Chapter 3 provides the historical context in which to understand land and political violence in Kenya. It does so by comparing the histories of land ownership and distribution between Kenya’s highlands and the Coast region. The chapter’s central question asks how and why practices of land allocation vary between regions. Drawing on patterns of land allocation, archival data, and in-depth interviews, the chapter argues that two styles of political leadership – the vote-seeking land patron and rent-seeking landlord – reflect different modes and logics of land accumulation and distribution that have developed over each political regime. The chapter further explains how these different modes of land distribution and the broader politics of land play out under three phases of Kenya: colonial rule and the Mau Mau civil war (1900–1962), the single party rule of Jomo Kenyatta (1962–1978), and the de facto single party rule of Daniel arap Moi (1978–2002).