# Kamba Caravans Link the Highlands to Mombasa (c. 1750-1850)

URL: https://allhistories.com/kenya/timeline/1800-kamba-caravans-link-the-highlands-to-mombasa
Location: Machakos and Kitui, Kenya
Themes: main-event

From the late eighteenth century the Akamba of the Machakos and Kitui hills became the leading long-distance traders of the Kenyan interior. They carried ivory, rhinoceros horn, beeswax and iron goods to Mombasa and Malindi and brought back cloth, beads and wire. Kamba caravans, led by figures such as Kivoi in the 1840s, reached from Lake Victoria to Mount Kenya, and Kamba hunters were famed for their skill. The trade connected the highlands to the Indian Ocean economy just as demand for East African ivory was rising in India and Europe. It gave Kamba leaders wealth and prestige but also exposed them to famine, slave raiding and conflict with Maasai and Kikuyu. Later in the century Swahili and Arab caravans competed with them, and colonial administrators tried to control their routes. No single named ruler governed the lands of present-day Kenya at this date. The period is represented in the rulers file by the placeholder entry 'Cushitic, Nilotic and Bantu communities, Swahili city-states and chiefdoms', so the event belongs to the history of foraging, herding and farming societies, coastal city-states and chiefdoms and not of a documented head of state. Kamba trade created the first commercial route from the coast to central Kenya, later used by explorers, missionaries and imperial agents. Kamba prominence in trade also explains why many Kamba later served in colonial armies and why their towns, such as Machakos, became early inland centres of administration.

## Why it matters
Kamba caravans opened the first commercial route from the coast to central Kenya.

Ruler at the Time: [Cushitic, Nilotic and Bantu communities, Swahili city-states and chiefdoms](https://allhistories.com/kenya/rulers/cushitic-nilotic-and-bantu-communities-swahili-city-states-and-chiefdoms)

## Sources
- [Kamba people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamba_people)
- [Machakos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machakos)
- [History of Kenya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kenya)