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Daniel arap Moi, Early Colonization, Early History, Early Immigration, Happy Valley, Independence, Indian Ocean Trade, Iron Age, Jomo Kenyatta, Jomo Kenyatta Presidency, Kibaki Presidency, Mau Mau, Moi Presidency, Mwai Kibaki, Nearing Independence, Neolithic Era, Richard Leakey, Post-WWI Colony, Post-WWII Colony, Stone Age, Swahili, Tom Mboya, Uhuru Kenyatta, Uhuru Kenyatta Presidency, World War I, World War II

Early History

Human Evolution
Current theory holds that the advent of humans began in Africa's Great Rift Valley, which spans from the Red Sea southward into Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. Olduvai Gorge, which lies between the Serengeti and the volcanic Ngorongoro region in Tanzania, is the site of the first major discoveries of pre-human history. Homo habilis ("handy man") and Homo erectus ("upright man"), two of our earliest known ancestors, were first discovered in 1931 at Olduvai Gorge by the famous paleontologists Louis and Mary Leakey.

Richard Leakey (Mary and Louis's son) and his wife Maeve subsequently explored Kenya's Lake Turkana region and in 1965, discovered an even older hominid species, Australopithecus anamensis, which has been dated back to around 4.2 million years ago.

Australopithecus is currently accepted as the direct ancestor of the genera Homo (which includes Homo sapiens, the modern humans), Paranthropus (an extinct Hominin genus), and Kenyanthropus (another extinct genus of australopithicine). Australopithecus existed in Africa from 4.2 million years ago until becoming extinct around 1.4 million years ago.

Placement and classification of Paranthropus, with two widely accepted species, P. robustus and P. biosei, is disputed, with some considering it synonymous with Australopithecus. Paranthropus dates back to 2.6 million years ago and went extinct 600 000 years ago. Paranthropus are associated with tools crafted from bones and are believed to be the earliest hominins to have used fire.

Kenyanthropus includes a single species, K. platyops, which was discovered in 1999 at the Lomekwi dig site at Lake Turkana, Kenya, by a team led by Maeve Leakey and her daughter Louise Leakey. Kenyanthropus dates back to 3.4 million years ago during the Middle Pliocene. Later discoveries at Lomekwi in 2015, uncovered evidence suggesting that K. platyops may have been the earliest tool-users. Studies of the toe bones on K. platyops suggest that the species probably walked upright.

At the time Kenyanthropus was discovered at Lake Turkana, Australopithecus afarensis was the only recognized australopithecine to have existed between 4 and 3 million years ago, aside from its most likely ancestor A. anamensis, making A. afarensis the likely ancestor of all other australopithecines. The Leakeys' discovery suggests that there was greater diversity of australopithecines during this period. Still, the classification and position of K. platyops in the evolutionary tree is disputed, with some claiming it is a variant of A. afarensis or a separate species of Australopithecus.

Stone Age & Early Humans
In 1984, a nearly complete skeleton of a Homo ergaster child (named 'Turkana Boy' and estimated to have been 8-12 years old at death) was discovered on the bank of the Nariokotome River very close to Lake Turkana. The specimen is the most complete early hominid skeleton discovered to date. The child lived 1.5 to 1.6 million years ago. Some paleontologists argue that H. ergaster should not be a species of its own and should be part of Homo erectus (H. erectus ergaster). H. ergaster is believed to have existed until around 600 000 years ago.

Homo erectus first appeared around 2 million years ago and was the first human ancestor to spread throughout Eurasia and the rest of Africa. The last known population of H. erectus is from the island of Java, where the species finally became extinct around 115 000 years ago.

Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) are identified as having lived in Eurasia until around 130 000 years ago. The timing and their "arrival" and also their classification as a species is unclear, with the oldest potential Neanderthal bones dating back to 400 000 yers ago.

Homo sapiens, which is the species of contemporary humans, are thought to have become the dominant Hominina species between 300 000 and 200 000 years ago. It is believed that H. sapiens split from H. neanderthalensis. Some estimates put the timing of the split even earlier.

The classification of our ancestors is ongoing, but what is widely accepted is that Africa, including the Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania is the so-called cradle of mankind. A key reason why the Rift Valley has been so productive for paleontological discoveries, is that the abundance of volcanoes that were created as part of Africa's rifting laid down thick layers of ash atop fossil beds, preserving them and also lending later proof of the age of the fossils.

East Africa, including Kenya, is an area that is known to have been home to the earliest Homo sapiens (modern humans). The Olorgesailie archeological site, located on the floor of Kenya's Rift Valley on the shore of a now dried-up lake and southwest of Nairobi along the road to Lake Magadi, has produced numerous artefacts used by early modern humans.

Amongst the discoveries at Olorgesailie are numerous Acheulean hand axes that are associated with animal butchering. The first discoveries at Olorgesailie were made in 1919 by a British geologist, but excavation work only began in 1943 under the direction of Mary and Louis Leakey.

More recently in 2018, discoveries at Olorgesailie suggest the existence of modern behaviors associated with early Homo sapiens, including trade and transportation of resources, the use of pigments for clothing, and the fabrication of projectile weapons.

In 2021, more evidence of modern behavior in early Homo sapiens was discovered at Panga ya Saidi cave in southeast Kenya just inland from the Indian Ocean and north of Mombasa. Africa's oldest known human burial site was discovered in the cave when workers unearthed the grave of a Middle Stone Age child, whose remains have been dated to 78 000 years ago. The body of the child was laid in the fetal position with his head upon a pillow.

The early Homo sapiens in East Africa were hunter-gatherers that lived off the land and likely lived in small groups consisting of several families and moved around as dictated by seasonal weather and availability of food resources. These early hunter-gatherers are likely the ancestors of the present-day "pygmy", Khoi/San, and Twa people that still live in parts of Southern Africa and Tanzania and likely spoke using "click-sound" speech patterns that are still used today by these descendant groups.

There are small and isolated groups of hunter-gatherer people living in East Africa, including the Aweer (also known as Boni or Sanye), a Cushitic ethnic group that inhabit areas along the Indian Ocean coast in Kenya and Somalia.

Neolithic Era
Following the Stone Age in East Africa was the period described as the Pastoral Neolithic. This era, which spans from 5 000 years ago to around 1 200 years ago, marks the beginning of livestock domestication, food production, and pottery use. Unlike other areas outside Africa, where post-Stone Age people relied on agriculture, the Neolithic period in Africa focused primarily on nomadic herding (goats, sheep, and cattle). Discoveries of the earliest known Pastoral Neolithic people have been made at sites around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya.

Linguistic evidence suggests that Southern Cushitic agro-pastoralists from present-day Ethiopia began migrating southward into the Rift Valley, including northern Kenya, during the third millennium BC, many of them settling around Lake Turkana. Pastoralism spread over time into present-day central Kenya and northern Tanzania, becoming the dominant culture in the Eastern Rift Valley by 1 000 BC. The Cushites were strongly materialistic and used obsidian and other stone to make tools and arrowheads. Later arrivals eventually absorbed the Cushites through inter-marriage.

Further linguistic evidence suggests that Southern Nilotic-speaking people migrated south from present-day South Sudan into northwest Kenya by around 1000 BC. These arrivals were the ancestors of several contemporary ethnic groups living in Kenya, including the Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Luo, Kalenjin, and Datog.

Iron Age
During the first millennium BC, Bantu-speaking people began migrating into Eastern Africa, including Kenya, and brought with them iron-forging technology and novel farming techniques. The iron tools brought with them allowed the Bantu people to clear away trees and prepare ground for agriculture

Note: the term 'Bantu' was coined in the 1800s to refer to a variety of people and languages that is thought to have originated over 5 000 years ago in West/Central Africa in the area that is now Cameroon.

The Urewe culture emerged in and around Lake Victoria during Africa's Iron Age, extending into western Kenya. The Urewe civilization developed highly technical iron working techniques and created stylish pottery. The inhabitants farmed sorghum and millet and were likely cattle herders as well. The Urewe are responsible for much of the deforestation that occurred around Lake Victoria, with the wood used for charcoal for their smelting work and the cleared land for agriculture.

The iron working technology of the Bantu people allowed them to flourish and they expanded over time to the Indian Ocean coast and further south into Tanzania and beyond. At the coast, the Bantu people traded with merchants from the Far East that visited the coast. The Bantu exchanged their iron tools and pottery for various items including Asian foods, including rice and bananas.

The Bantu expanded their economic base via trade and their languages quickly spread as they assimilated existing inhabitants wherever they encountered them. Agriculture was the main Bantu lifestyle, but it was supplemented with pastoralism, hunting, fishing, gathering, and trading of their iron tools.

By the end of the first millennium AD, the Stone Age in East Africa had been mostly replaced by one dominated by iron and the Bantu expansion had covered all of present-day Kenya.

Swahili Culture

The Indian Ocean coast of present-day southern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, and northern Mozambique, as well as the off-shore islands of Zanzibar, Lamu, Comoro, and northern Madagascar, are collectively known today as the 'Swahili Coast'. During the first millennium AD, the Roman Empire referred to this region of southeastern coastal Africa as 'Azania', while Middle Eastern, Chinese, and Indian literature refer to the region as 'Zanj' or 'Zinj', which is thought to mean "place of the blacks". 'Zanj' is also the origin of the place-name 'Zanzibar'.

The advent of Swahili culture and language is traced back to the expansion of Bantu people during the first millennium BC, who arrived along the Indian Ocean coast and mixed with the already present coastal inhabitants, including Cushitic-speaking people and Arabian and Omani traders and settlers that arrived on ships from across the Indian Ocean to the east. The area in the far southeast corner of Kenya near present-day Kwale town is known to be one of the earliest Swahili settlements.

The mixture of the Bantu with the people already living in the coastal region led to a new and distinct culture, which is called Swahili. The Swahili developed their own language, which was based on the Bantu language, but was also infused with foreign vocabulary from the Middle East and India, and much later, when Portugal occupied the Swahili Coast, Portuguese words.

Indian Ocean Trade

The rise of Swahili settlements along the coast can be primarily attributed to the extensive Indian Ocean trade network between Africa and lands to the north and east, including India, Arabia, Persia (present-day Iran), Sri Lanka, China, Greece, Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia, Sumeria, and others. The annual monsoon winds that occur along the Swahili Coast provided a predictable catalyst to help reduce the risk of sailing to the eastern Indian Ocean and back. Further south along Africa's east coast, the monsoon winds were weaker and less reliable, so trade settlements were smaller to the south.

African merchants initially traded ivory, animal skins, and gold in exchange for finished products like silk, porcelain, spices, glass, ghee, sugar, metals, and cotton, but centuries later, slaves became the focus of trade across the Indian Ocean.

By the first century AD, some pre-existing Swahili settlements began growing in size and power, with economic growth fueled by trade with Arab merchants from the east. The Indian Ocean trade also led to the introduction of Islam as a religion along the Swahili Coast, cultural diffusion, and Islamic and Arabic influence on the developing Swahili language. The rise of Swahili 'city-states', which included settlements in present-day Kenya and Tanzania at Mombasa, Malindi, and Zanzibar, began to emerge between 800AD and 1500AD.

The first slave trading in the Indian Ocean is thought to have occurred as early as 2500 BC, with small-scale trade between Ancient Greece, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, and India. The ancient Indian Ocean slave trade primarily occurred to the north of what is today Kenya and the Swahili Coast, but beginning in the 9th century AD, Arab traders began exporting Bantu-speaking Africans as slaves from the Swahili Coast on ships headed east over the Indian Ocean.

The number of slaves exported from the Swahili Coast during the latter part of the first millennium AD is debated, with estimates ranging from 1 000 per year to 6 000 or more per year.

Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese explorer, arrived on the Swahili Coast and visited Mombasa in 1498. In 1503, Portugal established a base at Mombasa, where it took control of the Indian Ocean trade route for the next two centuries. Relations between the local Arabs and Swahili elites and the ruling Portuguese were frequently hostile.

The Portuguese constructed Fort Jesus at Mombasa over three years beginning in 1593, which aimed to protect their dominance of the region and the lucrative Indian Ocean trade. Over 100 years later, in 1698, the Omani Empire captured Fort Jesus and ousted the Portuguese, gaining control of Mombasa. By 1730, the Omanis had totally expelled the Portuguese from the Swahili Coast and had gained full control of the Indian Ocean trade.

In 1840, Said bin Sultan, the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, moved his capital from Muscat in Oman to Stone Town on Unguja Island (Zanzibar). The Omanis furthered their dominance of the region by establishing long-distance trade routes into the interior of Africa, connecting Mombasa to the Kingdom of Uganda and exporting ivory, spices, and slaves.

Trade in African slaves had been growing exponentially since the late 1600s, with a large slave market at Zanzibar City on Unguja Island. Slaves were brought to the coast in large caravans from the interior, including from many areas in present-day Kenya. An estimated 50 000 slaves and huge quantities of elephant tusks passed through the slave market on Zanzibar during the middle part of the 19th century.

The Omanis continued to control most of the Swahili Coast and its Indian Ocean trade until the late 1880s, when Britain and Germany became serious about colonization of the region as part of the greater 'Scramble for Africa' by the European powers.

Early Immigration

After the Portuguese arrived on the Swahili Cost in the early 1500s, they introduced new crops, including corn and caassava, which soon spread inland and dramatically increased the human carrying capacity of present-day Kenya. Farming of these new food crops led to an increase in settlements and trading and attracted people from less habitable lands in the north, who moved south into Kenya.

One of the earliest Nilotic-speaking tribes to migrate south into present-day Kenya were the Kalenjin, who originated from the middle Nile basin. They are thought to have arrived from the northwest around the area of Mount Elgon. The Kalenjin practiced pastoralism and cultivation and their various tribes, which include the Nandi, Kipsigis, Pokot, Sabaot, Tugen, Marakwet, and others. spread out east and south. The descendants of these early arrivals still live throughout Kenya, including the Nandi, who inhabit the western highlands.

Another of the ethnic groups that began slowly immigrating into present-day Kenya around this time were the Luo, a Nilotic-speaking people who arrived from the northwest (present-day South Sudan). The Luo were a semi-nomadic people, moving around as climate and water availability dictated, in order to survive by planting crops, herding livestock, and hunter-gathering.

The Luo settled on the shores of Lake Victoria, where they farmed and fished. Their arrival in the region displaced many of the early inhabitants, mainly those called the 'Twa' (or pygmy) people, who fled across Lake Victoria's waters to inhabit the nearby islands, including Rusinga and Mfangano.

Later, during the 17th century, another Nilotic-speaking ethnic group that moved south into northwest Kenya were the Turkana people. Like the Luo, the Turkana people were historically semi-nomadic pastoralists. The Turkana settled in the far northwest of present-day Kenya and the lake and region are both named for the Turkana people that still live there today. The Turkana are known for raising camels, but they also keep cattle (known as 'zebu'), donkeys, and goats, which they rely upon for milk, blood, and meat. Sorghum is also cultivated by the Turkana. 

The latest arriving immigrant group was the Maasai, who moved into northern Kenya from the upper Nile valley during the 17th century. The Maasai (and the closely related Samburu people) speak an Eastern Nilotic language called 'Maa' and like the other groups that moved into Kenya from the north, they are semi-nomadic pastoralists.

Within several generations after their arrival, the Maasai managed to become a dominant culture in present-day central Kenya and extending south into present-day northern Tanzania. They raised cattle and goats and raided the settlements of existing Cushitic tribes, stealing their cattle to increase their own herds as they expanded southward.

By the beginning of the 19th century, the Maasai dominated much of the Rift Valley and open plains from south of Lake Turkana into Tanzania and east to Mount Kilimanjaro. Bantu speaking people already established in these areas, in particular the Kikuyu, assimilated into the Maasai culture via intermarriage and merging of customs.

Although the Maasai grew greatly in number, they were not organized on a tribal basis, but rather divided into smaller clans, who commonly raided and fought one another for land and cattle. The colonization of present-day Kenya would have been far more difficult for the European powers had the Maasai people been united, but because they were bitterly divided, the Maasai were unable to provide much resistance to the colonial control that was coming.

Early Colonization

During the second half of the 19th century, the main powers in Europe (Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium), driven by commercial interests in Africa's resources, began to get serious in their efforts to seize control of Africa's interior. By 1880, European power and influence in Africa was mainly limited to coastal Africa, with trading posts used for shipping routes, but control of Africa's interior was still up for grabs .

Britain had already gained partial control over present-day South Africa with their Cape Colony and had fought two wars, one with the Boers (Dutch settlers who wanted their own independent republic) and one against the Zulus (a powerful Bantu-speaking tribe occupying the eastern side of present-day South Africa), in efforts to control the southern portion of the continent.

Both Germany and France had sent exploratory expeditions to various parts of the continent with plans to annex critical trade routes and competition was leading to potential hostilities between the nations.

Berlin Conference (1884-85)
In 1884, in an effort to avoid outright conflict between the nations, German Chancellor Otto von Bismark, called on the countries to join in a conference to attempt to come to agreement on a formalized mapping of the African continent into European-controlled land. The Berlin Conference opened on 15 November 1884, with representatives from 14 nations in attendance.

The Berlin Conference ended after three months on 26 February 1885 with the following agreed upon and signed by all parties:

• an immediate cessation of slavery and the trade of slaves in Africa.
• open ship traffic on the Niger and Congo Rivers and on Lake Malawi.
• free trade throughout the Congo River Basin
• definition of regions in Africa where each European power had an exclusive right to pursue land ownership.

Great Britain was allocated territory that includes most of present-day Kenya (except for a coastal stretch that remained under the control of the Omani Sultan of Zanzibar) and the Kingdom of Uganda. Germany was allocated land that includes present-day Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi under the name German East Africa.

Uganda Railway (1895-1901)
In 1890, Britain decided to build a railway in order to connect the Indian Ocean Coast at Mombasa, which was already long-since an important port, to the Kingdom of Uganda. The railway would allow Britain to transport people and soldiers to protect Britain's investments in the Great Lakes region.

The costly venture (5 million British pounds) began in 1895 and took six years to complete. Its construction also cost the lives of 2 493 workers, most of them from India, including 135 that were killed by the famous 'man-eating' lions of Tsavo. The rail line was named the Uganda Railway as that was its intended destination, although the line ultimately ended at Kisumu, Kenya, on the Lake Victoria shoreline. A steamship was then used to cross the lake into Uganda.

The railway ran for 660 miles (1 060 kms), starting at the coastal port of Mombasa and heading northwest to Nairobi, before continuing on to Lake Victoria. The railway was a huge achievement for the British Empire in terms of engineering and logistics. The line was opened in 1901 and proved to be hugely significant in terms of the future of the region, as it allowed travelers from Europe to reach the African interior via ship and rail in about one month.

Early British Rule
On 01 July 1895, the British government officially established its new African territory as the 'East Africa Protectorate' (also known as 'British East Africa'). Initially, the protectorate only included the Kenya portion, but in 1902, the boundaries were extended to include land on the eastern side of the Kingdom of Uganda. The next step was to encourage settlers to move to the new land and try to recoup some of the substantial cost of the Uganda Railway.

One of the earliest and most influential champions of British settlement in present-day Kenya was Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere. Lord Delamere arrived in British East Africa in 1897, at which time he visited the Central Highlands and became enamored of the land, convinced that it held great promise for agriculture and white settlement. 

In 1900, Sir Charles Norton Edgcumbe Eliot was appointed as Commissioner of British East Africa. Eliot toured many areas in the protectorate and his glowing reports on the Central Highlands and its suitability for settlement were published back in Britain. Settlers from Europe and South Africa began arriving in small numbers and were given landholdings, where they started farms from scratch in what became known as the 'White Highlands'.

By 1903, there were several hundred settlers in the Highlands, many of them Afrikaner Boers (farmers) from South Africa's Transvaal region. By 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I, there were around one thousand settlers in the Highlands around Mount Kenya.

World War I (1914-1918)

At the outset of hostilities in Europe, the governors of the neighboring British East Africa (present-day Kenya/Uganda) and German East Africa (present-day Tanzania) agreed to a truce in order to keep the nascent colonies from entering into any direct hostilities.

The truce in East Africa did not last and German forces in German East Africa, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, engaged in a mission to divert Allied forces and supplies from Europe to Africa. The German mission was quite successful, and throughout the war a significant number of British and South African troops engaged in battles against the Germans in East Africa.

Relatively few battles occurred in the British colony, but around 200 000 local Africans were conscripted by the British from within its colony and sent south to German East Africa to engage the German troops.

By early 1916, the Allied forces in East Africa, led by General Jan Smuts of South Africa and numbering some 40 000 South African and Indian troops, had pushed Von Lettow-Vorbeck's much smaller force of 4 000 Europeans and local askaris southwards into the interior of the German colony. However, in spite of having lost over around 75% of Germany's East Africa territory, the smaller German force never surrendered and used guerrilla tactics against Smuts' troops, which drew significant Allied resources away from Europe.

