Word: rhodesia
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...that time it was hoped that the self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia could unite with the protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland to form a federation whose eventual goal would be an independent dominion within the Commonwealth. Nyasaland, with its over 99 per cent black population, feared domination by the strong white settler population of Southern Rhodesia; but it was hoped that the Federation would help both areas economically and would constitute a buffer betwen the reactionary white government of South Africa and the pure black territories to the North...
Largely under the liberal pressure of the Colonial Office in London, the Federal government, which was soon dominated by the white settler population of Southern Rhodesia, has allowed reduced segregation, university integration, and limited participation of Africans in government. But the scale and speed of these advances have not satisfied the increasingly articulate nationalists, who fear that if the Federation is accorded dominion status when the question comes up in 1960, the colonialists will take advantage of their independence to suppress African rights. In line with the official policy, originally that of Cecil Rhodes, of giving the vote to every...
...Hastings Banda, who has dubiously honored himself with the title of "extremist of extremists," is the area's chief nationalist spokesmon. Until his return to Southern Rhodesia last summer, there had been no trouble in six years, but since then his messianic influence seems to have encouraged the nationalist African Congress party to turn from politics to militant agitation. This has served to discredit the moderate whites who permitted his return to Rhodesia and to strengthen extremists on both sides...
Politically, breakup of the Federation could also be disastrous, for Northern Rhodesia would soon want independence from Southern Rhodesia, which might then have to join South Africa, certainly no improvement for her black majority. Political independence, as the recent black-versus-black riots in the free Congo Republic in which 120 were killed demonstrates, would by no means be an unmixed blessing for a state as unprepared as Nyasaland...
...Zambesi River, forming the border between the two Rhodesias, the entire African work force of 6,600 at the great Kariba Dam (TIME, Dec. 15) went out on strike. Southern Rhodesia, otherwise least affected by trouble because its Africans have always been the least militant, was determined to set an example of toughness for its neighbors. Prime Minister Sir Edgar Whitehead mobilized the white population, slapped a strict censorship on the press, and declared a state of emergency; in one 2 a.m. roundup, his cops grabbed 250 members of the African National Congress and stuck them in jail, incommunicado...