Mining the Maasai Reserve: The Story of Magadi

Abstract

Exploitation of soda deposits by foreign companies at Lake Magadi, Kenya, is the focus of one of many long-standing grievances in the Maasai community which stem from land and other natural resource alienation in the colonial era. A British company was allowed to mine soda in this corner of the former Southern Maasai Reserve as the result of a clause in the 1911 Maasai Agreement or Treaty, made between representatives of the Maasai community and British government. But there is compelling historical evidence to suggest that it had no legal right to do so. This article examines the early history of the East Africa Syndicate and Magadi Soda Company's activities in British East Africa, the circumstances in which they obtained their early leases, and connections between these and the Maasai Agreements, signed within days of each other. It traces the continuities to the present day, against a backcloth of historical and contemporary protest, placing these events in the broader historical context of early land policy, the resignation of Sir Charles Eliot in 1904, and protest in the 1930s against the Native Lands Trust Ordinance, gold mining and other commercial activities in ‘native reserves’.

Notes

1. This article is based on a section of my doctoral dissertation (University of Oxford 2002), which was cut from a book of the same title (2006), augmented by fresh research. Maasai is the correct spelling, but Masai is used when quoting early records. My thanks to an anonymous peer reviewer for comments and suggested revisions which have hopefully led to improvements in the text.

2. The Mining Journal, 9 July 1949, 592.

3. George Frederic Lees, ‘The Lake of Soda, The Story of a Wonderful Natural Curiosity of British East Africa’, The Wide World Magazine, undated (‘c. 1916’), in the papers of the Central Mining Investment Corporation Ltd (CMIC), Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 412, Box 9, File 3 [9/3], Rhodes House Library, Oxford (RHO).

4. Nineteenth-century references include Fischer (1884: 77, 80, 81); Krapf and Erhardt on an 1856 map (Royal Geographical Society archives, London); Von Höhnel (1894, v. 1: 250; v. 2: 296, 301, 310). Höhnel described makate or ‘natron’ being bartered by Kamba, Kikuyu and Maasai.

5. www.magadisoda.co.ke

6. Magadi Soda Co.'s profits are not disaggregated from the rest of the Brunner Mond Group in published figures. Pers. comm. with Group corporate affairs director Mark Chitty.

7. Ashwin Tombat, ‘The Right Chemistry’, 21 Sept. 2006, www.tata.com. Tata Chemicals’ acquisition of Brunner Mond made it a member of the ‘$1 billion club’, Business Standard, 28 Dec. 2005, viewable at www.tatachemicals.com. Tata Chemicals’ annual turnover is more than $14.25 billion.

8. ‘Beyond Boundaries’, 67th AGM presentation, www.tatachemicals.com.

9. www.tatachemicals.com.

10. Who Was Who 1916–1928.

11. Tombat, ‘The Right Chemistry’, 21 Sept. 2006, www.tata.com.

12. Its first directors were the Earls of Verulam and Denbigh, Percy Tarbutt, Edmund Davis, E. E. Lort-Phillips, G. T. Symons, ‘Memorandum and Articles of Association of the EAS Ltd’, 12 Feb. 1902, FO2/805, National Archives, London (NA). They were soon joined by Ernest Gedge and Major C. H. Villiers. Its objects included: ‘to cultivate lands and properties, whether belonging to the Company or not … and develop the resources thereof’, 4 (emphases added).

13. Correspondence relating to the Resignation of Sir Charles Eliot, and to the Concession to the East Africa Syndicate, Cd. 2099, Africa No. 8 (1904) (London: HMSO 1904) [Correspondence relating to the Concession]. Sorrenson, Origins of European Settlement in Kenya, ch. 4.

