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{{Short description|Anti- colonial Insurgency in Kenya from 1952 to 1960}}
{{POV|date=March 2012}}
{{About|the conflict in Kenya||Mau Mau (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2011}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2011}} {{Use British English|date=March 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
{{Hatnote||"Mau Mau" redirects here. For other uses, see ].}}
{{Infobox military conflict {{Infobox military conflict
|conflict=Mau Mau Uprising | conflict = Mau Mau rebellion
| partof = the ]
|date=1952–1960
| image = KAR Mau Mau.jpg
|place=]
| image_size = 300px
|result= British military victory
| caption = Troops of the ] on watch for Mau Mau rebels
|combatant1='''Mau Mau'''<ref name="anderson2005"/><ref name="maloba1993"/>{{ref label|Note1|A|A}}
| date = '''Main Conflict'''<br>7 October, 1952 – 21 October 1956<br>'''Mau Mau Remnants'''<br>1956 – 1960
|combatant2=] ]<br>] ]
| place = ]
|commander1=* ]<br>* ]<br>* ]<br>* ]
| result = British victory
|commander2=* ] Sir ] (Governor)<br>* ] General Sir ]<br>* ] ] (Chief Justice)
* Rebellion suppressed
|strength1=Unknown
| combatant1 = {{flag|United Kingdom}}
|strength2=10,000 regular troops (African and British); 21,000 police; 25,000 Kikuyu Home Guard<ref name="page1996_206">], p.&nbsp;206.</ref><ref name="anderson2005_5">], p.&nbsp;5.</ref>
* {{flagicon image|Flag of Kenya (1921–1963).svg}} ]

* {{flagicon image|Flag of the Uganda Protectorate.svg}} ]
|casualties1='''Mau Mau''':
* {{flag|Southern Rhodesia}}
'''Killed''': 12,000 officially; 20,000+ unofficially<ref name="anderson2005_4"/><br/ >
| combatant2 = Mau Mau rebels{{efn|The name '']'' is sometimes heard in connection with Mau Mau. KLFA was the name that Dedan Kimathi used for a coordinating body which he tried to set up for Mau Mau. It was also the name of another militant group that sprang up briefly in the spring of 1960; the group was broken up during a brief operation from 26 March to 30 April.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 11">{{Harvnb|Nissimi|2006|p=11}}.</ref>}}
'''Captured''': 2,633<br/ >
* ]
'''Surrendered''': 2,714
----

] Bands (from 1954)<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40402312|title=Revolt and Repression in Kenya: The "Mau Mau" Rebellion, 1952-1960|first=John|last=Newsinger|date=1981 |issue=2 |journal=Science & Society|volume=45 |pages=159–185 |jstor=40402312 }}</ref>
|casualties2='''British and African security forces''':
| commander1 = {{flagicon|United Kingdom}} ]<br>(1951–1955)<br>{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} ]<br>(1955–1957)<br>{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} ]<br>(1957–1960)<br>{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} ]<br>{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} ]<br>{{flagicon|United Kingdom}} ]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Kenya (1921–1963).svg}} ]<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of Kenya (1921–1963).svg}} ]
'''Killed''': 200<br/ >
| commander2 = ]{{executed}}<br>]<br>]<br>]{{MIA}}<br>]{{executed}}
'''Wounded''': 579<br/ >
| strength1 = 10,000 regular troops<br>21,000 police<br>25,000 ]<ref name = "Page 2011 p206">{{Harvnb|Page|2011|p=206}}.</ref>{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=5}}
'''Surrendered''': n/a
| strength2 = 35,000+ insurgents<ref>Durrani, Shiraz. Mau Mau, the Revolutionary, Anti-Imperialist Force from Kenya, 1948–63: Selection from Shiraz Durrani's Kenya's War of Independence: Mau Mau and Its Legacy of Resistance to Colonialism and Imperialism, 1948–1990. Vita Books, 2018.

</ref>
|casualties3='''Civilians'''
| casualties1 = 3,000 native Kenyan police and soldiers killed<ref name="Elstein 07Apr2011">{{cite web |url=http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-elstein/daniel-goldhagen-and-kenya-recycling-fantasy |title=Daniel Goldhagen and Kenya: recycling fantasy |author=David Elstein |author-link=David Elstein |date=7 April 2011 |publisher=openDemocracy.org |access-date=8 March 2012 |archive-date=15 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215172234/http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-elstein/daniel-goldhagen-and-kenya-recycling-fantasy |url-status=dead }}</ref>
'''Victims of Mau Mau''':<ref name="page1996_206"/><ref name="anderson2005_84">], p.&nbsp;84.</ref><br/ >
95 British military personnel killed<ref> ""UK armed forces Deaths: Operational deaths post World War II"" (PDF). Ministry of defense. 25 March 2021</ref>
<small>These figures do not include the many hundreds of Africans who 'disappeared', and whose bodies were never found.</small><br/ >
| casualties2 = 12,000–20,000+ killed (including 1,090 executed){{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=4}}<br>2,633 captured<br>2,714 surrendered
'''Africans killed''': 1,819<br/ >
| campaignbox = {{Campaignbox Mau Mau Uprising}}
'''Africans wounded''': 916<br/ >
'''Asians killed''': 26<br/ >
'''Asians wounded''': 36<br />
'''Europeans killed''': 32<br/ >
'''Europeans wounded''': 26<br/ >
}} }}
{{British Colonial Emergencies}}
The '''Mau Mau rebellion''' (1952–1960), also known as the '''Mau Mau uprising''', '''Mau Mau revolt''', or '''Kenya Emergency''', was a war in the British ] (1920–1963) between the ] (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities.<ref>{{cite book |last=Blakeley |first=Ruth |title=State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rft8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA80 |year=2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-04246-3}}</ref> Dominated by ], ] and ] fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of ]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Osborne |first=Myles |date=2010 |title=The Kamba and Mau Mau: Ethnicity, Development, and Chiefship, 1952–1960 |journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=63–87 |jstor=25741397 |issn=0361-7882}}</ref> and ] who fought against the European colonists in Kenya - the ], and the local ] (British colonists, local auxiliary militia, and pro-British Kikuyu).{{sfn|Anderson|2005}}{{efn|In English, the Kikuyu people also are known as the "Kikuyu" and as the "Wakikuyu" people, but their preferred ] is "Gĩkũyũ", derived from the ].}}


The capture of Field Marshal ] on 21 October 1956 signalled the defeat of the Mau Mau, and essentially ended the British military campaign.<ref>''The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army'' (1994) p. 350</ref> However, the rebellion survived until after Kenya's independence from Britain, driven mainly by the ] units led by Field Marshal ]. General Baimungi, one of the last Mau Mau leaders, was killed shortly after Kenya attained self-rule.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875584,00.html |title=Kenya: A Love for the Forest |date=17 January 1964 |magazine=Time |access-date=12 February 2018 |language=en-US |issn=0040-781X |archive-date=23 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200423115834/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875584,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
]


The KLFA failed to capture wide public support.<ref>''The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army'' (1994) p.&nbsp;346.</ref> ], in ''The Mau Mau War in Perspective'', suggests this was due to a British ] strategy,<ref name="Mumford 2012 p49">{{Harvnb|Mumford|2012|p=}}.</ref> which they had developed in suppressing the ] (1948–60).<ref name="Füredi 1989 5">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1989|p=5}}</ref> The Mau Mau movement remained internally divided, despite attempts to unify the factions. On the colonial side, the uprising created a rift between the European colonial community in Kenya and the ],<ref name="Maloba 1998">{{Harvnb|Maloba|1998}}.</ref> as well as violent divisions within the ] community:{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=4}} "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau."<ref name="Branch 2009 pxii">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=}}.</ref> Suppressing the Mau Mau Uprising in the Kenyan colony cost Britain £55&nbsp;million<ref name="Gerlach 2010 213">{{Harvnb|Gerlach|2010|p=}}.</ref> and caused at least 11,000 ] among the Mau Mau and other forces, with some estimates considerably higher.<ref name="Bloody uprising of the Mau Mau">{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12997138|title=Bloody uprising of the Mau Mau|date=7 April 2011|publisher=BBC News|access-date=23 July 2019|language=en-GB|archive-date=2 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200102004920/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12997138|url-status=live}}</ref> This included 1,090 executions by hanging.<ref name="Bloody uprising of the Mau Mau" />
The '''Mau Mau Uprising''' (also known as the '''Mau Mau Revolt''', '''Mau Mau Rebellion''' and the '''Kenya Emergency''') was a military conflict that took place in ]{{ref label|Note2|B|B}} between 1952 and 1960. It involved a ]-dominated anti-colonial group called ''Mau Mau'' and elements of the ], auxiliaries and anti-Mau Mau Kikuyu.<ref name="anderson2005">].</ref><ref name="elkins2005">].</ref>


__TOC__
The movement was unable to capture widespread public support.<ref>''The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army'' (1994) p.&nbsp;346</ref> The capture of rebel leader ] on 21 October 1956 signalled the ultimate defeat of the Mau Mau uprising, and essentially ended the British military campaign.<ref>''The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army'' (1994) p.&nbsp;350</ref>

The conflict arguably set the stage for Kenyan independence in December 1963.<ref name="percox2005_751-752">{{cite encyclopedia
|last=Percox|first=David A|editor-first=Kevin|editor-last=Shillington|year=2005|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of African History, Volume 1, A–G|location=New York|publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn|pages=|title=Kenya: Mau Mau Revolt|isbn=1579582451|quote=The Mau Mau revolt forced the British government to institute political and economic reforms in Kenya}}</ref> It created a rift between the European colonial community in Kenya and the ] in London,<ref name="maloba1993">].</ref> but also resulted in violent divisions within the Kikuyu community.<ref name="anderson2005_4">], p.&nbsp;4. "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and so-called 'loyalists'—Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau."</ref><ref name="branch2009_xii">], p.&nbsp;</ref>


==Etymology== ==Etymology==
{{History of Kenya}}]
The origin of the term ''Mau Mau'' is uncertain. According to some members of Mau Mau, they never referred to themselves as such, instead preferring the military title Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA).<ref name="kanogo1992_23-25">], pp.&nbsp;23–5.</ref> Some publications, such as Fred Majdalany's ''State of Emergency: The Full Story of Mau Mau'', claim that it was an anagram of ''Uma Uma'' (which means "get out get out") and was a military codeword based on a secret language-game Kikuyu boys used to play at the time of their circumcision. Majdalany goes on to state that the British simply used the name as a label for the ] ethnic community without assigning any specific definition.<ref>{{cite book
| last= Majdalany
| first = Fred
| title = State of Emergency: The Full Story of Mau Mau
| publisher=Houghton Mifflin
| location = Boston
| year = 1963
| page = 75}}</ref>


The origin of the term Mau Mau is uncertain. According to some members of Mau Mau, they never referred to themselves as such, instead preferring the military title Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA).<ref name="Kanogo 1992 23to25">{{Harvnb|Kanogo|1992|pp=23–25}}.</ref> Some publications, such as Fred Majdalany's ''State of Emergency: The Full Story of Mau Mau'', claim it was an anagram of ''Uma Uma'' (which means "Get out! Get out!") and was a military codeword based on a secret language game Kikuyu boys used to play at the time of their circumcision. Majdalany also says the British simply used the name as a label for the Kikuyu ethnic community without assigning any specific definition.<ref name="Majdalany 1963 75">{{Harvnb|Majdalany|1963|p=75}}.</ref> However, there was a ] in ]/Tanzania in 1905/6, ('Maji' meaning 'water' after a 'water-medicine') so this may be the origin of Mau Mau.
As the movement progressed, a ] acronym was adopted: "] Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru" meaning "Let the European go back to Europe (Abroad), Let the African regain Independence".<ref name="kariuki1960_167">], p.&nbsp;167.</ref> J.M. Kariuki, a member of Mau Mau who was detained during the conflict, postulates that the British preferred to use the term ''Mau Mau'' instead of ''KLFA'' in an attempt to deny the Mau Mau rebellion international legitimacy.<ref name="kariuki1960_24">], p.&nbsp;24.</ref> Kariuki also wrote that the term ''Mau Mau'' was adopted by the rebellion in order to counter what they regarded as colonial propaganda.<ref name="kariuki1960_167"/>


As the movement progressed, a ] ] was adopted: "] Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru", meaning "Let the foreigner go back abroad, let the African regain independence".<ref name="Kariuki 1960 167">{{Harvnb|Kariuki|1975|p=167}}.</ref> J. M. Kariuki, a member of Mau Mau who was detained during the conflict, suggests the British preferred to use the term Mau Mau instead of KLFA to deny the Mau Mau rebellion international legitimacy.<ref name="Kariuki 1960 24">{{Harvnb|Kariuki|1975|p=24}}.</ref> Kariuki also wrote that the term Mau Mau was adopted by the rebellion in order to counter what they regarded as colonial propaganda.<ref name="Kariuki 1960 167"/>
==Nature of the rebellion==
The contemporary view saw Mau Mau as a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. Mau Mau allegedly sought to turn the Kikuyu people back to "the bad old days" before British rule.<ref name="berman1991_182-183">], p.&nbsp;182–3.</ref> The British attempt at understanding the revolt involved soliciting the advice of purported experts on the Kikuyu and the "African mind" such as ] and JC Carothers.<ref name="mcculloch1995_64to76">], pp.&nbsp;.</ref>


Author and activist ] indicates that, to her, the most interesting story of the origin of the name is the Kikuyu phrase for the beginning of a list. When beginning a list in Kikuyu, one says, "''maũndũ ni mau''{{-"}}, "the main issues are...", and holds up three fingers to introduce them. Maathai says the three issues for the Mau Mau were land, freedom, and self-governance.<ref>{{cite book |title=Unbowed: a memoir |author=Wangari Maathai |page=63 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |date=2006 |isbn=0307263487}}</ref>
By the mid-1960s, this view was being challenged by memoirs of former Mau Mau members and leaders that portrayed Mau Mau as an essential, if radical, component of African nationalism in Kenya, and by academic studies that analysed Mau Mau as a modern and nationalist response to the unfairness and oppression of colonial domination (though such studies downplayed the specifically Kikuyu nature of the movement).<ref name="berman1991_183-185">], p.&nbsp;183–5.</ref>


==Background==
There continues to be vigorous debate within Kenyan society and among the academic community within and without Kenya regarding the nature of Mau Mau and its aims, as well as the response to and effects of the uprising.<ref name="clough1998_4">], p.&nbsp;</ref><ref name="branch2009_3">], p.&nbsp;</ref> Nevertheless, as many Kikuyu fought against Mau Mau on the side of the colonial government as joined them in rebellion<ref name="branch2009_xii"/> and, partly because of this, the conflict is now often regarded in academic circles as an intra-Kikuyu civil war,<ref name="anderson2005_4"/><ref name="branch2009_3"/> a characterisation that remains extremely unpopular in Kenya.<ref name="bbc_07042011">{{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12997138 |title=Mau Mau uprising: Bloody history of Kenya conflict |newspaper=BBC News |date=7 April 2011 |accessdate=12 May 2011 |quote=There was lots of suffering on the other side too. This was a dirty war. It became a civil war—though that idea remains extremely unpopular in Kenya today.}} (The quote is of Professor David Anderson).</ref> Some academics argue that the reason the revolt was essentially limited to the Kikuyu people was, in part, that they were the hardest hit by British colonialism and its effects.<ref name="berman1991_196">], p.&nbsp;196. "The impact of colonial capitalism and the colonial state hit the Kikuyu with greater force and effect than any other of Kenya's peoples, setting off new processes of differentiation and class formation."</ref>

regards the rise of the Mau Mau movement as "without doubt, one of the most important events in recent African history."<ref name="thomas1993">{{cite journal|last=Thomas|first=Beth|year=1993|url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/36/index-ba.html|page=7|title=Historian, Kenya native's book on Mau Mau revolt|journal=UpDate|volume=13|issue=13}}</ref> Oxford's , however, considers Maloba's and similar work to be the product of "swallowing too readily the propaganda of the Mau Mau war",<ref name="anderson2005_10">], p.&nbsp;10.</ref> noting the similarity between such analysis and the "simplistic"<ref name="anderson2005_10"/> earlier studies of Mau Mau. This earlier work cast the Mau Mau war in strictly bipolar terms, "as conflicts between anti-colonial nationalists and colonial collaborators".<ref name="anderson2005_10"/> Harvard's ]' 2005 ] has met similar criticism, as well as being criticised for sensationalism.<ref name="elstein">See in particular David Elstein's angry letters:
* {{cite journal |author= |year=2005 |title=Letters: Tell me where I'm wrong |journal=London Review of Books |volume=27 |issue=11 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/letters |accessdate=3 May 2011}}
* {{cite journal |author=David Elstein |year=2005 |title=The End of the Mau Mau |journal=The New York Review of Books |volume=52 |issue=11 |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/23/the-end-of-the-mau-mau |accessdate=3 May 2011}}
* {{cite journal |author=David Elstein |year=2005 |title=Letters: Tell me where I'm wrong |journal=London Review of Books |volume=27 |issue=14 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n14/letters |accessdate=3 May 2011}}
It is worth noting that while David Elstein regards the "requirement" for the "great majority of Kikuyu" to live inside 800 "fortified villages" as "serv the purpose of protection", Professor David Anderson (amongst others) regards the "compulsory resettlement" of "1,007,500 Kikuyu" inside what, for the "most" part, were "little more than concentration camps" as "punitive .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. to punish Mau Mau sympathisers". See his and ], p.&nbsp;294.</ref><ref name="ogot2005">]. "There was no reason and no restraint on both sides, although Elkins sees no atrocities on the part of Mau Mau."</ref>

