African American Colonialism In Kenya

From 1884 to 1885, France, Italy, Belgium, Britain, and ten more European countries attended the Berlin Conference. There, they decided how to share the continent of Africa. Boundaries were drawn on maps, borders splitted land to be given to each country. It was rather democratic, if you overlook one detail: the native tribes living in Africa were not consulted to make these borders. The indigenous people of Africa typically had no say in what happened to them, because of the European belief that those with lighter skin were superior. One European colony that came out of the Berlin Conference was British Kenya. Due to the white supremacist beliefs of the time, the British colonialism of Kenya was detrimental to the native Africans who lived

Though the infrastructure which the British brought to Kenya (eg. roads, schools, hospitals) did end up helping Africans (after the British left Kenya), their negative, more immediate impact was less than desirable. Kenyan Chief Kabongo remembered a “Pink Cheek” (a European man) telling him about the King of Britain: “...this land is all his land, though he has said you may live on it as you are his people and he is your father and you are his sons” (Kabongo, 109-10). European settlers took land that rightfully belonged to the Africans as their own. The Africans were forced off of their land onto the least fertile land, and many times, tribes were split up or rivaling tribes put together. On top of taking their land, the British made sure that Africans couldn’t rise up to benefit from the new capitalist economy. Natives were kept “...at the bottom of the economic scale,” to make sure European farmers were more successful (Gella, 1986). The natives were used for cheap labor by European settlers. Being at the bottom of the economic chain also meant native Kenyans were at the bottom of the social hierarchy (also caused by racism against Africans), which worsened their economic

School was mandatory for European children, but not for African children. Additionally, almost 21 times as much money was spent on each European child than each African child (The Government Printer, 1955). The British valued Europeans more than they did Africans, and it showed through the care they put in the education of the two groups. The education the Africans received probably consisted of a whitewashed curriculum, teaching them to be good at working jobs like farming or working in a household. Without good education, Africans lacked the ability to rise up against corrupt British rule, keeping them slaves to capitalism and