Kenyan Independence

A part of Eastern Africa, the territory of what is known as Kenya has seen human habitation since the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic. The Bantu expansion from a West African centre of dispersal reached the area by the 1st millennium AD. With the borders of the modern state at the crossroads of the Bantu, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic ethno-linguistic areas of Africa, Kenya is a multi-ethnic state. The Wanga Kingdom was formally established in the late 17th century. The Kingdom covered from the Jinja in Uganda to Naivasha in the East of Kenya. This is the first time the Wanga people and Luhya tribe were united and led by a centralized leader, a king, known as the Nabongo.

The European and Arab presence in Mombasa dates back to the Early Modern period, but European exploration of the interior began in the 19th century. The British Empire established the East Africa Protectorate in 1895, from 1920 known as the Kenya Colony.

During the wave of decolonisation in the 1960s, Kenya gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1963, had Elizabeth II as its first head of state, and Jomo Kenyatta as its Prime Minister. It became a republic in 1964, and was ruled as a ''de facto'' one-party state by the Kenya African National Union (KANU), led by Kenyatta from 1964 to 1978. Kenyatta was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi, who ruled until 2002. Moi attempted to transform the ''de facto'' one-party status of Kenya into a ''de jure'' status during the 1980s. However, with the end of the Cold War, the practices of political repression and torture that had been "overlooked" by the Western powers as necessary evils in the effort to contain communism were no longer tolerated in Kenya.

Moi came under pressure, notably from US ambassador Smith Hempstone, to restore a multi-party system, which he did by 1991. Moi won elections in 1992 and 1997, which were overshadowed by politically motivated killings on both sides. During the 1990s, evidence of Moi's involvement in human rights abuses and corruption, such as the Goldenberg scandal, was uncovered. He was constitutionally barred from running in the 2002 election, which was won by Mwai Kibaki. Widely reported electoral fraud on Kibaki's side in the 2007 elections resulted in the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis. Kibaki was succeeded by Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2013 general election. There were allegations that his rival Raila Odinga actually won the contest; however, the Supreme Court, through a thorough review of evidence adduced, found no malpractice during the conduct of the 2013 general election both from the IEBC and the Jubilee Party of Uhuru Kenyatta. Uhuru was re-elected in office five years later in 2017. His victory was, however, controversial. The supreme court had vitiated Uhuru's win after Raila Odinga disputed the result through a constitutionally allowed supreme court petition. Raila Odinga would later boycott a repeat election ordered by the court, allowing Uhuru Kenyatta sail through almost unopposed with 98% of the vote ( 50+1%).

Paleolithic

Fossils found in Kenya have shown that primates inhabited the area for more than 20 million years. In 1929, the first evidence of the presence of ancient early human ancestors in Kenya was discovered when Louis Leakey unearthed one million year old Acheulian handaxes at the Kariandusi Prehistoric Site in southwest Kenya. Subsequently, many species of early hominid have been discovered in Kenya. The oldest, found by Martin Pickford in 2000, is the six million year old ''Orrorin tugenensis'', named after the Tugen Hills where it was unearthed. It is the second oldest fossil hominid in the world after '' Sahelanthropus tchadensis''.

In 1995 Meave Leakey named a new species of hominid ''Australopithecus anamensis'' following a series of fossil discoveries near Lake Turkana in 1965, 1987 and 1994. It is around 4.1 million years old.

In 2011, 3.2 million year old stone tools were discovered at Lomekwi near Lake Turkana - these are the oldest stone tools found anywhere in the world and pre-date the emergence of ''Homo''.

One of the most famous and complete hominid skeletons ever discovered was the 1.6-million-year-old ''Homo erectus'' known as Nariokotome Boy, which was found by Kamoya Kimeu in 1984 on an excavation led by Richard Leakey.

The oldest Acheulean tools ever discovered anywhere in the world are from West Turkana, and were dated in 2011 through the method of magnetostratigraphy to about 1.76 million years old.