During the last months of the war in 1918, Allied forces in East Africa totaled around 50 000 troops. The Armistice to end the war was signed on 11 November 1918, which ended the fighting and resulted in Germany's surrender. Two weeks later, Von Lettow-Vorbeck finally surrendered to the Allied forces near Lake Tanganyika after four years of evading capture. His small force of 14 000 mostly colonial and local African fighters had occupied an Allied force totaling 114 000 men, of which some 10 000 perished, mainly from disease.

On 29 June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, officially ending the war between Germany and the Allied forces.

Post-WWI Colonialism

Early Nationalism
In 1920, the Colony of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya, was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony. The 10-mile (16-km) wide strip of land on the eastern Indian Ocean coast was still on lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar and became the Protectorate of Kenya, but the two were controlled as a single administrative entity.

After the war, Edward Northey, a British war veteran in both the European and East African campaigns, was appointed Governor of the British Kenya. Northey began a 'Soldier Settlement Scheme', which aimed to increase the white settler population in Kenya. Three lotteries were held in Nairobi and London to distribute over 1 000 farm plots to existing white residents and potential new settlers from Europe.

The Soldier Settlement policy was understandably resented by local Kenyans, especially those that had fought beside the British in the war but were now excluded from participating in the land giveaway. Anti-colonial sentiment among native Kenyans, especially the ex-servicemen, grew quickly and several movements towards nationalism took root.

Mumboism
One of the earliest movements opposed to British rule in Kenya was a religious sect called 'Mumboism'. It was founded in the early 20th century at a time when Christian missionaries were active in Kenya and the movement was most active in the region around Lake Victoria. Mumboism's leader was Onyango Dunde, who preached that he had been swallowed by a serpent-god in Lake Victoria, but was spit out after being given a prophecy to spread to the people. Dunde condemned Christianity, European culture, and colonialism.

Dunde prophesied that soon the Europeans would disappear from Africa and that a "golden age" would arrive for his faithful followers. After World War I, Mumboism followers grew quickly in number due to frustration with the colonial administration's increasingly burdensome demands on Kenyan's to pay taxes, carry registration, and provide unpaid labor to the colonial government. Mumboisim was widely adhered to by the Luo and Kisii people and was seen as a growing threat by the colonial authorities, which suppressed the movement and began imprisoning and deporting its followers during the 1920s and 1930s.

Harry Thuku
After World War I, anti-British sentiment grew considerably in Kenya, mainly in response to the repressive demands of the British Colonial Authorities, leading to the establishment of protest organizations. One such movement was the Kikuyu Association (KA), which was formed in 1920.

A year later in 1921, a breakaway group from the KA called the Young Kikuyu Association (YKA) was co-founded by Harry Thuku, who would soon become one of the pioneers of African nationalism in Kenya. Thuku came from a Kikuyu family, an ethnic group that was particularly hard hit by British colonialism, losing much of their homeland in the Central Highlands to British settlers.

In order to grow the movement and include ethnic Kenyans beyond just the Kikuyu, Thuku renamed the YKA as the East Africa Association (EAA) in July 1921. The EAA invited men and women from all tribes to join, including local Indians, and its membership grew. Based in Nairobi, Thuku's EAA operated as a multi-ethnic, non-militant organization protesting against land alienation, colonial taxation without representation, low wages, and poor working conditions.

The EAA also protested against the 'kipande' system of pass controls imposed by the colonial administration. The kipande was a racially-identifying metal band required to be worn on a chain around the neck by all African males in Kenya over the age of 15 years. Similar to the apartheid-era passbooks required for all residents in South Africa, the kipande was intended to restrict the mobility of black Kenyans.

Thuku also started a printed publication called the Tangazo, which was critical of the British colonial administration. Through the EAA, Thuku advocated civil disobedience and demanded suffrage for all Kenyans.

As Thuku's movement gained traction and its membership grew, the colonial administrators became concerned and decided to ban the EAA. On 14 March 1922, Thuku was arrested for his involvement in the now-banned political organization. Over the following two days, Thuku's supporters protested in Nairobi, demanding his release. The first day's protests were peaceful, but on 16 March 1922, some 8 000 supporters gathered in front of the Nairobi police station and the police opened fire on the crowd, killing 25 protestors.

Thuku was summarily exiled from the country without a trial and sent to Kismayu on the Indian Ocean coast in the far northern frontier of the British colony (present-day Somalia). Thuku remained in exile for 11 years and was not permitted to return to Nairobi until January 1931.

After Thuku was exiled, the EAA was dissolved and was succeeded in 1924 by another political organization called the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), led by James Beauttah and Joseph Kang'ethe. The KCA acted on behalf of the Kikuyu community and lobbied the Colonial Office for the return of their expropriated land, tax reductions, and the inclusion of elected African representatives on the Colonial Legislative Council. The KCA also protested against efforts by the Christian missions to outlaw female circumcision, which was part of their culture.

Education for Kenyans
After World War I, the British began to reevaluate education in its African colonies and started to develop official educational policies for Africans. This marked the beginning of a three-tiered educational system in Kenya with racially segregated schools for Europeans, Africans, and Asians. 

At the time, Swahili was the language used to communicate between the Europeans and the Africans and the European settler community was mostly opposed to teaching the English language to black Kenyans, as they feared it would lead to trouble for them and the colonial administration down the road. Although the Colonial Office refused to bar the teaching of English to native Kenyans, educational opportunities for Africans in Kenya were few and mainly provided by Christian mission schools.

During the 1930s, the Kikuyu community set up their own independent schools to fill the demand for education, primarily to teach their children the English language. In spite of the half-hearted effort to provide education for Africans in Kenya, by the late 1930s, there were a significant number of Kenyans that could read, write, and speak English.

Governmental Representation
In 1906, the East Africa Protectorate's government consisted of the Governor, the Executive Council, and the Legislative Council, the last of which consisted of both official and unofficial members. Both councils at that time consisted solely of persons of European descent. In 1909, Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee, an Indian-born merchant, was appointed to the Legislative Council, becoming its first Asian and non-European member.

Beginning in 1911, the European settler community in Kenya began asking for the right to elect its unofficial members to the Legislative Council, but that request was always denied by the Colonial office. In 1917, the appointed settlers on the Council resigned their seats in protest and only agreed to return once the Colonial Office agreed to introduce elected settler seats after the end of World War I.

In 1919, the Legislative Council was expanded to 17 official members, including 11 elected seats for the European settler community and the first elections were held in 1920.

In 1924, additional elected seats were added: five for the Indian community and one Arab seat; however, the Indians refused to nominate candidates in protest over not having a parity of seats with the European community. Eliud Mathu, a Kikuyu teacher became the first African member of the Legislative Council in 1944.

Happy Valley Set

The British colony in Kenya attracted a good number of aristocrats and adventurers from Europe and America. These settlers came to enjoy life in the new frontier of Africa in a land with less regulation and more freedom. During the 1920s-1940s, this group of socialites, big game hunters, and entrepreneurs, most of whom settled in the Wanjohi Valley around Nyeri town, became known as the "Happy Valley Set".

The Happy Valley Set became notorious for their extravagant and hedonistic lifestyle, becoming infamous for decadent parties that involved drugs and alcohol, sexual promiscuity, and often adultery. The group mostly came from upper-class society, some even descended from royalty, and pursued their life with abandon. They sought amusement and lived a promiscuous life that would cause scandal back home, but was mostly overlooked in the colony, where they could mostly do as they pleased.

A popular gathering place for the Happy Valley Set was the Muthaiga Country Club, in Nairobi. The hotel was co-founded by Berkeley Cole (1882-1925), an Anglo-Irish aristocrat from Ulster and brother-in-law of Hugh Cholmondeley. The Club opened on New Year's Eve 1913 and thereafter gained a reputation for being 'the Moulin Rouge of Africa'.

The Club's clientele consisted mostly of elite white settlers, hunters and adventurers, who came to play cards, golf, dine, drink Champagne, and dance through the night, with romantic dalliances commonplace. The Muthaiga Club is featured as a setting in Beryl Markham's 1942 memoir West with the Night.

Notable people in the Happy Valley

Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere (1870-1931)
A big game hunter who originally traveled to East Africa on annual lion-hunting trips beginning in 1891, Cholmondeley was famously mauled by a lion in 1894, after which he walked with a limp. Baron Delamere is credited with coining the term "white hunter".

Cholmondeley settled in Kenya in 1896 and in 1906, acquired a large plot of land surrounding Lake Elmenteita, some of which is today the Soysambu Conservancy. Lord Delamere became the unofficial leader of the white settler community in the Kenya Colony and actively recruited European settlers to the colony. Delamere was put in charge of intelligence at the outbreak of World War I, monitoring the movements of German troops in German East Africa (present-day Tanzania).

Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll (1901–1941)
The eldest son of the British diplomat Victor Hay, Lord Kilmarnock. His affair with Lady Idina Sackville, then a married woman, caused a great society scandal. Lady Idina divorced her husband and she and Hay were married in 1923 and they moved to the Kenya Colony in 1924, financing their move with Idina's money from her two previous marriages. They built a bungalow on the slopes of the Aberdares, which they called 'Slains' (after Slains Castle, which was the former family seat of the Hay family). Hay and Idina divorced in 1930, as he was spending her inheritance frivolously.

Hay then married the divorced Edith Maude ("Molly") Ramsay-Hill that same year. The couple lived in 'Oserian' a large house on the shores of Lake Naivasha, where they became part of the Happy Valley Set. Hay became a captain in the Kenya Regiment in the late 1930s and at the outbreak of the war, accepted the post of Military Secretary for East Africa. His second wife, Molly, died in 1939, after which Hay had a romantic affair with the Diana, Lady Broughton, the wife of Sir Jock Delves Broughton, 11th Baronet.

After a romantic night spent together with Lady Broughton, Lord Errol (Hay) was found shot dead in his Buick automobile on 24 January, 1941. Sir Jock was accused of the murder and stood trial in May 1941. Due to the lack of any eyewitness and weak evidence against him, Broughton was acquitted in July 1941. (Sidenote: Sir Jock died by suicide in England a year later). The famous murder has been portrayed several times in popular culture, including the 1982 book White Mischief, and the 1987 British film of the same name.

Lady Myra Idina Sackville (1893-1955)
Known by her middle name, Idina was the daughter of Gilbert Sackville, 8th Earl De La Warr. During her somewhat scandalous life, she was married and divorced five times. In 1913, at the age of 20, she married Euan Wallace, but divorced him in 1919. She married again that same year, this time to Capt. Charles Gordon of Park Hill. Her scandalous affair with Josslyn Hay led to another divorce and she married Hay in 1923. The couple moved to the Kenya Colony in 1924, where they helped pioneer the decadent lifestyle of the Happy Valley Set.

Lady Idina was renowned for hosting wild parties, which involved drug use and spouse-swapping. Stories are told of Lady Idina welcoming guests to her home while bathing in a bathtub made of green onyx, before dressing in front of the onlookers. After she and Hay divorced in 1930, Lady Idina married twice more.

Countess Alice de Janzé (1899-1941)
Alice Silverthorne was an American heiress who spent her early years in Chicago and New York City. Alice was the great-niece of Philip Danforth Armour, founder of the Chicago-based meat-packing family. She inherited millions at a young age and was one of the most prominent American socialites. In 1921, Alice married Frédéric de Janzé, a French racer car driver, whom she met while living in Paris.

While in Montparnasse, the couple had two daughters, Nolwén Louise Alice (born in 1922) and Paola Marie Jeanne (born in 1924). During this time they became friends with Josslyn and Idina, Earl and Countess of Erroll, who in 1925, invited them to visit them at their home in the Kenya Colony.

The de Janzés stayed in Kenya for some months and immediately became active members in the partying lifestyle of the Happy Valley Set. Even amongst the hedonistic members and eccentric personalities in the set, Alice soon earned the nickname of "the wicked Madonna", for her physical beauty, sarcastic humor, and mood swings. She engaged in an open romantic affair with Lord Erroll, whom she shared with his wife Idina.

In 1926, the de Janzés returned to the Happy Valley and whilst Frédéric went on an extended lion hunting safari, Alice began a love affair with Raymond Vincent de Trafford, a British aristocrat and the son of Sir Humphrey de Trafford, 3rd Baronet. Their affair was no secret, but Frédéric looked the other way. Later that year, the de Janzés returned to Paris, but Alice and Vincent continued their affair back in France and Frédéric filed for divorce.

Although she was still married to Frédéric, Alice and Raymond planned to be married, but the De Trafford family threatened to disinherit Frédéric if he followed through with the marriage, so the wedding was called off. Raymond decided to end his relationship with Alice and move to London.

On 25 March 1927, as Raymond was preparing to board a train on the platform at Paris' Gare du Nord station and after bidding Alice farewell, she pulled out a revolver and shot him in the chest, puncturing his lung. Alice then shot herself in the torso, but her wound was not serious. Alice was tried with premeditated attempted murder, but only received a suspended sentence of six months and a small fine. In the wake of the shooting incident, Frédéric's divorce from Alice was granted.

In early 1928, Alice returned to Kenya, where she stayed at the house of writer Karen Blixen, who was a good friend of Lord Erroll (Josslyn Hay). She resumed her love affair with Lord Erroll, but in light of the Paris shooting scandal, Alice was ordered to leave the colony as an "undesirable alien".

Returning to Paris, Alice and de Trafford, the man she had nearly killed a year earlier, resumed their affair. Finally, in February 1932, Alice and Raymond were married in Paris. The relationship lasted only three months. Alice filed for divorce from Raymond, who had fled to Australia, presumably fearing his wife may again shoot him.

Members of the Happy Valley Set petitioned the Colonial Office in Kenya to permit Alice to return and they agreed to re-admit her and Alice soon settled permanently in a large farmhouse in Gilgil between Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. A passionate animal rights advocate, Alice had numerous African animals as her pets living with her, including lions, leopards, and various antelopes. Many in the Happy Valley Set now avoided her due to her dark mood swings and the shooting scandal. Alice grew lonely, used drugs and became addicted to morphine.

On 24 January 1941, Lord Erroll, Alice's former lover, was found shot to death in his car at an intersection outside Nairobi. Lord Erroll's mistress at the time was Lady Broughton, and her husband stood trial for the murder, but was found not guilty. Although Alice had an alibi for the night of the murder (she had spent the night with Dickie Pembroke, another Happy Valley member), most in the Happy Valley Set regarded her as the prime suspect due to her previous romantic history with Lord Erroll and the prior shooting incident in Paris. It was rumored that Alice had confided in some that she had killed Lord Erroll.

On 30 September 1941, two days after her 42nd birthday, Alice's servant found her dead on her bed from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She had used the same weapon she had already used once on herself and Raymond. Alice left three suicide notes, one to her daughters, one to the police, and one to Dickie Pembroke. The contents of the letters were never publicly disclosed, which fueled rumors that the one addressed to the police may have contained revelations about Lord Erroll's murder. The letters were subsequently destroyed by officials.

Alice's life was featured prominently in James Fox's 1982 non-fiction book White Mischief, which detailed the events surrounding Lord Erroll's murder and the notorious lifestyle of the Happy Valley Set. The book was adapted as a film of the same name in 1987, with Alice portrayed by British actress Sarah Miles.

Alice "Kiki" (née Gwynne) Preston (1898-1946)
Kiki was an American socialite and relative of two wealthy families, the Whitneys and the Vanderbilts. Kiki and her second husband, Jeromy "Gerry" Preston, moved to the Kenya Colony in 1926 after being offered land on the shores of Lake Naivasha by a friend. The couple enjoyed big game hunting and raised horses together. They quickly became active members of the Happy Valley Set.

Kiki was most notorious for her drug use and was a regular user of heroin and cocaine. Kiki was known as "the girl with the silver syringe" due to her habit of always carrying a syringe in her bag and injecting herself in front of onlookers at social gatherings.

Kiki had numerous well-known affairs, which was almost customary in Happy Valley, one with Raymond de Trafford, who was later famously shot by his lover Alice de Janzé, and another with famous film star Rudolph Valentino. Kiki's most notable lover was Prince George, Duke of Kent, whom Kiki introduced to drugs after they met in the mid-1920s. Prince George was the son of the Prince of Wales (later King George V) and fifth in line for succession to the throne, behind his father and three older brothers (Edward, Albert, and Henry).

Kiki's husband died in 1934, making her a widow at 36 years, after which she sold the farm in Kenya and moved back to New York. Her former lover Prince George was killed in a plane accident in 1942 and in 1944, her son Ethan Allen was killed during the Normandy Landings in World War II. Kiki committed suicide on 23 December 1946, by jumping out of her fifth-floor apartment in the Stanhope Hotel in New York City. She had been depressed and in poor health for several years at the time of her death. Her home on Lake Naivasha and land covering 40 000 acres is still standing and is inhabited by the 7th Earl of Enniskillen.

Sir Henry John "Jock" Delves Broughton, 11th Baronet (1883-1942)
Jock was born into aristocracy at Doddington Hall in Doddington, Cheshire and came into the baronetcy upon his father's death in 1914. During the 1930s, Jock, a rampant gambler, acquired massive gambling debts and was forced to sell a portion of his family's 34,000-acre estate to pay them off. He and his wife Vera Edyth Griffith-Boscawen divorced in 1939 and just months later, the 57-year-old Jock married Diana Caldwell, a Sussex woman who was 30 years younger than he, and promptly moved her to his estate in Kenya.

At the Muthaiga Country Club, Diana met and fell instantly in love with the dashingly handsome Josslyn Victor Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll, and the two proceeded to engage in a torrid and very public affair less than one month after her marriage to Jock. The couple's prenuptial agreement stipulated that due to their age difference, Diana would be permitted to abandon the marriage if she fell in love with another man, so Jock was outwardly accepting of her affair, hoping it would eventually pass.

On 24 January 1941, after a party at the club, Diana and Lord Erroll spent the night together, but the next morning, Lord Erroll was found on a quiet road, slumped dead over the steering wheel of his car with a bullet hole in his head. Some weeks after, Jock was arrested for the murder.

After a lengthy trial during which Jock testified for over 22 hours in his own defense, Jock was acquitted of the crime due to a lack of evidence and the inability to tie him to the murder weapon. Jock's revolver was a Colt pistol with 6 grooves, but Erroll was killed by a bullet with 5 grooves. Jock testified that two of his pistols had been stolen days before the murder. Many still believe that Jock was the killer.

After the trial and Jock's release, he was never accepted back into the Happy Valley Set and he returned alone to England, as his wife had already taken another lover. In December 1942, Jock was found dead of a morphine overdose at the Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. His death was ruled a suicide.

Diana Caldwell (1913-1987)
Born in Hove, Sussex, Diana married Sir John "Jock" Delves Broughton, a baronet and a man 30 years her senior in 1940 and the newlyweds moved to Jock's country home in the Happy Valley of the Kenya Colony. Within a week, Diana began a steamy and very public romantic relationship with Joss Hay, Earl of Erroll, a handsome and much younger man and a prominent member of the Happy Valley Set. Diana decided to divorce Jock so she could marry Lord Erroll and her prenuptial agreement with Jock stated that she could abandon him if she fell in love with another man.

One night in January 1941, after Diana and Erroll had spent the night together, Lord Erroll was found shot to death in his automobile on a lonely road outside Nairobi. Jock was charged with the murder and stood trial. After a highly publicized trial, Jock was acquitted on lack of evidence and he moved back to England. Diana and Jock were soon divorced.

In 1943, Diana became acquainted with Gilbert Colville, one of the wealthiest and largest landowners in Kenya, who owned various properties totaling 414 square miles (1 072 sq kms) around Naivasha upon which he ranched 20 000 head of native Kenyan cattle. Colville lived alongside the Maasai people, whom he greatly respected. Colville also lived like a Maasai, wearing shabby attire and he was not a part of the Happy Valley Set, neither drinking alcohol nor smoking.

Colville took pity on the divorced Diana and bought her 'Oserian', the mansion on the shores of Lake Naivasha built by Major Cyril Ramsay-Hill for his wife Molly, who had subsequently married Joss Erroll. Diana and Gilbert were married in late 1943, much to the amazement of most of the Happy Valley socialites. The marriage lasted 12 years and was reportedly a happy one, but the couple divorced in 1955.

Diana eventually fell in love again, this time with Thomas Cholmondeley, 4th Baron Delamere, the son of Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere, one of the first settlers in the Happy Valley who had died in 1931. The Cholmondeley family still owned considerable ancestral land and estates in Cheshire, England, but like his father, Tom lived and worked most of his life in Kenya. Cholmondeley, who had been twice married and was recently divorced, ran the substantial ranch his father had built on the shores of Lake Elmenteita.

