By Maxwell Zulu –
IF one went round to find out what the word BOMA means, a myriad answers would emerge. To some it is no more than a livestock enclosure or stockade.
Others say the word is an  acronym which stands  for ‘British Overseas Management Administration’ or ‘British Officers Mess Area’ during  the colonial era.
This is a popular myth told and held by many young Zambians or tourists alike. And to date the myth still holds and has been adopted in most if not all Zambian languages to mean government in general, or locations of government offices, such as district centres.
Thus it is not surprising to hear comments such as “boma iyanganepo” (literally meaning, ‘let government look at it’) whenever concerned citizens want government intervention.
However, in this circumstance not the context it is being used. The context in which the word ‘boma’ is used means a smallfort or a district government office used in many parts of Africa associated with European colonial rule.
The pioneer European settlers when they came to this part of the continent encountered unreceptive tribesmen in whose midst they had to settle.
To but tress themselves from these hostile people, they put up small but usually impregnable forts with palisades around. The forts became locally called the Bomas.
In British colonies, especially in remote areas, boma came to be used to mean colonial government offices because in the late 19th century such offices usually included a fortified police station or military barracks, often in the form of a timber stockade, though some had stone walls.
Hence, this article and subsequent ones attempts to trace the old bomas in Zambia starting with the Southern Province.
Old Kalomo
The original site is near a cross-roads, across a stream, about 4km south of the present town.
The site is now occupied by Choonga Primary School which had standing timber structure in a skeletal form which stood of what was once the Administrator’s Office until the last century.
The Boma served as the headquarters of North-western Rhodesia under Robert Coryndon from 1902-7 when the capital shifted to Livingstone.
The Administrator’s House, reputedly the first brick building in the North-western Rhodesia (1903) is now a National Monument.
Not far from here about one and half kilometres northwest of Old Kalomo is the Kalomo Pioneer Centery with 47 graves still intact. On one of the tomb stones, the following inscription reads:
“In loving memory of Wing Commander Peter Corbishley, D.F.C. 1916 – 1957. Peace Perfect Peace.”
Fort Monze
This was the first Police Post established in North-western Rhodesia. It was founded in 1899 by a contingent of British South Africa Company (BSA Co.) under Capt. G.V. Drury.
The post was opened to check insolence, obstruction and menace posed by the Baila (Ila people of Namwala District) to prospectors and small traders north of the Zambezi River. It was also from here that BSA Co Police enforced the payment of tax.
In 1903, the Post closed its doors. At the moment it is now one of the National Monuments but all that remains is a cemetery containing graves of the BSA Co Police party which established the post including that of William Harding the Commanding Officer, and a small rectangular earthwork inside which a Standard Monument has been erected on which are the following words are inscripted:
“This Fort was established in 1899, near the village of Chief Monze by the first contingent of BSA Police to enter Northern Rhodesia. A moat with earth rampart mounting maxim guns at the corners enclosed a small strong-point; the living quarters were close by. Owing to malaria the Fort was abandoned in 1903.
Several of the officers and men are buried in the adjacent cemetery.”
Nkala
This was an important centre at the end of the 20th Centuary. The site is located on the top of the Nakalomwe Hill about 4km northeast of the tourist camp at Ngoma in the Kafue National Park. West of Namwala, it is south of the Kafue River just as it bends eastwards and is north of the present Nanzhila Mission. The primordial Methodist Mission formed their pioneer mission here in December, 1893.
Apparently this was a stopping place for early transport riders on the route from south to the early copper mines of the Mumbwa District.
The station was on the main mail – runner route and from 1902-3 had a post office.
Of interest is an early BSA Co. map shows the ‘planned railway’ from Livingstone to Kabwe passing through Nkala.
It was set up as a Barotse Native Police (BNP) Post about 1901, perhaps also as a consequence of the incidents that took place in Maala.
The Boma was referred to as a ‘Fort’ by travellers in 1902 and official reports for the same year put its garrison as one European Sub-inspector, one European Sergeant and twenty-one (21) African Non-commissioned Officers and men. Civil administration was introduced into the area in 1903 and the Fort was closed in 1904 and moved to a new post called Shaloba.
Shaloba
This was a Boma on the right bank of the Kafue River approximately 16km east of Namwala. The site of this Boma was opened in 1904 when H.O. Worringham the Fort Commandant, Dr Blair Nicholas then Sergeant of Barotse Native Police with a detachment of twenty-five (25) men, relocated from Nkala.
Its choice was due to its centrality in the Ila country compared to Nkala.
At Shaloba the buildings were enclosed by a high mud wall and a deep, wide trench in which were hardened bamboo stakes.
Maala
As a Police Post at Maala was situated in the deep dreaded Mashukulumbwe (Ila) country, presumably adjoining Maala Village about 29km due east of Namwala and about 6km south of the Kafue River.
The area was split between three chiefs and may have been created as a Police Post following the rasping between Mungalo, Maala Chief and Chief Mungaila during which Colonel Collin Harding and his BNP had to march on Mungalo at Maala in 1901.
In 1905 the Boma was vacated when Namwala was commissioned. While H.O.  Worringham had been Lieutenant in the BNP stationed at Nkala – transferred to the administration in 1904, another Worringham with the initials F.C. appeared in the North-eastern Rhodesia administration.
Comments:
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