British Central Africa Protectorate

The British Central Africa Protectorate was a British protectorate in the region of present-day Malawi, proclaimed in 1889 and formally ratified in 1891, and renamed the Nyasaland Protectorate in 1907. British interest grew out of David Livingstone's Zambezi expeditions and the missions and traders that followed him around Lake Nyasa and the Shire Highlands. To block Portuguese claims and a Portuguese expedition, the British government sent Henry Hamilton Johnston to secure treaties with local chiefs, and he became commissioner and consul-general. His small administration at Zomba established courts, districts and a police force, and British and Indian settlers acquired estates in the Shire Highlands. The protectorate's economy remained weak, based on plantation agriculture and the export of ivory and rubber, and its administration depended on a handful of officials. The name changed to Nyasaland on 6 July 1907, when the territory received a governor and a more elaborate colonial constitution. Zomba served as the administrative centre.