14. Eliot, Letter to the editor, The Times, 9 Aug. 1904. Of the Rift grant, he wrote: ‘the lease which I refused to sign is little more than an option on the land for 25 years. The syndicate have merely to fulfil the ridiculously easy condition of establishing five farms during seven years on what is known to be first-rate land, and they can then either do nothing if things go badly or, if things go well, they can buy up the whole area and make their profits. It is remarkable that the same features reappear in another lease drawn up for the syndicate, which I also refused to sign – that for Lake Magadi’. He claimed to have ‘no prejudice’ against the EAS, but believed the Foreign Office (FO) had made ‘a bad bargain’ over the Rift grant.

15. Ernest Gedge (1862–1935), son of a Lincolnshire vicar, was assistant manager of an Assam tea estate before joining the IBEAC in 1888. He travelled with Frederick Jackson on IBEAC business to Uganda, and briefly represented the Co. in Uganda after Jackson left (1890). He returned as Uganda correspondent for The Times (1892–93), having covered the war in Rhodesia for it (1883). He prospected for minerals in the Yukon (1898–99) and Rhodesia (1900). Sources include the guide to the Gedge Papers, RHO; North, Europeans in British Administered East Africa, 177.

16. Gedge to Lord Cranborne, 19 Oct. 1901, FO2/805, NA. Gedge said he represented ‘the views of certain English capitalists’ willing to invest in ‘research’, so long as these permits were later converted into concessions. This appears to have been the first written approach by a future director of the EAS to the FO.

17. Draft FO to Gedge, 11 Dec. 1901, FO2/805, NA. Gedge was asked for proof of the ‘financial status’ of those he represented, and told to comply with future mining regulations. His backers were Messrs Pauling and the Bank of Africa, note on Gedge to Hill, 12 Dec. 1901. Sir E. Blake reported to Hill on Pauling and Co.'s financial health, 19 Dec. 1901. They were ‘railway contractors in a very big way’, having ‘built most of Rhodes's lines in S. Africa’. This file makes clear that few enquiries were made of its true financial standing.

18. Hobley, Kenya: From Chartered Company to Crown Colony, 145.

19. Private Memo for Directors, Coltman to EAS, 24 July 1902, FO2/806, NA.

20. ‘Memorandum on Proposed Mining Grants in East Africa, Interview with Messrs Gedge and Pauling’, 19 Dec.1901, FO2/805, NA. Hill thought the terms ‘seem reasonable’.

21. Cranborne to Hill, 12 Dec. 1901, FO2/805, NA. References by Chamberlain to the EAS's South African links include Chamberlain to Stewart, 8 Feb 1905, Papers of Robert Chamberlain, Mss. Afr. s. 589, f.279, RHO.

22. He replied by return, Gedge to Hill, 12 Dec., ibid. On 17 Dec., he proposed to Hill that a meeting should be convened at the FO two days’ later to discuss the proposals. He and Pauling were duly interviewed, ‘Memorandum’, ibid., 19 Dec.1901. The prospecting area had grown to 500 square miles, with ‘private claims and native rights to be respected’. Hill wrote that the FO had not committed itself; the applicants were to draft a memorandum of agreement to which it would respond.

23. Note by Cator, 13 Jan. 1902, on ‘Prospecting in EAP, Draft Agreement for Approval’, enc. in Pauling to Hill, 9 Jan. 1902, FO2/805, NA.

24. ‘Prospecting Rights in EAP for Messrs Gedge and Pauling’, Draft to Treasury 21 Jan. 1902, f.235; Hill cover note 18 Jan., f.239, FO1/805, NA.

25. ‘Draft Agreement as to grant of prospecting rights within the East Africa Protectorate’, between Commissioner and Pauling, undated, issued 26 March 1902, ff.461, FOI/508, NA.

26. Draft Agreement, FO1/805, NA, 4.

27. Under-Secretary of State CO to Secretary of State FO, 15 Feb. 1902, ibid. Draft mining regulations for the East Africa Protectorate are in the same volume, ff.319, FO1/805, NA.