Through her numerous marriages and divorced, Diana had acquired substantial land and a huge fortune. During the 1960s and 1970s, it is purported that Diana, now Lady Delamere, lived in a three-way relationship with her husband Tom and their permanent house-guest, Lady Patricia Margery Kathleen Mackay, the daughter of Kenneth Mackay, 2nd Earl of Inchcape. By the time her husband Thomas died in 1979, Diana had become perhaps the most powerful white woman in Africa and was dubbed the "White Queen of Africa".

Baroness Karen Christenze von Blixen-Finecke (1885-1962) & Denys Finch Hatton (1887-1931)
Karen Christenze Dinesen was born at Rungstedlund, north of Copenhagen, to a wealthy family of landowners closely connected to the Danish monarchy. In her adulthood, Karen authored several notable books, the most popular of which is Out of Africa, which details her life living in the Kenya Colony, including interactions with the Happy Valley Set.

In December 1912, Karen became engaged to wed Baron Bror Fredrik "Blix" von Blixen-Finecke, a Swedish nobleman and member of her paternal cousin's family. After their engagement, Blix's maternal uncle, Count Mogens Frijs, related tales to the couple of his time in the Kenya Colony around Lake Naivasha and with their families' support, they decided to move to Kenya to start a coffee farm. 

Karen and Blix moved to Kenya in December 1913 and were married in Mombasa on 14 January 1914. After the wedding, Karen became known as Baroness Blixen. Between 1914-1917, the couple lived and worked on a small coffee farm on the outskirts of Nairobi called M'bagathi. The farm was owned by the Karen Coffee Company, which was started by Aage Westerholz, their uncle. The company name was chosen for Westerholz's own daughter, who was Karen Dinesen's cousin and also named Karen. Karen and Blix lived at M'bagathi, the small house on the farm.

During World War I, Bror served with Lord Delamere's Kenya border patrol, which guarded the border with the German-controlled colony to the south (present-day Tanzania) and Karen helped transport supplies. In 1916, the company purchased a larger coffee farm, M'bogani, just southwest of Nairobi. The farmhouse where the couple lived is now the Karen Blixen Museum. The farm covered 6 000 acres, with 600 acres used for coffee, 3 400 acres used for natives to graze their cattle, and 2 000 acres of virgin forest that was left untouched.

After initially working the farm, Bror lost interest and left the plantation work to Karen, while he mostly went on hunting safaris. Bror also took to philandering amongst the Happy Valley Set, spending his nights partying at the Muthaiga Club in Nairobi.

In April 1918, Bror and Karen met an English big-game hunter named Denys Finch Hatton, but Finch Hatton was soon sent off to military service in Egypt.

By 1919, Karen and Bror's marriage was on the rocks and Bror requested a divorce in 1920. Bror was dismissed as farm manager by his uncle, who was chairman of the company, and Karen was given the position. In 1921, Bror and Karen separated. Finch Hatton returned to Kenya after the end of the war and developed a close friendship with both Karen and Bror. After Bror moved out of their house, Karen and Finch Hatton's friendship became a long-term love affair.

Karen and Bror were officially divorced in 1925 and Finch Hatton moved into the Blixen farmhouse, making it his home base although he also owned his own property near present-day Eldoret. Between 1926 and 1931, Denys led safaris for wealthy hunters, one of which was Edward, Prince of Wales.

Denys loved to fly and owned a de Havilland Gipsy Moth biplane, which he used for his safaris. He often took Karen up to view the land from the sky, and the couple spent many hours flying together, as she truly loved the experience. On 14 May 1931, during an exploratory tour of the bush to scout for safari locations, Denys was killed when his aircraft crashed just after takeoff from Voi (near present-day Tsavo East National Park). As per his wishes, Denys was buried in the Ngong Hills, very close to Karen's farmhouse.

After Denys' death, and with the coffee farm failing, Karen decided to abandon her life in Africa and now aged 46, she retuned to Denmark in August 1931. Back home at Rungstedlund, she began her successful career as an author. She published her most famous book, Out of Africa in 1937. It was one of two memoirs she wrote about her life in Kenya, the other being Shadows of the Grass.

Out of Africa was adopted as a major motion picture released in 1987 and starring Meryl Streep (as Karen Blixen) and Robert Redford (as Denys Finch Hatton). The film was a huge success and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

The somewhat upscale Nairobi suburb that emerged after the Blixen coffee farm was sold is now called Karen. The original farmhouse where Karen lived for many years with both Bror and Finch Hatton, changed hands several times after the farm was sold and was eventually bought by the Danish government to preserve it. It was given by Denmark as an independence gift in 1964 to the newly independent country of Kenya. The house was acquired by the National Museum of Kenya in 1985 and a year later, the house became the Karen Blixen Museum.

Beryl Markham (née Clutterbuck) (1902-1986)
Born in Rutland, England, Beryl Markham was one of the first "bush pilots" (those who fly into rough terrain where there are often no prepared landing strips or runways available). When Beryl was four years old, her father, a horse trainer by profession, moved the family to the Kenya Colony, where he built a horse racing farm at Njoro, just west of Lake Nakuru. Beryl's childhood was one of adventure, learning and playing with local African children.

Beryl married three times, taking her name surname from her second husband, Mansfield Markham, a wealthy British film producer and director. In 1929, Beryl had a notorious public love affair with Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the third son of King George V. The affair caused her husband Mansfield to file for divorce and he indicated he would name the Prince in the legal proceedings, at which time Queen Mary intervened and offered Beryl a small annual income in exchange for cutting off the affair with Henry.

Beryl became good friends with Karen Blixen during the years Karen was living in Nairobi. During the end of Blixen's affair with the hunter and pilot Denys Finch Hatton was winding down, Beryl started an affair with Denys herself. Denys invited Beryl to join him on his final exploratory safari, but she reportedly turned him down after her flight instructor, British pilot Tom Campbell Black, had a bad premonition of her death, which likely saved her life.

After learning to fly, Beryl worked as a bush pilot in Kenya for a time, spotting wildlife from the air and signaling their location to those on a safari on the ground.

In 1936, Beryl made a famous solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from England to North America. At that time, no pilot had yet flown from Europe to New York, nor made the flight non-stop, though several had perished trying. Beryl wanted to claim both records. On 16 September 1936, she took off from Abingdon in southern England in her her Vega Gull aircraft, "The Messenger". After flying for 20 hours, the plane's fuel tank vents iced over and she crash landed at at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. She survived the landing and became the first person to fly solo from England to North America east to west. The flight made her famous.

Beryl detailed many of her life's adventures in her memoir, titled West with the Night, published in 1942. After living for some time in the United States, Beryl moved back to Kenya in 1952, where she remained for the rest of her life.

World War II (1939-1945)

When the British Empire declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939, the Colony of Kenya was indirectly involved as well, with German-controlled land directly to its south (present-day Tanzania). The war expanded and in June 1940, Italy declared war on Britain and France, which made Italian forces in Italian East Africa a secondary threat to Kenya.

In August 1940, Italian forces invaded and occupied British Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden and Britain was fearful that the much larger Italian forces in East Africa would now advance southward into Kenya.

To counter Italy's much larger forces, Britain recruited native Africans into its 'King's African Rifles' (KAR), which had existed as a multi-battalion British Colonial force since 1902. Volunteers from within Kenya's native population were easy to find, as they were paid and for thousands of men, it was far better than their current situation in the colony. British propaganda in the colony also raised awareness of Hitler's racist evil and many Kenyans believed that if they assisted in the war effort, that conditions for them would improve after the war was won.

The first hostilities to occur in Kenya began on 13 June 1940, when Italian forces conducted an air raid of 1 Squadron Southern Rhodesian Air Force at Wajir in northeast Kenya. Italian ground troops moved south from Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia), capturing "Fort Harrington" at the border town of Moyale and by July 1940, had advanced south into Kenya about 60 miles (100 kms).

On 06 September 1940, Italian forces attacked a column of the 2nd East African Brigade consisting primarily of South Africans near Liboi close to the Somalia border in Eastern Kenya. Malindi, on the Indian Ocean coast, became one of the few larger towns bombed by the Italians during the war on 24 October 1940. The port was severely damaged and Allied forces were immediately moved to the town, where they were stationed for the remainder of the war.

In December 1940, British Lieutenant-General Alan Cunningham ordered a full attack on the Italians occupying Eastern Kenya and in late January, two brigades of the 1st South African Infantry Division, led by South African Lieutenant-General George Edwin Brink and based at Marsabit, assaulted the Italian-controlled territory of the colony in the far north. The South Africans pushed the Italians back to the Abyssinian border by the end of January 1941. On 18 February, Commonwealth forced entered southern Abyssinia and occupied the fort-city of Mega. Moyale, the border town was also captured on 22 February 1941.

Throughout the duration of World War II, Kenya was a major recruiting grounds for the British Army in East Africa. Over 98 000 Kenyans were recruited as "Askaris" into the King's African Rifles, which represented 30% of its total manpower. Most of the soldiers from Kenya were black Africans commanded by white officers. Blacks in the army were not allowed to advance above the rank of warrant officer.

During the war, Kenyan soldiers served in the East African Campaign, the invasion of Madagascar, and in the Burma Campaign against the Japanese. Some Kenyans served in the Royal Navy and others in the Royal Air Force.

Kenya was an important source of tobacco and tea during the war and the Colonial Office ordered some 200 000 Kenyan workers to live and work on white-owned farms until the end of the war.

After the war ended, returning Kenyan soldiers soon realized that they would not be rewarded for their fighting and that they would continue to live in a world of repression under British Colonial domination.

A quote from Kango Muchai, a returning soldier that had served in the KAR during the war, sums up the situation well: "we Africans were told over and over again that we were fighting for our country and democracy and that when the war was over we would be rewarded for the sacrifice we were making... The life I returned to was exactly the same as the one I left four years earlier: no land, no job, no representation, no dignity." (Quote taken the book Mau Mau & Nationhood by E. S. Atieno Odhiambo, John Lonsdale, published 2003).

Post-WWII Colonialism

Kenya African Union
When World War II reached East Africa in 1940, the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) was banned, allegedly because it was supporting the fascist Italians; as a result, political activism in Kenya mostly halted. One step in the right direction for native Kenyans was the appointment in 1944 of Eliud Wambu Mathu, a Kenyan teacher, to the Legislative Council of Kenya. Mathu became the first African member of the council.

Mathu then co-founded (with Harry Thuku as its first leader) the Kenya Africa Study Union (KASU) to help co-ordinate and represent African interests in the Council. Two tears later, in 1946, the KASU changed its name to the simpler Kenya African Union (KAU). The KAU was mostly dominated by Kikuyus, but its leadership was multi-tribal.

Unfortunately for the KAU, the organization was split internally into two factions, with one faction being moderate and in favor of negotiating with the Colonial Office for better education and a gradual shift of power to Kenyans, while the other was hardline, demanding radical change, including land reform, representative voting rights, and the abolition of the 'kipande' law, which required blacks to carry an identity document to restrict movement. The moderate members of the KAU favored working with the British, as many had achieved financial gain under the European settler economy.

The internal rift within the KAU led Harry Thuku, one of the moderate leaders, to step down as their leader and in 1947, Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu man educated abroad and recently returned to Kenya, was elected leader of the KAU.

Jomo Kenyatta

Early Life (1890-1928)
Kamau wa Muigai was born into a Kikuyu family in the village of Nginda, just east of Lake Naivasha near the Aberdare Mountains. His date of birth is unknown, but is estimated to be around 1890, but may have been as late as 1898. His family were subsistence farmers, raising crops, sheep, and goats. His father, who was called Muigai, was sufficiently successful and had several wives, each living in her own hut. After the death of his father, his mother married Muigai's younger brother Ngengi, which was customary in Kikuyu tradition. The young boy then took the name Kamau wa Ngengi ("Kamau, son of Ngengi").

In November 1909, Kamau left his village and enrolled as a student at the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) at Thogoto on the western outskirts of Nairobi. It was here that Kamau learned to read and write in English. In 1913, Kamau underwent the Kikuyu circumcison ritual, which was disapproved of by the missionaries, but was part of the Kikuyu tradition for boys as they entered adulthood.

In preparation of his coming baptism, he was asked by the missionaries to take a Christian name, and he chose John and Peter, after Jesus' apostles. He was told that he must choose only one name, so he decided upon Johnstone (a combination of John and Peter; the stone being a reference to Peter). In August 1914, he was baptized as Johnstone Kamau.

During World War I, Johnstone's brother Kongo, like many Kikuyu, joined the British Army. Kongo disappeared during the East African conflict and his family never learned of his fate. Johnstone did not join the British Army and instead went to live with an aunt who had married a Maasai chief. The Maasai had refused to fight with the British and so Johnstone avoided any participation in the war. While living with the Maasai, Johnstone adopted their customs, including their attire and took to wearing Maasai jewelry and a beaded belt known as a 'kinyata' in the Kikuyu language. It was during this time that he began calling himself "Kenyatta".

In 1917, Kenyatta moved to Narok and later to Nairobi, working in various forms of employment. In 1919, he met and married Grace Wahu and in 1920, Grace gave birth to a son, Peter Muigai. In April 1922, Kenyatta took a job as a water meter reader, earning a good wage, and was able to afford a house in the upscale Kilmani neighborhood of Nairobi.

In 1926, Kenyatta became secretary for the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) and he traveled around Kikuyuland and neighboring areas on a motorbike, helping to establish new KCA branches. In May 1928, the KCA launched a Kikuyu-language magazine called Muĩgwithania (which translates as "The Unifier"), which listed Kenyatta as the editor, although it is suspected that his duties were largely to translate English to Kikuyu.

Kenyatta Abroad (1929-1946)
In February 1929, the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) funded expenses for Kenyatta to travel to Britain, where he planned to meet with the Colonial Office to discuss items on the KCA's agenda, including the continued exile of Harry Thuku (he had been sent away in 1922) and the Kikuyu land issues. Kenyatta initially lodged at the West African Students' Union premises in West London. While in London, Kenyatta was introduced to various anti-imperialists, including some in the Communist Party of Great Britain. During the summer of 1929, Kenyatta traveled to Moscow via Berlin, returning to London in October.

After 18 months abroad, Kenyatta was broke and though he feared he may be arrested if he returned to Kenya, he sailed back to Mombasa in September 1930. Upon his return, he was well received by the Kikuyu people.

While Kenyatta was away, the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM) had become a heated topic of debate between missionaries in Kenya and the Kikuyu people, who did not want to be forced to change their traditions. The KCA stepped forward to defend the Kikuyu's right to continue with FGM and Kenyatta, as KCA Secretary, stated that although he was personally opposed to FGM, the Church of Scotland should focus on eradicating the practice using education rather than on pushing for its legal abolition. Neither side was willing to compromise and Kenyatta was later expelled from the church.

In May 1931, Kenyatta again sailed for Britain, this time to represent the KCA at a Joint Committee of Parliament to discuss the future of East Africa. Kenyatta would not return to Kenya for 15 years. That summer, Kenyatta attended a school run by the Independent Labour Party and went to Fabian Society gatherings. In November 1931, he met Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi while in London. Later in the year, he enrolled in the Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham, earning a certificate in writing.

Late in 1932, Kenyatta met George Padmore (born Malcolm Ivan Meredith Nurse), a leading Pan-Africanist, journalist, and author from Trinidad. Padmore joined the Communist Party USA in 1927 during his college years and was tapped as a rising star in the party. Padmore was working in London for Communist International (Comintern) when he and Kenyatta met and the two began spending time together, with Kenyatta becoming Padmore's protégé. Before year-end, the two men moved to Moscow, where Kenyatta enrolled at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (also known as Far East University), a revolutionary training school for important Communist political leaders.

Kenyatta returned to London in August 1933 and the British authorities were of course very suspicious of his time spent in the Soviet Union, suspecting that he was now a communist. The British MI5 intelligence service immediately began inspecting Kenyatta's mail.

While in London, Kenyatta continued writing, and between 1933 and 1937, his writings were published in various publications, including The Manchester Guardian, Negro, and Labour Monthly. Kenyatta's views had turned much more radical during his second visit abroad and his published articles called for complete self-rule for Africans in Kenya. Kenyatta's pro-independence ideas would never have been permitted back home in Kenya, but in Britain he could enjoy literary freedom.

Following is an extract of one of Kenyatta's pieces published in the November 1933 issue of Labour Monthly:

"With the support of all revolutionary workers and peasants we must redouble our efforts to break the bonds that bind us. We must refuse to give any support to the British imperialists either by paying taxes or obeying any of their slave laws! We can fight in unity with the workers and toilers of the whole world, and for a Free Africa."

In 1935, Kenyatta took a position as a linguistic consultant at the University College London (UCL), where he worked for two years. Later that same year, Kenyatta enrolled in a social anthropology course at the London School of Economics (LSE), taught by renowned anthropologist and author Bronisław Malinowski.

In 1935, Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia), which led Kenyatta to join the International African Friends of Abyssinia (IAFA), a London-based organization formed to protest against Italian aggression towards Abyssinia. In 1937, the IAFA transformed into the more pan-African-focused International African Service Bureau (IASB), with leadership that included Kenyatta, Cyril Lionel Robert (C.L.R.) James and George Padmore. The IASB's goal was to inform the public about the hardships faced by Africans in the colonies and to seek freedoms and reforms.

In his leadership role with the IASB, Kenyatta began giving anti-colonial lectures throughout Britain. In October 1938, Kenyatta addressed the Manchester Fabian Society in which he described British colonial policy as fascism, comparing it to the Nazi treatment of Jews in Germany at that time.

Later that year, Kenyatta published a book called Facing Mount Kenya, which was a collection of the essays he had written on Kikuyu society for his coursework under Malinowski. The book featured an introduction by Malinowski. Kenyatta used the pen-name "Jomo Kenyatta", which was the first time he had used the name Jomo (which in Kikuyu describes the removal of a sword from its scabbard). The book condemned colonialism and the subversion of Kikuyu society.

In September 1939, Kenyatta moved to the small, rural village of Storrington in Sussex, where he rented a small flat, growing vegetables and raising chickens. In August 1940, he took a job working on a local tomato farm, which enabled him to avoid conscription to the military.

On 11 May 1942, Kenyatta married an English woman named Edna Grace Clarke, whose parents had been recently killed in an air raid. The couple had a son, Peter Magana, born in August 1943. It should be noted that Kenyatta was already married in a traditional Kikuyu ceremony to Grace Wahu, who was still living in Kenya. During the years of World War II, Kenyatta was not politically active, but continued to give anti-colonialism lectures to East African soldiers stationed in Britain.

In October 1945, Kenyatta attended the fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, where discussion centered on whether indigenous Africans should continue pursuing a gradual campaign for independence or whether they should seek the military overthrow of the European imperialists. Kenyatta agreed with the possible need for force, but was careful not to make any commitment to violence.

Kenyatta Returns To Kenya (1946-1952)
After the Allied victory in World War II (1945), Kenyatta decided to return home to Kenya, arriving in Mombasa in September 1946. His second wife Edna, who was pregnant with their second child, stayed behind in England, fearing a difficult existence for her and their children in the colony. Kenyatta reconnected with his first wife, Grace Wahu and their children in Gatundu, close to Nairobi, where he farmed the family land.

In 1946, Kenyatta married his third wife, Grace Wanjiku, who was the daughter of Senior Chief Koinange. Kenyattas' new wife's brother Peter Mbiyu Koinange, who was in charge of the Koinange Independent Teachers' College in Githunguri, hired Kenyatta as the school's vice-principal. In 1947, Kenyatta was appointed as principal of the college and helped increase enrollment, while raising funds for the construction of new school buildings.

By August 1944, the Kenya African Union (KAU) had been founded, which at that time, was the only active political organization available for Africans in the colony. In June 1947, James Gichuru, one of KAU's founders and its acting president, stepped down and Kenyatta was elected as his replacement. Kenyatta's public persona grew and he attracted crowds wherever he travelled in Kikuyuland. The Kikuyu press again calling him the "Great Elder" and "Hero of our Race".

The main problem facing Kenyatta and the KAU was that other tribes, including the Luo and Maasai, which were historically hostile towards the Kikuyu, viewed the KAU as being solely working for the Kikuyu.

Kenyatta worked to counter tribalism within the KAU by adding representatives from multiple tribes to KAU's leadership and changing the standard language of the organization from Kikuyu to Swahili. Kenyatta also attracted support from Kenya's Indian community, but relations with white Kenyans remained strained, with most whites viewing him as an agitator and a threat to their continued white-minority rule.

