Africa
Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
For hundreds of years Kenya's coastal regions have been staging posts for different peoples and cultures, especially the Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula who came to trade and ultimately settle.
The Arab grip on the economy was temporarily lost to the Portuguese who fought the Arabs in a series of naval bombardments and street battles between the 15th to 17th Centuries. However, with the Portuguese colonies stretching as far India, maintaining a forceful presence was a constant struggle and the Arabs wrestled back control of this coastal area.
The Sultans of Oman then enjoyed a period of stability and economic expansion until the European colonialists, namely Britain and Germany, started to take an interest in the area. The Omani Sultan moved his power base to Zanzibar in 1832 and the British had made the coastal region a Protectorate by the end of the 19th Century.
Meanwhile a number of European explorers arrived to explore the interior which became famous for its proud and fierce warrior tribes, in particular the Masai. After the construction of the famous 'Lunatic Express' railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria the British based their colonial headquarters in Nairobi and so began the white settlement of the rich, fertile highlands.
As more and more European farmers moved in, especially after the two World Wars when land to war veterans was offered cheaply, the Masai and Kikuyu tribes in particular felt more pressurized and a wave of nationalism grew, eventually leading to the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950's. The inevitable outcome was a growing desire for a democratically elected African government and in the May 1963 general elections, Jomo Kenyatta became President and independence followed a few months later in December 1963. Kenya has subsequently become a stable country with coffee, tea, horticulture and tourism representing its key foreign exchange earners.