28. Charles Hyde Villiers (1862–1947), a Sandhurst and Oxford history graduate, joined the army (Royal Horse Guards) in 1887. He arrived in Lamu in 1892 as leader of a short-lived ‘sporting and exploring expedition’; was ADC to Sir Gerald Portal on the British ‘mission’ to Uganda (1893); helped put down several African rebellions including those in Rhodesia (1895–96); took part in the Jameson Raid in the Transvaal (1895–96) and the South African War (1899–1900); and was decorated three times. He is listed in Wills, Anglo-African Who's Who, as director of eight mining or prospecting companies including the EAS, chairman of another, and committee member of three. Other information from North, Europeans in British Administered East Africa, 488.

29. Coltman to Hill, 19 Mar. 1902, FO2/805, NA. Villiers had already forewarned Hill about imminent amalgamation. Like Gedge, he was a regular personal caller at the FO over the winter of 1901–02, and in almost daily correspondence with Hill.

30. ‘Concessions in E.A.P.’, Coltman to Seely, 22 April 1902, FO2/805, NA. The land was not specified; expedition members would select it ‘out of lands which are not in the occupation of any native tribe’. Hill drafted FO consent next day, with Lansdowne's blessing; Correspondence relating to the Concession.

31. Gedge to Hill, 11 March 2002 (proposals for a reserve), FO2/805, NA; Tel. Eliot to FO, 16 Dec. 1902 (re-opium), FO2/806, NA.

32. Burnham, for instance, had been ‘enticed’ into the service of the British South Africa Co. (BSAC) in 1893 in Rhodesia by its offer to ‘each enlistee [of] 6,000 acres in Matebeleland, 15 reef gold claims, and 5 alluvial claims’.

33. ‘Prospecting Trip to the Pauling Concession 1902’, July–Dec. diary, Box 6/5, Gedge Papers, RHO.

34. Telegram No. 1, letter No. 14, Syndicate to the FO, in Correspondence relating to the Concession, 37, 41–42.

35. Though granted in principle in May 1902, it apparently did not go through until 18 December 1903 (Eliot, Letter to the editor, The Times, 9 Aug. 1904). Also see Chamberlain to Stewart, 8. Feb. 1905, Chamberlain Papers, RHO. It appears the EAS failed to fulfil its development obligations; note on Girouard to CO, 28 Dec. 1911, CO533/93, NA. It was ‘also to be exempt from any awkward questions’ about the failure, 7 Oct. 1911, ibid.

36. Sandford, Administrative History, 23.

37. Lansdowne to Eliot, 29 Jan. 1904, No. 32, Eliot to Lansdowne, 2 Feb. 1904, No. 33, in Correspondence relating to the Concession, 55. Eliot had warned Lansdowne three years earlier of the need to make lessees improve land or spend a certain sum on it in order to prevent ‘capitalists buying up large tracts simply as a speculation’, No. 220, 22 July 1901, FO2/805, NA, f.76.

38. The Times was hostile to Eliot in a leader, published the same day as his ‘resignation’ letter, calling his behaviour towards Lansdowne ‘an act of open insubordination’, 9 Aug. 1904, 7. Though the language was restrained, Eliot was effectively publicly blamed by the Foreign Office in Correspondence relating to the Concession, e.g. in Lansdowne's prefatory Minute, iii–vi. Sorrenson describes the animosity that developed between Hill and Eliot, and how Hill used this Command Paper 2099 to ‘discredit’ Eliot (Sorrenson, Origins, 78). In the wider historiography, Tignor for example states incorrectly that Eliot ‘felt no hesitation in removing the Maasai from the region’ (Tignor, Colonial Transformation, 33); in fact, he did not favour reserves but initially advocated intermingling Maasai and settlers in the Rift. I have revised my opinion of Eliot since writing my doctoral dissertation, where I probably treated him unfairly. To echo William McGregor Ross, commenting on Eliot's resignation: ‘We are beginning to wonder whether he really had more stuffing in him than we gave him credit for’ (Papers of William McGregor Ross, Letters Home, RHO, 25 June 1904).