East Africa, including Kenya, is one of the earliest regions where modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') are believed to have lived. Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie, of the early emergence of modern behaviors including: long-distance trade networks (involving goods such as obsidian), the use of pigments, and the possible making of projectile points. It is observed by the authors of three 2018 studies on the site, that the evidence of these behaviors is approximately contemporary to the earliest known ''Homo sapiens'' fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors had already begun in Africa around the time of the emergence of ''Homo sapiens''. Further evidence of modern behavior was found in 2021 when evidence of Africa's earliest funeral was found. A 78,000-year-old Middle Stone Age grave of a three-year-old child was discovered in Panga ya Saidi cave. Researchers said the child's head appeared to have been laid on a pillow. The body had been laid in a fetal position. Michael Petraglia, a professor of human evolution and prehistory at the Max Planck Institute said, “It is the oldest human burial in Africa. It tells us something about our cognition, our sociality, and our behaviors and they are all very familiar to us today.”

Neolithic

The first inhabitants of present-day Kenya were hunter-gatherer groups, akin to the modern Khoisan speakers. The Kansyore culture, dating from the mid 5th millennium BCE to the 1st millennium BCE was one of East Africa's earliest ceramic producing group of hunter-gatherers. This culture was located at Gogo falls in Migori county near Lake Victoria. Kenya's rock art sites date between 2000BCE and 1000 CE. This tradition thrived at Mfangano Island, Chelelemuk hills, Namoratunga and Lewa Downs. The rock paintings are attributed to the Twa people, a hunter-gatherer group that was once widespread in East Africa. For the most part, these communities were assimilated into various food-producing societies that began moving into Kenya from the 3rd millennium BCE.

Linguistic evidence points to a relative sequence of population movements into Kenya that begins with the entry into northern Kenya of a possibly Southern Cushitic speaking population around the 3rd millennium BCE. They were pastoralists who kept domestic stock, including cattle, sheep, goat, and donkeys. Remarkable megalithic sites from this time period include the possibly archaeoastronomical site Namoratunga on the west side of Lake Turkana. One of these megalithic sites, Lothagam North Pillar Site, is East Africa's earliest and largest monumental cemetery. At least 580 bodies are found in this well planned cemetery. By 1000 BCE and even earlier, pastoralism had spread into central Kenya and northern Tanzania. Eburran hunter gatherers, who had lived in the Ol Doinyo Eburru volcano complex near Lake Nakuru for thousands of years, start adopting livestock around this period.

In present times the descendants of the Southern Cushitic speakers are located in north central Tanzania near Lake Eyasi. Their past distribution, as determined by the presence of loanwords in other languages, encompasses the known distribution of the Highland Savanna Pastoral Neolithic culture.

Beginning around 700 BCE, Southern Nilotic speaking communities whose homelands lay somewhere near the common border between Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia moved south into the western highlands and Rift Valley region of Kenya.

The arrival of the Southern Nilotes in Kenya occurred shortly before the introduction of iron to East Africa. The past distribution of the Southern Nilotic speakers, as inferred from place names, loan words and oral traditions includes the known distribution of Elmenteitan sites.

Iron Age

Evidence suggests that autochthonous Iron production developed in West Africa as early as 3000–2500 BCE. The ancestors of Bantu speakers migrated in waves from west/central Africa to populate much of Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa from the first millennium BC. They brought with them iron forging technology and novel farming techniques as they migrated and integrated with the societies they encountered. The Bantu expansion is thought to have reached western Kenya around 1000 BCE.

The Urewe culture is one of Africa's oldest iron smelting centers. Dating from 550 BCE to 650 BCE, this culture dominated the Great Lakes region including Kenya. Sites in Kenya include Urewe, Yala, and Uyoma in northern Nyanza. By the first century BC, Bantu-speaking communities in the Great lakes region developed iron forging techniques that enabled them to produce carbon steel.

Later migrations through Tanzania led to settlement on the Kenyan coast. Archaeological findings have shown that by 100 BCE to 300 AD, Bantu-speaking communities were present at the coastal areas of Misasa in Tanzania, Kwale in Kenya. These communities also integrated and intermarried with the communities already present on the coast. Between 300 AD-1000 AD, through participation in the long-existing Indian Ocean trade route, these communities established links with Arabian and Indian traders leading to the development of the Swahili culture.

Historians estimate that in the 15th century, Southern Luo speakers started migrating to Western Kenya. The Luo descend from migrants closely related to other Nilotic Luo Peoples (especially the Acholi and Padhola people) who moved from South Sudan through Uganda into western Kenya in a slow and multi-generational manner between the 15th and 20th centuries. As they moved into Kenya and Tanzania, they underwent significant genetic and cultural admixture as they encountered other communities that were long established in the region.Sarah A. Tishkoff et al. Science 324, 1035 (2009); The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans. DOI: 10.1126/science.1172257

The walled settlement of Thimlich Ohinga is the largest and best preserved of 138 sites containing 521 stone structures that were built around the Lake Victoria region in Nyanza Province. Carbon dating and linguistic evidence suggest that the site is at least 550 years old. Archaeological and ethnographic analysis of the site taken with historical, linguistic, and genetic evidence suggests that the populations that built, maintained, and inhabited the site at various phases had significant ethnic admixture.

