Kenya

• Kikuyu Political Blocs: Conservatives (Gradualist reform)

  • Stood for the interests of the old aristocracy and tribal chiefs, landlords, Christian converts
  • Collaborated with the British and controlled patronage
  • Form the Loyal Kikuyu Patriots
• Kikuyu Political Blocs: Moderates (Constitutional change and elective representation)


  • Western, educated – epitomised by Kenyatta who had been educated at LSE
  • Resented the conservative chiefs who restricted moderates’ access to power and authority under the British
  • Increasingly seek to advance themselves by breaking free of British rule, although by constitutional means
  • Kenyatta becomes leader of the moderate political party – the Kenya African Union – in 1947
  • Not that much support as most Kenyans are not western and educated.
• Kikuyu Political Blocs: Militants


  • Stand for those being excluded by socio-economic changes
  • Leads them to oppose British colonial rule AND conservative chiefs: they see chiefs as betrayers of Kikuyu values of solidarity
  • Tend to be poorer and less established, younger
  • Base of support in trade unionism
  • These people would form Mau Mau
  • Concentrated in the trade unions in Nairobi
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues

  From 1901, European settlers had simply taken land that they wanted in Kenya, even though the Kenyan concept of githaka (ancestral ownership) led Kenyans to believe this was theirs.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues


  By 1905, nearly 3,000 settlers had landed by ship in Mombassa, prepared to build their life in Kenya
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues

  They acquired states of enormous sizes. Lord Delamere owned the largest, receiving some 100,000 acres in 1903 and acquiring another 60,000 acres a few years later.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues

  This was formalised in the 1915 Crown Land Ordinance, which divided up land by race – the whites were granted the most fertile land, the so-called ‘White Highlands’ and the Kikuyu were limited to their own reservations.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues


  By 1920, more than 25,000 British colonists, mostly farmers, had relocated to Kenya. In order to make space for the incoming colonists, British forces removed more than 1 million Kenyans from their homes and stripped them of their lands.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues

  The 1932 Land Commission rejected Kikuyu claims that 60,000 acres of white land be returned to Kikuyus.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues

  The colonial government established African reserves, which were defined rural areas where each African ethnic group was expected to live separately. With insufficient land in their reserves many Africans had little choice but to migrate to the European farms in search of work: before WWII, 1 in 8 Kikuyu were ‘squatters’ or tenants on white land.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues

  By 1948 1.25 million Kikuyu were restricted to landholding in 2,000 square miles of tribal lands, while 30,000 settlers occupied 12,000 square miles, including most of the land worth cultivating.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Land issues

  100,000 Kikuyu were forcibly evicted between 1946 and 1952.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Economic issues

  After the British arrival, thousands of the Kikuyu left for the White Highlands. In return for labouring for the European owner for 1/3 of a year, they could cultivate a plot of land, graze their cattle and goats, and raise their children. In 1918 the British introduced the Resident Native Labour Ordinances. This reduced squatter wealth by limiting the amount of cattle they could own and size of their tenant farms, whilst increasing the number of days Africans were required to work for their settler landlords.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Economic issues


  Africans were forbidden from growing the most profitable cash crops such as tea, coffee, and sisal. The Native Grown Coffee Rules of 1934 set regulations which meant no Kenyan could grow coffee unless he had been granted a permit.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Economic issues

  Though they could freely grow and sell maize, marketing boards were established after WWII that required Africans to sell their grain at a set price.

  The Kikuyu would earn on average only a fifth of the payment which white workers would earn for the same amount of work.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Economic issues

  80,000 Africans lived in the squalid slums of eastern Nairobi. This population was poor, usually supporting itself through organised crime, and highly unionised. This alarmed the moderates: Kenyatta and the KAU frequently made public statements distancing themselves from the

  unions. Therefore, when a general strike called by the East African Trade Union Congress in May 1950 was brutally suppressed by British authorities, angry Kikuyu turned to militant union leaders such as Fred Kubai.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Political representation

  Africans formed organisations that campaigned for greater land rights for the indigenous inhabitants. This included the East African Association (EAA), formed in 1921 but banned the following year.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Political representation

  In 1944 Kenya became the first East African territory to include an African on its Legislative Council. The number was increased to two in 1946, four in 1948, and eight in 1951, although all were appointed by the governor from a list of names submitted by local governments. This, however, did not satisfy African demands for political equality
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Political representation

  5 million Africans lived in Kenya in 1945, compared to 97,000 Asians and 29,000 Europeans. By 1951, the constitution fundamentally served European interests: the Legislative Council was made up of 11 elected white settlers but only 4 Africans, who were not elected but chosen by the European government.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Political representation

  A group of KAU activists – known as the Kiambaa Parliament – met regularly to discuss strategies of opposition to British rule and leading Kenyan resistance. However, increased white immigration after World War II – leading to white settler confidence that Kenya could become a ‘New Australia’ – made African political advance seem unlikely.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Social tensions

  From the early twentieth century, European missionaries began to establish themselves in Kenya. The education provided by these organisations led to the emergence of young, educated Kenyans who challenged traditional tribal rule. The missionaries campaigned against traditional Kikuyu practices they found repugnant – an aim that alienated the new breed of moderate Kikuyus.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Social tensions

  When the missionaries launched a campaign against female circumcision during the 1930s, the moderates campaigned against them. Crucially, they broke the missionaries’ monopoly on education, meaning that education was now controlled by the moderates, in the form of the Kikuyu Independent Schools Association.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Social tensions

