The Masai Agreement of 1904 was a treaty signed between the British East Africa Protectorate government and leaders of the Maasai tribe between 10 and 15 August 1904.
The British, hampered by a lack of money and troops, were unable to risk antagonising the Maasai who controlled their lines of communication.
With completion of the railway the British no longer feared their lines of communication being disrupted, taxation was introduced in the Protectorate providing the government with a regular source of income, and a permanent military force was instituted in 1902.
The government passed a series of controls aimed at reining in the Maasai, including forbidding cattle looting, discontinuing the policy of raising levies and issuing a strict code of conduct for punitive expeditions.
[4] For the Protectorate government and the Foreign Office in London, the most pressing issue emerging was how to recoup its huge costs from the railway construction, and to turn the territory into a sustainable profit-making entity.
[5] Eliot, and a number of other officials, regarded the White Highlands as the most suitable place for European settlement, an area long utilised by certain sections of the Maasai.
The Elburgu (Il Purko), Gekunuki (Il Keekonyokie), Loita, Damat and Laitutok sections would move to a northern reserve in Laikipia; the Kaptei, Matapatu, Ndogalani and Sigarari (all these are anglicised spellings) sections would move to a territory originally occupied by them south of Ngong and the Kisearian streams.
An area was to be reserved on the slopes of Kinangop where the Maasai could carry out circumcision rites and ceremonies and Lenana and his successors would be allowed to occupy land between Nbagathi and the confluence of the Kisearian streams.