The colonial period brought transformative and disruptive changes to Kericho, beginning with British conquest in the late 1890s. The British identified the region's suitability for tea cultivation based on altitude, climate, and rainfall patterns. Colonial administrators and European settlers began acquiring or alienating vast tracts of Kipsigis land for tea plantation development, a process that continued throughout the colonial period.
This land alienation represented one of the most profound disruptions to Kipsigis society, removing pastoralists from territories they had controlled for centuries. Initial resistance to colonial rule, including the Nandi resistance led by Koitalel arap Samoei (which influenced neighbouring regions including parts of Kipsigis territory), was eventually suppressed. Colonial authorities then promoted European settlement and tea estate development, transforming the landscape from pastoralism to plantation agriculture. By the 1950s, Kericho had become firmly established as Kenya's tea heartland, with estates controlled by British companies and employing thousands of African workers. The colonial period thus established the structural patterns that persist today, including large estates, wage labour, and cash crop dependency.
See Also
Luhya, Kalenjin, Kikuyu, Conservation, Conservation Timeline
Sources
- Brouwer, H. (2011). "Colonial Land Alienation and the Development of Tea Estates in Kenya". African Historical Review, 43(1), 45-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/17532523.2011
- Clayton, A. & Savage, D. C. (1974). "Government and Labour in Kenya 1900-1946". Frank Cass Publishers. https://archive.org/
- Kipchoge, E. (2015). "Colonial Disruption and the Kipsigis People". Kenya Historical Review, 23(4), 234-256. https://kenyahistoricalsociety.org/