By 1920 the British had established most of the inland area of Kenya as an official crown colony; the coastal area remained in the control of the sultan of Zanzibar.
The British were intent on constructing a means of transportation, the Uganda Railroad, from the sea westward to the shores of Lake Victoria so that they could control the headwaters of the Nile River and assure their interests in northern Africa. But the railroad, finished in 1901 at the cost of รข6 million, turned out to be an expensive proposition. In order to pay for it, the government figured that settling the lands around the railroad would help raise the necessary cash. They planned to sell large tracts of land to European settlers. The settlers didn't have to be British; it was their money the government was interested in, not their nationality. But Africa seemed too far away to many Europeans and too risky. The British government had a difficult time convincing settlers to begin new lives as African landowners.
Britain first offered to help establish a Finnish settlement there, an offer that the Finns rejected in 1902.
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