Swahili culture and trade

Swahili people inhabit the Swahili coast which is the coastal area of the Indian Ocean in Southeast Africa. It includes the coastal areas of Southern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Northern Mozambique with numerous islands, cities and towns including Sofala, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Comoros, Mombasa, Gede, Malindi, Pate Island and Lamu. The Swahili coast was historically known as Azania in the Greco-Roman era and as Zanj or Zinj in Middle Eastern, Chinese and Indian literature from the 7th to the 14th century.A. Lodhi (2000), Oriental influences in Swahili: a study in language and culture contacts, , pp. 72–84 The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea is a Graeco-Roman manuscript that was written in the first century AD. It describes the East African coast ( Azania) and a long existing Indian Ocean Trade route. The East African Coast was long inhabited by hunter-gatherer and Cushitic groups since at least 3000BC. Evidence of indigenous pottery and agriculture dating as far back as this period has been found along the coast and offshore islands. International trade goods including Graeco-Roman pottery, Syrian glass vessels, Sassanian pottery from Persia and glass beads dating to 600BC have been found at the Rufiji River delta in Tanzania. The oldest indigenous inhabitants of the Kenyan coast are the Cushitic-speaking peoples, including the Orma, Boni, Sanye, and Somali, who were later displaced by Bantu-speaking groups, now forming the Mijikenda, Pokomo, Taita, and Swahili clusters.

Bantu Groups had migrated to the Great Lakes Region by 1000BCE. Some Bantu speakers continued to migrate further southeast towards the East African Coast. These Bantu speakers mixed with the local inhabitants they encountered at the coast. The earliest settlements in the Swahili coast to appear on the archaeological record are found at Kwale in Kenya, Misasa in Tanzania and Ras Hafun in Somalia. The Kenyan coast had hosted communities of ironworkers and communities of Eastern Bantu subsistence-farmers, hunters and fishers who supported the economy with agriculture, fishing, metal production and trade with outside areas.
Between 300AD – 1000AD Azanian and Zanj settlements in the Swahili coast continued to expand with local industry and international trade flourishing. Between 500 and 800 A.D. they shifted to a sea-based trading economy and began to migrate south by ship. In the following centuries, trade in goods from the African interior, such as gold, ivory, and slaves stimulated the development of market towns such as Mogadishu, Shanga, Kilwa, and Mombasa. These communities formed the earliest city-states in the region which were collectively known to the Roman Empire as " Azania".

By the 1st century CE, many of the settlements such as those in Mombasa, Malindi, and Zanzibar - began to establish trade relations with Arabs. This led ultimately to the increased economic growth of the Swahili, the introduction of Islam, Arabic influences on the Swahili Bantu language, and cultural diffusion. Islam rapidly spread across Africa between 614AD – 900AD. Starting with the first Hijrah (migration) of Prophet Muhammad's followers to Ethiopia, Islam spread across Eastern, Northern and Western Africa. The Swahili city-states became part of a larger trade network. Many historians long believed that Arab or Persian traders established the city-states, but archeological evidence has led scholars to recognize the city-states as an indigenous development which, though subjected to foreign influence due to trade, retained a Bantu cultural core.
The Azanian and Zanj communities had a high degree of intercultural exchange and admixture. This fact is reflected in the language, culture and technology present at the coast. For instance, between 630AD - 890AD, Archaeological evidence indicates that crucible steel was manufactured at Galu, south of Mombasa. Metallurgical analysis of iron artefacts indicates that the techniques used by the inhabitants of the Swahili coast combined techniques used in other African sites as well as those in West and South Asian sites. The Swahili City States begin to emerge from pre-existing settlements between 1000AD and 1500AD. The earliest gravestone found at Gedi Ruins dates to the earlier part of this period. The oldest Swahili texts in existence also date to this period. They were written in old Swahili script (Swahili-Arabic alphabet) based on Arabic letters. This is the script found on the earliest gravestones.