  Class differences within the Kikuyu community exacerbated. The well-heeled, mission-educated, land-owning elite emerged as a 'nationalist' force (represented by Jomo Kenyatta). It was paralleled by the rise of a much more turbulent, working-class, semi unionised movement which was the product of land alienation and rapid urbanisation (chiefly in Nairobi and Mombasa)
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: Social tensions

  Introduced to Kenya in 1921, every male Kenyan had to get registered, finger printed, and issued with a certificate called a Kipande. Upon request any African male should be able to pull out his Kipande to show the official. The Kipande was used to monitor the movement of Africans

  along with to prevent African laborers from escaping unwanted employment.
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: WW2

  75,000 Kenyans fought in World War II. These men returned to Kenya with high expectations and wartime savings ready to invest. However, they found each opportunity blocked off by conservative chiefs who wanted to save all political and economic opportunities for themselves and their allies. War veterans therefore turned to crime and militant politics in order to get ahead
• Causes for militant nationalism/rebellion: WW2

  As one member of the criminal gang The Forty Group commented: “We felt that the KAU was going too slow and that the only way to change things was through violence.”
• Nature of Mau Mau: Looming Rebellion

  Oathing was central to Kikuyu culture. By 1950, Kikuyu militants were using a new oath – the ‘Killing Oath’ – which pledged its takers to rid Kenya of Europeans and, crucially, to kill Africans who stood in the way. Those taking the oath were often told that by doing so they would be entitled to land on their farm when the Europeans were thrown out of Kenya.
• Nature of Mau Mau: Looming Rebellion

  On 4th April 1952, Governor Baring approved the Collective Punishment Ordinance, giving local officials authority to punish whole villages for the Mau Mau’s acts. British officials regularly confiscated the whole population’s cattle and imposed fines on the whole population. In Nairobi, the meat market – Burma Market – was burnt down to punish the Kikuyu population.
• Nature of Mau Mau: Looming Rebellion

  In September 1952, Joseph Kabunja and his wife refused to take the Mau Mau oath. Kabunja was beaten and then throttled to death with a rope. Twelve days later, the Mau Mau forced other members of his village to dig up his body and hack it to pieces. They were then forced to rub his bloody flesh on their bodies. The Mau Mau wanted to show there were bloody consequences for not joining their movement
• Nature of Mau Mau: Looming Rebellion

  9th October: Senior Chief Waruhiu was stopped the police whilst being driven in his car. The Mau Mau adherents, masquerading as policemen, stopped his car, shot his in the mouth and then three times in the torso before shooting the cares tires and escaping.
• Nature of Mau Mau: State of Emergency/ British Response

  20th October: A State of Emergency is declared in Kenya by the Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring. 12 aircrafts carrying the first contingent of British ground troops landed at Nairobi’s Eastleigh airfield. The soldiers drove their military vehicles through the streets of the capital to reassure the local Europeans, and intimidate the Mau Mau.
• Nature of Mau Mau: State of Emergency/ British Response

  The Emergency Powers Regulation extended the crimes punishable by hanging from murder to include administering the killing oath or being a member of Mau Mau. Between 1952 and 1958, 1090 Kikuyu were hanged.
• Nature of Mau Mau: State of Emergency/ British Response

  21st October: Operation Jock Scott: This code named assault was directed at Kenyatta and 180 other identified
• Nature of Mau Mau: State of Emergency/ British Response

  Kenyatta was charged with five others with “managing and being a member of the Mau Mau.” The evidence was unconvincing but the judge – Judge Thacker – was paid a £20,000 to provide a guilty verdict. The court sentenced Kenyatta on 8 April 1953 to seven years' imprisonment with hard labour and indefinite restriction thereafter.
• Nature of Mau Mau: State of Emergency/ British Response

  In late October the farming plateau above Naivasha the disembowelled corpse of Eric Bowker, a settler and veteran of both world wars, was found in his home.
• Nature of Mau Mau: State of Emergency/ British Response

  Many Kikuyu – especially conservative chiefs who had benefited from British rule –opposed Mau Mau. Facing Mau Mau attacks, they formed a Kikuyu ‘Home Guard’. The British formally acknowledge the Home Guard in December 1952 and, by January 1953, there were 7,600 recruits. The Home Guard were very effective due to their local knowledge. They were responsible for 42% of all Mau Mau killed
• Nature of Mau Mau: Rebellion intensifies

  On 24th January 1953, the most sensational murder at the hands of the Mau Mau took place. The Ruck family- Roger, Esme and their small boy, were hacked to death by their trusted servants, one of whom had tenderly carried home the child, six year old Michael, after he fell from his pony, just days prior to the attack.
• Nature of Mau Mau: Rebellion intensifies

  Newspapers in Kenya and abroad published graphic murder details with post-mortem photos. The next day, over 1,500 settler marched on Government House in Nairobi, demanding justice and the elimination of the Mau Mau
• Nature of Mau Mau: Rebellion intensifies

  Lari Massacre: Mau Mau attacked the homestead of chief Luka- a loyalist and beneficiary of vast land concessions from the colonials government. They then attack the village of Lari because it was a centre of loyal Kikuyu and Home Guard organising. They burnt down the loyalists in their huts and hacked to death those who tried to escape. In total, 97 Lari residents were killed.
• Nature of Mau Mau: Rebellion intensifies

  400 Mau Mau were killed by security forces- British and African soldiers, local police offers and loyalists, during a vengeful reprisal.