Continuity and Change in Samburu Pastoralism

Colonial experience among the Samburu of north-central Kenya took various forms. On the one hand it, significantly redefined their social, economic and political domains. Initially the colonizers viewed this nomadic community as timid and endangered by their more powerful neighbours hence amenable to pax Britannica. However, as the demands on the Samburu by the alien state mounted, it brought in its wake negative consequences for their precapitalist economy. Their confinement within constricted boundaries, which took no cognizance of their transhumant patterns or the natural distribution of pastoral resources such as watering points and saltlicks, took toll on their stock wealth. Besides, the European ranchers in neighbouring Laikipia District were casting their envious eyes on the Lorroki Plateau, the only well-watered part of their arid and semi-arid district, and were putting pressure on the colonial administration to have the plateau alienated for their use. Matters were worsened by the government’s conservation decrees which introduced stock quotas, grazing schemes and the punitive destocking programme.