Northern Rhodesia had been detained without trial, following claims that they had planned the indiscriminate killing of Europeans and Asians, and of African opponents, the so-called "murder plot". Shortly afterwards, on 12 March 1959, the governor of Northern Rhodesia also declared a State of emergency there, arrested 45 Zambia African National Congress including Kaunda and banned the party. Kaunda later received a 19-month prison sentence for conspiracy, although no credible evidence of conspiracy was produced. The declaration of States of emergency in both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland marked the end of attempts by their nationalist parties to work within the colonial system,
Northern Rhodesia BSAC claimed to own mineral rights over the whole of Northern Rhodesia under concessions granted between 1890 and 1910 by Lewanika covering a poorly defined area of North-Western Rhodesia or negotiated by Joseph Thomson and Alfred Sharpe in 1890 and 1891 with local chiefs in a disputed area of North-Eastern Rhodesia. This claim was accepted by the British Government. After the Charter ended, BSAC joined a group of nine South African and British companies which financed the development of Nchanga Mines, to prevent them falling under US control. However, its main concern was to receive royalties. However significant they were,