{{quote box
| title =
| quote = It is often assumed that in a conflict there are two sides in opposition to one another, and that a person who is not actively committed to one side must be supporting the other. During the course of a conflict, leaders on both sides will use this argument to gain active support from the "crowd". In reality, conflicts involving more than two persons usually have more than two sides, and if a resistance movement is to be successful, propaganda and politicization are essential.<ref name="pirouet1977_197">{{cite book|last=Pirouet|chapter=Armed Resistance and Counter-Insurgency: Reflections on the Anya Nya and Mau Mau Experiences|editor-last=Mazrui|editor-first=Ali A|title=The Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa|year=1977|page=}}</ref>
| source = —Louise Pirouet
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Throughout ] history, there have been two traditions: ''moderate-conservative'' and ''radical''.<ref name="clough1998">].</ref> Despite the differences between them, there has been a continuous debate and dialogue between these traditions, leading to a great political awareness among the Kikuyu.<ref name="clough1998"/><ref name="berman1991_197">], p.&nbsp;197. "eveloping conflicts .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. in Kikuyu society were expressed in a vigourous internal debate."</ref> By 1950, these differences, and the impact of colonial rule, had given rise to three African political blocks: ''conservative'', ''moderate nationalist'' and ''militant nationalist''.<ref name="anderson2005_11-12">], pp.&nbsp;11–2.</ref> It has also been argued that Mau Mau was not explicitly national, either intellectually or operationally;<ref name="branch2009_xi"/> Bruce Berman argues that, "While Mau Mau was clearly not a tribal atavism seeking a return to the past, the answer to the question of "was it nationalism?" must be yes and no."<ref name="berman1991_199">], p.&nbsp;199.</ref> As the Mau Mau rebellion wore on, the violence forced the spectrum of opinion within the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru to polarise and harden into the two distinct camps of loyalist and Mau Mau.<ref name="branch2009_1">], p.&nbsp;</ref> This neat division between loyalists and Mau Mau was a product of the conflict, rather than a cause or catalyst of it, with the violence becoming less ambiguous over time,<ref name="branch2009_2">], p.&nbsp;</ref> in a similar manner to other situations.<ref name="pirouet1977_200">{{cite book|last=Pirouet|first=Louise|chapter=Armed Resistance and Counter-Insurgency: Reflections on the Anya Nya and Mau Mau Experiences|editor-last=Mazrui|editor-first=Ali A|title=The Warrior Tradition in Modern Africa|year=1977|location=Leiden|publisher=Brill|isbn=9004056467|page=|quote=}}</ref><ref name="kalyvas2006">].</ref>

==Kenya before the Emergency==
{{Quote box {{Quote box
|quote = The principal item in the natural resources of Kenya is the land, and in this term we include the colony's mineral resources. It seems to us that our major objective must clearly be the preservation and the wise use of this most important asset.<ref>], p.&nbsp;.</ref> |quote = The principal item in the natural resources of Kenya is the land, and in this term we include the colony's mineral resources. It seems to us that our major objective must clearly be the preservation and the wise use of this most important asset.{{sfn|Curtis|2003|p=320}}
|source = —Deputy Governor to Secretary of State<br>for the Colonies, 19 March 1945 |source = —Deputy Governor to Secretary of State<br />for the Colonies, 19 March 1945
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}}The primary British interest in Kenya was its land which, observed the British East Africa Commission of 1925, constituted "some of the richest agricultural soils in the world, mostly in districts where the elevation and climate make it possible for Europeans to reside permanently."<ref name="eac1925_149">], p.&nbsp;149.</ref> Though declared a colony in 1920, the formal British colonial presence in Kenya began with a proclamation on 1 July 1895, in which Kenya was claimed as a British ].<ref name="alam2007_1">], p.&nbsp;1. "The colonial presence in Kenya, in contrast to, say, India, where it lasted almost 200 years, was brief but equally violent. It formally started when Her Majesty's agent and Counsel General at Zanzibar, A.H. Hardinge, in a proclamation on 1 July 1895, announced that he was taking over the ] as well as the interior that included the Kikuyu land, now known as Central Province."</ref>


The armed rebellion of the Mau Mau was the culminating response to colonial rule.<ref name="Coray 1978 p179">{{Harvnb|Coray|1978|p=179}}: "The administration's refusal to develop mechanisms whereby African grievances against non-Africans might be resolved on terms of equity, moreover, served to accelerate a growing disaffection with colonial rule. The investigations of the Kenya Land Commission of 1932–1934 are a case study in such lack of foresight, for the findings and recommendations of this commission, particularly those regarding the claims of the Kikuyu of Kiambu, would serve to exacerbate other grievances and nurture the seeds of a growing African nationalism in Kenya".</ref>{{sfn|Anderson|2005|pp=15, 22}} Although there had been previous instances of violent resistance to colonialism, the Mau Mau revolt was the most prolonged and violent anti-colonial warfare in the British Kenya colony. From the start, the land was the primary British interest in Kenya,{{sfn|Curtis|2003|p=320}} which had "some of the richest agricultural soils in the world, mostly in districts where the elevation and climate make it possible for Europeans to reside permanently".<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p149">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=149}}.</ref> Though declared a colony in 1920, the formal British colonial presence in Kenya began with a proclamation on 1 July 1895, in which Kenya was claimed as a British ].<ref name="Alam 2007 p1">{{Harvnb|Alam|2007|p=1}}: The colonial presence in Kenya, in contrast to, say, India, where it lasted almost 200&nbsp;years, was brief but equally violent. It formally started when Her Majesty's agent and Counsel General at Zanzibar, A.H.&nbsp;Hardinge, in a proclamation on 1&nbsp;July 1895, announced that he was taking over the ] as well as the interior that included the Kikuyu land, now known as Central Province."</ref>
Even before 1895, however, Britain's presence in Kenya was marked by dispossession and violence. During the period in which Kenya's interior was being forcibly opened up for British settlement, an officer in the ] asserted, "There is only one way to improve the ] that is wipe them out; I should be only too delighted to do so, but we have to depend on them for food supplies",<ref name="elkins2005_3">], p.&nbsp;3.</ref> and colonial officers such as ] wrote of how, on occasion, they ]d Kikuyu by the hundred.<ref>{{cite book |last=Meinertzhagen |first=Richard |title=Kenya Diary, 1902–1906 |year=1957 |location=London |publisher=Oliver and Boyd |pages=51–2}}</ref> This onslaught led ], in 1908, to remark: "surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenceless people on such an enormous scale."<ref name="lapping1989_469">], p.&nbsp;469.</ref>


Even before 1895, however, Britain's presence in Kenya was marked by ] and ]. In 1894, British MP ] had observed in the ], "The only person who has up to the present time benefited from our enterprise in the heart of Africa has been Mr. ]" (inventor of the ], the first automatic machine gun).<ref name="Ellis 1986 p100">{{Harvnb|Ellis|1986|p=}}.<br />You can read Dilke's speech in full here: {{Cite web |title= Class&nbsp;V; House of Commons Debate, 1&nbsp;June 1894 |url= https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1894/jun/01/class-v#S4V0025P0_18940601_HOC_113 |work= ] |series= Series&nbsp;4, Vol.&nbsp;25, cc.&nbsp;181–270 |date= 1 June 1894 |access-date= 11 April 2013 |archive-date= 15 December 2018 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181215172307/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1894/jun/01/class-v#S4V0025P0_18940601_HOC_113 |url-status= live }}</ref> During the period in which Kenya's interior was being forcibly opened up for British settlement, there was a great deal of conflict and British troops carried out atrocities against the native population.<ref name="Edgerton 1989 4">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=4}}. Francis Hall, an officer in the ] and after whom ] was named, asserted: "There is only one way to improve the Wakikuyu that is wipe them out; I should be only too delighted to do so, but we have to depend on them for food supplies."</ref><ref name="Meinertzhagen 1957 51_52">{{Harvnb|Meinertzhagen|1957|pp=51–52}} ] wrote of how, on occasion, they massacred Kikuyu by the hundreds.</ref>
Kenyan resistance to British imperialism was there from the start—for example, the Kikuyu opposition of 1880–1900—and continued throughout the decades thereafter: the ] Revolt of 1895–1905;<ref name="alam2007_2">], p.&nbsp;2.</ref> the ] Uprising of 1913–4;<ref name="alam2007_2"/> the women's revolt against forced labour in ] in 1947;<ref name="atieno1995_25">], p.&nbsp;</ref> and the Kalloa Affray of 1950.<ref name="ogot2003_15">], p.&nbsp;</ref> (Nor did Kenyan protest against colonial rule end with Mau Mau. For example, in the years that followed, a series of successful non-violent boycotts were carried out).<ref name="nissimi2006_10">], p.&nbsp;</ref>


Opposition to British imperialism had existed from the start of British occupation. The most notable include the ] led by ] of 1895–1905;<ref name="Alam 2007 p2">{{Harvnb|Alam|2007|p=2}}.</ref> the ] Uprising led by ] of 1913–1914;<ref name="Brantley 1981">{{Harvnb|Brantley|1981}}.</ref> the women's revolt against ] in ] in 1947;<ref name="Atieno-Odhiambo 1995 p25">{{Harvnb|Atieno-Odhiambo|1995|p=}}.</ref> and the Kolloa Affray of 1950.<ref name="Ogot 2003 15">{{Harvnb|Ogot|2003|p=}}.</ref> None of the armed uprisings during the beginning of British colonialism in Kenya were successful.<ref>{{Harvnb|Leys|1973|p=342}}, which notes they were "always hopeless failures. Naked spearmen fall in swathes before machine-guns, without inflicting a single casualty in return. Meanwhile, the troops burn all the huts and collect all the live stock within reach. Resistance once at an end, the leaders of the rebellion are surrendered for imprisonment ... Risings that followed such a course could hardly be repeated. A period of calm followed. And when unrest again appeared it was with other leaders ... and other motives." A particularly interesting example, albeit outside Kenya and featuring guns instead of spears, of successful armed resistance to maintain crucial aspects of autonomy is the ] of 1880–1881, whose ultimate legacy remains tangible even today, in the form of ].</ref> The nature of fighting in Kenya led ] to express concern about the scale of the fighting: "No doubt the clans should have been punished. 160 have now been killed outright ''without any further casualties on our side''.… It looks like a butchery. If the ] gets hold of it, all our plans in ] will be under a cloud. Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenceless people on such an enormous scale."<ref name="Maxon 1989 44">{{Harvnb|Maxon|1989|p=}}.</ref>
The Mau Mau rebellion can be regarded as a militant culmination of years of oppressive colonial rule and resistance to it,<ref name="coray1978">]. "The administration's refusal to develop mechanisms whereby African grievances against non-Africans might be resolved on terms of equity, moreover, served to accelerate a growing disaffection with colonial rule. The investigations of the Kenya Land Commission of 1932–1934 are a case study in such lack of foresight, for the findings and recommendations of this commission, particularly those regarding the claims of the Kikuyu of Kiambu, would serve to exacerbate other grievances and nurture the seeds of a growing African nationalism in Kenya".</ref><ref name="anderson2005_22">], p.&nbsp;22.</ref> with its specific roots found in three episodes of Kikuyu history between 1920 and 1940.<ref name=anderson2005_15>], p.&nbsp;15.</ref> All of this is not, of course, to say that Kikuyu society was perfect, stable and harmonious before the British arrived. The Kikuyu in the nineteenth century were expanding and colonising new territory and already internally divided between wealthy land-owning families and landless families, the latter dependent on the former in a variety of ways.<ref name="berman1991_196b">], p.&nbsp;196. "In contrast to the constructed image of a stable and harmonious tradition, the Kikuyu in the nineteenth century were actively expanding and colonizing new territory and already internally divided between wealthy land-owning families and landless families attached to them in a variety of forms of dependence."</ref>


{{Quote box |quote = You may travel through the length and breadth of Kitui Reserve and you will fail to find in it any enterprise, building, or structure of any sort which Government has provided at the cost of more than a few sovereigns for the direct benefit of the natives. The place was little better than a wilderness when I first knew it 25 years ago, and it remains a wilderness to-day as far as our efforts are concerned. If we left that district {{Nowrap|to-morrow}} the only permanent evidence of our occupation would be the buildings we have erected for the use of our tax-collecting staff.<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p187"/> |source = —Chief Native Commissioner of Kenya, 1925 |align = right |width = 39% |fontsize = 85% |bgcolor = AliceBlue |style = |title_bg = |title_fnt = |tstyle = text-align: left; |qalign = right |qstyle = text-align: left; |quoted = yes |salign = right |sstyle = text-align: right;}}
===Economic deprivation of the Kikuyu===
] during the colonial period could own a disproportionate share of land.<ref name="Mosley 1983 5">{{Harvnb|Mosley|1983|p=}}.</ref> The first settlers arrived in 1902 as part of ]'s plan to have a settler economy pay for the ].{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=3}}<ref>{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|pp=1–5}}.<br />{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=2}}, notes that the (British taxpayer) loans were never repaid on the Uganda Railway; they were written off in the 1930s.</ref> The success of this settler economy would depend heavily on the availability of land, labour and capital,<ref name="Kanogo 1993 8">{{Harvnb|Kanogo|1993|p=}}.</ref> and so, over the next three decades, the colonial government and settlers consolidated their control over Kenyan land, and forced native Kenyans to become ]ers.
{{Quote box
|quote = You may travel through the length and breadth of Kitui Reserve and you will fail to find in it any enterprise, building, or structure of any sort which Government has provided at the cost of more than a few sovereigns for the direct benefit of the natives. The place was little better than a wilderness when I first knew it 25 years ago, and it remains a wilderness to-day as far as our efforts are concerned. If we left that district to-morrow the only permanent evidence of our occupation would be the buildings we have erected for the use of our tax-collecting staff.<ref name ="eac1925_187"/>
|source = —Chief Native Commissioner of Kenya, 1925
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}}A feature of all settler societies during the colonial period was the ability of European settlers to obtain for themselves a disproportionate share in landownership.<ref name="mosley2009_5">], p.&nbsp;</ref> Kenya was thus no exception, with the first white settlers arriving in 1902 as part of Governor ]'s plan to have a settler economy pay for the recently completed ].<ref name="anderson2005_3">], p.&nbsp;3.</ref><ref name="elkins2005_2">], p.&nbsp;2. Elkins notes that the (British taxpayer) loans were never repaid on the Uganda Railway; they were written off in the 1930s.</ref> The success of Eliot's planned settler economy would depend heavily on the availability of land, labour and capital,<ref name="kanogo1987_8">], p.&nbsp;</ref> and so, over the next three decades, the colonial government and settlers consolidated their control over Kenyan land, and 'encouraged' Africans to become wage labourers.


Until the mid-1930s, the two primary complaints were low native Kenyan wages and the requirement to carry an identity document, the '']''.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=10}} From the early 1930s, however, two others began to come to prominence: effective and elected African-political-representation, and land.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=10}} The British response to this clamour for ] came in the early 1930s when they set up the Carter Land Commission.<ref name="Carter 1934">{{Harvnb|Carter|1934}}.</ref>
Through a series of expropriations, the colony's government seized about {{convert|7000000|acre|km2 sqmi}} of land, some of it in the especially fertile hilly-regions of ] and ]s, areas later known as the White Highlands due to the exclusively-European farmland which existed there.<ref name="kanogo1987_8"/> "In particular," the British government's 1925 East Africa Commission noted, "the treatment of the Giriama tribe was very bad. This tribe was moved backwards and forwards so as to secure for the Crown areas which could be granted to Europeans."<ref name="eac1925_159">], p.&nbsp;159.</ref> Coupled with an increasing African population, the land expropriation became an increasingly bitter point of contention. The Kikuyu, who lived in the ], ] and ] districts of Central Province, were the ethnic group most affected by the colonial government's land expropriation and European settlement;<ref name="elkins2005_12">], p.&nbsp;12.</ref> by 1933, they had had over {{convert|109.5|sqmi|km2}} of their potentially highly valuable land alienated.<ref name="kanogo1987_9">], p.&nbsp;</ref> The Kikuyu did mount a legal challenge to the expropriation of their land, but a Kenya High Court decision of 1921 cemented its legality.<ref name="eac1925_29">], p.&nbsp;29. "This judgment is now widely known to Africans in Kenya, and it has become clear to them that, without their being previously informed or consulted, their rights in their tribal land, whether communal or individual, have "disappeared" in law and have been superseded by the rights of the Crown."</ref>


