White people in Kenya

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White Kenyans
Total population
67,000 (0.2% of population)
Kenya 35,000 Kenyan citizens
United Kingdom 32,000 British immigrants
Regions with significant populations
Nairobi Province, Rift Valley Province
Predominantly Christianity

White Kenyans are those born in or resident in Kenya who descend from Europeans and/or identify themselves as White. There is currently a minor but relatively prominent white community in Kenya, mainly descended from British and Anglo-Irish migrants dating from the colonial period.


The Age of Discovery first led to European interaction with the region of present-day Kenya, the coastal regions were seen as a valuable foothold in eastern trade routes, and Mombasa became a key port for ivory. The Portuguese established a presence in the region for two hundred years between 1498–1698, before losing control of the coast to the Sultans of Oman.

European exploration of the interior commenced in 1844 when two German missionaries, Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann, ventured inland with the aim of spreading Christianity, the region soon sparked the imagination of other adventurers, and gradually their stories began to awaken their governments to the potential of the area.

The rise of New Imperialism in the late 19th century, intensified European interest in the region, the initial driving force lay with pioneering businessmen, such as Carl Peters and William Mackinnon seeking to establish lucrative trade routes in the region. These businessmen would compel their respective governments to protect their trading interests, and in 1885 eastern Africa was carved-up between Britain, Germany and France, the British assumed control of the regions of Kenya and Uganda, and governed it through the Imperial British East Africa Company. In 1895, administration was transferred to the Foreign Office, and the East Africa Protectorate was established.

East Africa Protectorate[edit]

Having acquired Kenya and Uganda, the British sought to develop infrastructure and link the coast to Lake Victoria, the Uganda Railway serves as a lasting legacy of this ambition. The railway opened up much of the Kenyan interior to European settlement, and in 1899 British pioneers established Nairobi as a settler outpost, the period saw an influx of European settlers and farmers seeking to make a fortune, most notably the British peer Lord Delamere. Many of these settlers imagined an "empty" Africa where they hoped to recreate a society that mirrored their fantasy of manorial Europe, where they would rule as lords and Africans would serve as retainers.


Kenya Colony[edit]


Flag of British East Africa

Land alienation, forced labor, and African participation in higher education, bureaucratic institutions, and the First World War helped spark a substantive Kenyan nationalist movement in the 1920s. Leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta and Henry Thuku highlighted a view of an unjust political and social situation for the vast majority of Kenyans. Following World War II, some Kenyans began a violent anti-colonial campaign centered largely on the Kikuyu known as the Mau Mau Uprising, the deaths of dozens of European settlers and their African servants, triggered a war with the British government that resulted in twenty thousand Kenyan dead. British counter-insurgency tactics included forcibly relocating civilians into "villagisation" schemes, and detaining and torturing Mau Mau suspects in prison camps.


By the early 1960s, Britain's political willingness to maintain Kenya as a colony was in decline and in 1962 the Lancaster House agreement set a date for Kenya's independence. Realising that a unilateral declaration of independence course like Rhodesia's was not possible after the Mau-Mau uprising, the majority of the 60,000 white settlers considered emigration.[1] Along with Kenyan Asians, Europeans and their descendants were given the choice of retaining their British passports and suffering a diminution in rights, or acquiring new Kenyan passports. Few chose to acquire citizenship, and many white Kenyans departed the country, the World Bank led a willing-buyer-willing-seller scheme, known as the 'million acre' scheme that was largely financed by secret British subsidies. The scheme saw the redistribution of swathes of white-owned farmland to the newly prosperous Kikuyu elite.

The remaining small minority of Europeans have mostly taken Kenyan citizenship. There were an estimated 35,000 white Kenyan citizens in Kenya as of 2009.[2] There are also British citizens residing in Kenya who may be of any race; according to the BBC, they numbered at about 32,000 in 2006.[3]



Societal integration[edit]


The recent homicide case of the white Kenyan dairy and livestock farmer and game rancher, Hon. Thomas Cholmondeley, a descendant of British aristocrats, has brought into question the class bias of the judicial system of the Commonwealth country and the resentment of many Kenyans toward what is perceived as white privilege. The book and movie White Mischief told the tale slightly involving an earlier member of the Cholmondeley family, The 4th Baron Delamere (popularly known as Tom Delamere), who was married to Diana Broughton, whose lover was murdered in Nairobi in the 1940s, her first husband was tried and acquitted. See also the Happy Valley set.[4]

Controversy associated with "the Happy Valley set"[edit]




The height of the Happy Valley set's influence was in the late 1920s, the recession sparked by the 1929 Wall Street stock market crash greatly decreased the number of new arrivals to the Colony of Kenya and the influx of capital. Nevertheless, by 1939 Kenya had a white community of 21,000 people.



See also[edit]


  2. ^ http://www.knbs.or.ke/censusethnic.php