A History of Nairobi, Capital of Kenya

....IJ .. Kenya Information Dept. Nairobi, Showing the Legislative Council Building TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 Chapter I. Pre-colonial Background • • • • • • • • • • 4 II. The Nairobi Area. • • • • • • • • • • • • • 29 III. Nairobi from 1896-1919 •• • • • • • • • • • 50 IV. Interwar Nairobi: 1920-1939. • • • • • • • 74 V. War Time and Postwar Nairobi: 1940-1963 •• 110 VI. Independent Nairobi: 1964-1966 • • • • • • 144 Appendix • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 168 Bibliographical Note • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 179 Bibliography • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• 182 iii PREFACE Urbanization is the touchstone of civilization, the dividing mark between raw independence and refined inter dependence. In an urbanized world, countries are apt to be judged according to their degree of urbanization. A glance at the map shows that the under-developed countries are also, by and large, rural. Cities have long existed in Africa, of course. From the ancient trade and cultural centers of Carthage and Alexandria to the mediaeval sultanates of East Africa, urban life has long existed in some degree or another. Yet none of these cities changed significantly the rural character of the African hinterland. Today the city needs to be more than the occasional market place, the seat of political authority, and a haven for the literati. It remains these of course, but it is much more. It must be the industrial and economic wellspring of a large area, perhaps of a nation. The city has become the concomitant of industrialization and industrialization the concomitant 1 2 of the revolution of rising expectations. African cities today are largely the products of colonial enterprise but are equally the measure of their country's progress. The city is witness everywhere to the acute personal, familial, and social upheavals of society in the process of urbanization. It is a city in ferment, where superstition and rural values rub shoulders with the latest avant guarde idea: the city is performing its ancient and hallowed function of rude purging and synthesis. But there is the widest divergence between cities. Some are sunk in the mire of past glory; some thrown to gether by war or chance; others strive to keep pace with orderly development. Nairobi is an enlightened city. It is home for a third of a million people of three of man kind's great social families. Certainly it is the pulse of Kenya, but its horizon is even greater. Its experience and lessons will not be lost upon a continent and a world which is frequently so timid in matters of race. Nairobi is eminently worth our investigation then, not only as an aspect of Empire or as local history, but as an urban center of rather unique character, a city of man. Except for the first two chapters which are intro ductory in nature, this study follows an essentially 3 chronologically order. There is one great difficulty in writing of a city in the midst of change. Names and terms of reference change. There are no longer any white high lands, for instance. Before Mau Mau, there was very little news coverage of African affairs. The local news papers were geared to serving a European community. If gaps or malproportions appear, it should be remembered that Kenya has undergone a very sudden transition to in dependence and an entirely different national attitude. Unfortunately, thought and modes of expression are slower in their evolution. The author has, in all honesty, tried to write with the times, but feels obligated at least to indicate the problem at hand. CHAPTER I PRE-COLONIAL BACKGROUND The pre-colonial history of East Africa, while helpful to an appreciation of modern day Kenya and her capital, Nairobi, has little bearing on our subject, is readily available, and is well told elsewhere. Suffice it to note that Nairobi's present day influence extends over a large area including Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania which is geographically, ethnically and politically similar. All of East Africa lies on an elevated plateau extending from the Indian Ocean between Somalia and Mozambique to the central great lakes region, stretching from Lake Victoria, at the source of the Nile to the southern reaches of Lake Nyasa. The basic racial stock is Bantu, with some admix ture of races in the area about Lake Victoria. Politically all have been under British administration in modern times, although Tanganiyika was German East Africa before the first World War. All were, to some degree or another, influenced but never subjugated by Arab traders and Islamic 4 5 missionaries from the small coastal sultanates, the most important of which was, of course, Zanzibar. As will be seen, Nairobi, is the largest and most im portant urban centre of this area, which embraces 679,581 square miles and has a population of 25,526,000, and it has become the headquarters for many inter-governmental agencies and cooperative organizations, such