Nyasaland Emergency 1959 sources, including Special Branch reports, and the recollections of expatriates, and the reduction of African leaders to stereotypes. Nyasaland Emergency 1959 The Nyasaland Emergency 1959 was a state of emergency in the protectorate of Nyasaland (now Malawi), which was declared by its governor, Sir Robert Armitage on 3 March 1959 and which ended on 16 June 1960. Under the emergency powers that operated during the Emergency, over 1,300 members or supporters of the Nyasaland African Congress (Congress) were detained without trial, and most of the party's leaders including its president, Dr. Hastings Banda, were imprisoned in Southern Rhodesia after being
Operation Sunrise (Nyasaland) abandoned in early 1954 and the party lost much of its support and, following the Cholo riots, the Nyasaland government agreed to purchase land in Cholo District from the company for resettlement. The protectorate was relatively quiet until, in early 1957, the Nyasaland African Congress revived under a number of young activists, including Henry Chipembere, Kanyama Chiume and the brothers Dunduzu Chisiza and Yatuta Chisiza, who organised Congress as a mass political party and created support for Hastings Banda, a long-term expatriate who had campaigned against Federation, to return to Nyasaland as party leader. The activities of these young activists