Eugenics in Colonial Kenya

Abstract The application of eugenics to a new environment raises questions about the individuals who served as conduits for these ideas. This article discusses eugenics as a serious preoccupation within the medical profession in Kenya. It is concerned with native development and welfare, issues that were dismissed by more politically extreme settlers for whom African welfare was a waste of resources. It states that eugenics and its application to race and intelligence took root in the Kenyan medical profession because it promised biological solutions to perceived social problems, in particular African backwardness and the shape of future African development. This article also provides an understanding of the demise of the Kenyan eugenics movement and ends with the discussion of the Kenyan eugenics movement supported by successive governors, directors of education and health, the acting chief native commissioner, as well as district commissioners.