Political activities among the Mijikenda of Kilifi and Mombasa districts: 1920 - 1963

Abstract

This is a study of Mijikenda political activities in Colonial Kenya in the Mombasa and Kilifi Districts of the Coast Province. The study is limited to the period 1920 - 1963. It aims at portraying the colonial conditions at the Kenya Coast within which the Mijikenda, aroused by a section of the educated elite, participated in nationalist organizations between 1920 and 1963. Our central hypothesis is that Mijikenda political activities in Kilifi District between 1920 and 1963 were a reaction to three major issues. The first problem was the denial of the Mijikenda land rights in the Coastal Strip through the creation of the Nyika Reserves. Taxation, and colonial labour policies were the other two. The impact of these on the Mijikenda was aggravated by perpetual drought conditions in the Northern Nyika Reserve. Consequently, these conditions forced the Mijikenda to migrate into the Coastal Strip for alternative sources of livelihood either as squatters or wage labourers on European plantations or as casual workers in Mombasa. However, the challenges posed by these new occupations paved the way for the rise of a new leadership among the Mijikenda from some of the educated elite. Thus, this emergent leadership formed various organizations through which they sought to express the grievances of the Mijikenda. The presence of the Arab Community at the Kenya Coast has been a major factor in the shaping of Kenya's Coastal African Political development. The problems created by this community such as elements of favouritism by the official colonial policy led the educated Mijikenda to perceive political action as one way of protecting their interests. Understandably, alienation of Mijikenda lands in favour of the coastal community became the dominant theme on which Mijikenda leaders capitalised to forge Mijikenda political unity