By the end of the First World War, the squatter system had become an established part of the socio-economic structure of European farms and plantations in Kenya, with Kikuyu squatters comprising the majority of agricultural workers on settler plantations. This study shows how, contrary to settler and colonial government intentions, the squatter phenomenon was created as a response to the difficulties of settlers in securing labour power and of Africans in gaining access to arable and grazing land.

To some extent, the squatters did meet the settlers’ labour needs, but on terms other than those preferred by the settlers. The squatters, trying to cope as best they could with pressures from their own society, which were intensified by land alienation and labour extraction by the chiefs, exploited the weaknesses and dependence of the settler economy to turn themselves precisely into the kind of independent community the settlers and government feared. The squatter and settler communities thus created two incompatible systems. This dichotomy reached successive crises during the kifagio period (when the squatters lost their livestock) and in the Mau Mau rebellion.

The development and success of the European settler plantation agriculture as the basis of Kenya's economy depended heavily on the availability of land, labour and capital. In a series of excisions, the government alienated about 7 million acres of land, including some of the most fertile in Kenya. This land comprised what came to be known as the White Highlands, or the Settled Areas, which were set aside for exclusive European agriculture.

As well as access to land, the settlers needed a cheap and abundant supply of labour. It was intended that Africans should be farm-workers on settler farms. The government proceeded to impose various legislative and financial measures to force Africans into the labour market. These measures included the introduction of the Hut and PollTaxes (1901 and 1910 respectively), the alienation of African lands and the discouragement of African cash crops, especially in areas bordering the White Highlands. These would ensure that Africans were unable to become self-sufficient and would have to seek wage employment to meet their cash needs. For a period, the government even procured forced labour.