Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T08:50:35.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The British and the Kikuyu 1890–1905: A Reassessment*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Peter Rogers
Affiliation:
Newman College, Birmingham

Extract

This article argues that trade rather than confrontation was the predominant theme of the early years of interaction between the Kikuyu and the British. It suggests that the Southern Kikuyu in particular enjoyed an important initial period of co-existence with the British, the economic basis of which was a rapid expansion in the 1890s of an already existing trade in agricultural produce with caravans moving along the road to Uganda. This development was, however, not universally welcome among the Southern Kikuyu, and there was a clash of interest between those concerned with an increased production of agricultural surplus, and those whose economic interests were centred on livestock. The death of Waiyaki removed from the scene the most influential trading elder and facilitated, from the areas previously under his influence, hostile opposition to the trading activities now centred upon the permanent fort of the Imperial British East Africa Company. The steady increase of food production encouraged the emergence of a number of Southern Kikuyu traders; this was particularly true for Kinanjui, who had established himself at a time when the military resources of the I.B.E.A. Co. were negligible and poorly organized. It is argued that Kinanjui's status can no longer be regarded as merely the result of assistance from the British. It was significant that the British did not at any time prior to 1900 deploy at Fort Smith a permanent garrison of troops. There existed instead a balance of military resources which made possible an important local arena of political activity between the Southern Kikuyu and the British. The Northern Kikuyu, by contrast, despite their longer-standing trading contacts with the coast, were denied similar opportunities by virtue of more positive policies of control directed initially towards revenue collection.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Kershaw, G., ‘The Land is the People’ (Ph.D. thesis, Chicago, 1972), 148.Google Scholar

2 Ibid.; Muriuki, G., A History of the Kikuyu, 1500–1900 (Nairobi, 1974), 40, 101, 104, 139.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. 107–9; Kenyatta, J., Facing Mount Kenya (London, 1938), 58Google Scholar; W. S., and Routledge, K., With a Pre-historic People (London, 1910), 106.Google Scholar

4 Kershaw, thesis, 303.

5 Ibid., 199.

6 Muriuki, , History, 71.Google Scholar

7 Kenyatta, , Mount Kenya, 196.Google Scholar

8 von Hohnel, L., Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stephanie, ii (London, 1894), 288.Google Scholar

9 Lugard, F. D., The Rise of our East African Empire, i (London, 1893), 325.Google Scholar

10 Thomas, H. B., ‘George Wilson and Dagoretti Fort’, Uganda Journal, xxiii (1959), 173–7.Google Scholar

11 Lugard, , East African Empire, ii, 536.Google Scholar

12 Thomas, , ‘Wilson’, 173–7.Google Scholar

13 Muriuki, , History, 148.Google Scholar

14 Muriuki, , History, 152Google Scholar; Mungeam, G. H., British Rule in Kenya, 1895–1912 (Oxford, 1966), 12Google Scholar; Sorrenson, M. P. K., Origins of European Settlement in Kenya (Nairobi, 1968), 15.Google Scholar

15 Mungeam, , British Rule, 37.Google Scholar

16 Muriuki, , History, 154.Google Scholar

17 Purkiss to Portal, 31 January 1893, in Portal to Rosebery, 31 January, 1893, F.O. 2/67.

18 Purkiss to Portal, 20 January 1893, in Portal to Rosebery, 31 January, 1893, F.O. 2/67.

19 Purkiss to Portal, 31 January 1893, in Portal to Rosebery, 31 January, 1893, F.O. 2/67.

20 Tucker, Bishop to The Times, 24 01 1893, F.O. 2/57.Google Scholar

21 Diaries, Hall, 27 08, 1893, Rhodes House, Oxford, MSS Afr. 5962.Google Scholar

22 Diaries, Hall, 08 1893, 01 1894, 07 1894.Google Scholar

23 Muriuki, G., ‘Kikuyu Historical Texts’ (appended to Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1969), ii, 279.Google Scholar

24 Diary, Hall, September 1893.Google Scholar

25 Diary, Hall, January 29, 1894.Google Scholar

26 Low, D. A., ‘British East Africa: the establishment of British rule, 1895–1912’, in Harlow, V. and Chilver, E. M. (eds.), History of East Africa, ii (Oxford, 1965), 24.Google Scholar

27 Muriuki, , History, 93.Google Scholar

28 Muriuki, thesis, 11, 266.

29 Mungeam, , British Rule, 13, 39.Google Scholar

30 Hall Letters, 29 August 1893, Rhodes House MSS, Afr. 59–62. Pigott to I.B.E.A. Co. in I.B.E.A. Co. to F.O., 31 August 1894, P.O. Confidential Print, 881/6617.

