A Super Quick History of Kenya

Hello everyone, and welcome to CAN This is Africa, and here's Kenya. Now let's have a look, shall we? The tale of Kenya stretches back to the sunrise of the human story, and its first inhabitants were hunters, scouring the sweeping, simmering landscapes for their meat. As the slow, slow centuries slinked by one after the other, different peoples migrated into the land, bringing with them an alternative to hunting. Pastoralism, the art of herding and shepherding livestock. More centuries slithered away as still other peoples slipped into the land. Bantu speakers from the west who brought their knowledge of farming and metalworking into the land. The Bantu took a liking to the coastal region which became a prominent hub of trade in what became known as the Swahili coast. Contact with Arabians brought the religion of Islam to the locality and one of the area's major ports was located in Kenya, the city of Mombasa. Built around the year 900, Mombasa's mercantile reach extended as far away as India and China, amassing wealth from the export of products ranging from ivory to sesame seeds. In 1498, the Portuguese stopped by en route to India and clearly liked what they saw. For a few years later, they were establishing their presence in the region, a presence that was cemented by the enormous Forta Jesus, built in 1593 to safeguard Portuguese territorial domination, which lasted for over 100 years. In the 1690s, however, the Arabs of Oman besieged the fort for nearly three years and finally won, expelling the Portuguese and assuming command. The Omanis increased the slave trade that was going on, desirous of free labor for their clove plantations and delving deeper into Kenya for that purpose. Meanwhile, in the mid 1700s, the Maasai migrated into the land, cattle herders and great warriors who would come to dominate the vast expanse of the Great Rift Valley as well as neighboring lands. And if you ever want to know how stretchy your earlobes can be, look no further than a Maasai woman. Can you believe it? Sorry, had to use that one. Anyway, slavery sadly persisted in the country under Omani rule well into the 19th century, though the British made efforts to restrain it. And in 1846, the German linguist Johann Ludwig Raab came to Kenya as a missionary. He explored the country and translated the Bible into Swahili. Today, Christianity is the majority religion in Kenya. Though the Germans had vested interests in the country, it was the British who gained control of it in the latter 19th century. To more efficiently link their colonial holdings, the British built the Uganda Railway using workers from what's now Pakistan and set about constructing what would later become Kenya's capital, Nairobi. Of course, a number of Kenyan tribes were hostile to British rule, such as the Kikuyu, the Kamba and most fiercely the Nandi, but to no avail. European settlers began setting up farms, though industry was disrupted by World War I. In 1920, Kenya was officially made a colony, and still more settlers arrived to farm, one of whom was the Danish writer Kaan Blixen, who wrote about her experiences in the book Out of Africa. Now, the colonial endeavour had dispossessed many native Kenyans of immense slices of land who were not being represented in the governing of their own country, and there was a lot of anger and resentment brewing, which in 1952 boiled up into the Mau Mau uprising. The Kikuyu people, along with representatives of other ethnicities, revolted against British rule, led by Dedan Kimadi. The British eventually managed to quash the rebellion, which subsided after the execution of Kimadi in 1957. Though relative quiet was restored, it was clear things had to change, and they did. In 1963, the push for independence succeeded, and Kenya was free, Jomo Kenyatta becoming first president. Kenyatta, a conservative and anti-communist, oversaw a time of economic growth, but also a controversial land distribution scheme that stoked ethnic tensions, favoured tribes being given more land or other tribes' lands, and so on. There were also conflicts with the Somali minority in the north, which spilled into the next president's term. Now, Kenya had been under one-party rule for decades, and the road to a more free form of democracy was a bumpy one, to say the least. All sorts of ethnic political violence accompanied the path to a coalition government. But it happened at last, and a new constitution was drafted, and today Kenya, with its medium level of human development, has seen many improvements, and possesses the largest economy in East Africa. But what looms ahead for Kenya? Comment below, but for now, buh-bye!