This unrest was countered by a campaign of harassment by troops and police, including hut burning, arbitrary fines and beatings. However, Armitage had no plans to resolve the political crisis in Nyasaland, other than expecting that the elimination of Banda and Congress would allow alternative politicians willing to cooperate with the colonial government to emerge. Instead, the Malawi Congress Party was formed as the successor to the banned Nyasaland African Congress in August 1959 and rapidly grew into a larger mass-movement than Congress had been. By the end of 1959, the new Colonial Secretary, Iain MacLeod realised that he would have to negotiate with Banda, and that such negotiations would involve ending the Emergency, releasing the remaining detainees and Nyasaland's eventual withdrawal from the Federation. Armitage strongly resisted Macleod's proposals, particularly the release of Banda and other former Congress leaders, and it was unlikely that he would be able to negotiate effectively with Banda on constitutional progress. Because of his strong opposition to the release of Banda and others and their return to Nyasaland if they were released, British ministers decided to nominate Armitage's successor on 1 April 1960, the same day that Banda was released. The State of Emergency ended on 16 June 1960: Armitage was seen as an obstacle to progress, and he left Nyasaland permanently in August 1960. At the end of 1958, the Colonial Office had concluded that allowing Congress to continue as a legal political party under Banda's leadership was incompatible with the continued existence of Federation, so it decided to eliminate Congress using emergency powers. Within a year, it reached a similar conclusion regarding the Malawi Congress Party and Federation, but in view of the strength of African opposition, it decided that Federation could only be imposed on Nyasaland through the use of significant force for an indefinite period, something that the British government was not prepared to do. The violent uprising of John Chilembwe in 1915 was an expression of the frustration of educated Africans denied an effective political voice and of the grievances of ordinary Africans denied a share in the benefits of the colonial economy as well as of religious radicalism. After the Chilembwe rising, protests against colonial rule were muted and concentrated on economic and social improvement for Africans, with political advancement a distant aspiration. However, a 1930 declaration by the British government that white settlers north of the Zambezi could not form minority governments able to dominate local Africans stimulated political awareness. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the most pressing problem was African access to land.