2004: Partner NEWS Vol. 7 no. 3

The white man’s country

Like many stories of modern Kenya, the story of modern land ownership begins with the railway. It is a story of the heydays of the settler, the effect they had for better or worse…

By Dorthe Skovgaard Mortensen

By 1901, the railway stretching from the Indian Ocean across the grazing land of the Maasais, the homeland of the Kikuyus, ending at the shore of Lake Victoria was complete. But however impressive the 582-mile-long imperial monument was, its purpose remained unclear. What started out as a prestige project, racing against the railway construction in German East Africa, was at its finishing point described as an impracticable, extravagant and uneconomical railway, which had no other effect than to drain the colonies’ budget.

But Sir Charles Eliot, who was appointed Commissioner to British East Africa the same year as the railway was finalized, saw a window of opportunity.

“Wandering through the Kenya uplands, it (the railway) crossed enormous tracts of unoccupied land standing spare and unutilized as far as the eye could see, linking nothing to nothing. The land was empty because the altitude made it too cold for many tribes, and because disease had wiped out most of the nomads who might have grazed it part of the time. Yet it was good land, arable land, land that could be made highly productive if only someone would take the trouble to cultivate it scientifically”.

Settlers ‘take the trouble’

Soon after Sir Eliot’s arrival, he produced a scheme of recruiting settlers from the “Empire” to farm the highlands that he called a ‘white man’s country’. They were to make the railway profitable, by transporting goods from the highlands to the coast.

A recruitment drive was launched in London. The first wave of settlers arrived and by the end of 1904, white settlers occupied about 220,000 acres of land. But much more was to be taken. Amongst the first settlers in the pleasant and high potential “white highlands” was Lord Delamere, who was later to be the leader of the settlers.

“In May 1903, Lord Delamere put in a formal application for a parcel of sheep-grazing land on the Laikipia plateau between Mount Kenya and the Aberdares. The request was turned down by Sir Charles Eliot on the grounds that the land was too far away from the railway and the Government’s administrative post. A second application, for 100,000 acres on the other side of the Aberdares next to Lake Naivasha, was also rejected, this time because its annexation might cause hardship to the Maasai. But with his third attempt, Delamere struck luck. He asked for a block of land near Njoro, unoccupied pasture that had never been grazed by the nomadic morans (young Maasai), and was granted a ninety-nine year lease for an annual rent of £ 200 and a written undertaking to spend £ 5,000 on it within five years”.

Colonial settlements increase

During colonial years land was taken away from the Kikuyu, the Nandis, the Maasais and many more. Between 1905 and 1914 alone nearly 5 million acres of land was taken from the Kenyan Africans. And so it went on and on, until about half the agricultural land in Kenya was in the hands of the whites.

In the wake of world war one a new group of settlers arrived. “The new were almost invariably ex-servicemen lured by the Kenya Government’s promise of free land in the white highlands on a 999-year lease at an annual rent of just 10 cents an acre. By 1919, more than two thousand applicants had flooded into Nairobi to take their chance at a grand draw held on the stage of the Theatre Royal. It took two revolving drums all day to distribute the empty acres by lottery to an audience of nail-biting would-be farmers seeking a place in the sun for themselves and their families. For the lucky ones, this was indeed land fit for heroes”.              

Behind the generously distributed free land lay a plan to ensure the future economic well-being of the protectorate. The land was free because it was idle, undeveloped and often a long way from the railway. Its only value lay in its potential, which could best be realised by new settlers, but not without several years of hard struggle first.

Champagne and strawberries

After years of hard manual work cultivating the African soil, and the hardship of World War 1, the prosperity of the mid-1920s, created an opportunity for the settlers to relax. ”They took farms in the white highlands and built themselves comfortable stone houses with paneled drawing rooms, mullioned windows and morning glory bursting into flower around the pillars of the veranda. Many of them were rich and titled, a privileged community... These were daffodil days of peacocks, champagne and homegrown strawberries”. 

But champagne didn’t continue flowing in the white communities. Grievances grew amongst the Kikuyu. They were unsatisfied with taxes and wages, but mainly because of the lack of land. To the Kikuyu, land was the fountainhead of wealth, the measure of their pride and the barometer of political stability. “Without land, a tribe was nothing. And, as they understood it, the Kikuyu were without land”.

By the end of the 1940s there was no doubt in the minds of a million or more Kikuyu that the white highlands must be given back to Africa. The only argument now was over how the goal should be achieved. Older men, most of whom had a small patch of land, favored negotiation and compromise. They believed that the issue simply was not worth fighting for. But the young men demanded blood. And they argued that violence was the only way to make the Europeans part with the land.

“The Europeans would fight, sure enough, before they would be pushed off their land. … Many settlers had devoted a lifetime to making the dream come true. Many had died in the attempt. … The settlers believed they were carrying the country on their backs. Most had staked everything they possessed – and a good deal of the bank’s money as well – on the green baize of the highlands, leased out for 999 years in good faith by their own government. They felt entitled to the prize money. They were good farmers and clear-eyed hardworking men, nobody could deny that … They loved the land, and they meant to stay on it. They had not struggled through half a century of disaster and depression simply to hand over their life’s work to the first African who demanded it. They would die first. And some did”.

Kikuyu struggle over land

The Mau Mau movement had formed and it dominated Kenyan politics for over a decade. In August 1950 the British declared the Mau Mau movement an illegal society

and began prosecuting its members. On the 21^st October Jomo Kenyatta and 82 alleged Mau Mau leaders were arrested and detained in northern Kenya for 9 years. But it didn’t stop the Mau Mau fight for land and freedom. Until early 1960 Kenya was declared a state of emergency. 13.547 people, all but a 100 black, lost their lives.

At first it looked as if the settlers had won. But political change in Europe did the last work for the freedom movement. In January 1960 delegates from the different ethnic groups and the white settlers met in London at Lancaster House where initial steps towards independence and a new distribution of land was taken.

The independent land policy

After independence the Kenyan government and the former British colonial rulers arranged for a resettlement scheme that enabled some Kenyans to buy back their land.

“Voted in as the country’s first prime minister after the elections of May 1963, he [Kenyatta] immediately set out to woo the European farmers and convinced them that they had a special place in the new Kenya. He pointed out that the white highlands were not to be taken over wholesale, not all at once. One million acres was the initial target, to be purchased with grants to African farmers for more than £ 13,5000,000 put up by the British Government – which had reluctantly come round to that idea – the World Bank and the Commonwealth Development Cooperation. Africans were not simply going to seize white land. They would pay the proper price for it, independently accessed, all fair, square and above board. And, Kenyatta insisted, those settlers not immediately affected would be encouraged to stay on their property and carry on farming for the foreseeable future. The country needed them. It was as simple as that”.

The one million acres scheme enabled especially Kikuyu and the post-independent political elite to buy back land. Since the first resettlement schemes no other initiative has been taken by successive governments to address the unequal distribution of land. Therefore tensions between big landowners (today mainly rich Kenyans) and landless has continued to mare Kenya’s picturesque landscape...