British Colonies In Kenya

The British colonizers arrived in Kenya as regular explorers with different interests like some of them were missionaries with a ministry goal; others were just traders looking for a market for their products, and others were on adventures. Through these activities, they identified a very fertile unexploited colony of Kenya. The first settlers arrived in the year 1902 since they already had a structure due to their benefits, they started establishing a territory whereby they made rules that mostly ruled on their favor. The essay below is a chronological flow of event 500 years in the colonial era in Africa, where it examines the history, impacts in nineteenth-century European colonialism in Kenya, highlighting the key individuals, causes, ideas, consequences, and the turning point. 

History 

The Europeans created African reserves; this left out colonial power to the fertile lands and which were referred to as the white mountains. It was the first disadvantage that the Kenyans hand to experience. That was a major hit to the pastoralist communities in Kenya, and also the farmers experienced the loss of those fertile land to the whites. The cultivators did not have that direct hit as much because the could still access the land for cultivation, but the white-owned large tracts of land that they Plourde using types of machinery that the Africans could not afford. The settles made it difficult or instead seized the access of indigenous production activities to the Kenyans for the settlers' benefits. 

By the year 1930, most of the land that was previously owned by Kenyans was under full control of the European settlers. Because the settlers were at an advantaged position, they provided agricultural inputs and equipment on credit to the Kenyans. This led to Kenyans offering labor to the settlers since they could not afford to purchase all those fare requirements (Velasco, 2020). cash, this was just one of the settler's skills to take over since they needed a huge labor input so that they could establish a strong colony, maintain it, and have a strong bureaucracy administration. The settlers used five main policies to make sure that they were in full control of the Kenyans. One was that they established African reserves where each African ethnic group had to live separately, ( Snyder,2020) in case the area allocated for you was not enough for your farming activities, Africans were forced to provide labor for the settlers to sustain themselves. Second, they imposed taxes that included hut tax and poll tax the taxes equated to almost twenty-five shillings which were equivalent to a two months pay for the Kenyans. Thirdly they forbid the Kenyans from growing crops that made much profit, and they passed a ruling that any Kenyan that wanted to grow them needed a license that was almost impossible to acquire. The profitable crops included tea, coffee, and sisal. 

The Europeans also introduced forced labor, where they needed labor to build rail, roads, bridges, and dams. Finally, they introduced the kipande system that limited the African from movement. Every Kenyan needed kipande so that they could travel from one place to the other. The policies made them have a grip on the African movement and also their activities, and precisely they had already enslaved them. Due to these factors, there rose an organization that was known as the East Africa Association, and their main grievances were better pay on African wages. (Okia, 2019). The organization was led by Hurry Thuku, who worked as a telephonist and a clerk in the treasury. On account of mobilizing the Africans, Thuku was taken to custody in the year 1922, a crowd protested against that, and the Europeans shot at some of them who showed up at their office. Thuku was banished from central Kikuyu for a while. 

Key Individuals 

Some of the missionaries who made their way to Kenya included Sir William Mackinnon was a substantial Scottish owner of the British navigator organization know as th British East Africa Company. He is traced back to during the imperial British East Africa company. There came other Europeans who just explored like the Vasco da Gama, and he was the first to connect a sea route that linked the Atlantic and the Indian ocean. (Stanley, 2017).  Other Europeans came just as Christian missionaries like Dr. David Livingstone. The Mau Mau war rose too strong against then European settlers, and the war was too sever Africans lost a couple of times. They also incurred massive losses due to the tactics the Europeans used against them. The Europeans could burn down Africans crops; this made them suffer hunger, which made the Africans warriors weak and easy to defeat. 

Ideas 

There was too much bitterness by the Kenyans dues to the fact that they lost their freedom lost most of their indigenous activities, they also lost too much land to the settler, they also had to work under very harsh conditions and all that was for the benefit of the settlers this made them slaves in their land. (Okia, 2019). That is why they rose against the settlers; they could even boycott some of their rules. Those who worked for the settlers during the Mau Mau war acted as the spy who could leak vital information of the strategy of attack to the Mau Mau warriors. This made it so hard for the settlers to win over the Mau Mau even though they had trained soldiers and had advanced weapons of war. The war was so intense even though Kenyans lost so many warriors, they still went back to the drawing board recollected and came back strong to face the Europeans. The work of African women was to provide food for the warriors who were on the battlefield. 

Causes of their arrival 

European settlers did not come to Kenya, with their main aim being to colonize them. Some came for adventure, and others came in search of a market for their goods others came as missionaries who were mostly commissioned to spread the new gospel. (Heather, 2017) But their different goals changed with time since they came to realize that the land they were in was a land with so much unexploited potential, and through this, they welcomed others to come and exploit the potential together. It is through this fact that Europeans flooded the country. The settlers termed Kenyans as uncivilized, and due to this fact, they run their secret operations pretending to be civilizing the Kenyans. 

