usambaras at 11.88%." Colonial officials certainly believed

 

7OTNA 4/269/5 Vol. I. Hans Cory, “Report,“, p. 4.

71Hemedi Ngereza,, at Mlalo, January 25, 1992, p. 12 a 22; Risimbo,
Hoseni (62), at Malibwi, Jan. 2, 1992, p. 60; TNA 4/269/5 Vol. I. Hans
Cory, “Report on the Position of Mlalo Basin after a Stay of 2 1/2
months,“.

72TNA 4/269/5 vol. I. M.B.R.S. Extract from Burrow's report titled,
"The Mlalo Basin, A Rural Sociological Survey covering 14 days in the
Field." 8/24/46. p. 199.

73TNA 4/269/5 Vol. I. 1946. Hans Cory, "Report on the Position of
Mlalo Basin after a Stay of 2 1/2 months," p. 3.

74TNA 4/269/5 Vol I. "Report of the Mlalo Rehabilitation Scheme,"
J.B. Clegg 10/29/49, p. 152.

173
this type of labor migration to be socially detrimental, but

ongoing contacts with the coast have continued to provide
Mlaloans with valuable employment and marketing contacts in

Tanga and Dar es Salaam up to the present.75

Rainmaking

Some believed that the political action in 1946 against
Chankola stemmed from the fact that the farmers of the Mlalo
basin felt he, as usurper and a rainless one at that, should
be blamed for causing famine. In this sense the
protestations for the rainmaker, Hassani Kinyassi's return
formed part of the drought mitigation package. Again, the
fact that women, by then the major subsistence producers,
participated en masse, reinforces the notion. However, when
placed in its larger context, the April 1946 action in Mlalo
represents part of a broader picture of peasant resistance to
colonial intrusions on production, in this case, the Mlalo
Basin Rehabilitation Scheme, which had begun in early 1946.

Farmers in the Mlalo basin, like their counterparts
across East Africa, had a long history adjusting their
agricultural system to meet challenges to their food
security. By developing and maintaining a complimentary
irrigation system, they had invested in the land's capability

over the long-term. By adopting exotic cultigens, they had

 

7sSee Graham.Thompson, "The Merchants and Merchandise of Religious
Change: The New Orthodoxies of Religious Belief and Economic Behaviour
amongst the Shambala People of Mlalo, North East Tanzania." Ph.D.
dissertation, Clare Hall College, Cambridge, 1984.

174
shown a willingness to experiment and to innovate in response

to ecological and economic conditions. Thus the changes over
the two generations of contact with Europeans showed
continuity with the past. Nonetheless, population increases
and the subsequent decrease in the availability of productive
farmland pushed farmers onto marginal lands where successful
subsistence production, even in good years, was questionable.
Farmers knew there had been degradation, especially
deforestation on the hills surrounding the basin.76 ‘Without
the grain imported by the colonial government, the droughts
of the 19408 would have killed people. Mlalo's farming

system had reached the limits of its resiliency.

Part III. Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme.

While Mlalo's inhabitants set about making a living
under famine conditions prevailing during the war, the
colonial government geared up for a post-war push to
transfomm land-use across the Usambaras. Even though Milne's
call in 1937 for an intensive effort by the Department of
Agriculture had been dismissed by the Director as
unnecessary, District and Provincial officers continued to
impress upon Tanganyika's central government the immediacy of
Usambara's ecological problems, especially at Mlalo. The
Chief Secretary's office responded by fending off all

requests for project fundingu77 By 1944, however, reports

 

7511-, Rajabu Shemzinghwa. Mlalo, Dec. 28, 1991, p. 4.
77TNA 72/3/25 entitled "Mlalo Basin Scheme Correspondence," see

175
emanating from Dar es Salaam began to warm to ideas for

radical alterations in Usambara demography and ecology.
Thus, in 1945, the Tanga Provincial Administration received
permission to study Mlalo's agroecological problems and to
forward a five year plan for rehabilitation. The Provincial
Committee - consisting of the P.C.(Tanga), D.C.(Korogwe),
D.O. (Lushoto), Senior Medical Officer (Tanga), Provincial
Education Officer, Assistant Conservator of Forests
(Lushoto), Senior Agricultural Officer (Lushoto), Provincial
Veterinary Officer, and Chief Kimweri Magogo - oversaw the
preparations for the scheme and commissioned a series of
reports on the position of the Mlalo Basin.

At the behest of the Provincial team, beginning in 1945
and continuing through 1946, European “experts“ traversed the
Mlalo Basin, formulating reports on husbandry and society
complete with suggestions for its reform. .As the above
discussion of mitigation points out, Mlalo's farmers,
responding to a four-year drought had skewed production
toward maximum.use of all available land. Not surprisingly,
European observers argued that the ecological problems they
saw stemmed from a Malthusian situation in which population
increases had knocked the “traditional“ long-fallow farming
system out of equilibrium.

F.J. Nutman penned the first of these reports. Nutman

had some experience in the Usambaras as a plant pathology

 

correspondence between D.C. Rorogwe, P.C. Tanga, and R.R. Staples, Chief
Botanist.

176
specialist at Amani in East Usambara and later as the head of

the Fibre Board Plant at Shume in West Usambara's forest
reserve. His experience notwithstanding, the Provincial
Committee for the most part dismissed his report as
superficial and inaccurate.78 INonetheless, in his suggestions
for reform, Nutman cogently argued that the area required a
long-term plan for diversifying its economic base. Mlalo's
future economy, he believed, should include both agriculture
(market gardening, horticulture, wattle plantations) and
industry (timber processing, wool production).79

In early October, about a month after Nutman submitted
his report, Van Rensberg, the Territory's "Pasture Research
Officer" arrived at Mlalo. He stayed two days.°° .As a
pasture expert, Van Rensberg sought to vindicate the Basin's
livestock, which he felt had been unfairly blamed for
accelerated erosion. Mlalo's problems, he argued, had been
"created by unlimited, uncontrolled and wasteful methods of
cultivation; and lack of effort to build up a system of
balanced mixed farming where the animal can play its proper

role.“1 Erosion control via ridges built along steep slopes,

 

78TNA 72/3/25 vol. 1, "Minutes of Provincial Committee Convened to
Discuss Dr. Nutman's 'Study of the Mlalo Basin.' Held at Lushoto on 10th
and 11 December, 1945," pp. 40-51 (numbered from back to front); see
also "A Study of the Mlalo Basin - An Area Forming Part of the W.
Usambara Development Scheme," F.J. Nutman, September 6, 1945, p. 14 (a-
g) (Hereafter "The Nutman Report.")

79TNA 72/3/25 vol. 1, "The Nutman Report," p. 14c-f.

80TNA 72/3/25 vol. 1, S.A. Linton, Senior Agricultural Officer,
Lushoto to the Provincial Commissioner, Tanga, December 3, 1945, p. 21.

81TNA 72/3/25 vol. 1, "Land Utilization and Soil Conservation Scheme
for the western Usambaras," H.J. Van Rensberg, November 7, 1945, " p.
17.

177
in Van Rensberg's view, was the key to successful husbandry.82

Both Nutman and Linton (Senior Agricultural Officer,
Lushoto) took issue with Van Rensberg's suggestion for ridge
construction. Linton wrote that "one might just as well talk
of giving demonstrations of hydroponics with a view to the
time when there is no soil left on the mt."83 'The objection
is particularly significant considering that tie ridging,
i.e. building ridges of raised soil along the contour of a
hill, subsequently became among Usambara's farmers the most
hated aspect of the government's agricultural reform program
of the 19509.

The Provincial Committee met twice during December 1945
to consider Nutman's, Van Rensberg's and an earlier report
(Staples), and to decide their view on the conditions and
causes of Mlalo's ecological problems. They agreed on the

following:

1. 80% of arable land in Mlalo was under cultivation;
population density exceeded soc/mu}; the basin was "grossly
overcrowded" with an average holding of 4.48 acres.

2. Crowding resulted in cultivation of steep slopes and
reduction of communally owned grazing lands and accelerated
erosion.

3. Mlalo's soils were not then, or had they ever been,
very fertile.

4. Food imports proved that the population could not
produce its own subsistence.

5. In order to procure cash, much of Mlalo's population
performed wage labor outside the basin.

6. Mlalo's population did not enjoy a higher standard

 

82Ibid,. p. 17c. Van Rensberg suggests bench terraces, grass strips
planted along stream courses and hill contours, tie ridging.

93TNA 4/269/5/ M.B.R.S. vol. I. Sen. Ag. Officer to P.C. Tanga
12/3/45, p. 44-45; see also TNA 72/3/25 "Land Utilization in w.
Usambara." F.J. Nutman 12/3/45, p. 18.

178

of living than other regions in the Usambaras, as Nutman had
contended.

7. The population did not understand the seriousness of
the erosion problem.

8. Current scientific knowledge could solve the erosion
problem.

9. Erosion Control was first priority and any scheme
must be enforced with maximum diligence.°‘

Significantly, the report made absolutely no mention of
the variety of indigenous farming practices, nor had anyone
anywhere actually measured the rate of soil erosion on even
one of Mlalo's slopes. To the Provincial Committee
overpopulation had overtaxed a farming system without the
flexibility or technological capacity to adapt. With this
understanding, the committee began to formulate a plan for
Mlalo's rehabilitation. Nutman continued to press his
opinion that whatever the shape of the scheme, it should
include an industrial component based on agroforestry. Thus,
Nutman argued, farmers could be removed from the land without
having to leave the basin. In the end, the Provincial
Committee tossed out Nutman's scheme in favor of the so-
called ”Staples Plan," which advocated a mixed system of
animal and crop husbandry operating under strict erosion
control measures on 10 to 15 acre farms. However, given that
Mlalo's farmers seldom held more than four acres of widely
scattered gardens, the Staples plan clearly would drive

substantial numbers of people out of the Mlalo Basin.'5 In

 

94m 72/3/25 "Provincial Coninittee to Chief Sec. 12/29/45.
"Meeting to Discuss Nutman's scheme." p. 22a.

85TNA 4/269/5 vol I, 'Precis of the various suggested schemes fo the
Rehabilitation of the Hlalo Basin 3/16/46, p.42; TNA 72/3/25, r.J.
Nutman, ”Land Utilization in.West Usambara, 3/12/45. p. 18

179
these preliminary meetings, the Committee never directly

addressed the issues of displaced families except in the

following vague reference:

Any scheme which will tend to relieve the
population pressure in the Mlalo Basin is to be
commended and despite the danger of malaria the
Kitivo and Luengera suggestions mentioned in the
Report of the Tanga Province Sub- Committee on land
for post war development should be considered from
this point of view.“5

In Dar es Salaam, the Colonial Administration accepted
the Committee's findings, but expressed concern about the
implications of the government actively displacing people, a
move central government believed would be resisted. The
central government preferred to let economic pressures reduce
the numbers living in Mlalo. Thus simply ignoring the issue
of population control, the Director of Agricultural
Production in February 1946, gave the go-ahead for Hans Cory,
the government's sociologist, to begin a demographic and
sociological survey and for the soil erosion control measures
to begin in July.87 Rules laying out proper land use were
drawn up and the Native Authority empowered to enforce them
as well as "to effect the compulsory exchange of land." The
Department of Agriculture approved an expenditure of £15,000

over 5 years . 9'

 

86TNA 72/2/25, Provincial Committee to Chief Secretary, 12/29/45, p.
22a. Kitivo and Luengera are lowland ares directly adjacent to the
massif on the northwestern and southeastern sides respectively.

87TNA 72/3/25 R.H.R. Miller, Director of Agricultural Production to
Chief Secretary, 2/6/46, p. 26a.

88TNA 25576 "Tanganyika Territory Soil Conservation Report for 1945-
46., p. 46a.

180
Part IV. The Mlalo Scheme: A Study in Failure

Of the numerous reports and correspondence for 1946
regarding the Mlalo basin's rehabilitation, only one referred
to the 4 continuous years of chronic drought, insect and
disease infestations of crops, and hunger.89 'That the famine
did not figure into the decisions regarding the scheme
reveals a clear lack of historical understanding both of
long-term changes in mountain agriculture and ecology and the
short-term strategies for procuring food during ecological
crisis. Moreover, the fact that a new D.O. (Rosemund) had
only recently taken over for Dobson probably accounts for the
lack of continuity in understanding Mlalo's political
turmoil. Whatever the case, in Feb. 1946, Cory entered a
hornets' nest. Hunger was prevalent and the opposition to
Chankola's rule had begun to surface. As noted above, the
April 1946 demonstrations against Chankola represented, in
part, a last ditch effort to restore the rains but also a
regional reaction to the colonial intervention which Cory
represented.

As he began to conduct his survey in February 1946, Cory
certainly noticed that something was seriously askewu9° In
fact, he suggested postponing the survey until the "political
situation had cleared.”1 iBy June, Cory sought to leave of

Mlalo altogether and accordingly the census and village

 

89TNA 72/3/25 Extract from Burrows "The Mlalo Basin: A Rural
Sociological Study covering 14 Days in the Field,“ 8/24/46, p. 64a.

9OTNA 4/269/5 Vol. 1, Cory to Hartnoll, P.C. Tanga 2/6/46, p. 135
9lIbid.

181
surveys were postponed. Without the surveys, Cory's final

report read only as a general statement of sociological
conditions in the Mlalo Basin.92 In the light of these
difficulties, the P.C. argued for the postponement of
unpopular anti-erosion measures because he believed that
enforcement "might lead to further agitations which would be
embarrassing [to the Provincial Administration]."93

In keeping with the Mlalo Scheme's inauspicious
beginnings, J.B. Clegg, the newly appointed Agricultural
Officer in charge of the project, arrived at Mlalo in July
1946, at the height of the yearly dry season. Making perhaps
the most intelligent choice of his tenure at Mlalo, he chose
to live in Halindi, a market town located on a mountain ridge
on the edge of the basin and away from the vortex of hunger
and unrest. Informants remember Clegg as severe,
militaristic, and righteous about his mission" Clearly the

old men of Mwangoi did not like him.

Some wazee [elders] from.Ewangoi came up early on
Thursday 7/25/46 and put a curse on the camp site.
I have warned the Jumbe Ndodo of Mwangoi that
unless he takes adequate action against them, I
will run him up before the D.O. for permitting the
practice of witchcraft in his village and also
permitting his wazee to hinder my work. He seemed

 

92THA 4/269/5 Vol. 1, D.C. Rorogwe to Cory, p. 137. For Cory's
report see: TNA 4/269/5 Vol. I. Hans Cory, "Report on the Position of
Mlalo Basin" submdtted to the Provincial Commissioner, 8/31/46, or
TNA72/3/25 "Report on a Stay of 2 1/2 months at Mlalo." 8/31/46, p 63.