One of the most travelled people of the ancient world, Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta, visited Mombasa on his way to Kilwa in 1331. He describes Mombasa as a large island with banana, lemon and citron trees. The local residents were Sunni Muslims who he described as “religious people, trustworthy and righteous.” He noted that their mosques were made of wood and were expertly built. Another ancient traveller, Chinese Admiral Zheng He visited Malindi in 1418. Some of his ships are reported to have sunk near Lamu Island. Recent genetic tests done on local inhabitants confirmed that some residents had Chinese ancestry.

Swahili, a Bantu language with many Arabic loan words, developed as a ''lingua franca'' for trade between the different peoples. A Swahili culture developed in the towns, notably in Pate, Malindi, and Mombasa. The impact of Arabic and Persian traders and immigrants on the Swahili culture remains controversial. During the Middle Ages,

the East African Swahili coast ncluding Zanzibarwas a wealthy and advanced region, which consisted of many autonomous merchant cities. Wealth flowed into the cities via the Africans' roles as intermediaries and facilitators of Indian, Persian, Arab, Indonesian, Malaysian, African and Chinese merchants. All of these peoples enriched the Swahili culture to some degree. The Swahili culture developed its own written language; the language incorporated elements from different civilisations, with Arabic as its strongest quality. Some Arab settlers were rich merchants who, because of their wealth, gained power—sometimes as rulers of coastal cities.

Portuguese and Omani influences

Portuguese explorers appeared on the East African coast at the end of the 15th century. The Portuguese did not intend to found settlements, but to establish naval bases that would give Portugal control over the Indian Ocean. After decades of small-scale conflict, Arabs from Oman defeated the Portuguese in Kenya.

The Portuguese became the first Europeans to explore the region of current-day Kenya: Vasco da Gama visited Mombasa in April 1498. Da Gama's voyage successfully reached India (May 1498), and this initiated direct maritime Portuguese trade links with South Asia, thus challenging older trading networks over mixed land and sea routes, such as the spice-trade routes that utilised the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean. (The Republic of Venice had gained control over much of the trade between Europe and Asia. Especially after the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, Turkish control of the eastern Mediterranean inhibited the use of traditional land-routes between Europe and India. Portugal hoped to use the sea route pioneered by da Gama to bypass political, monopolistic and tariff barriers.)

Portuguese rule in East Africa focused mainly on a coastal strip centred in Mombasa. The Portuguese presence in East Africa officially began after 1505, when a naval force under the command of Dom Francisco de Almeida conquered Kilwa, an island located in the south-east of present-day Tanzania.

The Portuguese presence in East Africa served the purpose of controlling trade within the Indian Ocean and securing the sea routes linking Europe and Asia. Portuguese naval vessels disrupted the commerce of Portugal's enemies within the western Indian Ocean, and the Portuguese demanded high tariffs on items transported through the area, given their strategic control of ports and of shipping lanes. The construction of Fort Jesus in Mombasa in 1593 aimed to solidify Portuguese hegemony in the region. The Omani Arabs posed the most direct challenge to Portuguese influence in East Africa, besieging Portuguese fortresses. Omani forces captured Fort Jesus in 1698, only to lose it in a revolt (1728), but by 1730 the Omanis had expelled the remaining Portuguese from the coasts of present-day Kenya and Tanzania. By this time the Portuguese Empire had already lost interest in the spice-trade sea-route because of the decreasing profitability of that traffic. (Portuguese-ruled territories, ports and settlements remained active to the south, in Mozambique, until 1975.)

Under Seyyid Said (ruled 1807–1856), the Omani sultan who moved his capital to Zanzibar in 1840, the Arabs set up long-distance trade-routes into the African interior. The dry reaches of the north were lightly inhabited by semi-nomadic pastoralists. In the south, pastoralists and cultivators bartered goods and competed for land as long-distance caravan routes linked them to the Kenyan coast on the east and to the kingdoms of Uganda on the west. Arab, Shirazi and coastal African cultures produced an Islamic Swahili people trading in a variety of up-country commodities, including slaves.

