Before the name Mau Mau was ever whispered, before colonial forts rose above Kikuyu ridges, there was Waiyaki wa Hinga — chief of Southern Kiambu and one of the first Kenyans to confront empire head-on. A Warning in the Highlands By the late 1880s, caravans under the Imperial British East Africa Company were pushing inland, … Read more
History remembers loudly. It sings the names of martyrs on the mountains — Kimathi, Muthoni, Kĩmathi, Mbiyũ — and carves their legacies into the misted ridges of the Aberdares. But in the thunder of rebellion and the canon of national memory, some stories fell silent. Between the forest and the train tracks, the Kamba took … Read more
In the mist-draped highlands of Kenya’s Rift Valley, where escarpments break the clouds and the wind carries ancestral memory, one name still travels in whispers — Koitalel arap Samoei. Born around 1860 among the Nandi, Koitalel was more than a warrior. He was the Orkoiyot — a sacred leader who merged prophecy with strategy, faith … Read more
Early Life Among the Giriama People Mekatilili wa Menza (born Mnyazi wa Menza) was born in the 1860s (some sources say 1840s) in Mutsara wa Tsatsu village, in present-day Kilifi County of coastal Kenya. She was the only daughter in a family of five children, with four brothers. Her name “Mekatilili” reflects Giriama naming customs—it … Read more
For most of the twentieth century, nearly half of Kenya’s land area existed outside the national imagination. The Northern Frontier District (NFD) — stretching from the Tana River to the Ethiopian border — was a vast, semi-arid expanse of deserts, plateaus, and seasonal rivers. Populated by nomadic pastoralists such as the Somali, Borana, Rendille, Samburu, … Read more
Kenya’s independence on 12 December 1963 marked the end of more than seventy years of British colonial rule. The road to freedom was long, violent, and complex, shaped by both armed resistance and political negotiation. It was not granted as a gift but won through generations of struggle — from the earliest uprisings against imperial … Read more
In the 1950s, the British Empire fought its final and most violent colonial war in Kenya. What began as a counterinsurgency against the Mau Mau uprising turned into one of the largest systems of mass detention in modern imperial history. Between 1952 and 1960, colonial authorities confined over a million Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru people … Read more
Every empire begins by pretending it brings order. The British said they were bringing “civilization” to Kenya; what they brought to Kisii in 1908 was the hut tax, whips, and the rifle. Today, when Kenyans talk about colonial resistance, the story usually jumps straight to the Mau Mau in the 1950s, or maybe the Giriama … Read more
When people ask how long Kenya was colonized, the standard answer—“from 1895 to 1963”—glides past the complications. It’s true, on paper: 67 years. But like most colonial timelines, the dates conceal more than they reveal. Kenya’s colonization was not simply an occupation. It was a series of overlapping experiments in control—first by a private company, … Read more
The Legislative Council (LEGCO) of colonial Kenya, first established in 1907, began as an exclusive instrument of settler influence but evolved into a crucible of political transformation. It reflected the structural contradictions of British colonial rule: race-based governance, settler economic interests, and the gradual — often reluctant — accommodation of African political aspirations. From its … Read more