On July 15, 1958, the new Governor of Tanganyika, Richard Gordon Turnbull, was sworn into office in Dar es Salaam. He was famously known as the “Hammer of Mau Mau” because of his heavy‑handed tactics against Mau Mau freedom fighters in Kenya.

Just a week after his arrival, unrest erupted in Geita. From the second week of July 1958, growing dissatisfaction turned into an organized protest, culminating in a march of more than 6,000 residents from Geita to Nyamagana Grounds in Mwanza. Men, women, and children marched and camped at the Nyamagana ground for five days.

The Lake Zone was already a region of political tension. The main issue was resistance to the proposed mixed District Councils. Since 1955, the colonial government had begun establishing District Councils in Tanganyika. Previously, governance had relied on so called Native Authorities, mainly Chiefs. In most cases, Chiefs were selected for their loyalty to the colonial government, and where no suitable candidate existed, one was imposed.

The crisis in Geita intensified with the introduction of the mixed District Council under government restructuring initiative, in which Africans, Europeans, and Asians were to have equal representation in leadership. Government reported to UN  that local Chiefs were consulted: “In February 1955, the Chiefs of the Geita District voluntarily agreed to the co-option of seven non-Africans onto the Geita District Council voluntarily.”

Colonial government reports further noted that by the end of April 1957, it was agreed that a District Council should be established after consultations and a Baraza held by Chiefs. The Council was formally established on March 1, 1958, with a membership of 65, including the District Commissioner, Chiefs from seven areas of Geita, the Liwali of Geita, five government officers, and 51 others appointed by the Mwanza Commissioner, two Asians, four Europeans, and 45 Africans.

While the colonial government portrayed the Council positively, many residents opposed it, and even more strongly opposed the Chiefs, whom they believed had been imposed and were serving only colonial interests. TANU activist were seeing it as a scheme to derail efforts toward independence.

Tension

By this time, TANU had gained strong support in the area, and its activists were widely accepted as leaders. Opposition to the mixed Council grew rapidly. People demanded the removal of imposed Chiefs, the dissolution of the Council, and called for a boycott of taxes and road construction.

Although meetings were officially banned, TANU activists continued to organize them.The situation escalated when communities began preventing the arrest of TANU activists and, in some cases, forcibly freeing them from custody. A 1958 government report noted:

“A number of instances occurred in which collective disorder required intervention of the police. From July to December, the Lake Province experienced disturbances in the Geita, Mwanza (Rural), and Kwimba Districts. A common feature of these disturbances was the forcible rescue of persons before the local courts by groups of misguided people, usually armed with sticks and stones.”

From April to May 1958, tensions in Geita intensified. On May 14, 1958, the District Commissioner suspended all TANU activities in Geita for six months.

This suspension acted like fuel on a smoldering fire. Political activities increased, and unrest deepened. It is notable that TANU had already been banned in Mwanza since November 1, 1954, with its property confiscated on the grounds that the branch was being used for purposes “prejudicial to peace, order, and good government.”

The colonial government had accused TANU leaders Bhoke Isaack Munanka (Chairperson) and Saadan Abdu Kandoro (Secretary) of being proffessional instigators . Munanka was placed under surveillance, while Kandoro was ordered to return to Kigoma. When Kandoro later returned to Mwanza for personal reasons, the Removal of Undesirable Persons Ordinance was issued against him on June 15, 1955, ordering him to leave Mwanza within three days and never return.

Nyerere’s article

Developments in the Lake Zone alarmed Julius Nyerere. On May 27, 1958, he published an article in TANU’s newspaper, Sauti ya TANU, condemning the situation. At the time, Nyerere himself had been banned from speaking at public meetings, making print his most effective means of communication.

“In the Government Gazette, it was announced in their usual boastful language under General Notice No. 198 of 1958 that all TANU activities were banned, even though we have no office in Geita! The reason given for closing a non-existent office was the same old one. Words were taken out of the party laws to justify it,” Nyerere wrote.

“We do not fear the law, as long as the police do not interfere in politics and do not take sides between law-abiding citizens and the ‘Governors of the Jungle’ who act as if the law does not apply to them. The reason these madmen provoke people into causing trouble is that we cannot lose if we abide by the law,” he continued.

He cautioned: “Be vigilant, fellow citizens, be vigilant. The enemy is being defeated; he is falling because he has no way to oppose our cry. His only method is violence, so that he may then use guns.”

