Of an old settlement couchitic, originating in the Horn of Africa and influenced by Asia, arrived of the traces of installation, in particular of the networks of irrigation which sometimes the new arrivals took again. The wave of Bantu settlement, understanding inter alia Kikuyus, Kambas and Luhyas, extended starting from I er thousand-year-old from our era. It reached the coasts only after the first voyages of the Romans.

The migrations, more recent, from the various nilotic groups - nandi, kalenjin, luo, massaï - turned towards the breeding, to a large extent moved towards the Western Highlands and the Valley Rift. The Swahili civilization (of which the apogee is located at the XIII E and XIV E centuries) was established on the coast, where opened out commercial cities (Mombasa, Lamu, Pate); synthesis of Bantu, Arab and Asian elements, it was Islamized to some extent. The last come from the Africans, the pastors couchitic oromos and Somali can seem the first autochtones of the Horn of Africa.  

During second half of the XIX E century, Kenya was characterized by the combination of already dense agricultural small islands, deprived of centralized political authorities and whose members endeavoured to nibble pastoral spaces increasingly wider. The pastors massaïs, though not very many, controlled immense territories, whose good portion, of Elgon to the country nyika and in current Tanzania, was cultivable. Their reputation of warriors and plunderings blocked the trade of the caravans towards the kingdoms of Lake Victoria: the main roads Swahili commercial passed by current Tanzania, via Tabora and the south of Victoria.  

This distribution was deeply disturbed in the years 1890 by a series of famines and of epidemics, in particular that of cattle plague, which swept all Africa and decimated the herds. The stockbreeders, from which Massaïs, suffered from it particularly. They gave up the vast wide ones of their field, of which a part, where the undergrowth had been reconstituted, was invaded by the glossines; these insects propagated the trypanosomiasis, which prevents today still the return of the stockbreeders.

The time of the colony

Kenya could thus appear attracting to the British little, although it became colony of the British crown as from 1920. It was only one “necessary evil”, that an access road towards the heart of the black continent, that of the African big lakes and the kingdom of Buganda, already partly christianized. The railroad reached Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, at the beginning of the century. Using an Indian labor, this company was at the origin of the group “plug” of Asian (intermediate tradesmen, craftsmen, frameworks). The vast wide ones depopulated by the epidemics extended on both sides of the railroad: one drove out some, in particular, the survivors massaïs to establish a zone of European colonization quasi of only one holding on 30 ' 000 km2. In parallel great reserves were delimited, which solidified the ethnic identities and blocked the land aspirations of the most dynamic groups. Rural depopulation was limited by severe payments.  

The European colony was dominated a long time by members of the class peerage-book or adventurers hardly exploiting their vast domains. Though the production for export their barrel reserved, they were satisfied to draw benefit from the presence with squatters (country without grounds), especially kikuyus. In return for loan of a piece, the latter returned day's works or paid royalties. The modernization of European agriculture intervened only the shortly after the Second world war, with a specialization of the various areas in the tea or coffee plantations, the mixed-farming associated with the dairy and porcine breeding, as well as the ranching. It was then necessary to expel a good amount of squatters, who did not have any more fastener in their area of origin. It is one of the causes of the revolt of Mau-Mau (1952-1956), which assigned mainly the country kikuyu and the squatters of the Valley Rift. This revolt had been also prepared by the rise of the nationalist and cultural claims, by the way whose Kikuyus had been shown particularly active; Jomo Kenyatta, which had been made the spokesperson of it, was imprisoned for its responsibility in the insurrection.  

Repression an action of selective promotion of the African exploitations succeeded, implying the regrouping, the improvement of land and the intensification of agriculture by the introduction of commercial cultures, especially the coffee-tree arabica and the tea plant. This policy (plane Swynnerton), which aimed at consolidating a class of accommodating small holders with regard to the colonial power, was generating increasing inequalities, the tenants of too reduced surfaces, or being entitled them to these pieces, being excluded from the land and buildings. Started in country kikuyu and kamba, it was to be wide with the whole of the agricultural areas, giving rise to a landscape characteristic of scrap-metal and dispersed habitat, where food crops and commercial combine. Until 1977, the Kenyan economy lay within the scope of the Community East-African, made up with Uganda and Tanzania, regrouping which survived little of time independences. The presence of the European colony and the infrastructures built with its intention ensured the country a preeminence in creations of industry and a widened market.  