19th century history

Omani Arab colonisation of the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts brought the once independent city-states under closer foreign scrutiny and domination than was experienced during the Portuguese period.
Like their predecessors, the Omani Arabs were primarily able only to control the coastal areas, not the interior. However, the creation of plantations, intensification of the slave trade and movement of the Omani capital to Zanzibar in 1839 by Seyyid Said had the effect of consolidating the Omani power in the region. The slave trade had begun to grow exponentially starting at the end of the 17th Century with a large slave market based at Zanzibar. When Sultan Seyyid Said moved his capital to Zanzibar, the already large clove and spice plantations continued to grow, driving demand for slaves. Slaves were sourced from the hinterland. Slave caravan routes into the interior of Kenya reached as far as the foothills of Mount Kenya, Lake Victoria and past Lake Baringo into Samburu country.

Arab governance of all the major ports along the East African coast continued until British interests aimed particularly at securing their 'Indian Jewel' and creation of a system of trade among individuals began to put pressure on Omani rule. By the late 19th century, the slave trade on the open seas had been completely strangled by the British. The Omani Arabs had no interest in resisting the Royal Navy's efforts to enforce anti-slavery directives. As the Moresby Treaty demonstrated, whilst Oman sought sovereignty over its waters, Seyyid Said saw no reason to intervene in the slave trade, as the main customers for the slaves were Europeans. As Farquhar in a letter made note, only with the intervention of Said would the European Trade in slaves in the Western Indian Ocean be abolished. As the Omani presence continued in Zanzibar and Pemba until the 1964 revolution, but the official Omani Arab presence in Kenya was checked by German and British seizure of key ports and creation of crucial trade alliances with influential local leaders in the 1880s. Nevertheless, the Omani Arab legacy in East Africa is currently found through their numerous descendants found along the coast that can directly trace ancestry to Oman and are typically the wealthiest and most politically influential members of the Kenyan coastal community.

The first Christian mission was founded on 25 August 1846, by Dr. Johann Ludwig Krapf, a German sponsored by the Church Missionary Society of England. He established a station among the Mijikenda at Rabai on the coast. He later translated the Bible into Swahili. Many freed slaves rescued by the British Navy are settled here. The peak of the slave plantation economy in East Africa was between 1875 – 1884. It is estimated that between 43,000 – 47,000 slaves were present on the Kenyan coast, which made up 44 percent of the local population. In 1874, Frere Town settlement in Mombasa was established. This was another settlement for freed slaves rescued by the British Navy. Despite pressure from the British to stop the East African slave trade, it continued to persist into the early 20th century.

By 1850 European explorers had begun mapping the interior. Three developments encouraged European interest in East Africa in the first half of the 19th century. First, was the emergence of the island of Zanzibar, located off the east coast of Africa. Zanzibar became a base from which trade and exploration of the African mainland could be mounted. By 1840, to protect the interests of the various nationals doing business in Zanzibar, consul offices had been opened by the British, French, Germans and Americans. In 1859, the tonnage of foreign shipping calling at Zanzibar had reached 19,000 tons. By 1879, the tonnage of this shipping had reached 89,000 tons. The second development spurring European interest in Africa was the growing European demand for products of Africa including ivory and cloves. Thirdly, British interest in East Africa was first stimulated by their desire to abolish the slave trade. Later in the century, British interest in East Africa would be stimulated by German competition.

British rule (1895–1963)

East Africa Protectorate

In 1895 the British government took over and claimed the interior as far west as Lake Naivasha; it set up the East Africa Protectorate. The border was extended to Uganda in 1902, and in 1920 the enlarged protectorate, except for the original coastal strip, which remained a protectorate, became a crown colony. With the beginning of colonial rule in 1895, the Rift Valley and the surrounding Highlands became reserved for whites. In the 1920s Indians objected to the reservation of the Highlands for Europeans, especially British war veterans. The whites engaged in large-scale coffee farming dependent on mostly Kikuyu labour. Bitterness grew between the Indians and the Europeans.

This area's fertile land has always made it the site of migration and conflict. There were no significant mineral resources—none of the gold or diamonds that attracted so many to South Africa.

Imperial Germany set up a protectorate over the Sultan of Zanzibar's coastal possessions in 1885, followed by the arrival of Sir William Mackinnon's British East Africa Company (BEAC) in 1888, after the company had received a royal charter and concessionary rights to the Kenya coast from the Sultan of Zanzibar for a 50-year period. Incipient imperial rivalry was forestalled when Germany handed its coastal holdings to Britain in 1890, in exchange for German control over the coast of Tanganyika. The colonial takeover met occasionally with some strong local resistance: Waiyaki Wa Hinga, a Kikuyu chief who ruled Dagoretti who had signed a treaty with Frederick Lugard of the BEAC, having been subject to considerable harassment, burnt down Lugard's fort in 1890. Waiyaki was abducted two years later by the British and killed.