93TNA 4/269/5/ A.V. Hartnoll, P.C. Tanga to R.A.J. Haguire Acting
Administrative Secretary, Dar es Salaam, July 19, 1946.

94IT Hemedi Ngereza, Mlalo, January 25, 1992, para. 6, p. 13; Juma
Zahabu,.Bandei, March 26, 1992, p. 30; Japhet Kalata, Mlalo, December
23, 1991, p. 2.

182
to be very worried....95

Opening on this note of intimidation, Clegg began the
Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme. The project had two
components. The first, a detailed sociological survey would
build on Cory's general observations through the
administration of a detailed questionnaire designed to
provide demographic, agricultural and economic information.
The second called for Clegg to lay out a demonstration area
on about 1000 acres at Shita, a hamlet a few kilometers from
Mlalo. On this experimental farm, labor gangs recruited by
local headmen would rehabilitate eroded slopes using contour
hedges. Further, to demonstrate proper livestock husbandry,
fodder grasses would be planted and livestock confined to
stalls.

.Almost immediately Clegg encountered resistance.96
Trying to assuage fears of land alienation, the District
Officer organized a baraza, where he and Clegg tried to
explain the aims of the scheme to a suspicious crowd of 800
men. 97 The throng wanted information about long-term plans,
particularly if the government intended to evict them.cnce

the land had been "rehabilitated." If not, why, the men

 

95m 72/62/9B "Mlalo Scheme - Monthly Reports," July 1946, J.B.
Clegg. p. 2.

95THA 72/62/9A "Reports — Mlalo Scheme- Quarterly Reports," for the
Period ending 12/31/46, p. 1.

97TNA 72/3/25 D.O. Lushoto (Rosemond) to D.C. Korogwe, 10/11/46, p.
57. The ex-Jumbe of Shita, the location where the demonstration project
would be laid out, claimed that there was no land shortage in the Basin
and rejected the government's ideas about agricultural reform, Hlalo,
he claimed, had always been eroded.

183
wanted to know, was precious fallow being planted up with

fodder grasses? Why was Clegg measuring homes and gardens at
Shita? The D.O. reassured the crowd that nobody would be
evicted.”

Although the D.O. had promised not to displace
residents, Clegg quickly discovered that cultivable land was
in such short supply that even the demonstration project's
need for 1000 acres would have to be reduced to 650 acres.
Moreover, even that could only be gotten through the coerced
alienation of communal grazing fields and subsistence
gardens.” By the end of 1946, Clegg's African staff had
encountered stiff opposition to the village survey,
especially at Shita and Mwangoi, where resistance to Chankola
had been especially strong.100 Continuing famine heightened
the tension, and hundreds who had run out of savings, either
cash or livestock, ended up working for wages on the
demonstration farm. Meanwhile hundreds of males, some as
young as 13, travelled the well trodden path to the coast to
find work. In October 1946 Clegg estimated that of males 13
yrs. and upward, 20% were out of the Basin working for cash

in Tanga and Mombasa.m1 Even if one had cash, food prices

 

98TNA 72/3/25 D.O. Lushoto (Rosemond) to D.C. Korogwe, 10/11/46, p.
57

99TNA 72/62/9B "Mlalo Scheme — Monthly Reports, August, 1946, J.B.
Clegg, p. 3a.

100TNA 72/62/9A "Reports - Mlalo Scheme— Quarterly Reports," for the
Period ending 12/31/46, p. l.

101-TNA 72/62/9B "Mlalo Scheme - Monthly Reports, October, 1946, J.B.
Clegg, p. 5A; for outmigration see, TNA 4/269/6, Mlalo Scheme, Annual
Report, 12/20/46.

184
had reached exorbitant levels at the local markets.102

During the second half of 1947 the food situation
appears to have eased as adequate Vuli rains fell in 1946 and
again in 1947. Nonetheless, resistance to the scheme
continued, albeit more subtly than in 1946. Many still
refused to cooperate with the survey, and farmers dragged
their feet when ordered to adopt the anti-erosion rules
imposed across the basin in 1947.103 The resistance appears
to have again coalesced around the chama, a coalition of
former headmen and business-minded farmers, which had helped
to garner some of the agitation against Chankola. In 1947,
Chama members had turned their opposition toward the Mlalo
Scheme by spreading a rumor that the Shita demonstration area
had been purchased by the D.O. and that it would be taken
over by Europeans. They had also allegedly threatened the
agricultural instructors.““

In late 1947, to counter the District Commissioner sent
to Mlalo F. H. Jackson, an Assistant District Officer from
Korogwe. Clegg organized a baraza at Mlalo town which was
attended by about 2000 "taxpayers." The crowd assailed the
officers over the demonstration project at Shita, which had
to be called the "Bomo Scheme" and prompted Jackson to visit
practically every hamlet in the Mlalo subchiefdom (he left

 

102TNA 72/62/9B "Mlalo Scheme - Monthly Reports, October, 1946, J.B.
Clegg, p. 5a.

1°3rnn 4/269/5 vol. 1. Land Utilization Rules, 11/20/46, p. 211—212.

104TNA 72/3/25 F.H. Jackson, A.D.O. Rorogwe, "Report on Activities in
Connection with Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme 12/8/47 - 6/1/48,", p.
122a.

185
out the Mbugu areas) in order to undermine the Chama's

opposition and to secure cooperation for the scheme. In less

than a month, he believed he had succeeded.

[I]t is difficult to accurately gauge the shift of
native opinion in this backward and intrigue ridden
area of Mlalo; but I think I may fairly say that I
have got the cooperation of the people...and have
undertaken a propaganda offensive against the Chama
which is bearing fruit.105

Jackson's confidence notwithstanding, the rehabilitation
scheme's continued to operate under a cloud and Clegg decided
to ease the enforcement of the soil conservation rules.
Undaunted, Clegg tried to manipulate political
arrangements by appointing to Kinyassi's office a new
assistant chief, who "forced the various divisional headmen
to produce labor for the scheme." Labor turnout at the
demonstration farm.increased four-fold while all those
voicing opposition were fined heavily.106 However, Clegg's
successes proved short-lived as passive resistance continued,
especially at Mwangoi and Handei, where the headman openly
allowed livestock to graze on crop stubble, a contravention
of scheme rules.“” Even agricultural instructors began to
oppose the scheme surreptitiously.108 Hassani Kinyassi

himself helped precipitate effective resistance. As a local

 

105TNA 72/62/9B "Mlalo Scheme, Short Interim Report on Activities in
Connection with the Mlalo REhabilitation Scheme 11/28/47 - 12/20/47, p.
20.

106TNA 4/269/6 Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme, Progress Report,
Jan. 1948. J.B. Clegg, p. 113a, c.

1°7TNA 72/62/9B, Monthly Report for July, 1948, p. 28.

1OBTNA 72/62/9B, Monthly Report for September, 1948, p. 29.

186
B-court judge, he continually delayed ruling on conservation

rule violations which came before him.“” Farmers knew
implicitly that they could circumvent the rules.

Still, Clegg kept pressing. In April 1948, he decided
to alter the erosion control measure in the demonstration
area. Hehe-style tie ridges replaced what had become a
useless system of contour hedges. The so-called "Hehe
system," adopted from ridge cultivation practiced in southern
Tanganyika, required yearly building up and breaking down of
raised mounds of soil and organic matter. When the women of
Mwangoi visited the demonstration area and saw the ridges,
they objected to the hard work involved. Soon after, the
women of Handei arrived at Shita to protest the making of
ridges. Clegg blamed the Jumbe of Mwangoi for putting the
women up to the protest, arguing that the Jumbe knew that if
the complaint were made by the women, they would not be
punished. Fines were, however, handed out.110

By March 1949, drought had ruined the Vuli plantings of
1948 and some areas of the basin were again experiencing
severe food shortages. weevils attacked the banana gardens
left unkept by farmers away working at the coastal towns. By
May the food shortages had become general and only cassava,

staved off starvation.rn- By June 1949, most of the cassava

 

109TNA 4/269/6 Mlalo Basin Rehab. Scheme Report for year ending
12/31/48.

11°TNA 72/62/9B Mlalo Scheme, Monthly Reports, April, 1948, J.B.
Clegg, p. 25.

111TNA 72/62/9B, Monthly Reprot for March 1949, p. 35; TNA 72/62/9B,
Monthly Report for May 1949, p. 35, J.B. Clegg: TNA 72/62/9B, Monthly
Reprot for June 1949, p. 37, David Mwakosya.

187
crop had been harvested and eaten so that during October and

November preparations for the all-important short rains
plantings slackened as the able-bodied population searched
for food. Some went so far as to feed on the plantings
formerly used to establish the contour hedges. Those living
adjacent to the demonstration areas broke down tie ridges and
dug up and destroyed elephant grass plantings to make room
for cultivation. Some relief came when the 1949 short rains
fell, albeit weeks late. Fortunately by May 1950, the end of
the Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme, farmers in the Mlalo
basin were once again harvesting crops. What saved them.was
their own mitigation system rather than the rehabilitation
envisioned by the Scheme's planners.

Nonetheless, Clegg's final report on the Mlalo Scheme
read like a story of complete success.112 His "before"
picture painted the usual negative view of an overcrowded,
eroded and deforested landscape complete with a farming
system in danger of complete collapse. The demonstration
farm (650 acres) used land in radically different ways than

the Basin's farmers had seen.

 

112Discussion of Clegg's final report comes from: TNA 4/269/5 Vol I.
"Report of the Mlalo Rehabilitation Scheme," J.B. Clegg 10/29/49, pp.
145-52.

188

Table 8. Acreages Devoted to Major Crops, Old System/New
System, Mlalo Basin

 

 

Type Acres-Old System Acres-New System
Forest 5 130
Bananas 50 130
Cultivated Land 295 330
Pasture 285 10
Fodder Craps nil 30
Roads nil 5
Villages 15 15
Total 650 650

 

Under this arrangement, Clegg argued, milk yields had
increased four-fold, streams around Shita ran clear and
neither flooded nor dried up during 1949 and yields on ridges
had increased.

Although, according to Clegg, the demonstration project
had succeeded, in general, he lamented that land use in the
Mlalo Basin had continued to degrade the environment. He
warned that fertility must be raised and maintained through
the addition of organic matter and thus the application of
"Hehe ridging." Moreover, Clegg believed that successful
agriculture in Mlalo depended on the permanent expansion of
annual cropping to swamps, which had only been used during
times of dearth. He also recommended that the irrigation

system.be limited to terraced, ridged or flat land. Under

189
the new system the area available for food would increase by

36% (1.25 acres per family). However, even considering
successful adoption of the new farming system, Clegg argued
that "when...the annual increase of population of 2.54% is
taken into consideration the conclusion is inescapable, "...a
portion of the population should be moved." The most likely
area seemed to Clegg to be the Lwengera Valley east of the
massif.

Finally, Clegg's experience with the Native Authorities
had taught him that they could not oversee soil conservation.
He advocated stricter measures than heavy fines and

imprisonment.

The penalty for non-compliance with rules for land
utilisation, could then be movement of the
offending family out of the area, assuming of
course that a suitable period for propaganda has
been allowed.

Part IV. Conclusion

During the 19408 successive and overlapping crises in
politics and production struck the Mlalo basin. They stemmed
from a convergence of long- and short-term.trends in land
use, land tenure, and demography which colonial officials
understood poorly, if at all. Nonetheless, in the spirit of
the postewar impetus toward modernization and development,
the colonial government moved ahead with its efforts to
reform human/environmental relations in the Mlalo basin. The
result was utter failure.

The crux of the problem lay in the timing of the

190
colonial initiative and the assumptions which underpinned it.

Although evidence points to the presence of ecological stress
by the mid 19403, one of the most convincing markers being
Njaa ya Chankola itself, African farmers had historically
coped with stress and altered the farming system when need
be. The reform planners - Nutman, Linton, Van Rensberg,
Staples, et al. - viewed African agriculture as static and
technologically backward. They wrote without comprehending
that the farming system had maximized production in response
to drought, insect infestations and plant diseases. They did
not grasp the subtleties of coping behavior. Furthermore,
inits porrly timed atack on the rainmaker, Hassani Kinyassi,
the colonial government alienated the one person who probably
understood the dynamics of the situation and who could have
tempered the ill-informed colonial intervention with sound
advice on reform.

The approaches to Mlalo's problems reflect what Piers
Blaikie has identified as the "classic approach to soil
erosion and conservation. "113 That is, the government
identified degradation as primarily an environmental problem
with environmental solutions. Thus, in the Mlalo case,
mitigation meant simply hedge planting and terrace building.
The Provincial team.saw a picture of too many people
destructively mining too little land, rather than a group of

knowledgeable farmers adapting an agricultural system to

 

11:‘lPiers Blaikie, the Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing
Countries (New York: Longman, 1985), p. 53.

191
changing environmental, demographic and economic realities.

In an extremely complex situation, governmental action
remained simplistic and inflexible. For example, at the
political level, Clegg and the district administration
manipulated the offices of sub-chief, and below that headman,
to secure cooperation. To its credit, the scheme's planners
did seek to understand social organization through Cory's
sociological survey, but the current of political unrest made
his task impossible in 1946, as it did subsequently for
Clegg's team.

The resistance which the rehabilitation scheme unleashed
was complex and much remains to be learned about it. As far
as current research allows, it can be divided into two
phases. The first phase, culminating in the April 1946 riots
in Mlalo town, when hundreds of women threatened to kill
Chankola, represents, I believe, a desperate effort to
mitigate the effects of the ongoing famine. It occurred in
response to Chankola's failure to carry out his
responsibilities as Mlalo's paramount, traditionally an
office held by a powerful rainmaker. In other words, he had
violated the system of reciprocity.114 The oral evidence
suggests that the movement in the Pare mountains helped
provide some impetus to this protest as well, but this
intriguing link requires further investigation.

The second phase constitutes a more subtle and organized

 

114For a discussion of reciprocity in peasant societies see James
Scott,

192
type of resistance to the government's attempt at

environmental control. It included noncompliance
conservation rules, sabotage, ritual curses, as well as vocal
protest.

