The conquest of the abagusii 1900-1914

Abstract

This thesis proposes to describe the significant and preliminary encounters between the Kisii and British in the highlands of South Nyanza between 1900 and 19.1,4'. It presents this time as a period when the indigenous people and a foreign power struggled for control in that little piece of Africa, each resisting the other as it was best equipped to do, until one emerged sovereign. The introductory chapter identifies the Kisii as a Bantu-speaking people with little tribal superstructure. Ravaged by war and pestilence they immigrated to the highlands of South Nyanza which they claimed and defended as their homeland before 1900. 1he British, led by military forerunners, are treated as aggressors, the representatives of an alien rule. They probed the African interior for commercial gain, regardless of African opposition