The White Highlands of central Kenya were once the ancestral lands of communities such as the Kikuyu, Maasai, and Kalenjin. By the early 1900s, however, the British colonial government transformed this fertile region into the centerpiece of European settlement, reserved exclusively for whites. Marketed and administered as a “White Man’s Country,” the Highlands became a symbol of dispossession, racial segregation, and resistance.
British involvement in Kenya began in the late 19th century, tied directly to the “Scramble for Africa.” At the 1884–85 Berlin Conference, European powers carved up East Africa into spheres of influence. The British initially claimed what became Kenya as part of their protectorate over the coastal strip, which was technically under the authority of the Sultan of Zanzibar but dominated by European powers.
The decisive turning point came with the construction of the Uganda Railway, begun in 1896 and completed in 1901. Stretching from the port city of Mombasa to Lake Victoria, the railway was intended to link the interior of East Africa to the coast, facilitating British control and trade. But the railway was massively expensive, costing the British Treasury nearly £5 million, equivalent to more than £500 million in 2025.
Colonial administrators argued that the railway could only pay for itself if the fertile interior was opened to European settlement and large-scale farming. Explorers such as Frederick Lugard and Sir Harry Johnston promoted the idea that the Kenyan Highlands were perfectly suited for white settlers., citing their cooler climate and relatively sparse population compared to the lowlands. This rhetoric laid the foundation for the policy that would come to be known as the White Highlands.
With the railway complete and officials actively recruiting settlers, Britain moved quickly to formalize land alienation. In 1902, Sir Charles Eliot, the British Commissioner in East Africa, made his notorious declaration that the Highlands should become a “White Man’s Country.” To recover the massive costs of the railway, he argued, Europeans must be given the best farmland to cultivate cash crops for export.
That same year, the Crown Lands Ordinance restricted land grants to Europeans, instantly converting Kenyan lands into “Crown Land” open to alienation. The Highlands, rich in volcanic soils and high rainfall, were soon fenced off for white settlers. Africans were displaced, stripped of ownership, and forced into reserves.
By 1903, around 100 Europeans had settled in the Highlands. By 1914, the number had grown to over 1,000. Speculators bought huge estates, often leaving them idle, while Africans were pushed off their ancestral lands into overcrowded reserves.
The Maasai were among the first to be displaced. Already weakened by famine, rinderpest, and smallpox epidemics at the turn of the century, they were forced into treaties between 1904 and 1913 that ceded about 7,000 square miles of grazing land. These lands became some of the best European farming estates.
The Kikuyu, whose rotational farming system left fallow plots of land, were also targeted. Colonial officials interpreted unused land as “vacant” and seized it.
African resistance was inevitable. The Maasai staged sporadic clashes, but their diminished strength prevented sustained war. The Kikuyu and other groups simmered with resentment for decades until the Mau Mau Rebellion (1952–1960).
This armed uprising was one of the fiercest anti-colonial struggles in Africa. Mau Mau fighters waged guerrilla warfare from the forests of Mount Kenya and the Aberdares, targeting settler farms and colonial collaborators. The British responded with overwhelming force, declaring a state of emergency, detaining over 100,000 Africans in camps, and carrying out mass executions.
Although militarily crushed, the Mau Mau rebellion succeeded politically: it drew global attention to the injustices of colonial land policy and hastened Kenya’s march to independence.
The reservation of the White Highlands had long-lasting consequences. Kenyans were crowded into “native reserves,” which could not sustain their populations. Many became laborers or squatters on settler estates, working under harsh conditions for minimal pay from the same people who displaced them.
Meanwhile, the Highlands thrived economically, for settlers. They became the backbone of colonial agriculture, producing tea, coffee, and other exports that enriched Europe while leaving natives dispossessed.
It was not until the early 1960s, after years of Kenyan resistance, that Britain repealed the policy through the Land Control Regulations of 1961, which ended the exclusive reservation of the Highlands for Europeans and allowed Kenyans to own and purchase land in the region.
By then, however, the damage had been done. Generations of Africans had been uprooted, confined to reserves, or forced into wage labor on settler farms. Much of the reclaimed land also ended up in the hands of white elites or was redistributed through government schemes that favored the politically connected.
After independence in 1963, the Highlands remained Kenya’s agricultural hub, producing tea, coffee, and other cash crops. But the question of ownership never truly shifted. Much of the land remains in the hands of white settlers, while countless Kenyans still toil on the estates as laborers and tea pickers.
To this day, the shadow of colonial dispossession still hangs over the country, with unequal land ownership and ancestral claims sparking disputes that continue to shape Kenyan politics.
Sources:
https://time.com/archive/6799052/kenya-open-the-highlands/
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1958/oct/30/kenya-white-highlands
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/kenya-land-standoff-sends-warning-foreign-owned-tea-estates-2025-04-17/
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-%27White-Highlands%27-of-Kenya-Morgan/2d501d9158508920ff073dc68f6b9503472ef9f3