By 1952, Kenyatta was viewed as a national leader in the Kenya colony, but many Africans in Kenya viewed him as too moderate and conciliatory towards the British authorities. The failure of Kenyatta and the KAU to win any significant reforms from the British was tilting the political initiative to younger, more radically minded militants in the party and Kenyatta was at a loss to stem the shift amongst its members.

Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1956)

Many in the KAU wanted to take a more radical approach to seeking change, but with Kenyatta in charge of the party, those in favor of a militant approach towards attaining reforms decided to split from the KAU and form a separate group, which they called the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA). The KLFA's membership grew quickly and although it was dominated by Kikuyus, there was also representation from other tribes, including Meru, Kamba, Maasai, and Embu.

Many within the growing ranks in the KLFA had been reduced to squatters on what was previously their own land, but in order to continue living there, they were now forced into compulsory labor for the European settlers that had claimed the land. Most of the Kikuyu squatters had been forced into poverty.

The KLFA used a radicalized ritual version of the traditional Kikuyu practice of 'oathing', whereby one would swear allegiance to the unity of the Kikuyu. In this case, new members of the KLFA were required to swear their allegiance to the resistance and promise to fight for the cause.

The video below (duration: 63 minutes) presents a good summary of Kenya's history from 1940-1952.

The origin of the term "Mau Mau", which is what the British called the KLFA (and sometimes also the Kikuyu community at large) is not clear and various theories exist. One is that it was an anagram of "Uma Uma", which means "get out, get out". Another possibility is that it derived from "Ma Umau", which means "Our Grandfathers" and refers to the Kikuyu desire to live freely as their ancestors had.

As the KLFA ranks grew, a Swahili backronym emerged: "Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru", which translates as "Let the foreigner go back abroad, let the African regain independence". According the members of the KLFA, they never referred to themselves as Mau Mau and it is suspected that the British propagated the name in an effort to deny the KLFA any international legitimacy.

For a majority of the young Mau Mau militants, Jomo Kenyatta was regarded as a hero and his name was even included in the oaths they gave to the group. In spite of this, Kenyatta was publicly critical of the Mau Mau and he denounced them in speeches he gave across the country, stating that independence must be achieved through a peaceful process.

Initially, the Mau Mau carried out only small-scale attacks on European settler property, but this would soon shift to more direct violence against both the European community and the local Kenya Regiment (local auxiliary militia and pro-British Kikuyu people). In August 1952, the Mau Mau set fire to the houses of some local Kikuyus that had refused to take the oath and in response, the Colony Governor imposed a curfew in Nairobi.

On 03 October 1952, the Mau Mau uprising claimed the first European victim, when a woman was stabbed to death at her home in Thika. Six days later, on 09 October 1952, Chief Waruhiu wa Kung’u, a senior chief of the Kikuyu tribe, was ambushed and shot to death in broad daylight in his car by three gunmen at Gachie, just outside Nairobi. Chief Waruhiu was a strong and vocal supporter of the British in Kenya, the most senior African official in the colonial government, and had been awarded the MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), an honor given for contributions to the Empire.

In response to the assassination of Chief Waruhiu, Evelyn Baring, the newly appointed (on 30 September 1952) Governor of Kenya, declared a State of Emergency on 20 October 1952 and also implemented 'Operation Jock Scott' (note that a Jock Scott is a salmon fishing fly created in 1850 that is often used as a metaphor for fly fishing in general). It was hoped that Jock Scott would quickly defeat the Mau Mau, but word of the operation's planned mass arrests leaked out and most of the true militant leaders of the Mau Mau went into hiding in the forests and avoided capture.

On the night of 20/21 October 1952, the British authorities conducted a mass arrest of 186 KAU leaders, including its party chairman, Jomo Kenyatta. The arrested included six senior KAU leaders and alleged Mau Mau supporters (Jomo Kenyatta, Bildad Kaggia, Kung'u Karumba, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei, and Achieng Oneko) who together were collectively referred to as the "Kapenguria Six".

By arresting the KAU leaders, and most importantly Kenyatta, the British authorities hoped to quell the Mau Mau and the civil unrest. Many in the white settler community wanted Kenyatta exiled, but the authorities feared this would make him martyr for the anti-colonial cause, thinking it better to imprison him (although they had nothing official with which to charge him).

Kenyatta and the other five leaders were flown to Lokitaung in remote northwest Kenya while the authorities decided what to do. Eventually, Kenyatta and the other five leaders were charged with masterminding the Mau Mau, which was a proscribed organization, and they remained in detention awaiting a trial.

It is widely accepted by most historians today that the British were well aware that Kenyatta was not involved with the Mau Mau, but were determined to silence his calls for an independent Kenya. 

On 22 October 1952, the day after the arrests of Kenyatta and the other KAU leaders, Chief Nderi Wango’mbe, another loyal senior African leader that supported the British, was hacked to death at his homestead by members of the Mau Mau. In the months that followed, a series of horrific murders were committed by the Mau Mau against white settlers.

Kenyatta on Trial (1952-53)
The trial against Jomo Kenyatta and the other five KAU leaders was held in Kapenguria, a remote town in midwest Uganda near the Ugandan border. The "Kapenguria Six" were accused of jointly managing a proscribed organization (the Mau Mau) and conspiring to murder all white residents of Kenya. The defendants were defended by a team of international defense lawyers, the most notable of whom was Denis Nowell Pritt, a left-wing Labour Party member of the British Parliament. Opening proceedings began on 03 December 1952.

The judge assigned to the trial was Ransley Samuel Thacker, who was called out of retirement to preside over the trial by Kenya's governor, Evelyn Baring. Thacker was paid £20,000 to oversee the proceedings and was reportedly in secret communication with Baring throughout the trial. The trial went on for five months.

The key prosecution witness was Rawson Mbugua Macharia, who testified that in March 1950, he had taken the Mau Mau oath at the hands of Kenyatta. He also stated that the oath involved stripping naked before drinking human blood. Macharia's testimony was the only direct evidence presented that linked Kenyatta with the Mau Mau.

In April 1953, Judge Thacker ruled that all six defendants were guilty and sentenced each to seven years of hard labor, followed by a permanent restriction preventing each from leaving a given area without permission.

After sentencing, Kenyatta addressed the court, stating that he and the other defendants did not recognize the court's findings and claimed that they had been used as scapegoats as grounds on which to ban the KAU.

Immediately following the trial, in June 1953, the colonial authorities implemented wider crackdowns and banned the KAU. The government closed most independent schools for black Kenyans, appropriated Kenyatta's family land in Gatundu, and demolished his house.

Note: years after the trial, in 1958, Rawson Mbugua Macharia (the key prosecution witness) swore an affidavit that he and six other witnesses for the prosecution had been coached by the prosecution lawyers and perjured themselves in exchange for plots of land or other payment. Macharia reported that he had been offered a public administration course at Exeter University, protection for his family, and a guaranteed government job on his return from the UK. His affidavit was backed by a letter from the acting attorney-general of Kenya at the time.

Kenyatta and the others appealed the court ruling at the Supreme Court and were freed on technicality in July 1953, only to be immediately re-arrested. In August 1953, the colonial government then took the overturned verdict to the East African Court of Appeal, which reversed the Supreme Court's decision to free the men. The appeals process continued and in January 1954, the Supreme Court upheld the convictions on all but Achieng Oneko. A final appeal by the defendants' lawyers was made to the Privy Council in London, but the petition was refused without explanation.

Kenyatta Imprisonment (1954-61)
In January 1954, Jomo Kenyatta and the other four men were imprisoned together in a new specially constructed detention camp in Lokitaung (in remote northern Kenya, just west of Lake Turkana). The younger four men were made to break rocks, but due to his age, Kenyatta was excluded from hard labor and appointed as cook for the other men, preparing their daily meals.

In April 1954, the prisoners were joined by Waruhiu Itote (nom de guerre 'General China'), the first captured senior leader of the Mau Mau rebellion. Itote and his followers had been operating out of the forests around Mount Kenya, where he was in charge of oathing and carrying out attacks on white-owned farms and loyalists to the British living in nearby villages. Itote was shot in the neck and captured during a failed raid against a police post in Mathira (close to Nyeri town). After his capture, Itote was sentenced to hang, but agreed to cooperate with the British to save his life. He was viewed as a turn-coat by his compatriots for his betrayal of the Mau Mau.

Kenyatta befriended Itote in the prison and taught him English. By 1957, the inmates at Lokitaung had formed into two opposing factions, with Itote and Kenyatta on the one side and the other four, who called themselves the "National Democratic Party", on the other. Over the years of his imprisonment, Kenyatta became a symbol of African nationalism throughout the continent and a political martyr for many Kenyans.

Operation Anvil (1953-54)
Following the declaration of a State of Emergency and the arrest of Kenyatta in October 1952, hundreds of Mau Mau members and supporters fled to the forests of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares, where a decentralized leadership structure was already in place.

In May 1953, the British sent General George Erskine, a veteran commander of World War II, to Kenya to oversee military operations against the Mau Mau. Under Erskine's leadership, the British created mobile units that delivered "special treatments" to areas where Mau Mau gangs operated, rooting them out and eliminating them. However, the bulk of the Mau Mau insurgents remained active, hiding in the forests and receiving assistance from Kikuyu residents in and around the region, as well as in Nairobi.

On 15 January 1954, one of Erskine's units captured Waruhiu Itote, a senior Mau Mau commander. Itote was interrogated and quickly cooperated with his captors, disclosing valuable information on Mau Mau strategies and deployments.

On 24 April 1954, General Erskine initiated Operation Anvil, utilizing 25 000 British security forces to close off every road and access point leading into and out of Nairobi. The troops then surrounded areas in the city which were home to substantial Kikuyu populations, in hopes of preventing any Mau Mau or other Kikuyu there from escaping. The troops then conducted a systematic, sector-by-sector purge of the city, using local African informers, whose identities were concealed using hoods, to point out suspected insurgents.

Within two days, the British had captured over 200 known Mau Mau in Nairobi. Over the following weeks, Erskine's troops detained some 50 000 Africans, mostly Kikuyu, but also Embu and Meru people, who were taken to temporary barbed-wire enclosures to await questioning. In spite of the determined efforts by the British, many Mau Mau managed to escape the city and flee back to the forests. Most of the detainees were taken to the Langata Screening Camp west of the city, where they were classified in terms of their potential threat and then deported to ethnic reserves or sent to work camps for "re-education" (read more below).

Operation Anvil concluded on 26 May 1954. The result of the British action was detrimental to the Mau Mau, who were now mostly cut off from supplies and assistance in Nairobi and isolated in the forests. The British continued to maintain a large security force in Nairobi and conducted regular searches of houses in Kikuyu districts in the city. Traffic in and out of Nairobi was monitored at check points through October 1954.

Detention and Rehabilitation Camps (1953-56)
In 1953, the British deported almost all Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru people from cities and towns in central Kenya and moved them into large detention camps. By order from Governor Baring and General George Erskine, all detainees were initially screened and classified based on their threat level in terms of the likelihood that they were themselves Mau Mau or were working to help the Mau Mau.

Thomas Askwith, a British Olympic rower (in the 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics), was posted to Kenya in 1936 as a district commissioner and later, in 1945, became Municipal African Affairs Officer in Nairobi. Askwith was tasked with designing and organizing the British 'detention and rehabilitation' of suspected Mau Mau members and collaborators using a system he called the 'Pipeline'. The system was designed to use socioeconomic and civic reform to stop all support for the uprising.

Askwith's Pipeline used a color code system whereby a screened individual was classified as white, grey, or black. People classified as 'white' were cooperative detainees and were released to live in one of the ethnic reserves. 'Greys' were detainees that had been oathed but were reasonably compliant and entered the Pipeline to work in a series of progressively more lenient camps before being released to a reserve.

The BBC video below (duration 4 minutes) presents a brief look at the Mau Mau Uprising.

Those classified as 'Blacks' were deemed hard-core Mau Mau and these people were moved to the most severe camps in the Pipeline, something akin to a 'Gulag'. These were special detention camps at the 'top' of the Pipeline where prisoners were forced to perform hard labor and were interrogated until they renounced their oaths. 'Black' level detainees were often only able to save their own lives if they became informants for the British. Cooperation was based on a detainee's readiness to confess and renounce their Mau Mau oath. Many detainees were screened and re-screened for intelligence and re-classified accordingly.

The Pipeline itself consisted of a network of concentration camps across the Kenyan countryside, many in the highlands alongside the ethnic reserves. In addition to its plan to rehabilitate Mau Mau members and supporters, the British used the camps as a source of free labor on various colonial infrastructure projects, including crop cultivation on British-owned farms.

One of the most severe work camps, reserved for Kikuyus classified as 'black', was the Embakasi Camp, located on the eastern side of Nairobi. Detainees at the punitive Embakasi Camp were forced to build an airport, which the British wanted completed in short order so that British aircraft could launch air attacks into the forests around Mount Kenya and the Aberdares, where most of the Mau Mau military was based. The Embakasi Airport was a massive effort with a seemingly unending need for labor. Today, that airport is Kenya's most important airport, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Between June 1953 and October 1955, the Royal Air Force (RAF) provided considerable support to the military efforts against Mau Mau by running bombing missions into the forests where most of the Mau Mau were based. Between November 1953 and July 1955, Avro Lincoln aircraft dropped almost six million bombs on the Mau Mau. The British also used blimps for reconnaissance and to drop leaflets containing anti-Mau Mau propaganda.

The British operated around 100 detention and work camps spread out in central Kenya. Most of the camps were overcrowded and had very poor sanitation, which led to disease outbreaks, including typhoid, which killed many prisoners. Most prisoners in the camps also suffered from malnutrition. The majority of the camps were reserved for men only, but a few thousand women and children, many of them unaccompanied, were housed in the camp at Kamiti. Wamumu Camp was built specifically to house all the unaccompanied boys in the Pipeline, though many boys moved around the camps as adults in the Pipeline.

Signs posted above the entryways of some of the camps had messages that were eerily reminiscent of those seen above Nazi concentration camps during World War II, which the British had itself fought against only a decade earlier. The sign above the camp at Fort Hall read "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" and the sign above the camp at Ngenya read "Labour and Freedom". Compare these slogans with the slogan at the entrance to the infamous Nazi concentration camp at Auschwits, which read "Arbeit Macht Frei", meaning "Work sets you free".

During the first year of the Pipeline system, the British saw only limited success in getting detainees to cooperate, but by late 1955, the Pipeline had become well organized and fully operational. Guards were moved around between camps to minimize bribery, undercut black markets, and reduce fraternization with the prisoners. Continued pressure via hard labor and interrogation began producing results, with many detainees confessing and large numbers becoming spies and informers for the British.

Some detainees openly switched sides and joined the 'Home Guard', which was the collective term used by the British for native Kenyans that had joined the British side against the Mau Mau. The security forces of the Home Guard eventually numbered around 25 000 men. Many of the interrogators in the camps were comprised of members of the Home Guard. One such Mau Mau member that openly switched sides was Peter Muigai Kenyatta, Jomo Kenyatta's first son (born 1922), who confessed his oath-taking, was made a screener at the Athi River Camp, and later travelled between the camps, assisting with interrogations. It is widely known that torture was an interrogation technique routinely used by the British and even by the recruited Kenyan interrogators.

The Mau Mau continued to operate in secret within the camps and rooted out suspected spies amongst the detainees. Informers that were discovered were dealt with brutally by the Mau Mau, who usually strangled and the mutilated suspected turncoats as a warning to others. Oathing of new initiates was even carried out within the camps, and refusal to join and take the oath often meant facing the same fate as they would have outside the camp: they were killed. Anyone suspected by the British as administering oaths or recruiting for the Mau Mau within a camp was publicly hanged.

Villagization Program (1954-1956)
The final phase of General Erskine's plan to defeat the Mau Mau was to cut off all supply lines to the insurgents by means of a forced resettlement of the populace that was providing support (food, water, supplies, information) to the uprising.

The resettlement program began in June 1954 and by the end of 1955, over one million Kikuyus living in the reserves had been forced to move into one of over 800 "protected villages" that included over 200 000 huts. The protected villages were surrounded by barbed wire and included watch towers to prevent anyone from leaving. While some of the villages were set up to protect Kikuyus that were loyal to the British, the term 'protected village' was a euphemism for detention camp.

As in the work camps of the Pipeline, malnutrition, starvation, and disease in the protected villages, particularly amongst young children and the elderly, became rampant by early 1955. The Red Cross helped by bringing in food, but were told to prioritize loyalist villages. Over the course of some 18 months, the removal of the Mau Mau's passive wing living outside the forests, broke the Mau Mau.

On 21 October 1956, after weeks of planning, the Home Guard were finally able to capture Dedan Kimathi, the senior military officer and spiritual leader of the Mau Mau. Kimathi, who had a 500-British-pound bounty on his head, was found in his hideout in the forests near Nyeri. He was wearing a leopard skin jacket and headdress and was shot in his leg by a member of the Tribal Police during the assault.

Photos of Kimathu being carried on a stretcher by his captors were printed on 120 000 leaflets and distributed to demoralize the Mau Mau. Kimathi's capture was the unofficial end of the uprising and by the end of 1956, the Mau Mau resistance was effectively crushed.

Mau Mau Uprising - Aftermath & Legacy
Over the course of the Mau Mau uprising, the official number of Kenyans interned by the British in the Pipeline work camps was 80 000, but unofficial estimates by historians places that number between 160 000 and 400 000. More than one million Kenyans were also held in the 'protected villages' between 1954 and early 1956. Wangari Maathai, a Kikuyu that lived as a teen during the uprising and was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize (in 2004), estimates that in 1954, 75 percent of Kikuyu men in Kenya were in detention and their land was taken and given to collaborating Kikuyus.

The British officially executed (mainly by hanging) 1 090 rebels and claimed to have killed 11 000 Mau Mau guerrilla fighters, but most of the documentation about the detention camps was destroyed by the British before the end of their colonial regime.

The number of deaths attributable to the Mau Mau uprising is not known with certainty and there is disparity in the estimates. The lowest estimate of Kikuyu deaths is 25 000, but some historians put the number over 100 000. Many of the native Kenyans that died during the uprising were children and elderly, who perished from disease or starvation in the camps or protected villages. The official number of native Kenyans killed by the Mau Mau is 1 819, but historians place the number around 5 000.

A total of 32 Europeans and 26 Asians were officially murdered by the Mau Mau and a similar number wounded. One widely publicized murder of white settlers by the Mau Mau was the Ruck family. On 24 January 1953, Roger and Esme Ruck, as well as their six-year-old child Michael and one of their African servants, were hacked to death in their home by Mau Mau militants. The murders were widely reported in the British press, including graphic photos of the dead child. The incident led to an immediate radicalization of the white settler community in Kenya and helped the British effort to portray the Mau Mau as savage terrorists.

Today, the Mau Mau are recognized by the Kenyan government as heroes and freedom fighters, many of whom sacrificed their lives for independence from colonial rule. Mashujaa Day (which replaced Kenyatta Day), also known as Heroes' Day ("mashujaa" is the Swahili word for "heroes"), is a national holiday in Kenya observed on 20 October (the date in 1952 that the British declared a State of Emergency and began its war against the Mau Mau).

Dedan Kimathi, the top military commander of the Mau Mau guerrillas, whose capture in October 1956 marked the unofficial end of the Mau Mau resistance, was sentenced to death while he lay in a hospital bed recovering from a wound he received during his apprehension. His appeal was summarily dismissed and on 18 February 1957, he was executed by hanging at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in Nairobi. A commemorative statue of "Freedom Fighter Dedan Kimathi" was erected in central Nairobi on 11 December 2006.

Tom Mboya

Tom Mboya was an emerging politcal leader and prominent trade unionist, who was born in 1930 to a mixed ethnicity family (his mother was Luo and his father a Suba). His parents worked as sisal cutters on the colonial farm of of Sir William Northrup McMillan. He attended Catholic mission schools as a boy and starting in 1950, he worked as a sanitary inspector employed at the Nairobi City Council. During this time, Mboya was elected as President of the African Staff Association, which he began transforming into a trade union, which was called the Kenya Local Government Workers' Union.

After the arrest of Jomo Kenyatta and other Kenya African Union (KAU) leaders in October 1952, Mboya was asked to take over the party, but the British government soon banned all political African organizations, including the KAU. Mboya then turned to trade unions as a platform to continue the fight for Kenya's independence, becoming Secretary General of the Kenya Federation of Labour (KFL), the umbrella group for all trade unions in Kenya in 1953 (a post he maintained until 1963). In his role for the KFL, Mboya gave anti-colonial speeches in Washington DC and London.

In 1956, Mboya traveled to England to attend Ruskin College in Oxford, England on a scholarship from Britain's Trades Union Congress. After his return to Kenya in late 1956, Mboya won one of the few African seats on the Legislative Council, representing Nairobi. After joining the government, Mboya was elected as secretary of the African Elected Members Organization (AEMO), which was the African Caucus. He continued to give speeches and call for freedom for Jomo Kenyatta and other political prisoners.

