ABSTRACT
The name Nandi was first mentioned by Krapf1 in 1854, and first put on a map by Stanley.2 The Swahili traders had for some time previous to this (how long is not known) passed through their country on the way to Lake Victoria; the first European, a trader, made his appearance shortly before 1896. This man provoked the Nandi by aggressive actions, and as a result the British Government set up a post at Kipture, 4£ miles east of Kapsabet, in 1896. During the next nine years five military expeditions were made against the Nandi, culminating in the war of 1905, which resulted in the pacification of the Nandi, the inclusion of the greater part of their territory in a Reserve (Native Land Unit), and the establishment of administrative headquarters first at Kaptumo and later, in 1907, at Kapsabet. The Church Missionary Society opened a station at Chepesas in South-West Nandi in 1909 but closed it in 1912; and in 1914 the Africa Inland Mission took over this station, which they left in 1925 for Namgoiya near Kapsabet. In 1925 a Government school was started at Kapsabet; and in 1936 the Roman Catholic (Mill Hill) Mission opened a station at Chepterit. European settlement on the Uasin Gishu Plateau to the east of Nandi began in 1905, and after the war of 1905 the land southeast of the Reserve (Nandi territory not included in the Reserve) was surveyed into farms. In 1919-20 parts of the Kipkaren Valley and Kaimosi were excised from the Reserve and made into farms, for which the Nandi were paid compensation.
