Settlers Of Kenya

The White Spaces of Kenyan Settler Writing lists and places in their historical contexts over 900 texts written by Whites in and about colonial Kenya.

Kenya’s white settlers have been alternately celebrated and condemned, painted as romantic pioneers or hedonistic bed-hoppers or crude racists. The souls of white folk examines settlers not as caricatures, but as people inhabiting a unique historical moment. It takes seriously – though not uncritically – what settlers said, how they viewed themselves and their world. It argues that the settler soul was composed of a series of interlaced ideas: settlers equated civilisation with a (hard to define) whiteness; they were emotionally enriched through claims to paternalism and trusteeship over Africans; they felt themselves constantly threatened by Africans, by the state, and by the moral failures of other settlers; and they daily enacted their claims to supremacy through rituals of prestige, deference, humiliation and violence. The souls of white folk will appeal to those interested in the histories of Africa, colonialism, and race, and can be appreciated by scholars and students alike.

The economic history of developing countries, particularly the former colonies, has become polarized between two ideologies. The apologists for colonialism have emphasized the stimulus given to the indigenous economy by the introduction of foreign capital; the 'underdevelopment theorists' have turned this interpretation on its head and represented the relationship as being, particularly in 'settler colonies' such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, one not of stimulus but of rape and plunder. In this study, Dr Mosley considers the economies of colonial Kenya and Southern Rhodesia and argues, in the light of recently assembled statistical data, that the truth is more complex than either of these simple interpretations allows. At the level of policy, most white producers acknowledged that they could not afford to let 'white mate black in a very few moves': they needed his cheap labour, cattle and maize too much to wish to damage seriously the peasant economy that sustained them.

The coast of East Africa was considered a strategically invaluable region for the establishment of trading ports, both for Arab and Persian merchants, long prior to invasion and conquest by Europeans. In the initial stages of the scramble for Africa in the 18th century, control of the area was an aspiration for every colonial nation in Europe - but it was not until 1895 that it was finally dominated by a sole power and proclaimed The Protectorate of British East Africa. In the early 20th century, the coast was brimming with vitality as immigrants, colonisers and missionaries from Arabia, India and Europe poured in to take advantage of growing commercial opportunities - including the prospect of enslaving millions of native Africans. The development of Kenya is an exceptional tale within the history of British rule - in perhaps no other colony did nationalistic feeling evolve in conditions of such extensive social and political change. In 1911, S.H. Fazan sailed to what later became the Republic of Kenya to work for the colonial government. Immersing himself in knowledge of traditional language and law, he recorded the vast changes to local culture that he encountered after decades of working with both the British administration and the Kenyan people. This work charts the sweeping tide of social change that occurred through his career with the clarity and insight that comes with a total intimacy of a country. His memoirs examine the fascinating complexity of interaction between the colonial and native courts, commercial land reform and the revolutionised dynamic of labour relations. By further unearthing the political tensions that climaxed with the Mau Mau Revolt of 1952-1960, this invaluable work on the European colonial period paints a comprehensive and revealing firsthand account for anyone with an interest in British and African history. Fazan's story provides a quite unparalleled view of colonial Africa and the conduct of Empire across half a century.