39. Sorrenson, Origins, 72–74. ‘Hill's association with the Syndicate was later subject to comment in the Colonial Office, where W.D. Ellis considered it ‘unfortunate that Sir C. Hill on his retirement from the F.O. should openly associate himself with [it]’, 72, n51, original source a minute on Chamberlain to CO, 11 Mar. 1906, CO533/24, NA. Sir Clement retired in 1905, became MP for Shrewsbury the following year, and was President of the African Society from 1911 until his death in 1913; Wilson, ‘In Memoriam’, 337–42.

40. Chamberlain Papers, RHO.

41. Chamberlain to Viscount Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa, 29 July 1904, ff.154–6, Chamberlain Papers, RHO. Sorrenson, Origins, mentions these grievances, 3–4, 65–66.

42. ‘Memorandum on Land Settlement Proposals’, enc. in Chamberlain to Lansdowne, 5 Sept. 1904, ff.180, Chamberlain Papers, RHO.

43. Chamberlain to Lansdowne, 29 Dec. 1904. He often referred to ‘bona fide’ settlers, e.g., Chamberlain to Land Officer, 31. Jan. 1906. In this letter he was openly anti-semitic – the EAS were a ‘group of titled personages and Hebrew financiers’ Chamberlain Papers, RHO.

44. ‘Geographical position’ refers to the location of his and Flemmer's ‘promised’ land, on the Mbarak and Enderit Rivers, to which the FO had objected citing Maasai rights.

45. ‘Memorandum’, ibid., ff.181, 186. Repeated in typewritten version, same file.

46. Chamberlain to Elgin, 11 Mar. 1906, f.345, Chamberlain papers.

47. ‘Memorandum’, ibid., f.172. He, Flemmer and another settler from South Africa, Russell Bowker, planned to settle 100 farmers from South Africa on 500,000 acres which they asked Eliot for on 29 June 1903. They also wanted another 100,000 acres’ free grant for themselves, f.170. Chamberlain and Flemmer finally got the 32,000 acres they had each applied for, but this larger application was refused.

48. Eliot to Chamberlain and Flemmer, 12 Dec. 1903. An undated 12-month ‘Draft Agreement for prospecting for Minerals in the EAP’, between Eliot and (company name to be inserted) is later, ff.58–9. The Pullingers, described as Rand mining magnates, were also said to be interested ‘in the proposed gold concessions’ but had recently pulled out. Chamberlain thought it ‘quite useless’ to prospect on these terms, as ‘you offer [the large capitalists] too little return’, Chamberlain to Eliot, 27 Feb. 1904, Chamberlain papers.

49. E.g. Barton Wright to Chamberlain, 14 Aug. 1903, Chamberlain papers.

50. Sorrenson, Origins, 31, and chs 2–3. Sorrenson, ‘Land Policy in Kenya 1895–1945’ is a succinct précis of the confusions and assumptions surrounding early land policy. It ‘became a matter of trial and error, and this enabled Eliot and the European settlers to take the initiative’, 676.

51. The Times, 27 Aug. 1904; Paice, Lost Lion of Empire, 161. Paice claims J. K. Hill had been ‘lined up to manage’ the EAS properties.

52. Anderson, Eroding the Commons, ch 8. Eliot's ‘haste to secure forestry investment in the colony’, and his scant regard for FO assent, has parallels in early mining leases and their long-term repercussions.

53. Sorrenson, Origins, 146.

54. Clement Hill (FO) to Treasury, No. 17, 20 Aug. 1903, Correspondence relating to the Concession, 43.

55. Hill, Magadi, 12–13. A photograph of Deacon's January 1903 indenture (transferring his interest to the Syndicate for 11,390 rupees) faces, 6. Walsh sold his rights to the profits for £15 in November 1902 to mining engineer Commerell Cowper-Coles, who transferred his interest to the Syndicate for 10 rupees, 12. Hill notes that the EAS later lied about having ‘discovered’ the lake and deposits, 13.

