# Rift Valley settlement belt: Nakuru, Naivasha, Uasin Gishu and the loaded gun

The Rift settlement belt is the loaded gun in Kenyan politics: Maasai and Nandi dispossession, Delamere, squatters, Olenguruone, settlement schemes, land-buying companies, elite title, flower farms and election violence.

*This story part of: Kenya: from the Swahili coast to the republic*
*This story continues: The White Highlands: the settler heartland and the land question*
*This story parallel: The colonial map of Kenya: neglected regions and regional inequality*
*This story continues: Kenya's post-election violence: 1992/1997 and 2007-08*
*This story part of: Land and resources*

## c. 1201 BCE — The Pastoral Neolithic in the central Rift

Before ironworking farmers arrived, herders kept cattle, sheep, and goats across the grasslands of the central Rift Valley. Louis and Mary Leakey excavated sites like Hyrax Hill and the Njoro River Cave cremation cemetery, defining the Elmenteitan tradition alongside the broader Savanna Pastoral Neolithic. Stone bowls, pottery, and burials show a settled herding world centuries before the Iron Age.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1830 — Maasai power reaches its height across the Rift

In the early and middle nineteenth century the Maa-speaking pastoralists dominated the grasslands from Laikipia south to the Ngong Hills and into what is now northern Tanzania. Their herds, mobility and warrior bands made them the strongest military force in the region. Neighbouring farming peoples paid tribute, traded on Maasai terms or kept out of the plains altogether.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1891 — The Emutai: Rinderpest, Smallpox and Famine Break the Maasai

In the early 1890s a cattle plague called rinderpest swept south through East Africa and destroyed most of the Maasai herds, followed by smallpox and famine among the people. Maasai tradition remembers this disaster as the emutai, the wiping out, a time when whole sections lost their cattle and their strength. The catastrophe left the Maasai weakened and divided just as the British arrived, and historians argue it made their later conquest and displacement far easier.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 1903 — Lord Delamere and the Pioneer Settlers

Hugh Cholmondeley, the third Baron Delamere, took up a huge lease near Njoro in 1903 and poured his fortune into experiments with sheep, cattle, and wheat until he made settler farming work. He became the leader and spokesman of a small aristocratic settler class that pictured the highlands as a white man's country. Delamere set the tone of settler politics, demanding cheap African labour, low taxes, and a permanent racial hold on the land.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 1904 — The First Maasai Agreement and Move

In 1904 the administration pressed the Maasai, through the laibon Lenana, to sign an agreement giving up the central Rift Valley grasslands and move into two reserves, one on the Laikipia plateau to the north and one to the south around Ngong and Loita. The treaty said the arrangement would last as long as the Maasai existed. Historians dispute how freely Lenana acted and whether he spoke for all the Maasai sections, but the effect was to clear prime pasture for white ranchers.

*Source: Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 19 October 1905 — Killing of Koitalel arap Samoei

Koitalel arap Samoei, the orkoiyot who led Nandi resistance, was shot dead by a party under British officer Richard Meinertzhagen, ending organised Nandi opposition. The circumstances are contested: Nandi tradition and many historians hold that he was killed treacherously during a meeting arranged under a truce, while Meinertzhagen claimed self-defence. The killing is remembered in Kenya as a colonial assassination.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 1906 — The Nandi Removed and Their Land Taken

Koitalel arap Samoei was killed on 19 October 1905 after British officer Richard Meinertzhagen lured him to a supposed peace meeting under truce and shot him at close range. With Koitalel dead, a punitive field force drove the Nandi from much of their land, seized cattle, and confined them to a reserve. Their high, fertile country was handed to white settlers and to the railway, and the Uasin Gishu plateau nearby became prime settler farmland.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Nandi resistance to British rule, 1890-1906*

*Source: The County Government of Nandi marks the 120th memorial service of Orkoiyot Koitalel Araap Samoei*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1918 — The Squatter System on the Settler Farms

