ONE of the earliest districts to be developed in British Central Africa, starting indeed before the country was taken under British protection, was the Mlanje area on the south-east border of what is now Nyasaland. The name derives from the mountain, which is the highest point in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (9,843 ft.) and is about 200 sq. miles in area, rising from 2,000 ft.
A handful of Europeans, some of whom had been members of early expeditions while others were missionaries, bought land from the local chiefs at the west end of the massif in the ’80s.
There was no postal service in the whole country at this time, and the river route to the coast had not yet been developed. The nearest Post Office was the Portuguese one at Quelimane, and it was through this port that any imports or exports passed. An overland route presumably much along the line of the present motor road soon developed. This passed along the southern side of the mountain to the settled area from which tracks radiated to Blantyre, Zomba and other points. A collecting and distributing centre must soon have developed with an organized system of “runners” to and from the coast, of which communities further away would make use instead of sending their own messengers all the way. In other words here was an embryo postal service.
When Sir Harry Johnston first visited the country in 1889 (still before a Protectorate was declared) he found this working and so included a date stamp for the area, reading MILANJI when ordering postal supplies at home in 1891 before his return as first Commissioner.
But no office of this name had been heard of before 1908 though date stamps Milanji and Mlanje were in use somewhere. Recent research has discovered an office ‘”functioning in 1891, locally known as PANGOMANI or SURUKU about two miles from the present Mlanje Headquarters. This was humed down in a native rising in 1893 and the office was moved fifteen or twenty miles east to CHIPENDO where a fort was built called (Old) Fort Anderson. Its position did not give the desired control of slave raiders, and by the end of 1896 a new Fort Anderson had been built two miles west of the Pangomani site. Both forts were officially known as “Fort Anderson/Mlanje”. The date stamp for the new office read Fort Anderson (only), and once it was taken into use both the double outer circle Milanji and the single circle Mlanje marks disappeared until the latter came again when Fort Anderson was renamed Mlanje in 1908.
It seems certain therefore that these marks were used at both Pangomani and Old Fort Anderson.
Milanji was the name of the district, just as RUO was the name of that with headquarters at Tshiromo, and obviously these were selected by Sir H. Johnston to indicate areas before the site of local HQ had been chosen. This explains why there is no mark of the first (double circle) type for Tshiromo.
Fort Anderson was intended to control the west end of the massif and there was a similar fort called Fort Lister/Mlanje built to cover the north and east end as the majority of the slave raiders came across the border from Portuguese territory. This office also has had several changes of site. Once slave raiding was stopped its importance declined and the whole headquarters was shut down in 1903. In 1927 a post office not attached to any Administrative HQ was opened; the name of this was changed to Palombe in 1934. It has always used its own date stamps, the word Mlanje not appearing.
The sequence of post offices therefore seems to have been first an office at Pangomani using the Milanji date stamp with killer K in a circle of bars, then offices at two Forts, using Mlanje and Fort Lister date stamps. Next came Fort Anderson in 1896 replacing the Mlanje marks. In 1903 Fort Lister was closed down, and all Mianje mails were dealt with at Fort Anderson on the same site as today, the name being changed to Mlanje in 1908. Finally in 1927 a sub-office was opened at Fort Lister which became Palombe in 1934.
Fascinating article!