Postage stamps and postal history of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Postage stamps and postal history of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, also known as the Central African Federation (CAF), was a semi-independent state in southern Africa that existed from 1953 to the end of 1963. The state included the former self-governing (since 1923) Colony of Southern Rhodesia and the British protectorates of Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland. The Federation officially ended on 31 December 1963, when Northern Rhodesia gained independence from the United Kingdom as the new nation of Zambia and Nyasaland gained independence as the new nation of Malawi. Southern Rhodesia then became
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 to Federation, but otherwise quite moderate and far less radical that the younger Congress members. Although the Nyasaland African Congress was at first based in Blantyre, many branches were established in the Northern Province after 1955. Schemes to prevent cutting down and burning trees to assist the cultivation of finger millet, and to restrict the numbers of cattle owned, had begun in that region in 1938, but from 1947 they were increasingly enforced through fines. From 1951, unpaid work on schemes designed to prevent soil erosion was imposed by the Nyasaland government. Resistance to these measures created a climate of