The Commission reported in 1934, but its conclusions, recommendations and concessions to Kenyans were so conservative that any chance of a peaceful resolution to native Kenyan land-hunger was ended.<ref name="Coray 1978 p179" /> Through a series of ]s, the government seized about {{convert|7000000|acre|km2 sqmi}} of land, most of it in the fertile hilly regions of ] and ]s, later known as the ] due to the exclusively European-owned farmland there.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 8" /> In Nyanza the Commission restricted 1,029,422 native Kenyans to {{convert|7114|sqmi|km2}}, while granting {{convert|16700|sqmi|km2}} to 17,000 Europeans.<ref name="Shilaro 2002 123">{{Harvnb|Shilaro|2002|p=}}.</ref> By the 1930s, and for the Kikuyu in particular, land had become the number one grievance concerning colonial rule,{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=10}} the situation so acute by 1948 that 1,250,000 Kikuyu had ownership of 2,000 square miles (5,200&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>), while 30,000 British settlers owned 12,000 square miles (31,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>), albeit most of it not on traditional Kikuyu land. "In particular", the British government's 1925 East Africa Commission noted, "the treatment of the ] was very bad. This tribe was moved backwards and forwards so as to secure for the Crown areas which could be granted to Europeans."<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p159">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=159}}.</ref>
As mentioned, the colonial government and White farmers also wanted cheap labour<ref name="anderson2004_498">], p.&nbsp; "The recruitment of African labor at poor rates of pay and under primitive conditions of work was characteristic of the operation of colonial capitalism in Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. olonial states readily colluded with capital in providing the legal framework necessary for the recruitment and maintenance of labor in adequate numbers and at low cost to the employer.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The colonial state shared the desire of the European settler to encourage Africans into the labour market, whilst also sharing a concern to moderate the wages paid to workers".</ref> which, for a period, the government acquired from Africans through force.<ref name="kanogo1987_9"/><ref>A common view among settlers was that "A good sound system of compulsory labour would do more to raise the nigger in five years than all the millions that have been sunk in missionary efforts for the last fifty." (The quote is of a settler called Major Grogan). {{cite web |url=http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1927/dec/07/east-african-policy#column_572 |title=EAST AFRICAN POLICY. House of Lords debate, Hansard vol 69 cc 551–600 |author=Lord Sydney Olivier |date=7 December 1927 |authorlink=Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier}}</ref> Confiscating land from Africans itself helped to create a pool of ]ers, but the colony introduced measures that forced more Africans to submit to wage labour: the introduction of the Hut and Poll Taxes (1901 and 1910 respectively);<ref name="kanogo1987_9"/><ref name="eac1925_173">], p.&nbsp;173. "Casual labourers leave their reserves .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. to earn the wherewithal to pay their "Hut Tax" and to get money to purchase a few luxuries."</ref> the establishment of reserves for each ethnic group, serving to isolate each ethnic group and exacerbate overcrowding;<ref>], p.&nbsp; "African reserves in Kenya were legally constituted in the Crown Lands Amendment Ordinance of 1926". Though finalised in 1926, reserves were first instituted by the Crown Lands Ordinance of 1915—see ], p.&nbsp;29.</ref> the discouragement of African's growing cash crops;<ref name="kanogo1987_9"/> the Masters and Servants Ordinance (1906) and an identification pass known as the ''kipande'' (1918) to control the movement of labour and to curb desertion;<ref name="kanogo1987_9"/><ref name="anderson2004_506">], pp.&nbsp;</ref> and the exemption of wage labourers from forced labour and other compulsory, detested tasks such as conscription.<ref name="kanogo1987_13">], p.&nbsp;</ref><ref name="anderson2004_505">], pp.&nbsp;</ref>


The Kikuyu, who lived in the ], ] and ] areas of what became Central Province, were one of the ethnic groups most affected by the colonial government's land expropriation and European settlement;<ref name="Edgerton 1989 5">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=5}}.</ref> by 1933, they had had over {{convert|109.5|sqmi|km2}} of their potentially highly valuable land alienated.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 9">{{Harvnb|Kanogo|1993|p=}}.</ref> The Kikuyu mounted a legal challenge against the expropriation of their land, but a Kenya High Court decision of 1921 reaffirmed its legality.<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p29">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=29}}: "This judgment is now widely known to Africans in Kenya, and it has become clear to them that, without their being previously informed or consulted, their rights in their tribal land, whether communal or individual, have 'disappeared' in law and have been superseded by the rights of the Crown."</ref> In terms of lost acreage, the ] and ] were the biggest losers of land.<ref name="Welch 1980 p16">{{Harvnb|Emerson Welch|1980|p=}}.</ref>
African labourers were in one of three categories: ''squatter'', ''contract'', or ''casual''.{{ref label|Note3|C|C}} By the end of WWI, squatters had become well established on European farms and plantations in Kenya, with Kikuyu squatters comprising the majority of agricultural workers on settler plantations.<ref name="kanogo1987_8"/> An unintended consequence of colonial rule,<ref name="kanogo1987_8"/> the squatters were targeted from 1918 onwards by a series of Resident Native Labourers Ordinances—criticised by at least some ]<ref>House of Commons Debate, 10 November 1937. Vol. 328, cc. . "Mr. Creech Jones asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will withhold his consent from the Native Tenants Land Ordinance in Kenya on the ground of the heavy penalties imposed on Africans for breach of contract, the decreased security given to the natives, the increased period of compulsory labour, and other reactionary amendments to the previous Ordinance".</ref>—which progressively curtailed squatter rights and subordinated African farming to that of the settlers.<ref name="elkins2005_17">], p.&nbsp;17.</ref> The Ordinance of 1939 finally eliminated squatters' remaining tenancy rights, and permitted settlers to demand 270 days' labour from any squatters on their land.<ref name="anderson2004_508">], p.&nbsp;</ref> and, after WWII, the situation for squatters deteriorated rapidly, a situation the squatters resisted fiercely.<ref name="Kanogo1987_96-97">], p.&nbsp;</ref>


The colonial government and white farmers also wanted cheap labour<ref name="Anderson 2004 p498">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|p=}}. "The recruitment of African labor at poor rates of pay and under primitive conditions of work was characteristic of the operation of colonial capitalism in Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ... olonial states readily colluded with capital in providing the legal framework necessary for the recruitment and maintenance of labor in adequate numbers and at low cost to the employer. ... The colonial state shared the desire of the European settler to encourage Africans into the labour market, whilst also sharing a concern to moderate the wages paid to workers".</ref> which, for a period, the government acquired from native Kenyans through force.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 9"/> Confiscating the land itself helped to create a pool of wage labourers, but the colony introduced measures that forced more native Kenyans to submit to wage labour: the introduction of the Hut and Poll Taxes (1901 and 1910 respectively);<ref name="Kanogo 1993 9"/><ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p173">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=173}}: "Casual labourers leave their reserves ... to earn the wherewithal to pay their 'Hut Tax' and to get money to purchase trade goods."</ref> the establishment of reserves for each ethnic group,<ref>{{Harvnb|Shilaro|2002|p=}}: "African reserves in Kenya were legally constituted in the Crown Lands Amendment Ordinance of 1926".</ref>{{efn|Though finalised in 1926, reserves were first instituted by the Crown Lands Ordinance of 1915.<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p29"/>}} which isolated ethnic groups and often exacerbated overcrowding;{{citation needed|date=October 2023}} the discouragement of native Kenyans' growing ]s;<ref name="Kanogo 1993 9"/> the ] (1906) and an identification pass known as the ''kipande'' (1918) to control the movement of labour and to curb desertion;<ref name="Kanogo 1993 9"/><ref name="Anderson 2004 p506">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|pp=}}.</ref> and the exemption of wage labourers from forced labour and other detested obligations such as conscription.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 13">{{Harvnb|Kanogo|1993|p=}}.</ref><ref name="Anderson 2004 p505">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|pp=}}.</ref>
In the early 1920s, though, despite the presence of 100,000 squatters and tens of thousands more wage labourers,<ref name="anderson2004_507">], p.&nbsp;</ref> there was still not enough African labour available to satisfy the settlers' needs.<ref name="eac1925_166">], p.&nbsp;166. "In many parts of the territory we were informed that the majority of farmers were having the utmost difficulty in obtaining labour to cultivate and to harvest their crops".</ref> The colonial government duly tightened the measures to force yet more Kenyans to become low-paid wage-labourers on settler farms.


=== Native labourer categories ===
The colonial government used the measures brought in as part of its land expropriation and labour 'encouragement' efforts to craft the third plank of its growth strategy for its settler economy: subordinating African farming to that of the Europeans.<ref name="kanogo1987_9"/> Nairobi also assisted the settlers with rail and road networks, subsidies on freight charges, agricultural and veterinary services, and credit and loan facilities.<ref name="kanogo1987_8"/> The near-total neglect of African farming during the first two decades of European settlement was noted by the East Africa Commission.<ref name="eac1925_155-156">], p.&nbsp;155–6.</ref>
Native Kenyan labourers were of three categories: ''squatter'', ''contract'', or ''casual''.{{efn|"Squatter or resident labourers are those who reside with their families on European farms usually for the purpose of work for the owners. ... Contract labourers are those who sign a contract of service before a magistrate, for periods varying from three to twelve months. Casual labourers leave their reserves to engage themselves to European employers for any period from one day upwards."<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p173"/> In return for his services, a squatter was entitled to use some of the settler's land for cultivation and grazing.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 10">{{Harvnb|Kanogo|1993|p=}}.</ref> Contract and casual workers are together referred to as ''migratory'' labourers, in distinction to the permanent presence of the squatters on farms. The phenomenon of squatters arose in response to the complementary difficulties of Europeans in finding labourers and of Africans in gaining access to arable and grazing land.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 8"/>}} By the end of World War I, squatters had become well established on European farms and plantations in Kenya, with Kikuyu squatters constituting the majority of agricultural workers on ].<ref name="Kanogo 1993 8"/> An unintended consequence of colonial rule,<ref name="Kanogo 1993 8"/> the squatters were targeted from 1918 onwards by a series of Resident Native Labourers Ordinances—criticised by at least some ]<ref>{{Cite web |last= Creech Jones |first= Arthur |author-link= Arthur Creech Jones |title= Native Labour; House of Commons Debate, 10&nbsp;November 1937 |url= https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1937/nov/10/native-labour |work= ] |series= Series&nbsp;5, Vol.&nbsp;328, cc.&nbsp;1757-9 |date= 10 November 1937 |access-date= 13 April 2013 |archive-date= 15 December 2018 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181215221829/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1937/nov/10/native-labour |url-status= live }}</ref>—which progressively curtailed squatter rights and subordinated native Kenyan farming to that of the settlers.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p17">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=17}}.</ref> The Ordinance of 1939 finally eliminated squatters' remaining tenancy rights, and permitted settlers to demand 270 days' labour from any squatters on their land.<ref name="Anderson 2004 p508">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|p=}}.</ref> and, after World War II, the situation for squatters deteriorated rapidly, a situation the squatters resisted fiercely.<ref name="Kanogo1987_96-97">{{Harvnb|Kanogo|1993|pp=}}.</ref>


In the early 1920s, though, despite the presence of 100,000 squatters and tens of thousands more wage labourers,<ref name="Anderson 2004 p507">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|p=}}.</ref> there was still not enough native Kenyan labour available to satisfy the settlers' needs.<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p166">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=166}}: "In many parts of the territory we were informed that the majority of farmers were having the utmost difficulty in obtaining labour to cultivate and to harvest their crops".</ref> The colonial government duly tightened the measures to force more Kenyans to become low-paid wage-labourers on settler farms.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kenyaembassydc.org/aboutkenyahistory.html|title=History|publisher=kenyaembassydc.org|access-date=13 May 2019|archive-date=22 May 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190522124317/http://kenyaembassydc.org/aboutkenyahistory.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
The hatred toward colonial rule was hardly stemmed by the wanting provision of medical services for Africans,<ref name="eac1925_180">], p.&nbsp;180. "The population of the district to which one medical officer is allotted amounts more often than not to over a quarter of a million natives distributed over a large area.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. here are large areas in which no medical work is being undertaken."</ref> nor by the fact that in 1923, for example, "the maximum amount that could be considered to have been spent on services provided exclusively for the benefit of the native population was slightly over one-quarter of the taxes paid by them".<ref name ="eac1925_187">], p.&nbsp;187.</ref> The tax burden on Europeans in the early 1920s, meanwhile, was "absurdly" light.<ref name="eac1925_187"/><!--blah blah blah<ref name="Swainson1980_23">, p.&nbsp;</ref>-->


The colonial government used the measures brought in as part of its land expropriation and labour 'encouragement' efforts to craft the third plank of its growth strategy for its settler economy: subordinating African farming to that of the Europeans.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 9"/> Nairobi also assisted the settlers with rail and road networks, subsidies on freight charges, agricultural and veterinary services, and credit and loan facilities.<ref name="Kanogo 1993 8"/> The near-total neglect of native farming during the first two decades of European settlement was noted by the East Africa Commission.<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p155-156">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|pp=155–156}}.</ref>
Kenyan employees were often appallingly treated by their European employers—sometimes even beaten to death by them—with some settlers arguing that Africans "were as children and should be treated as such". Amongst other offences, it was widely acknowledged that few settlers hesitated to flog their servants for petty offences. To make matters even worse, African workers were poorly served by colonial labour-legislation and a prejudiced legal-system. The vast majority of Kenyan employees' violations of labour legislation were settled with "rough justice" meted out by their employers. Most colonial magistrates appear to have been unconcerned by the illegal practice of settler-administered flogging; indeed, during the 1920s, flogging was the magisterial punishment-of-choice for African convicts. The principle of punitive sanctions against workers was not removed from the Kenyan labour statutes until the 1950s.<ref name="anderson2004_516-526">], pp.&nbsp;</ref>

The resentment of colonial rule would not have been decreased by the wanting provision of medical services for native Kenyans,<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p180">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=180}}: "The population of the district to which one medical officer is allotted amounts more often than not to over a quarter of a million natives distributed over a large area. ... here are large areas in which no medical work is being undertaken."</ref> nor by the fact that in 1923, for example, "the maximum amount that could be considered to have been spent on services provided exclusively for the benefit of the native population was slightly over one-quarter of the taxes paid by them".<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p187">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=187}}.</ref> The tax burden on Europeans in the early 1920s, meanwhile, was very light relative to their income.<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p187"/> Interwar infrastructure-development was also largely paid for by the indigenous population.<ref name="Swainson 1980 p23">{{Harvnb|Swainson|1980|p=}}.</ref>

Kenyan employees were often poorly treated by their European employers, with some settlers arguing that native Kenyans "were as children and should be treated as such". Some settlers flogged their servants for petty offences. To make matters even worse, native Kenyan workers were poorly served by colonial labour-legislation and a prejudiced legal-system. The vast majority of Kenyan employees' violations of labour legislation were settled with "rough justice" meted out by their employers. Most colonial magistrates appear to have been unconcerned by the illegal practice of settler-administered flogging; indeed, during the 1920s, flogging was the magisterial punishment-of-choice for native Kenyan convicts. The principle of punitive sanctions against workers was not removed from the Kenyan labour statutes until the 1950s.<ref name="Anderson 2004 pp507-526">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|pp=}}.</ref>


{{Quote box {{Quote box
|quote = The greater part of the wealth of the country is at present in our hands.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. This land we have made is our land by right—by right of achievement.<ref name="curtis2003_320-321">], pp.&nbsp;.</ref> |quote = The greater part of the wealth of the country is at present in our hands. ... This land we have made is our land by right—by right of achievement.{{sfn|Curtis|2003|pp=320–321}}
|source = —Speech by Deputy Colonial Governor<br>30 November 1946 |source = —Speech by Deputy Colonial Governor<br />30 November 1946
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}}Until the mid-1930s, the two primary complaints were low African wages and the ''kipande''.<ref name="anderson2005_10"/> From the early 1930s, however, two others began to come to prominence: effective and elected African-political-representation, and land.<ref name="anderson2005_10"/> The British response to this clamour for ] came in the early 1930s when they set up the Carter Land Commission.<ref name="Carter1934">].</ref> The Commission reported in 1934, but its conclusions, recommendations and concessions to Kenyans were so conservative that any chance of a peaceful resolution to African land-hunger was ended.<ref name="coray1978"/><ref name="anderson2005_22a">], p.&nbsp;22. "The Land Commission report of 1934 was the stone upon which moderate African politics was broken.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Militant nationalism was conceived in Kikuyu reaction to the report of the Kenya Land Commission.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Opposition to the Land Commission's findings fed militancy all the more over the next twenty years as the pressures upon land within the Kikuyu reserve became greater and the settler stranglehold on the political economy of the colony tightened".</ref> In Nyanza, for example, the Commission restricted 1,029,422 Africans to {{convert|7114|sqmi|km2}}, while granting {{convert|16700|sqmi|km2}} to 17,000 Europeans.<ref>], p.&nbsp;</ref> By the 1930s, and for the Kikuyu in particular, land had become the number one grievance concerning colonial rule,<ref name="anderson2005_10"/> the situation so acute by 1948 that 1,250,000 Kikuyu had ownership of 2,000 square miles (5,200&nbsp;km²), while 30,000 British settlers owned 12,000 square miles (31,000&nbsp;km²).


As a result of the situation in the highlands, thousands of Kikuyu migrated into cities in search of work, contributing to the doubling of ]'s population between 1938 and 1952.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} At the same time, there was a small, but growing, class of Kikuyu landowners who consolidated Kikuyu lands and forged strong ties with the colonial administration, leading to an economic rift within the Kikuyu. As a result of the situation in the highlands and growing job opportunities in the cities, thousands of Kikuyu migrated into cities in search of work, contributing to the doubling of ]'s population between 1938 and 1952.<ref>{{cite book|author1= R. M. A. Van Zwanenberg|author2=Anne King|title=An Economic History of Kenya and Uganda 1800–1970|date=1975|publisher=The Bowering Press|isbn=978-0-333-17671-9}}</ref> At the same time, there was a small, but growing, class of Kikuyu landowners who consolidated Kikuyu landholdings and forged ties with the colonial administration, leading to an economic rift within the Kikuyu.


