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Abstract
This article argues that the attempts to institute segregation in Nairobi faltered because the process of urban land allocation, use and exchange and the legislation supporting this process did not support segregation. It uses the example of the removal of the Somali settlement in Ngara and the debates around the removal of the Indian Bazaar to demonstrate this failure. Through a study of the emergence of Eastleigh, the paper demonstrates that business-inclined settlers demanded a system of town planning that was class-based rather than race-based. In 1923, the colonial state conceded that segregation between European and Asiatics is not absolutely essential for the preservation of the health of the community. Overall, the article exposes a particular futility in the history of Nairobi – the attempt to achieve segregation using a planning vision that was suffused with cosmopolitan realities.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Jonathon Glassman and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the draft and Philip Ondere and Veronica Kimani for assistance at various levels of the development of the paper. Usual caveats apply.
Notes
1. Commentary in The Leader of British East Africa, October 21, 1916, 16.
2. Sham Shar Singh commenting on the October 1917 prohibition of interracial land transfers (Redley, “The Politics of a Predicament,” 87).
3. Maxon, cited in Ochieng’ Modern History of Kenya.
4. Berman, Control and Crisis, 130.
5. Ochieng’, Modern History of Kenya; Ogot and Ochieng’, Decolonization and Independence.
6. Furedi, The Mau Mau War; Kanogo, Squatters; Maloba, Mau Mau and Kenya; Thuku, Harry Thuku.
7. Abdullah, “Rethinking the Freetown Crowd”; Furedi, “The African Crowd”; Hodgkin Nationalism in Colonial Africa; Rosberg and Nottingham The Myth of Mau Mau.
8. Kitching, Class and Economic Change; Lonsdale, “Town Life”; Obudho and Aduwo, “Rural Bias”; Stichter, Migrant Labour in Kenya.
9. Henri Lefebvre, cited in Hayden, The Power of Place, 41
10. Iliffe, “Creation of Group Consciousness.”
11. The exceptions being Furedi, “The African Crowd,” and Rosberg and Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Mau.
12. This is true of Furedi, The Mau Mau War, Throup, Economic and Social Origins, and Anderson, Histories of the Hanged.
13. Craddock, City of Plagues, 11.
14. Murunga, “Inherently Unhygienic Races.”
15. Coquery-Vidrovitch, “Residential Segregation”; Dubow, Racial Segregation.
16. The term includes people of Indian, Pakistani and Goan descent in East Africa. I use Asian and Indian interchangeably in this study.