The advent of Kenyatta

In 1961, Kenya became autonomous and Jomo Kenyatta was released in April of this same year. Independence will be effective later two years, in 1963. The KANU (Kenya African National Union), which was based on the two principal ethnos groups (kikuyu and luo), wished the creation of a centralized State. The first Constitution gave to the country a bicameral and federal parliamentary mode. Regionalism (majimbo) aimed at preserving the rights of the minorities gathered in the KADU (Kenya African Democratic Union), supported by Europeans and the Indians. But the broad defeat of this party to the elections made it possible the KANU to impose its choices. It took only one year Kenyatta, then for Prime Minister, to become president of the Republic, the post of head of government being replaced by that of vice-president.  

Most powers of the areas were repealed, which facilitated the scuttling of the KADU (1964), following the progressive setting with the variation of the parties to the profit it executive power. Become in fact sole party, the KANU was transformed into an electoral springboard and an instrument of ratification of the decisions of Mzee (the “old man” in Swahili). The opposition within the KANU between two leaders luos - Tom Mboya, leader of reformism liberal, and Oginga Odinga, in favor of a African socialism - consolidated Kenyatta, of which the authority was pressed on a tentacular administrative machinery, heritage of colonization. The police chiefs of province and district, chosen by the president of the Republic, locked the country. The existence of this “lock” caused sharp protests on the part of the members of the government; the vice-president (Odinga) denounced the liberalism of Kenyatta and Tom Mboya, then Minister for the Plan. Ousted of the KANU in March 1966, Odinga retorted by constituting a new party, the KPU (Kenya People' S Union). An amendment obliged very appointed leaving the KANU to be represented in front of its voters, which held back the secessionist wills (about thirty deputies only, of which a third hardly was re-elected, dared to face the central power). Folded up on its bases luos, the KPU, following riots at the time of the visit of Kenyatta with Kisumu, was prohibited in 1969; with it the show disappeared from two-party system. Meanwhile, two constitutional modifications had confirmed the presidential authority: in 1967, the Upper House is removed; the following year, the election of the president of the Republic by the vote for all was decided and twinned with that of the deputies, them so elected for a five years mandate. This amendment made it possible Kenyatta to exert a greater influence on the Parliament.  

Whereas the word of Harambee national order (“Let us act all together”) exhorted the people (wananchi) to work to accelerate economic development, the power became the scene of political crimes and imprisonments. Faithful Minister for the president, Tom Mboya was assassinated in 1969. Its political capacities made a potential successor of Kenyatta of it (then old of soixante-seize years), nevertheless its origins luos seemed to condemn it. Odinga was imprisoned the same year: the two principal candidates to the presidency were consequently eliminated. Stopped in the month of March 1975 to have denounced the corruption of the Harambee organization, J.M. Kariuki, rich Kikuyu, was found died west of Nairobi.  

Long roads towards the multi-party system

With the death of Kenyatta, on on August 22nd, 1978, the vice-president, Daniel Arap Me, Kalenjin, hastens to release the political prisoners, of which Odinga, to make counterweight in Kikuyus. It dissolves tribal associations to reinforce the national unit. The foreign politics is frankly reorientated towards the western world, in particular the United States. The new president follows the way traced by Mzee, which symbolizes the Nyayo currency (“To put the steps in the steps”). After having escaped little with a putsch in 1982, with which one was interfered its ministers (Charles Njonjo), Arap Me, only candidate, was re-elected in 1983.1988 and 1992.

In 1990, the assassination of the Foreign Minister, Robert Ouko, who was on the point of making public a report on the corruption of the government, then the death of the bishop Anglican Alexander Muge, also suspect, forced Arap Me, under the pressure of his money-lenders, to accept the multi-party system, while sharpening the ethnic competitions. The presidential elections of December 1992, the disunion of the opposition, but also the practice of the fraud allowed the re-election of the outgoing president, with only one third of the voices, in front of Kenneth Matiba, Raïla Odinga and Mwai Kibaki. Candidate for a fifth mandate, in January 1998, A. Me was re-elected, with nearly 40 % of the votes. This victory, as of the first turn, was consolidated by success (107 seats obtained out of 210) that the African National union of Kenya (KANU) gained, the party of the outgoing president, at the time of the legislative elections which followed. Badly assured and fragile, the democratic transition remains however possible.  

Kenya suffers today from the world-wide crisis, the errors of its leaders and the poverty of its neighbors. The disorders which agitate Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia find there an echo important. The insecurity gained pastoral spaces of North, which are largely populated alien groups. The weakening of the power of president Arap Me and the multiplication of the “business” harm the brand image of the country, discourage the investors and involve sanctions on the part of the donor countries. This “good raises” liberal world is currently a country at the risks.