ABSTRACT

By the 1920s, Kenyans had begun to organize political resistance to the Europeans. The most prominent of these groups was the Young Kikuyu Association (YKA), founded in 1921. The Kikuyu, making up 25 percent of the population, were Kenya’s largest ethnic group and lived directly adjacent to the area of greatest English colonization. Living next door to Nairobi gave them opportunities for education that raised their level of political sophistication. Living beside the English also meant that the Kikuyu were the group most likely to suffer from settler arrogance, land grabbing, or attempts at imposing forced labor.