Mau Mau Rebellion; Beginning of Jomo Kenyatta's Influence

Following World War I, the British offered land to their former soldiers in the British East Africa Protectorate, which increased the population of Europeans in what became known as the Kenya Colony.  The native Kenyan population was oppressed and forced off of their own land as the colonial administration reserved the highest quality plots for the incoming European settlers and established a cheap labor force.  Jomo Kenyatta, who later became a pioneer for Kenyan independence, had fought for Britain during World War II, and returned to Kenya to become the leader of the Kenyan African Union.  At the same time, the rural Kikuyu, the biggest ethnic group of the colony, formed a secret society.  Known as the Mau Mau, they plotted to violently overthrow the British colonial government.  The Mau Mau, driven with resentment and anger towards their oppressors, assassinated a Kenyan leader who had supported the British colonial government.  After a state of emergency (which lasted for eight years) was declared in 1952, Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, accused with leading the Mau Mau, was arrested by the government, despite the fact that there had been no legitimate evidence of his involvement in the uprising.  The arrest of the popular, respected Kenyatta sparked further anger within the Mau Mau, and in response they launched nighttime guerilla attacks, ironically targeting mostly prosperous natives as opposed to whites.  British authorities gathered Kikuyu and imprisoned them in concentration camps, and drove over a million Kenyans into “fortified villages”[1]. 

Kenyans detained in British prison camps during the Mau Mau revolt

The Mau Mau retreated to Mount Kenya as the British managed to overpower the rebellion and regain their authority in Kenya by the end of the 1950s, but at the cost of over 11,000 Mau Mau lives, 1,900 natives who had been supportive of their colonizers, and 95 Europeans.  Kenyatta had stated, perhaps to distance himself from the ideals of the Mau Mau (since he had adamantly claimed that he was not associated with them), “We do not want to oust the Europeans from this country. But what we demand is to be treated like the white races. If we are to live here in peace and happiness, racial discrimination must be abolished."[2]
Kenyatta believed that Kenya’s issue was not the presence of the Europeans, but the racial discrimination that they established, and this fueled his desire for independence (unlike the Mau Mau, which focused on eradicating the Europeans from Kenya).  Additionally, Kenyatta disapproved of the European manipulation of Kenyans, which included Kenyan serfdom, stating, “The African is conditioned, by cultural and social institutions of centuries, to a freedom of which Europe has little conception, and it is not in his nature to accept serfdom for ever."[3]  Kenyatta implies that change must come because Africans should not accept the oppression that has befallen them.

The passionate rebelling of the black community of Kenya led Britain to ultimately realize that it was impractical and essentially impossible for the white minority to maintain their iron grip on Kenya’s government and to solely administrate the country’s affairs.  Therefore, in 1960, Africans were permitted to compose the majority of their Legislative Council.  Consequently, two political parties were formed.  The Kenya African Nation Union (KANU) was mostly comprised of Kikuyu and members of the Luo party, which were Kenya’s two most influential ethnic groups, and thus the mingling of these different groups within the union produced a “political coalition”(Davis, Kenya, post-independence) .  The Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU), was represented by more minority ethnic groups.  Jomo Kenyatta was released from his imprisonment with the help of KANU leaders, and he would later lead the KANU party to dominate Kenya’s political affairs as Kenya became a republic in 1964. 

---

[1] Quinn, Edward. "Mau Mau uprising in literature." History in Literature: A Reader's Guide to 20th Century History and the Literature it Inspired. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. <http://www.fofweb.com>.  Accessed May 26, 2013.

[2] Lamb, David.  The Africans.  New York: Vintage, 1985. 

[3] Kenyatta, Jomo.  Facing Mount Kenya, 1938.  (Published by Vintage; Vintage Books ed edition, 1962)