Nyasaland was banned in 1958 was re-formed as the Malawi Congress Party in 1959. After the emergency, a commission headed by Lord Devlin exposed the failings of the Nyasaland administration. The Commission found that the declaration of a State of Emergency was necessary to restore order and prevent a descent into anarchy, but it criticised instances of the illegal use of force by the police and troops, including burning houses, destroying property and beatings. It rejected the existence of any "murder plot", but noted: The report concluded that the Nyasaland administration had lost the support of Nyasaland's African people, noting their
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