Nyasaland Emergency 1959 unwilling to release most of the detainees. The Malawi Congress Party was formed as the successor to the banned Nyasaland African Congress by Orton Chirwa after his release from detention in August 1959 as interim President, although he acknowledged Banda as the party's true leader, a position that Banda assumed on his own release and return to Nyasaland. Those other African politicians that had put themselves forward as moderate alternatives to Banda were, Armitage himself admitted, not credible and without influence. Armitage's hopes of negotiating with Orton Chirwa instead of Banda were dashed when Chirwa said that only Banda had
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