56. Burnham to EAS, undated, sent to FO 24 Nov. 1903, Correspondence relating to the Concession, 48. Frederick Russell Burnham (1861–1947) was a former cowboy, prospector and military scout from Pasadena, California, who cut his teeth fighting ‘Indians’ on the ‘American frontier’. He moved his family to Africa in 1893, lured by the promise of gold and new frontiers. He scouted for Leander Starr Jameson and the BSAC in Rhodesia (1893), fought in the second conflict (1896), where he was credited with killing the ‘M'Limo’ (wrongly believed to be a high priest who had instigated rebellion), and in the South African War, where he earned the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). He arrived in BEA in May 1902 to lead the EAS prospecting expedition. Wills, Anglo-African Who's Who, 42; North, Europeans in British Administered East Africa, 70; Bradford and Bradford (eds), An American Family on the African Frontier: The Burnham Family Letters, 1893–1896.

57. Burnham to EAS, Correspondence relating to the Concession, 47–53.

58. Burnham to EAS, 23 Aug. 1902, in Hill, Magadi, 13.

59. This and related events are described in Hughes, Moving the Maasai.

60. The lease is in CO533/93, NA.

61. Sandford, Administrative History, 158. Chapter 10 is devoted to the Magadi Soda Company.

62. Hill, Magadi, 20–21, 24–25. Hill was frank about the Syndicate's false claims, including ‘plentiful’ supplies of fresh water at and near the lake, and an allegedly healthy climate for Europeans, 27. Original source is a report of 20 Aug. 1908, enc. in Dimmer to Villiers, 16 Aug. 1915, CMIC papers, Box 9/2. This also refers to Maasai use of soda ‘for washing purposes’ and mixing with tobacco ‘for making snuff’, f.29. Swainson, Development of Corporate Capitalism, 72–73, gives a slightly different account of these early years.

63. Hill, Magadi, 24–27; Swainson, Development of Corporate Capitalism, 73.

64. Coltman to Seely, 6 March 1908, in the CMIC papers, Box 9/2, RHO.

65. Swainson, Development of Corporate Capitalism, 74.

66. Sandford, Administrative History, 158. Hill, Magadi, 30. An unsigned duplicate of the concession document is in the CMIC papers, Box 9.

67. Underwriters and shareholders are listed in the CMIC papers, Box 9/1. The Company was registered 26 Jan. 1911; the Agreement for Underwriting with Samuels and Central Mining, dated 27 Jan., is in Box 9/3. Its first directors were Samuel Samuel, Walter Samuel, Walter Levy, Arthur Herz, Louis Reyersbach, Charles Villiers, Henry Simons and Stephen Pollen.

68. ‘Concession in relation to the construction, maintenance and working of a railway to Lake Magadi in the East Africa Protectorate, as a branch of the Uganda Railway, and to Lease of Lake Magadi and other lands in the East Africa Protectorate for working of soda and other deposits’, 20 Sept. 1909, CMIC papers, Box 9, 11, 9.

69. From The South African Mining Journal, 30 Oct. 1909. My thanks to Ian Phimister for drawing this to my attention.

70. A duplicate of this contract is in Box 9, CMIC papers.

71. Prospectus of the Magadi Soda Company, undated (but printed before the opening of the shares subscription list on 30 Jan. 1911), Box 9/3, CMIC papers.

72. Descriptions of the railway length vary; other reports say it was approximately 94 and a half miles, and 100 miles.

73. An unsigned duplicate of the 1911 lease is in Box 9, CMIC papers.

74. An unsigned duplicate of the 1911 lease is in Box 9, CMIC papers, 9. Maasai elders have long chewed salt with tobacco.

75. Hill, Magadi, vi.

76. Sandford, Administrative History, 163.

77. FO2/805, NA. If government land was sold minerals were also reserved unless otherwise stated, Draft ‘King's Regulations under Article 45 of the East Africa Order in Council 1897’, etc., ibid., ff.120–21, par 6.