==Mau Mau warfare==
Around 1943, residents of Olenguruone radicalised the traditional Kikuyu practice of oathing, and extended oathing to women and children.<ref name="elkins2005_25">], p.&nbsp;25.</ref>
Mau Mau were the militant wing of a growing clamour for political representation and freedom in Kenya. The first attempt to form a countrywide political party began on 1 October 1944.<ref name="Ogot 2003 16">{{Harvnb|Ogot|2003|p=}}.</ref> This fledgling organisation was called the Kenya African Study Union. ] was the first chairman, but he soon resigned. There is dispute over Thuku's reason for leaving KASU: Bethwell Ogot says Thuku "found the responsibility too heavy";<ref name="Ogot 2003 16" /> David Anderson states that "he walked out in disgust" as the militant section of KASU took the initiative.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=282}} KASU changed its name to the ] (KAU) in 1946. Author Wangari Maathai writes that many of the organizers were ex-soldiers who fought for the British in Ceylon, Somalia, and Burma during the Second World War. When they returned to Kenya, they were never paid and did not receive recognition for their service, whereas their British counterparts were awarded medals and received land, sometimes from the Kenyan veterans.<ref>{{cite book|title=Unbowed: a memoir|author=Wangari Maathai|pages=61–63|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|date=2006|isbn=0307263487}}</ref>


The failure of KAU to attain any significant reforms or redress of grievances from the colonial authorities shifted the political initiative to younger and more militant figures within the native Kenyan trade union movement, among the squatters on the settler estates in the Rift Valley and in KAU branches in Nairobi and the Kikuyu districts of central province.<ref name="Berman 1991 p198">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=198}}.</ref> Around 1943, residents of Olenguruone Settlement radicalised the traditional practice of ], and extended oathing to women and children.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p25">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=25}}.</ref> By the mid-1950s, 90% of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru were oathed.<ref name="Branch 2007 p1">{{Harvnb|Branch|2007|p=1}}.</ref> On 3&nbsp;October 1952, Mau Mau claimed their first European victim when they stabbed a woman to death near her home in Thika.<ref name="Elkins 2005 32" /> Six days later, on 9&nbsp;October, Senior Chief Waruhiu was shot dead in broad daylight in his car,<ref name="Edgerton 1989 65">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=65}}.</ref> which was an important blow against the colonial government.<ref name="Füredi 1989 116">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1989|p=}}.</ref> Waruhiu had been one of the strongest supporters of the British presence in Kenya. His assassination gave ] the final impetus to request permission from the Colonial Office to declare a State of Emergency.<ref name="Edgerton 1989 66_67">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|pp=66–67}}.</ref>
===African politics===
The first attempt to form a countrywide political party occurred on 1 October 1944.<ref name="ogot2003_16">], p.&nbsp;</ref> This fledgling organisation was called the Kenya African Study Union (so named to mask its anti-colonial politics); its inaugural chairman was Harry Thuku, who soon resigned his chairmanship.<ref name="ogot2003_16"/> There is dispute over Thuku's reason for leaving KASU: Bethwell Ogot states that Thuku "found the responsibility too heavy";<ref name="ogot2003_16"/> David Anderson states that "he walked out in disgust" as the militant section of KASU took the initiative.<ref name="anderson2005_282">], p.&nbsp;282.</ref> KASU changed its name to the KAU in 1946.<!--the symbolic origin of the beginning of Mau Mau. The colonial government briefly considered promulgating racial equality laws, but ultimately chose to maintain the racist status quo. This final failure of the KAU to achieve political reform soon led to splits within the KAU.
This
The Kikuyu Central Association was banned in 1940, but in 1944 KASU was formed.-->


The Mau Mau attacks were mostly well organised and planned.
By the late 1940s the Kikuyu were a deeply divided people, increasingly in conflict among themselves as well as with the colonial political and economic order.<ref name="berman1991_198">], p.&nbsp;198.</ref>


{{Blockquote|...the insurgents' lack of heavy weaponry and the heavily entrenched police and Home Guard positions meant that Mau Mau attacks were restricted to nighttime and where loyalist positions were weak. When attacks did commence they were fast and brutal, as insurgents were easily able to identify loyalists because they were often local to those communities themselves. The ] was by comparison rather outstanding and in contrast to regular Mau Mau strikes which more often than not targeted only loyalists without such massive civilian casualties. "Even the attack upon Lari, in the view of the rebel commanders was strategic and specific."{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=252}}}}
The failure of the KAU to attain any significant reforms or redress of grievances from the colonial authorities shifted the political initiative to younger and more militant figures within the African trade union movement, among the squatters on the settler estates in the Rift Valley and in KAU branches in Nairobi and the Kikuyu districts of central province.<ref name="berman1991_198"/>
The Mau Mau command, contrary to the Home Guard who were stigmatised as "the running dogs of British Imperialism",{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=239}} were relatively well educated. General Gatunga had previously been a respected and well-read Christian teacher in his local Kikuyu community. He was known to meticulously record his attacks in a series of five notebooks, which when executed were often swift and strategic, targeting loyalist community leaders he had previously known as a teacher.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mau Mau Rebellion|last=Van der Bijl|first=Nicholas|publisher=Pen and Sword|year=2017|isbn=978-1473864603|pages=151|oclc=988759275}}</ref>

The Mau Mau military strategy was mainly guerrilla attacks launched under the cover of darkness. They used improvised and stolen weapons such as guns,<ref> August 28, 2024. ]</ref> as well as weapons such as machetes and bows and arrows in their attacks.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1963-09-6-4|title=Mau Mau reed shafted arrows with some barbed 'wire' iron arrow heads and bound nocks, Kenya, 1953|publisher=] |archiveurl=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20230716000753/https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1963-09-6-4|archive-date=16 July 2023|access-date=16 July 2023|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis|type=MA|last=Stoddard |first=James |date=2020|title=Mau Mau Blasters: The Homemade Guns of the Mau Mau Uprising|publisher=University of Central Florida |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20221112195601/https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=etd2020|archive-date=November 12, 2022 |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1137&context=etd2020}}</ref> They maimed cattle and, in one case, poisoned a herd.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://owaahh.com/when-the-mau-mau-used-a-biological-weapon/|title=When the Mau Mau Used a Biological Weapon |date=30 October 2014|work=Owaahh |access-date=12 February 2018|language=en-US |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230410145343/http://owaahh.com/when-the-mau-mau-used-a-biological-weapon/|archive-date=April 10, 2023}}</ref>

In addition to physical warfare, the Mau Mau rebellion also generated a propaganda war, where both the British and Mau Mau fighters battled for the hearts and minds of Kenya's population. Mau Mau propaganda represented the apex of an 'information war' that had been fought since 1945, between colonial information staff and African intellectuals and newspaper editors.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Osborne |first=Myles |title='The Rooting Out of Mau Mau from the Minds of the Kikuyu is a Formidable Task': Propaganda and the Mau Mau War |date=2015-01-30 |journal=The Journal of African History |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=77–97 |doi=10.1017/s002185371400067x |s2cid=159690162 |issn=0021-8537|doi-access=free }}</ref> The Mau Mau had learned much from - and built upon - the experience and advice of newspaper editors since 1945. In some cases, the editors of various publications in the colony were directly involved in producing Mau Mau propaganda. British Officials struggled to compete with the 'hybrid, porous, and responsive character' during the rebellion, and faced the same challenges in responding to Mau Mau propaganda, particularly in instances where the Mau Mau would use creative ways such as hymns to win and maintain followers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Leakey |first=L.S.B. |date=1954 |title=The religious element in Mau Mau |journal=African Music: Journal of the African Music Society |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=78–79 |doi=10.21504/amj.v1i1.235}}</ref> This was far more effective than government newspapers; however, once colonial officials brought the insurgency under control by late 1954, information officials gained an uncontested arena through which they won the propaganda war.<ref name=":3" />

Women formed a core part of the Mau Mau, especially in maintaining supply lines. Initially able to avoid the suspicion, they moved through colonial spaces and between Mau Mau hideouts and strongholds, to deliver vital supplies and services to guerrilla fighters including food, ammunition, medical care, and of course, information. Women such as ], exemplified this key role.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Kikuyu Women, the Mau Mau Rebellion and Social Change in Kenya|last = Presley|first = Cora Ann|publisher = Westview Press|year = 1992|location = Boulder}}</ref> An unknown number also fought in the war, with the most high-ranking being ].

==British reaction==
The British and international view was that Mau Mau was a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. Mau Mau was "perverted tribalism" that sought to take the Kikuyu people back to "the bad old days" before British rule.<ref name="Füredi 1989 4">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1989|p=}}.</ref><ref name="Berman 1991 pp182-183">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|pp=182–183}}.</ref> The official British explanation of the revolt did not include the insights of agrarian and agricultural experts, of economists and historians, or even of Europeans who had spent a long period living amongst the Kikuyu such as ]. Not for the first time,<ref name="Mahone 2006">{{Harvnb|Mahone|2006|p=241}}: "This article opens with a retelling of colonial accounts of the 'mania of 1911', which took place in the Kamba region of Kenya Colony. The story of this 'psychic epidemic' and others like it were recounted over the years as evidence depicting the predisposition of Africans to episodic mass hysteria."</ref> the British instead relied on the purported insights of the ethnopsychiatrist; with Mau Mau, it fell to John Colin Carothers to perform the desired analysis. This ethnopsychiatric analysis guided British psychological warfare, which painted Mau Mau as "an irrational force of evil, dominated by bestial impulses and influenced by world communism", and the later official study of the uprising, the Corfield Report.<ref name="McCulloch 2006 64to76">{{Harvnb|McCulloch|2006|pp=}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carothers |first=J. C. |date=July 1947 |title=A Study of Mental Derangement in Africans, and an Attempt to Explain its Peculiarities, More Especially in Relation to the African Attitude to Life |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-mental-science/article/abs/study-of-mental-derangement-in-africans-and-an-attempt-to-explain-its-peculiarities-more-especially-in-relation-to-the-african-attitude-to-life/1E5DB8896931A8255D8A3DC7DA13BD26 |journal=Journal of Mental Science |language=en |volume=93 |issue=392 |pages=548–597 |doi=10.1192/bjp.93.392.548 |pmid=20273401 |issn=0368-315X |access-date=27 October 2023 |archive-date=27 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231027013000/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-mental-science/article/abs/study-of-mental-derangement-in-africans-and-an-attempt-to-explain-its-peculiarities-more-especially-in-relation-to-the-african-attitude-to-life/1E5DB8896931A8255D8A3DC7DA13BD26 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The psychological war became of critical importance to military and civilian leaders who tried to "emphasise that there was in effect a civil war, and that the struggle was not black versus white", attempting to isolate Mau Mau from the Kikuyu, and the Kikuyu from the rest of the colony's population and the world outside. In driving a wedge between Mau Mau and the Kikuyu generally, these propaganda efforts essentially played no role, though they could apparently claim an important contribution to the isolation of Mau Mau from the non-Kikuyu sections of the population.<ref name="Füredi 1994 119to121">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1994|pp=}}.</ref>

By the mid-1960s, the view of Mau Mau as simply irrational activists was being challenged by memoirs of former members and leaders that portrayed Mau Mau as an essential, if radical, component of African nationalism in Kenya and by academic studies that analysed the movement as a modern and nationalist response to the unfairness and oppression of colonial domination.<ref name="Berman 1991 pp183-185">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|pp=183–185}}.</ref>

There continues to be vigorous debate within Kenyan society and among the academic community within and outside Kenya regarding the nature of Mau Mau and its aims, as well as the response to and effects of the uprising.<ref name="Clough 1998 p4">{{Harvnb|Clough|1998|p=}}.</ref><ref name="Branch 2009 p3">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=}}.</ref> Nevertheless, partly because as many Kikuyu fought against Mau Mau on the side of the colonial government as joined them in rebellion,<ref name="Branch 2009 pxii"/> the conflict is now often regarded in academic circles as an intra-Kikuyu civil war,<ref name="Branch 2009 p3"/><ref>{{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|p=4}}: "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and so-called 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau."</ref> a characterisation that remains extremely unpopular in Kenya. In August 1952, Kenyatta told a Kikuyu audience "Mau Mau has spoiled the country...Let Mau Mau perish forever. All people should search for Mau Mau and kill it".<ref>John Reader, ''Africa: A Biography of the Continent'' (1997), p. 641.</ref><ref name="bbc_07042011"/>
Kenyatta described the conflict in his memoirs as a ] rather than a rebellion.<ref>{{cite journal |jstor=40402312|title=Revolt and Repression in Kenya: The "Mau Mau" Rebellion, 1952–1960 |last1=Newsinger|first1=John |journal=Science & Society|year=1981|volume=45 |issue=2|pages=159–185}}</ref> One reason that the revolt was largely limited to the Kikuyu people was, in part, that they had suffered the most as a result of the negative aspects of British colonialism.<ref name="Füredi 1989 4to5">{{Harvnb|Füredi|1989|pp=}}: "Since they were the most affected by the colonial system and the most educated about its ways, the Kikuyu emerged as the most politicized African community in Kenya."</ref><ref name="Berman 1991 p196">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=196}}: "The impact of colonial capitalism and the colonial state hit the Kikuyu with greater force and effect than any other of Kenya's peoples, setting off new processes of differentiation and class formation."</ref>

Wunyabari O. Maloba regards the rise of the Mau Mau movement as "without doubt, one of the most important events in recent African history".<ref name="thomas1993">{{cite journal |last=Thomas |first=Beth |year=1993 |url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/36/index-ba.html |page=7 |title=Historian, Kenya native's book on Mau Mau revolt |journal=UpDate |volume=13 |issue=13 |access-date=28 May 2010 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225224617/http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/36/index-ba.html |url-status=live }}</ref> David Anderson, however, considers Maloba's and similar work to be the product of "swallowing too readily the propaganda of the Mau Mau war", noting the similarity between such analysis and the "simplistic" earlier studies of Mau Mau.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=10}} This earlier work cast the Mau Mau war in strictly bipolar terms, "as conflicts between anti-colonial nationalists and colonial collaborators".{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=10}} ]' 2005 study, '']'', awarded the 2006 ],<ref Name="Pulitzer">{{cite web |title=Pulitzer Prize Winners: General Nonfiction |publisher=pulitzer.org |url=http://www.pulitzer.org/ |access-date=2008-03-16 |archive-date=24 February 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080224184433/http://www.pulitzer.org/ |url-status=live }}</ref> was also controversial in that she was accused of presenting an equally binary portrayal of the conflict<ref name="Ogot 2005 502">{{Harvnb|Ogot|2005|p=502}}: "There was no reason and no restraint on both sides, although Elkins sees no atrocities on the part of Mau Mau."</ref> and of drawing questionable conclusions from limited census data, in particular her assertion that the victims of British punitive measures against the Kikuyu amounted to as many as 300,000 dead.<ref name="elstein">See in particular ]'s angry letters:
* {{cite journal |title=Letters: Tell me where I'm wrong |journal=London Review of Books |volume=27 |issue=11 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/letters |year=2005 |access-date=3 May 2011 |archive-date=3 October 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191003091349/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n11/letters |url-status=live }}
* {{cite journal |title=The End of the Mau Mau |journal=The New York Review of Books |volume=52 |issue=11 |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/23/the-end-of-the-mau-mau |year=2005 |access-date=3 May 2011 |archive-date=27 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150927224513/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/23/the-end-of-the-mau-mau/ |url-status=live }}
* {{cite journal |title=Letters: Tell me where I'm wrong |journal=London Review of Books |volume=27 |issue=14 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n14/letters |year=2005 |access-date=3 May 2011 |archive-date=5 July 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170705055835/https://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n14/letters |url-status=live }}</ref> While Elstein regards the "requirement" for the "great majority of Kikuyu" to live inside 800 "fortified villages" as "serv the purpose of protection", Professor David Anderson (amongst others) regards the "compulsory resettlement" of "1,007,500 Kikuyu" inside what, for the "most" part, were "little more than concentration camps" as "punitive ... to punish Mau Mau sympathisers".<ref>See Elstein's {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215172234/http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-elstein/daniel-goldhagen-and-kenya-recycling-fantasy |date=15 December 2018 }} and {{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|p=294}}.</ref>

{{Quote box
| quote = It is often assumed that in a conflict there are two sides in opposition to one another, and that a person who is not actively committed to one side must be supporting the other. During the course of a conflict, leaders on both sides will use this argument to gain active support from the "crowd". In reality, conflicts involving more than two persons usually have more than two sides, and if a resistance movement is to be successful, propaganda and politicization are essential.<ref name="Pirouet 1977 197">{{Harvnb|Pirouet|1977|p=}}.</ref>
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Broadly speaking, throughout Kikuyu history, there have been two traditions: ''moderate-conservative'' and ''radical''.<ref name="Clough 1998">{{Harvnb|Clough|1998}}.</ref> Despite the differences between them, there has been a continuous debate and dialogue between these traditions, leading to a great political awareness among the Kikuyu.<ref name="Clough 1998"/><ref name="Berman 1991 p197">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=197}}: "eveloping conflicts ... in Kikuyu society were expressed in a vigorous internal debate."</ref> By 1950, these differences, and the impact of colonial rule, had given rise to three native Kenyan political blocs: ''conservative'', ''moderate nationalist'' and ''militant nationalist''.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|pp=11–12}} It has also been argued that Mau Mau was not explicitly national, either intellectually or operationally.<ref name="Branch 2009 pxi" />
<!-- Commenting out this bit till I can resolve it: some apparent discrepancy between sources, Elkins (2005) p.25 and Berman (1991) p.198.
In 1950 these leaders embarked upon a campaign of mass oathing to silence the opposition and unify the community.<ref name="berman1991_198"/> Around 1943, residents of Olenguruone radicalised the traditional Kikuyu practice of oathing, and extended oathing to women and children.<ref name="elkins2005_25">], p.&nbsp;25.</ref>-->


Bruce Berman argues that, "While Mau Mau was clearly not a tribal atavism seeking a return to the past, the answer to the question of 'was it nationalism?' must be yes and no."<ref name="Berman 1991 p199">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=199}}.</ref> As the Mau Mau rebellion wore on, the violence forced the spectrum of opinion within the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru to polarise and harden into the two distinct camps of loyalist and Mau Mau.<ref name="Branch 2009 p1">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=}}.</ref> This neat division between loyalists and Mau Mau was a product of the conflict, rather than a cause or catalyst of it, with the violence becoming less ambiguous over time,<ref name="Branch 2009 p2">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=}}.</ref> in a similar manner to other situations.<ref name="Pirouet 1977 200">{{Harvnb|Pirouet|1977|p=}}.</ref><ref name="Kalyvas 2006">{{Harvnb|Kalyvas|2006}}.</ref>
In May 1951, the British ], ], visited Kenya, where the ] (KAU) presented him with a list of demands ranging from the removal of alleged discriminatory legislation to the inclusion of 12 elected black representatives on the Legislative Council that governed the colony's affairs.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} Griffith proposed a Legislative Council in which the 30,000{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} white settlers received 14 representatives, the 100,000{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} Asians (mostly from South Asia{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}}) got six, the 24,000{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} ]s one, and the 5,000,000{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} Africans five representatives to be nominated by the government.