In 1957, Mboya formed a new politcal party called the Nairobi People's Convention Party (NPCP), which later merged into the Kenya Independence Movement (KIM), which was also led by Mboya.

In 1959, at the age of 28 years, Mboya embarked on a speaking tour of the USA seeking scholarships for African students in Kenya. Mboya knew that an independent Kenya would be lacking in educated leaders and this would lead to the failure of any future majority-rule government. Mboya soon obtained funding from numerous educational institutions, foundations, and individuals. Some of the financial supporters included Sidney Poitier, Martin Luther King Jr, Jackie Robinson, and Harry Belafonte.

Mboya's scholarship project gained the attention of Senator John F. Kennedy in September 1960 (during his presidential campaign), who arranged a $100,000 donation from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr Foundation to cover airfare for the autumn 1960 group of African students, just as the program was running out of funds. The project was henceforth called the Kennedy Airlift.

Over 800 African students, mainly from Kenya, benefitted from the project, which lasted until 1963. Many of the graduates that received scholarships to attend American and Canadian colleges and universities retuned to Kenya help govern Kenya during and after its push to independence.

Nearing Independence

After serving his full prison sentence, Jomo Kenyatta was released from Lokitaung Prison in April 1959. After his release, the colonial authorities issued a restricting order on Kenyatta, forcing him to reside in the remote town of Lodwar on the Turkwel River near Lake Turkana, where he was required to report to the district commissioner twice per day. Kenyatta was joined in Lodwar by his wife Ngina and they spent two years in the remote village. Calls for Kenyatta's release from indefinite detention came from numerous world governments, as well as from political activists within Kenya.

In 1959, Patrick Muir Renison became the new Governor of Kenya and by this time, it was widely accepted that an independent Kenya was inevitable. By early 1960, it was becoming clear that Britain wanted to divest itself of its remaining colonial holdings and grant independence to those countries across Asia and Africa, including Kenya.

On 12 January 1960, the State of Emergency in Kenya, which had been in place since 20 October 1952, was lifted and Britain invited African and European delegates from Kenya to a conference at Lancaster House in London to discuss the future of the colony. The result of the conference was an agreement to create a 65-seat Legislative Council, with 33 seats reserved for black Africans, 20 for other ethnic groups, and 12 as 'national members' that would be elected from any ethnic group.

On 03 February 1960, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan gave his famous "Wind of Change" speech to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town. Macmillan had spent the prior month visiting the British colonies in Africa and his speech was a clear signal that the British government did not intend to block independence for its colonies. The speech was named from a quote made during Macmillan's address: "The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact."

After the Lancaster House agreement in 1960, two political parties emerged: the Kenya African National Union (KANU), which was dominated by Luo and Kikuyu people, and the more moderate Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), which was comprised of members of smaller ethnic groups like the Maasai and Kalenjin. KANU was essentially a merger of the Kenya African Union (KAU), which had been banned since 1952, and the Kenya Independence Movement (KIM), which was established in 1959 by prominent independence activists, including Tom Mboya and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.

In May 1960, KANU nominated Jomo Kenyatta as its president, but the government vetoed it, as Kenyatta was still under a restricting order. KANU declared that it would not take part in any new government unless Kenyatta was freed from his restricting order. Kenyatta meanwhile, was neutral as to KANU and KADU, insisting that there should be unity between the two parties.

In April 1961, Governor Renison decided to free Kenyatta and he was flown to the small town of Maralal in Samburuland. Kenyatta maintained his innocence of the charges against him and reiterated that he had never supported the Mau Mau Uprising or oathing system. In August 1961, Kenyatta was moved to the town of Gatundu, just north of Nairobi, where he was greeted by a crowd of 10 000. The colonial government had built him a new house to replace the one they had destroyed. Kenyatta was now free to travel around as he pleased, and he gave public speeches to crowds in Mombasa and Nairobi.

In October 1961, Kenyatta officially joined KANU and accepted the position as its president and in January 1962, he was elected unopposed to the legislative council, representing the Fort Hall constituency. In October 1961, Kenyatta travelled to Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania) and Somalia at the invitation of their governments.

Between 1960 and 1962, the white settler community was emigrating from Kenya at a rate of 700 per year, in anticipation of what many saw as radical changes coming to a soon-to-be independent country. Kenyatta sought to reassure Europeans living in Kenya, worrying that the brain drain and resultant skills shortage would hamper future foreign investment.

Second Lancaster House Conference (1962)
In 1962, a second conference was held at Lancaster House in London, to negotiate a framework for Kenya's self-governance and a new constitution. Kenya's opposing political parties, the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), each sent delegations to the conference. 

KADU's delegation, led by led by Ronald Ngala and Masinde Muliro, pushed for a federalist system based on autonomous, ethnically-based regional governance. The system proposed by KADU was given the name "Majimbo" (the Swahili term for "regions"). Governor Renison and most of the white settler community favored the Majimbo system, as it would prevent a strong centralized government from implementing radical changes.

KANU's delegation, which was headed by its president, Jomo Kenyatta, and its secretary, Tom Mboya, opposed Majimbo, believing that it denied equal opportunities throughout the country in favor of entrenched interests. To avoid a prolonged stalemate, Kenyatta urged KANU's members to concede to some of KADU's demands, knowing that he could amend the constitution once in office.

The agreed upon constitution divided Kenya into seven semi-autonomous regions, each with its own assembly, but also called for a strong central government with a bicameral legislature consisting of a 117-member House of Representatives and a 41-member Senate. A temporary coalition government was to be established until independence, with members from both political parties, as well as Asian and European members. Kenyatta took a minor position, the Minister of State for Constitutional Affairs and Economic Planning.

Independence (1963)

In January 1963, the British removed Patrick Renison as governor of Kenya, replacing him with Malcolm MacDonald, who was a former Secretary of State for the Colonies (1938-40). It was felt that a new face should help oversee the country towards independence. MacDonald and Jomo Kenyatta quickly formed a friendship and the two worked together to move the country quickly towards independence.

The country's first open elections were held between 18 and 26 May 1963 in anticipation of Kenya's independence later in the year. KANU, headed by Jomo Kenyatta, won 83 of 124 seats in the House of Representatives and 18 of the 38 seats in the Senate. KADU, headed by Ronald Ngala, won 33 of 124 seats in the House of Representatives and 16 of the 38 seats in the Senate. A third party, the African People's Party (APP) was created by Paul Ngei after he left KANU following a disagreement with Kenyatta and Mboya. The APP won 20 seats in the House and 2 seats in the Senate.

On 01 June 1963, Jomo Kenyatta was sworn in as prime minister of the new autonomous government of Kenya. Kenya was still a monarchy at this time, with Queen Elizabeth as its head of state. Kenyatta's first cabinet included members from various tribes, including Kikuyu, Luo, Kisii, Kamba, and Maragoli. 

Later that same month, Kenyatta met with Ugandan President Milton Obote and Tanzania'a Julius Nyerere to discuss the possibility of merging the three nations into a single East African Federation, but Kenyatta was unconvinced of its merits and the proposal never came to fruition.

In August 1963, Kenyatta met with a large group of white farmers in Nakuru to appease and reassure the white community that they would be safe and welcome in an independent Kenya. By 1962, the white minority was producing 80% of Kenya's exports and Kenyatta knew that this foreign capital could not afford to be lost. Unlike the white community, the minority Indian community did not receive much support from Kenyatta.

On 12 December 1963, a ceremony was held at Uhuru Stadium in Nairobi and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Britain's monarch Queen Elizabeth II, officially handed over control of the country to Prime Minister Kenyatta, who described the event as the "greatest day in Kenya's history and the happiest day in my life". Although now an independent country, the Republic of Kenya remained within the Commonwealth.

At the time of independence, there were around 60 000 white people living in Kenya and the British government provided Kenya with 27 million British pounds with which to buy out white farmers in the Rift Valley, so the land could be redistributed amongst the indigenous (mainly Kikuyu) population.

Many of Kenya's white farmers accepted the government's offer, sold their land, and returned to England, but some decided to stay and the descendants of these wealthy land-owning families still live in Kenya's Rift Valley today, including descendants of the somewhat notorious Baron Delamere. Large numbers of Indians, who numbered around 175 000, also left Kenya; many of them emigrating to Britain.

Jomo Kenyatta Presidency (1963-1978)

Upon assuming the role of President, the immediate issues that Kenyatta needed to tend to included land reform and the reintegration of the Mau Mau freedom fighters that were either still hiding out in the forests or in detention. Large areas of land that had been in the hands of white owners was purchased and divided up into small plots for landless locals, mostly Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru people.

British military troops remained in Kenya and assisted Kenyan soldiers in the ongoing dispute with ethnic Somali guerillas who lived in northeast Kenya's Northern Frontier District (NFD) along the Somali border. Most of the region had long been occupied by Somalis and the conflict had essentially been created by Britain when it granted independence to the British Somaliland Protectorate in 1960, but carved out the southeast land to become part of Kenya.

Kenyatta sent soldiers to the region in December 1963 and gave them broad powers to seize and arrest Somalis. The so-called "Shifta War" (or "gaf Daba") lasted until 1967, when an official ceasefire was signed, but disorganized banditry continued and the region is still not entirely stable even today.

In January 1964, soldiers in the Kenyan army barracks in Nairobi and Nakuru revolted in mutiny over dissatisfaction with the amount of their wages and in protest that British officers were still in command of their units. More than 2 000 British troops quickly quelled the revolt and restored order. After the insurrection was put down, Kenyatta announced that the Kenyan army would be increased by 1 000 men and announced pay raises for the Kenyan army, police and prison staff. Similar uprisings by African soldiers had also occurred in the prior months in the neighboring and newly independent countries of Uganda and Tanzania, both of which were also put down by British troops.

In anticipation of Kenya's secession from the Commonwealth, the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), representing the smaller tribes, dissolved itself voluntarily "in the interest of national unity", with most KADU members joining the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU), thus making Kenya a de-facto single-party state. Although the position of President of Kenya would be open for election, the move to remove all other political parties meant that Kenyatta would be the sole unopposed candidate. Two of the senior members of the now dissolved KADU, Ronald Ngala and Daniel arap Moi, subsequently became loyal supporters of Kenyatta.

On 12 December 1964, Kenya officially became a republic, with its head of state no longer the Queen of England, but now Jomo Kenyatta, whose title became President of Kenya. Kenyatta was sworn in for his first five-year term as president. In a move to garner support from Kenya's second-largest ethnic group, the Luo, Kenyatta appointed Oginga Odinga, a Luo 'Ker' (king/chief), as his vice president.

In spite of having appointed a Luo member as his Vice President, Kikuyus, which made up 20 percent of Kenya's population at the time, still held most of the country's most important government and administrative positions, contributing to a widely-held perception that British dominance was now replaced by that of the Kikuyu elite.

Kenyatta made it clear early in his tenure that he did not wish to dwell on the past, but rather to cultivate a new Kenyan culture whereby indigenous people were prioritized. Symbols of colonialism, including statues, street names, and other historic monuments were either removed or renamed to reflect the new Kenya. English remained the main language for government and for instruction in schools, but Swahili was encouraged and remained the official national language.

During the years of early independence, Kenya's economy remained essentially the same as it had during the colonial period, exporting primary goods (mainly farming products), while importing manufactured goods. The country's agricultural and industrial sectors were still dominated by Europeans and most internal trade by the Asians. Growing resentment amongst black Africans towards the Asian domination of small business was also an issue.

In 1965, Kenyatta began a policy of "black capitalization". Establishing loan programs for black-owned business and establishing the Kenya National Trading Corporation to ensure black Kenyan control over all trade in essential commodities, including maize, sugar, and rice. Subsequent measures in the 1970s expanded this policy to include trade in textiles, soap, and cement. Asians in Kenya were adversely affected and many that had retained their British citizenship emigrated to Britain in large numbers.

Land Reform
The main grievance against the British in colonial Kenya was land ownership, with huge areas of the best farmland in the Rift Valley and Central Highlands being given to white settlers. After independence, the British made £27 million available to the Kenyan government, which was to the used to buy out the white farmers who wished to sell and redistribute the land.

In order to facilitate the land buy-outs, Kenyatta appointed Bruce McKenzie, a South-African born white farmer, as his Minister of Agriculture and Land. Land-purchasing companies, often headed by prominent politicians, were set up to buy or lease land which had been bought out by the government, which in turn subdivided the parcels and distributed them to their shareholders. For this reason, the land redistribution favored the ruling party's constituencies. Kenyans who made claims to the land based on their ancestral ownership were often locked out from the process, leading to widespread condemnation of the process.

Many peasant Kenyans who had been made squatters on farms in the Rift Valley and White Highlands now found their condition little changed, except that they were now squatters on black Kenyan-owned land. Continued high rural unemployment under Kenyatta's presidency led to a large-scale migration of Kenyans from the countryside to urban areas. The rural-to-urban migration exacerbated unemployment in the urban areas, especially Nairobi and Mombasa, where squatter settlements and slums grew large and crime rates soared.

Economy, Education, Healthcare
Kenyatta was worried about the ability of trade unions to disrupt the economy and for this reason in 1965, his administration transformed the Kenya Federation of Labour into the Central Organization of Trade (COT), which was under strong influence from his government. It became illegal to carry out a worker strike in Kenya without the approval of the COT.

Kenyatta also took significant measures to transform civil service jobs from whites to Africans. To this end, by 1967, the civil service sector had become over 90 percent African. This growth in the public sector helped grow Kenya's middle class substantially during Kenyatta's tenure.

Kenyatta also focused on expanding and improving education in Kenya. In June 1963, Kenyatta's Education Minister appointed the 'Ominde Commsission' to evaluate and recommend plans to restructure the country's education system. The commission's findings were published in two reports in 1964/65, which endorsed free primary education and recommended a 7-4-2-3 system, (seven years primary, four years secondary, two years advanced secondary, and minimum 3 years university). An emphasis on secondary and higher education was recommended in order to train indigenous Africans to take over civil service and government jobs, which require such an education.

Kenyatta was also faced with a huge need to improve the country's healthcare services. His long-term goal was to establish a system to provide free universal medical care for all Kenyans. In the shorter term, the country needed more medical professionals and it needed to train indigenous Kenyans for those positions, as most at the time were held by expatriates.

In 1965, Kenyatta's government introduced free medical care for children and outpatients and by the end of his term in office (1978), most Kenyans had better access to healthcare than they had during the colonial period. The life expectancy in Kenya prior to independence was 45 years, but by the end of Kenyatta's term, it had risen to 55 years, the second-highest for any sub-Saharan country in Africa.

The better healthcare in Kenya resulted in a decline in mortality rates and combined with rapidly increasing birth rates, led to a rapid increase in the country's population. Between 1962 and 1979, Kenya's population grew by just under 4% per year, giving it one of the highest population growth rates in the world. The population growth put a severe strain on its civil services and the government introduced family planning initiatives, but these were largely ineffective.

Foreign Policy
Under Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya remained largely uninvolved in the affairs of other states, even amongst its neighboring countries in the East African Community (Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan). Kenyatta had reservations about joining an official East African Federation, though he did sign the Treaty for East African Cooperation in 1967.

Like other countries in post-colonial Africa, Kenya faced pressures from the Cold War, but stated that Kenya would publicly pursue a policy of "positive non-alignment". In truth though, Kenyatta was very much pro-West and in particular, pro-British. In 1965, Kenyatta made his anti-communist stance public, stating that "it is naive to think that there is no danger of imperialism from the East. In world power politics the East has as much designs upon us as the West and would like to serve their own interests. That is why we reject Communism".

After independence, Britain continued to be one of Kenya's largest sources fo foreign trade and Kenya received significant aid from Britain. Critics declared that Kenya had become a Neo-colonial country under Kenyatta, which may have been the case, but the relationship was surely beneficial to Kenya at that time.

Kenyatta also maintained a friendly relationship with the United States, as well as with Israel. During the daring 'Raid on Entebbe', Kenyatta allowed Israeli aircraft to land in Nairobi to refuel on their way back to Israel.

Harambee
The concept of 'Harambee' gained national prominence when Kenyatta mentioned it during his Election Day victory speech in May 1963: “I would suggest we use the Kiswahili word ‘harambee’ to express the mood we want to create... It means ‘let us all work together’. Get up and go!”. The word is now a long-standing Kenyan tradition and means "all pull together". The word can be used to refer to anything from a fundraising event, a wedding, a funeral, assistance to a community member who is ill, or a simple favor.

The word 'harambee' likely originated during the 1890s, when some 30 000 Indians were brought to Mombasa by the British to work on the construction of the Uganda Railway. Working beside local Kenyans, the Indians often called on 'Hare', their God of potency and 'Ambe', the goddess of power, invincibility,  and energy. The Kenyan workers often joined in, and soon a combined chant developed: "Hare-Ambe", which began the Kenyan call of unification.

Today, harambee is Kenya's official motto, appearing on its coat of arms and the idea was paramount in helping Kenyans pull together during the first several decades of the country's independence.

Political Division
During the first few years of Kenya's independence and after the dissolution of the African Democratic Union (KADU), which had been the country's only opposition political party, divisions within the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) began to emerge.

The assassination in February 1965 of Pio Pinto, a Kenyan journalist of Indian descent and a "Specially Elected Member" of the House of Representatives, led to speculation that Pinto had been eliminated by Kenyatta's regime due to his leftist and socialist views. Pinto had been arrested in April 1954 as part of the colonial administration's Operation Anvil and he spent the next four years in detention on Manda Island.

After Pinto's assassination, opposition to Kenyatta's government within KANU grew and relations between Kenyatta and his vice-president, Oginga Odinga, rapidly deteriorated. At the March 1966 KANU party conference, Odinga's responsibilities as vice-president were divided amongst eight politicians, which drastically reduced Odinga'a power and ended any possibility that he would automatically succeed Kenyatta as president of the party. The move was a clear attempt to get Odinga to resign from KANU.

In April 1966, Odinga resigned from the KANU and formed the socialist-oriented Kenya People's Union (KPU). Besides Odinga, another 28 senior KANU members and trade unionists, including Bildad Kaggia, one of the "Kapenguria Six", defected to the new KPU and Kenyatta viewed the move as a threat to his position. In reaction to the move, the KANU-dominated Parliament passed a constitutional amendment to ensure that the defectors could not automatically retain their seats in government and would have to stand for re-election.

In June 1966, parliamentary elections were held for the seats held by the 29 defectors and only 9 of them (7 in the House and 2 in the Senate) were reelected, with KANU increasing its majority by 22 seats. Odinga retained his Central Nyanza seat, winning by a large percentage. Odinga was briefly replaced by as vice-president of KANU by Joseph Murumbi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but Murumbi was replaced by Daniel Arap Moi in January 1967.

Tom Mboya Assassination (July 1969)
Tom Mboya (see details on his earlier life above) was a key figure in Kenya's struggle for independence. After the country gained independence in 1963, Mboya was appointed by Jomo Kenyatta as a Minister of Parliament for the Nairobi Central Constituency. When Kenya became a republic a year later, Kenyatta appointed Mboya as the Minister of Economic Planning and Development.

Mboya was a senior member of the KANU party and one of the few prominent members of government from the Luo community. In addition to his Luo base, Mboya had great appeal to a broad base of Kenyans from different ethnic groups, including thousands of poor Kikuyus. Many of the powerful and elite Kikuyu politicians viewed Mboya as a possible threat to their positions and by the late 1960s, Mboya was viewed as a likely heir apparent to President Kenyatta.

On 05 July 1969, Mboya, who was 39 years old, was gunned down on Government Road in the Nairobi CBD as he exited Chhani’s Pharmacy. Sixteen days later, Nahashon Isaac Njenga Njoroge, a Kikuyu tribesman, was arrested and charged with Mboya's murder. At the time of his arrest, Njoroge was in possession of the murder weapon and he reportedly asked the police "Why don't you go after the big man?". Prison officials announced in late November 1969 that Njoroge had been hanged secretly "in accordance with the law". Due to the controversial comment made by Mboya's killer, suspicions arose as to whether his murder was a political assassination.

Public outrage over Mboya's assassination led to riots and fighting in Kenya's large cities in the following weeks. The fighting was sparked by Mboya's murder, but there was longstanding animosity between the Luo and Kikuyu and discontent amongst the Luo over their exclusion from adequate representation in Kenyatta's government.

Kisumu Massacre (October 1969)
On 25 October 1969, President Kenyatta visited the Luo-dominated town of Kisumu, the capital of what was Tom Mboya's Nyanza Province on the shores of Lake Victoria. The president was in Kisumu to open a new hospital and greeted a large crowd. The crowd soon became disrespectful and began shouting KPU (the opposition party) slogans and openly challenging the president.