78. Rent for both extensions (ten cents per acre) was to be credited to ‘Masai funds’, Sandford, Administrative History, 163. Funds held in a Suspense Account were used to pay for improvements to the Southern Reserve, such as irrigation and bridge building. In the early days, money was raised from stock theft fines, the auction and rent of land and trade plots within the reserve, ‘voluntary’ contributions from Maasai, etc. Sandford, Administrative History, 81–82, 229. In this way, and through high taxation, Maasai were effectively made to pay for their own ‘development’. Hodgson, Once Intrepid Warriors describes similar practices in colonial Tanzania, 74.

79. Sandford, Administrative History, 166.

80. Sandford, Administrative History, latter quote, 168. Magadi water supply is discussed 164–72.

81. The original handwritten 1911 Agreement is DO118/383, NA. Typescript copies include one in Sandford, Administrative History, Appendix 2, 184–85.

82. My thanks to Deborah Nightingale for drawing my attention to this possibility, pers. comm. The claim is also made in Joel Olenyika, ‘The Multinational Curse to Marginalized Folk’, The African Executive (2006, viewed online at: www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/article_print.php?article=475).

83. Similar questions have been raised, for example, about translations of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, between Maori chiefs and the Crown. See Belich, Making Peoples.

84. CMIC papers, Box 9/2. The corporation and Samuels lent £50,000 at the beginning of the year, and Messrs. Pauling another £20,000.

85. CMIC papers, Box 9/2, report of 17 Sept. 1919. Major Villiers (here described as Colonel, a director of both Magadi Soda Co. and EAS) was ‘most bitter in his criticism of the Samuel management … and says that mismanagement has been rampant in all directions, at the Lake, in England and elsewhere’, notes dated 16 July 1916, CMIC papers, Box 9/2, f.93.

86. C. G. Moor letter to the editor, Financial News, 9 Feb. 1924, CMIC papers, Box 9/2, f.138. The original Company went into voluntary liquidation that year. Press coverage of the crisis and correspondence with shareholders is in Box 9/3.

87. Hill, Magadi, 87, 91, 98. Three 99-year leases, for the lake, railway and port, were dated 1 Nov. 1924. Rent on the lake lease was £1 per annum. Royalties were 3 sh. a ton on manufactured soda and 2 sh. on raw soda.

88. Other information from CMIC or Swainson, Development of Corporate Capitalism, 75–76.

89. Report to AGM, 13 May 1933, CO533/436/21, NA.

90. Swainson, Administrative History, 77.

91. Basic Data on the Economy of British East Africa, World Trade Information Service Economic Reports, Part 1 No. 58–54 [sic] (Washington DC: June 1958), RHO.

92. Swainson, Development of Corporate Capitalism, figures from Table 17, 78.

93. ‘Note of a meeting … on 1st February 1954 in the office of the Member for Health, Lands and Local Government to discuss the Masai native land unit in relation to the Magadi Soda Co.'s concession’, marked ‘Draft, confidential’, in LND 30/3/4/5, Kenya National Archives (KNA). Only Mr Hume, Asst. Financial Secretary, is named; job titles are given for others stated ‘present’, who also included the Asst. Secretary, Commerce and Industry, and two other Asst. Secretaries ‘F’ and ‘C’.

94. Original 1911 Agreement, DO118/383, NA, 2. Sandford, Administrative History, 183. The boundaries of the original Southern Reserve were defined in a published proclamation of 18 June 1906.

95. ‘Masai native land unit in relation to the Magadi Soda Company's concession’, by M.H.L.L.G. (Minister for Health, Lands and Local Government) to M.F., M.C.I., M.I.A., PC Southern Province, S.C.L., 23 Oct. 1953, LND 30/3/4/5/19, KNA. Sweatman was replaced as Provincial Commissioner by K. M. Cowley in February 1956.