Following severe financial difficulties of the British East Africa Company, the British government on 1 July 1895 established direct rule through the East African Protectorate, subsequently opening (1902) the fertile highlands to white settlers.

A key to the development of Kenya's interior was the construction, started in 1895, of a railway from Mombasa to Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, completed in 1901. This was to be the first piece of the Uganda Railway. The British government had decided, primarily for strategic reasons, to build a railway linking Mombasa with the British protectorate of Uganda. A major feat of engineering, the "Uganda railway" (that is the railway inside Kenya leading to Uganda) was completed in 1903 and was a decisive event in modernising the area. As governor of Kenya, Sir Percy Girouard was instrumental in initiating railway extension policy that led to construction of the Nairobi-Thika and Konza-Magadi railways.

Some 32,000 workers were imported from British India to do the manual labour. Many stayed, as did most of the Indian traders and small businessmen who saw opportunity in the opening up of the interior of Kenya. According to one account, nearly all major Kenyan towns except Kisumu were originally founded by Somali traders. Rapid economic development was seen as necessary to make the railway pay, and since the African population was accustomed to subsistence rather than export agriculture, the government decided to encourage European settlement in the fertile highlands, which had small African populations. The railway opened up the interior, not only to the European farmers, missionaries and administrators, but also to systematic government programmes to attack slavery, witchcraft, disease and famine. The Africans saw witchcraft as a powerful influence on their lives and frequently took violent action against suspected witches. To control this, the British colonial administration passed laws, beginning in 1909, which made the practice of witchcraft illegal. These laws gave the local population a legal, nonviolent way to stem the activities of witches.

By the time the railway was built, military resistance by the African population to the original British takeover had petered out. However new grievances were being generated by the process of European settlement. Governor Percy Girouard is associated with the debacle of the Second Maasai Agreement of 1911, which led to their forceful removal from the fertile Laikipia plateau to semi-arid Ngong. To make way for the Europeans (largely Britons and whites from South Africa), the Maasai were restricted to the southern Loieta plains in 1913. The Kikuyu claimed some of the land reserved for Europeans and continued to feel that they had been deprived of their inheritance.

In the initial stage of colonial rule, the administration relied on traditional communicators, usually chiefs. When colonial rule was established and efficiency was sought, partly because of settler pressure, newly educated younger men were associated with old chiefs in local Native Councils.

In building the railway the British had to confront strong local opposition, especially from Koitalel Arap Samoei, a diviner and Nandi leader who prophesied that a black snake would tear through Nandi land spitting fire, which was seen later as the railway line. For ten years he fought against the builders of the railway line and train. The settlers were partly allowed in 1907 a voice in government through the legislative council, a European organisation to which some were appointed and others elected. But since most of the powers remained in the hands of the Governor, the settlers started lobbying to transform Kenya in a Crown Colony, which meant more powers for the settlers. They obtained this goal in 1920, making the Council more representative of European settlers; but Africans were excluded from direct political participation until 1944, when the first of them was admitted in the council.

First World War

Kenya became a military base for the British in the First World War (1914–1918), as efforts to subdue the German colony to the south were frustrated. At the outbreak of war in August 1914, the governors of British East Africa (as the Protectorate was generally known) and German East Africa agreed a truce in an attempt to keep the young colonies out of direct hostilities. However Lt Col Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck took command of the German military forces, determined to tie down as many British resources as possible. Completely cut off from Germany, von Lettow conducted an effective guerilla warfare campaign, living off the land, capturing British supplies, and remaining undefeated. He eventually surrendered in Zambia eleven days after the Armistice was signed in 1918. To chase von Lettow the British deployed Indian Army troops from India and then needed large numbers of porters to overcome the formidable logistics of transporting supplies far into the interior by foot. The Carrier Corps was formed and ultimately mobilised over 400,000 Africans, contributing to their long-term politicisation.

