The New York Times - December 15, 2013
The Kamba people of Kenya claim they were warned about the evils of
colonialism long before the first colonialist arrived. The legend goes
that the prophet Syokimau, back in the early 19th century, told her
people of “a long narrow snake spitting fire” that would make its way up
from the East African Coast, bringing with it “red people” who would
take away their land. She was right; it was the railroads more than
anything else that enabled European colonialists to exploit Kenya’s
people and extract its wealth during the first half of the 20th century.
The 1,000-kilometer track stretching from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to
Uganda was Britain’s most ambitious project in Sub-Saharan Africa. The
railroad, begun in 1895, was famously disrupted by the so-called man
eaters of the Tsavo, two lions that stalked and attacked construction
workers. More than 130 people are said to have been killed — the exact
number is uncertain — before the animals were finally hunted down.
Within the next five years the railroad was completed and the way opened
to British domination of the region.
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