The head of the KPU, Oginga Odinga, and many of his supporters were in attendance and a hostile exchange of words between Odinga and Kenyatta further incited the hostile crowd. When members of the crowd starting throwing stones, Kenyatta's bodyguards opened fire on them. The gunfire officially killed 11 people in the crowd, but some sources say that as many as 100 were killed and many more wounded.

Kenyatta Strengthens Hold on Power (1969-78)
In response to the disorder and the incident at Kisumu, Odinga was detained 'indefinitely' without trial and the KPU officially banned, making Kenya once again, a de-facto one-party state. Constitutionally, the right to form opposition political parties was permitted, but in reality, non-KANU political parties became unfeasible.

Kenyatta also encouraged a return to traditional Kikuyu 'oathing', with politicans and other people of influence pressured to swear their allegiance to Kenyatta and to help maintain the Kikuyu hold on the government.

1969 General Elections
In the December 1969 general elections, Kenyatta was again unopposed and was automatically elected without a vote. Due to the banning of the the Kenya People's Union (KPU) on 30 October 1969, only candidates from Kenyatta's Kenya African National Union (KANU) stood for seats in the Parliament, and all 158 seats in the newly unicameral National Assembly were thus won by members of KANU, although 77 incumbents were defeated. An additional 12 members were appointed by Kenyatta after the election.

During the early 1970s, Kenya was viewed globally as one of the safest and most stable countries in sub-Saharan Africa, with many of the other countries in this category struggling with civil wars or still fighting for independence. Foreign investment poured into Kenya, leading to economic growth, but the result was mainly to enrich an elite group of politicians and businessmen, who became known colloquially as the 'WaBenzi', a pejorative used to refer to the post-colonial ruling class, most of them known to be corrupt. The term WaBenzi comes from the Bantu "Wa", meaning people, and "Benzi" for the Mercedes Benz luxury cars that were favored by these rich men.

Nepotism was rampant and bribes from foreign companies to secure contracts made Kenyatta and his closest ties extremely wealthy. Of course, this corruption came at the expense of the common folk in Kenya, for whom life was little or not at all improved from before independence. The new secondary schools built in the prior decade churned out thousands of graduates, but there were not enough prospects for them. Kenya's population growth continued to be one of the highest in the world and land redistribution was still grossly unfair, heavily favoring elite Kikuyu politicians and businessmen.

1974 General Elections
As had been the case in the 1969, the 1974 general elections in Kenya resulted in a 100 percent victory for the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU), as it was the sole party to participate in the elections. Kenyatta was deemed the winner of the presidential election without a vote and all 158 seats on the National Assembly were won by KANU members.

In the later part of Kenyatta's term as president, numerous political and intellectual persons considered a threat to Kenyatta's power were detained or imprisoned. Ronald Ngala, the leader of the opposition Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), which had been banned by Kenyatta in 1964, was killed in a road accident in 1972. The circumstances of his death were suspicious, but there was no inquiry. Many speculated that it was a politcal assassination made to look like an accident. In 1975, JM Kariuki, a political adversary of Kenyatta, was murdered (read below).

JM Kariuki
Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, normally known as "JM", was born in 1929 in a small Kikuyu village outside Nakuru in Kenya's Rift Valley. His family were displaced from their land in 1928 by the British and moved to work in the 'White Highlands', where they became squatters on a European settler farm. JM travelled to Uganda to attend secondary school, graduating in October 1952 and he returned to Kenya just days before the State of Emergency was declared by British Governor Evelyn Baring.

Back in Kenya, Kariuki joined the Mau Mau, taking their oath and working as a liaison officer between Kisumu and Eldoret. He also assisted the uprising by raising money and securing food, supplies, and sometimes lodging for Mau Mau fighters living in the forest. Kariuki was arrested in his hotel in 1953 and detained for seven years. Kariuki was released from detention in 1960 at the end of the Mau Mau rebellion.

Kariuki visited Jomo Kenyatta, who was still living under a restriction order, and was given permission to open a KANU office in Nyeri. After Kenya gained independence in 1963, Kariuki was elected to Parliament and served as Kenyatta's personal secretary until 1969. Kariuki's relationship with Kenyatta began to sour as he saw the president and many of his cronies taking bribes and engaging in corrupt business deals to enrich themselves at the expense of the country's common men.

Kariuki began outwardly criticizing Kenyatta's policies, which he claimed were increasing inequalities in the country and leading to a deterioration of relations between Kenya and the other members of the East African Community. He condemned what he claimed were high levels of governmental corruption, and Kenyatta's lack of addressing equitable land redistribution, claiming that most of the land repurchased from the white settlers had not been given back to the Kenyans that had been forcibly removed by the British, but rather to Kenyatta's family, friends, and political allies.

Although Kariuki himself was a wealthy man, reportedly backed by foreign investors, his populist ideas and willingness to criticize Kenyatta endeared him to Kenya's masses and he was increasingly seen as a serious threat to Kenyatta's power. Kariuki coined a popular phrase that he did not want Kenya to be a nation of “ten millionaires and ten million beggars”.

In 1974, Kariuki was elected to parliament, representing Nyandarua North District in the Rift Valley, despite Kenyatta's regime doing everything it could to thwart his re-election.

On 02 March 1975, Kariuki was last seen leaving the Nairobi Hilton Hotel, accompanied by a police officer and President Kenyatta's head bodyguard. Kariuki's body was found several days later along a road south of Nairobi, his body burned and riddled with bullet holes. A fifteen-member parliamentary commission was formed to investigate his murder, but its recommendations for further investigation were ignored and no one has even been convicted of his murder.

When news of Kariuki's death became known, students from the University of Nairobi marched in protest in the streets of Kenya's capital. Kenyatta's General Service Unit (GSU) police were sent to break up the protest and the campus was shut down.

Kariuki's popular book, Mau Mau Detainee: The Account by a Kenya African of His Experiences in Detention Camps, 1953-60, was published in 1963.

Kenyatta Death (1978)
Kenyatta had suffered from poor health for many years, going back to his days of incarceration in the 1950s, where he suffered from gout. He had a mild stroke in 1966 and another in 1968 and was determined to keep his failing health from the public, leading to a reduction in his public appearances. By 1975, the president had stepped back from actively governing, leaving that role to a small group of his inner circle that included and Charles Njonjo, James Gichuru, Mbiyu Koinange, and Njoroge Mungai.

In 1977, President Kenyatta had several more strokes or possibly heart attacks and on 22 August 1978, he died of a heart attack at the State House in Mombasa. The Kenyan government had long ago prepared for Kenyatta's passing and requested the UK to assist in organizing his state funeral. Senior politicians wanted the funeral to project Kenya as a modern nation rather than one clinging to tradition.

Kenyatta's funeral was held at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Nairobi and was attended by Prince Charles, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and heir apparent to the British throne, as well as numerous African heads of state including Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Idi Amin (Uganda), Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), Hastings Banda (Malawi), and India's Morarji Desai. His body is laid to rest in a mausoleum on the grounds of the Parliament Buildings in Nairobi.

The nation mourned Kenyatta's death, but there was also relief and hopefulness that the country would see renewed ideals and a better future. 

As per the constitution, Vice-President Daniel Arap Moi immediately became acting president and a special presidential election was to be held to elect the new president for the balance of Kenyatta's term. The election was scheduled for 08 November 1978, 90 days later. However, a Cabinet meeting was held and it was determined that no one else was interested in running for president, and Moi was therefore sworn in unopposed on 14 October 1978.

Daniel Arap Moi

Background
Daniel Toroitich arap Moi (born Toroitich arap [son of] Moi, Toroitich meaning "welcome home the cattle") was born 02 September 1924 to a family from the Tugen ethnic group (of the Kalenjin people) in Baringo (north-central Rift Valley). His father, Kimoi Arap Chebii, died when Moi was only four (not much is known about his mother), so he was raised by his elder brother.

As a boy, Moi attended the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) School at Kabartonjo. At the mission school, he became a Christian and adopted the name Daniel. He later attended Tambach Teachers Training College, after which he worked as a teacher from 1946 until 1955.

In 1955, Moi entered politics and was elected a member of the Legislative Council for Rift Valley. As Kenya approached independence, Moi traveled to London and took part in the Lancaster House Conferences (1960, 1962, and 1963), where the plans for the country's independence were negotiated.

In 1960, Moi helped found the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), which was led by Ronald Ngala, as an opposition to Kenyatta's Kenya African National Union (KANU). In 1961, Moi became Minister of Education in Kenya's pre-independence government. After Kenya's independence in 1963, Prime Minister Kenyatta convinced Moi to disband KADU and merge the party into KANU in order to gain better unity during the process of decolonization and in 1964, KADU was dissolved. In 1964, after Kenya became a republic, Kenyatta became president and appointed Moi to his cabinet as Minister of Home Affairs.

In April 1966, Kenyatta's vice-president Oginga Odinga defected from the KANU party and formed an opposition party called the Kenya People's Union (KPU). Kenyatta replaced him as vice-president with Joseph Murumbi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but Moi replaced Murumbi in January 1967, becoming the third Vice-President of Kenya.

As a non-Kikuyu, Moi faced strong opposition from the Kikuyu elite in government and business, a group which were sometimes collectively known as the 'Kiambu Mafia'. These powerful and wealthy Kikuyu wanted a Kikuyu to succeed Kenyatta as president and Moi, as a Luo, was an outsider that they could not trust to have their own interests at heart. The Kiambu Mafia attempted top enact a change in the constitution to prevent the vice-president from automatically assuming the role of president in the event of the president's death, but Kenyatta opposed the change and the enactment failed.

Moi Presidency (1978-1990)

After being sworn in on 14 October 1978 as Kenya's second president, Moi promised to have an ethnically inclusive government, to fight against corruption, and to improve the economy. Within days of taking power, Moi released 26 prisoners that had been arrested and detained without trial by Kenyatta's General Service Unit (GSU) forces. Moi appointed Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu with peasant roots from the Nyeri District, as his vice-president.

Moi moved quickly to consolidate his power by replacing Kikuyu MPs on his cabinet with his Kalenjin countrymen. However, because the Kikuyu elite were numerous and so powerful, Moi relied heavily on his vice-president, a Kikuyu himself, to wield power. Like Kenyatta before him, Moi ruled with an iron fist and those who opposed him were usually arrested and detained. His early promises to improve the economy did not come to fruition and there was soon growing resentment amongst the poor in both rural and urban locations.

1979 General Elections
General elections were again held on 08 November 1979. As in the past elections, there was only one political party, so all 158 seats on the National Assembly were won by KANU members and the post of president required no vote, as incumbent President Moi was unopposed.

On 10 June 1982, after thirteen years of being a de-facto one-party state, Kenya's parliament unanimously approved an amendment to the constitution that made it a de jure one-party state (making it illegal to form any new political party), further cementing KANU's control of the government.

Attempted Coup (1982)
At 3am on 01 August 1982, a group of lower-level soldiers in the Kenya Air Force took control of Eastleigh Air Base (now known as Moi Air Base) outside Nairobi and by 4am, Embakasi Airport (now Jomo Kenyatta International Airport) had also fallen. By 6am, soldiers led by Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka and Sergeant Pancras Oteyo Okumu and backed by university students, captured the Voice of Kenya radio station in Nairobi, where they broadcast in English and Swahili that the military had effectively overthrown the Moi government.

Ochuka then ordered pilots at the Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki to bomb the State House and General Service Unit (GSU) Headquarters in Nairobi, but the pilots on the mission decided to disobey their orders and instead dumped their bombs in the Mount Kenya forest and returned to their base.

The coup had been planned to take place when most of Kenya's senior military staff were away from Nairobi in the remote town of Lodwar, talking part in War Games. The four most senior officers in the Kenya Army that remained in Nairobi held a private meeting to plan a suppression of the coup. A group of 30 officers were assembled and the team assaulted the broadcasting station and killed or captured all the rebels inside. The General Service Unit (GSU) and Nairobi police then assisted in the retaking of the two airports and the coup was effectively thwarted only six hours after it had begun.

The coup failed due to infighting amongst the rebels, poor planning, and bad execution. In the aftermath, more than 100 soldiers and around 200 civilians were killed. The organizers of the coup, including Ochuka, Okumu, and others, were tried by court martial, found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death. A total of 900 people were imprisoned for their involvement in the attempted coup and twelve were sentenced to death. The executions (by hanging) were carried out on 10 Jul 1985. They are the last people to date to have been executed under Kenyan law.

During the court martial trials, Oginga Odinga and his son Raila Odinga were mentioned as having been integrally involved in financing the organizers of the failed coup. Both Odinga's were placed under house arrest. Raila Odinga together with numerous University of Nairobi students and lecturers were later charged with treason and sent to detention without trial. Raila remained in detention for six years, before finally being released in February 1988.

In the wake of the coup attempt, the Kenya Air Force was disbanded and there was a renewed clampdown on students from Nairobi University, which was closed down yet again.

1983 General Elections
In the 1983 general elections, which were held on 26 September 1983, the KANU party, which was now the only legal party allowed in Kenya, retained all 158 Assembly seats and President Moi stood unopposed and was declared president without a vote.

Moi Consolidation of Power (1982-1988)
The years following the passing of the constitutional amendment making KANU the sole legal political party saw an uptick of detention without trial of anyone suspected of being a dissident, crackdowns on underground political movements, banning of publications that opposed the Moi regime, and the expulsion of KANU members that in any way failed to fall in line with the party's increasingly dictatorial policies. Public meetings of more than five persons were outlawed.

Despite Moi's efforts to tighten his grip on power, resentment over the one-party state and the president's authoritarian rule continued to grow. A socialist movement called 'Mwakenya' (an acronym derived from the Swahili phrase "Muungano wa Wazalendo wa Kenya", meaning "Union of Patriotic Kenyans") was formed by academics and others opposed to the one-party state. The group's spokesman was Professor Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and it held public lectures and distributed leaflets asking for the replacement of the Moi government.

The government began cracking down on Mwakenya and the organization was forced to become an underground movement. After the attempted coup, the Moi regime, via the General Service Unit (GSU), launched a full scale initiative to hunt down anyone who may have been involved in the coup attempt, including many who were deemed to be part of the Mwakenya movement.

During the government crackdown on dissidents, hundreds of people were arrested. Initially, the majority arrested were academics and professors, as undercover police officers and students recruited to assist in the crackdown sat in on lectures and reported on any lecturers that taught Marxist-Lenninist theories, which the government believed was being advocated by Mwakenya.

Those who were arrested were typically charged and convicted within one day without being permitted any legal representation. The convicted were then tortured and/or subjected to human rights violations until they gave information on other members. The torture was later revealed to have taken place at Nyayo House and Nyati House, both in Nairobi.

1988 General Elections
General elections were scheduled for 21 March 1988, but in anticipation of the primary elections in February 1988, the government announced a new voting system  called 'mlolongo' (or queue), which abolished the secret ballot system for the primaries, instead requiring voters to line up in public behind photographs of their preferred candidate.

Only KANU party members were allowed to vote in the primaries, but all registered voters were eligible to vote in the upcoming general elections, which would involve secret ballots. Around 25% of Kenya's 20 million citizens were KANU members and the system was widely viewed as an outward effort at voter intimidation and fraud.

As was the case in 1983, Kenya's one-party state meant that all 188 members of the General Assembly were elected from the ruling KANU party and incumbent president Daniel arap Moi was announced the winner without a vote to begin his second full term as president.

Mwai Kibaki, who had been Moi's vice-president since the 1978 elections, had fallen out of favor with Moi, and he was replaced by Josephat Karanja. Shortly over a year later, on 01 May 1989, Karanja stepped down as VP and Moi replaced him with George Saitoti, a British-trained economist and former Head of the Mathematics Department at the University of Nairobi.

End of Cold War (late 1980s)
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a resurgence in global democracy. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the overthrow of most communist governments in the Eastern Bloc marked the end of the Cold War. This shift effectively reduced pressure on the West to support unpopular regimes in developing nations that had previously been viewed as necessary regional stabilizers to help prevent the spread of Soviet influence.

During the Cold War, the Moi government was seen as stable and Western governments were willing to overlook its increasing degree of political repression in order to keep communism from further expanding in the region. Now that the Cold War was over, the West had a reduced requirement to counter communist influence in East Africa and policymakers began viewing Moi as a despotic ruler rather than a stabilizing influence.

During the late 1980s, Kenya's economy stagnated due to rising oil prices and falling prices for its agricultural exports.

Richard Leakey

Background
Richard Leakey was born in Nairobi 1903 to the renowned and pioneering paleoanthropologists and archaeologists, Louis and Mary Leakey, whose work in the Rift Valley of Tanzania and Kenya led to important discoveries on the earliest hominids and human ancestors and demonstrated that humans first evolved in Africa.

In 1955, Richard co-founded the Kenya Museum Associates (now Kenya Museum Society) with various influential Kenyans, the purpose of which was to "Kenyanise" and improve the National Museum.

In 1967, Richard was part of an expedition to the Omo Valley in Ethiopia where the earliest known fossil of a modern human (Homo neanderthalensis), dating back 160 000 years, was found.

Richard also worked at his father's Koobi Fora Camp on the shores of Lake Rudolph (now renamed Lake Turkana), where his work contributed to significant discoveries, including a Homo rudolfensis skull (KNM ER 1470), a Homo erectus skull (KNM ER 3733), and an intact skull of Homo erectus (KNM ER 3883), in 1972, 1975, and 1978, respectively.

In 1984, 'Turkana Boy', an almost complete skeleton of a Homo ergaster (though the Leakey's called it H. erectus), was discovered by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of the Leakeys' team at Lake Turkana. The skeleton was of a boy estimated to have been 9-12 years old when he died 1.6 million years ago.

Conservation
Around 1988-1989, Richard's focus shifted from paleontology to wildlife conservation, but his wife Meave Leakey and daughter Louise Leakey continued to work in the field.

In 1977, Kenya ended all legal elephant hunting in an effort to protect its dwindling elephant population and support its growing ecotourism industry. All animal hunting in Kenya without a permit was also made illegal in 1977. By the late 1970s, Kenya's elephant population was estimated at 275 000, but the country had lost 50% of its elephants to poachers by 1977. The continued slaughter of elephants reduced Kenya's population to only 20 000 animals by 1989.

In 1989, amidst international condemnation over the rampant slaughter of elephants and rhinos across Africa, President Daniel arap Moi appointed Richard Leakey as Director of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Department (WMCD), the forerunner of what became the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in 1990. The high international value of ivory was the driving force behind the poaching and Kenya was particularly hard hit. In a May 1989 New York Times article, it was stated that Kenya's Tsavo National Park was "an elephant graveyard - piles of bleached white elephant bones - instead of an elephant habitat".

President Moi was well aware of the damage that elephant poaching was doing to Kenya's growing ecotourism industry and at the October 1989 conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Switzerland, Kenya advocated for including elephants on CITES' Appendix I, which effectively bans the species from any international trade.

Ivory Burning (1989)
At the time of the 1989 CITES Conference, Kenya had 12 tons of elephant tusks in its stockpile. Leakey was urged by many in Kenya's government to sell the ivory in order to help fund conservation efforts, but in a bold move, Leakey convinced President Moi that Kenya should burn the tusks. In a highly successful publicity event, President Moi set fire to the massive pile of tusks in Nairobi National Park

Ivory does not burn easily, but Leakey wanted to produce powerful and lasting images showing Kenya's dedication to conservation. To make the destruction even more spectacular, Leakey hired a Hollywood special effects professional to devise the pyrotechnic method of burning the tusks, which was accomplished using a combination of jet fuel and flammable glue.

The event was a huge publicity success, attracting massive international press coverage as the fire burned nonstop for three days. The event was so impressive that the World Bank approved grants totaling US$140 million to help Kenya in its conservation efforts. It also went a long way towards placing Kenya at the top of counties in terms of its ecotourism and conservation image.

Later Life
Leakey's bold stance on conservation was a two edged sword, with many politicians opposed to his policies. His confrontational approach to human-wildlife conflict in Kenya's national parks also earned him many opponents. Richard's view was that national parks were self-contained ecosystems and humans should be entirely removed, which adversely affected the Maasai people in various parks and reserves and offended many Kenyan politicians.

In June 1993, while piloting a routine flight in his single-engine Cessna plane, he crashed and both his legs had to be amputated below the knee. Sabotage was suspected, but never proved. Afterwards, Leakey was fitted with prosthetic limbs. Soon afterwards, the government announced that a secret probe had found evidence of mismanagement and corruption in the KWS and in January 1994, an annoyed Richard Leakey resigned as head of the KWS. Leakey was replaced by David Western, who was an advocate of human-wildlife coexistence.

