How Kenya was both a British protectorate and colony at the same time

Ever wondered why Kenya was both a colony and a protectorate? A colony is where a country is under full or partial political control of a foreign power and is occupied by settlers of that power whereas a protectorate is a dependent territory that has been granted local autonomy while retaining the protection of a greater sovereign state.

The Colony of Kenya comprised the inland territory while the Ten-Mile Coastal Strip constituted the Protectorate under the nominal control of the Sultan of Zanzibar following treaties signed in 1886, 1895 and 1920.

The Swahili city-states of pre-colonial East Africa generally possessed a shared and layered concept of sovereignty which had helped create certain autonomous spaces for the inhabitants of port cities. The notion of indivisible and unitary sovereignty imported under colonial conditions from Europe represented a major break from ideas of good governance and legitimacy that had been widespread in the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal domains and their successor states. Moreover, the British juxtaposed with their own monolithic sovereignty a particularly fake version of sovereignty invested in re-invented “traditional” rulers in post-1857 India (such as that in Kashmir) and later in Kenya with glorified tribal “Chiefs”.

In East Africa, sovereignty was bound not by state power but through family ties, ideologies and trade. The Muslim patrician lineages that controlled towns through royal courts or councils greatly elaborated their extra-continental genealogies and superior civilisation to non-Muslim neighbours but relied heavily on hinterland clients for trade and protection.

The Portuguese first arrived in East Africa in 1498 and exercised an uneven colonial presence along the Swahili coast until the eighteenth century. They maintained the title Sultan for leaders appointed to city-states under Portuguese control, while arrogating control over trade.

The BuSaidi Sultanate, which physically relocated to Zanzibar from Oman in 1832, similarly retained for itself control over city trade, and represents the first attempt to impose the sovereignty of a single sultan along the entire coast. But Zanzibar was less of an “empire” than a commercial enterprise loosely bound by political agents and mercenary debt collectors, heavily reliant upon the consent of local Arab and Swahili elites in the major coastal towns. Spheres of local autonomy along the coast existed for centuries, and the Sultan himself formally acknowledged claims by the 12 Tribes of Mombasa for “Swahili home rule”.

British policy towards Arab-Muslims can be traced to 1895, when the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) surrendered its management of the Sultan’s dominions paving the way for the British Government to take over. The coastal strip was the gateway to the vast resources waiting to be exploited inland so it was imperative for the British to foster a good working relationship with the Sultan in order to gain unfettered access.

With the collapse of IBEAC in December 1895, Sultan Hamid bin Thuwain was prevailed upon to accept an agreement that formally entrusted the coast of Kenya to the protection of British authority. Under British rule the sultan became only a symbol of Muslim political sovereignty without any authority to make decisions in a system of indirect rule. It was assumed that the Arabs were the overlords of the coastal region, completely ignoring the existence of local autonomous leaders. To add credence to this perception, the British found that there already existed a system of Liwalis (governors) and Kadhis to interpret Islamic law as judges. These Arab-Muslims represented the sultan in various capacities in different parts of the dominion.

Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge, Commissioner for British East Africa 1895-1900 observed, “The Arabs are the only natives who can read, or have any comprehension of politics, justice or government. Community of religion, language and intermarriage gives them an influence over negro coast populations which the European stranger cannot as a rule possess in the same degree, and even in the interior they are, as Africans, more at home than he can be. Once they have thoroughly learnt the lesson that he is the predominant partner, and must be obeyed as such, their influence applied under his control may be very useful; and it is, I think, very important for the future of East Africa, that a native administrative element should be formed out of the Arabs.”

In the colonial system, the pecking order was, Europeans at the top, Indians, Arabs and Africans a distant last. Following the new political dispensation, the Liwalis, Mudirs (lieutenants) and Kadhis were formally recognised, acting as intermediaries between British authorities and the Muslim populace.

Soon after World War II, the mainland was declared a British colony and the country, including the Ten-Mile coastal strip became known as the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya in 1920. The British began to train Arab-Muslims for elevation, albeit to subordinate positions, within the administration. This created resentment on the part of non-Arab Muslims who viewed it as a form of discrimination. In a strange tradition, towns within the Ten-Mile strip were allowed to hoist the Sultan’s red flag from the ground while the Union Jack could only be hoisted from rooftops or verandahs, symbolising that the Arabs owned the land.

It is, therefore, understandable that when the period of African nationalism came into being in the 1950s, Arab-Muslims reacted in opposition to it because it posed a threat to their privileged position in society. This was the genesis of the “mwambao” movement which believed that historically the coast was part of Zanzibar and not Kenya.

Fortunately, at independence in 1963, the Kenyan government agreed to safeguard the interests of the inhabitants of the coastal strip in terms of religion, practice of their faith and freehold land. These same rights were entrenched in the Kenya Constitution of 2010.