6 - 1960–1970, sealing the bargain: the implementation of the Kenya land transfer schemes

Summary

For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Independence was granted on the basis of the continuation of the system, and not its destruction.

Ahmed Mohiddin

They cost us more now that we don't have them.

Mrs Barbara Castle, M.P. (British Minister of Overseas Development, 1964–5)

The implementation of the land transfer programs in Kenya was lengthy and complex. In this account issues such as valuation of farms and the relative success of agriculture production in the settlement schemes will be ignored. Instead the focus will be on settlement as an integral feature of the process of consensual decolonization. The themes underlined in the transfer schemes will attempt to highlight the perspectives, policies and projections of a colonial bureaucracy attempting to insure the continued functioning of a political economy under an altered political authority. The thread of the narrative lies in this bureaucracy defeating threats from the Right (European farmers) and the Left (Kenyan peasants), mobilizing resources (British and international assistance) and enlisting allies (nationalist leaders, commercial community, African settlers) to stabilize the colonial interests and system of independent Kenya.

The implementation of the land transfer schemes underlined the continuity of the previous themes illustrated in the European bargaining activities.