96. Sorrenson, ‘Land Policy in Kenya 1895–1945’, 685, 683.

97. Sorrenson, ‘Land Policy in Kenya 1895–1945’, 686–87; John Lonsdale, ‘Political Associations in Western Kenya’, 620–21; Roberts, ‘The Gold Boom’, 555.

98. Some cuttings are for example in CO533/416/6, NA from the Times and New Statesman, 25 July and 27 Aug. 1932 respectively.

99. Berman, Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya, 184, 197 n176; Sorrenson, ‘Land Policy in Kenya 1895–1945’, 687.

100. Memorandum, Kavirondo Natives. Kenya Land Commission Evidence and Memoranda [KLC], Vol. 3, 2137–8. Evidence on the working of the Native Lands Trust Ordinance, 2901–3029.

101. Evidence of the Kenya Missionary Council, 22 Feb. 1933, KLC Evidence, 2976, 2979. Its entire evidence is 2976–3012, which includes a lengthy exchange between the KLC Chairman and Owen over mining laws. Evidence of Lt. Col. O. F. Watkins, 3 February 1933, KLC Evidence, 2916. My thanks to June Knowles for additional information about her father Oscar, PC Eldoret at the time of the Kakamega gold rush, and former Acting Chief Native Commissioner. ‘African lands for Africans was the chief plank of his policy and the virtual ruin of his career’, pers. comm.

102. Sorrenson, ‘Land Policy in Kenya 1895–1945’, 689.

103. Berman, Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya, 232; Lonsdale, ‘Political Associations in Western Kenya’, 607–13.

104. Examples are in lists of licences and leases for 1932 in CO533/429/16, NA; 1933 in CO533/447/8, NA; 1935 in CO533/458/24, NA. According to the latter, Magadi Soda Co. was granted a one-year licence to remove diatomite within the ‘road reserve of the Magadi-Ngong Road in the Masai District’, and to cut wood in five areas of the Maasai Reserve.

105. CO533/429/16, NA, item 4. It was seen as a ‘definite breach of the Ordinance’ and only ‘put … up as a test case’.

106. E.g. re-local opposition to an application to extract limestone in the Kiambu Reserve (item 1, CO533/429/16, NA, 1932), it was noted: ‘On its merits this is a perfectly clear case for overriding the views of the LNC. … But if Kenyatta and his friends should hear of it, they will hardly fail to link it up with the “encroachments” on the Kavirondo Reserves for mining purposes’, ff.2–3. Signature illegible. The ‘trivial’ remark is from J. E. W. Flood, note on Lady McMillan's application, 10 March 1933, same file.

107. Discussions of a lease application by Major Lathbury on behalf of Gold Mining Syndicate Ltd, in CO533/416/6, NA (1931), re-the South Kavirondo Reserve. Lessees were seen to have a ‘preferential right’ under the Mining Ordinances; ‘there is no obligation upon the Government to act under Section 15(1) of the NLTO, 1930’ and add equivalent land to reserves, ff.3–4.

108. Hugh Marriott to Magadi Soda Co. Chairman, 12 Nov. 1934, CO533/444/7, NA, f.10.

109. K. M. Cowley, Southern Province Annual Report (AR 1959), 45. A branch of the new Chemical Workers Union was established at Magadi the previous year (AR 1958), 34, and ‘odd murmurings’ reported in Kenya's mining industry generally, 29.

110. Secretary of State to Officer Administering the Government of Kenya, Conf. EAF, 28 May 1962, CO822/2000, NA. For a fuller discussion of issues raised by this delegation, see Hughes, ‘Malice in Maasailand’. For a regional history of gold mining in the 1930s, see Roberts, ‘The Gold Boom’. Lolgorien is part of the Migori Archaean Greenstone Belt, which also includes the neighbouring Macalder and North Mara mines. South African company Goldblat plc has recently joined forces with Swedish interests to form Newco, which plans to revive mining operations at Lolgorien. ‘Gold for Kenya’, Mining Review, Africa Issue 4, 2007, www.miningreview.com; Frank Jomo, ‘Goldblat partners International Gold Exploration for Kenya's Migori gold licence’, 25 July 2007, www.mineweb.net.