Landless Kikuyu families moved onto European farms as resident labourers, or squatters, giving their labour in exchange for the right to cultivate a plot and graze a few animals. The Resident Natives Ordinance of 1918 and later laws steadily cut their land and stock rights, turning a tenancy into near-serfdom. When settlers tightened the terms in the 1930s and 1940s, evicted squatters carried their anger back to the crowded reserves, one of the roots of the Mau Mau revolt.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1920 — Western White Highlands become the Rift settler frontier

The western or Rift side of the White Highlands, including Laikipia, Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, Kericho and Trans-Nzoia, became a settler frontier of ranches, wheat, tea, maize and dairy. Its core dispossessions hit Maasai, Nandi, Kipsigis, Sabaot and other communities, while Kikuyu squatters, Akamba workers, Luo, Luhya and other labour migrants became central to the farm economy. Indians built and serviced the railway-commercial layer but were kept out of the settler land preserve by the colour bar.

*Source: Settler Capital and the Assault on the Squatter Peasantry in Kenya's Uasin Gishu District, 1942-1963*

*Source: European settlers in the Trans Nzoia district: A case study of racial domination in the Kenya white highlands, 1920-1946*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1941 — Olenguruone and the Spread of the Oath

Squatters moved to the crowded Olenguruone settlement from 1941 refused the government's farming rules and bound themselves together with a mass oath of unity, an early form of the Mau Mau oath. Their long resistance ended in eviction and prosecution around 1950, but the practice of oathing whole communities spread from there into central Kenya. Many historians trace the militant, land-centred core of Mau Mau back to the squatters of Olenguruone.

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau*

*Source: The historical process of Kikuyu movement into the Nakuru district of the Kenya white highlands: 1900-1963*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 1962 — Settlement schemes turn restitution into selection

Independence land transfer did not run on original ownership. Resettlement schemes financed by Britain, the World Bank and the Commonwealth Development Corporation expected settlers to have agricultural experience and capital, while the Million Acre schemes financed by Britain and Germany targeted families with less experience and fewer resources. The result was administrative selection: some landless families got small debt plots, qualified farmers and insiders got better openings, and many original claimants stayed outside the gate.

*Source: Land Settlement*

*Source: Kenya Land Settlement and Commonwealth Assistance*

*Source: Kenya Yearbook 2013/14*

*Source: Promised Land: Settlement Schemes in Kenya, 1962 to 2016*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 1962 — The Million Acre Scheme

The Million Acre Scheme, running from 1962 into the early 1970s, bought out departing European farmers and resettled around 35,000 African families on roughly a million acres. Some plots went to poorer smallholders, but the scheme was designed to keep large farms intact and productive and to avoid disorder, not to right the wrongs of land alienation. Because access depended on loans and cash, the better land and larger holdings tended to reach those who already had means.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1964 — Land-Buying Companies and the New Elite

To buy large former settler farms, Africans pooled money in land-buying companies and cooperatives, a model that favored those with capital, credit, and political connections. Politicians, civil servants, chiefs, and business figures, many from loyalist backgrounds, used these vehicles and their access to government to acquire prime estates. The pattern concentrated the best land in the hands of an emerging elite while ordinary members often received little or nothing.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1965 — Squatters and Veterans Left Landless

Many Mau Mau veterans and former squatters, the very people whose landlessness had driven the revolt, could not afford the loans and plots and were pushed to forests, towns, and marginal land. The unresolved land question festered, feeding later squatter movements and the ethnic land conflicts of the Rift Valley. The failure to settle the fighters and the poor on the land they had fought for is central to the case that the settlement served the propertied instead.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1966 — The land goes to the elite, not the fighters

Because the land had to be bought, the main beneficiaries are Africans who already had money and connections: civil servants, politicians, colonial-era loyalists, and home guards. Many landless squatters and Mau Mau veterans who fought for the land are left out. Scholars and Kenyan commentators have long argued that the market model settled the colonial land question in favour of a new African elite rather than the dispossessed.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 1991 — Land clashes tear the Rift Valley at the return of multiparty politics

As Kenya legalized opposition parties in 1991 and moved toward its first multiparty election in 1992, violence broke out in the Rift Valley between Kalenjin and Maasai groups and Kikuyu, Luo, Luhya, and Kisii settlers. At least a thousand people were killed and around two hundred thousand were driven from their homes. Human rights groups and later inquiries concluded the clashes were organized and encouraged by figures around the Moi government to punish opposition areas and clear land. The death toll and displacement are documented; the finding that officials instigated the violence comes from those inquiries and rights reports.

