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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Northey forced labor crisis, 1920-1921: a symptomatic reading |
Author: | Okia, Opolot |
Year: | 2008 |
Periodical: | International Journal of African Historical Studies |
Volume: | 41 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 263-293 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Kenya |
Subjects: | forced labour colonial policy labour policy 1920-1929 |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/40282490 |
Abstract: | In 1920 the issue of forced labour in colonial Kenya erupted into a public controversy among various humanitarian groups in London. At issue was a labour circular that was written in 1919 by the governor of the East Africa Protectorate, Sir Edward Northey. This infamous labour circular explicitly stated that 'All government officials in charge of native areas must exercise every possible lawful influence to induce able-bodied male natives to go into the labour field'. Although the wording was seemingly innocuous, the emphasis on pushing Africans into the labour market hinted at State coercion of African labour for private European interests. A later dispatch by Secretary of State Winston Churchill, in 1921, forbade forced labour for private individuals, but the State continued to extract communal forced labour from African peasants under the ark of customary law. Ultimately, the Northey circular controversy represented more than just a labour crisis. It was the embodiment of a struggle over competing ideas about African development in Kenya Colony. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |