Colonial History

Coastal East Africa had once been integrated into an Indian Ocean world, connected by Islam as much as by commerce. Colonisation destroyed the slave plantations that had underlain those connections and the region was increasingly bypassed as its principle port, Mombasa, became the point at which up-country production met the world economy. The Swahili-speaking elite was unable to retain more than the facade of its former power; up-country migrants flocked to Mombasa; and former slaves and peasants found niches in the small openings the colonial economy presented. British policy cut into the flexible relations of clientage that had linked the coast and its near hinterland, turning the blurry edges of ethnic groups into sharp lines. Colonial myth created its own reality, as coastal peoples – Arabs, Swahili, Mijikenda, and up-country Africans – solidified their internal ties to compete for access to resources they no longer controlled. Even when a movement for regional autonomy erupted for a time on the eve of independence, the divisions within the coast were deeper.