Africa · Independence and the modern states
British East Africa
Colonial possessions · 1961–1972
The East Africa Protectorate, commonly known as British East Africa, was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes region occupying roughly the area of present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean coast inland to the Uganda border.
- Type
- Colonial possessions
- Existed
- 1961–1972
- Shown on the map
- 1961–1972
- Peak area
- 2.7M km²
- Region
- Africa
Overview
The East Africa Protectorate, commonly known as British East Africa, was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes region occupying roughly the area of present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean coast inland to the Uganda border. Its origins lay in commercial and missionary penetration: Christian missionaries settled between Mombasa and Mount Kilimanjaro from the 1840s under the nominal protection of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, and in 1886 the British government encouraged shipowner William Mackinnon to extend British influence. His Imperial British East Africa Company, chartered in 1888, administered about 240 kilometers of coastline leased from the Sultan, within the sphere of influence recognized at the 1885 Berlin Conference.
History
When the company failed financially, the British government proclaimed a protectorate on 1 July 1895, transferring administration to the Foreign Office and, in 1902, to the Colonial Office. The Kenya–Uganda Railway opened the interior, and white settlement of the highlands began in earnest after Hugh Cholmondeley's arrival in 1897, promoted by figures such as Lord Delamere; in 1902 the protectorate's boundaries were extended to include Uganda's former Eastern Province, and in 1903 Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain briefly offered the Uasin Gishu plateau to Zionist settlers under the Uganda Scheme. The capital moved from Mombasa to Nairobi in 1905, and a governor with legislative and executive councils was established by Order in Council in 1906. Land grants to the East Africa Syndicate provoked the resignation of Commissioner Sir Charles Eliot in 1904 after a dispute with Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne, and Maasai land rights became a recurring point of contention as settler farming expanded; by 1919 the European population numbered about 9,000.
Decline and legacy
On 23 July 1920 the inland areas were annexed as the Colony of Kenya, while a 16-kilometer coastal strip remained the Protectorate of Kenya under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar. At its 1904 extent the protectorate covered some 696,400 km² with about four million inhabitants, using first the Indian rupee and then the East African rupee as currency. English was official alongside widely spoken Swahili, Kikuyu, Kamba, Luo, and other languages; Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and traditional African religions were all practiced. The protectorate's legacy — settler agriculture, the railway, and Nairobi's rise — shaped the colony and the independent Kenya that followed in 1963.
Common questions
- What was British East Africa?
- The East Africa Protectorate, commonly known as British East Africa, was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes region occupying roughly the area of present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean coast inland to the Uganda border.
- When did British East Africa exist?
- British East Africa existed 1961–1972. On this map it is drawn 1961–1972.
- How large was British East Africa?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, British East Africa covered about 2.7 million km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
- Who ruled British East Africa?
- When the company failed financially, the British government proclaimed a protectorate on 1 July 1895, transferring administration to the Foreign Office and, in 1902, to the Colonial Office.
- How did British East Africa end?
- On 23 July 1920 the inland areas were annexed as the Colony of Kenya, while a 16-kilometer coastal strip remained the Protectorate of Kenya under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar. At its 1904 extent the protectorate covered some 696,400 km² with about four million inhabitants, using first the Indian rupee and then the East African rupee as currency.
Sources
Every source below was consulted while writing this entry.
- Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Africa_Protectorate
This entry was written from the sources above and last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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