The 1925 Cession of Jubaland: A View from Great Britain's Imperial Periphery

Abstract

This work examines the British cession of lands in northeastern Africa known as Jubaland to Italy in 1925 from the perspective of colonial authorities in the Kenya colonial administration. The subject is one that gains brief mention in histories of colonial Africa, as well as those that deal with European diplomacy in the wake of the First World War as the transfer of territory, and resulted from the Treaty of London which brought the Italians into World War I a decade earlier. What is unique about this study is the fact that it examines the cession from the perspective not of London and Rome, but from that of colonial authorities in Nairobi as well as from provincial and district administrators. This view from the periphery also includes an analysis of developments that were occurring among a host of often-clashing Somali clans. Thus, it gives a measure of agency to the Africans whose lives were profoundly affected by what analysis often treat as an anecdote or trivial curiosity.