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2 - Background to decolonization: trends and groups in the European community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2010

Gary Wasserman
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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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. 10

Unnatural 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 Murray

There 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 Decolonization
Kenya Europeans and the Land Issue 1960–1965
, pp. 19 - 45
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1976

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