Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Map
- Introduction: Kenya as a case study
- 1 Consensual decolonization: conditions, process, and the salient aspects of the Kenyan case
- 2 Background to decolonization: trends and groups in the European community
- 3 1960, initiating the bargain: the lobbying on the land issue and the dividing of the European community
- 4 1961, negotiating the bargain: accelerating the bargaining, deepening the divisions
- 5 1962, making the bargain: the resolution of the land issue and the dissolution of the European groups
- 6 1960–1970, sealing the bargain: the implementation of the Kenya land transfer schemes
- 7 Conclusion: Europeans, land and decolonization
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
2 - Background to decolonization: trends and groups in the European community
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Map
- Introduction: Kenya as a case study
- 1 Consensual decolonization: conditions, process, and the salient aspects of the Kenyan case
- 2 Background to decolonization: trends and groups in the European community
- 3 1960, initiating the bargain: the lobbying on the land issue and the dividing of the European community
- 4 1961, negotiating the bargain: accelerating the bargaining, deepening the divisions
- 5 1962, making the bargain: the resolution of the land issue and the dissolution of the European groups
- 6 1960–1970, sealing the bargain: the implementation of the Kenya land transfer schemes
- 7 Conclusion: Europeans, land and decolonization
- Notes
- Selected bibliography
- Index
Summary
… the most common and durable source of faction has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society.
The Federalist No. 10Unnatural affection, child-murder, father murder, incest and the violation of the sanctity of dead bodies – when one reads such a list of charges against any tribe or nation, either in ancient or modern times, one can hardly help concluding that somebody wanted to annex their land.
Gilbert MurrayThere already exists a large number of books on Kenyan colonial history, many of which are more comprehensive than any treatment that might be presented here. Rather than provide another general approach to Kenyan history, this background chapter will emphasize the trends and policies affecting the bargaining situation which the Europeans faced in the early 1960s.
The first part of the chapter will focus on the political and economic trends which established and altered both Kenya colony and the European community at its center. The parallel political and economic erosion of European farmer dominance and the forces eroding the settlers' position provide the central theme. The thrust toward the separation of the colonizers (European settlers) from colonialism (ties to the metropole) is both a recurring conflict in Kenyan history and an accelerating process up to independence.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Politics of DecolonizationKenya Europeans and the Land Issue 1960–1965, pp. 19 - 45Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1976