==British reaction to the uprising== ===British reaction to the uprising===
{{quote box {{quote box
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| quote = Between 1952 and 1956, when the fighting was at its worst, the Kikuyu districts of Kenya became a police state in the very fullest sense of that term.<ref name="anderson2005_5"/> | quote = Between 1952 and 1956, when the fighting was at its worst, the Kikuyu districts of Kenya became a police state in the very fullest sense of that term.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=5}}
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}] retired as Kenya's governor in summer 1952, having turned a blind eye to Mau Mau's increasing activity.<ref name="elkins2005_32">], p.&nbsp;32.</ref> Through the summer of 1952, however, Colonial Secretary ] in London received a steady flow of reports from Acting Governor Henry Potter about the escalating seriousness of Mau Mau violence,<ref name="elkins2005_32"/> but it was not until the later part of 1953 that British politicians began to accept that the rebellion was going to take some time to deal with.<ref name="nissimi2006_4">], p.&nbsp;</ref> At first, the British discounted the Mau Mau rebellion<ref name="french2011_29">], p.&nbsp;.</ref> because of their own technical and military superiority, which encouraged hopes for a quick victory.<ref name="nissimi2006_4"/> The British army accepted the gravity of the uprising months before the politicians, but the army's appeals to London and Nairobi initially fell on deaf ears.<ref name="nissimi2006_4"/> On 30 September 1952, Sir ] arrived in Kenya to permanently take over from Potter; Baring was given no warning by Mitchell or the Colonial Office about the gathering maelstrom into which he was stepping.<ref name="elkins2005_32"/> On 3 October, Mau Mau probably claimed their first European victim when they stabbed a woman to death near her home in Thika.<ref name="elkins2005_32"/> A week later, on 9 October, Senior Chief Waruhiu had been shot to death in broad daylight in his car.<ref name="elkins2005_31">], p.&nbsp;31.</ref> Waruhiu had been one of the strongest supporters of the British presence in Kenya, and had profited accordingly. His assassination gave Baring the final impetus to request permission from the Colonial Office to declare a State of Emergency (see below).<ref name="elkins2005_31-32">], pp.&nbsp;31–2.</ref> | sstyle = text-align: right;}}] retired as Kenya's governor in summer 1952, having turned a blind eye to Mau Mau's increasing activity.<ref name="Edgerton 1989 31_32">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|pp=31–32}}.</ref> Through the summer of 1952, however, Colonial Secretary ] in London received a steady flow of reports from Acting Governor Henry Potter about the escalating seriousness of Mau Mau violence,<ref name="Elkins 2005 32">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=32}}.</ref> but it was not until the later part of 1953 that British politicians began to accept that the rebellion was going to take some time to deal with.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 4">{{Harvnb|Nissimi|2006|p=4}}.</ref> At first, the British discounted the Mau Mau rebellion<ref name="French 2011 29">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=}}.</ref> because of their own technical and military superiority, which encouraged hopes for a quick victory.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 4"/>


The British army accepted the gravity of the uprising months before the politicians, but its appeals to London and Nairobi were ignored.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 4"/> On 30 September 1952, ] arrived in Kenya to permanently take over from Potter; Baring was given no warning by Mitchell or the Colonial Office about the gathering maelstrom into which he was stepping.<ref name="Elkins 2005 32"/>
Aside from military operations against Mau Mau fighters in the forests, the British attempt to defeat the movement broadly came in two stages: the first, relatively limited in scope, came during the period in which they had still failed to accept the seriousness of the revolt; the second came afterwards. During the first stage, the British tried to decapitate the movement by declaring a State of Emergency before arresting 180 alleged Mau Mau leaders (see ''Operation Jock Scott'' below) and subjecting six of them to a ] (the ]); the second stage began in earnest in 1954, when they undertook a series of major economic, military and penal initiatives. The second stage had three main planks: a large military-sweep of Nairobi leading to the internment of tens of thousands of the city's suspected Mau Mau members and sympathisers (see ''Operation Anvil'' below); the enaction of major agrarian reform (the ]); and the institution of a vast ] for more than a million rural Kikuyu (see below).


Aside from military operations against Mau Mau fighters in the forests, the British attempt to defeat the movement broadly came in two stages: the first, relatively limited in scope, came during the period in which they had still failed to accept the seriousness of the revolt; the second came afterwards. During the first stage, the British tried to decapitate the movement by declaring a State of Emergency before arresting 180 alleged Mau Mau leaders in ] and subjecting six of them (the ]) to a ]; the second stage began in earnest in 1954, when they undertook a series of major economic, military and penal initiatives.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}
The savagery of the British response was assisted by two facts: first, the settler regime in Kenya was, even before the insurgency, probably the most openly racist one in the British empire; second, the brutality of Mau Mau attacks on civilians made it easy for the movement's opponents—even for African, loyalist security forces—to adopt a totally dehumanised view of Mau Mau adherents.<ref name="french2011_72">], p.&nbsp;.</ref>


The second stage had three main planks: a large military-sweep of Nairobi leading to the internment of tens of thousands of the city's suspected Mau Mau members and sympathisers ( Operation Anvil); the enacting of major agrarian reform (the ]); and the institution of a vast ] programme for more than a million rural Kikuyu. In 2012, the UK government accepted that prisoners had suffered "] and ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration".<ref name="bbc-20120717">{{cite news | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18874040 | publisher=BBC News | title=Mau Mau case: UK government accepts abuse took place | date=17 July 2012 | access-date=20 June 2018 | archive-date=11 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811065408/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18874040 | url-status=live }}</ref>
===State of Emergency declared===
<!-- This section is linked from ] -->
On 20 October 1952, Governor Baring signed an order declaring a ]. Early the next morning, Operation Jock Scott was launched: the British carried out a mass-arrest of ] and 180 other alleged Mau Mau leaders within Nairobi.<ref name="anderson2005_62">], p.&nbsp;62.</ref><ref name="elkins2005_35-36">], pp.&nbsp;35–6.</ref> Jock Scott did not decapitate the movement's leadership as hoped: news of the operation was leaked. Thus, while the moderates on the wanted list awaited capture, the real militants, such as Dedan Kimathi and Stanley Mathenge (both later principal leaders of Mau Mau's forest armies), fled to the forests.<ref name="anderson2005_63">], p.&nbsp;63.</ref> The day after the round up, another prominent loyalist chief, Nderi, was hacked to pieces,<ref name="anderson2005_68">], p.&nbsp;68.</ref> and a series of gruesome murders against settlers were committed throughout the months that followed.<ref name="elkins2005_38">], p.&nbsp;38.</ref> The violent and random nature of British tactics during the months after Jock Scott served merely to alienate ordinary Kikuyu and drive many of the wavering Kikuyu majority into Mau Mau's arms.<ref name="anderson2005_69">], p.&nbsp;69.</ref> <!--Up to 8,000{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} people were arrested during the first 25 days of the operation. The State of Emergency lasted until 10 November 1959.-->


The harshness of the British response was inflated by two factors. First, the settler government in Kenya was, even before the insurgency, probably the most openly racist one in the British empire, with the settlers' violent prejudice attended by an uncompromising determination to retain their grip on power<ref name="French 2011 72">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=}}.</ref> and half-submerged fears that, as a tiny minority, they could be overwhelmed by the indigenous population.<ref name="French 2011 55">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=}}.</ref> Its representatives were so keen on aggressive action that ] referred to them as "the White Mau Mau".<ref name="French 2011 55"/> Second, the brutality of Mau Mau attacks on civilians made it easy for the movement's opponents—including native Kenyan and loyalist security forces—to adopt a totally dehumanised view of Mau Mau adherents.<ref name="French 2011 72"/>
Three battalions of the King's African Rifles were recalled from Uganda, Tanganyika and Mauritius, giving the regiment five battalions in all in Kenya, a total of 3,000 African troops.<ref name="anderson2005_62"/> To placate settler opinion, one ] of British troops, from the ], was also flown in from the ] to Nairobi on the first day of Operation Jock Scott.<ref name="anderson2005_62-63">], pp.&nbsp;62–3.</ref> <!--The ] sent pilots and ] transport aircraft and ] bombers. The ] ] ''Kenya'' came to ] harbour carrying ]. During the course of the conflict, other British units such as the ], ] and ] (REME) served for a short time.-->


Resistance to both the Mau Mau and the British response was illustrated by ] who famously asked that the British colonial forces not destroy the food used by her villagers, since its destruction could potentially starve the entire region. Instead, she urged the colonial forces to guard the yams and bananas and stop the Mau Mau from killing any more residents.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Ciokaraine: The Story of the Female Meru Diviner|url=https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ciokaraine-the-story-of-the-female-meru-diviner/TwLCrIdWF1WDJg|access-date=8 August 2020|website=Google Arts & Culture|language=en|archive-date=13 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813052356/https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ciokaraine-the-story-of-the-female-meru-diviner/TwLCrIdWF1WDJg|url-status=live}}</ref>
In November 1952, Baring requested assistance from the ]. For the next year, the Service's A.M. MacDonald would reorganise the Special Branch of the Kenya Police, promote collaboration with Special Branches in adjacent territories, and oversee coordination of all intelligence activity "to secure the intelligence Government requires".<ref>], pp.&nbsp;456–7.</ref>


A variety of coercive techniques were initiated by the colonial authorities to punish and break Mau Mau's support: Baring ordered punitive communal-labour, collective fines and other collective punishments, and further confiscation of land and property.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wright |first1=Thomas J. |date=4 July 2022 |title='Constituencies of Control' – Collective Punishments in Kenya's Mau Mau Emergency, 1952–55 |journal=The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=323–350 |doi=10.1080/03086534.2022.2093475|s2cid=250321705 |doi-access=free }}</ref> By early 1954, tens of thousands of head of livestock had been taken, and were allegedly never returned.<ref name="Elkins 2005 75">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=75}}: "According to Emergency regulations, the governor could issue Native Land Rights Confiscation Orders, whereby 'ach of the persons named in the schedule ... participated or aided in violent resistance against the forces of law and order' and therefore had his land confiscated".</ref> Detailed accounts of the policy of seizing livestock from Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels were finally released in April 2012.<ref name="BBC 2012 docs">{{cite news |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17734735 |last= Wallis |first= Holly |date= 18 April 2012 |title= British colonial files released following legal challenge |publisher= BBC News |access-date= 29 May 2012 |archive-date= 14 June 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120614083715/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17734735 |url-status= live }}</ref>
{{quote box

| title =
===State of emergency declared (October 1952)===
| quote = Our sources have produced nothing to indicate that Kenyatta, or his associates in the UK, are directly involved in Mau Mau activities, or that Kenyatta is essential to Mau Mau as a leader, or that he is in a position to direct its activities.<ref name="andrew2009_454">], p.&nbsp;454. See also the relevant footnote, n.&nbsp;96 of p.&nbsp;454.</ref>
On 20 October 1952, Governor Baring signed an order declaring a ]. Early the next morning, ] was launched: the British carried out a mass-arrest of ] and 180 other alleged Mau Mau leaders within Nairobi.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=62}}<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp35-36">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=35–36}}.</ref> Jock Scott did not decapitate the movement's leadership as hoped, since news of the impending operation was leaked. Thus, while the moderates on the wanted list awaited capture, the real militants, such as Dedan Kimathi and ] (both later principal leaders of Mau Mau's forest armies), fled to the forests.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=63}}
| source = —], Director General of ]<br/>Letter to Evelyn Baring, 9 January 1953

The day after the round up, another prominent loyalist chief, Nderi, was hacked to pieces,{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=68}} and a series of gruesome murders against settlers were committed throughout the months that followed.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p38">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=38}}.</ref> The violent and random nature of British tactics during the months after Jock Scott served merely to alienate ordinary Kikuyu and drive many of the wavering majority into Mau Mau's arms.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=69}} Three battalions of the ] were recalled from Uganda, Tanganyika and Mauritius, giving the regiment five battalions in all in Kenya, a total of 3,000 native Kenyan troops.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=62}} To placate settler opinion, one ] of British troops, from the ], was also flown in from ] to Nairobi on the first day of Operation Jock Scott.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|pp=62–63}} In November 1952, Baring requested assistance from the ]. For the next year, the Service's A.M. MacDonald would reorganise the Special Branch of the Kenya Police, promote collaboration with Special Branches in adjacent territories, and oversee coordination of all intelligence activity "to secure the intelligence Government requires".<ref>{{Harvnb|Andrew|2009|pp=456–457}}.<br />See also: {{Harvnb|Walton|2013|pp=236–286}}.</ref>{{quote box
| quote = Our sources have produced nothing to indicate that Kenyatta, or his associates in the UK, are directly involved in Mau Mau activities, or that Kenyatta is essential to Mau Mau as a leader, or that he is in a position to direct its activities.<ref name="Andrew 2009 p454">{{Harvnb|Andrew|2009|p=454}}. See also the relevant footnote, n.96 of p.&nbsp;454.</ref>
| source = —], Director General of ]<br />Letter to Evelyn Baring, 9 January 1953
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}In January 1953, six of the most prominent detainees from Jock Scott, including Kenyatta, were put on trial, primarily to justify the declaration of the Emergency to critics in London.<ref name="anderson2005_63"/><ref name="elkins2005_39">], p.&nbsp;39.</ref> The trial itself was claimed to have featured a suborned lead defence-witness, a bribed judge, and other serious violations of the ].{{Details|Kapenguria Six|the trial}} | sstyle = text-align: right;}}In January 1953, six of the most prominent detainees from Jock Scott, including Kenyatta, were put ], primarily to justify the declaration of the Emergency to critics in London.{{sfn|Anderson|2005| p=63}}<ref name="Elkins 2005 p39">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=39}}.</ref> The trial itself was claimed to have featured a suborned lead defence-witness, a bribed judge, and other serious violations of the ].{{citation needed|date = September 2022}}


African political activity was permitted to resume at the end of the military phase of the Emergency.<ref name="berman1991_189">], p.&nbsp;189.</ref> Native Kenyan political activity was permitted to resume at the end of the military phase of the Emergency.<ref name="Berman 1991 189">{{Harvnb|Berman|1991|p=189}}.</ref>


===Military operations=== ===Military operations===
], Commander-in-Chief, ] (centre), observing operations against the Mau Mau]]
The onset of the Emergency led hundreds, and eventually thousands, of Mau Mau adherents to flee to the forests, where a decentralised leadership had already begun setting up platoons.<ref name="elkins2005_37">], p.&nbsp;37.</ref> The primary zones of Mau Mau military strength were the ] and the forests around Mount Kenya, whilst a passive support-wing was fostered outside these areas.<ref name="elkins2005_37-38">], pp.&nbsp;37–8.</ref> Militarily, the British defeated Mau Mau in four years (1952–6)<ref name="clough1998_25a">], p.&nbsp;.</ref> using a more expansive version of "coercion through exemplary force".<ref name="french2011_116">], p.&nbsp;.</ref> In June 1953, General Sir ] arrived to oversee the restoration of order in the colony.<ref name="elkins2005_52">], p.&nbsp;52.</ref><!-- In late 1953, security forces swept the Aberdare forest in Operation Blitz and captured and killed 125 guerrillas.{{citation needed|date=May 2011}}--> Erskine's arrival did not immediately herald a fundamental change in strategy, thus the continual pressure on the gangs remained, but he created more mobile formations that delivered what he termed "special treatment" to an area. After "special treatment"—once gangs had been driven out and eliminated—loyalist forces and police were then to take over the area, with military support brought in thereafter only to conduct any required pacification operations. After their successful dispersion and containment, Erskine went after the forest fighters' source of supplies, money and recruits, i.e. the African population of Nairobi. This took the form of Operation Anvil, which commenced on 24 April 1954.<ref name="french2011_116to117">], pp.&nbsp;.</ref>
The onset of the Emergency led hundreds, and eventually thousands, of Mau Mau adherents to flee to the forests, where a decentralised leadership had already begun setting up platoons.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p37">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=37}}.</ref> The primary zones of Mau Mau military strength were the ] and the forests around Mount Kenya, whilst a passive support-wing was fostered outside these areas.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp37-38">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=37–38}}.</ref> Militarily, the British defeated Mau Mau in four years (1952–1956)<ref name="Clough 1998 p25b">{{Harvnb|Clough|1998|p=}}.</ref> using a more expansive version of "coercion through exemplary force".<ref name="French 2011 116">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=}}.</ref> In May 1953, the decision was made to send General ] to oversee the restoration of order in the colony.<ref name="Edgerton 1989 83">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=83}}.</ref>

