The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family by Peter Firstbrook

Author:Peter Firstbrook
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Reference, Genealogy & Heraldry, Presidents & Heads of State
ISBN: 9781848092723
Publisher: Preface Publishing
Published: 2010-07-15T10:00:00+00:00

By 1926, twenty-two thousand Africans in the protectorate were working in domestic service—about one in every seven gainfully employed men.22 In an attempt to monitor this sector, the colonial authorities introduced a system of worker registration after the Great War, issuing to Onyango and others like him a small red book. On its cover was the title DOMESTIC SERVANT’S POCKET REGISTER, followed in smaller type by: ISSUED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE REGISTRATION OF DOMESTIC SERVANT’S ORDINANCE, 1928, COLONY AND PROTECTORATE OF KENYA. During his first visit to Kenya in 1987, Barack Obama junior’s half sister Auma showed him Onyango’s registration document, which Sarah keeps in her hut in K’ogelo.23 Onyango’s booklet is faded now and the spine is broken, but the contents provide a fascinating glimpse of Onyango’s life at the time.

Inside the cover are Onyango’s two thumbprints—a standard identification mark at the time, even though Onyango could sign his own name as well as read and write English proficiently. The introduction inside the document explains its purpose:

The object of this Ordinance is to provide every person employed in a domestic capacity with a record of such employment, and to safeguard his or her interests as well as to protect employers against the employment of persons who have rendered themselves unsuitable for such work.

The term servant was defined as “cook, house servant, waiter, butler, nurse, valet, bar boy, footman, or chauffeur, or washermen.”

The British took their official documents very seriously, and anyone found defacing the booklet was “liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred shillings or imprisonment not exceeding six months or both.” The fine was more than a month’s earnings for a Kenyan house servant.

Further into the book are Onyango’s full registration details:

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