in 1891 (as "British Central Africa") and in 1907, was named Nyasaland. Unlike many other parts of Africa, where British rule was dependent on the support of local factions, in Nyasaland British control rested on military superiority. During the 1890s the colonial authorities put down numerous rebellions by the local Yao, Ngoni and Cewa peoples. British rule in Nyasaland radically altered the local indigenous power structures. The early colonial period saw some immigration and settlement by white colonists, who bought large swathes of territory from local chiefs, often for token payments in beads or guns. Most of the land acquired, particularly in the Shire Highlands, was converted into white-owned plantations where tea, coffee, cotton and tobacco were grown. The enforcement of colonial institutions, such as the Hut Tax, compelled many indigenous people to find paid work and the demand for labour created by the plantations led to their becoming a major employer. Once employed on the plantations, black workers found that they were frequently beaten and subject to racial discrimination. Increasingly, the plantations were also forced to rely on a system, known locally as thangata, which at best involved exacting considerable labour as rent in kind and could degenerate into forced labour or corvée. Chilembwe and his Church John Chilembwe, born locally in around 1871, received his early education at a Church of Scotland mission and later met Joseph Booth, a radical Baptist missionary who ran the Zambezi Industrial Mission. Booth preached a form of egalitarianism and his progressive attitude towards race attracted Chilembwe's attention. Under Booth's patronage, Chilembwe travelled to the United States to study at a theological college in Virginia. There he mixed in African-American circles and was influenced by stories of the abolitionist John Brown and the egalitarianist Booker T. Washington. Despite his Christian pacifist and visionary temperament, Booth was also highly criticial of established institutions such as the colonial regime and the Protestant churches of Nyasaland. He was particularly hostile towards the missionaries of Church of Scotland in Blantyre, criticizing their affluent lifestyle in comparison to the poverty of local peasants. Both the colonial government and Presbyterian missonaries were concerned by Booth's "dangerous egalitarian spirit" and being "a determined advocate of racial equality, as well as being fundamentally opposed to the colonial state". Booth was also a staunch advocate of establishing his own industrial mission in addition to the religious one, and acquired 26,537 acres of