31 Portal, to Rosebery, , 24 05 1893Google Scholar, Africa, no. 2 (1894).

32 Hall letters, 3 September 1894.

33 Lugard, F. D., I.B.E.A. Co. Expedition to Uganda, 1890Google Scholar: enclosure in Salisbury, to Portal, , 17 04 1882. Africa no. 4 (1892).Google Scholar

34 Von Hohnel, , Discovery, 1, 297.Google Scholar

35 Tucker, , letter to The Times, 24 01 1893, F.O. 2/57.Google Scholar

36 Hall papers. Rough Draft on ‘The Kikuyu’, 1893. Rhodes House, Oxford.

37 Uganda Transport Accounts in Hardinge to Kimberley, 29 April 1895, F.O.C.P. 881/6717.

38 Austin, H. H., With Macdonald in Uganda (London, 1903), 270.Google Scholar

39 Diaries, Hall and Letters, 03 1894.Google Scholar

40 Ainsworth, to Crauford, 15 06 1896Google Scholar, in Crauford to Salisbury, 11 September 1896, F.O. 881/6918.

41 Hall letters, 29 August 1893.

42 Hall letters, 8 October 1896.

43 Hall letters, 31 July 1897.

44 Ainsworth, to Crauford, 15 06 1896Google Scholar, in Crauford to Salisbury, F.O. 403/228; Kenyatta, Mount Kenya, 57.

45 Report of the Kenya Land Commission, Cmd. 4556 (1934), 1, 400.

46 Austin, , Macdonald, 2829.Google Scholar

47 Ainsworth, to Hardinge, 30 01 1899, F.O.C.P. 881/7401.Google Scholar

49 Hardinge to Salisbury, 12 April 1898, F.O.C.P. 881/7090.

50 Ainsworth to Hardinge, 30 January 1899, in Hardinge to Salisbury, 8 July 1898, F.O.C.P. 881/7090.

51 Dr. Mackinnon to F.O., 14 August 1898, F.O. 881/7090.

52 Muriuki, G., ‘Kikuyu Reaction to Traders and the British Administration 1890–1904’, Hadith, i (1968), 101118.Google Scholar

53 Bulpett, C. W. L., John Boyes, King of the Wakikuyu (London, 1911), 30.Google Scholar

54 Austin, , Macdonald, 2708Google Scholar. Hinde to Crauford, 5 April 1899, in Crauford to Salisbury, 12 May 1899, F.O.C.P. 881/7401.

55 Muriuki, , History, 155.Google Scholar

56 Muriuki, thesis, 11, 237, 240, 262, 281.

57 Ibid., 281.

58 Ibid., 266.

59 Sorrenson, , European Settlement, 17.Google Scholar

60 Tignor, R. L., The Colonial Transformation of Kenya (Princeton, 1976), 45.Google Scholar

61 Lonsdale, J., ‘The Politics of Conquest: the British in Western Kenya, 1894–1908’, Historical Journal, xx, iv (1977).Google Scholar

62 Von Hohnel, , Discovery, 334–5Google Scholar; Diaries, Hall, 1896, and Mackinder Diaries, 1899; Rhodes House, Oxford.Google Scholar

63 Lamphear, J. E., ‘The 19th century trade routes of Mombasa and the Mrima Coast’ (M.A. thesis, London, 1968).Google Scholar

64 Kershaw, thesis, 161.

65 Hall Diaries, 1894.

66 Boyes, J., How I became king of the Wa-Kikuyu (London, 1911), 910Google Scholar; Muriuki, , History, 158.Google Scholar

67 Hall Diaries, 1900.

68 Muriuki, , History, 160.Google Scholar

69 Crawshay to Ainsworth, 20 January 1899, in Hardinge to Salisbury, 18 February 1899, F.O. 881/7401.

70 Hall Diaries, 1900.

71 Muriuki, , History, 162.Google Scholar

72 Moyse-Bartlett, H. M., ‘The King's African Rifles’ (Ph.D. thesis, London, 1954), 214.Google Scholar

73 3rd Battalion K.A.R. Records, P.R.O., W.O. 6/270.

74 Hardinge, A. H., A Diplomatist in the East (London, 1928), 104.Google Scholar

75 3rd Battalion K.A.R. Records, W.O. 6/270.

76 Eliot, to Lansdowne, Confidential, 18 06 1901, F.O. 2/449.Google Scholar

77 Lansdowne to Eliot, 1 June 1901, F.O. 455.

78 Eliot to Lansdowne, 26 November 1903, F.O.C.P. 881/8098.

79 Muriuki, , History, 65–7.Google Scholar

80 Mackinder Diaries, 1899.

81 Meinertzhagen, R., Kenya Diary 1902–1906 (Edinburgh, 1957), 67.Google Scholar

82 Eliot to Lansdowne, 19 November 1902, F.O. 2/575.

83 Lansdowne to Eliot, 3 November 1903, F.O.C.P., F.O. 881/8098.

84 Eliot to Lansdowne, 8 December 1903, F.O. 2/797.

85 Lansdowne to Eliot, 3 November 1903, F.O.C.P., F.O. 881/8098.

86 Eliot to Lansdowne, 26 Nov. 1903, F.O.C.P., F.O. 881/8098.

87 Muriuki, , History, 165.Google Scholar