as postal and communication services. Thus, we will here review pre-colonial developments only as an orientation before according specific treatment to Nairobi. The first modern political boundary drawn in East Africa resulted from the Anglo-German Agreement of 1886 and is today the borderline between Kenya and Tanzania. It runs northwest in a straight line, from a point between Mombasa and Zanzibar, circumvents Mt. Kilimanjaro, and reaches the southeastern shore of Lake Victoria at 1° south latitude. It originally divided the British and German zones north and south of the line respectively. The Germans gave up their claims to the territory about Witu, a small sultanate north of Mombasa, in exchange for Heligoland, the British-held naval base off the German coast in the North Sea. The Sultan of Zanzibar's 6 sovereignty was guaranteed along the entire coastal strip up to ten miles inland. 1 In 1890, another Anglo-German Accord extended 1° south latitude westward across Lake Victoria to King Leopold's Congo Free State, placing Uganda definitely within the British zone, after several years of uncertainty in the face of German expansion into the area. At the same time, the northeastern boundary was set at the Juba River north to Abyssinia. A British protectorate was then declared over the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the coastal strip pre 2 viously demarcated, and the island of Zanzibar itself became a separate protectorate at the same time. In 1891, the Juba River boundary was confirmed with the Italians who had taken control of Somaliland. The Sultan's coastal dominions were leased from him for an annual rent of 17,000, t~us effectively separating them except nominally from the island protectorate. The coastal strip was actually administered with the interior. In 1895, a Protectorate was declared by Britain over all the lKenneth Ingham, History of East Africa (London: Langmans, Green and Co., 1962), p. 137. 2Ibid., p. 148. 7 territory between the Indian Ocean and Uganda, and the area was named simply enough, "the British East African Protectorate."3 Since that time, there have been three boundary ad- justments. In 1902, the Eastern Province of Uganda, the scene of the Nandi tribal rebellion, was transferred to the East African Protectorate and, in 1926, Uganda's Rudolph Province was similarly acquired. In recent years, these "lost provinces" of Uganda have provided local politicos with campaign causes. Jubaland Province, the home of many Somalis, on the other hand, was transferred from the Pro 4 tectorate to Italian Somaliland in 1925. In 1920, the dependency's name was changedto Kenya Colony and Protectorate, the latter term referring, of course, to the Sultan's nominal coastal dominions. The Sultan relinquished his shadowy claims when, in 1963, Kenya became independent. 5 Kenya today embraces an area of 224,960 square miles, 3 Ibid., p. 171-172. 4 Ibid., p. 308. 5vincent Herlow et al., ed., History of East Africa (2 vols.) (Oxford: 1965), i, p. 672. 8 5,000 of which are water, notably Lakes Victoria and Rudolph. The northern two-thirds of the country is un fortunately arid and useless, and is but sparsely populated by pastoral nomads and their scraggy flocks. Virtually all of the economically productive enterprises are therefore concentrated in the south, particularly in the highlands and the regions about Lake Victoria. Nairobi developed at the southeastern point of an economic triangle and be came the natural funnel for the most of the country's goods and services going to and coming from the Indian Ocean ports and the world market in general. The Rift Valley is perhaps the most interesting geo graphic feature of the country. Beginning far to the north in the Jordan River valley, it lies between two and three thousand feet below the surrounding countryside and averages thirty to forty miles wide. In Kenya, it extends from Lake Rudolph southward through an area of smaller Lakes (Baringo, Naivasha, Hannington, etc.) and on into Tanzania. It is flanked on either side by forests; the valley itself is characterized by thorn bush vegetation. Extinct volcanoes are found on its floor, indicating some 9 6 pre-historic upheaval which created the valley. Small ranges, such as the Aberdare Mountains, (averaging 12 to 13,000 feet above sea level) are found in the highlands. The tallest mountain is Mt. Kenya (17,058 feet), with Mt. Elgon on the Uganda border (14,000 feet) standing second. Kenya lies within the zone of savanna vegetation, that is midway between the barren desert and the tropical rainforest. Because the entire country, except for the coast, is a plateau, the usual sultry savanna temperatures are healthfully modified. Rainfall rarely exceeds forty inches save in the few low lying areas about Lake Victoria and the torrid Indian Ocean coastline. Alpine climate, including heavy precipitation, and vegetation are found on 7 the higher mountains. Kenya, today the home of 8,636,000, is overwhelmingly African.

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