In 1884-85, 14 nations, primarily European powers, signed the Berlin Act. The act claimed specific areas in Africa for each nation, ensuring that they could exploit the territories, indigenous peoples, and mineral resources without conflict from rival colonial nations. The decisions about which areas fell under the control of which foreign powers occurred irrespective of the indigenous population of the continent.

Along the eastern coastal area of Africa in the Great Lakes area, Britain claimed a region called British East Africa or the East African Protectorate. This area was bordered by the Indian Ocean in the east, Somalia in the north, Uganda in the west, and Tanzania in the south. It was about 250,000 square miles, or roughly half the size of the US eastern seaboard. Britain’s occupation of this area was more economically than militarily based, although as Markham points out, the British kept a garrison of soldiers in Nairobi in case conflict with indigenous peoples developed.

In 1920, after World War I, Britain changed the name of the territory to the Colony of Kenya. Along with an indigenous population of a little more than 2.5 million people, there were around 9,000 white settlers in Kenya, including the Clutterbucks.