Colonial Kenya Research Articles

TOWARDS A GENERAL EXPLANATION OF PROTEST MOVEMENTS IN COLONIAL KENYA

In my book, Rural Rebels, I examined the nature of two protest movements in Kenya and discussed their determinants. Here I will attempt a more general explanation of protest movements in colonial Kenya addressing the question of why they clustered among certain tribes and in certain areas and not in others. The fact that movements were not randomly distributed throughout the country but clustered, suggests that any explanation of causation that focuses merely on culture contact, or on colonialism or one of its aspects, is inadequate because these are not sufficient causes in themselves. The questions that need to be answered are, under what conditions does colonialism or culture contact lead to the occurrence of protest movements? Any adequate explanation should be able to account for their appearance in one area, and absence in another, within a particular country. Secondly, within tribes and particular areas, what are some of the factors involved in support for, and opposition to, colonialism? Third, why was the protest movement such a common response? The following analysis tries to answer these questions, however tentatively.

Climatic Theories and culture in colonial Kenya and Rhodesia

Climatic Theories and culture in colonial Kenya and Rhodesia

Anglicans in Kenya - The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa, Anglicans and Africans in Colonial Kenya, 1875–1935. By R. W. Strayer. Heinemann Educational Books, London, 1978. Pp. ix + 174. £8.50 (£2.50 paperback).

Anglicans in Kenya - The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa, Anglicans and Africans in Colonial Kenya, 1875–1935. By R. W. Strayer. Heinemann Educational Books, London, 1978. Pp. ix + 174. £8.50 (£2.50 paperback). - Volume 22 Issue 1

The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa: Anglicans and Africans in Colonial Kenya, 1875-1935

The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa: Anglicans and Africans in Colonial Kenya, 1875-1935

Coping with the Contradictions: The Development of the Colonial State in Kenya, 1895–1914

By drawing on the current Marxist debate about the nature of the capitalist state, this article argues that the colonial state was obliged to be more interventionist than the mature capitalist state in its attempts to manage the economy, since colonies were distinguished by the way in which they articulated capitalism to local modes of production. This posed severe problems of social control, since the capitalist sector required the preservation of indigenous social institutions while also extracting resources from them. In early colonial Kenya this problem was mitigated by a rough compatibility between the needs of settler capital and the patronage exercised by African chiefs within a peasant sector which was expanded to solve the colonial administration's initial need for peace and revenue. The peasant sector was not destroyed, rather it was represented in the state, which never ceased thereafter to be plagued by the conflicts between the two modes of production over which it presided.

THE ROOTS OF POLITICAL STABILITY IN KENYA

SINCE INDEPENDENCE, Kenya, a country devoid of substantial mineral resources, has enjoyed the two rare blessings of economic growth and political stability which make her a showpiece in Africa. Indeed, it is this political stability that has been Kenya's main economic asset. Kenya's political stability survived two major crises following the murders of Tom Mboya in 1969 and J. M. Kariuki in 1975. The assessment of one commentator in the aftermath of of Kariuki's murder that 'the remarkable political stability. .. is breaking up'1 has been proved wrong. Indeed, the fact that the country's political stability was so slightly affected by these crises points to the strength and resilience of its political system. Most commentators tend to attribute this stability to the charismatic leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, the President of Kenya. Referring to the divisive legacy of colonial Kenya John Hatch states that 'yet most remarkably, under the universally accepted leadership of Jomo Kenyatta... Kenya created one of the best examples in the continent of multi-ethnic stability .... It is true that this remarkable degree of unity centred almost entirely on the personality of Kenyatta.'2 Recently the same author, again referring to Kenyatta's personal role, said that he 'has earned a place in his country's affections unsurpassed in any African state.'3 Another Kenya analyst put it bluntly: 'The President has been the cornerstone of Kenya's stability since independence.'4 The local correspondent of an American newspaper subscribed to the same interpretation: 'President Kenyatta has easily weathered the crises besetting the last years of his rule mainly because he remains the father-figure of his country, more respected than feared. Kenyans affectionately call him Mzee-the old man.'5 These are but few examples of what seems to have become the conventional wisdom.

