Founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta's ancestry was one of the mysteries the British people investigated during their forceful occupation of Kenya.
Mzee Kenyatta, who would become first Prime Minister and President of Kenya, was arrested in 1952 and detained in various cells among them Lodwar and Kapenguria.
Archives accessed in London by researcher and journalist Levin Opiyo indicates that the British never thought Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was a pure Kikuyu.
During that time, Kikuyu people were profiled by the colonial government following the Mau Mau uprising. The group was Kenya's pioneers in the fight for independence.
In one of the letters obtained at the National Archives in London, two colonialists seem to claim that Kenyatta was born to a Sudanese father. One of their friends also claimed Mzee Jomo was a Swahili.
Nobody knew exactly when he was born. Kenyatta himself, during his trial in 1952 on allegations of managing the Mau Mau, told the judge: “I do not know when I was born, what date, what month, or what year — but I think I am over 50.
”I wrote to a good friend of mine in Kenya who knows a great deal about natives and said that from photographs, he did not think Jomo Kenyatta was a Kikuyu. He replied assuredly that he was not a pure Kikuyu," the letter says.
"It's thought that his father was a Swahili. His mother was obviously a Kikuyu. My own assumption is that he's one of sons of numerous Sudanese who live around Nairobi."
Official records indicate that Mzee Kenyatta was born to a Muigai and Wambui of Ngenda village in Kiambu about 1889. When his father died, his mother was inherited by Ngengi, a brother to Muigai.
This explains why he changed his name from Kamau wa Muigai to Kamau wa Ngengi. There are also claims that the family has roots in Maasai land.
Mzee Kenyatta died in 1978 and despite his fierce politics, the British would later embrace him due to his capitalism approach to the economy.
They however had doubts in Kenyatta's deputy Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, who they accused of being a communist. Jaramogi was a close friend of Russians.
The claim by colonialists is corroborated by a section of Mijikenda Elders who recently claimed that Mzee Kenyatta was a Digo.