Kenya Colony

An early anti-colonial movement opposed to British rule known as Mumboism took root in South Nyanza in the early 20th century. Colonial authorities classified it as a millennialist cult. It has since been recognised as an anti-colonial movement. In 1913, Onyango Dunde of central Kavirondo proclaimed to have been sent by the serpent god of Lake Victoria, Mumbo to spread his teachings. The colonial government recognised this movement as a threat to their authority because of the Mumbo creed. Mumbo pledged to drive out the colonialists and their supporters and condemned their religion. Violent resistance against the British had proven to be futile as the Africans were outmatched technologically. This movement therefore focused on anticipating the end of colonialism, rather than actively inducing it. Mumboism spread amongst Luo people and Kisii people. The Colonial authorities suppressed the movement by deporting and imprisoning adherents in the 1920s and 1930s. It was officially banned in 1954 following the Mau Mau rebellion.

The first stirrings of modern African political organisation in Kenya Colony sought to protest pro-settler policies, increased taxes on Africans and the despised '' kipande'' (Identifying metal band worn around the neck). Before the war, African political focus was diffuse. But after the war, problems caused by new taxes and reduced wages and new settlers threatening African land led to new movements. The experiences gained by Africans in the war coupled with the creation of the white-settler-dominated Kenya Crown Colony, gave rise to considerable political activity. Ishmael Ithongo called the first mass meeting in May 1921 to protest African wage reductions. Harry Thuku formed the Young Kikuyu Association (YKA) and started a publication called ''Tangazo'' which criticised the colonial administration and missions. The YKA gave a sense of nationalism to many Kikuyu and advocated civil disobedience. The YKA gave way to the Kikuyu Association (KA) which was the officially recognised tribal body with Harry Thuku as its secretary. Through the KA, Thuku advocated for African suffrage. Deeming it unwise to base a nationalist movement around one tribe, Thuku renamed his organisation the East African Association and strived for multi-ethnic membership by including the local Indian community and reaching out to other tribes. The colonial government accused Thuku of sedition, arrested him and detained him until 1930.The Politics of The Independence of Kenya by Kyle Keith. Palgrave MacMillan 1999

In Kavirondo (later Nyanza province), a strike at a mission school, organised by Daudi Basudde, raised concerns about the damaging implications on African land ownership by switching from the East African Protectorate to the Kenyan Colony. A series of meetings dubbed ''‘Piny Owacho’'' (Voice of the People) culminated in a large mass meeting held in December 1921 advocating for individual title deeds, getting rid of the kipande system and a fairer tax system. Archdeacon W. E. Owen, an Anglican missionary and prominent advocate for African affairs, formalised and canalised this movement as the president of the Kavirondo Taxpayers Welfare Association. Bound by the same concerns, James Beauttah initiated an alliance between the Kikuyu and Luo communities.

In the mid-1920s, the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) was formed. Led by Joseph Keng’ethe and Jesse Kariuki, it picked up from Harry Thuku's East African Association except that it represented the Kikuyu almost exclusively. Jomo Kenyatta was the secretary and editor of the associations’ publication ''Mugwithania'' (The unifier). The KCA focused on unifying the Kikuyu into one geographic polity, but its project was undermined by controversies over ritual tribute, land allocation and the ban on female circumcision. They also fought for the release of Harry Thuku from detention. Upon Thuku's release, he was elected president of the KCA. The government banned the KCA after World War II began when Jesse Kariuki compared the compulsory relocation of Kikuyus who lived near white owned land to Nazi policies on compulsory relocation of people.

Most political activity between the wars was local, and this succeeded most among the Luo of Kenya, where progressive young leaders became senior chiefs. By the later 1930s government began to intrude on ordinary Africans through marketing controls, stricter educational supervision and land changes. Traditional chiefs became irrelevant and younger men became communicators by training in the missionary churches and civil service. Pressure on ordinary Kenyans by governments in a hurry to modernise in the 1930s to 1950s enabled the mass political parties to acquire support for "centrally" focused movements, but even these often relied on local communicators.

During the early part of the 20th century, the interior central highlands were settled by British and other European farmers, who became wealthy farming coffee and tea. By the 1930s, approximately 15,000 white settlers lived in the area and gained a political voice because of their contribution to the market economy. The area was already home to over a million members of the Kikuyu tribe, most of whom had no land claims in European terms, and lived as itinerant farmers. To protect their interests, the settlers banned the growing of coffee, introduced a hut tax and the landless were granted less and less land in exchange for their labour. A massive exodus to the cities ensued as their ability to provide a living from the land dwindled.