111. The Northern Reserve was declared a Closed District by proclamation, 30 May 1906.

112. Memorandum, ‘Masai Claims under the 1904 and 1911 Treaties’, 17 Sept. 1962, CO822/2001, NA; also in CO822/2000, NA.

113. Memorandum, ‘Masai Claims under the 1904 and 1911 Treaties’, 17 Sept. 1962, CO822/2001, NA; also in CO822/2000, NA. Sandford mentions this assumption with regard to signings in 1904, noting that Stewart signed the EAS's Magadi lease the same day he met Maasai ‘chiefs’ to discuss the first Agreement (9 August). ‘Though no reference is made in the Agreement with the Masai it must be presumed that the area so demised was excluded from the lands set apart for the Southern Masai Reserve by the Agreement of 1904’, Administrative History, 25n (emphases added).

114. ‘The Magadi Soda Company Ltd., Eyewitness account of a meeting held at Magadi on 3rd February 1962 and addressed by Mr John Keen, M.L.C. for Kajiado and others’, anonymous, CO822/2000, NA.

115. Olenyika, ‘The Multinational Curse’.

116. Tiampati, ‘Soda Extraction Threatens Magadi Maasai’.

117. Pers. comm. with Michael Tiampati.

118. ‘Memorandum on Human Rights Violations’ submitted to the National Steering Committee for National Human Policy by Maa speakers in Kajiado, etc., undated. Viewed online at http://ipacc.org.za.

119. Olenyika, ‘The Multinational Curse’, ibid.

120. John Mbaria, ‘Sempeta: Spirited lawyer-activist’, obituary, The East African, 14 March 2005. However, rumour has it that Sempeta was embroiled in various deals through which he had made powerful enemies, and this should be factored in.

121. Tiampati, ‘Soda Extraction Threatens Magadi Maasai’.

122. ‘Memorandum submitted to the World Bank on the dispossession and exploitation of land and natural resources belonging to the Maasai people – the case of Lake Magadi, the Maasai community, and the Magadi Soda Company’, presented to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, New York, May 2004. Also summarises the lawsuits.

123. Environmental Review Summary, Magadi Expansion Project No. 10520, viewable with related documents at www.ifc.org. The new plant is now built, and will allow Magadi to double its previous capacity.

124. Letter dated 22 Nov. 2006 to this author, Jose A. Espejo, Senior Investment Officer, Oil, Gas, Mining and Chemicals Department, IFC.

125. Letter dated 22 Nov. 2006 to this author, Jose A. Espejo, Senior Investment Officer, Oil, Gas, Mining and Chemicals Department, IFC.

126. Verbal communication with Mark Chitty, director of corporate affairs, Brunner Mond Group, 30 Nov. 2006.

127. Also supported by the IFC. ‘IFC Helps Magadi Soda Address HIV/AIDS, www.ifc.org.

128. IFC website: www.ifc.org.

129. Leaflet distributed by Bunge La Mwananchi, People's Parliament, at the World Social Forum (WSF), Nairobi. Describing itself as the ‘voice of the poor, the marginalised, the disadvantaged, the have-nots, the weak’, it met daily at Jeevanjee Gardens, offering a free alternative to WSF activities at Kasarani Stadium where entrance fees were prohibitive.

130. Information supplied to author by the Lake Natron Consultative Group, Nairobi.

131. The history of mining regulations up to 1933 is described in Report of the Committee on Mining Legislation 1933, 753.14 r v60/1933 (1), RHO.

132. Sorrenson drew parallels between the EAS and the Uplands Syndicate. Sorrenson, Origins, 109. Elsewhere, little seems to have been written about the history of syndicates there.

133. Report of the Committee on Mining Legislation 1933, 753.14 r v60/1933 (1), RHO, 7.