By September 1953, the British knew the leading personalities in Mau Mau, and the capture and 68 hour interrogation of ] on 15 January the following year provided a massive intelligence boost on the forest fighters.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98279887 |title=They Follow the Dug-Out General. |newspaper=] |location=Brisbane |date=19 April 1953 |access-date=17 November 2013 |page=15 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18508452 |title=End May Be Near For The Mau Mau |newspaper=] |location=Sydney |date=30 August 1953 |access-date=17 November 2013 |page=8 |via=National Library of Australia |archive-date=9 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023617/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18508452 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200426161001/https://www.psywar.org/maumau.php |date=26 April 2020 }} Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.) 4 January 2006, accessed 9 November 2013</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18413571 |title=Mau Mau General Surrenders |newspaper=] |date=9 March 1954 |access-date=9 November 2013 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia |archive-date=9 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023618/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18413571 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="French 2011 32">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=}}.</ref><!-- In late 1953, security forces swept the Aberdare forest in Operation Blitz and captured and killed 125 guerrillas.{{citation needed|date=May 2011}}--> Erskine's arrival did not immediately herald a fundamental change in strategy, thus the continual pressure on the gangs remained, but he created more mobile formations that delivered what he termed "special treatment" to an area. Once gangs had been driven out and eliminated, loyalist forces and police were then to take over the area, with military support brought in thereafter only to conduct any required pacification operations. After their successful dispersion and containment, Erskine went after the forest fighters' source of supplies, money and recruits, i.e. the native Kenyan population of Nairobi. This took the form of Operation Anvil, which commenced on 24 April 1954.<ref name="French 2011 116to117">{{Harvnb|French|2011|pp=}}.</ref>


====Operation Anvil==== ====Operation Anvil====
{{main|Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising)}}
By 1954, Nairobi was regarded as the nerve centre of Mau Mau operations.<ref name="elkins2005_124">], p.&nbsp;124. "There was an unusual consensus in the ranks of both the military and Baring's civilian government that the colony's capital was the nerve center for Mau Mau operations. Nearly three-quarters of the city's African male population of sixty thousand were Kikuyu, and most of these men, along with some twenty thousand Kikuyu women and children accompanying them, were allegedly 'active or passive supporters of Mau Mau'."</ref> Anvil was the ambitious attempt to eliminate Mau Mau's presence within Nairobi in one fell swoop. 25,000 members of British security forces under the control of General Sir George Erskine were deployed as Nairobi was sealed off and underwent a sector-by-sector purge. All Africans were taken to temporary barbed-wire enclosures, whereafter those who were not Kikuyu, Embu or Meru were released; those who were remained in detention for screening.{{ref label|Note4|D|D}} Whilst the operation itself was conducted by Europeans, most suspected members of Mau Mau were picked out of groups of the Kikuyu-Embu-Meru detainees by an African informer. Male suspects were then taken off for further screening, primarily at Langata Screening Camp, whilst women and children were readied for 'repatriation' to the reserves (many of those slated for deportation had never set foot in the reserves before). Anvil lasted for two weeks, after which the capital had been cleared of all but certifiably-loyal Kikuyu; 20,000 Mau Mau suspects had been taken to Langata, and 30,000 more had been deported to the reserves.<ref name="elkins2005_121-125">], pp.&nbsp;121–5.</ref>
] rifle (1st and 2nd soldiers from right); ] Mk5 (3rd soldier); and the ] (4th and 5th soldiers)<ref>{{cite book |first=Bob |last=Cashner |title=The FN FAL Battle Rifle |location=Oxford, UK |publisher=] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-78096-903-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qpDvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT23 |page=15 |access-date=4 March 2019 |archive-date=9 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023657/https://books.google.com/books?id=qpDvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT23#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
By 1954, Nairobi was regarded as the nerve centre of Mau Mau operations.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p124">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=124}}: "There was an unusual consensus in the ranks of both the military and Baring's civilian government that the colony's capital was the nerve center for Mau Mau operations. Nearly three-quarters of the city's African male population of sixty thousand were Kikuyu, and most of these men, along with some twenty thousand Kikuyu women and children accompanying them, were allegedly 'active or passive supporters of Mau Mau'."</ref> The insurgents in the highlands of the Aberdares and Mt Kenya were being supplied provisions and weapons by supporters in Nairobi via couriers.<ref name=henderson1958manhunt>{{Harvnb|Henderson|Goodhart|1958|p=14}}: "In the first months of the emergency the Mau Mau discipline was so strong that a terrorist in the forest who gave his money to a courier could be almost certain of getting what he wanted from any shop in Nairobi."</ref> Anvil was the ambitious attempt to eliminate Mau Mau's presence within Nairobi in one fell swoop. 25,000 members of British security forces under the control of General George Erskine were deployed as Nairobi was sealed off and underwent a sector-by-sector purge. All native Kenyans were taken to temporary barbed-wire enclosures. Those who were not Kikuyu, Embu or Meru were released; those who were remained in detention for screening.{{efn|During the Emergency, ''screening'' was the term used by colonial authorities to mean the interrogation of a Mau Mau suspect. The alleged member or sympathiser of Mau Mau would be interrogated in order to obtain an admission of guilt—specifically, a confession that they had taken the Mau Mau oath—as well as for intelligence.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p63">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=63}}.</ref>}}

Whilst the operation itself was conducted by Europeans, most suspected members of Mau Mau were picked out of groups of the Kikuyu-Embu-Meru detainees by a native Kenyan informer. Male suspects were then taken off for further screening, primarily at Langata Screening Camp, whilst women and children were readied for 'repatriation' to the reserves (many of those slated for deportation had never set foot in the reserves before). Anvil lasted for two weeks, after which the capital had been cleared of all but certifiably loyal Kikuyu; 20,000 Mau Mau suspects had been taken to Langata, and 30,000 more had been deported to the reserves.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp121-125">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=121–125}}.</ref>


====Air power==== ====Air power====
For an extended period of time, the chief British weapon against the forest fighters was air power. Between June 1953 and October 1955, the RAF provided a significant contribution to the conflict—and, indeed, had to, for the army was preoccupied with providing security in the reserves until January 1955, and it was the only service capable of both psychologically influencing and inflicting considerable casualties on the Mau Mau fighters operating in the dense forests. Lack of timely and accurate intelligence meant bombing was rather haphazard, but almost 900 insurgents had been killed or wounded by air attack by June 1954, and it did cause forest gangs to disband, lowered their morale, and induced their pronounced relocation from the forests to the reserves. Contrary to that which is sometimes claimed, Lancaster bombers were not used during the Emergency, though Lincoln bombers were. The latter flew their first mission on 18 November 1953 and remained in Kenya until 28 July 1955, conducting over 900 sorties and dropping nearly 6 million bombs. They and other aircraft were also deployed for reconnaissance, as well as in the propaganda war, conducting large-scale leaflet-drops. After the Lari massacre, for example, British planes dropped leaflets showing graphic pictures of the Kikuyu women and children who had been hacked to death. Unlike the rather indiscriminate activities of British ground forces, which had had their repression and violence against Kikuyu encouraged from Cabinet level downwards, the use of air power was more restrained (though there is disagreement on this latter point<ref name="edgerton1990_86">], p.&nbsp;86.</ref>), and air attacks were initially permitted only in the forests. Operation Mushroom extended bombing beyond the forest limits in May 1954, and Churchill consented to its continuation in January 1955.<ref name="chappell2011">].</ref> For an extended period of time, the chief British weapon against the forest fighters was air power. Between June 1953 and October 1955, the RAF provided a significant contribution to the conflict—and, indeed, had to, for the army was preoccupied with providing security in the reserves until January 1955, and it was the only service capable of both psychologically influencing and inflicting considerable casualties on the Mau Mau fighters operating in the dense forests. Lack of timely and accurate intelligence meant bombing was rather haphazard, but almost 900 insurgents had been killed or wounded by air attacks by June 1954, and it did cause forest gangs to disband, lower their morale, and induce their pronounced relocation from the forests to the reserves.<ref name="Chappell 2011">{{Harvnb|Chappell|2011}}.</ref>

At first armed ] training aircraft were used, for direct ground support and also some camp interdiction. As the campaign developed, ] heavy bombers were deployed, flying missions in Kenya from 18 November 1953 to 28 July 1955, dropping nearly 6&nbsp;million bombs.<ref name="Chappell 2011 68">{{Harvnb|Chappell|2011|p=68}}.</ref><ref name="Edgerton 1989 86+quote">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=86}}: "Before the Emergency ended, the ] dropped the amazing total of 50,000 tons of bombs on the forests and fired over 2&nbsp;million rounds from machine guns during strafing runs. It is not known how many humans or animals were killed."</ref> They and other aircraft, such as blimps, were also deployed for reconnaissance, as well as in the ], conducting large-scale leaflet-drops.<ref name="Chappell 2011 67">{{Harvnb|Chappell|2011|p=67}}.</ref> A flight of ] jets flew in from ], but were used for only ten days of operations. Some light aircraft of the Police Air Wing also provided support.<ref>Smith, J. T. ''Mau Mau! A Case study in Colonial Air Power'' ] 64 July–August 1996 pp. 65–71</ref>

After the ] for example, British planes dropped leaflets showing graphic pictures of the Kikuyu women and children who had been hacked to death. Unlike the rather indiscriminate activities of British ground forces, the use of air power was more restrained (though there is disagreement<ref name="Edgerton 1989 86">{{Harvnb|Edgerton|1989|p=86}}.</ref> on this point), and air attacks were initially permitted only in the forests. Operation Mushroom extended bombing beyond the forest limits in May 1954, and Churchill consented to its continuation in January 1955.<ref name="Chappell 2011"/>


===Swynnerton Plan=== ===Swynnerton Plan===
{{main|Swynnerton Plan}} {{main|Swynnerton Plan}}
Already overcrowded, Baring knew the massive deportations to the reserves could only make things worse. Refusing to give more land to the Kikuyu in the reserves, which could be seen as a concession to Mau Mau, Baring turned instead in 1953 to Roger Swynnerton, Kenya's assistant director of agriculture.<ref name="anderson1988">], "The Swynnerton Plan was among the most comprehensive of all the post-war colonial development programmes implemented in British Africa. Largely framed prior to the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1952, but not implemented until two years later, this development is central to the story of Kenya's decolonization".</ref><ref name="elkins2005_127">], p. 127.</ref><ref name="ogot1995_48">], p. "The main objective of the Swynnerton Plan was to create family holdings which would be large enough to keep the family self-sufficient in food and also enable them to practise alternate husbandry and thus develop a cash income".</ref> The projected costs of the ] were too high for the cash-strapped colonial government, so Baring tweaked repatriation and augmented the Swynnerton Plan with plans for a massive expansion of the Pipeline coupled with a system of works camps to make use of detainee labour. All Kikuyu employed for public works projects would now be employed on Swynnerton's poor-relief programmes, as would many detainees in the works camps.<ref name="anderson1988">].</ref><ref name="elkins2005_128-129">], pp. 128–9.</ref> Baring knew the massive deportations to the already-overcrowded reserves could only make things worse. Refusing to give more land to the Kikuyu in the reserves, which could have been seen as a concession to Mau Mau, Baring turned instead in 1953 to Roger Swynnerton, Kenya's assistant director of agriculture.<ref name="Anderson 1988 I">{{Harvnb|Anderson|1988}}: "The Swynnerton Plan was among the most comprehensive of all the post-war colonial development programmes implemented in British Africa. Largely framed prior to the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1952, but not implemented until two years later, this development is central to the story of Kenya's decolonization".</ref><ref name="Elkins 2005 p127">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=127}}.</ref> The primary goal of the Swynnerton Plan was the creation of family holdings large enough to keep families self-sufficient in food and to enable them to practise alternate husbandry, which would generate a cash income.<ref name="Ogot 1995 48">{{Harvnb|Ogot|1995|p=}}.</ref>


The projected costs of the ] were too high for the cash-strapped colonial government, so Baring tweaked repatriation and augmented the Swynnerton Plan with plans for a massive expansion of the Pipeline coupled with a system of work camps to make use of detainee labour. All Kikuyu employed for public works projects would now be employed on Swynnerton's poor-relief programmes, as would many detainees in the work camps.<ref name="Anderson 1988 II">{{Harvnb|Anderson|1988}}.</ref><ref name="Elkins 2005 pp128-129">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=128–129}}.</ref>
A variety of persuasive techniques were initiated by the colonial authorities to punish and break Mau Mau's support: Baring ordered punitive communal-labour, collective fines and other collective punishments, and further confiscation of land and property. By early 1954, tens of thousands of livestock had been taken, and were allegedly never returned.<ref>], p. 75. "According to Emergency regulations, the governor could issue Native Land Rights Confiscation Orders, whereby "Each of the persons named in the schedule .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. participated or aided in violent resistance against the forces of law and order" and therefore had his land confiscated".</ref>


===Detention programme=== ===Detention programme===
{{further|List of British Detention Camps during the Mau Mau Uprising}}
{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = It would be difficult to argue that the colonial government envisioned its own version of a gulag when the Emergency first started. Colonial officials in Kenya and Britain all believed that Mau Mau would be over in less than three months.<ref name="elkins2005_125">], p.&nbsp;125.</ref> | quote = It would be difficult to argue that the colonial government envisioned its own version of a gulag when the Emergency first started. Colonial officials in Kenya and Britain all believed that Mau Mau would be over in less than three months.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p125">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=125}}.</ref>
| source = —Caroline Elkins | source = —Caroline Elkins
| align = right | align = right
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}When the mass deportations of Kikuyu to the reserves began in 1953, Baring and Erskine ordered all Mau Mau suspects to be screened. Of the scores of screening camps which sprang up, only fifteen were officially sanctioned by the colonial government. Larger detention camps were divided into compounds. The screening centres were staffed by settlers who were appointed temporary district-officers by Baring for their task.<ref name="elkins2005_62-90">], pp.&nbsp;62–90.</ref> | sstyle = text-align: right;}}When the mass deportations of Kikuyu to the reserves began in 1953, Baring and Erskine ordered all Mau Mau suspects to be screened. Of the scores of screening camps which sprang up, only fifteen were officially sanctioned by the colonial government. Larger detention camps were divided into compounds. The screening centres were staffed by settlers who had been appointed temporary district-officers by Baring.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp62-90">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=62–90}}.</ref>
<!--Christopher Todd, the first settler given such an appointment, had a major role in devising the screening strategy. Todd explained that the settlers had decided to "take the law into their own hands" when they didn't feel enough was done by the colonial government to combat the Mau Mau threat; the colonial government's response to settler vigilantism was to encourage settlers to join the government's Kenya Police Reserve—once part of the official security apparatus, the settlers would gain legal protection.<ref name="elkins2005_62-90">], pp.&nbsp;62–90.</ref>--> <!--Christopher Todd, the first settler given such an appointment, had a major role in devising the screening strategy. Todd explained that the settlers had decided to "take the law into their own hands" when they didn't feel enough was done by the colonial government to combat the Mau Mau threat; the colonial government's response to settler vigilantism was to encourage settlers to join the government's Kenya Police Reserve—once part of the official security apparatus, the settlers would gain legal protection.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp62-90"/>-->


Thomas Askwith, the official tasked with designing the British 'detention and rehabilitation' programme during the summer and autumn of 1953, termed his system the ''Pipeline''.<ref name="elkins2005_109">], p.&nbsp;109.</ref> The British did not initially conceive of rehabilitating Mau Mau suspects through brute force and other ill-treatment—rather, Askwith's final plan, submitted to Baring in October 1953, was "a complete blueprint for winning the war against Mau Mau using socioeconomic and civic reform."<ref name="elkins2005_108">], p.&nbsp;108.</ref> What developed, however, has been described as a British ].<ref>The term 'gulag' is used by David Anderson and Caroline Elkins. For Anderson, see his 2005 '']'', p.&nbsp;7: "Virtually every one of the acquitted men .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. would spend the next several years in the notorious detention camps of the Kenyan gulag"; for Elkins, see the title of the British edition of her 2005 book: '']''.</ref> Thomas Askwith, the official tasked with designing the British 'detention and rehabilitation' programme during the summer and autumn of 1953, termed his system the ''Pipeline''.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p109">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=109}}.</ref> The British did not initially conceive of rehabilitating Mau Mau suspects through brute force and other ill-treatment—Askwith's final plan, submitted to Baring in October 1953, was intended as "a complete blueprint for winning the war against Mau Mau using socioeconomic and civic reform".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p108">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=108}}.</ref> What developed, however, has been described as a British ].{{efn|The term ''gulag'' is used by David Anderson and Caroline Elkins. For Anderson, see his 2005 ''Histories of the Hanged'', p.&nbsp;7: "Virtually every one of the acquitted men ... would spend the next several years in the notorious detention camps of the Kenyan gulag"; for Elkins, see the UK edition of her 2005 book, ''Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya''.}}


The Pipeline operated a white-grey-black classification system: 'whites' were cooperative detainees, and were repatriated back to the reserves; 'greys' had been oathed but were reasonably compliant, and were moved down the Pipeline to works camps in their local districts before release; and 'blacks' were the so-called 'hard core' of Mau Mau. These were moved up the Pipeline to special detention camps. Thus a detainee's position in Pipeline was a straightforward reflection of how cooperative the Pipeline personnel deemed her or him to be. Cooperation was itself defined in terms of a detainee's readiness to confess their Mau Mau oath. Detainees were screened and re-screened for confessions and intelligence, then re-classified accordingly.<ref name="elkins2005_136">], p.&nbsp;136.</ref> The Pipeline operated a white-grey-black classification system: 'whites' were co-operative detainees, and were repatriated back to the reserves; 'greys' had been oathed but were reasonably compliant, and were moved down the Pipeline to works camps in their local districts before release; and 'blacks' were the 'hard core' of Mau Mau. These were moved up the Pipeline to special detention camps. Thus a detainee's position in Pipeline was a straightforward reflection of how cooperative the Pipeline personnel deemed her or him to be. Cooperation was itself defined in terms of a detainee's readiness to confess their Mau Mau oath. Detainees were screened and re-screened for confessions and intelligence, then re-classified accordingly.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p136">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=136}}.</ref>


