The sweet deals that had settlers trooping into Kenya

A woman picks coffee in the ‘white highlands’ during the colonial period in the 1950s. [File, Standard]

It was Sir Charles Eliot, as Commissioner-General for the East Africa Protectorate, who dreamed of making the future East African nation a ‘white man’s country’. In doing so, he had to entice as many Britons as possible to settle in the future colony for his ideals to be realised.

But colonising Kenya was not going to be easy. There was no love lost between the British government and the population following the debacle of the Uganda Railway construction that had been labelled the ‘Lunatic Express’ in derision. They needed enticements to make a living in a patch of land few knew very little about.