The Ngoni had settled in northern Nyasaland in the early 1850s and brought the local peoples under their control. From the late 1870s, the Ngoni there had contact with Free Church of Scotland missionaries. Robert Laws first met the Ngoni Chief Mbelwa (referred to as Mombera in early writings) in 1879, and in 1881 he established Livingstonia Mission at Bandawe in the northwestern of Lake Nyasa. Over a period of years, Laws persuaded the Ngoni leader to cease raiding and the missionaries established themselves in his kingdom as educators and arbitrators in disputes. In 1885, a mission school was opened at Ekwendeni in the heart of Ngoniland. By 1899, there were favourable signs that the Ngoni were ready to come under the control of the protectorate administration. Dr. Laws advised Sharpe to be cautious and to manage the transfer of power with tact and dignity. Sharpe agreed to leave the timing of imposition of administrative control to Laws: in 1904, after a severe famine in 1903, the time seemed right. At a ceremony at Ekwendeni in October 1904, the Ngoni leaders agreed to submit themselves to British rule, to accept a resident administrator and to pay taxes from 1906. However, Sharpe allowed the Ngoni a measure of self-government under a paramount chief, and this continued for several years after his departure. Sharpe's agreement with Mbelwa in 1904 showed that he now accepted that the consent of the people governed could not be ignored. Before Sharpe extended the Hut tax to Mbelwa's kingdom, he noted that almost no Ngoni from that area went to the Shire Highlands as seasonal workers, but after many went not only to the Shire Highlands, but also to Rhodesia and even South Africa.