Colonialism in Kenya lasted roughly 68 years, from the end of the 19th century until Kenya's independence from Great Britain in 1963.

Africa's precapitalist forms of production were subjected to a historic break in their autonomous development; in the terminology of the time they were literally 'opened up'.

They became part-economies, externally orientated to suit the dynamic of a capitalism which had been imposed upon them from outside... East Africa's pre-colonial relations with the global economy had been based too exclusively on the production of two rapidly wasting assets, slaves and ivory.

In the inland area which became the hub of Kenya there had barely been an exportable surplus at all when, suddenly, in the first decade of the twentieth century, production was intensified beyond all previous experience by the demands of colonial rule and, concurrently, by the opportunities of the commodity boom.

The economy is general were created by the political and capital investments with which the imperial powers competed for preferential access to markets and resources.