When former US President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) came to virgin East Africa for the very first time in 1909 on a private and extensive hunting safari across Kenya and Uganda, he was also welcomed by a regiment of Sikh guards employed by the British colonialists to police their colony.
The 26th President (1901-1909) of the United States Col. Theodore Roosevelt was also visiting to evaluate the great fight of science with sleeping sickness and bubonic plague in the East Africa region.
When visiting the Kenya Colony, Roosevelt stayed at The Norfolk on his six-month long ‘African Safari and Scientific Expedition’ (1909-10) and conducted a hunting trip that is still considered the most lavish in Kenyan history. Back then, Nairobi barely existed, having been founded in 1899 as a rail depot on the new line between the East African port city of Mombasa and Kisumu on the shore of Lake Victoria.
Sikh troops had been deployed in East and Central Africa since the mid 1800s by the British as the Sikhs were acknowledged to be exceptionally brave and carefree daring in the thick of war in remote and hostile territories, remaining loyal to their last breath to who they chose to live and die for – an elixir of their very courage that comes from the warrior-saint tradition of Sikhi.