{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = here is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya's Belsen, he called one camp.<ref name="guardian_11042011">{{cite news| newspaper=The Guardian |date=11 April 2011 |title=Mau Mau abuse case: Time to say sorry |author=Editorial |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-empire-british-government-responsibility |accessdate=14 April 2011}}</ref> | quote = here is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya's Belsen, he called one camp.
<ref name="guardian_11042011">{{cite news |newspaper=] |date=11 April 2011 |title=Mau Mau abuse case: Time to say sorry |author=Editorial |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-empire-british-government-responsibility |access-date=14 April 2011 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930033329/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-empire-british-government-responsibility |url-status=live }}</ref>
| source = —''Guardian'' Editorial, 11 April 2011 | source = —''Guardian'' Editorial, 11 April 2011
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}A detainee's journey between two locations along the Pipeline could sometimes last days. During transit, there was frequently little or no food and water provided, and seldom any sanitation. Once in camp, talking was forbidden outside the detainees' accommodation huts, though improvised communication was rife. Such communication included propaganda and disinformation, which went by such names as the ''Kinongo Times'', designed to encourage fellow detainees not to give up hope and so to minimise the number of those who confessed their oath and cooperated with camp authorities. Forced labour was performed by detainees on projects like the thirty-seven-mile-long South Yatta irrigation furrow.<ref name="elkins2005_154-91"/> Family outside and other considerations led many detainees to confess.<ref name="Peterson2008_75-76">], pp.&nbsp;75–6. "Some detainees, worried that the substance of their lives was draining away, thought their primary duty lay with their families. They therefore confessed to British officers, and sought an early release from detention. Other detainees refused to accept the British demand that they sully other people's reputations by naming those whom they knew to be involved in Mau Mau. This 'hard core' kept their mouths closed, and languished for years in detention. The battle behind the wire was not fought over detainees' loyalty to a Mau Mau movement. Detainees' intellectual and moral concerns were always close to home."</ref><ref name="Peterson2008_89">], p.&nbsp;89. "British officials thought that those who confessed had broken their allegiance to Mau Mau. But what moved detainees to confess was not their broken loyalty to Mau Mau, but their devotion to their families. British officials played on this devotion to hasten a confession."</ref><ref name="Peterson2008_91">], p.&nbsp;91. "The battle behind the wire was not fought between patriotic hard-core Mau Mau and weak-kneed, wavering, broken men who confessed.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Both hard core and soft core had their families in mind."</ref>

A detainee's journey between two locations along the Pipeline could sometimes last days. During transit, there was frequently little or no food and water provided, and seldom any sanitation. Once in camp, talking was forbidden outside the detainees' accommodation huts, though improvised communication was rife. Such communication included propaganda and disinformation, which went by such names as the ''Kinongo Times'', designed to encourage fellow detainees not to give up hope and so to minimise the number of those who confessed their oath and cooperated with camp authorities. Forced labour was performed by detainees on projects like the thirty-seven-mile-long South Yatta irrigation furrow.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp154-91"/> Family outside and other considerations led many detainees to confess.<ref name="Peterson 2008 75_76,89,91">{{Harvnb|Peterson|2008|pp=75–76, 89, 91}}: "Some detainees, worried that the substance of their lives was draining away, thought their primary duty lay with their families. They therefore confessed to British officers, and sought an early release from detention. Other detainees refused to accept the British demand that they sully other people's reputations by naming those whom they knew to be involved in Mau Mau. This 'hard core' kept their mouths closed, and languished for years in detention. The battle behind the wire was not fought over detainees' loyalty to a Mau Mau movement. Detainees' intellectual and moral concerns were always close to home. ... British officials thought that those who confessed had broken their allegiance to Mau Mau. But what moved detainees to confess was not their broken loyalty to Mau Mau, but their devotion to their families. British officials played on this devotion to hasten a confession. ... The battle behind the wire was not fought between patriotic hard-core Mau Mau and weak-kneed, wavering, broken men who confessed. ... Both hard core and soft core had their families in mind."</ref>


During the first year after Operation Anvil, colonial authorities had little success in forcing detainees to cooperate. Camps and compounds were overcrowded, forced-labour systems were not yet perfected, screening teams were not fully coordinated, and the use of torture was not yet systematised.<ref name="elkins2005_178">], p.&nbsp;178.</ref> This failure was partly due to the lack of manpower and resources, as well as the vast numbers of detainees. Officials could scarcely process them all, let alone get them to confess their oaths. Assessing the situation in the summer of 1955, Alan Lennox-Boyd wrote of his "fear that the net figure of detainees may still be rising. If so the outlook is grim."<ref name="elkins2005_178"/> Black markets flourished during this period, with the African guards helping to facilitate trading. It was possible for detainees to bribe guards in order to obtain items or stay punishment.<ref name="elkins2005_154-91">], pp.&nbsp;154–91.</ref> During the first year after Operation Anvil, colonial authorities had little success in forcing detainees to co-operate. Camps and compounds were overcrowded, forced-labour systems were not yet perfected, screening teams were not fully coordinated, and the use of torture was not yet systematised.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p178">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=178}}.</ref> This failure was partly due to the lack of manpower and resources, as well as the vast numbers of detainees. Officials could scarcely process them all, let alone get them to confess their oaths. Assessing the situation in the summer of 1955, Alan Lennox-Boyd wrote of his "fear that the net figure of detainees may still be rising. If so the outlook is grim."<ref name="Elkins 2005 p178"/> Black markets flourished during this period, with the native Kenyan guards helping to facilitate trading. It was possible for detainees to bribe guards in order to obtain items or stay punishment.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp154-91">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=154–191}}.</ref>


{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = he horror of some of the so-called Screening Camps now present a state of affairs so deplorable that they should be investigated without delay, so that the ever increasing allegations of inhumanity and disregard of the rights of the African citizen are dealt with and so that the Government will have no reason to be ashamed of the acts which are done in its own name by its own servants.<ref name="times_13042011a"/> | quote = he horror of some of the so-called Screening Camps now present a state of affairs so deplorable that they should be investigated without delay, so that the ever increasing allegations of inhumanity and disregard of the rights of the African citizen are dealt with and so that the Government will have no reason to be ashamed of the acts which are done in its own name by its own servants.<ref name="times_13042011a">{{cite news |newspaper=The Times |date=13 April 2011 |title=Taking on the Boss: The quiet whistleblowers on events in Kenya deserve praise |author=Editorial |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article2982973.ece |access-date=13 April 2011 |archive-date=4 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004210454/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article2982973.ece |url-status=live }}</ref>
| source = —Letter from Police Commissioner Arthur Young to<BR>Governor Evelyn Baring, 22 November 1954 | source = —Letter from Police Commissioner Arthur Young to Governor Evelyn Baring, 22 November 1954
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}By late 1955, however, the Pipeline had become a fully operational, well-organised system. Guards where regularly shifted around the Pipeline too in order to prevent relationships developing with detainees and so undercut the black markets, and inducements and punishments became better at discouraging fraternising with the enemy.<ref name="elkins2005_179-191">], pp.&nbsp;179–91.</ref> The grinding nature of the improved detention and interrogation regimen began to produce results. Most detainees confessed, and the system produced ever greater numbers of spies and informers within the camps, and others switched sides in a more open, official fashion, leaving detention behind to take an active role in interrogations, even sometimes administering beatings.<ref name="elkins2005_179-191"/> The most famous example of side-switching was Peter Muigai Kenyatta—Jomo Kenyatta's son—who, after confessing, joined screeners at Athi River Camp, later travelling throughout the Pipeline to assist in interrogations.<ref name="elkins2005_148">], p.&nbsp;148. It is debatable whether Peter Kenyatta was sympathetic to Mau Mau in the first place and therefore whether he truly switched sides.</ref> Suspected informers and spies within a camp were treated in the time-honoured Mau Mau-fashion: the preferred method of cold-blooded murder was strangulation then mutilation: "It was just like in the days before our detention", explained one Mau Mau member later. "We did not have our own jails to hold an informant in, so we would strangle him and then cut his tongue out." The end of 1955 also saw screeners being given a freer hand in interrogation, and harsher conditions than straightforward confession were imposed on detainees before they were described as 'cooperative' and eligible for final release.<ref name="elkins2005_179-191"/>

==== Interrogations and confessions ====
By late 1955, however, the Pipeline had become a fully operational, well-organised system. Guards were regularly shifted around the Pipeline too in order to prevent relationships developing with detainees and so undercut the black markets, and inducements and punishments became better at discouraging fraternising with the enemy.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=179–191}}.</ref> The grinding nature of the improved detention and interrogation regimen began to produce results. Most detainees confessed, and the system produced ever greater numbers of spies and informers within the camps, while others switched sides in a more open, official fashion, leaving detention behind to take an active role in interrogations, even sometimes administering beatings.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>

The most famous example of side-switching was Peter Muigai Kenyatta—Jomo Kenyatta's son—who, after confessing, joined screeners at Athi River Camp, later travelling throughout the Pipeline to assist in interrogations.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p148">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=148}}. It is debatable whether Peter Kenyatta was sympathetic to Mau Mau in the first place and therefore whether he truly switched sides.</ref> Suspected informers and spies within a camp were treated in the time-honoured Mau Mau fashion: the preferred method of execution was strangulation then mutilation: "It was just like in the days before our detention", explained one Mau Mau member later. "We did not have our own jails to hold an informant in, so we would strangle him and then cut his tongue out." The end of 1955 also saw screeners being given a freer hand in interrogation, and harsher conditions than straightforward confession were imposed on detainees before they were deemed 'cooperative' and eligible for final release.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>


{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = In a half-circle against the reed walls of the enclosure stand eight young, African women. There's neither hate nor apprehension in their gaze. It's like a talk in the headmistress's study; a headmistress who is firm but kindly.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |author=Mike Thompson |title=Mau Mau blame 'goes right to the top' |work=Today |publisher=BBC |date=7 April 2011 |accessdate=12 May 2011 |at=00:40–00:54}}</ref> | quote = In a half-circle against the reed walls of the enclosure stand eight young, African women. There's neither hate nor apprehension in their gaze. It's like a talk in the headmistress's study; a headmistress who is firm but kindly.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |author=Mike Thompson |title=Mau Mau blame 'goes right to the top' |work=Today |publisher=BBC |date=7 April 2011 |access-date=12 May 2011 |at=00:40–00:54 |archive-date=10 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410213759/http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |url-status=live }}</ref>
| source = —A contemporary BBC-description of screening | source = —A contemporary BBC-description of screening
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}While oathing, for practical reasons, within the Pipeline was reduced to an absolute minimum, as many new initiates as possible were oathed. A newcomer who refused to take the oath often faced the same fate as a recalcitrant outside the camps: they were murdered. "The detainees would strangle them with their blankets or, using blades fashioned from the corrugated-iron roofs of some of the barracks, would slit their throats", writes Elkins.<ref name="elkins2005_176-77">], pp.&nbsp;176–77.</ref> Camp authorities preferred method of capital punishment was public hanging. Commandants were told to clamp down hard on intra-camp oathing, with several commandants hanging anyone suspected of administering oaths.<ref name="elkins2005_179-191"/>

While oathing, for practical reasons, within the Pipeline was reduced to an absolute minimum, as many new initiates as possible were oathed. A newcomer who refused to take the oath often faced the same fate as a recalcitrant outside the camps: they were murdered. "The detainees would strangle them with their blankets or, using blades fashioned from the corrugated-iron roofs of some of the barracks, would slit their throats", writes Elkins.<ref name="Elkins 2005 176to77">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=176–177}}.</ref> The camp authorities' preferred method of capital punishment was public hanging. Commandants were told to clamp down hard on intra-camp oathing, with several commandants hanging anyone suspected of administering oaths.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>


Even as the Pipeline became more sophisticated, detainees still organised themselves within it, setting up committees and selecting leaders for their camps, as well as deciding on their own "rules to live by". Perhaps the most famous compound leader was ]. Punishments for violating the "rules to live by" could be severe.<ref name="elkins2005_154-91"/> Even as the Pipeline became more sophisticated, detainees still organised themselves within it, setting up committees and selecting leaders for their camps, as well as deciding on their own "rules to live by". Perhaps the most famous compound leader was ]. Punishments for violating the "rules to live by" could be severe.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp154-91"/>


European missionaries and African Christians played their part by visiting camps to evangelise and encourage compliance with the colonial authorities, providing intelligence, and sometimes even assisting in interrogation. Detainees regarded such preachers with nothing but contempt.<ref name="elkins2005_171-177">], pp.&nbsp;171–7.</ref> European missionaries and native Kenyan Christians played their part by visiting camps to evangelise and encourage compliance with the colonial authorities, providing intelligence, and sometimes even assisting in interrogation. Detainees regarded such preachers with nothing but contempt.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp171-177">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=171–177}}.</ref>


{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = The number of cases of pulmonary tuberculosis which is being disclosed in Prison and Detention Camps is causing some embarrassment.<ref name="elkins2005_144">], p.&nbsp;144.</ref> | quote = The number of cases of pulmonary tuberculosis which is being disclosed in Prison and Detention Camps is causing some embarrassment.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p144">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=144}}.</ref>
| source = —Memorandum to Commissioner of Prisons John 'Taxi' Lewis<br /> | source = —Memorandum to Commissioner of Prisons John 'Taxi' Lewis<br />
from Kenya's Director of Medical Services, 18 May 1954 from Kenya's Director of Medical Services, 18 May 1954
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}Sanitation in the camps was often appalling, and epidemics of diseases like typhoid swept through them. Official medical reports detailing the shortcomings of the camps and their recommendations were ignored, and the conditions being endured by detainees were lied about and denied.<ref name="elkins_C5">], Chapter&nbsp;5: The Birth of Britain's Gulag.</ref><ref name="curtis2003_C5">], Chapter 15:&nbsp;Deterring Development in Kenya.</ref><ref>{{cite news |author1=Ian Cobain |author2=Peter Walker |newspaper=The Guardian |date=11 April 2011 |title=Secret memo gave guidelines on abuse of Mau Mau in 1950s |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-high-court-foreign-office-documents |accessdate=13 April 2011 |quote=Baring informed Lennox-Boyd that eight European officers were facing accusations of a series of murders, beatings and shootings. They included: "One District Officer, murder by beating up and roasting alive of one African." Despite receiving such clear briefings, Lennox-Boyd repeatedly denied that the abuses were happening, and publicly denounced those colonial officials who came forward to complain.}}</ref> A British rehabilitation officer found in 1954 that detainees from Manyani were in "shocking health", many of them suffering from malnutrition,<ref name="Peterson2008_84">], p.&nbsp;84.</ref> while Langata and GilGil were eventually closed in April 1955<ref name="elkins2005_262">], p.&nbsp;262.</ref> because, as the colonial government put it, "they were unfit to hold Kikuyu .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. for medical epidemiological reasons".<ref name="elkins2005_262"/>


The lack of decent sanitation in the camps meant that epidemics of diseases such as ], ] and ] swept through them. Detainees would also develop vitamin deficiencies, for example ], due to the poor rations provided. Official medical reports detailing the shortcomings of the camps and their recommendations were ignored, and the conditions being endured by detainees were lied about and denied.<ref name="Elkins C5">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|loc=Chapter&nbsp;5: The Birth of Britain's Gulag}}.</ref><ref name="Curtis 2003 pp316-333">{{Harvnb|Curtis|2003|pp=}}.</ref><ref>{{cite news |author1=Ian Cobain |author2=Peter Walker |newspaper=The Guardian |date=11 April 2011 |title=Secret memo gave guidelines on abuse of Mau Mau in 1950s |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-high-court-foreign-office-documents |access-date=13 April 2011 |quote=Baring informed Lennox-Boyd that eight European officers were facing accusations of a series of murders, beatings and shootings. They included: "One District Officer, murder by beating up and roasting alive of one African." Despite receiving such clear briefings, Lennox-Boyd repeatedly denied that the abuses were happening, and publicly denounced those colonial officials who came forward to complain. |archive-date=12 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110412173711/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-high-court-foreign-office-documents |url-status=live }}</ref> A British rehabilitation officer found in 1954 that detainees from Manyani were in "shocking health", many of them suffering from malnutrition,<ref name="Peterson 2008 p84">{{Harvnb|Peterson|2008|p=84}}.</ref> while Langata and GilGil were eventually closed in April 1955<ref name="Elkins 2005 p262">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=262}}.</ref> because, as the colonial government put it, "they were unfit to hold Kikuyu ... for medical epidemiological reasons".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p262"/>
While the Pipeline was primarily designed for adult males, a few thousand women and young girls were detained at an all-women camp at Kamiti, as well as a number of unaccompanied young children. Dozens of babies were born women in captivity:<ref name="elkins2005_151-152">], pp.&nbsp;151–2.</ref> "We really do need cloths for the children as it is impossible to keep them clean and tidy while dressed on dirty pieces of sacking and blanket", wrote one colonial officer.<ref name="elkins2005_227">], p.&nbsp;227.</ref> Wamumu Camp was set up solely for all the unaccompanied boys in the Pipeline, though hundreds, maybe thousands, of boys moved around the adult parts of the Pipeline.

While the Pipeline was primarily designed for adult males, a few thousand women and young girls were detained at an all-women camp at Kamiti, as well as a number of unaccompanied young children. Dozens of babies<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp151-152">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=151–2}}.</ref> were born to women in captivity: "We really do need these cloths for the children as it is impossible to keep them clean and tidy while dressed in dirty pieces of sacking and blanket", wrote one colonial officer.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p227">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=227}}.</ref> Wamumu Camp was set up solely for all the unaccompanied boys in the Pipeline, though hundreds, maybe thousands, of boys moved around the adult parts of the Pipeline.