Referring to the scheme, Edward Twinning, Tanganyika's

governor, noted in 1949:

There at a glance you see an example of everything
in the armoury o f the jargon of the Imperial
College of Agriculture put into practice. It may
indeed be an agricultural masterpiece. It is
certainly a psychological blunder. It seems that
those methods which can only be described as a
return to direct rule, without perhaps the
ruthlessness which the Germans would have used.115

Although Clegg claimed success on the 600 acre demonstration
plot, farmers effectively undermined attempts to incorporate
conservation measures into their farming system. In
addition, famine conditions forced Clegg to open the marsh
lands to permanent cultivation. Finally, the Mlalo scheme
embittered peasant farmers' toward any type of state

intervention in local land use practice.

 

115From TNA 33049, "Psotwar Reconstruction: Developnenmnt of the
Western Usambaras," vol. iv, note by his Excellency the Governor on his
visit to Mlalo, 8/31/49, quoted in Steven Feierman, Peasant
Intellectuals, p. 149.

193
Table 9. Rainfall and Guests, Mlalo 8/46 - 12/49

 

 

 

 

 

 

Month Rainfall

July/46 "Only very_local showers"

August "A little light rain, but nothing
useful

September "It has been raining hard very

nearly every day fo the last
eight days. Before this a number
of light showers.

October "Since 10/22/46 there has been
plenty of rain. According to
local rainmakers, it should have
started a week earlier.

November Month has been dry, but
fortunately the rain came at the
end of the month just in time to
save the young maize.

December Fair amount of rain during the
first half of the month followed
by sporadic rains during the

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

second.
January/47 Rain on 8 days during the month
February 2.14" on 3 days
March 3.43" on 11 days
April 10.61" fell on 20 days
May 5.63" throughout the month.
June 0.51" between lst and 9th, rest
of the month we cold and dry.
July Very dry and cold, no rain
August 0.505" during first half of the
month, after that, nothing.
September 0.316" fell during the month.

weather cold and wet. On a
number of days, though no rain
has fallenit has been very wet
and misty.

October 0.88" fell during first and last
weeks of the month. total 27.12"
since beginning of yr.

November 3.75" fell on 9 days during the
first half of the mo. and 3 days
during the last half.

December very wet, 9.87" fell making

41.32." for the year.

 

 

 

 

Table 9 (continued).

194

 

January 1948

2.73". Most fell during first 3
wks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 1948 7.67" fell on 19 days. 14.38 so
far this yr. Mbaramo wet
throughtout the month. Mtae,
except for 4 days during end
month there was no rain.

May 2/38" fell on 23 days Lighter
rains at Mbaramo, Mtae.

June 1.29 on 9 days

July 0.06 on 3 days.

August 0.52 on 3 days

Sept. 0.01 on 1 day

October 0.71 on 3 days

November 2.11 on 11 days

December 9.98 on 13 days

January 1949 1.10 inches of rain

February 1.54"

March 0.31" The whole of the period
from the end of the short rains
proper, in December, has been
extremely dry.

May 1.69" Slight Showers during the
early half of the month.

June nil.

July slight showers during early part
of month. total 0.74"

August 0.008" Frost above 6000ft.

September 0.830" Dry and Cold w/
occassional clouds.

October One day of rain at 0.095" Dry
and Cold with slight frosts above
6000 ft.

November Rain at Malindi, 11 days at 2.68"

Satisfactory rains in Mbaramo, in
Mlalo and Mtae, rain has been
patchy and insufficient for
planting. Nov. rainfall
abnormal.

 

December (general)

 

6.41" good rains fell at Mlalo,
Mtae and Mbaramo. Short rains

have started abnormally late.

Chapter 6

Ecological Reform and Transition

Introduction

Between 1964 and 1966, peasant farmers from across
northern Usambara cut and burned approximately 35,000 acres
of Usambara's plateau forest transforming over 50 miziof
woodland into farmland. The Forestry Department referred to
this sudden and striking alteration in mountain ecology as
the "Lukozi excision." Although only one of a series of such
excisions during the 19508 and 19608, Lukozi was by far the
largest and generated serious long-term environmental side-
effects. The destruction of the Lukozi forest marked a
conjuncture of long-term demographic, economic, political and
ecological trends. Moreover, it indicates a pattern of
ecological stress which still plagues the region. This
chapter explains how, during the 19503, colonial imperatives
regarding natural resource conservation and exploitation,
market forces and local politics contributed to ecological
change. Further, it charts the environmental costs of
degradation.

The early signs of ecological stress appeared in the
guise of the 1940s famines. Farmers mitigated their
difficulties, in part, by relying on long-tested practices

like temporary cultivation of valley bottoms, plains farming,
195

196
irrigation etc., and some of these land use patterns

continued into the 19503. In terms of exchange, periodic
markets continued to link mountain regions which produced_
different commodities, or which depended on different seasons
for agricultural production. Thus, for example, maize,
manioc or sweet potato surpluses from the southern side of
the massif could be marketed in the north. At the same time,
rice from Ritivo plains below the northern slopes found its
way to the southern communities. However, as noted above,
the proliferation of periodic markets in W. Usambara marked
the increase of localized food shortages and an increasing
dependence on cash for subsistence food purchases. In
addition, the evidence for the 1950s shows clearly that the
post-war period ushered in a broadening of the scale of
exchange, now inextricably tied to the wider East African and
global economies.

Increased trade the mountain's periodic markets,
coincided with a boom in demand for vegetable produce in the
coastal cities of Tanga and Dar es Salaam. Growers
throughout Tanganyika's highlands, including Usambara,
responded by producing thousands of tons of cabbages,
tomatoes, onions, carrots and other horticultural crops.
Moreover, a steady rise in world sisal prices in 1951 and
1952 led to a growth of profits and production on the Pangani
Valley estates. More than ever before, males from the west
Usambara mountains chose to join the ranks of migrant workers

on the sisal plantations, creating a demand on the estates

197
for foodstuffs.1 Usambara's cash crop producers thus joined

other Tanganyikans in producing cash crops on an
unprecedented scale.2

Few, however, reached affluence. As suggested by the
expansion of the market system, rapid population increases in
Usambara between 1931 and 1957 had squeezed some farmers onto
plots so small or so infertile that they could no longer
produce a subsistence, let alone surpluses for the growing
market. Furthermore, thousands of impoverished and landless
farmers worked in the forest reserve as "squatter" labor.
Others moved out of the mountains completely seeking either
wage labor or land in other districts. Finally, although the
precise character of rural differentiation is difficult to
dertermine, it clearly had a gender bias. women increasingly
bore the brunt of subsistence production as men either took
up market gardening, or travelled to the plains to cut sisal,
in itself a particularly unpleasant and dangerous prospect.

In this context of rural economic complexity, the
British administration extended the soil conservation
principals of the Mlalo Basin Rehabilitation Scheme to the
rest of the mountains beginning in 1950. Between 1950 and
'57, the rural population successfully resisted the
rehabilitation effort with a variety of strategies, but

constant threats of fines and imprisonment fueled a palpable

 

1TNA 72/62/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Report, 1951, no page number
(hereafter npn); TNA 72/3/2 vol. IV, Lushoto Monthly Report,
Agriculture, July 1956, A.O. Lushoto (Silcocks) to Provincial
Agricultural Officer, Tanga, npn.

2John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979), ch. 14.

198
bitterness among the rural population toward the colonial

government and especially the Native Authorities responsible
for enforcement. Adding fuel to the fire, European settler-
farmers, seeking to benefit from favorable producer prices,
moved into the mountains and bought up many of the former
German estates which the Custodian of Enemy Properties had
held since the 1938 expulsion of German nationals.3 .As
African farmers sought new areas to cultivate, sharp disputes
over land broke out across the mountains accompanied by anti-
European feelings, which stemmed from the large tracts of
unworked estate lands bordered by concentrations of land-
hungry Africans.‘

The 1950s and 19608 also marked an uprecedented assault
on Usambara's forests. Forest "squatters," living in the
Shume/Magamba forest had benefitted little from their tenure
as shifting cultivators working for the forest service acted
to secure permanent rights to land as a settled population.
Mbugu herders living just outside the forest reserve,
transformed one and for all into farmers and sold off most of
their livestock. No longer able to conserve the
forest/pasture environment, they out what forest remained on
Public Lands. Inside the forest reserve, private concerns,
African and European, capitalized on high timber prices by
quickly cutting out mature specimens of Usambara camphor and

podo. In fact, timber became Usambara's most lucrative cash

 

3TNA 72/62/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Report, 1950, npn.
‘TNA 72/US/53 Usambara Scheme, "Progress Report," June 1951, R.H.
Gower D.O., npn.

 

 

 

' *IIHI

_‘-_I_

199
crop export. In response, more foreigners, this time Kenyans

of Kisii district, streamed into the moutains to cut trees
with hand saws.

The stresses and strains on mountain farmers and natural
resources became important aspects of national politics.
Just as in other East African regions, access to productive
land became an increasingly contentious and overtly political
issue tied, in the Tanganyikan case, to the nationalist
politics the Tanganyika Afican National Union (TANU) led by
Julius Nyerere. After independence, the TANU government
distributed to peasant farmers huge swaths of forest reserve
land. The most famous of these, the Lukozi excision, was
only the most obvious case. Although the newly available
land benefitted peasant farmers in the short run, massive
deforestation and the more creeping tendencies toward severe
ecological degradation in the agricultural zones have had

serious repercussions over the long-term.

I. Cash Cropping: Winners and Losers

Since the late nineteenth century, Usambara's farmers
altered agriculture in response to trade opportunities and
subsistence needs. The trend continued in the 19503 when the
sisal boom and the growth of urban markets for food in Dar es
Salaam.and Tanga stimulated an unprecedented expansion of
cash crop production in the mountains. In West Usambara,

cabbages, onions and tomatoes, foods alien to local diet, led

200
the list of legally exported crops.5 In 1953 alone, 700 tons

of vegetables left the mountain markets bound for coastal
markets. Unlike the agricultural expansion of the 1920s and
303, where farmers reopened abandoned lands, the market
gardening of the 1950s involved cultivation of the dau, a
swampy valley bottom in the mountains where the presence of
abundant ground water and fertile alluvial soils suited the
moisture needs of the vegetables.

Because of the labor involved in clearing and draining
them, daus had historically served as famine reserve lands
cultivated only during emergencies prior to Njaa ya Chankola.6
But the 19408 food shortages prompted the agricultural
officer at Mlalo to order that they be opened permanently to
subsistence productiont7 However, once a regular bus service
cheaply linked dau lands to the main roads running to Tanga
and Dar es Salaam, market gardening became profitable.
Production simply took off around Mlalo, and especially in

the vicinity of Soni.8

 

5TNA 72/62/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Report, 1950, npn.

6Usambara Interview Transcripts (hereafter UIT), Sabuni Mbilu and
John Mntangi Epiphan at Rwemashai, Feb. 23, 1992, p. 43.

7See chapter 5, p. 47; UIT Hemedi Ngereza, Mlalo, March 19, 1992, p.
22. .
8TNA 72/62/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Report, 1950, npn.

201

Table 10. Exports from Native Authority Markets, W. Usambara
Mountains 1955-57 (in kilograms).’

 

Market demand also increased the value of maize and rice

in coastal cities and on sisal plantations.

_222£2‘x=:£__:=getables ‘potatoes beans onions tobacco
5/55 43,067 93 669
11/55 124,830 3,292 3,411 6,091
12/55 49,248 9,737 500 4,816
2/56 55,080 8,374 10,100 3,252 2,864
6/56 38,716 23,613 6,700 332 1,150
7/56 24,034 7,392 21,315 1,357
5/56 40,203 5,366 100 4,821 1,053
9/56 30,371 8,467 4,430 943 686
11/56 39,435 15,438 16,219 570
12/56 77,130 8,617 100 10,077 1,132
2/57 51,165 13,514 18,740 9,403 1,583
3/57 84,151 23,936 43,186 6,278 1,270
4/57 164,767 17,109 5,670 1,610 1,117
6/57 37,933 14,340 4,944 46 645

However, trade

in these grains was risky because in response to the food

shortages of the 19408, the Lushoto district administration

permanently forbade the export from.the mountains of maize

and beans, and periodically, rice.

these commodities, therefore, was channeled through a

thriving unofficial market.10

Most of the trade in

Trade in these commodities,

although less lucrative than vegetables, benefitted more

farmers because, with the exception of rice, they could be

grown on hillsides.

 

9Figures derived from Monthly reports of the Usambara Scheme, TNA
72/US/30 volumes II and vol. III.

”on, Rajabu Shemzinghwa at Mlalo, Dec. 28, 1991, p. 5; m 4/962/15

Annual Report, Agriculture, Tanga Province, 1954, p. 137; TNA 4/962,
D.C. Lushoto to Provincer, Tanga, 1/23/57, p. 17; TNA 72/3/2/vol.IV
Monthly Reports, Lushoto District, July 1956, January 1957, June 1957;
TNA 72/3/2 vol.IV Annual Report, Lushoto District, June 1958, p. 78.

202
The prosperity in mountain commodity production had a

spatial component in that it usually occurred where lines of
efficient transportation intersected alluvial soils. In the
Mlalo basin for example, those who had participated in the
1949 land grab at Nyasa dau, or had riverine plots along the
Umba, or who had plots at Kitivo could cheaply send their
produce to market via the bus line operated by Tanganyika
railways, and later, by private entrepreneurs. Similarly the
profitable dau lands around Lushoto, Soni, and Ubiri lay near
the main mountain road which wound down to the railway depot
at Mombo. Road construction in the plains spurred farmers in
the plains between 1949 and 1953 to expand to 4000 acres the
area devoted to rice, a 200% increase.11 By the late 19508,
hundreds of thousands of kilos of rice left the Usambaras
through official and unofficial channels.12

For farmers short in land, lacking access to dau plots,
or living further from the main roads, survival as a peasant
farmer became a very precarious business. Population growth
in Usambara between 1931 and 1957 reached 3% further
undercutting the viability of peasant farming. Poorer
peasant families, already squeezed onto marginal hillside
lands, had to make tough choices regarding the amount of

labor and acreage they devoted to production for subsistence

 

11mm 72/61/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Report for 1953, p. 84.

12TNA 72/3/2 vol. IV, Agricultual Reports, Lushoto, Field Officer
(McGregor) to Provincial AGricultural Officer, Tanga 6/28/56, npn, notes
189,700 kilos of rice sold on local markets in June alone; in same file,
see also, Monthly Report, Lushoto District (Plains), July 1956 (E.C.
Green), npn, Green reports 147,842 sold on local markets, "with
considerable quantities sold outside official markets."

