List Of Colonial Chiefs In Kenya
In this article Keweb.co tries to answer the question by publishing the full list of Colonial Chiefs in Kenya
Below are the full List of Colonial Chiefs In Kenya
One of the first developments under British rule was the creation of chiefs as agents of local administration.
At first British officials were inclined to believe that traditional African societies were governed by chiefs, and thus they sought to locate a leading figure in a community in order to rule through him.
But even as they came to realize that most of the Kenyan African peoples did not have chiefs and were ruled through councils of elders, they retained their artificial chieftainships as a convenient, even necessary, instrument of local rule.
They deemed it necessary to hold one man accountable for the implementation of their programs and for the preservation of public order.
Colonial chiefs became a striking feature of Kikuyu society, but not so among the Maasai or Kamba. Kikuyu chiefs were to play a decisive role in colonial domination in the early years.
They built rough-hewn, extremely rudimentary, but effective local administrative organs through which new economic and social forms were introduced.
These chiefs not only carried out the tasks required of all colonial chiefs, such as maintaining order and helping with tax gathering, but they were also important in facilitating two far-reaching changes: education and wage laboring.
1 In contrast to their Kamba and Maasai counterparts, Kikuyu headmen forcibly implanted these two essential features of the colonial economy and society.
Because the British had difficulty estabÂlishing purposive and collaborative local government among the Maasai and Kamba, these peoples remained more autonomous from the colonial system.
Who was the last colonial Governor of Kenya?
Malcolm MacDonald