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 of former Crown Lands were sold as freehold land or leased, and almost 400,000 acres more originally in Certificates of Claim were sold or leased in holdings whose average size was around 1,000 acres, many representing smaller farms of Europeans coming to Nyasaland after the First World War to grow tobacco. As late as 1920, a Land Commission set up by the Nyasaland authorities proposed further land alienation to promote the development of small to medium size European plantations from the 700,000 acres of Crown Land which it said were available after the present and future needs of the African