203
(increasingly cassava) vs. the market (maize and

vegetables).13 Land shortages in Mlalo had limited access to
the point where even the time-honored tenure arrangement _
under which the land poor could borrow fallow fields as a
hedge against hunger became increasingly difficult.1‘
Moreover, the 1957 census sex ratios, in contrast to the 1931
numbers, suggest that women increasingly bore the brunt of

agricultural production as men moved out of the mountains to

find wage labor.

 

Table 11. Population in Most use-bara by Location, 195715
adult adult
area males females children total
Lushoto 3,076 4,250 7,996 15,322
Vuga 4,772 6,203 12,224 23,199
Gare 1,430 2,067 3,676 7,173
Mlola 3,646 5,373 8,966 17,985
Mlalo 6,568 10,410 18,261 35,239
Mtae 2,472 3,775 6,922 13,169
Bumbuli 4,985 6,342 12,237 23,564
Mgwashi 2,015 2,266 4,357 8,638
Lush. town 391 235 369 995
total 29,355 40,921 69,008 145,284

In the Mlola basin, where 60 years earlier, Bauman had

been so inhospitably received, the agricultural system

collapsed altogether.

 

Three years of rainfall deficits and

13By the 1950s hybrid maize strains had appeared in Usambara.
yielded more per acre, but were less drought resistant than local

varieties.

See UIT Rasisi and Ruambaza Sheiza at Mlalo, 1/8/92, p. 8;

Rhadija Mdoe, Mlalo, 2/26/92, p. 20.
“on Juma zehshu, Handei, March 26, 1992, p. 28.

1Er’l'rom Tanganyika Population Census 1957,
See also Fleuret, "Farm and Market," p. 100.

Bureau e

East African Statistical

204
insect infestations had destroyed maize harvests in the late

19408. By 1951, the area had run out of cassava reserves.
When adequate rains did fall hungry peasant farmers could not
wait for their crops to mature. They ate their immature
crops and supplemented their diet with white ants. Those
with cash could purchase imported government food supplies,
while the less fortunate walked to Lwengera or East Usambara
in search of food. Entire families began to abandon their
farms and migrate to Upare.16

In the plateau regions of Mlola subchiefdom, Mbugu
herders completed the shift from pastoralism to agriculture.
By the early 19508, most of the productive Public Land had
been allocated.17 Many Wambugu sold off their herds
altogether, leaving them without an important hedge agains
periodic drought.

Thus as thousands of kilos of food -vegetables, maize,
beans, rice and livestock«— left Lushoto district, emergency
food supplies had to be imported to supplement subsistence
crop losses in vulnerable farming areas.18 . Even beans,
normally a subsistence crop, were black marketed outside the
district in 1951, a year when 200 tons of food imports were
required to meet shortages in January and February alone.19

Under these difficult circumstances more and more

 

16TNA 72/US/28 Usambara Scheme, Safari Reports, Gower, 11/12/50 and
1/29/51, p. 16.

1"UIT Hamza Joho and Gadi Togolai at Rireti, 3/4/92, p. 59. Mzee
Joho notes that borrowing fields began in earnest around 1950.

18TNA 72/61/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Reports for 1950, 1951, 1953
and 1954.

19ibid., 1951.

205
farmers sought opportunities outside the mountains. In

addition men working temporarily outside the mountains to
suppplement family income at home, by 1957, a substantial
number of Washambaa (33,000) men, along with their wives and
children lived permanently in districts outside the
mountainsfl'o

As Shambaa families moved out of W. Usambara, new
European settlers moved in. They leased sections of former
German estates around Soni and Lushoto, or purchased outright
patches of freehold land still available. District
authorities also opened to purchase estates of several
hundred acres at Mkuzi in the Magamba forest reserve.21 'The
sales to European settlers must have unsettled Africans who
found it difficult to borrow fields from neighbors, or who
had to leave the mountains to find work. Non-residents also
entered the mountains as laborers on tea estates, where
"large bodies of squatters" had begun to cultivate on them,
much to the chagrin of the local Shambaa population and the

district administration . 22

II. The Usambara Scheme
The Usambara Scheme's implementation coincided with
these changes in mountain agricultural economy. Following

directly on the principals of the infamous Mlalo Basin

 

2°Ibid., 1950, D.C. notes "slow drain of population from West to East
Usambara;" Fleuret, "Farm and Market," p. 100.

21TNA 72/61/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Reports for 1950; Personal
Observation, most of the estates I saw in the area had ranged from 100
acres. The homes built on them are minitures of English estates.

22TNA 72/61/6, vol. III Lushoto Annual Reports for 1950.

206
Rehabilitation Scheme, the Lushoto District Development

Committee, which planned and oversaw the Usambara Scheme,
sought to completely alter the region's agroecology in order
to conserve the region's soil and water and to reverse the
environmental degradation which had already occurred.
Clearly, the reams of paper generated by the Agricultural
Officers assigned to the scheme showed its implementation to
be a tragic miscalculation by the District Administration.
The Usambara Scheme operated under the assumption that a
substantial percentage of the population would eventually
have to take up permanent residence on the plains below the
massif. Thus agricultural reform in the hills depended on
simultaneously perfecting a plan designed to expand plains
agriculture.23 In this regard, the District Committee created
a two-pronged plan: implementation of conservation measures
in the hills and experiments and opening of large acreages in
the plains to mechanized cultivation. Planners anticipated

some resistance:

Although the people of W. Usambara are being forced
by hunger and propaganda to [a] growing awareness
of their difficulties, there is no certainty that
they will move voluntarily into even the best
prepared settlement areas in the plains. They love
their hills; they are less hardy than the Wapare,
indolent and politically minded. On the other hand
there seems no alternative to movement but swiftly

 

23TNA 72/US/63 Chant (D.O. Lushoto) and Drennan (A.O. Lushoto) Report
2/7/53, npn. Report estimates that 43,000 acres of mountains available
for the African population. Given the 2.5% rate of population increase,
authors argue that only mass emigration of people and livestock to
uninhabited territories, or the transformation of peasant cultivators to
industrial laborers will solve the long term problems in the Usambaras;
see also TNA 72/US/53 "Origins, Principals and Progress, 1950" D.C.
Lushoto (W. MacMillan), npn.

207

advancing denudation of the hills and destitution
of the people. The enforcement of the
Rehabilitation Scheme is bound to displace some
hundreds of families and if the first resettlements
[in the plains] are a patent material success and
above all, not too far removed form the worst areas
of overpopulation the mind of the people is very
likely to change."

Enforcement of scheme rules and prerogatives rested
ultimately with the Native Authority courts and the sub—
chiefs' councils, a brain child of the district
administration seeking to difuse chiefly power. The District
Commissioner asserted that the Native Authorities be
thoroughly identified with the scheme.” This created a
sticky political problem for the Native Authorities because
just as the district administration worked to legitimate them
by forming advisory councils, these newly formed political
bodies had to enforce unpopular conservation measures and
attempt to push some families out of the mountains

altogether.

Everyday Resistance in the Hills

Scheme rules required that all slopes between 10° and
15° be ridged using the "Hehe system.”6 This involved
building up an earthen ridge along the contour of a hillside

and connecting the ridge to the hillside at every two paces.

 

2‘TNA 4/269/12 Ruvu-Pangani Agricultural Plan, D.C. Lushoto
(MacMillan) to P.C. Tanga, 1/3/50, npn.

25TNA 72/US/53 "Origins..."

26For discussion of Hehe ridging see: A.H. Pike, "Soil Conservation
among the Matenge Tribe," Tanzania thes and.Records 6 (1938), pp. 79-
81.

208
In practical terms, field preparation under the new rules

required the cultivator to face downhill on a rather steep
slope and to hoe the soil toward herself. Once constructed,
cultivators could plant sweet potatoes or legumes on the
ridges. After the harvest, Scheme rules prohibited the usual
practice of allowing livestock to graze the crop stubble, nor
could fields be burnt in preparation for the subsequent
planting season. Before the next planting, the ridges had to
be broken down and rebuilt with the left over organic matter
buried inside. The mulch, rather than animal dung or ash,
would theoretically build up the fertilitiy of the soil. As
an anti-erosion measure on steeper slopes, between 15° and
25°, farmers were required to plant lines of banana trees and
fodder grasses along the slope contour. Slopes over 25°*were
banned from any kind of cultivation and planted up with tree
crops, especially wattle, an agroforestry favorite which
provided firewood and some income!7

These regulations operated uniformly across a region
with a multitude of ecological conditions a number of land
tenure and land use arrangements. Milne had described the
diversity of land use in the 19303. Gibbon, an Agricultural
Officer attached to the Scheme noted a similar situation in

1951:

The two areas visited (Bumbuli and Mgwashi) were of
a vastly different character and it is difficult to
imagine an overall scheme fitting both. .A regional
survey should be carried out to better suit the

 

2"Wattle tree bark was sold for use in the:manufacture of tanin, a
product used in leather tanning. Once cut it regenerates fromLcoppices.

209
scheme to particular areas.28

Gibbon had found erosion control unecessary at Mgwashi and
needed urgently at Bumbuli.

A patchwork of hundreds of gardens of varying size and
composition dotted Usambara's hillsides. Rules required
farmers to ridge 1/2 acre at a time, and although many
farmers' property usually exceeded that, land tenure
arrangements had evolved into a complex division of plots
wherein one person held several small (often less than one
half acre) gardens several miles from each other.
Furthermore, many of the gardens covered slopes greater than
15°. In addition to the onerous work of ridging and the fact
that gardens on steep slopes would have to be uprooted,
implicit in the scheme objectives for hillside cultivation
was the replacement of maize with bananas in the crop
repertoire.29 'The maize exclusion constituted a direct
assault on household income because maize sales provided one
of the main sources of household income. In fact the most
vocal opposition emanated from this requirement.30 .Another
Scheme requirement,a moritorium on streambank cultivation,
struck at market gardening. Thus the most productive land use
arrangements directly violated the rules.

Largely ignorant of local diversity in land use, the

 

28TNA 72/US/34 Usambara Schane, Field Reports, Gibbon, 12/51, p. 1.
29TNA 72/US/53 Usambara Scheme, "Half Annual Report for June 1953,"
C.S . Kernahan, executive director, Usambara Scheme, npn. Rernahan notes
here the intention of converting from maize to banana cultivation on

sloped land.
3OIbid.; TNA 72/US/41 Osambara Scheme, "Report on the Usambara
Scheme," A.O.Chant, no date, but likely 4/10/52, npn.

210
Agricultural Officers assigned to the scheme began to

circulate throughout the mountains in order to explain the
scheme rules to farmers. They met with immediate and vocal
resistance, especially from.women. On September 26, 1950 at
Mlola, the Agricultural Officer noted that he was besieged in

the government rest house by 1000 angry protestors.

"The women here (mostly Wapare) were as ill-
mannered as we have met anywhere.... Future bad
behavior must be quickly and sharply punished to
avoid the impression that bad manners and much
noise from.women is tolerated and condoned by
authority."31

Eleven days earlier the Mbaramo baraza had been interrupted
by two women who claimed that everyone knew that Shita
(center of the Mlalo Pilot Scheme) had been given to
Europeans. And on the same day (9/18/50), Gower forbade 90
women to attend the meeting at neighboring Tewe.’2

The ubiquity and sharp tenor of the womens' protests
notwithstanding, much of the resistance took on a more subtle
tone. For example, in compliance with scheme rules, farmers
at Shita dutifully planted banana trees above the 15°
contour, but planted maize among them, a contravention of the
rules. In 1951, at Vuga, banana trees marking the 25°‘were
uprooted as were the grasses which had been planted along the
streambanks. The D.C. described these and other acts of non-
compliance as a "mass civil disobedience campaign.”3

Subsequent reports from vuga, Soni and Bumbuli document a

 

31TNA 72/US/28 Usambara Scheme, "Safari Notes," 9/21/50, Gower, p. 2.
32Ibid.; see also TNA 72/62/6, vol III Lushoto Annual Report, 1950.
33TNA 72/US/53 Usambara Schane, Annual Report, Gower, 1951.

211
clear pattern of passive resistance culminating in a 1956

womens' protest at Vuga which led to a group of women trying
to mob the District Officer's card“ Early resistance also
coalesced in northern Usambara in the Mlalo, Mtae and Mbaramo
subchiefdoms.

In the face of ongoing passive resistance, the staff
pressed on with the difficult task of supervising farmers.
African agricultural staff carried out mmch of this work. In
the early years they seem to have believed in the Scheme.
They came from all over Tanganyika to receive a six week
training course at Lwandai Middle School (Mlalo) or at the
Bomo School at Malindi. The District Committee also hired as
an Agricultural Officer, David Mwakosya, a Tanganyikan from
Unyankusa who had been trained in colonial agriculture at
Makerere College in Uganda.35 Hemedi Ngereza, a former
instructor now living at Mlalo, explained that despite
unpopularity of the scheme, the African instructors had been
at their training indoctrinated to appreciate the dangers of
soil erosion and the state of degradation which threatened
the Usambaras.36 The effectiveness of their training is

reflected in a dramatic rise in criminal prosecutions: 1953

 

3‘TNA 72/US/4l Usambara Scheme, "Implementation of Scheme Rules," see
especially D.C. Lushoto to Dr. Friberg, Lutheran Mission, Bumbuli,
9/1/53, p. 1; D.C. Lushoto to MR. R. Bolstad, Vuga Mission Press,
12/14/55, p. 20; Mr. R. Bolsted to D.C. Lushoto, 12/17/55, p. 22;
"Extract frommMinutes of the District Committee," 2/6/56, p. 23. TNA
72/US/45 Usambara Scheme, "Safari Reports," Raplanga, 1/52 - 6/54, see
reports for 2/29/52, 3/27/52, April 1952, May 1952, npn; TNA 72/US/30
vol. III, Usambara Scheme, "Monthly Reports from April 1956 to June
1958," Silcocks, A.C. see reports from 9/4/56, 12/7/56, npn.

35UIT Hemedi Ngereza at Mlalo, January 25, 1992, p. 13.

36Ihid., p. 12.

