Summary

In colonial Kenya, the British administration appropriated fertile lands for European settlers. The resulting land shortage, alongside coercive policies such as taxation, forced many African families to become laborers on white farms or in cities. As land scarcity heightened and labor conditions worsened, African communities in Kenya engaged in various forms of anticolonial resistance, ranging from strikes to protests to violent conflicts like Mau Mau. In the 1940s, the colonial state began responding to African resistance with development and welfare. Development not only failed to improve standards of living, but it also allowed the state to intervene more aggressively into African lives. The imposition of misguided and unwanted programs, which also relied on communal forced labor, produced only greater discontentment. In cities especially, workers appropriated the language of development as a new basis to make claims. Building on mounting protests and shifting global politics, nationalist politics intensified, and as a result, processes of decolonization formally started in 1960.

During independence negotiations, contestations for land shaped political alliances and drove heated debates over the structure of the postcolonial government. Prior to the resolution of these issues, the colonial administration began enacting land resettlement. These programs—based on the principle of willing buyer–willing seller at market value—protected white settlers and further entrenched class, ethnic, and gender inequalities. Kenya gained independence with a federal constitution, but Jomo Kenyatta and the KANU (Kenya African National Union) party that came into power opposed regionalism. Within a year, Kenya had become a de facto one-party state, and the federal constitution was abolished. Though Kenyatta adeptly strengthened and preserved his power, postcolonial Kenya witnessed the rise of populist, ethnonationalist, and separatist movements. While none have been wholly successful, Kenya’s economic and political inequalities, its unmet promises of decolonization, and its ethnic antagonisms have ensured continual protest and a fractured nation.