17. Morris, “Indians in Uganda”; Morris, “Faction in Indian and Overseas.”
18. Harvey, “Cosmopolitanism,” 529.
19. Vertovec and Cohen, “Introduction,” 9.
20. Hannerz, “Cosmopolitans,” 239.
21. Appiah, Cosmopolitanism, 47, 56–7, 78, 85, 97; Calhoun, “Class Consciousness,” 87–8, 98–9.
22. Furedi, “Development of Anti-Asian”
23. Atieno-Odhiambo, Siasa, 87–8; Atieno-Odhiambo, “Political Economy.”
24. Atieno-Odhiambo, Siasa, 87–8; Atieno-Odhiambo, “Political Economy.” Patel, Challenge to Colonialism.
25. Myers, Verandahs of Power.
26. Bennett, “Persistence amid Adversity.”
27. Kenya Land Commission, Report, 165–2; Sorrenson, Origins of European Settlement, 159–75.
28. Redley, “Politics of a Predicament,” 38.
29. McGregor Ross, Kenya from Within, chapters 5 and 18.
30. Redley, “Politics of a Predicament,” 39 and 60; Sorrenson, Origins of European Settlement.
31. Redley, “Politics of a Predicament,” 152.
32. Tandberg, “The Duka-Wallas.”
33. Bennett, “Persistence amid Adversity,” 4, 17 and 89.
34. Lovegrove, “Asians and the Building,” 36–47; Sorrenson, Origins of European Settlement, 23–5.
35. Emug and Ismail, “Notes on the Urban Planning,” 9; Nevanlinna, Interpreting Nairobi, 93–4.
36. King, “Harry Thuku”; Singh, “Manilal”; Thuku, Harry Thuku, chap. 2; Trzebinski, The Kenya Pioneers, chap. 3.
37. Maxon, John Ainsworth, 99; Patel Challenge to Colonialism, 40.
38. Redley, “The Politics of a Predicament,” 36.
39. Patel, Challenge to Colonialism, 50.
40. Redley, “The Politics of a Predicament,” 36.
41. McGregor Ross, Kenya from Within, 306.
42. For a postcolonial fictional perspective of River Road, see Mwangi Going Down.
43. Smith, “Evolution of Nairobi,” 34.
44. Tandberg, “Duka-Wallas,” 50
45. Trzebinski, The Kenya Pioneers, 75.
46. Kennedy, Islands of White, 148,152.
47. Parker, “Political and Social Aspects,” 139–56; Anderson, “Corruption,” 142–3.
48. Patel, Challenge to Colonialism, 22–41; Trzebinski, The Kenya Pioneers, 45–6.
49. Kitching, Class and Economic Change, 212–13; Trzebinski, The Kenya Pioneers, 44; Thuku, Henry Thuku, chap. 2.
50. Cited in Robertson, Trouble Showed the Way, 77.
51. Cited in Robertson, Trouble Showed the Way, 77.
52. Amratlal Raishi, cited in Patel, Challenge to Colonialism, 51.
53. Sorrenson (Origins of European Settlement, 25–26) shows that as early as 1896, the Indian Land (Acquisition) Act of 1894 had been applied to the Protectorate in anticipation for land acquisition along the Railway. Up to 12 Europeans had applied for land in Nairobi by 1897 and their claims were disallowed pending some policy decisions on how to distribute land.
54. Parker “Political and Social Aspects,” 66; McGregor Ross, Kenya from Within, 300.
55. East Africa Protectorate, Nairobi, 22; Parker, “Political and Social Aspects,” 66.
56. McGregor Ross, Kenya from Within, 76–7, 312–13.
57. Memo on Nairobi East Township to Principal Medical Officer dated July 25, 1918 in Kenya National Archives (KNA), MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
58. East Africa Protectorate, Nairobi, 4–5, 22.
59. Maxon, John Ainsworth, 100.
60. Cited in Smith, “Evolution of Nairobi,” 34.
61. Ainsworth cited in Maxon, John Ainsworth, 100.
62. Memo on Nairobi East Township to Principal Medical Officer dated July 25, 1918 in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
63. British East Africa Protectorate, Report of the Sanitation of Nairobi, p. 48 and White et al., Nairobi: Master Plan for a Colonial Capital, p. 13; White, Comforts of Home, 13.
64. Parsons, “Kibera is our Blood”
65. Salim, “Native of Non-Native?”; Turton, “Isaq Somali Diaspora,” 325.
66. The Leader of British East Africa, August 19, 1916, 16.
67. Turton, “Isaq Somali Diaspora,” 326.
68. Letter from MOH to PSO dated February 14, 1917 in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
69. Letter from Radford to PMO on Removal of Somali Village in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
70. The Leader of British East Africa, August 19, 1916, 16.
71. The Leader of British East Africa, September 16, 1916, 16.
72. The telegram from Messrs Shapley and Schwartze Advocates and Solicitors cites their instructions as coming from “all Headmen of Somalis representing every tribe and every section of Somalis in the EAP.” See KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
73. During the Kenya Land Commission proceedings, Ainsworth recalled that in 1907 “Somalis have arrived here from time to time; there are now over one hundred men here and rows are consequently frequent. I have therefore established a system of a headman of the camps, with three assistant headmen and ten volunteer police.” Somalis, he added, do not mix with other people – particularly African people – and so these traders got located towards the stream (Mathare River) which bounds Muthaiga on the Nairobi side” (McVicar, “Twilight of an East African Slum,” 14).
74. The Leader of British East Africa, September 23, 1916, 16.
75. See correspondence from Colonial Office to Chief Secretary in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
76. Letter from PC to PMO dated May 5, 1917 in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
77. See letter from DC to PC dated February 2, 1917 in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
78. Anderson, “Corruption,” 142–3; Hake, African Metropolis, 38 and 255.
79. Letter from PMO to Chief Secretary dated February 7, 1917 in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
80. Letter from MOH to PMO dated February 10, 1917 in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
81. Murunga, “Segregationist Town Planning,” chap. 3.
82. Letter from Land Officer to PMO dated February 5, 1917 in KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19.
83. KNA, MOH/1/3932, Removal of Nairobi East Township, 1916–19. White, Comforts of Home, 67
84. Parker, “Political and Social Aspects,” 71
85. Parker, “Political and Social Aspects,” 71.
86. Parker, “Political and Social Aspects,”, 67.
87. Jeevanjee, Sanitation in Nairobi
88. Maxon, “Years of Revolutionary Advance.”
89. The Leader of British East Africa, October 21, 1916, 15.
90. The Leader of British East Africa, October 14, 1916, 23.
91. The Leader of British East Africa, October 14, 1916, 23.
92. The Leader of British East Africa, December 14, 1918, 21.
93. The Leader of British East Africa, October 21, 1916, 16.
94. The Leader of British East Africa, October 28, 1916, 15.
95. The Leader of British East Africa, November 18, 1916, 13.
96. The Leader of British East Africa, November 18, 1916, 13.
97. Redley, “The Politics of a Predicament,” 103.
98. The Leader of British East Africa, April 17, 1915, 1 (italics added).
99. Redley, “The Politics of a Predicament,” 83–7.
100. Gregory, India and East Africa, 179–82; Mangat, History of the Asians, 115–22; Zeleza, “Establishment of Colonial Rule,” 51.
101. Pandit, Asians in East and Central Africa, 70–1; Singh “Manilal,” 129–41.
102. Colonial Office, Indians in Kenya, 15.