212
(1349), 1954 (2177), and 1956, when Native Authority courts

heard over 3000 cases, most of them violations of Scheme
rules.37 Nonetheless, because the instructors worked closely
with farmers they also understood the difficulties and
harassment they experienced.” By the late 1950s, a number of
the African field staff began to participate in the
resistance by not enforcing ridging or non-burning
requirements, or by simply looking the other way, and, at
times, by accepting bribes for doing 80.39 By 1956 many staff
had decided to end their participation altogether and
requested retirement or simply resignedflo

With the acquiescence of many staff assured by 1956,
acts of resistance extended beyond foot dragging and partial
compliance. In November and December of 1956, cultivators in
northern Usambara openly violated Scheme rules by burning
large tracts of natural forest in order to plant crops. At
Soni, farmers grazed their livestock on crop stubble in
harvested gardens. In Vuga, Gare, and vugiri, cultivators
purposefully flattened out ridges and planted crops. In
spite of threatened prosecutions from the Native Authorities,
on July 30, 1957, all penal sanctions on "non-compliance"

were lifted.‘1 .A year later the D.C. referred to Hehe ridges

 

37m 4/962 Lushoto Division Annual Reports for 1954 and 1956, pp. 94
and 6.

38UIT Hanedi Ngereza, 1/25/92, p. 12

3’9UIT Rajabu Shemzinghwa, p. 4, Mshirhiri Hippoliti at Gare Mission
12/31/91; TNA 72/US/68 "Usambara Scheme Staff," Senior Field Officer to
Mr. Raymond Shemhunge, Field Assistant, Mbaramo, npn.

“TNA 72/US/68 "Usambara Scheme Staff," see entire file which
contains numerous letters from instructors requesting leave, retirement,
and transfers.

“TNA 72/US/30 vol. III Usambara Scheme Monthly Reports from April

213
as museumpieces.‘2

The Plains Fiasco

Nobody associated with the Usambara Scheme managed to
persuade large numbers of families to move permanently to the
plains. Part of the failure stemmed from the fact that in
the planning phase, the District Committee showed little
understanding of plains demography or ecology. They believed
that around the Usambara massif, attractive plains areas
could be productively exploited. Further, they believed that
the offtake regions could be ready for settlement in 3-4
years .43

The District Committee failed on all counts to read
properly the Scheme's chances for success in the plains. In
1938, Gregory Milne had clearly explained the difficulties of
resettling mountain families on the plains below the northern
and western sides of the massif. His published report argued
that limited water supplies and cultivable soils, endemic
malaria, high temperatures, and unreliable rainfall created a
quite undesirable living situation. All suitable soils were
already exploited either by mountain farmers dropping daily
to work their rice fields, or by the several hundred
permanent residents of the small hamlets of Mngaro, Lunguza,
and Mnazi among others. NOnetheless, the district

administration remained adamant that "only mass emigration of

 

1956 to June 1958, pp. 10b, 11, 14, 21, and 23.
‘ZTNA72/3/2 vol. IV. Usambara Scheme Annual Report 1958, npn.
‘3TNA 72/US/53 "Origins."

214
people and livestock to unoccupied territories" would

alleviate the threat of ecological breakdown posed by then
current agricultural practices in West Usambarat44

By July 1953, Lushoto's district officers had identified
29,000 acres at Mkundi below Mtae on the western side of the
massif, 200,000 acres between the Pangani Valley railway and
the Pangani river. These areas proved subsequently to be
either already occupied or unuseable.‘5 District Committee
members also suggested resettling Shambaa farmers in the
Lwengera valley between East and West Usambara and on a block
of land which encompassed "scores of miles" in Northeast
Handeni district.‘6 .Although infested with tsetse flies and
lacking in any sources of permanent water, the report
characterized the area as "excellently suited for cultivation
and settlementt"‘7 To attract farmers from the hills, the
plan called for a technological breakthrough which would "set
up areas of economic return in the plains to entice Shambaa
[families] down from the overcrowded hills." However,
mechanical cultivation proved to be "prohibitively expensive"
and most of the experimental areas around the base of the
Usambara massif proved to consist of saline soils, which to
rehabilitate would cost a great deal in both labor and

funds.‘8 Only at Ritivo did African families agree that an

 

“TNA 72/US/63 Chant and Drennan Report 2/7/53, npn.

‘STNA 72/US/56 "Areas for Preservation under Ordinance no. 12/1954,"
6/16/54, p. 12

‘GTNA 72/US/63 Chant and Drennan Report 2/7/53; 72/US/62 Usambara
Scheme "Plains Expansion and Resettlement Handeni Preserve," p. 6.

‘7TNA 72/US/62 “Report on Inspection of Northern Handeni Area, 6-7
Oct. 1953," p. 6.

‘OTNA 72/US/60 Usambara Scheme "Estimates for 7/1/55 to 6/30/56," no

215
irrigation scheme would be feasible and beneficial.‘9

The Political Economy of Resistance and Defeat of the Scheme

From the Scheme's inception, Usambara's farmers resisted
its imposition. They did this in a variety of ways and for a
variety of reasons. Given the favorable market for produce,
many farmers, especially women, resented a scheme which
forced them to perform onerous work when they were already
over-burdened. Furthermore, ridge cultivation was
specifically designed for subsitence crops, especially sweet
patotoes, at the expense of maize, which was for all intents
and purposes, a cash crop.

Steven Feierman asserts that rejection of the Scheme
centered on the unpopularity of building ridges, one of the
central tenants of the scheme. The ridges, known locally as
matuta, served as a symbol of resentment for things foreign
and allowed those forced to build them to focus their anger
on the chiefs, responsible for enforcing the rules.
Ultimately, in Feierman's Usambara, the issues boiled down

to:

"the burdens of matuta, the problem of a king who
had no rain, and the prominence of the chama in
leading the resistance. The rain chiefs [like
Hassani Kinyassi] follow the Shambaa way; the
rainless were accused of serving foreigners.

People understood that if the chief controlled
rain, the scarcity ofland and lobor would recede as
a problem. "5°

 

date, npn.

‘9TNA 72/US/75 Usambara Scheme "Irrigation Scheme — Mngaro Area,"
P.A.O. Tanga (Drennan) to P.C. 5/19/58, p. 20.

5°Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals, p. 189-90.

216
He contends the defeat of the Usambara Scheme "preserved the

guarantee of subsistence land for the poor and slowed down
the process by which land became a commodity."51

The record shows however, that at least on the northern
side of the massif, subsistence could not be guaranteed for
those families who left the mountains altogether, or who
worked for food during the difficult years of the late 40s
and early 503. This chapter also asserts that large tracts
of land in the daus had already become private holdings by
the late 403. The politics of rain present a more difficult
issue. My informants often spoke on the issue, but usually
asserted that rainmakers and rainmaking disappeared as
culture unity broke down, an argument also made for the
disappearance of irrigation as an agricultural technique.
Their daily acts of resistance at time coasleced into the
kinds of disturbances described above, but where Feierman
sees the resistance directed against chiefs without rain, the
archival record shows acts of defiance directed directly at
European administrators and Agricultural Officers.

In any event, the onerousness of the Scheme played
directly into the nationalist movement. By the early 19603,
the talk of ecological degradation and reform had been

discarded.

 

51Ibid., p. 203

217
III. Ecological Change

Farminngegions

Soil erosion control played into the nationalist
politics current both in the Usambaras and Tanganyika
generally. However, at the point of production, the farmers'
fields themselves, the Usambara Scheme did little to stem
ongoing land degradation. In fact, it likely poisoned
attitudes toward land use for a generation. The evidence for
degradation is mixed. Archival and published sources agree
that at least since the 19203 accelerated erosion had caused
extensive land degradation.52 'This visual evidence, when
coupled with the increasing vulnerability of northern
communities to food shortages, clearly points to a decreasing
productive capacity of the land. Informants born and raised
in West Usambara do not agree on degradationJ"3 The
disagreement may well be attributed to the very controversial
Soil Erosion Control and Afforestation Project currently
being carried out in Usambara and the differential spatial
nature of soil erosion and fertility loss.

The difficulties of the evidence notwithstanding the
demographic, agricultural and economic changes discussed

above suggest a pattern of degradation on the slopes of the

 

52TNA 72/US/34 Usambara Scheme, "Field.Reports," Gibbon, December
1951, p. 1, (Bumbuli); TNA 72/US/56 Usambara Scheme, "Notes on a Visit
to West Usambara by Pasture Research Officer, 3/9/53 to 3/13/53," p. 3a
(Mlalo, Mtae); TNA 72/3/2 vol. IV Usambara Scheme, "Monthly Report for
August 1958," p. 62 (landslides in vicinity of vuga); TNA 72/US/41
Usambara Scheme, "Report," 4/10/52, (General).

53UIT Rasisi and Ruambaza shezia at Mlalo, 1/18/92, p. 10; Juma
Zahabu, p. 26; but arguing for soil erosion see Hemedi Ngereza, 1/25/92,
p. 12; Jafeth Ralata at Mlalo, 3/13/92, p. 25.

218
more heavily populated sub-chiefdoms. Clearly, population

increases had induced an extensification of production into
formerly unused lands, a diminution of fallows, and an
explosion of maize production. Maize, with its shallow root
system, exposed soil on slopes to sheet erosion. Farmers
drained mountain wetlands, many of which formed the head
waters of streams, and informants note that the opening of
dau lands quickly dried out many permanent streams and
hindered irrigation.“ Even the Hehe ridges themselves have
been cited as agents of soil erosion because they tended to
wash away in heavy rains.55

These creeping trends toward degradation sometimes met
in a conjuncture of tragic proportions. On the night of
23/24 January 1956, an exceptionally heavy rainstorm.struck
the extreme northern most salient of Usambara Hills and
caused extensive damage. At Mbaramo, between ninety and one
hundred landslides on either side of the ridge carried
thousands of tons of topsoil down the mountainside to the
plains. The larges erosion scar measured approximately 150
yards in width and extended down the mountain for over 800
yards. This particular slide carried with it a small hamlet
killing 15 of its inhabitants and many of its livestock. It

began in a cassava garden planted on a very steep slope.56

 

5‘UIT Jumm.Ringazi Rimako, Hoseni Hamsini, Salimu Shekulwavu at
Shita, 2/13/92, p. ;Salehe Jambia, , Juma Sebarua and Peter Kaniki at
Lukozi, 3/17/92, p. 70; Japhet Ralata at Mlalo, 3/23/92, p. 24; Juma
Zahabu, p. 30b.

55am Japhet xalata at Mlalo, 12/23/91, p. 25; Domitila Epimark and
Mzee Hipoliti at Gare Mission, 1/7/92, p. 35.

56TNA 72/US/8 Usambara Scheme, “Landslides, Mbaramo," District
Commissioner J.W. Sword, Lushoto to P.C., Tanga 2/4/56, npn.

219
Not enough data exist to blame the Mbaramo landslides on

agricultural practices alone. The rain fell "heavily," but
heavy downpours occur with relative frequency in Usambara.
Given the large erosion scars evident in the Mlalo and Mlola
basins from the 19303, landslides had been a common thread in
the region's human/ environmental relations at least since
the early twentieth century. The Mbaramo landslides suggest
that degradation in this region moves slowly, at least in the
eyes of farmers, who alter land use patterns in response to
their immediate needs. woven together over time, these
threads of change lead ultimately to a point conjuncture

where disaster strikes 3udden1y.57

The Plateau Forests

Ecological degradation was not exclusive to west
Usambara's agricultural areas. The plateau forests
experienced a related, but more subtle and insidious form of
degradation during the 19503. A variety of pressures pushed
forest degradation along relatively slowly, at least in terms
of human history, until the early 19603 when unprecedented
deforestation occurred in Lushoto district. The pressures
stemmed from commercial forestry practices and policies and
African cultivators vying for land. By 1962, the forest

reserves had become, in the eyes of many peasant farmers, a

 

5"Flood and landslide related disasters have become increasingly
cannon in West Usambara. On January 24, 1993, much of Mlalo town was
carried away by a flood of the Umba river. Scores were killed and the
entire basin was cut off from the outside. Short rains plantings were
ruined and food aid had to be transported in by air for more than six
months. Personal comnunication with Sufian Shekoloa of Mlalo.

220
symbol of the restrictive land use policies of colonial

government. Seeking a clean break with the conservationist
mentality of the Rehabilitation Schemes, the independence
government sought to solidify its popularity by making
available matunda ya Uhuru (the fruits of independence) to
the citizens of Usambara. With the Lukozi excision (32,000
to 37,000 acres) and other smaller alienations across the
mountains, the Ministry of Agriculture opened to farmers a
huge expanse of natural forest.

.As shown in chapter 4, the colonial government reserved
forest lands for two purposes: exploitation for the timber
market and conservation of soil and water. Clearly cognizant
of its mission, the Forestry Department fought an ongoing
battle with herders seeking to graze illegally in the
reserve, cultivators encroaching on reserve boundaries and
firewood collectors. The creation of Native Authority wattle
plantations simply could not meet firewood demand and
throughout the colonial period women from heavily populated
sub-chiefdoms travelled increasingly long distances to
procure it. Wbmen from Handei (1400 m.) in the Mlalo Basin
climbed onto the plateau lands at Lukozi and surrounding
Mtumbi mountain (c. 1800 m.) to cut firewood. Furthermore,
by the late 19403, people from the Mlalo basin were importing
from the same region illegaly cut cedar, which was highly

prized for construction purposes.” Thus as knowledge of

 

58UIT Juma Zahabu, p. 27. Cedar was prized because of its ability to
resist termite infestations.

221
forest resources pulled people from Mlalo and Mlola to the

forest, increasing land scarcities pushed them to stake out
claims at the free settlements within the reserve (the
viringo of German times). These settlements served as nodes
of expansion within the forest and were clearly visible from
the air.59

Forest remaining on Public Lands just outside the
reserve was also cut extensively during this period. As
noted in chapter 4, the Wambugu of the area around Kwai,
Mshangai, and Malibwi had begun to cultivate in earnest
during the 19303 as a means of claiming lands subject to
reservation by the Forestry Service. This process
accelerated during the famine years of the late 19403, when
many Wambugu sold off their herds in order to procure cash
for food purposes.5° Informants also note that East Coast
Fever.and Rinderpest struck in 1952, further reducing herds.61
By 1960, much of the area, except for a few small pockets
around Mshangai, had been deforested. Interestingly one sub-
chief at Mshangai, Radala Mlimahadala, tried to conserve at

least some pockets of forest.62

Zumbe Radala Mlimahadala refused completely to
allow the forest to be cut, especially on the
mountains [around Mshangai, Kinko, Kireti, and
Kwedege]. When he heard that TANU didn't really

 

59Ibid., p. 28; for migrations from Malindi to Lukozi see UIT Salehe
Jambia, Juma Sebarua and Peter Raniki at Lukozi, 3/17/92, p. 67; for
aerial evidence see, TNA 4/5/4-D Lushoto District Conlnittee, "Minutes
of Meeting of the Advisory District Conmittee," 10/22/54, p. 230

“Usambara Mbugu Interview Transcripts (hereafter UMIT) Mz. Paulo
Mwavoa and Mz. Mlango Msasu at Rinko, 3/3/92, p. 45.

