Orientation for East Africa Program
Lewis and Clark College
Spring 2006
Richard Peck

KENYA

One Hundred Years of Political History in a Flash

I. Precolonial Patterns

Kenya has an amazing variety of types of traditional cultures and societies for such a small place: from the Swahili city-states along the coast with a literate Muslim population, to sedentary agriculturalists in small village political structures as with the Kikuyu and the Luo (as well as many others), to nomadic cattle-keeping peoples such as the Maasai and the Samburu (or, with camel-keeping further north, the Rendille and the Turkana); to very small-scale hunting and gathering bands of the Ndorobo (like the San ["bushmen"] of the Kalahari). [A history of the Maasai can be found here.]

On the whole most of the groups were largely democratic. (Contrary to colonial myth that they were chaotic; or that they were ruled by tyrants.)

Dawn on the waterfront atLamu
Photo by Peck

Swahili city states were often under rule by dynasties, though often with a council of elders as well. (The Mazrui dynasty of Mombasa is especially famous.)

Most sedentary agriculturalist communities had no organization above the village level, and were largely democratic at that level

Nomadic cattle-keepers usually had rule by an age-group of elders (males one and all), with sometimes a ceremonial/religious leader (the Laibon among the Maasai).

For the most part, there was peaceful coexistence among the ethnic groups, even with considerable inter-marriage (e.g., between the Maasai and the Kikuyu), contrary to colonial myth that there was constant “tribal warfare.) But there was as well slave-owning and slave-raiding by "Arabs" and Swahili from the coast, and some cattle-raiding by nomadic cattle-keepers, mostly against each other, and mostly small-scale. In short, this was not a life of constant war of tribes against tribes and of despotic rulers or total chaos as Europeans later suggested in order to justify their imperialism.

Reading suggestions:

B.A. Ogot, Zamani: A Survey 0f East African History (an excellent selection of readings on the history of East Africa, including Kenya)
A.I. Salim, Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Kenya's Coast: 1895-1965 (title is somewhat misleading, since it starts with an introduction which covers the coast from 1860 to 1895)
Patricia Romero, Lamu: History, Society, and Family in an East African Port City
Jomo Kenyatta, Facing Mt. Kenya (anthropology dissertation by the man who later became first president of Kenya; it is really a nationalist manifesto, but interesting) See cover below.
Maasai, text by Tepilit Ole Saitoti ; photos. by Carol Beckwith (a coffee-table picture book, but with some interesting text and gorgeous photographs) See cover below.
Lamu in the nineteenth century : land, trade, and politics by Marguerite Ylvisaker, 1979

Welcome Page (Karibuni Nyote)
Kenya Index
I. Kenya Precolonial Patterns II. Kenya Imperialism III. Kenya White Man's Country IV. Kenya The Struggle for Independence V. Kenya Post-Colonial Settlement
VI. Kenya The Kenyatta Years VII. Kenya The Moi Years VIII. Kenya: Kibaki
Tanzania Index
I. Pre-Colonial Tanganyika, Pre-colonial Zanzibar II. Colonial period (East Africa Campaign) III. Independence, Revolution in Zanzibar, Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar IV . The Nyerere Years (Ujamaa vijijini) V. The Mwinyi Years VI. The Mkapa Years VII. The End of the Mkapa years and election of Kibwete
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Useful Links Swahili Recipes

Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon
Created by Richard Peck
A minor update made on February 1, 2008