beat their workers with a whip and forced African widows to work on the land too. Chilembwe acted as a spokesman for the local Lomwe people. Meanwhile, the African planters were frustrated by economic restrictions and social discrimination that they had to endure despite adopting the European way of life. They were unable to obtain freehold land or credit and didn't have the right to sign the labour-tax certificates of their employees, which undermined their chances of attracting workers. Additionally, the colonial government openly favoured the white landowners, who acted like "feudal lords" on their own. Every African planter was "obliged to take off his hat for any European, whether government official or not", and a failure to do so often meant physical and verbal abuse. White settlers and even Protestant ministers, despite preaching equality, resented the African planters, as the fact that educated Africans embraced European fashion and expected to be treated equally was considered "above their station". William Jervis Livingstone was particularly known for using derogatory phrases towards educated and landowning Africans, asking "whose slave they are". Morris identifies this discrimination as one of the main causes for the rebellion. After 1912, Chilembwe became more radical and began to predict the liberation of the Africans and the end of colonial rule, and began to foster closer links with a number of other independent African churches. From 1914, he preached more militant sermons, often referring to Old Testament themes, concentrating on such aspects as the Israelites' escape from slavery in Egypt , Chilembwe himself was not part of the apocalyptic Watch Tower movement, which was popular in central Africa at the time and later became known as Kitawala in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but some of his followers may have been influenced by it. The leader of Watch Tower, Charles Taze Russell had predicted that Armageddon would begin in October 1914, which some of Chilembwe's followers equated to an end to colonial rule. World War I World War I broke out in July 1914. By September 1914, the war had spread to Africa as the British and Belgians began a long military campaign against the German colonial army in German East Africa. In Nyasaland, the major effect of the war was massive recruitment of Africans to serve as porters in support of the Allied armies. Porters lived in extremely poor conditions which left them exposed to disease