61MUIT Mkanda Shusha at Mshangai, 5/27/93, p. 29

62UIT Hoseni Risimbo at Malibwi, 1/2/92, p. 62.

222

care about the forest, he said better he die before
independence, he wouldn't like the new government,
and sure enough he died in 1959, before uhuru.63

In addition to the Public Lands, pressures detrimental
to the health of forests built up in the government forest
reserves, where the Forestry Department encountered an
increasingly complex set of problems. One set of pressures
emanated from the so-called "squatter" population, who led a
dual existence as legal forest laborers inside the Shume
reserve and illegal herders lurking at the margins
surreptitiously moving livestock in and out of the reserve.“
In the context of proper colonial forest management, their
job entailed tending young trees in reafforested areas. In
return, the forestry service allowed them.to cultivate in
between the maturing seedlings for three or four years.
However, as a laborer in the forest reserve, one could not
establish a permanent home, nor could one hold more than nine
livestock (3 cows, 3 goats and 3 sheep).65 In addition to
their work for the government, the forest "squatters" often
worked as "casual" (temporary) laborers with the timber
concessions.

During the early 19503, when tobacco prices rose, these
laborers could at least earn a living and avoid the dangerous

‘work in the saw mills.55 The manager of the Shagai saw mill,

 

63UIT Athumani Shemweta, Athumani Rikoi, Abeid Athumani and Hasani
Mlimnahadala at Rwedeghe, 1/21/92, p. 72a.

5‘MUIT Mtee Nyangusi at Magamba, 5/92, p. 38.

55TNA 4/962/15 Tanga Forest Division, "Annual Report for the Year
Ended 3lst December 1954," p. 104.

55Lushoto File (hereafter LF) 11/B/1/5/2/G Lushoto Forest Office,

223
no fan of the tobacco boom, suggested disallowing cash crop

production and creating a permanent forest population
dependent on the timber industry. Indeed, the Forestry
Department in 1954 began seek lands in order to build just
such settlements.57 Clearly, forest "squatters" sought a
measure of autonomy from the forestry service and from the
timber industry. One particularly effective strategy
involved moving survey beacons and clearing several acres of
trees and cultivating the plot. In 1950, the forestry
officer noted serious problems with this type of
"encroachment" in the Shume/Magamba forest and boundary
disputes continued throughout the 19503 and early 603 all
along the forest reserve boundary.” The "squatters" won a
small victory in 1954 when the government excised 1160 acres
from the Shume forest and reclassified it as Public Land,59
Even after this concession to their needs, most forest
laborers continued their precarious existence at the margins.
Their disaffection with the colonial government continued up
to independence. 7°

Along with the pressure on the Forestry Department to

hive off sections of the reserve, Grewal and Co., operators

 

Manager, Shagai Mill to Divisional Forest Officer, Lushoto 7/12/50, p.
37.

6"Ibid.; TNA 4/962/15 Tanga Forest Division, Annual Report for the
Year Ended 31st December 1954, p. 90.

5°Department of Forestry, Thirty First Annual Report of the Forest
Department for the Year ending 3lst December 1951 (Dar es Salaam;
Government Printers, 1952), p. 24; A.J. Lubango, Chief Forester, Magamba
Forest Reserve, "Report on Lushoto District Forests," unpublished, 1992,
p. 3.

69TNA 4/962/15 Tanga Forest Division Annual Report for 1954, p. 86.

7oMUIT Mtee Nyangusi at Magamba, 5/92, p. 38.

n—F'F

 

224
of the timber concession in the Shume/Magamba and Shagai

forest reserves, almost continually cut and milled timber
over and above the government quotas. When, in 1950,
Lushoto's district forester inspected parts of the
Shume/Magamba concession he found the forest "completely
devastated in places."71 The Forestry Department suspected
that Grewal and Co., nearing the end of their concession,
simply cut out as much marketable timber as possible. They
therefore placed maximum milling quotas on Grewal (100,000

cu.ft. over six months).

I think we should impose a ceiling on the cut. we
intend to apply sustained yield working to this
forest and the sooner we do so the better; a
maximum cut is a step towards this and it also
brings home to millers that the old days of laissez
faire are numbered. we also do not want another
"Ragera" in the shape of a very heavy out just at
the end of the life of a concession and masses of
felled logs all over the forest. I therefore urge
that a maximum.cut be imposed, and endorse the
figure of 100,000 cu. ft. suggested by the
Provincial Forest Officer.72

Grewal agreed, then immediately broke the contract by cutting
over the maximum."3 Overcutting throughout the reserve
continued until the Provincial Forestry Office placed an
outright restriction on Grewal's operations at Shagai forest

in March 1955.74 Even in the face of restictions, and with

 

71LF 11/B/1/5/2/G (hereafter LF) Lushoto Forest Office, Divisional
Forest Officer C.W.D. Rermode to Conservator of Forests Morogoro
9/21/50, p. 17.

72LF Conservator of Forests, Northern Circle to the Chief Conservator
of Forests, Morogoro, April 6, 1954, p. 284.

73LF Provincial Forest Officer to Grewal Sawmills 1/12/54, p. 222.

7‘LF Provincial Forest Officer to Grewal Sawmills, 11 March, 1955,
p. 230.

225
full knowledge of the Forestry Department's perogatives to

restrict over-exploitation of indigenous forest, Grewal
requested permission to strip their concession areas of
Podocarpus spp., as had been the case with two species of
hardwoods by that time extinct in W. Usambara.75 'The Lushoto
forester resisted on the grounds that because Podo grew in
association with a valuable hardwood (Ocotea Usambarensis,
Mikulo, Camphor), its total removal would seriously hinder
the regeneration of hardwood species and thus future
exploitation . 75

But in the late 19503 construction increased
dramatically across East Africa and thus the philosophy of
"sustained yield" in Usambara's forests took a back seat to
market demand. In addition to Grewal, whose poor logging
practices do not seem to have hindered its ability to receive
licenses to log Usambara's indigenous timbers, the Forestry
Department issued felling licenses to groups of African
loggers from Kenya, known locally as the "Kisii" pit sawers."7
The Forestry Department sanctioned pit sawing mainly in the
Camphor forests at Baga, Mkussu, Bumbuli, Shagai and Magamba.
These young men, many merely teens, were highly mobile and
expert at their craft. Their logging technique required no
infrastructure or milling facilities. Carrying their

equipment, they simply walked into selected areas, felled the

 

75LF Grewal Saw Mills to Chief Conservator of Forests, Morogoro,
6/6/57. p. 339.

76LF Provincial Forest Officer, Lushoto to Chief Conservator of
Forests, Morogoro. RE: Relaxation of Sustained Yield on Podo in w.
Usambara. Concessions at Shume/Magamba and Shagayu, 10/25/57, p. 340.

77Lubango, "Report," p. 5.

226
best specimens, and using platforms built into a hill side,

sawed them into rough boards in the felling coupe. They then
carried the boards as headloads to the main roads for
transport to the large towns. By the early 19603, they were
producing over 20,000 cu.ft. of cut timber per month.79 ‘Thus,
as Agriculture Officers excoriated Usambara's farmers for
destructive land use practices, their counterparts on the
plateau facilitated the over-exploitation of indigenous
forest resources, in the case of Podo, to the point of
extinction.

By 1962, the year of Tanganyika's independence, the
demand of arable land had become extreme. TANU had promised
as much during its campaigns of the 19503, and so, in 1964,
the Minister of Agriculture, Tewa Said Tewa, delivered by
authorizing the excision of the Lukozi valley from the forest
reserve (about 35,000 acres, or about 55 miz). The original
plan called for the area to be declared Public Land and
divided up among the "squatter" population by Village
Development Councils. One of the former VDC leaders
explained that by order of the Department of Agriculture,
each eligible applicant was to receive 10 acres, with the
balance remaining as a multi-use forest zone. He implied

that political patronage played a role in the process.

The district council gave the VDC (village
development council) the responsibility to divide

 

78LF Lushoto Forest Office, Quarterly Report for July-Sept. 1960,
Magamba Charge,"Forester, Magamba to Conservator of Forests, Lushoto,
11/18/60; for description of Risii see MUIT, Musa Paulo at Coasti
(Magamba), 4/92.

227
the area. VDC was of uneducated people from the
villages who had the ability to sing TANU songs and
[were] elected as village executive leaders, or
TANU chairmen. They had no expertise concerning
the forest. They only knew to give out, to
divide."9
As a former forest guard remarked, "The region was given
out to enhance the popularity of the politicians."°° Things

quickly got out of hand. Mzee Mtee continues,

These folks began to say that the forest was for
all, not only the squatters. It should be
distributed to all raiya [citizens]. This was a
violation of the parliamentary instructions for the
division of the forest. VDC received applications
from anybody who wanted a shamba. VDC received a
lot of applications. Corruption was the order of
the day, the dominant system. If you don't give
chai [a bribe], no shamba.

Accordingly, the Village Development Councils tabled
discussion of Public Lands and distributed the entire parcel.
The accounts of bribes seems plausible in the light of
testimony given even by those who benefitted from the land
grab. The extent and quality of one's grant depended
directly on the amount of money one could offer the
authorities in charge of distribution.81

The evidence suggests strongly that the excision
followed the dividing line between the cedar and camphor

forest. This makes sense because the new government

 

79MUIT Mtee Nyangusi of Magamba, 5/92, p. 39.

8°MUIT Musa Paulo at Coasti (Magamba), 4/92, p. 41-42.

81MUIT Salehe Jambia, Juma Sebarua and Peter Raniki, Lukozi, March
17, p. 67-68. This group proved very elusive: while admitting that
bribes played a role in the amount of land one received, they dismissed
the idea that anyone in Lukozi came from the Mlalo basin. For a more
cynical account see, Mz. Mtee Nyangusi of Magamba, 5/92, p.38-39.

228
maintained an interest in exploiting valuable camphor.82 .Also

clear is the rapid character of the transformation from
forest to farmland. Within two years, the entire area, over
50 mm}, had been completely stripped of forest. Few
benefitted financially from the sudden appearance of
available timber. Farmers could not obtain pit sawing
permits, nor did they posess the expertise to saw the timber
into boards. Therefore, most of the trees were simply felled
and burnt a3 firewood, although a small percentage of the
wood seems to have found its way to Mlalo markets in the form

of charcoal.

IV. Conclusion: The Aftermath

British and German observers of Usambara's forests,
since the late nineteenth century, have written about what
they believed to be "natural ecosystems," existing outside of
human influence. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 show that few, if any,
forest stands in west Usambara have been remained
undisturbed. Nonetheless, at the advent of German
colonialism, the nature of human land use had allowed high
rates of biological diversity and the maintenance of forest
cover over much of the central plateau. Colonialism's
ability to implement its dual philosophy of forest
conservation and exploitation undermined the economy of west

Usambara's forest based communities and criminalized their

 

82MUIT Salehe Jambia, Juma Sebarua and Peter Kaniki, Lukozi, 3/17/92,
p. 67-68; Mtee Nyangusi of Magamba, 5/92, p. 37-38; and Musa Paulo at
Coasti (Magamba), 4/92, p. 41-42.

229
relationship with the environment.‘33 As shown above, this

process induced pressure on Public Lands forest to the point
where they simply disappeared. Inside the reserves,
commercial forestry practices, even in their guise as a
"sustained yield" system, served to radically alter forest
ecology.

There is no data on the number of people moved into the
Lukozi valley in the early 19603, but the immediate
availability of land likely relieved temporarily the
pressures on lands in the Mlalo and Mlola subchiefdoms.
However, for the forest ecology in the Lukozi cedar forest,
the excision constituted a dramatic ecological event with
far-reaching implications. A comparison of aerial photos
taken in 1947 and 1968 shows the extent of the loss of tree
cover. The ecological shock is compounded when considering
the changes to the soil itself. Upon clearing the
microclimate of the soil surface changes drastically: more
rain reaches the soil surface, radiation increases, maximum
temperature increases, minimum temperatures decrease,
humidity decreases and wind increases. Also, humus
decomposition speeds up with increased wetting and drying of
the soil. At Lukozi cultivators burned everything, an act
which in the short run increased soil fertility, but in the
long run decreased the soils nutrient retention capacity.

Within two years topsoil structure would have been altered

 

83For a more genral application if this argument see:
"Introduction," in John Richards, and Richard P. Tucker eds., world
Deforestation in the Twentieth Century (Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press, 1988), p. 8.

230
completely.°‘

Informants living at Lukozi confirm other long—term
repercussions of the clearing with anecdotal evidence. The
watershed became subject to dramatic episodes of flash
flooding and permanent streams dried out as early as 1970.
Mists which used to avail humidity to the valley soils are
now rare. Soil fertility decreased rapidly, except in the
stream valley, where much of the topsoil from.hillside
erosion ended up.85 .Although the worst ecological
deterioration occurred at Lukozi, similar, though less
dramatic changes occurred at similar forest excisions. For
example, at the Gare mission forest excision (mostly
Camphor/Podo forest), farmers saw yeilds decline radically
between 1964 and 1968. As at Lukozi, the only fertile soil
remains inside the forest reserve, which farmers continually
chip away, and in the streamvalley'.86

Inside the forest reserves commercial practices tended
to reduce drastically the forest's biological diversity. The
plantation stands cannot support any type of exploitation
except commercial forestry, and that condition is likely

limited to 2 rotations until produCtivity decreases to the

 

8‘For an account of this process in Usambara's forests see Bjorn
Lundgren, "Soil Conditions and Nutrient Cycling under Natural and
Plantation Forests in the Tanzanian Highlands," Reports in Forest
Ecology and Forest Soils 31 (Uppsala: Department of Forest Soils,
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 1978), p. 208.

85MUIT Mtee Nyangusi of Magamba, 5/92, p.38-39; Musa Paulo at Coasti
(Magamba), pp. 41-42; Salehe Jambia, Juma Sebarua and Peter Raniki at
Lukozi, 3/17/92, pp. 69-70.

86This information gleaned from a number of casual conversations with
farmers now using the area and from. Musa Paulo at Coasti (Magamba), pp.
41-42; Domitila Epimark, and Mzee Hipoliti at Gare Mission, 1/7/92, p.
34.

