British Settler Colonialism in Kenya
With the creation of the British East African Protectorate in 1895, the British Government seized the cool and fertile central upland region of Kenya. Inviting white settlers to take ownership of 60,000 acres of “White Highlands”, the British displaced the indigenous inhabitants, including the Maasai, Gĩkũyũ, Meru, and Embu ethnic groups, forcing them into crowded “Native Reserves” where they were banned from growing their own cash crops.
Growing Resistance
For decades, the displaced Gĩkũyũ and other groups protested against land seizure, racial inequality, and the denial of African political representation under colonial rule.
Tensions reached new heights after the Second World War, during which 98,240 Kenyans had been recruited into the British Army in Africa. With Kenyans hopeful that concessions would be made in return for their loyal service, continued oppression led to greater unrest.
The Kenya Land and Freedom Army
The biggest threat to British rule was a group of anti-colonial activists who sometimes called themselves Muma wa Uiguano (“The Oath of Unity”), referring to their effort to unite Gĩkũyũ, Embu, and Meru resistance through an oathing ritual that swore its members to secrecy. The group’s fighting wing was called Mbũtũ ya Kũrũĩra or the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), and also included Kamba and Maasai units. Whilst it was mostly men who were sworn into the movement, women were recruited too, the highest ranking of whom was Field Marshal Muthoni wa Kirima.
In 1952, British rulers became alarmed after the KLFA killed several Africans who were serving the colonial government.
The “Mau Mau” Emergency, 1952-1960
On 20 October 1952 the British Colonial Office declared a State of Emergency in Kenya, marking the beginning of a period of bloody conflict and ruthless counterinsurgency. The KLFA fled to the forest where they carried out guerrilla style attacks against the King’s African Rifles and imported British Army regiments using machetes and makeshift guns. In total, the KLFA killed approximately 1,800 African loyalists, 63 British soldiers, in addition to 33 white civilians and 26 Asian civilians.
Emergency rule enabled the British authorities to take extreme measures, including the mass detainment of civilians and the state execution of 1,090 men by hanging. British forces killed upwards of 10,000 KLFA soldiers, whilst the exact number of Kenyan civilians who died in the torture camps remains unknown.
British Concentration Camps
The British rounded up an estimated 150,000 civilians and put them into 150 men’s and women’s detention camps across Kenya where they were forced to dig trenches and were systematically tortured for information about the “Mau Mau”. In historian Caroline Elkins’ words, inmates were subjected to “a pornography of terror, including public brutality, rape, and starvation.”
“Mau Mau” in the Media
The brutality of KLFA attacks and the blasphemous nature of oathing caught the imagination of British journalists and academics, who fabricated theories that the “Mau Mau” represented a psychological phenomenon unique to “uncivilised” and “depraved” Africans.
Naming the group “Mau Mau”, the British government characterised the movement as atavistic, psychotic, and savage. As Gĩkũyũ author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o argues, this “meaningless mumbo-jumbo name” was used by colonial authorities to obscure the serious motives of the freedom fighters.
The Destruction of Colonial Records
Before exiting Kenya in 1963, the British removed, stole, and destroyed many of the records pertaining to what took place in the torture camps. One of these archives, the “Hanslope Archive”, came to light in the early 2000s.
In 2009, five survivors of the British detention camps filed a civil suit in London’s High Court. 5,228 claimants were awarded £19.9 million in damages for the abuses they suffered in a landmark ruling in 2013, their case being aided by details contained in the secret files.
KLFA Organisation
Born out of the Kikuyu Central Association in 1951, the Kenya Land and Freedom Army was a highly organised nationalist movement that survived until 1956. Whilst it was mostly men who were sworn into the movement by oath, women were recruited too, the highest ranking of whom was Field Marshal Muthoni wa Kirima.
The Colonial Legacy
Although the KLFA were largely defeated by 1956, their liberation war contributed to the political and economic pressures that led to Kenya’s Independence in 1963. Famously, KLFA leader Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi stated “I don’t lead terrorists. I lead Africans who want their self-government and land.”
In the postcolonial era, however, “Mau Mau” was suppressed from the national memory under the regimes of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi, remaining an illegal organisation until 2003. KLFA veterans continued to be denied their land claims and largely lived in poverty.
Further Information on the “Mau Mau” Rebellion
- Mau Mau Chronicles (Youtube), https://www.youtube.com/@maumauchronicles4296.
- The Museum of British Colonialism: Mau Mau Exhibition https://museumofbritishcolonialism.org/category/mau-mau-exhibition/.
- Gathogo, Julius. “Mau-Mau war rituals and women rebels in Kirinyaga county of Kenya (1952-1960): retrieving women participation in Kenya’s struggle for independence.” Studia Hist. Ecc. vol.43, no.2 (2017).
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. A Grain of Wheat. Heinemann, 1967.
- MacArthur, Julie, editor. Dedan Kimathi on Trial. Ohio University Press, 2017.
- Elkins, Caroline. Imperial Reckoning : The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. Henry Holt, 2006.
- Anderson, David. Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2005.
Histories of Colour 