Representation

Kenya became a focus of resettlement of young, upper class British officers after the war, giving a strong aristocratic tone to the white settlers. If they had £1,000 in assets they could get a free ; the goal of the government was to speed up modernisation and economic growth. They set up coffee plantations, which required expensive machinery, a stable labour force, and four years to start growing crops. The veterans did escape democracy and taxation in Britain, but they failed in their efforts to gain control of the colony. The upper class bias in migration policy meant that whites would always be a small minority. Many of them left after independence.

Power remained concentrated in the governor's hands; weak legislative and executive councils made up of official appointees were created in 1906. The European settlers were allowed to elect representatives to the Legislative Council in 1920, when the colony was established. The white settlers, 30,000 strong, sought "responsible government," in which they would have a voice. They opposed similar demands by the far more numerous Indian community. The European settlers gained representation for themselves and minimised representation on the Legislative Council for Indians and Arabs. The government appointed a European to represent African interests on the council. In the "Devonshire declaration" of 1923 the Colonial Office declared that the interests of the Africans (comprising over 95% of the population) must be paramount—achieving that goal took four decades. Historian Charles Mowat explained the issues:
: he Colonial Office in London ruled thatnative interests should come first; but this proved difficult to apply n Kenya... where some 10,000 white settlers, many of them ex-officers of the war, insisted that their interests came before those of the three million natives and 23,000 Indians in the colony, and demanded 'responsible government', provided that they alone bore the responsibility. After three years of bitter dispute, provoked not by the natives but by the Indians, vigorously backed by the Government of India, the Colonial Office gave judgment: the interest of the natives was 'paramount', and responsible government out of the question, but no drastic change was contemplated – thus in effect preserving the ascendancy of the settlers.

Second World War

In the Second World War (1939–1945) Kenya became an important British military base for successful campaigns against Italy in the Italian Somaliland and Ethiopia. The war brought money and an opportunity for military service for 98,000 men, called "askaris". The war stimulated African nationalism. After the war, African ex-servicemen sought to maintain the socioeconomic gains they had accrued through service in the King's African Rifles (KAR). Looking for middle class employment and social privileges, they challenged existing relationships within the colonial state. For the most part, veterans did not participate in national politics, believing that their aspirations could best be achieved within the confines of colonial society. The social and economic connotations of KAR service, combined with the massive wartime expansion of Kenyan defence forces, created a new class of modernised Africans with distinctive characteristics and interests. These socioeconomic perceptions proved powerful after the war.

Rural trends

British officials sought to modernise Kikuyu farming in the Murang'a District 1920–1945. Relying on concepts of trusteeship and scientific management, they imposed a number of changes in crop production and agrarian techniques, claiming to promote conservation and "betterment" of farming in the colonial tribal reserves. While criticised as backward by British officials and white settlers, African farming proved resilient and Kikuyu farmers engaged in widespread resistance to the colonial state's agrarian reforms.

Modernisation was accelerated by the Second World War. Among the Luo the larger agricultural production unit was the patriarch's extended family, mainly divided into a special assignment team led by the patriarch, and the teams of his wives, who, together with their children, worked their own lots on a regular basis. This stage of development was no longer strictly traditional, but still largely self-sufficient with little contact with the broader market. Pressures of overpopulation and the prospects of cash crops, already in evidence by 1945, made this subsistence economic system increasingly obsolete and accelerated a movement to commercial agriculture and emigration to cities. The Limitation of Action Act in 1968 sought to modernise traditional land ownership and use; the act has produced unintended consequences, with new conflicts raised over land ownership and social status.

As Kenya modernized after the war, the role of the British religious missions changed their roles, despite the efforts of the leadership of the Church Missionary Society to maintain the traditional religious focus. However the social and educational needs were increasingly obvious, and the threat of the Mau Mau uprisings pushed the missions to emphasize medical, humanitarian and especially educational programs. Fundraising efforts in Britain increasingly stressed the non-religious components. Furthermore, the imminent transfer of control to the local population became a high priority.

Kenya African Union

As a reaction to their exclusion from political representation, the Kikuyu people, the most subject to pressure by the settlers, founded in 1921 Kenya's first African political protest movement, the Young Kikuyu Association, led by Harry Thuku. After the Young Kikuyu Association was banned by the government, it was replaced by the Kikuyu Central Association in 1924.

In 1944 Thuku founded and was the first chairman of the multi-tribal Kenya African Study Union (KASU), which in 1946 became the Kenya African Union (KAU).
It was an African nationalist

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