In 2001, Leakey published Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures, which describes his intense fight to save Kenya's elephants from poaching.

Notes: Leakey moved to the USA for a short time in 2002, where he taught anthropology at Stony Brook University, on Long Island, New York. Back in Kenya, Leakey founded and chaired WildlifeDirect, a Kenya-based charitable organization which provides support to conservationists in Africa. The organization played a significant role in helping protect mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park in January 2007 after rebels threatened to kill off all the animals.

In 2015, Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed Leakey as Chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), which allowed him to take an active role once again in the country's conservation policies. Richard Leakey died in his home in Nairobi on 02 January 2022, at the age of 77 years. He is buried on a hill in the Rift Valley.

Moi Presidency (1990-1993)

Robert Ouko Murder (February 1990)
On the night of 12/13 February 1990, Robert Ouko, a Luo and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Moi's cabinet, disappeared from his family farm complex near Kisumu. Ouko had been a favorite amongst Western politicians as a potential successor to President Moi.

Ouko's body was supposedly discovered later that day about 3 kms away by a local herding boy, but nothing was reported to authorities. Various investigations were made in the ensuing years, including one by Britain's Scotland Yard, but the crime remains unsolved.

Local police discovered the body on 16 February after a search of the area. Initial police reports suggested that Ouko had committed suicide, but information leaked that he had been killed by a single shot to the head and his body partially burned. News of Ouko's murder sparked a week of rioting across the country, the most violent of which were in Ouko's home town of Kisumu.

Saba Saba Protest (07 July 1990)
Growing public discontent with the oppressive Moi government mounted throughout Kenya during the first half of 1990 and on 07 July, Kenyans took to the streets in Nairobi to demand a free multi-party democracy. The rally has since become known as the "Saba Saba" rally ("saba" means "seven" in Swahili and denotes the date - 07/07 - of the rally). The protest was called for by a group of young opposition politicians known as the "Young Turks", including Kenneth Matiba, Raila Odinga, and Charles Rubia, all of whom were arrested days before the protest.

The Moi government was prepared for an unruly crowd and armed police wearing riot gear met the protestors with tear gas and batons to beat them into dispersing. The rally soon degenerated into a violent riot, with some 6 000 protestors hurling stones at the police and police cars. The rioting quickly spread to the outskirts of Nairobi and it sparked similar riots in numerous other towns in Central Kenya.

The riots went on for four days and hundreds of civilians were injured and 21 were killed. Over 1 000 protestors were arrested and detained. The impact of the Saba Saba protest became a trigger for the "second" liberation movement in Kenya and July 7th is now known as "Saba Saba Day" in Kenya, though it has never been made an official holiday.

Return to Multi-Party Democracy (1991)
In the wake of the Saba Saba protests, the Moi regime cracked down on journalists and repressed anti-government newspaper articles. It accused the foreign press and in particular, the BBC, of trying to ignite civil unrest and violence in Kenya. News coverage of the protests and Moi's stubborn insistence on a single-party state was upsetting tp foreign investors in the West and led to increased international pressure on Moi to adopt a true democracy in Kenya.

In August 1991, an unofficial opposition lobbyist group called the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) was formed by several opposition leaders, including Oginga Odinga, his son Raila Odinga, Paul Muite, Phillip Gachoka, Ahmed Bamahariz, Salim Ndamwe, Masinde Muliro, and George Nthenge. The group's purpose was to fight for political change in Kenya. President Moi declared that FORD was an illegal organization and its leaders were kept under constant surveillance by government security personnel and their meetings outlawed.

In 1991, the United States and other donor nations in the West withheld aid to Kenya pending compliance with economic and political reform, the most important of which was the reintroduction of a multi-party political system.

Many in KANU were against allowing any new political parties, but President Moi managed to convince the party otherwise and in December 1991, he announced his intention to lift the ban in opposition parties. After heated debate and opposition within the government, the resolution was finally passed and the constitution was amended, giving the opposition the legal right to form new political parties.

1992 General Elections
After the constitutional amendment made it legal for the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) to declare itself as an opposition political party, dozens of KANU party members defected and joined the new opposition party. Unfortunately, during the lead-up to the 1992 general elections, divisions and infighting within FORD quickly emerged along tribal affiliations, dividing its potential to effect change in the government.

Unable to cooperate and produce a single opposition candidate to oppose President Moi and the still powerful KANU party, FORD soon split internally along tribal affiliations. The ambition of some of FORD's leaders to run for presidency and to lead a political party led to a series of splits in the original FORD party. Prior to the 1992 elections, FORD officially divided into FORD-Kenya, led by Oginga Odinga, and FORD-Asili, led by Kenneth Matiba.

Another party, the Democratic Party (DP) was founded by Mwai Kibaki, who had served as Moi's vice-president for ten years (1978-88), but had left KANU in December 1991 after the repeal of the law preventing opposition political parties.

General elections were held on 29 December 1992, marking the first multi-party elections in Kenya since independence and the first to include an actual vote for president by the citizens. In 1964, the office of president was elected by a vote of parliament and every election since featured only one candidate for the position. All seats on the General Assembly were also up for election.

The lead up to the election saw targeted ethnic violence in the Rift Valley, mainly involving Kalenjin supporters of President Moi and peasant farmers supporting the opposition groups. Dozens of Kenyans were killed, hundreds injured, and thousands made homeless during the fighting. The Human Rights Watch group accused President Moi and Vice-President Saitoti of inciting and coordinating the pre-election violence.

The voting was marred by widespread voter intimidation, ballot-box stuffing, harassment of voting officials, manipulation of votes, last-minute changing of the polling date (the elections were originally scheduled for 07 December), and other irregularities, most of which was perpetrated by the incumbent KANU administration.

The results of the election were another victory for KANU and incumbent President Moi, who won 36.35% of the votes. Kenneth Matiba of the FORD-Asili party came second with 26.00% of the votes, Mwai Kibaki of the Democratic Party (DP) came third with 19.45%, and Oginga Odinga of FORD-Kenya came fourth with 17.48% of the votes. Voter turnout was 69.4% of the population. It was clear from the results that the divided opposition allowed Moi to retain his presidency.

There were now 188 elected seats on the General Assembly, with an additional 12 seats (making 200 total seats) to be appointed by the president. KANU won 100 seats (plus the 12 appointed by Moi), FORD-Asili won 31 seats, FORD-Kenya won 31 seats, and the DP won 23 seats. Other minor parties won a total of 3 seats.

Moi Presidency 1993-2002

After his victory in the 1992 elections, Moi agreed to enact the economic reforms requested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which restored enough of their aid for Kenya to service its US$7.5 billion foreign debt. The reforms included the privatization of various sectors of Kenya's infrastructure, including railways, telecommunications, the postal service, and the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB). These demanded reforms were meant to reduce opportunities for corruption at the government level, while also stimulating the economy.

Moi continued to obstruct the press after the 1992 elections and he exploited inter-tribal animosity to keep the opposition focused on each other rather than on attacking KANU policies. The administration relied heavily on the support of the Kalenjin and incited the Maasai and Kikuyu against one another. The Kikuyu in particular were targeted and denounced by President Moi as traitors, threatening them with land and home dispossession. Beginning in 1993, mass evictions in Kikuyu communities took place with assistance from the army and police.

In January 1994, Oginga Odinga, the chairman of the FORD-Kenya party, died at the age of 82 years. He was succeeded as chairman by the party's vice-chairman Michael Kijana Wamalwa.

1997 General Elections
On 07 July 1997, on the anniversary of the 1990 Saba Saba demonstrations and in anticipation of the general elections coming later in the year, history repeated itself as tensions mounted and protests were held in over 50 urban centers across Kenya. The largest rally was in Nairobi and as in 1990, the protest turned violent, with police storming Nairobi University and 13 people were killed in clashes with police. Protestors were marching to demand free and fair elections. Additional demonstrations occurred on 08 August, 09 September, and 10 October, leading up to the December elections. There were also a series a worker strikes during 1997.

General elections were held on 29 December 1997 to elect the president and members of the National Assembly. As expected, incumbent President Danial arap Moi and his Kenya African National Union (KANU) party won the day, with Moi receiving 40.4% of the vote and KANU winning 107 of 210 Assembly seats (an additional 12 to be appointed by the president). KANU added 7 additional seats to retain a majority on the Assembly. Moi's greatest support was from the Rift Valley, where he dominated and won 69.5% of the votes.

As in the previous elections held in 1992, the lack of a united opposition allowed Moi to win, as he received votes from across the country, while each of the opposition candidates received most of their support from their respective ethnic/regional constituencies. Voter turnout was 68.3% (of just over 9 million registered voters).

Mwai Kibaki of the Democratic Party (DP) came in second, receiving 30.89% of the votes and its members winning 39 seats (an increase of 16 seats) on the Assembly. Kibaki, a Kikuyu by birth, received a majority of the votes in Kikuyu areas, where Moi barely received any support. Kibaki claimed that the election was rigged and said he was convinced that he was the true winner.

Raila Odinga, who had left the FORD-Kenya party after losing in a battle for leadership of that party to Michael Wamalwa in 1994 and joined the newly formed National Development Party (NDP) won 10.79% of the votes to finish third. The NDP also won 21 seats on the Assembly. Odinga won a majority in the Luo-dominated Nyanza region (Kisumu/Lake Victoria), but fared poorly elsewhere.

Michael Wamalwa of FORD-Kenya came fourth with 8.17% of the votes and his party winning 17 seats (down from 31 prior) on the Assembly. Wamalwa's biggest support was in the West, where he received more votes than any other candidate.

Moi's Final Term (1997-2002)
On 05 January 1998, Daniel Arap Moi was sworn in for his fifth term as president at the age of 73 years, extending the rule of his already 20-year-long administration. It was to be his final term per the constitution, which per a 1992 amendment, allowed for only two full five-year terms (previous terms served by Moi were not counted per the amendment). Moi promised that his final term would be devoted to promoting national unity, eradicating governmental corruption, and implementing economic and democratic reforms.

In an effort to combat corruption, Moi appointed Richard Leakey, the respected and widely popular paleoanthropologist whose parents, Louis and Mary Leakey, were pioneers in the field, to his cabinet as a special secretary in charge of fighting corruption.

On 07 August 1998, the United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were bombed in simultaneous attacks. The Nairobi explosion killed 263 people, of which 12 were American, and injured over 5 000, most of which were not in the Embassy, but rather in the adjacent four-story Ufundi Cooperative House. The attacks were carried out by truck bombs and linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The attacks brought global attention to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda and its leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Kenya's tourist industry took a serious, but short-term hit due to the attacks.

In 2000, Moi appointed Yash Pal Ghai, a Kenyan Professor of Constitutional Law, as Chairman of the newly created Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, which Moi directed to spearhead Kenya's first major constitutional reform.

In 2001, Raila Odinga's National Development Party (NDP) surprisingly entered into a formal coalition with President Moi's KANU party to create what some unofficially called the 'New' KANU. Odinga dissolved the NDP and joined Moi's cabinet as Minister for Energy. Moi entered into the agreement in hopes that Odinga would bring Luo voters to the party, but Odinga's move was seen by his supporters as a 'sell-out' and many lost respect for him.

At the KANU elections later in 2001, Odinga was elected as the party's Secretary General and it was widely speculated that Odinga hoped to lead the party in the upcoming national elections with Moi's support.

Lead up to Elections
Leading up to the December 2002 general elections, the outgoing President Moi, who could not stand for reelection due to constitutional limits, endorsed Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta. It was a surprise to many since Uhuru was a relative newcomer to politics, but Moi asked others in the KANU party to endorse Kenyatta as well. Many saw the move as an attempt by Moi to place a figurehead in the position, allowing Moi to retain power after his presidency ended. Raila Odinga was particularly incensed, since he felt sure that he would be KANU's candidate.

Most of the longtime KANU members were offended by Moi's move, feeling that they were being asked to back a politically inexperienced newcomer who lacked any proven leadership experience and had done little to help build the party. Dissent spread through KANU and most of the senior members, led by Raila Odinga, George Saitoti, Kalonzo Musyoka, Joseph Kamotho, and other big names forming a "Rainbow Movement" within the party to oppose Kenyatta's candidacy.

In October 2002, the members of the Rainbow Movement officially left KANU and formed the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which soon teamed up with the opposition National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), headed by Mwai Kibaki. Other small opposition parties soon joined and a new party called the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) party was formed to oppose Moi and Kenyatta. NARC's members were all too aware that without a united front, the opposition may fail as it had against KANU in past elections. The new party chose Mwai Kibaki as their presidential candidate.

2002 General Elections
On 03 December 2002, Mwai Kibaki was injured in a road accident while returning to Nairobi after a campaign meeting outside the city. Kibaki was hospitalized in Nairobi and then flown to London, where his fractured leg was set. The remainder of his campaign was conducted by his party colleagues, led by Raila Odinga and Kijana Wamalwa.

General elections were held on 27 December 2002 to elect the new president and members of the National Assembly. Mwai Kibaki and the new NARC party won a landslide victory, with Kibaki winning 62.2% of the votes and NARC members winning 125 of 210 electable seats on the Assembly (another 12 to be appointed by the president).

Uhuru Kenyatta of the KANU party came in second with 31.3% of the votes and KANU members winning 64 seats (a reduction of 43 seats). Simeon Nyachae of the FORD-People party came third with 5.9% of the votes and James Orengo of the Social Democratic Party came fourth with less than one percent.

The 2002 elections were widely considered to have been the first truly free general elections in Kenya since its independence in 1964 and it saw an end to the longstanding dominance of the KANU party, which had governed Kenya since 1963, including 23 years as the only legally permitted party in what was then a one-party state.

Outgoing president Daniel arap Moi had ruled Kenya unchallenged for 24 years, during which time the standard of living had fallen, human rights had worsened, and ethnic divisions had widened. Now that Moi was out, most of Kenya looked forward in a hopeful way to their future.

On 29 December 2002, the 71-year-old Kibaki was sworn in whilst seated in a wheelchair and his right leg in a cast from his recent motor vehicle accident. In his inaugural speech in front of thousands of cheering supporters at Uhuru Park in Nairobi, Kibaki stated in English "I am inheriting a country which has been badly ravaged by years of misrule and ineptitude". Outgoing president Daniel Moi was greeted by the crowd with jeers and whistling and he sat stone-faced during the ceremony.

Mwai Kibaki

Background
Mwai Kibaki was born in 1931 in Thunguri village in the Othaya division of the Nyeri District in Kenya's Central Highlands to a Kikuyu peasant family. He attended Mathari School (now Nyeri High School) between 1944 and 1946, where besides his classroom education, he learned masonry and carpentry by helping with maintenance on the school building. Between 1947 and 1950, Kibaki attended Mang'u High School, a Roman Catholic National High School established in 1925, located in the Kiambu District just north of Nairobi.

After high school, Kibaki traveled to Uganda where he attended Makerere University in Kampala, which at that time was a two-year technical college. He graduated best in his class in 1955, having studied Economics, Political Science, and History.

After graduation, he remained in Uganda, working as Assistant Sales Manager for Shell Company of East Africa. That same year, Kibaki was awarded a scholarship to attend any British University, so he enrolled at the London School of Economics, graduating in 1958 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Finance. He then moved back to Makerere University in Uganda, where he taught as an Assistant Lecturer in the Economics Department until 1960.

Pre-Presidential Politics
In early 1960, Kibaki left his position at Makerere and returned to Kenya at the request of Tom Mboya, the Secretary General of the KANU party, who appointed Mwai an executive officer in the party. In 1963, Kibaki campaigned for election to parliament in Nairobi's Donholm constituency, winning the seat. Kibaki was subsequently appointed the positions of Assistant Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Economic Planning Commission. Mwai was promoted to Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1966 and became Minister of Finance and Economic Planning in 1969, holding that position until 1982.

In 1974, facing strong opposition from another local candidate whom he had narrowly defeated in the 1969 elections, Kibaki moved his political base to his rural home in Othaya, where he was again elected to parliament. Kibaki successfully retained his seat in in the subsequent elections of 1979, 1983, 1988, 1992, 1997, and 2002.

When Daniel arap Moi succeeded Jomo Kenyatta as President in 1978, Kibaki was appointed Vice President, keeping his post as Minister of Finance and Economic Planning until Moi changed his position to Minister of Home Affairs in 1982. Kibaki's record during his time in charge of Finance is regarded to have been very good, with Kenya showing relatively strong economic growth, driven mainly by commodities, especially coffee.

In 1988, Moi and Kibaki began to disagree on various policies and they had a falling out, so Moi replaced Kibaki as Vice President with Josephat Karanja and moved Moi to the post of Minister of Health.

In a surprise move, On Christmas Day 1991, just days prior to the repeal of Section 2A of the Constitution, which restored the multi-party system of government, Kibaki resigned from the KANU party. Soon afterwards, he founded the Democratic Party (DP) and declared himself a candidate in the upcoming 1992 elections. He faced criticism from members of the other opposition parties, who claimed that Kibaki did nothing to fight for multi-party politics, yet was trying to capitalize on it. Kibaki came in third in the December 1992 general elections, placing behind the winner, Daniel arap Moi of KANU, and Kenneth Matiba of the FORD-Asili party.

Kibaki ran for president in the 1997 general elections, but the divided opposition parties were again unable to unseat incumbent President Moi, who won easily. This time Kibaki came in second in the voting, but his Democratic Party (DP) added 16 Assembly seats. In 1998, Kibaki and the DP became the official opposition party in Parliament.

Kibaki Presidency (2002-2013)

Kibaki took office as Kenya's third president after the 2002 elections (see above), ending four decades of rule by the KANU party. Unlike his predecessors (Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi), Kibaki kept a low-key public profile, but he promised much change for the country, including constitutional reform within 100 days.

Entering the presidency having just suffered injuries in a car accident that had him in a wheelchair for his swearing in, Kibaki's health problems continued after taking office. In January 2003, it was announced that Kibaki had been admitted to Nairobi Hospital with a blood clot in his leg, which was deemed to be after effects from his road accident. After the clot was removed, President Kibaki made a televised address, during which he seemed a bit incoherent, leading to speculation that he may have had a stroke.

On 23 August 2003, Vice President Michael Wamalwa died and although he had been admitted to the hospital in mid-2003, the cause of his death was not disclosed, though speculation was that he died of complications related to HIV/AIDS. On 25 September, President Kibaki appeared on live TV to appoint his new vice president Moody Awori, during which broadcast Kibaki again did not appear to be well.

Memorandum of Understanding
Prior to the 2002 election, there was apparently a 'secret' pact between Kibaki and Raila Odinga, which Kibaki had agreed to in exchange for Odinga not fighting him over NARC's candidate. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Kibaki and Odinga was that Kibaki would appoint Odinga to a new Prime Minister post and also appoint Odinga's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) faction half of the cabinet positions once he was in office.

The MOU also included a pre-election draft of a new constitution, which included provisions that reduced the powers of the president and increased authority in the country's regional governments. Once in office, Kibaki instead reneged on the pact and sought to increase the power of his own National Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK) faction, as well as his own presidential powers, while weakening regional government. Both of the prior regimes, those of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi, had been largely autocratic and rife with presidential power abuse and unaccountable leadership and it appeared that Kibaki's regime would continue in the same pattern.

Kibaki's refusal to abide by the MOI began a rebellion within the NARC, with members segmenting along their previous party (now factional) lines. The ruling National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), which had been formed as a coalition between various opposition parties with the initial goal being to defeat KANU in the 2002 election, now began to splinter due to Kibaki's perceived betrayal and without a common opponent to unite it.

Constitutional Referendum
To address the issues at hand in the splintering government, a constitutional convention was held in April 2003, during which Kibaki presented a draft constitution that included no provision for a European-style power-sharing between the president and a prime minister. Kibaki's draft also addressed land reform and the ongoing issue of land disputes between various ethnic groups. European descendants still owned large tracts of land in Kenya and the draft included measures that would disallow land ownership by any foreigners, with a new Land Commission in charge of managing the redistribution of that land.

Kibaki's draft constitution was turned down by the opposing members in the Assembly, so he president decided to take it to a constitutional referendum. The referendum was held on 21 November 2005, with Kibaki campaigning vigorously for a "yes" vote. The paper ballots used two symbols to make voting easier, with a "NO" vote represented by an orange and a "YES" vote represented by a banana.

Politicians who wanted to defeat the referendum joined forces and, led by Raila Odinga, campaigned against it as the grassroots movement they called the "Orange Team". The referendum failed, with 58% voting "no". Many voters used the referendum merely as a way to show their approval or disapproval of the Kibaki government to date.

After the referendum was rejected by the voters, President Kibaki dismissed his entire cabinet and deputy ministers in a move to consolidate his power, stating "following the results of the referendum, it has become necessary for me, as the President of the Republic, to re-organise my Government to make it more cohesive and better able to serve the people of Kenya."

