Demoralised natives, black-coated consumers, and clean spirit: European liquor in East Africa, 1890-1955.

Abstract

In 1908 the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke in the House of Lords on the subject of new liquor legislation in the British East Africa Protectorate the territory which has since 1920 been known as Kenya. He alleged that the new law would weaken the legal restrictions on the sale of alcohol to Africans in Kenya; this, the Archbishop said, would entail 'the worst of all possible acts which could be committed by us in our dealings with the East African races the facilitating of the sale of drink to the natives'. It is by no means clear that the proposed law would have had this effect. The sale of 'intoxicating liquor' to Africans was already illegal, and the administration in British East Africa (BEA) had actually committed itself to increasing the penalties for 'the sale of intoxicating liquor to natives'. As finally passed, the new law did indeed raise considerably the punishment in terms of fine and imprisonment for a first offence of this kind; and it introduced higher penalties for subsequent convictions: two to three years' prison for a third offence. It also, for the first time, introduced a punishment of imprisonment for Africans found in possession of 'intoxicating liquor'. The Archbishop's outburst was, apparently, an ill-informed one: it may have been inspired by the agitation of missionaries in BEA, who presumably hoped that invoking the prospect that Africans might get access to liquor would assist their campaign for restrictions on licences and hours of European drinking. In this they were correct.