*Source: Divide and Rule: State-Sponsored Ethnic Violence in Kenya*

*Source: Failing the Internally Displaced: The UNDP Displaced Persons Program in Kenya*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## c. 1995 — The cut-flower boom around Lake Naivasha

From the 1990s Kenya became one of the world's largest exporters of cut flowers, most grown around Lake Naivasha and flown to European markets. Horticulture joined tea and coffee as a top foreign-exchange earner. It extended, rather than changed, the pattern of exporting fresh raw produce and importing finished goods.

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## August 1997 — Fresh clashes hit the coast and Rift at the 1997 election

Around the 1997 general election, deadly violence flared again, most sharply at Likoni on the coast where armed gangs attacked residents seen as up-country outsiders, and once more in parts of the Rift Valley. Dozens were killed and thousands displaced ahead of the vote. Investigators again pointed to political organization behind the attacks rather than spontaneous ethnic hatred. The killings and displacement are documented; the reading that they were engineered for electoral advantage rests on the official inquiries.

*Source: Playing with Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya*

*Source: Fort Jesus, Mombasa*

*Source: Sacred Mijikenda Kaya Forests*

*Source: Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda*

*Source: From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890-1925*

*Source: Kenya Railways: History*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

## 27 December 2007 — Disputed election triggers Kenya's post-election violence

A disputed presidential vote between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga set off two months of ethnic and political violence across Kenya. Rights groups counted more than 1,100 people killed and about 600,000 forced from their homes. The crisis exposed unresolved grievances over land, power, and inequality that stretched back to colonial and independence-era Kenya.

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence (CIPEV)*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

## January 2008 — Mungiki and paid militias become the PNU-side violence broker

Mungiki is the blunt example from the PNU/Kikuyu-elite side of the 2007-08 crisis. HRW reported allegations of Mungiki or Mungiki-style formations in Naivasha and Nakuru, with local leaders, businessmen and PNU mobilizers organizing, paying and directing attackers. Later HRW work tied the failure to prosecute Mungiki to alleged links between senior Kikuyu politicians, government officials and the gang; Uhuru Kenyatta enters this record through ICC allegations and withdrawn charges, not a domestic conviction. This is the older version of today's hired goons.

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

*Source: Turning Pebbles: Evading Accountability for Post-Election Violence in Kenya*

*Source: High Stakes: Political Violence and the 2013 Elections in Kenya*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

## January 2008 — Naivasha and Nakuru reprisals turn PEV into organized counter-violence

By late January 2008, reprisal attacks in Naivasha and Nakuru targeted Luo, Kalenjin and other communities associated with ODM. Human Rights Watch reported that these reprisals were not spontaneous revenge: PNU-linked mobilizers, local businessmen, councillors, militias and Mungiki-linked actors helped raise funds, direct youth and attack non-Kikuyu residents.

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

*Source: Turning Pebbles: Evading Accountability for Post-Election Violence in Kenya*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*

## 1 January 2008 — Kiambaa church burning becomes a symbol of the Eldoret attacks

On 1 January 2008, people sheltering at a church near Kiambaa outside Eldoret were burned and killed during the first Rift Valley wave of post-election attacks against Kikuyu and others seen as PNU supporters. The event became one of the most remembered atrocities of the 2007-08 violence, standing for the way election dispute, land grievance, local organization and ethnic targeting fused in the greater Eldoret area.

*Source: Ballots to Bullets: Organized Political Violence and Kenya's Crisis of Governance*

*Source: Origins of European Settlement in Kenya*

*Source: Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-1963*

*Source: I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya*

*Source: Politically Allocated Land Rights and the Geography of Electoral Violence: The Case of Kenya in the 1990s*

*Source: Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post Election Violence*