International Journal of African Historical Studies Vol. 45, No. 1 (2012) 29 Copyright © 2012 by the Board of Trustees of Boston University. Spare the Rod, Spoil the Colony: Corporal Punishment, Colonial Violence, and Generational Authority in Kenya, 1897–1952 * By Paul Ocobock University of Notre Dame (pocobock@nd.edu) Corporal punishment, the infliction of physical pain and injury on an individual believed to have committed wrongdoing, was commonplace throughout Kenya’s colonial encounter. European settlers bruised houseboys and harvesters with steel-toed boots to instill a sense of station in Kenya’s racial hierarchy. Schoolteachers “broke” pupils’ backs to mold their minds. African chiefs conducted forced labor to the cadence of the kiboko (whip or cane) urging young men to dig roads faster and carry goods farther. 1 African fathers raised walking sticks to correct absent-minded herdsboys. Colonial magistrates sentenced thousands of young Africans to caning for crimes ranging from bicycle theft to breach of contract. Today, the citizens of an independent Kenya continue to wrestle with the decision to spank mischievous sons and beat restless schoolboys. 2 In Kenya and elsewhere in Africa, as Africans came into increasing contact with Europeans, the diversity of individuals and institutions laying claim to this form of violence expanded. Colonial governments relied on corporal punishment to broadcast their authority, often through military barracks, schools, courts, and penal institutions. 3 Colonial courts were especially devoted to physical violence as a method of discipline and alternative to imprisonment, fines, or other forms of punishment. 4 Courts in most British African colonies, from native courts in Northern Nigeria and Uganda to magistrate courts * An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2008 African Studies Association Conference. I would like to thank Brett Shadle and Matthew Carotenuto for inviting me to participate in the panel. Special thanks go to Robert Tignor, Emmanuel Kreike, Richard Waller, Emily Osborn, Daniel Branch, and Catherine Bolten for commenting on early drafts of this article. 1 Kiboko is the Kiswahili term for hippopotamus but it came to refer to whips often made of hippopotamus hide. Later, kiboko became synonymous with instruments of corporal punishment whether rattan cane used by the colonial state, sticks used by schoolteachers, or switches used by fathers. 2 Sammy Cheboi, “Ban on Students’ Expulsions Reduces Discipline Options,” Daily Nation, 19 May 2009; Dorothy Kweyu, “The Corporal Punishment Dilemma,” The Daily Nation, 9 June 2009. 3 David Killingray, “The ‘Rod of Empire’: The Debate over Corporal Punishment in the British African Colonial Forces, 1888–1946,” Journal of African History 35, 2 (1994), 204–205; Marie-Benedicte Dembour, “La Chicote comme Symbole due Colonialisme Belge?” Canadian Journal of African Studies 26 (1992), 205–223. 4 David Killingray, “Punishment to Fit the Crime? Penal Policy and Practice in British Colonial Africa,” in Florence Bernault, ed., A History of Prison and Confinement in Africa (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003), 107–108.