Buchanan, John

John Buchanan was the first Christian missionary in Zomba, which became the capital of Nyasaland (now Malawi) during the British Protectorate, which he himself declared as Acting Consul in 1889. He was born at Muthill in Perthshire, Scotland, on 15 May 1855, the third of the six children of John Buchanan and Helen Gilbert. On leaving school, he followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the staff of Drummond Castle, where he trained as a gardener. During this time, through the Evangelical Revival, his deep Christian faith was formed. David Livingstone’s death in 1873 turned his attention to Africa. When the Church of Scotland appealed for staff to join a Livingstone-inspired missionary expedition to Central Africa, Buchanan was ready to respond. [1] He was a member of the first missionary party that founded Blantyre Mission on 23 October 1876.

Undaunted by the unsettled conditions, he threw himself into his work as the Mission horticulturalist. He was enchanted by Malawi’s natural environment and lost no time in exploiting its potential to produce abundant crops. He was responsible for introducing coffee and tea, which later developed into major industries. He made rapid progress in learning the Chiyao language, which enabled him to relate well with the local community. After a year he reflected, “I am getting more in love with this place every day.” [2] His grasp of Chiyao was one reason why he was chosen to establish the first outstation of Blantyre Mission – on the lower slopes of Zomba Mountain, about 40 miles away. It was here that Buchanan found his life’s work – laying the foundations of the church in Zomba, developing a major agricultural enterprise, and becoming instrumental in the establishment of the British Protectorate.

While he was still at Blantyre, however, in 1878-79, he was involved in some incidents that led to his dismissal by the Church of Scotland in 1881. A community soon gathered at the Mission and the small group of missionaries formed the impression that they were responsible for its civil jurisdiction, including the administration of justice. When crimes occurred, they inflicted punishments, which included severe floggings and, in the case of a murderer, the death sentence. When news of this reached Scotland, it became a national scandal, to the extent that the continuation of the Mission was in jeopardy. [3] The Church of Scotland determined to continue the Mission but only after dismissing three missionaries who had been implicated in the atrocities, including Buchanan.

By this time, Buchanan was well established at Zomba and decided to continue on an independent basis. He developed Malawi’s first coffee plantation while at the same time continuing the mission work, with church services on Sundays and a school running on weekdays. As well as preaching in Chiyao on Sundays, Buchanan made evangelistic expeditions to the surrounding villages. By 1884 this work was reintegrated into the Blantyre Mission, under a special arrangement through which it was supported by Buchanan’s home parish of Muthill. [4] During the late 1880s the first baptisms took place and a Christian congregation emerged, composed mostly of Yao people who were working on the coffee plantation. A key leader was Paton Somanje, a convert of the mission who became Buchanan’s right-hand man. Somanje was headteacher of the school and preacher at the church services whenever Buchanan was absent.

Buchanan never forgot his Livingstone-inspired hostility to the slave trade, which led him to promote the development of plantation agriculture and to advocate the imposition of British colonial rule in the area that was to become Malawi. His estate in Zomba became central to the incoming British influence, as he built a Consulate on his land and became the Acting Consul at a decisive moment in Malawi’s history. There was a tussle between Portugal and Britain as to which would control the Shire Highlands and Lake Nyasa. Buchanan was one of those who swung the balance in favour of Britain. Having made the initial declaration of the British Protectorate in 1889, he was a key supporter of the first Commissioner, Harry Johnston, as he imposed British rule during the early 1890s. At the same time, Buchanan was instrumental in the transfer of huge tracts of land to incoming European settlers. He appears to have had little compunction about this since it was part of the strategy to eliminate the slave trade, but it soon had negative consequences for Malawians who found it increasingly difficult to access the land they needed to sustain their lives.

In 1893 Buchanan married Cecelia Mackenzie Ferrie, from Campsie in Scotland. When the couple were expecting their first child in 1896, they set off from Zomba to travel to Scotland for the delivery. On the journey to the coast, Buchanan fell ill with fever and died at Chinde in Mozambique on March 9,1896. His posthumously born son, also named John Buchanan, went on to captain Scotland’s rugby team, be decorated for gallantry in the First World War, and to have a distinguished international medical career, which culminated in a knighthood in recognition of his work as Chief Medical Officer in the Colonial Office. Meanwhile his father’s mission work at Zomba was reintegrated into the Blantyre Mission after his death. [5] Out of it grew an extensive church movement in Zomba, which today comprises an entire Presbytery of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian Blantyre Synod.

Buchanan also left his mark on Malawi’s landscape. Many of the trees that he planted around the Mulunguzi River in Zomba continue to flourish as the area where he lived has become a Botanic Garden and National Herbarium. The very large trees growing around his house in Zomba are named after him – Newtonia buchananii. He also has at least ten other plant species named after him, including Aloe buchananii, an Aloe that grows on Zomba Mountain. [6] He was alert to the connection between woodland and climate and was one of the first to warn of the danger the country would face if it did not take care to sustain its natural environment, especially the tree cover. He asked a question that carries contemporary resonance: “… what higher reward can one have than the assurance in his own conscience of having conferred on posterity an endowment of fruit-bearing and long-lived trees?” [7] His legacy in Malawi is complicated but as an advocate of environmental awareness and as the founder of the church in Zomba, his work merits continued attention today.

Kenneth R. Ross

Notes:

1. “Report of the Foreign Mission Committee,” Reports on the Schemes of the Church of Scotland for the Year 1875, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1875, 181-266, at 206.
2. John Buchanan to John MacRae, June 15, 1877, in The Church of Scotland Home and Foreign Missionary Record, December 1,1877, 536.
3. Andrew Chirnside, The Blantyre Missionaries: Discreditable Disclo¬sures, London: Ridgeway, 1880.
4. “Report of the Foreign Mission Committee, Appendix V Mission to Zomba,” Reports on the Schemes of the Church of Scotland for the Year 1884, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1884, 65-174, at 129.
5. Andrew C. Ross, Blantyre Mission and the Making of Modern Malawi, Blantyre: CLAIM-Kachere, 1996, 199, n26.
6. Dr John Wilson, email to Kenneth Ross, October 4, 2024.
7. John Buchanan, The Shire Highlands (East Central Africa) as Colony and Mission, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, 1885, 20.

Bibliography

Buchanan, John. The Shire Highlands (East Central Africa) as Colony and Mission. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, 1885.

Buchanan, John to John MacRae, June 15, 1877. The Church of Scotland Home and Foreign Missionary Record. December 1, 1877.

Chirnside, Andrew. The Blantyre Missionaries: Discreditable Disclo¬sures. London: Ridgeway, 1880.

“Report of the Foreign Mission Committee.” Reports on the Schemes of the Church of Scotland for the Year 1875. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1875, 181-266.

“Report of the Foreign Mission Committee, Appendix V Mission to Zomba.” Reports on the Schemes of the Church of Scotland for the Year 1884. Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1884, 65-174.

Ross, Andrew C., Blantyre Mission and the Making of Modern Malawi, Blantyre: CLAIM-Kachere, 1996.

Wilson, John. Email to Kenneth Ross. October 4, 2024.

This article, submitted in May 2025, was researched and written by Kenneth R. Ross, Professor of Theology and Dean of Postgraduate Studies at Zomba Theological University in Malawi.