231
point where commercial exploitation becomes uneconomic.87

Before the movement of large numbers of pit sawers into
Lushoto district in the late 19503, commercial firms
generally clear cut areas which the forestry service
replanted with monoculture stands of exotic species (Almost
exclusively species of pine and cypress). Clearing,
especially with the aid of heavy machinery, and planting of
exotic species decreased the capacity of the soil to maintain
nurtient and moisture levels.88 Indiscriminate cutting,
carried out by commercial concerns before and after
independence, has led to the virtual extinction of podocarpus
(Msee) and entandrophragma (Mbokoko) and their replacement by
invader species (Macaranga spp. and Policias spp.) changing
completely the species makeup of the logged out area. In
other areas poor logging practices have led to the
disappearance of sandlewood.89

Pit sawing, a much less invasive process than commercial
mechanized logging, had its own biological consequences. Pit
sawers remove almost exclusively Ocotea Usambarensis because
of the high price it fetches. In managed areas where Camphor
has regenerated from coppices and root suckers, it has
actually become so thick as to choke out the regrowth of many
of the grasses and shrubs which grow in association with it.
Where pit sawing occurrs illegally in the forest reserve, the

young Ocotea saplings are invariably killed by vines and

 

87Lundgren, "Soil Conditions," p. 227; Lubango, "Report," p. 8.
88Lundgren, "Soil Conditions," pp. 227-28.
89Lubango, "Report," p. 7.

232
creepers.9°

One final phenomenon which seems in some way associated
with forestry is the recently rapid spread of Bubonic and
Neumonic Plague among peoples who live near forest reserve
areas. As of 1992, Dr. Hans Steinmann was trying to
determine the relationship between the incidence of plaque

and plantation forests which harbor large numbers of rats.

 

9°Observation of pit sawing sites in the Mazumbai forest reserve and
conversations with Mr. Mrecha, forester in charge of the reserve, April
1992.

Chapter 7

Conclusions: Degradation and Reform

This treatment of Usambara's past century of
environmental history asserts that understanding degradation
rests in the complex relationship between society and nature.
In the case of west Usambara (and other East African highland
regions of similar ecological makeup) varying climatic zones
and soils have fostered a number of ecological formations
which human beings have altered throughout their residence in
the mountains. The scale of human/environmental interaction
has broadened significantly since colonial times, but even
before the nineteenth century, regional demographic,
economic, political and social circumstances in Usambara
conditioned change. This thesis argues that one of the spin-
offs of these interactions has been ecological degradation,

that is, the decreasing productive capability of the land.

I. Dissertation Summary

Chapter Two treats Usambara's pre nineteenth century
natural and human history asserting that the region's natural
history fostered an environment whose resources human
communities came to value. The archaeological evidence for

intensive human occupation begins about 1500 years ago when

233

234
iron working communities began to occupy the mountains.

Historians know little about the early patterns of
exploitation, but these communities undoubtedly cleared
forests and farmed a particular range of ecological zones
using iron technology. Usambara was not isolated in its
exploitation by such peoples, but formed part of a regional
system of production which showed distinct similarities in
its iron working technology, settlement patterns and methods
of land use. Thus regional patterns of exchange must have
been hundreds of years old by the mid-nineteenth century,
when a distinct regional political economy can be discerned
in the historical record.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Usambarans had
domesticated much of the landscape both on the high central
plateau forests, where pasture dotted the dry cedar forest,
and lower, along the outskirts of the mountain massif, where
banana trees had come to replace the old growth. On the
plains below the massif farmers grew sorghums and millets
native to East Africa. Political organization centered
around both local lineages and a royal lineage, the Kilindi,
which commanded tribute in labor, livestock and other local
commodities.

Steven Feierman's Shambaa History implies that by the
early nineteenth century, Usambarans had built up, under
Kilindi rule, an ecologically stable system of food
production and exchange which offered food security

punctuated only by occasional periods of political discord.

235
Feierman's structuralist paradigm places with the death of

Kimweri ye Nyumbai, in the mid-18603, the beginning of a fall
into disarray and famine. However, the very elaborate
production system in the mountain pastures, farmlands and
lowland plains suggests that the food security system had
been developed over the long term.and was in fact similar to
most other arrangements in the region, where droughts and
insect infestations occurred regularly. ’Moreover, ecological
degradation must have occurred. The simple act of clearing
new lands and collecting fire wood would have altered forest
flora and fauna and accelerated erosion, especially as
population increased. Over time, these circumstances would
have fostered vulnerability to famine in some areas, like
Mlola, where food shortages accompanied shifts in regional
patterns of exchange. Rather than a rise and fall paradigm,
Usambara's mid nineteenth century ecological history suggests
a pattern of production and exchange which had evolved over
centuries and which would continue well into the colonial
period, albeit with some major disruptions.

By the 18803, links to the Indian Ocean's compradorial
economy centered at Zanzibar had impinged on Usambara's
production system. The slave trade, its demand centered on
the East African littoral and offshore islands and its supply
zone shifting across the East African mainland, linked the
entire Pangani Valley, Kilimanjaro and the interlacustrine

kingdoms solidly to the regional and global economies.1 In

 

1For an extensive treatment of this trend, see chapter 5 in Abdul

 

5.49m!

236
Usambara, civil war and its attendant violence radiated

across the mountains. Chapter 3 shows, however, that there
were differentials in the indigenous responses to the
upheaval. In zones of heavy production, like Vuga and
Bumbuli, the violence left population centers decimated and
secondary forest thicket covered what had been the swidden
gardens and royal banana groves. Similarly in Mlola, people
suffered depredations, while only a few hours walk away,
Mlalo's denizens managed to weather the rough times by
attracting refugees and intensifying production. On the
central plateau, forests afforded the Wambugu protection for
themselves and their herds solidifying a symbolic importance
of forest cover which would persist in their discussions
about nature into the present. The oral evidence also points
to the late nineteenth century as the time when the notion of
Njaa became an important and persistent part of historical
discourse in Usambara.2

In seeking to dispel Kjekshus and vail's notion of a
precolonial/colonial divide in eastern Africa's ecological
history, this examination of nineteenth century ecology also
shows that farmers and herders had in precolonial times
substantial biological contacts with the European world.
European-introduced crops, like maize and rice, had entered

the Usambaras decades before European contact and farmers

 

Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East
African Commercial Empire into the world Economy, 1770—1873 (London:
James Currey Publishers, 1987).

2As evident from every informant able to speak with lucidity about
the nineteenth century.

237
there began to adopt them into their agricultural system as

supplements. Epizootics and epidemics also stemmed from
precolonial European contact. For example, rinderpest, a
cattle disease introduced from Europe into the Horn during
the 18803, swept across Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania
decimating cattle herds. It reached Usambara just as the
Germans began to set up a colonial sphere of influence, but,
contrary to what the oral traditions assert, did not stem
from their arrival.3

Although Usambarans had shown the capacity to rearrange
their agricultural system around new sets of circumstances in
the late nineteenth century, taken as a whole, the period is
marked by a great deal of insecurity, death and dislocation.
Just as Usambarans sought to rebuild their lives on a
familiar landscape, colonialism established a new set of
criteria for the definition and exploitation of natural
resources. This constituted the incipient stages of what has
become known as "development."4 Under the Germans and the
British, economic development and accumulation meant, from
the outset, the cultivation for the regional and world
markets of coffee, sisal, rubber, and tea, and later, maize
rice, and vegetables. Given tax requirements and their

growing material needs, farmers extended production to

 

3UIT Ali Gembe and his son, Shemboza bin Shemndola at Mlalo, 1/18/92,
p. 7. the latter told a story popular in Mlalo, which attributes the
droughts, diseases and insect infestations of the 18903 to pastor
Wohlrab of the Mlalo mission.

‘This point made by Juhani Koponen in "Colonialism and Development-
The Case of Mainland Tanzania during the German Period," presented at
the African Studies Association Conference, November 4, 1994, Toronto.

238
accommodate this situation. In this sense, colonial

development worked to undermine the food security system
Baumann saw operating at Mlalo in 1888.5

Paradoxically, in the late 19203 and early 19303,
colonial governments became extremely concerned with the
long-term conservation of soil, forest and water resources.
The colonial preoccupation grew from a world wide concern
with the dust bowls of the United States and eroded hills in
India, not necessarily conditions in the East Africa
highlands.‘ However, when they stopped to look, colonial
agriculturalists, trained in British Imperial agricultural
academies in Oxford and the west Indies, found degradation.7
This is not to say that soil erosion and deforestation did
not exist in Usambara, but that colonial officials and
scientists, with rare exceptions, did not seek to learn about
either the local variations in degradation or its wider
context of economic and political change.8 Nowhere does the
colonial record indicate that agricultural or forestry
officers asked farmers and herders why the acted as they did.

Usambarans came to understand their dilemma early in

their colonial experience. The variety of their actions

 

5For a discussion of the relationship between extensification of
production and degradation see, David Anderson and David Throup,
"Africans and Agricultural Production in Colonial Kenya: The Myth of
the War as a Watershed," Journal of.African History 26 (1985), pp. 327-
345.

6See especially, G.V. Jacks and R.O. Whyte, vanishing Lands: A world
Survey of Soil Erosion (London, Faber and Faber Ltd., 1939).

7See part IV in G.B. Masefield, A Short History of Agriculture in the
British Colonies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950).

8For exceptions see works of Gillman and Milne cited this the
bibliography.

239
shows clearly that even before the overt resistance to

colonial conservation programs of the 19503, farmers and
herders struggled to maintain food security in their new
guise as peasant farmers and laborers linked to the growing
regional market economy. However, as Usambarans were forced
to accept colonial definitions of Government, Private and
Public lands, they became increasingly constrained in their
patterns of production. In forests which colonial
specialists defined as government owned natural resources,
those who opened them to cultivation or pasturage became
criminals. Valuable farmlands in the plains became the
province of European owned sisal plantations. Even on lands
controlled by indigenous peoples, the Public Lands, maize and
European potatoes became part of an increasingly simplified
cropping regime designed to meet cash needs. In the face of
these changes, farmers and herders continually contested the
borders of Private and Government lands seeking to extend
their options. Thus border disputes became as much conflicts
over definitions as fights over resources.

.After werld war II, in what has become know as the
"second colonial occupation," the British colonial
government, acted to extend its power beyond its previously
defined domain to include the natural resources on Public
Lands.9 .Although the Usambara Rehabilitation Scheme

constitutes a particularly well-documented case, the effort

 

9For a description of the "second colonial occupation," see D.A. Low
and John Lonsdale, "Introduction: Towards the New Order 1945-1963,“ in
The Oxford History of East Africa, D.A. Low and Alison Smith, eds.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).

240
was certainly not unique to Usambara, but covered British

possessions across Eastern and Southern Africa. Success in
the highlands of Kenya, and Tanganyika depended on an
alteration in agricultural technology, i.e. ridging
hillsides, and planting grass lees and tree crops on very
steep slopes. Given Usambara's ecological complexity, the
simple uniformity of the plan doomed it to failure whether
farmers adopted it or not. Peasant farmers, many of them
women, simply could not adopt the new farming technology and
meet either subsistence or cash needs.

Those who resisted the new agricultural order of
colonial conservation, whether Chama members linked to the
nationalist cause, or women farmers, recognized it as a local
political problem and attacked the Native Authorities vested
‘with scheme enforcement. When, in the early 19603, the
colonial government's imperatives were replaced by the newly
formed independence government, a short-lived window of
opportunity opened for peasant farmers to extend the borders
of Public Lands into the former Government and Private
spaces. Unfortunately for the poorest farmers most in need
of land, the task of dividing the newly opened lands, like
the Lukozi cedar forest, fell into the hands of an emerging
elite, who, through their association with the TANU
government, managed to subvert the redistribution largely to

their own benefit.

 

241
II. Discussion

Charting Degradation through Time

Braudel's vision of a temporally layered history is
clearly applicable to the differing rates of change of
Usambara's natural and human histories. A history which
seeks to determine the course of degradation must therefore
consider the long term interaction. This study has described
hundreds of thousands of years of change in Usambara's
biological geography. As noted in chapter two,
archaeological evidence suggests that with the arrival,
around two thousand years ago, of farmers who possessed iron
smelting technologies, human communities have increasingly
left their mark on East Africa's highland landscapes. Iron
tools allowed farmers to clear more efficiently forest both
for cultivation and for fuel to feed iron furnaces.
Unfortunately the paucity of archaeological evidence does not
yet allow for a sophisticated analysis of change before the
past century and a half. Thus the scope of and rate of
degradation remains poorly documented, although undoubtedly
human societies shaped the landscape in dramatic ways.

Over the past century, west Usambara's indigenous
forests zones have undergone dramatic change; they have
either been eliminated or transformed biologically into
exotic tree plantations. Even on the more clearly
domesticated fanmlands, radical changes in cultigens and land
use patterns supports the argument of accelerated changes in

ecological degraded ecological conditions.

242
This dissertation has argued that, at least for the past

several generations, the signs of ecological stress, crisis
and degradation are evident in both the documentary and oral
evidence. What differs are the perceptions of causes and
cures. The official reports of well-schooled observers like
Milne and Gillman, as well as less cogent reports of
agricultural officers and foresters are often imbued with a
view African husbandry as simply primitive, or from a more
liberal perspective, unable to respond sufficiently to the
demands of the rapid social and economic change which
accompanied colonial rule. Ideas about conservation were
formed in a context of global concern and thus mitigation
followed broadly generalized principles of direct action
concentrated at the point of production. Indigenous views,
most notably in the politicized traditions of Njaa ya
Chankola, also argue that degradation grew from political and
social change and manifested itself in the guise of Njaa.
Solutions lay in long tested knowledge of local environmental
conditions and regional patterns of exchange.

Throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries
the regional political ecology in Usambara remained an arena
of contention. As this dissertation shows, the contest often
proceeded to the detriment of the productivity of the
mountain farmers and herders and the landscape they

inhabited.

243
III. Degradation and Development: An Epilogue

Environmental degradation continued to concern
development specialists into the independence period. The
sub-division of the Lukozi forest proved only a temporary
stop-gap measure. The poorest farmers remained on marginal
lands, at least in the most populous areas such as Vuga,
Bumbuli, Mlalo and Gare.1° .As indicated in the Introduction,
Lionel Cliffe, et al. found in west Usambara, grave
imbalances in the relationship between population and

resources. The crisis stemmed from:

...the forms of crop husbandry, the property
relations, the socio-political structures and the
values prevalent in this society. The
institutional features were once capable of
supporting one of the most complex and advanced
societies in East Africa, but they have now become
impediments to the further development of the
productive forces....piecemeal solutions have
little to offer and some radically different, but
integrated, alternative system of productive
relations and of institutions is necessary to
afford a solution to the development crisis.11

In the late 19603 and the 19703, the decade of populist
African Socialism.(Ujamaa), a new breed of western trained
development specialists prescribed a broadly socialist path
for development in Usambara. The new route argued for
further alienations of the forest reserve, the use of
collective labor and "an external stimulus in favor of

selected crops and/or animal products, coupled with new

 

10Lionel Cliffe, William L. Luttrell and John E. Moore, "The
Development Crisis in Western Usambara," in Cliffe et al. eds., Rural
Cooperation in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, 1975), p. 169.

