The politics of rinderpest control on the Kenya–Tanganyika border, c. 1920–1940

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the interwar period, Kenyan and Tanganyikan veterinarians sought to control rinderpest, Africa’s most dangerous cattle disease, with competing methods of vaccination. Tanganyikans used blood serums and quarantines, aiming to eradicate the virus, increase African herds, and above all protect the cattle of southern African settlers. Kenyan veterinarians, favoring settler cattle, used live virus alongside serums, believing that rinderpest in African reserves could not be eliminated because of proximity to wildlife carriers and an uncontrolled northern border. While Maasai pastoralists along the inter-territorial border preferred the Kenyan approach as less threatening to their livestock, they were forced to accommodate divergent methods of rinderpest control. Severe drought and historic claims to Tanganyikan pastures brought some Kenyan Maasai and their cattle across the border, undermining rinderpest controls and Tanganyikan Maasai land rights – sparking rinderpest epidemics that challenged Tanganyikan eradication measures. Vaccine breakthroughs after 1930 failed to stanch rinderpest, often carried by wildlife, while perceptions of an emergent Dust Bowl made some key officials sympathetic to cattle culling through disease. Drawing on archival sources, the article shows that despite protocols emphasizing cooperation, political disagreements and territorial disputes between British colonies frustrated the eradication of rinderpest in East Africa for another generation.