Local Pressures on Educational Plans in Colonial Kenya: Post-Second World War Activity among the Southern Abaluyia

African educational initiatives among the Southern Abaluyia illustrate the dynamic process by which schooling spread in colonial Kenya and explain the persistence of different rates of school growth among neighboring communities at a very local level. In African educational studies one feature commonly cited is that after the Second World War an insatiable desire for schooling among Africans pushed colonial powers to permit the expansion of schools far in excess of official desires.' In most instances individual African leaders or tribal unions promoted self-help programs to improve local educational facilities outside the guidelines laid down in government development plans. Their intention was to have their own communities capture a fair share of the occupational opportunities that were expanding for Africans as colonialism was winding down. These local pressures for more schooling existed among the Southern Abaluyia in western Kenya where school growth depended heavily on Southern Abaluyia involvement in the development process. Also, the nature of their involvement permitted different rates of school growth to persist between neighboring communities after the Second World War despite official efforts to spread opportunities for schooling more evenly. One major implication is that at independence African national governments such as in Kenya inherited educational situations that could be interpreted either as a problem or as the key to further school growth. To those strategists primarily concerned with equality of educational opportunity, the uneven rates of school growth among regions and neighboring communities appeared as glaring anomalies to be rectified by

Local Native Councils and the Politics of Education in Kenya, 1925-1939

The line between education and politics was often blurred or nonexistent in colonial Kenya. Under a political system dominated by white settlers and administrators, policy makers were required to create an educational structure for the indigenous people in harmony with the political realities of the day. For colonial officials education, if properly regulated, provided a useful mechanism for social and political control. As a result, educational development and policy formation were political processes with significant implications for the roles of whites and blacks in Kenya. For the latter education was a potential key to greater opportunity as well as a weapon against the inflated European charge that they were uncivilized and therefore unprepared to participate in the political life of the colony. Not surprisingly, the first black representative on the Kenya Legislative Council, Eliud Mathu, entered that white preserve in 1944 armed with an Oxford degree. Educational development was almost always an important prerequisite for political advancement, not only in Kenya but throughout colonial Africa. 2 Education had political implications; similarly, African political activity frequently focused on educational issues. Petitions and

Little Tin Gods: The District Officer in British East Africa

They were unlikely choices for revolutionaries and hardly the haughty autocrats the phrase “Little Tin Gods” conjures up. Yet many East African district officers felt it their duty to change the lives of the Africans they ruled, and against great odds they did. Sent out by their superiors in London and Nairobi as policemen and tax collectors, they saw themselves as secular missionaries for a superior culture. Working in the decade before the catastrophic first world war, they were the last generation of Europeans who easily believed their own superiority. Under pressure to produce revenue many district commissioners fostered economic development as a first step in reforming African society. They wished to develop an exchange economy based upon the fruits of a settled and productive peasantry working on its own land. They believed the Africans would adopt the basic values of hard work and even self-reliance, making an Edwardian revolution. If their assumptions about social change, economics, or even civilization itself seem unsophisticated, it is because they were amateurs. They had few resources beyond their own confidence and sense of mission. They began a revolution, but it was not the one they intended for they failed to retrieve colonial Kenya from the clutches of a handful of white settlers. Their vision of peaceful prosperity for the Africans was ultimately denied, and the hopes they raised became murderous frustrations. They offered Kenya an alternative course which imperialism could not accept.Kenya's first district officers came from diverse backgrounds, but most shared the middle class values they proposed for the Africans.

The Maasai Warriors: pattern maintenance and violence in colonial Kenya

This article attributes early twentieth century Maasai conservatism to the Maasai social structure and in particular to the warrior (moran) age-grade. Modernizing changes meant different things to different groups. To some Maasai elders they meant increased political power and wealth. But to the warriors they constituted a threat to their already declining status and entailed new and onerous obligations like road work. Governmental efforts to transform and modernize the Maasai were met by small-scale warrior rebellions. There were three such uprisings–in 1918, 1922 and 1935. All three were carried out by the warriors in defiance of the wishes of the elders and occurred at times when the government was seeking to alter Maasai society. The 1918 rebellion was over the recruitment of children for school; that of 1922 over attempts to do away with essential features of themoransystem; and that of 1935 in opposition to road work. The Maasai warriors were effective resisters of change because of their considerable autonomy within their society and theiresprit de corps.