strategies applied by British to colonise the country

Place names, together with different city symbols, had been used as a software of management over area in lots of African nations through the colonial interval. This technique was epitomised by the British, who utilized it in Nairobi and different components of Kenya from the late 1800s.

Only a few African names had been used on the city panorama. This was a technique to actively alienate the native Africans, who had little or no say within the metropolis’s affairs. Spatially, colonial road names dominated the central a part of the town, whereas African names had been used primarily within the peripheral residential neighbourhoods.

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Inhabitants in Kenya was composed of three teams

In early colonial Nairobi, the inhabitants was composed primarily of three teams: British, Asians and indigenous Africans. Africans shaped the majority of the inhabitants. However they had been the least represented, socially, economically and politically. In keeping with the 1948 Nairobi Grasp Plan for a Colonial Capital, the British had been the smallest inhabitants – the town had 642,000 Africans in comparison with 10,400 Europeans in 1944 for example – however they held the political and financial energy, and so they utilized it vigorously in shaping the id of the town.

This was mirrored within the naming of streets and locations and spatial organisation of the newly based metropolis with little consideration of its pre-colonial standing. Streets, buildings and different areas resembling parks had been predominantly named after the British monarchy, colonial directors, settler farmers and businessmen, in addition to outstanding Asian personalities.

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The spatial organisation resulted in segregation, as noticed in the usage of phrases resembling European Bazaar, Subordinates’ Quarters, Coolie Landhies (a time period used pejoratively) and Indian Bazaar. These phrases had been initially used to conceptualise area divisions. However they regularly turned correct nouns that represented precise place names.

The purpose of this analysis, co-authored with Frederic Giraut, a professor on the College of Geneva, was to analyse the alternative ways during which the British colonial authorities intentionally constructed and imprinted their totally different city symbols, together with monuments and names, on the panorama of Nairobi. Our research concluded that the naming of streets, locations and landmarks was used to indicate the political, ideological and ethnic dominance of the British. Avenue names, specifically, had been an essential a part of the city nomenclature and place identification system. They had been additionally symbols of the social and political organisation of the town.

I’ve chosen 4 examples for example how this performed out in actuality.

Avenue numbering of railway depot and campsite

The railway line between Kenya’s Mombasa port and Uganda was constructed by migrant Indian labourers, identified then as coolies. In mid-1899 it reached Nairobi, right now a swampy space utilized by the Maasai to graze their cattle. It was recognized as a beneficial website for a brief railway depot. Nevertheless, it quickly turned a everlasting settlement, with the development of the railway station and residential quarters for railway officers, subordinate employees and Indian labourers (who resided in Coolie Landhies). There was a particular separation of residential quarters based mostly on rank, service and race.

Within the 1899 Uganda Railway Plan for Employees Quarters obtained from the Nairobi Railway Museum, the one roads with precise names had been Station and Workshop roads. The others had been both numbered streets or avenues. The road numbering pointed to the performance of the railway campsite.

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A Declare to metropolis pioneers

These recognised because the “true pioneers” in colonial Nairobi had been British directors, settler farmers and businessmen, in addition to railway personnel. The highest colonial administrator in Kenya was often called a commissioner which was later changed by the title governor. The primary British administrator was Arthur Henry Hardinge, between 1895 and 1900. Thirty governors or performing governors adopted till independence in 1963. Streets and parks had been named after these and different British directors, settlers and officers. Outstanding settlers embrace Lord Delamere and Karen Blixen.

Sir Phillip Mitchell was the governor on the top of Kenya’s anti-colonial resistance. His time period resulted in 1952, the yr a state of emergency was declared in Kenya. Mitchell Park alongside Ngong Highway was named in his honour through the colonial interval. It has since been renamed Jamhuri Park. Streets named after different “pioneers” included Sadler (now Koinange Avenue), Elliot (now Wabera Avenue) and Hardinge (now Kimathi Avenue).

Africans had been relegated to mere handbook labour and short-term residence within the metropolis. The pioneers amongst them weren’t honoured. Folks resembling Eliud Mathu (the primary African member of the Legislative Council), Argwings Kodhek (Kenya’s first African lawyer), Harry Thuku (a outstanding political activist) and Tom Mboya (who lobbied for African employees’ rights), amongst others, had been solely honoured by means of road and place names after independence.

Avenue names to honour the British political order

Visits to the Kenyan colony by members of the British royal household had been much-anticipated occasions. The primary such go to was by the Duke of Connaught and his household. Later, a road was named Connaught Highway of their honour. This led to the renaming of many streets after royals, for instance, Princess Elizabeth Means, Victoria Avenue, Kingsway and Queensway in Nairobi. As proven within the 1960 topo cadastral map of Nairobi, colonial road names dominated and had been complemented by colonial statues and monuments, such because the statue of King George and Queen Victoria.

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Laragh Larsen, a geographer, highlights the linkage between royal energy, and political and financial energy within the “re-placing” of city symbols. She provides the instance of the revealing of British monarch Queen Victoria’s monument. This occasion was held in Jeevanjee Park, which was named as such after outstanding Indian businessman Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee. It was Jevanjee who donated the monument in allegiance to the British colonial authorities and the monarchy.

Place names to recreate a ‘British house’

A serious impetus of the colonial officers for naming locations in Nairobi was to create a house away from house. That is evidenced by the naming of streets after cities, villages and areas within the UK. A few of these names have endured on the city panorama of Nairobi: Hurlingham, Lavington, Riverside, Spring Valley, Westlands, Parklands and Highridge, amongst others. It’s clear that the recreation of a British spatial idyll was for the consolation of the colonial officers who appeared to not really feel at house with native or indigenous place names, or simply used their energy to call locations which they thought of “unnamed”.