On 1 July 1895, the British government formally declared the East Africa Protectorate, taking over from the bankrupt Imperial British East Africa Company. A line on a map became law. Communities that had governed themselves for generations suddenly found themselves subjects of a distant Crown they had never acknowledged. Land that had been communally held for centuries was declared available for white settlement. The process was not loud or dramatic. It was administrative, paperwork signed in London offices. But its consequences would be catastrophic for millions of Kenyans.