111bid., p. 172.

244
techniques of production."132 Ironically the "new techniques"

included tie ridging, along with the inputs of hybrid crops
and petroleum base fertilizers associated with the "green
revolution".13

In the face of the skepticism of Usambara's farmers,
another more recent approach to agricultural development has
been formulated by German specialists who have again brought
particular brand of Western style development to the
mountains. Contrary to their more doctrinaire predecessors,
the Germans contended that Usambara's farmers practice
"ecological agriculture," which resulted from "a continuous
development of the approved traditional methods."1‘
Accordingly, the Germans sought and found ecological correct
farmers.15

Approaches to development in modern Tanzania show little
imagination. Socialist developers of the late 19603 and
early 19703, showing even more zeal than their colonialist
predecessors, had tried to completely reorganize production
and labor organization and head off a crisis. The Germans,
in a corrective measure, assailed what was, even by the late
19703, a clearly misdirected approach to modernization.

However, the German "ecological" school rejected crisis and

 

12Cliffe, Luttrell and Moore, "Socialist Development in Tanzania
.Agriculture - its Application to the western Usambaras," in Ibid., pp.
510-511.

13Ibid., p. 514,

“Kurt Egger and Bernhard Glaeser, Politische Okologie der Usambara-
Herge in Tanzania (Bensheim: Kfibel-Stiftung, 1979), p. 234.

15See especially Glaeser, Ecodevelopment in Tanzania: An mnpirical
Contribution on Needs, Self-sufficiency, and Environmentally-sound
Agriculture on Peasant Farms, translated from German by David Antal
(Berlin: Mouton, 1984).

 

245
found Merrie Africa.

The German government still invests heavily in
Usambara's development. The current Soil Erosion Control and
Afforestation Project (SECAP), has determined that
degradation constitutes a serious problem in the mountains.
With the authority of the government's Provincial Development
Team (TIRDEP), they strongly encourage farmers to plant
contour hedges as a biological measure to halt erosion, just
as their British colonial predecessors did in the 19303. In
compensation, they provide tree seedlings and other free
issues to cooperative farmers. Viewed from a distance, some
rehabilitated hillsides show impressive flushes of greenery
The TIRDEP project is a subject of great debate in Usambara,
Dar es Salaam and Germany. The results will likely reveal
themselves slowly.

In the meantime, timber has become Usambara's most
lucrative cash crop. Usambara Camphor (ocotea vsambarensis)
from the Shagai (near Mlalo) and Magamba forest reserves
leaves the mountains illegally.16 While the depletion of
Usambara's biological diverse rain forests reaches its final
stages, natural disasters continue. In 1991, large acreage's
of maize and banana fields simply washed away several
sections of the district's most important highway link. In
April of 1992 around Mgwashi, I drove through numerous

gardens which, after the onset of the long rains, had washed

 

16This is general knowledge in Mlalo and in Lushoto. In.my numerous
hikes through the Magamba forest, I came upon felling coupes. I was
shown similar clear fellings in the University forest reserve at
Mazumbai in April 1992.

246
onto the main road. Finally, on the night of January

23/24th, 1993, heavy rains struck the Mlalo basin watershed
and the Umba river flooded. By morning, the entire downtown
area of Usambara's largest urban community, and more than a
score of unfortunate residents, had been washed away. Six of

the dead contributed greatly to this study.

APPENDICES

247
APPENDIX A

West Usambara

 

 

 

 

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9‘. e- . ~\\\\\ A? :
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9 E
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Adapted from: Steven Feierman. 771: Shambaa Kingdom(Madison: University of Wisconsin
Pits. 1974). p. 24.

248
APPENDIX B

Mlalo Basin

 

N

W:

/..

I

E HLBLO 3831' N
155W“”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TANZANIA NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Following is a list of files consulted during
October/November 1991 and May 1992. Accession numbers can be
found in Fburth Annual Report of the National Archives of
Tanzania, 1967/68 (Dar es Salaam, 1969).

File Numbers

72/US/5a
72/US/26
72/US/28
72/US/29
72/US/30, vol. II
72/US/30, vol. III

72/US/31

72/US/32a
72/US/33

72/US/34

72/US/35, v. I a II

File Names

Usambara Scheme: Reports and Minutes
Vugiri Subchiefdom

Usambara Scheme: Safari Reports R.H.
Gower, Esq., A.J. Chant, and C.S.
Kernahan

Newspapers and Broadsheets from other
Districts

Usambara Scheme: Safari and Monthly
Reports. R.B. Silcocks

Usambara Scheme: Monthly Reports.
Silcocks

Usambara Scheme: Appointment of Field
Officers

Scheme Lorry

Usambara Scheme Survey. Road from
Mbaramo to Mnazi

Usambara Scheme: F.O.s Safaris and
Reports. Mr. Gibbons for Bumbuli,
Mgwashi, Bungu, Lutindi, Korogwe, vugiri.
12/51 - 9/56.

Usambara veterinary Reports

249

72/US/36

72/US/37

72/US/38

72/US/39

72/US/40
72/US/41

72/US/41, vol. II

72/US/42
72/US/43

72/US/44

72/US/45

72/US/46

72/US/49

72/US/50

72/US/53

72/US/56

72/US/59

72/US/60

72/US/60, vol. II
72/US/60, vol. III
72/US/60, vol. IV

72/US/61
72/US/62

250
Usambara Scheme: Monthly Reports, 3/52 -
6/53
Usambara Scheme: Mombo Experimental
Ploughed Lands
Usambara Scheme: Luengera Experimental
Ploughed Lands
Usambara Scheme: Rainfall Statistics and
Rain Gauges
Usambara Scheme: Plains Scheme, Seeds
Copies of articles and records concerning
Usambara Scheme: from other sources.
Implementation of Scheme Rules
Usambara Scheme: Matangazo
Usambara Scheme: Mlungu and wanakitala,
monthly reports
Usambara Scheme: Fish Farms and Staff
Matters
Usambara Scheme: Safari and Monthly
Reports. C. M. Kapalenga
Usambara Scheme: Reports on Mombo Plots
Usambara Scheme: Applications for werk
Usambara Scheme: Water Development
Schemes
Annual and Half-Annual Reports of
Usambara Scheme
Notes on Soil Conservation, Land Use,
Areas for Preservation
Monthly Ag. Reports of T. 0. Green, 1953-
55. Plains
Usambara Scheme: Financial, Scheme
Estimates, 1954-55
Scheme Estimates, 1955-56
Scheme Estimates 1957-58
Scheme Estimates 1956-57
Usambara Scheme: Mkundi Experimental Area
Usambara Scheme: Plains Expansion and

72/US/63
72/US/64
72/US/68
72/US/69
72/US/70
72/US/71
72/US/72
72/US/73
72/US/74

72/US/75

72/3/2, vol. IV

72/3/18

72/3/20

72/3/25

72/28/18
72/31/8/1

72/37/3, vol. I
72/62/9ff

72/62/9j

72/62/9j

251
Resettlement, Handeni Preserve
Chant and Drennan's Report on the
Usambara Scheme, 7/2/53
Usambara Scheme: Proposal for Model
Village at Lushoto
Usambara Scheme Staff: Dismissal Threats
and Requests for Retirement of Wakauzi
Report on Mlingano Valley Survey 19/5/55
Scheme Officers Safari Reports
West Usambara Trace Element Trials
Makolola/Matarawanda Model Farm.Scheme
Usambara Scheme: Social Development Reps.
Usambara Scheme: Luengera Valley
Irrigation Scheme
Usambara Scheme: Irrigation Scheme
Mng'aro Area

Agricultural Reports. Lushoto, 7/56
through late 503.

Misc. Reports on Forests, Soil, Native
Foodstuffs Ordinance (late 303, early
403)

wartime Rubber Labour

Mlalo Basin Rehab. Correspondence and
Reports by Rensburg, Nutman, et al.
Land: German Property Disposal
District Affairs: Usambara Planter's
Association

Medical and Sanitation

Correspondence concerning maendeleo ya
shambalai.

Mlalo Scheme: Final Report on Shita
Demonstration

Mlalo Scheme: Field Officer Clegg's
Report

72/62/9g

72/62/9h

4/107/4

4/107/6

4/107/7

4/107/10
4/107/vol. I
4/269/1

4/269/5, vol. I
4/269/5, vol. IV
4/269/5b, vol. I
4/269/6

4/269/7

4/269/12
4/269/13, vol. I

4/551/vol. I

4/651/I and II

4/651/2 vols.

4/651/2
4/962

252
Mlalo Scheme: Regarding Costs and
Requirements of Scheme
Mlalo Scheme: Annual Report for 1948 and
Piggot's Report 3/6/49

Boundary Disputes -Mponde Estate, 2
letters

Boundary Dispute: wambugu in the Shume
Forest

Boundary Disputes -Bethel M. Vuga vs.
Natives

Boundary Dispute —-Soni Estate vs.
Natives

Boundary Disputes -District and
Provincial

Provincial Development Committee, Tanga
Province.

Mlalo Rehab. Development Scheme

Usambara Scheme: Misc.

Monthly Reports by the D.O. in Charge.
Usamb. Scheme

Mlalo Basin Rehab Scheme, Reports,
Monthly and Quarterly

Mlalo Basin Rehab. Scheme, Minutes of
Meeting

Ruvu/Pangani Ag. Development Plan

Land Usage Schemes, Annual Reports of the
Usambara Scheme and Pare and Uluguru
Irrigation, from 1934 and Details
Proposed Irrigation below the Pare Hills
Land, Lushoto, Mostly Rights of Occupancy
for Commercial Plots and Some Attempts to
Obtain Freehold

[unreadable]

Land Files

District and Provincial Annual Reports

4/962

4/962/15

4/963/1

4/1071

4/1071

4/1302/61
4/1351/3
4/1351/7
4/1351/8, vol. I
4/1366
4/1375/vol. I

4/1375/vol. II

4/1611

253
for 1954
Annual Reports for Tanga Province and
Districts, 1956
1954 Annual Reports by Departmental
Officers
Record Books, District and Province
Forest Squatters in Shume-Magamba Forest
Soil Erosion 1931-38
Veterinary, Monthly Reports 1933-36.
Water Supply -»Lushoto Division
Water Supply -Korogwe
water Supply -Pollution of water Boards
Registration of Enemy Aliens
Removal of Enemy Aliens to S. Rhodesia:
Alien WOmen and Children
Removal to S. Rhodesia of Enemy WOmen and
Children
Native Tax

SECRETARIAT FILES CONSULTED

22446

13079, vol. III
25576

25576, vol. II

19685
24732

Reports on Soil Erosion Measures Taken in
the Territory 1934-38

Food Shortages

Soil Conservation Reports Tanzania
Territory

Soil Erosion -Annual Report to the
Secretary of State 1937

Advisory Committee on Soil Erosion.
Report on Soil Reconnaissance by Govt.
Chemist Milne: "Report on a Soil
Reconnaissance in the Neighbourhood of
Kitivo, Lushoto District, Tanganyika
Territory, and in Adjacent (West
Usambara) Highlands, September - October
1937"

254
INFORMANTS

(Last name, first, place, date)

Athumani, Abeid, Kwedeghe, 121/92.

Baharia, Francis, Magamba (near Mabughai), 12/3/23 and
1/23/92.

Chambua, Amiri, Mshangai, 2/27/92.

Epimark, Domitila, Gare Mission, 1/7/92.
Gembe, Ali, old town Mlalo, 1/18/92.
Hippoliti, Mshirhiri, Gare Mission 12/31/91.
Hamsini, Hoseni, Shita, 2/13/92.

Hasani, Musa, Mlalo, Jan. 3 1992.

Hwai, Teresia, Magamba, 5/14/92.

Jambia, Salehe, Lukozi, 3/17/92.

John, Fatuma, Kwemashai, 2/29/92.

Joho, Hamza, Kireti, 3/4/92

Kalata, Jafeth, Mlalo, 12/23/91.

Kaniki, Peter, Lukozi, 3/17/92.

Kidala, Dominique, Batai, 4/10/92.

Kidumi, Ahamadi Rashidi, Kitivo, Mng'aro. 2/8/92.
Kikoi, Athumani, Kwedeghe, 1/21/92.

Kimako, Juma Kingazi, Shita, 2/13/92.
Kisimbo, Hoseni, Malibwi, 1/2/92.

Lukindo, Mama Majuma, Mlalo, 2/26/92.

Mavoo, Mashambo, Kirete, 221/92.

Mbilu, Sabuni, Kwemashai, 223/92.

Mbuguni, Hasain Singano, Mlalo, 1/3/92.

Mdoe, Abdallah, Kitivo, Mng'aro. 2/8/92.
Mdoe, Amina Kitindu, Mlalo, old town, 1/18/92.
Mdoe, Khadija, Mlalo, 226/92.

Mganga, Terrance, Kwefingo, 3/29/92.

Mjenga, Sefu, Mbwei, 1/16/92.

Mlango Msasu, Kinko, 3/3/92.

Mlimnahadala, Hasani, Kwedeghe, 1/21/92.
Mntangi, Epiphan John, Kwemashai, 2/23/92.
Msanakale, Salim Bakari, Kwekanga, 1/21/92.
Mwavoa, Paulo, Kinko, 3/3/92.

Ngereza, Hemedi, Mlalo, 1/25/92.

Nyangusi, Mtee, Magamba (no date).

Panduka, Bakari, Kitivo, Mng'aro. 2/8/92.
Sabuni, Fatuma, Kwemashai, 2/29/92.

Saguti, Edward Mshangai, 4/2/92.

Sebarua, Juma, Lukozi, 3/17/92.

Sembe, Musa, Lunguza, 2/8/92.

Seuya, Magamba (near Mabughai), 12/3/23 and 1/23/92.
Shechambo, Mwanakombo, Mlalo, 2/26/92.
Shekulwavu, Salimu, Shita, 2/13/92.
Shemndola, Shemboza, old town Mlalo, 1/18/92.

255

Shemweta, Athumani, Kwedeghe,1/21/92.
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