SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis attempts to study an African community in a Kenyan colonial town from the first decade of the twentieth century up to independence in 1963. Although the colonial structure largely dictated the status and conditions of Africans living in the town, African responses and initiatives played a vital role in the de-velopment of their community. The town also played an important role in the history of the surrounding area and the colony as a whole. An attempt is made to trace social and political change and to follow the process of African urbanization mainly through a study of African urban-based organizations and institutions. Africans will be seen in their roles as tribesmen, as townsmen and as Kenyan Africans participating in national politics. It will be suggested that the different spheres of African activity in the town were far from being mutually exclusive and that Africans moved freely in all of them regarding them, in part, as alternative bases in a struggle for urban status. A special place will be given to the emerging African urban elite who figured prominently in all aspects of the town's life and who led most African urban-based associations.