Only the Attorney General, whose position was constitutionally protected, was spared. Vice-President Awori kept his position, but lost his post as Minister of Home Affairs. Kibaki pledged to appoint his new cabinet within two weeks, but would manage the nation's affairs singlehandedly in the interim.

Raila Odinga and the other dismissed ministers who had been part of the Orange Team promptly left the NARC and formed a new party called the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The ODM called for an immediate general election, claiming that Kibaki had lost his mandate, but the idea never gained enough traction and Kibaki simply rejected it on constitutional grounds. As promised, President Kibaki reinstated all ministers who had not been allied with the Odinga-led Orange Team and appointed loyalist MP's to the vacated posts.

Corruption
In 2003, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) resumed their lending to Kenya in exchange for Kibaki's government submitting a five-year economic recovery strategy and a commitment to fight corruption.

In January 2003, Kibaki appointed John Githongo, a well-known Kenyan journalist who had reported on government corruption during the previous Moi regime, to the position of Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics, reporting directly to Kibaki. Corruption had been rampant during the Moi presidency and numerous corrupt projects were inherited by the ministers in Kibaki's regime, who gladly nurtured them and reaped the benefits.

In his role, Githongo uncovered numerous kick-back schemes, the largest of which was a multi-million-euro corruption scam which came to be known as the Anglo-Leasing scandal. The scandal began when the Kenyan government (then under the Moi regime) decided to replace its outdated passport printing system in 1997. A French firm submitted a bid of 6 million euros for a new and sophisticated passport printing system, but the project was instead awarded to a British firm called Anglo-Leasing, at a project price of 30 million euros.

Githongo's investigations discovered that Anglo-Leasing was a phantom entity that subcontracted with the same French firm at their quoted price. The massive difference in price was paid out to various individuals in the government. When Githongo submitted his report to President Kibaki, it was met with indignation and nothing was done.

On 07 February 2005, Githongo resigned his position as Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics. He later named top politicians that were involved in the Amnglo Leasing scam, including Vice-president Moody Awori, former justice minister and later energy minister Kiraitu Murungi, finance minister David Mwiraria, former transport minister Chris Murungaru, and others.

Githongo concluded that the Anglo Leasing scam and many of the other kick-backs went all the way to the top and that as a consequence, his life was in danger. Githongo started receiving death threats and decided to leave Kenya into exile in the UK. (Note: Githongo returned to Kenya in 2008 and founded a grassroots advocacy organization called Inuka Kenya Trust, aimed at informing the public on various matters.

2007 General Elections
General elections were scheduled for late December 2007 and President Mwai Kibaki declared his intention to run for re-election on 26 January 2007. Later that year on 26 September, Kibaki announced a new alliance called the Party of National Unity (PNU), which would encompass various different political parties backing him as candidate for president. The PMU included the Democratic Party (DP), the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy – Kenya (FORD-Kenya), FORD-People, Shirikisho Party of Kenya, and other minor parties.

The main opposition party running against Kibaki was expected to be the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), which was led by Raila Odinga and had the backing of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The LDP had been part of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) which had successfully gotten Kibaki elected, but its party ministers had been dismissed from the cabinet after Kibaki's failed 2005 constitutional referendum, as had Odinga and other members of the ODP.

In August 2007, the ODM alliance split into two factions, as the alliance's two leaders, Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, both sought candidacy in the upcoming elections. Kalonzo Musyoka and his followers formed the ODM-Kenya party and Raila Odinga and his followers remaining as the ODM party.

After the split, KANU, which had initially backed the original ODM alliance, left the coalition entirely and KANU's leader and ex-President Daniel arap Moi, announced his support for his former political rival Kibaki and the PMU. Uhuru Kenyatta, who had run as KANU's candidate in 2002 and come in second to Kibaki, also announced his support for Kibaki. KANU decided that it would not nominate a presidential candidate in 2007, but it contested in some of the National Assembly elections.

By mid-November 2007, nine candidates had submitted the required documents to stand for election as Kenya's next president. All nine candidates also ran for a seat on the Assembly, as the constitution requires that the presidential election winner also must win a seat in Parliament. There were 14.3 million registered voters and the election date was set for 27 December 2007.

President Kibaki officially kicked off his campaign on 30 September 2007 at Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi. Raila Odinga launched his campaign to a crowd at Uhuru Park in Nairobi on 06 October 2007. A total of 2 548 candidates ran for seats on the assembly, which was more than twice as many candidates as had run in 2002 and included 269 women candidates.

Opinion polls in late October 2007 had Odinga leading at 50%, with Kibaki second at 39%, and Musyoka third at 8%. A mid-November poll showed Odinga still leading with 45%, but Kibaki closing the gap at 41% and Musyoka up to 11%. A late November poll placed Kibaki and Odinga essentially equal at 43% each.

Voting commenced on the morning of 27 December 2007 and Kenyan media published early results giving Odinga a lead of 460 000 votes with 69 of the 210 constituencies reporting. Vote tabulation by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) continued through the night of 27 December and all day on 28 December. Results on the 28th showed Odinga with a slight lead and on 29 December, the ODM declared victory. During the day of the 29th, Odinga's lead over Kibaki shrank and on 30 December, the ECK declared that Kibaki was the winner by just 232 000 votes.

Odinga's claims of a rigged election rang true with most non-Kikuyus, as the pre-election polls and expectations had been strongly in Odinga's favor. Odinga had also campaigned against the decades-long power dominance of Kikuyu politicians and he had won the voting in most non-Kikuyu constituencies by a large margin. Kibaki had managed to eek out apparent victory with the near-exclusive support of the Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu communities, who turned up in record numbers in response to Odinga's anti-Kikuyu campaign. Furthermore, the ODM had won by far the most Assembly seats, taking 99 of 210 seats, while Kibaki's PNU party only managed 43 seats.

Odinga accused the government of fraud and vote manipulation, urged Kibaki to admit defeat, and called for a recount of the votes. The ECK said that irregularities had occurred, but that this was a matter for the courts, not the Electoral Commission. In a rushed and private ceremony, Kibaki had himself sworn in as president on the evening of 30 December 2007. Kibaki appointed a partial cabinet on 08 January, comprising 17 ministers from his coalition parties (PNU, KANU, ODM-Kenya).

Post-Election Ethnic Violence (2007-08)
Within minutes of the announcement that Kibaki had been sworn in, ethnic rioting erupted on the streets of Nairobi and elsewhere across Kenya. Most of the violence was directed at Kikuyus, the group to which Kibaki belongs and who made up much of his support base. Gangs of Odinga supporters went on targeted ethnic rampages in the Rift Valley, on the east coast, and in Kisumu along Lake Victoria, destroying Kikuyu-owned businesses and homes, and killing Kikuyu men, women, and even children. 

Crime was rampant in Kenya's densely populated areas, including Nairobi, Mombasa, settlements in the Rift Valley, and Luoland. Kisumu and Nairobi experienced continuous rioting until the end of January 2008. In the countryside, farms were looted and homesteads burned, roads were blocked, and people were afraid to go to work. Foreigners were commonly attacked and some people even fled to neighboring Uganda to escape the violence.

The violence was certainly triggered by the election results, but the scale of the fighting reflected long-held hatred and grievances, commingled with exclusion and marginalization during the colonial period, followed by decades of Neo-colonial Kikuyu dominance.

Odinga had campaigned on promising much-needed change to Kenya, where over 60% of Kenyans lived off less than US$1 per day and the most fertile land in the country and most of the wealth was in the hands of the families of the political and business elite. The violence that erupted when Odinga lost was a response to the frustration felt by having those promises of change once again snatched away, sentencing most Kenyans to the status quo and a continued life of poverty.

The rioting and violence continued and on New Year's Day 2008, some 200 unarmed Kikuyu women and children in Kiambaa village near Eldoret, who had fled the violence to seek refuge in a church, were locked inside by an angry mob, who then set the church ablaze, killing 35 people inside. The incident received widespread media coverage. The slums of Nairobi experienced some of the worst violence, with gangs attacking each other using machetes and clubs.

As the violence spread, Kibaki was intent on keeping control by use of force and he flooded the streets of Nairobi with security forces and issued a ban on live media broadcasts. International media covered the fighting extensively, giving the world the impression that Kenya was in a bloody war. Tourism was particularly hard hit, with most flights and tours cancelled.

After nearly a month of rioting and violence, the ethnic fighting had left over 500 people dead and an estimated 600 000 displaced. In an effort to end the violence, the United Nations sent its former Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Kenya in January 2008 to broker negotiations between the two sides after African Union (AU) Chariman John Kufuor, the President of Ghana, failed to even get the two sides to sit down together.

Power-Sharing Government (2008)
The peace process officially began on 22 January 2008 with negotiations led by a panel of African personalities, including former President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania, former South African First Lady Graça Machel, and Kofi Annan as Chairperson, with added technical support provided by the United Nations. The panel was charged with resolving the conflict and restoring peace to Kenya.

After 41 days of intense negotiations, the Agreement on the Principles of Partnership of the Coalition Government was signed on 28 February 2008 by President Mwai Kibaki and the Honorable Raila Odinga.

The key point in the agreement was the addition to government of the position of Prime Minister (this had already been successfully modeled in neighboring Tanzania), which would held by Raila Odinga and could not be revoked by the president. The signed agreement gave neither side what it had originally wanted and required serious compromise on both sides, with the ODM originally insisting on nothing less than a new presidential election and the PNU refusing to share equal power with the group that it accused of inciting violence and sending Kenya into chaos.

The agreement specified that the cabinet would now consist of the president (Mwai Kibaki), vice-president (Kalonzo Musyoka), prime minister (Raila Odinga), two deputy prime ministers (one from each party), 40 additional appointed ministers (50% from each party), and 50 appointed assistant ministers (50% from each party). The PM must be an elected member of the National Assembly as well as the parliamentary leader of the party or coalition holding a majority of seats in the National Assembly. The position of PM is accountable to the president as well as being immune from civil or criminal prosecution.

The agreement was somewhat vague in that it specified that the duty of the new position of PM was to "coordinate and supervise government affairs", but it was unclear whether the PM could be overruled by the president. Uhuru Kenyatta was named as the PNU's deputy prime minister (as well as minister of trade) and Musalia Mudavadi was named as the ODM's deputy prime minister (as well as minister of local government).

Due to the creation of the coalition government, an official opposition did not exist, so in August 2008, over 70 ministers from the minor parties outside of PNU and ODM created a coalition opposition to ensure democratic governance.

New Constitution (2009-10)
In November 2009, the government released a proposed new constitution to the public for debate and review. The public was given 30 days to submit proposals for amendments to the respective local parliamentary representatives, after which a revised draft was presented to parliament on 08 January 2010. Final revisions were made and the final proposed constitution was published and subjected to a referendum on 04 August 2010. The constitution was approved by public vote, with 67% voting 'YES' in the referendum.

Key components and/or changes of the new constitution included:

• separation of power between the three arms of government (executive, legislative, and judiciary);
• only two levels of government: national and county;
• the positions of prime minister and deputy prime minister are to be abolished after the next general elections;
• citizenship: ends the prohibition on Kenyans holding dual citizenship and ending gender discrimination in relation to women passing citizenship to their children;
• gender equality in elective bodies: no more than two-thirds may be comprised of either gender;
• introduction of an upper house (the Senate), with each of the 47 counties having a senator;
• the National Assembly (lower house) will have 290 members representing constituencies and each county will have a female MP in the Assembly (guaranteeing 47 women).

Kenya's new constitution is perhaps Mwai Kibaki's major triumph and legacy. Having served two full 5-year terms, Kibaki was constitutionally ineligible to run for re-election for a third term.

Uhuru Kenyatta

Background
Uhuru Kenyatta was born on 26 October 1961 to Jomo Kenyatta and his fourth wife, Mama Ngina Kenyatta (née Muhoho). The Kenyattas are of the Kikuyu ethnic group and Jomo Kenyatta was a prominent figure in Kenya's struggle for independence and would go on the become the country's first Prime Minister in 1963 and President in 1964. He was given the name Uhuru, which is the Swahili word for "freedom" in anticipation of Kenya's upcoming independence.

Uhuru attended the St Mary's School (commonly known as Saints), a private Roman Catholic primary and secondary school for boys in Nairobi. After finishing studies at St. Mary's, Uhuru attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he studied political science and economics. After graduation, Uhuru started an agricultural export company and then entered the political arena.

In 2001, Uhuru was elected to parliament representing the Gatundu South constituency and was appointed by President Daniel arap Moi to the cabinet post of Minister of Local Government.

In the 2002 presidential elections, Uhuru ran as KANU's candidate, but lost to Mwai Kibaki, with Uhuru becoming the Opposition Leader in parliament. In the 2007 presidential elections, Uhuru backed Kibaki in his successful bid for re-election.

After the power-sharing agreement was adopted in 2008, Uhuru was appointed one of two deputy prime minsters in the new coalition government. In 2009, Uhuru was appointed Minister of Finance, a position he held until 2012.

In 2012, the International Criminal Court charged Uhuru Kenyatta as an indirect co-perpetrator in the violence that followed the 2007–08 Kenyan crisis; Uhuru was a leader in Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) leader at the time. Uhuru resigned as Minister of Finance upon the confirmation of the charges, but he maintained his innocence and the charges were eventually dropped in March 2015 due to lack of evidence.

Uhuru Kenyatta is one of the wealthiest people in Kenya, with an estimated net worth in 2013 of around US$500 million. The Kenyatta family owns over 500 000 acres of land in Kenya, most of which was acquired by his father, Jomo Kenyatta, in post-colonial land transfers after independence when Jomo was the country's president. The Kenyatta's also have significant business ventures in various sectors, including tourism, insurance, dairy farming, and banking.

2013 General Elections
In the lead up to the next general elections, which were scheduled for March 2013, two major political coalitions formed to vie for the office of president, with multiple parties combining to form each coalition as follows:

• Coalition for Reforms and Democracy: comprised of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), Wiper Democratic Movement–Kenya (WDM-K), Forum for the Restoration of Democracy – Kenya (FORD-Kenya), and various smaller parties. Considered the main opposition party for the elections, its candidate was Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his running mate Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka.
• Jubilee Alliance: comprised of The National Alliance (TNA), National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), United Republican Party (URP), and Republican Congress. Its candidate was Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto.

Kenya's new constitution provided for a two-round system of elections for the presidency, whereby a candidate had to receive over 50% of the vote, as well as 25% of the vote in at least 24 counties in order to be declared the winner in round one. If this does not occur, then a runoff is held with only the top two vote getters from round one on the second ballot.

The lead-up to the elections did see some ethnic unrest and fighting during party nominations in January 2013. The elections themselves were largely peaceful, other than an incident near Mombasa where a gang associated with a fringe separatist group killed six police officers.

Voting took place on 04 March 2013, and the results were a victory for Uhuru Kenyatta of The National Alliance (TNA). Kenyatta received 50.51% of the votes, meaning that a runoff election was not required. Raila Odinga came in second with 43.70% of the votes. Musalia Mudavadi of the Amani Coalition came a distant third with just 3.96% of the votes.

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) won the most Assembly seats with 96 of 349 seats. Second was The National Alliance (TNA) with 88 seats and third was the United Republican Party (URP) with 76 seats. The TNA and ODM each won 17 seats on the senate, while the URP won 12 Senate seats.

Uhuru Kenyatta of the TNA party was sworn in on 09 April 2013, becoming Kenya's fourth president. William Ruto of the URP was sworn in as the vice-president.

Uhuru Kenyatta Presidency (2013-Present)

During President Kenyatta's inaugural speech, he stated that the major goal of his presidency would be achieving peace and strengthening national unity. He also promised the following:

• to abolish maternity fees and give all Kenyans free access to government health centers and dispensaries;
• the 6 billion Kenya shillings that were allocated for the election runoff (which was unnecessary since he had won over 50% of the votes) would be used to establish a new Youth and Women's Fund;
• to enact measures to ensure that all public school students receive a laptop computer;
• to boost the country's key agricultural and manufacturing sectors;
• to reduce unemployment;
• to have an honest and fair government;
• to swiftly put an end to corruption;
• to extend basic services (electricity and water) to all Kenyans.

Westgate Mall Attack (September 2013)
On 21 September 2013, four masked gunmen from the terrorist group al-Shabaab attacked the Westgate Shopping Mall in an upscale Nairobi neighborhood. At least 71 people were killed, including 62 civilians, five Kenyan soldiers, and all four attackers, and over 100 people were injured.

Al-Shabaab claimed that the attack was in response to the Kenya military deployment in southern Somalia. Part of the mall collapsed due to a fire that broke out during the incident. The mall reopened on 18 July 2015.

Lead up to 2017 Elections
In September 2016, in anticipation of the next general elections, President Uhuru Kenyatta made the decision to transition the Jubilee Alliance (JA) coalition to a single unified party, which was named the Jubilee Party (JP). Tribalism and disagreements in the JA coalition led to the move. Many of the principal leaders and members of the JA joined the JP.

In January 2017, the opposition also reorganized, with Raila Odinga's Coalition for Reforms and Democracy becoming the National Super Alliance (NASA). Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Kalonzo Musyoka's Wiper Democratic Movement–Kenya (WDM-K) were the principal parties, but the other member-parties of the dissolved coalition also joined NASA.

General elections were scheduled to take place in August 2017 and there were several acts of violence in the months leading up to the voting. Human Rights Watch reported that it had received numerous reports of threats and voter intimidation in the Rift Valley and other parts of Kenya.

On 27 July 2017, Christopher Msando, the head of information, communication, and technology for the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), the independent regulatory agency responsible for conducting and supervising all elections in Kenya, was found dead alongside the body of a 21-year-old woman in a forest on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Msando had played a major role in developing Kenya's new electronic voting system. His body showed signs of torture and the clothes had been removed from both bodies. It was speculated that Msando's murder may have been ordered by the ruling party, as his voting system may have made it difficult to rig results without his help. No suspects were arrested or charged in the investigation and his murder remains unsolved.

On 29 July 2017, the home of Vice-President William Ruto in Eldoret was besieged by a man wielding a machete. The vice president and his family were not in the house during the attack, but the assailant managed to take the guard on duty as a hostage. The siege lasted 18 hours before police finally entered, killing the man and freeing the hostage.

In pre-election polling, Uhuru Kenyatta maintained a +10% edge over Raila Odinga in most polls for many weeks, but as the election date drew near, the polls suggested a much closer race.

2017 General Elections
Voting took place on 08 August 2017, and the results showed that incumbent President Kenyatta was the winner, with 54.17% of the votes and Odinga coming second with 44.94% of the votes. As per the constitution, the second round runoff vote was not required because Kenyatta received over 50% of the votes. A total of 15.6 million votes were cast, representing a 79.5% turnout amongst registered voters.

After the results were confirmed by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Odinga alleged that the results had been manipulated by computer hackers and he challenged the results in Kenya's Supreme Court. On 01 September 2017, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Odinga and nullified Kenyatta's victory, ordering that a new election take place within 60 days. The IEBC set the date for the elections for 26 October 2017. Odinga declared that he would not participate in the repeat elections without "legal and constitutional guarantees" that the results would not be affected by electoral fraud.

In the days just prior to the repeat elections, several IEBC executives expressed skepticism about whether the second election would be fair and free of manipulation. The IEBC announced that it would count back-up paper ballots to confirm the results before announcing a winner. Odinga called on his supporters to boycott the ballot for the repeat elections, saying that no reforms to the voting system had been made.

Voting in the repeat election took place on 26 October 2017 and after more than three days to verify the results, Kenyatta was declared the winner with 98.26% of the votes, which was due to Odinga's boycotting of the election. The elections were suspended in 25 constituencies amidst security fears, but the election commission said that those results would not have changed the outcome. Only 7.6 million votes were counted (versus 15.6 million in the original election). In the weeks since the first election, as many as 50 people were killed by police and there were protests and fighting in many regions of Kenya.

On 28 November 2017, Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in before a crowd of 65 000 in Nairobi's Kasarani Stadium. A few miles away, Raila Odinga and a large crowd of his supporters gathered in protest, with Odinga calling Kenyatta's government illegitimate. Police shot teargas into the crowd and helmeted security forces attacked the protestors with batons.

Kenya remains an ethnically divided country, with Odinga's supporters mostly coming from the poorer regions that have been marginalized for decades. The opposition accuses the ruling party of manipulating elections to stay in power, engaging in rampant corruption, using its security forces to direct abuse against anyone who dissents, and neglecting large portions of the population.

Kenya is also a country that is divided economically, with nearly two-thirds of Kenya's wealth controlled by just over 8 000 individuals out of over 53 million people.

The next general elections, which President Uhuru Kenyatta cannot contest, are scheduled for 2022.

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