East Africa Protectorate East Africa Protectorate ( also known as British East Africa ) was an area of East Africa occupying roughly the same terrain as present - day Kenya ( approximately 246 , 800 mi² / 639 , 209 km² ) from the Indian Ocean inland to Uganda and the Great Rift Valley . It was controlled by Britain in the late 19th century ; it grew out of British commercial interests in the area in the 1880s and remained a protectorate until 1920 when it became the colony of Kenya . Administration . European missionaries began settling in the area from Mombasa to Mount Kilimanjaro in the 1840s , nominally under the protection of the Sultan of Zanzibar . In 1886 the British government encouraged William Mackinnon , who already had an agreement with the Sultan and whose shipping company traded extensively in East Africa , to establish British influence in the region . He formed a British East Africa Association which led to the Imperial British East Africa Company being chartered in 1888 and given the original grant to administer the dependency . It administered about of coastline stretching from the River Tana via Mombasa to German East Africa which were leased from the Sultan . The British " sphere of influence " , agreed at the Berlin Conference of 1885 , extended up the coast and inland across the future Kenya and after 1890 included Uganda as well . Mombasa was the administrative centre at this time . However , the company began to fail , and on 1 July 1895 the British government proclaimed a protectorate , the administration being transferred to the Foreign Office . In 1902 administration was again transferred to the Colonial Office and the Uganda territory was incorporated as part of the protectorate also . In 1902 , the East Africa Syndicate received a grant of in order to promote white settlement in the Highlands . The capital was shifted from Mombasa to Nairobi in 1905 and in 1906 an order in council constituted the administrator a governor and provided for legislative and executive councils . Lieutenant Colonel J . Hayes Sadler was the first governor and commander in chief . On 23 July 1920 the protectorate became the Kenya Colony . Development . After 1896 , immigrants from India came to the area as money lenders , traders , and artisans . Racial segregation was normalized , with the European s assigning the Highlands to themselves . Other restrictions included commercial and residential segregation in the towns , and restrictions on Indian immigration . Nevertheless , the Indians rapidly grew to outnumber the Europeans by more than two to one by 1919 . India was a crown colony whose citizens enjoyed certain privileges but it was unclear whether the Indians in East Africa were to be recognized as citizens of the British Empire or as a subject race . In April 1902 , the first application for land in British East Africa was made by the East Africa Syndicate - a company in which financiers belonging to the British South Africa Company were interested - which sought a grant of 5 , 382 square feet ( 500 m² ) . , and this was followed by other applications for considerable areas , including a large Jewish settlement . In April 1903 , Major Frederick Russell Burnham , the famous American scout and then a Director of the East African Syndicate , sent an expedition consisting of John Weston Brooke , John Charles Blick , Mr . Bittlebank and Mr . Brown , to assess the mineral wealth of the region . The party , known as the " Four B . ' s " , travelled from Nairobi via Mount Elgon northwards to the western shores of Lake Rudolph , experiencing plenty of privations from want of water , and of the danger from encounters with the Maasai . With the arrival in 1903 of hundreds of prospective settlers , chiefly from South Africa , questions were raised concerning the preservation for the Maasai of their rights of pasturage , and the decision was made to entertain no more applications for large areas of land . In the carrying out of this policy of colonisation a dispute arose between Sir Charles Eliot , then Commissioner of British East Africa and Lord Lansdowne , the British Foreign Secretary . Lansdowne , believing himself bound by pledges given to the East Africa Syndicate , decided that they should be granted the lease of the 500 mi² . they had applied for ; but after consulting officials of the protectorate then in London , he refused Eliot permission to conclude leases for 50 mi² . each to two applicants from South Africa . Eliot thereupon resigned his post , and in a public telegram to the Prime Minister , dated Mombasa , the 21st of June , 1904 , gave as his reason : - " " Lord Lansdowne ordered me to refuse grants of land to certain . private persons while giving a monopoly of land on unduly advantageous terms to the East Africa Syndicate . I have refused to execute these instructions , which I consider unjust and impolitic . " " On the day Sir Charles sent this telegram the appointment of Sir Donald William Stewart , the chief commissioner of Ashanti ( Ghana ) , to succeed him was announced . Stamps and postal history of British East Africa . The territory had its own mail system during the 1890s ; see Postage stamps and postal history of British East Africa for further details .