Following publication of the article, on June 5, 1958, police visited TANU’s office and ordered Nyerere to produce Issue No. 29 of  Sauti ya TANU. He complied. On June 9, 1958, Nyerere was taken to court on charges of defamation.

Events soon validated Nyerere’s fears. In the second week of July, police intervened in a public rally where TANU activists urged citizens to boycott taxes and roadwork and to disobey local Chiefs. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested one of the leaders, Hezroni Mpandachalo, after clashes with demonstrators.

Following Mpandachalo’s arrest, people mobilized and marched to the provincial headquarters in Mwanza. Between 6,000 and 10,000 protesters reached Nyamagana Stadium on July 21, 1958, where they camped.

On July 23, 1958, ten spokesmen met with the Provincial Commissioner and presented their demands: abolition of the District Council, removal of the Chiefs, and amnesty for all those arrested during the protests. The government rejected these demands but selected three delegates to fly to Dar es Salaam to meet the Governor. Turnbull stated that an investigative team had been established to examine the first two demands, but he rejected the call for amnesty.

Amid the protests, only nine days after taking office, Turnbull met TANU Chairman Julius Nyerere on July 24, 1958. In his 1973 lecture series titled The Quiet Revolution, Professor Kenneth Ingham detailed the first meeting between the two. Turnbull told Nyerere: “There are two people who can make this country work, you and I. If we work together, it will work well. If we don’t work together, it will pull apart. What do you think?” Nyerere replied, “We’ll work together.”

Governors’s Shift

This first interaction was unexpected, given Turnbull’s reputation in Kenya. By July 25, 1958, the government had assembled enough police and imposed a deadline for protesters to vacate Nyamagana Grounds. Paul Bomani, a member of the Legislative Council, was sent to negotiate with the crowd, but without success. When the deadline expired, police used tear gas and batons to disperse the protesters.

“As a result of the police action, seven persons were admitted to the hospital, the most serious injury being a broken leg,” a 1959 government report to the UN stated.

“A further 129 persons were treated for slight injuries, and of these, only 20 reported for further treatment the next day. Most of these minor injuries were cuts and scratches caused by the scramble to get through the wire fence surrounding the recreation ground,” the report continued.

After the Geita protests, tensions in Geita and Mwanza intensified further. On August 8, 1958, the Governor visited the area and met representatives of the protesters, though he was unable to address the full crowd.

The protests sent shockwaves through the colonial administration. Unlike previous actions, which were mainly  workers’ strikes,and governmnet was used to it, since early 1940s strike by port workers, the Geita events demonstrated mass political mobilization.

Former District Officer Dick Eberlie, then stationed in Nzega, explained the phenomenon in his book: “Riots in the Lake Province had demonstrated TANU’s power to disrupt orderly administration and caused us to consider future policy with great care.”

Arrests increased, including that of TANU activist Augustin Madaha. Complaints also emerged that the region had become a police state, with people arrested for minor infractions such as walking at night without a lamp.

In Colin Baker’s biography of Richard Turnbull, it is noted that Turnbull recognized TANU’s capacity to disrupt normal government operations. Tanganyika’s 5,000 police officers were considered insufficient to handle a major security crisis, and the Geita protests proved such an incident was possible.

Turnbull informed the Colonial Office that: “the threat was real but believed political concessions could prevent conflict”. He stated that he would have required at least eight battalions of British troops to manage a serious uprising, but instead chose to work with TANU, a position the Colonial Office supported.

By September 1958, Tanganyika held its first elections under limited suffrage. Only elders, Chiefs, and those who could read were allowed to vote. The intention of this constrained voters was to contain what authorities viewed as nationalist “extremism.”

TANU won every seat in which it fielded a candidate. This marked a second major victory for TANU. The elections showed its popularity, while the Geita protests demonstrated its ability to mobilize mass action.

Dick Eberlie summarized these dual strengths: “The political situation was tense. Riots had occurred in the northwest of the country, and excitement had been generated by the February elections in ten big constituencies, including the Dar es Salaam metropolis.”

“Some of the hotheads had publicly threatened passive disobedience (which they styled kugoma, that is ‘to go on strike’), and we heard stories that TANU was seriously contemplating civil disobedience if it did not see rapid movement towards its goal of independence. In Dar, we recognised the difficulty of controlling the situation if the mass of the African population decided to create trouble, and we had been hugely relieved there had been no serious problems after the recent elections,” he continued.

By October 1958, Turnbull was openly aligning himself with TANU’s perspective. In his speech to Parliament that month, he signaled a shift toward political reform and became instrumental in accelerating Tanganyika’s path to independence.