Kenya Colony in the context of "British East Africa"

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⭐ Core Definition: Kenya Colony

The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, commonly known as British Kenya or British East Africa, was a colony part of the British Empire located in East Africa from 1920 until 1963. It was established when the former East Africa Protectorate was transformed into a British Crown colony in 1920. Technically, the "Colony of Kenya" referred to the interior lands, while a 16-kilometre (9.9 mi) coastal strip, nominally on lease from the Sultan of Zanzibar, was the "Protectorate of Kenya", but the two were controlled as a single administrative unit. The colony came to an end in 1963 when a native Kenyan majority government was elected for the first time and eventually declared independence.

However, Kenya is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Colony" due to the fact that William Mackinnon, the founder of the Imperial British East Africa Company that was governing Kenya, was a native of Scotland.

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👉 Kenya Colony in the context of British East Africa

East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes, occupying roughly the same area as present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Controlled by the United Kingdom in the late 19th century, it grew out of British commercial interests in the area in the 1880s and remained a protectorate until 1920 when it became the Colony of Kenya, save for an independent 16-kilometre-wide (10 mi) coastal strip that became the Kenya Protectorate.

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Kenya Colony in the context of Italian Ethiopia

Italian East Africa (Italian: Africa Orientale Italiana, A.O.I.) was a territory of the Italian empire under Fascist Italy, existing from 1936 to 1941 in the Horn of Africa. It was established following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, which led to the military occupation of the Ethiopian Empire (Abyssinia), and encompassed Italian Somaliland, Eritrea and the Ethiopian territories (although Italy did not have stable control over the whole of Ethiopia), all governed by a single administrative unit, the Governo Generale dell'Africa Orientale Italiana. Its establishment contributed significantly to the outbreak of World War II by exposing the weaknesses of the League of Nations.

Italian East Africa was divided into six governorates. Eritrea and Somalia, Italian possessions since the 1880s, were enlarged with captured Ethiopian territory and became the Eritrea and Somalia Governorates. The remainder of the occupied Ethiopian territories comprised the Harar, Galla-Sidamo, Amhara, and Scioa Governorates. At its largest extent, Italian East Africa occupied territories in British Somaliland, British Kenya, and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. By 1939, it was settled by about 165,270 Italian colonists.

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Kenya Colony in the context of Jallianwala Bagh massacre

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre (IPA: [dʒəlɪjãːʋaːlaː baːɣ, baːɡ]), also known as the Amritsar massacre, took place on 13 April 1919. A large crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, British India, during the annual Baisakhi fair to protest against the Rowlatt Act and the arrest of pro-Indian independence activists Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal. In response to the public gathering, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer surrounded the people with Gurkha and Sikh infantrymen of the Indian Army. The Jallianwala Bagh could only be exited on one side, as its other three sides were enclosed by buildings. After blocking the exit with his troops, Dyer ordered them to shoot at the crowd, continuing to fire even as the protestors tried to flee. The troops kept on firing until their ammunition was low and they were ordered to stop. Estimates of those killed vary from 379 to 1,500 or more people; over 1,200 others were injured, of whom 192 sustained serious injury. Britain has never formally apologised for the massacre but expressed "deep regret" in 2019.

The massacre caused a re-evaluation by the Imperial British military of its role when confronted with civilians to use "minimal force whenever possible" (although the British Army was not directly involved in the massacre; the Indian Army was a separate organisation). However, in the light of later British military actions during the Mau Mau rebellion in the Kenya Colony, historian Huw Bennett has pointed out that this new policy was not always followed. The army was retrained with less violent tactics for crowd control.

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Kenya Colony in the context of Sultanate of Zanzibar

The Sultanate of Zanzibar (Swahili: Usultani wa Zanzibar, Arabic: سلطنة زنجبار, romanizedSulṭanat Zanjībār), also known as the Zanzibar Sultanate, was an East African Muslim state controlled by the Sultan of Zanzibar, in place between 1856 and 1964. The Sultanate's territories varied over time, and after a period of decline, the state had sovereignty over only the Zanzibar Archipelago and a 16-kilometre-wide (10 mi) strip along the Kenyan coast, with the interior of Kenya constituting the British Kenya Colony and the coastal strip administered as a de facto part of that colony.

Under an agreement reached on 8 October 1963, the Sultan of Zanzibar relinquished sovereignty over his remaining territory on the mainland, and on 12 December 1963, Kenya officially obtained independence from the British. On 12 January 1964, revolutionaries, led by the African Afro-Shirazi Party, overthrew the mainly Arab government. Jamshid bin Abdullah, the last sultan, was deposed and lost sovereignty over Zanzibar, marking the end of the Sultanate, and resulted in the massacre of tens of thousands of Arabs. It was also involved in the shortest war in history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, which lasted 38 minutes.

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Kenya Colony in the context of Idi Amin

Idi Amin Dada Oumee (30 May 1928 – 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until his overthrow in 1979. An admirer of Adolf Hitler, he ruled as a military dictator and is considered one of the most brutal despots in modern world history. He is often called "Hitler of Africa" and his ideology draws similarity to National Socialism.

Amin was born to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother. In 1946, he joined the King's African Rifles (KAR) of the British Colonial Army as a cook. He rose to the rank of lieutenant, taking part in British actions against Somali rebels and then the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, and Amin remained in the army, rising to the position of deputy army commander in 1964 and being appointed commander two years later. He became aware that Ugandan president Milton Obote was planning to arrest him for misappropriating army funds, so he launched the 1971 Ugandan coup d'état and declared himself president.

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Kenya Colony in the context of Mau Mau rebellion

The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities. Dominated by Kikuyu, Meru and Embu fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai who fought against the European colonists in Kenya — the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment (British colonists, local auxiliary militia, and pro-British Kikuyu).

The capture of Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi on 21 October 1956 signalled the defeat of the Mau Mau, and essentially ended the British military campaign. However, the rebellion survived until after Kenya's independence from Britain, driven mainly by the Meru units led by Field Marshal Musa Mwariama. General Baimungi, one of the last Mau Mau leaders, was killed shortly after Kenya attained self-rule.

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Kenya Colony in the context of Mogambo

Mogambo is a 1953 Technicolor adventure/romantic drama film directed by John Ford and starring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, and Grace Kelly, and featuring Donald Sinden.

It was shot on location in colonial British East Africa, Tanganyika, Uganda Protectorate, and French Congo, with a musical soundtrack consisting almost entirely of traditional music recorded in Congo.

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Kenya Colony in the context of Kenya African National Union

The Kenya African National Union (KANU) is a Kenyan political party that ruled for nearly 40 years after Kenya's independence from British colonial rule in 1963 until its electoral loss in 2002. It was known as Kenya African Union (KAU) from 1944 but due to pressure from the colonial government, KAU changed its name to Kenya African Study Union (KASU) mainly because all political parties were banned in 1939 following the start of the Second World War. In 1946 KASU rebranded itself into KAU following the resignation of Harry Thuku as president due to internal differences between the moderates who wanted peaceful negotiations and the militants who wanted to use force, the latter forming the Aanake a forty (The forty Group), which later became the Mau Mau. His post was then occupied by James Gichuru, who stepped down for Jomo Kenyatta in 1947 as president of KAU. The KAU was banned by the colonial government from 1952 to 1960. It was re-established by James Gichuru in 1960 and renamed KANU on 14 May 1960 after a merger with Tom Mboya's Kenya Independence Movement.

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