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Some of the earliest humans
may have lived in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya more than 2 million years ago.
Fossilized remains of hominids were uncovered in the 1920s and continue to be found today. Because many fossils have been
found there, the area has been nicknamed the "Cradle of Mankind". Those hominids, over thousands of years, evolved into modern
humans. 20,000 years ago, Kenya was
full of hunter-gatherers with crude tools. A few thousand years later, nomads began moving through the area. Around 130 A.D.,
a geographer named Ptolemy mapped the coast of Kenya.
Around 900 A.D., when Islamic Arabs were just beginning to trade with coastal towns, written history began.
| Swahili Field School |
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| swahili.rutgers.edu |
The leaders of coastal trading towns were probably Arabs that stayed in Kenya
and married among the Bantu tribes. The blending of the two cultures resulted in an entire culture known as Swahili. These
people were Kenya's the most important link
to the rest of the world.
Around the 1500s, the Portuguese
and other Europeans sailed the globe, exploring. These countries first influenced Kenya in 1498, when Vasco da Gama docked
in what is now Malindi. The Portuguese rule of the East African coast lasted about 200 years, during which they built forts
and set up wealthy trades of ivory, slaves, and gold. Their dominance ended when they were undermined by diseases like Malaria
and the plague.
| Kenya-Uganda Railroad |
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| www.seat61.com |
When the Portuguese turned to other regions in hopes of finding wealth, Arabs took control of Kenya
for the next 150 years or so. Although they benefited from Kenya's
wealthy coastal trade, neither the Muslims nor the Portuguese made much of an influence on the interior's people. After seeking
permission from the sultan of Zanzibar in 1850, missionaries from Europe
began exploring the interior. Other Europeans developed an interest in the interior as well. Besides the search for raw or
new materials and cheap labor, Great Britain's concern about Kenya's interior was political too. Worried that France and Germany would gain complete control
over most of Kenya, British explorers were sent to the Kenya-Uganda
part of Africa. With financial support from the government, John Speke and James Grant discovered
the source of the Nile River in Uganda during the late 1850s. This discovery further heightened
interest in exploring the Kenya-Uganda area.
At about the same time as the British, the journeys of two German missionaries, named Johann Krapf
and Johannes Rebmann, began what was called the "scramble for Africa". The two had made contact
with the inhabitants of Mount Kenya.
When the continent of Africa was divided in 1884 and 1885, East Africa was left
to the British in the north and the Germans in the south. Although Britain
initially ignored Kenya, after a few years construction of a railroad linking
Mombasa and Nairobi began; an effort to keep Kenya useful, since it was Uganda's
link to the sea. Construction of the railroad brought many East Indians to Kenya,
and although they didn't come freely, many continued life in Kenya
as owners of small stores or business people after construction ended in the early 1900s.
| Asians in Kenya |
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| ViewImages.com |
During World War I, Germany raided many of Britain's East African territories, including Kenya.
Settlers were called to serve the British army, which negatively affected the exports part of Kenya's economy. In the early 1920s, many Asians were living
in Kenya, enough to outnumber the white
settlers. These Asians thought they should have voting rights and be represented on the Legislative Council, and the demand
was taken to Great Britain. Seeing that
there were far more Asians than Europeans in Kenya
and fearing violence, the Asians were given half of their demands. They could have representatives on the Council, but were
not allowed to vote.
| Jomo Kenyatta |
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| www.africawithin.com |
Another development that occurred between World Wars I and II
was the forming of a Kenyan political party. Kenyans were being forced off their own land and into cities, where there were
low wages, high taxes, and black identification passes. Over the course of a few years, the city of Nairobi
almost doubled in its population. Workers found these conditions unfair and unacceptable, pushing them to form
the first nationalistic political party. In 1944, the first ethnic Kenyan was nominated to the Legislative Council. In the
following years, demands were put out for equality, but all were refused and conditions remained much the same.
In the early 1950s, black Kenyans began to form their own secret
political societies when attempts to negotiate with the government failed. These groups committed violent acts to show their
anger with European control in Kenya. Their goal was to bring unbalance to the government
and prevent whites in Kenya from
gaining independence without equal rights for black Kenyans. Violence and riots reached a state of emergency, which became
official in October of 1952. In an attempt to bring back control, all black political parties were banned and many of their
leaders were imprisoned after unfair trials. The ban was repealed in 1955 as the government cautiously returned some
control to the Kenyans, and two large parties were formed. The Kenya African Democratic Union and the Kenya African National
Union were unified through their goal: bringing about the release of Jomo Kenyatta, who had been leader of
the Kenyan's demands for equality in 1946. In the late 1950s, Britain
came to understand that black Kenyans would not be satisfied until majority black Kenyan rule applied
to legislature. A conference in 1960 guaranteed that majority rule would be a basic rule of the Kenyan constitution from
then on. This same year, the state of emergency was ended. In 1961, elections were held. Although the KANU party won, they
demanded to have their party leader, Jomo Kenyatta, freed from prison before they took office. This demand wasn't filled until
later that year, and while the KANU party patiently waited for his release, the KADU party took office. This turn of events
left the election a mostly pointless procedure, but the release of Jomo and the election itself showed Britain's gradual cooperation with black Kenyans and marked
this event as a huge step towards Kenyan independence.
| View of the Rift Valley |
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| exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu |
Jomo Kenyatta
was the first president of Kenya, and after his death in 1978 the government was
run by Daniel arap Moi. Moi did little to better the economy, and many countries withdrew their aid when corruption in the
government became evident. In 1995, Moi ordered that anyone opposing him would be arrested.
Kenya didn't fare well in 1997 and 1998; many natural disasters occurred, such as flooding, epidemics,
and ethnic clashes in the Rift Valley. In 1998, the United States Embassies in Nairobi and
Tanzania were bombed, killing 253 people
and injuring hundreds more.
Richard
Leakey, a KANU minister, sets out to fight corruption.
In 2001, the first coalition government is formed and many anti-corruption
initiatives begin. Soon after, close to three million people starve as a result of drought in Northern
Kenya. Later that year, clashes in slum areas between ethnic groups occurred again; though the government
did little to stop it.
December of 2002 brought several changes to Kenya.
Moi left office as Mwaki Kibaki was elected. Kibaki, working to improve life in Kenya,
begins providing free primary schooling for any and all children. Mini-busses called Matatus are given new traffic laws in
attempts to lower accident rates, which had been high before then with more than 3,000 deaths every year.
| Wangari Maathai |
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| greenbeltmovement.org |
In 2004, Professor Wangari Maathia becomes the first Kenyan,
and African, woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She won the award for her establishment of the Green Belt Movement.
The movement works to prevent soil erosion by planting trees.
Music from africanmusicsource.com
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