Impacts of their arrival 

Their arrival brought positive and negative impacts on the Kenyan society; some positive impacts on Kenyans included the fact that they built missionary schools where Africans were introduced to education. They changed the traditional way of trade, which was known as batter trade to a new form of trade, a currency trade. They built missionary churches that brought about the belief of a supreme being that is God, and the Kenyans left their different traditional belives of different things because some believed in mountains and prayed to them for any kind of help. The settlers also brought about new architectural designs whereby Kenyans lived under thatched houses, and now they started embracing the new designs. The settlers also brought about the growth of new crops like cotton, and they also brought new agricultural farming skills that increased productivity. ( Peter, 2018). The settlers also improved infrastructures, that is the roads, railways, bridges and the dam construction was a major advantage. 

Consequences 

As it is commonly known that anything with advantages has its disadvantages, the coming of the settler in Kenya had its disadvantages too. They included the fact that Kenyans lost tracts of land to the settlers after the creation of the reserves, Kenyans lost the most fertile lands to the settlers. This was a great loss to the cultivators and the pastoralist communities. They were introduced to tax-paying. The Kenyans were also introduced to the slave trade, where the strong men in the community were sold to the settlers so that they could work for them, living their families in a lot of grieve and pain. The construction of the roads, railways, bridges, and the dams left most Kenyans homeless. (Okia, 2019). After the Kenyans tried to rebel against the sellers, the incurred major losses both of lives and the crops because the settlers could burn down all their crops, living them to starve to hunger. The leaders were also made paramount making Kenyans so weak. The advantages that the Kenyans faced can also be termed as the consequences they faced after the settlers established a territory in Kenya. 

Things never remained the same because Kenyan leaders viewed things from different perspectives; some saw that the settlers did them good, and so they collaborated others felt that the settlers had no right to rule over their land and so the rebelled against them. This difference brought about the turning point of everything. Those against the settlers rose and stood firm against them, and their voices were heard. The Europeans to avoid chaos, they came up with a new government structure where the Kenyans were incorporated in the administration, they had a representative incorporated in the top administration officials, and the made them feel honored. But this did not shutter the Kenyans quest to fight for their independence. 

Turning point 

Kenyans organized themselves to fight for independence, pickled by Jomo Kenyatta. The Europeans were not so pleased with this after all they had done to maintain the territory the Kenyans were not satisfied. So they imprisoned the ring leaders the state that was known as the Kapenguria six, only to realize that all Kenyans were now on the run for self-rule. The mobilized a demonstration for the release of Jomo Kenyatta and the six that were imprisoned with him. The British started feeling that they had lost the strength but were willing to let go. Kenyatta was released, and suggestions were that Hurry Thuku would run the country, but he stepped down for Jomo Kenyatta. Kenya was declared independent in the year 1963 with a single KANU with Kenyatta as the president. 

In conclusion, it is that Kenya was not a target to the British colony, but the interest came right after they had come into Kenya. Their settlement was of much importance to the locals because much knowledge was shared to them that could have taken ages to discover, and also they lost much to the Europeans and learned a bigger part from them too. 

References 

Snyder, J. M. (2020). The Fabianisation of the British Empire: Post-War Colonial Summer Conferences and Community Development in Kenya, 1948–1956.  Britain and the World ,  13 (1), 69-89. 

Velasco, C. (2020). Monopoly and competition: the Kenyan commercial banks at the end of the colonial period (1954–1963).  Business History , 1-17. 

Natarajan, R. (2019). Indians in Kenya: The Politics of Diaspora by Sana Aiyar, and: Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930–1970 by Nicole C. Bourbonnais, and: A Problem of Great Importance: Population, Race, and Power in the British Empire, 1918–1973 by Karl Ittmann, and: Unreasonable Histories: Nativism, Multiracial Lives, and the Genealogical Imagination in British Africa by Christopher J. Lee.  Journal of World History . 

Shadle, B. L. (2019). Reluctant Humanitarians: British Policy Toward Refugees in Kenya During the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–1940.  The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History ,  47 (1), 167-186. 

Snyder, J. M. (2020). The Fabianisation of the British Empire: Post-War Colonial Summer Conferences and Community Development in Kenya, 1948–1956.  Britain and the World ,  13 (1), 69-89. 

Okia, O. (2019). The Tactical Compromise: The 1930 Forced Labour Convention and Kenya Colony. In  Labor in Colonial Kenya after the Forced Labor Convention, 1930–1963  (pp. 49-85). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. 

Heather, R. W. (2017). Intelligence and Counter-insurgency in Kenya, 1952–56. In  Modern Counter-Insurgency  (pp. 77-105). Routledge. 

Peter, K. (2018). Modus Operandi of Oppressing the "Savages": The Kenyan British Colonial Experience.