Kenyan independence — what prompted it

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The fertile central highlands of Kenya, reserved by British colonial law for white settlers only — Africans were legally barred from owning this land.

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Kenya became a British Crown Colony in 1920, placing land and government directly under British control and settler influence.

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Land alienation — the loss of ancestral land to settlers — was the single greatest grievance, especially for the Kikuyu people pushed off highland land.

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A pass law forcing African men to carry a registration document (kipande) with fingerprints and employment record, controlling their movement and labour.

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KAU was founded in 1944 (initially as the Kenya African Study Union), becoming Kenya's first major national African political organisation.

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Jomo Kenyatta became KAU president in 1947, giving the movement a nationally recognised, educated leader who could demand reform through legal channels.

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Around 100,000 Kenyan Africans served in British forces (mainly the King's African Rifles), fighting in Ethiopia, North Africa, and Burma.

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They fought for freedom against fascism, saw Africans win battles and hold responsibility, and met anti-colonial ideas abroad — then returned to discrimination and no land at home.

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What a source actually says or shows — the explicit and implicit information it contains about the historical question.

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The origin, purpose, time, and place of a source — who made it, why, when, and where — which shapes what it can reliably be used for.

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A settler diary gives insight into settler attitudes and daily colonial life but is one-sided; a KAU petition gives African grievances directly but is written to persuade, so both need context checks.

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Comparing how different sources (British officials, settlers, African nationalists, veterans) agree or disagree about causes, revealing the range of viewpoints on an inquiry question.