====Works camps==== ====Works camps====
{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = Short rations, overwork, brutality, humiliating and disgusting treatment and flogging—all in violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.<ref name="curtis2003_327">], p.&nbsp;.</ref> | quote = Short rations, overwork, brutality, humiliating and disgusting treatment and flogging—all in violation of the United Nations ].<ref name="Curtis 2003 p327">{{Harvnb|Curtis|2003|p=}}.</ref>
| source = —One colonial officer's description of British works camps | source = —One colonial officer's description of British works camps
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}There were originally two types of works camps envisioned by Baring: the first type were based in Kikuyu districts with the stated purpose of achieving the Swynnerton Plan; the second were punitive camps, designed for the 30,000 Mau Mau suspects who were deemed unfit to return to the reserves. These forced-labour camps provided a much needed source of labour to continue the colony's infrastructure development.<ref name="elkins2005_153">], p.&nbsp;153.</ref> Colonial officers also saw the second sort of works camps as a way of ensuring that any confession was legitimate and as a final opportunity to extract intelligence. Probably the worst works camp to have been sent to was the one run out of Embakasi Prison, for Embakasi was responsible for ], the construction of which was demanded to be finished before the Emergency came to an end. The airport was a massive project with an unquenchable thirst for labour, and the time pressures ensured the detainees' forced labour was especially hard.<ref name="elkins2005_179-191"/> | sstyle = text-align: right;}}There were originally two types of works camps envisioned by Baring: the first type were based in Kikuyu districts with the stated purpose of achieving the Swynnerton Plan; the second were punitive camps, designed for the 30,000 Mau Mau suspects who were deemed unfit to return to the reserves. These ]s provided a much needed source of labour to continue the colony's infrastructure development.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p153">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=153}}.</ref>
Colonial officers also saw the second sort of works camps as a way of ensuring that any confession was legitimate and as a final opportunity to extract intelligence. Probably the worst works camp to have been sent to was the one run out of Embakasi Prison, for Embakasi was responsible for the ], the construction of which was demanded to be finished before the Emergency came to an end. The airport was a massive project with an unquenchable thirst for labour, and the time pressures ensured the detainees' forced labour was especially hard.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp179-191"/>


===Villagisation programme=== ===Villagisation programme===
{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = At the end of 1953, the Administration were faced with the serious problem of the concealment of terrorists and supply of food to them. This was widespread and, owing to the scattered nature of the homesteads, fear of detection was negligible; so, in the first instance, the inhabitants of those areas were made to build and live in concentrated villages. This first step had to be taken speedily, somewhat to the detriment of usual health measures and was definitely a punitive short-term measure.<ref name="elkins2005_240-241">], pp. 240–1.</ref> | quote = At the end of 1953, the Administration were faced with the serious problem of the concealment of terrorists and supply of food to them. This was widespread and, owing to the scattered nature of the homesteads, fear of detection was negligible; so, in the first instance, the inhabitants of those areas were made to build and live in concentrated villages. This first step had to be taken speedily, somewhat to the detriment of usual health measures and was definitely a punitive short-term measure.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp240-241">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=240–241}}.</ref>
| source = —District Commissioner of Nyeri | source = —District Commissioner of Nyeri
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}If military operations in the forests and Operation Anvil were the first two phases of Mau Mau's defeat, Erskine expressed the need and his desire for a third and final phase: cut off all the militants' support in the reserves.<ref name="French 2011 116to137">{{Harvnb|French|2011|pp=}}.</ref> The means to this terminal end was originally suggested by the man brought in by the colonial government to do an ] 'diagnosis' of the uprising, JC Carothers: he advocated a Kenyan version of the ] programmes that the British were ].<ref name="McCulloch 2006 70">{{Harvnb|McCulloch|2006|p=}}.</ref>
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}In June 1954, the War Council took the decision to undertake a full-scale forced-resettlement programme of Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang'a and Embu Districts to cut off Mau Mau's supply lines.<ref name="elkins2005_234-235">], pp. 234–5. See also fn. 3 of p. 235.</ref> Within eighteen months, 1,050,899 Kikuyu in the reserves were inside 804 villages consisting of some 230,000 huts.<ref name="elkins2005_235">], p. 235. David Anderson gives a figure of 1,007,500; see ], p.&nbsp;294.</ref> The government termed them "protected villages", purportedly to be built along "the same lines as the villages in the North of England".<ref name="elkins2005_240">], p.&nbsp;240.</ref> While some of these villages were to protect loyalist Kikuyu, "most were little more than concentration camps to punish Mau Mau sympathizers."<ref name="anderson2005_294">], p. 294.</ref> The villagisation programme was the '']'' for Mau Mau:<ref name="anderson2005_294"/> by the end of the following summer, Lieutenant General Lathbury no longer needed Lincoln bombers for raids because of a lack of targets,<ref name="chappell2011"/> and, by late 1955, Lathbury felt so sure of final victory that he reduced army forces to almost pre-Mau Mau levels.<ref name="nissimi2006_9-10">], pp. </ref> He noted, however, that the British should have "no illusions about the future. Mau Mau has not been cured: it has been suppressed. The thousands who have spent a long time in detention must have been embittered by it. Nationalism is still a very potent force and the African will pursue his aim by other means. Kenya is in for a very tricky political future."<ref name="chappell2011"/>

So it was that in June 1954, the War Council took the decision to undertake a full-scale forced-resettlement programme of Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang'a and Embu Districts to cut off Mau Mau's supply lines.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp234-235">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=234–235}}. See also n.3 of p.&nbsp;235.</ref> Within eighteen months, 1,050,899 Kikuyu in the reserves were inside 804 villages consisting of some 230,000 huts.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p235">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=235}}. {{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|p=294}}, gives a slightly lower figure (1,007,500) for the number of individuals affected.</ref> The government termed them "protected villages", purportedly to be built along "the same lines as the villages in the North of England",<ref name="Elkins 2005 p240">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=240}}.</ref> though the term was actually a "euphemism for the fact that hundreds of thousands of civilians were corralled, often against their will, into settlements behind barbed-wire fences and watch towers."<ref name="French 2011 116"/>

While some of these villages were to protect loyalist Kikuyu, "most were little more than concentration camps to punish Mau Mau sympathizers."{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=294}} The villagisation programme was the '']'' for Mau Mau.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=294}} By the end of the following summer, Lieutenant General Lathbury no longer needed Lincoln bombers for raids because of a lack of targets,<ref name="Chappell 2011"/> and, by late 1955, Lathbury felt so sure of final victory that he reduced army forces to almost pre-Mau Mau levels.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 9to10">{{Harvnb|Nissimi|2006|pp=9–10}}.</ref>

He noted, however, that the British should have "no illusions about the future. Mau Mau has not been cured: it has been suppressed. The thousands who have spent a long time in detention must have been embittered by it. Nationalism is still a very potent force and the African will pursue his aim by other means. Kenya is in for a very tricky political future."<ref name="Chappell 2011"/>


{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = Whilst they could not be expected to take kindly at first to a departure from their traditional way of life, such as living in villages, they need and desire to be told just what to do.<ref name="elkins2005_239">], p. 239.</ref> | quote = Whilst they could not be expected to take kindly at first to a departure from their traditional way of life, such as living in villages, they need and desire to be told just what to do.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p239">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=239}}.</ref>
| source = —Council of Kenya-Colony's Ministers, July 1954 | source = —Council of Kenya-Colony's Ministers, July 1954
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}The government's public relations officer, Granville Roberts, presented villagisation as a good opportunity for rehabilitation, particularly of women and children, but it was, in fact, first and foremost designed to break Mau Mau and protect loyalist Kikuyu, a fact reflected in the extremely limited resources made available to the Rehabilitation and Community Development Department.<ref name="elkins2005_236-237">], pp. 236–7.</ref> It also solved the practical and financial problems associated with a further, massive expansion of the Pipeline programme.<ref name="elkins2005_238">], p. 238.</ref> The removal of people from their land through villagisation hugely assisted the enaction of Swynnerton Plan.<ref name="anderson2005_294"/>

The government's public relations officer, Granville Roberts, presented villagisation as a good opportunity for rehabilitation, particularly of women and children, but it was, in fact, first and foremost designed to break Mau Mau and protect loyalist Kikuyu, a fact reflected in the extremely limited resources made available to the Rehabilitation and Community Development Department.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp236-237">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=236–237}}.</ref> Refusal to move could be punished with the destruction of property and livestock, and the roofs were usually ripped off of homes whose occupants demonstrated reluctance.<ref name="French 2011 120">{{Harvnb|French|2011|p=}}.</ref> Villagisation also solved the practical and financial problems associated with a further, massive expansion of the Pipeline programme,<ref name="Elkins 2005 p238">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=238}}.</ref> and the removal of people from their land hugely assisted the enaction of Swynnerton Plan.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=294}}


The villages were surrounded by deep, spike-bottomed trenches and barbed wire, and the villagers themselves were watched over by members of the Home Guard, often neighbours and relatives. In short, rewards or collective punishments such as curfews could be served much more readily after villagisation, and this quickly had an impact on breaking Mau Mau's passive wing.<ref name="anderson2005_293">], p. 293.</ref> Though there were degrees of difference between the villages,<ref name="elkins2005_252">], p. 252.</ref> the overall conditions engendered by villagisation meant that, by early 1955, districts began reporting starvation and malnutrition.<ref name="elkins2005_259-260">], p. 259–60.</ref> One provincial commissioner blamed child hunger on parents deliberating withholding food, saying the latter were aware of the "propaganda value of apparent malnutrition".<ref name="elkins2005_260">], p. 260.</ref>{{quote box The villages were surrounded by deep, spike-bottomed trenches and barbed wire, and the villagers themselves were watched over by members of the ], often neighbours and relatives. In short, rewards or collective punishments such as curfews could be served much more readily after villagisation, and this quickly broke Mau Mau's passive wing.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=293}} Though there were degrees of difference between the villages,<ref name="Elkins 2005 p252">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=252}}.</ref> the overall conditions engendered by villagisation meant that, by early 1955, districts began reporting starvation and malnutrition.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp259-260">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=259–260}}.</ref> One provincial commissioner blamed child hunger on parents deliberately withholding food, saying the latter were aware of the "propaganda value of apparent malnutrition".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p260">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=260}}.</ref>{{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = From the health point of view, I regard villagisation as being exceedingly dangerous and we are already starting to reap the benefits.<ref name="elkins2005_263">], p. 263.</ref> | quote = From the health point of view, I regard villagisation as being exceedingly dangerous and we are already starting to reap the benefits.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p263a">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=263}}.</ref>
| source = —Meru's Dictrict Commissioner, 6 November 1954,<br/>four months after the institution of villagisation | source = —Meru's District Commissioner, 6 November 1954,<br />four months after the institution of villagisation
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}The Red Cross helped mitigate the food shortages, but even they were told to prioritise loyalist areas.<ref name="elkins2005_260"/> The Baring government's medical department issued reports about "the alarming number of deaths occurring amongst children in the 'punitive' villages", and the "political" prioritisation of Red Cross relief.<ref name="elkins2005_260"/> One of the colony's ministers blamed the "bad spots" in Central Province on the mothers of the children for "not realis the great importance of proteins", and one former missionary reported that it "was terribly pitiful how many of the children and the older Kikuyu were dying. They were so emaciated and so very susceptible to any kind of disease that came along".<ref name="elkins2005_262">], p. 262.</ref> Of the 50,000 deaths which John Blacker attributed to the Emergency, half were children under the age of ten.<ref name="blacker2007"/>


The Red Cross helped mitigate the food shortages, but even they were told to prioritise loyalist areas.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p260"/> The Baring government's medical department issued reports about "the alarming number of deaths occurring amongst children in the 'punitive' villages", and the "political" prioritisation of Red Cross relief.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p260"/>
The lack of food did not just affect the children, of course. The Overseas Branch of the British Red Cross commented on the "women who, from progressive undernourishment, had been unable to carry on with their work".<ref name="elkins2005_260-261">], pp. 260–1.</ref>


One of the colony's ministers blamed the "bad spots" in Central Province on the mothers of the children for "not realis the great importance of proteins", and one former missionary reported that it "was terribly pitiful how many of the children and the older Kikuyu were dying. They were so emaciated and so very susceptible to any kind of disease that came along".<ref name="Elkins 2005 p262"/> Of the 50,000 deaths which John Blacker attributed to the Emergency, half were children under the age of ten.<ref name="Blacker 2007"/>
Disease prevention was not helped by the colony's policy of returning sick detainees to receive treatment in the reserves,<ref name="elkins2005_263">], p. 263. "It is accepted policy that cases of pulmonary tuberculosis .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. be returned to their reserve to avail themselves of the routine medical control and treatment within their areas". (The quote is of the colony's director of medical services).</ref> though the reserves' medical services were virtually non-existent, as Baring himeslf noted after a tour of some villages in June 1956.<ref name="elkins2005_263-264">], p. 263–4. "The financial situation has now worsened.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Schemes of medical help, however desirable and however high their medical priority, could not in circumstances be approved". (The quote is of Baring).</ref>


The lack of food did not just affect the children, of course. The Overseas Branch of the British Red Cross commented on the "women who, from progressive undernourishment, had been unable to carry on with their work".<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp260-261">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=260–261}}.</ref>
==Political and social concessions by the British==
Kenyans were granted nearly{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}} all of the demands made by the KAU in 1951.


Disease prevention was not helped by the colony's policy of returning sick detainees to receive treatment in the reserves,<ref name="Elkins 2005 p263b">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=263}}: "It is accepted policy that cases of pulmonary tuberculosis ... be returned to their reserve to avail themselves of the routine medical control and treatment within their areas". (The quote is of the colony's director of medical services).</ref> though the reserves' medical services were virtually non-existent, as Baring himself noted after a tour of some villages in June 1956.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp263-264">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=263–4}}: "The financial situation has now worsened. ... Schemes of medical help, however desirable and however high their medical priority, could not in circumstances be approved". (The quote is of Baring).</ref> The policy of "villagization" did not officially end until around 1962, when Kenya gained its independence from British colonial rule. During the course of the Mau Mau Uprising, it is conservatively estimated that 1.5 million Kenyans were forcibly relocated into these fortified villages.{{sfn|Elkins|2005a|p={{page needed|date=October 2023}}}}<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.academia.edu/14155653 | website=Academia.edu | title=The prosecution of rape in wartime: Evidence from Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion, 1952-60 | last1=Weis | first1=Julianne | first2=David M. | last2=Anderson | access-date=4 May 2023 | archive-date=7 September 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230907202516/https://www.academia.edu/14155653 | url-status=live }}</ref> The government of an independent Kenya implementated a similar policy of forced villagization during the ] in 1966 of ethnic ] in the ].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Whittaker |first=Hannah |title=Forced Villagization during the Shifta Conflict in Kenya, ca. 1963–1968 |journal=The International Journal of African Historical Studies |volume=45 |issue=3 |date=2012 |pages=343–364 |jstor=24393053}}</ref>
On 18 January 1955, the Governor-General of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, offered an amnesty to Mau Mau activists. The offer was that they would not face the death penalty, but may still be imprisoned for their crimes. European settlers were appalled at the leniency of the offer. On 10 June 1955 with no response forthcoming, the offer of amnesty to the Mau Mau was revoked.


===Political and social concessions by the British===
In June 1956, a program of land reform increased the land holdings of the Kikuyu.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}}. This was coupled with a relaxation of the ban on Africans growing coffee, a primary cash crop.{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}}
Kenyans were granted nearly<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gadsden|first=Fay|date=October 1980|title=The African Press in Kenya, 1945–1952|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0021853700018727/type/journal_article|journal=The Journal of African History|language=en|volume=21|issue=4|pages=515–535|doi=10.1017/S0021853700018727|s2cid=154367771|issn=0021-8537|access-date=28 May 2020|archive-date=9 April 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023624/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-african-history/article/abs/african-press-in-kenya-19451952/B05D64CF5762CA345A1148260FE0A833|url-status=live}}</ref> all of the demands made by the KAU in 1951.


<!-- Deleted image removed: ] -->On 18 January 1955, the Governor-General of Kenya, ], offered an amnesty to Mau Mau activists. The offer was that they would not face prosecution for previous offences, but might still be detained. European settlers were appalled at the leniency of the offer. On 10 June 1955 with no response forthcoming, the offer of amnesty to the Mau Mau was revoked.
In the cities the colonial authorities decided to dispel tensions by raising urban wages, thereby strengthening the hand of moderate union organisations like the KFRTU. By 1956, the British had granted direct election of African members of the Legislative Assembly, followed shortly thereafter by an increase in the number of African seats to fourteen. A Parliamentary conference in January 1960 indicated that the British would accept "one person – one vote" majority rule.


In June 1956, a programme of land reform increased the land holdings of the Kikuyu.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Pinckney|first1=Thomas C.|last2=Kimuyu|first2=Peter K.|date=1 April 1994|title=Land Tenure Reform in East Africa: Good, Bad or Unimportant?1|journal=Journal of African Economies|language=en|volume=3|issue=1|pages=1–28|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.jae.a036794|issn=0963-8024}}</ref> This was coupled with a relaxation of the ban on native Kenyans growing coffee, a primary cash crop.<ref name=":0" />
==Deaths and atrocities==
The uprising was, in David Anderson's words, "a story of atrocity and excess on both sides, a dirty war from which no one emerged with much pride, and certainly no glory."<ref name="anderson2005_2">], p.&nbsp;2.</ref> The total number of deaths attributable to the Emergency has been a source of dispute: Caroline Elkins claims it is "tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands".<ref name="elkins2005_xiv">], p.&nbsp;xiv.</ref> Elkins numbers have been challanged by the British demographer John Blacker. In an article in '']'', Blacker demonstrated in detail that Elkins' numbers were over-estimated, explaining that Elkins' figure of 300,000 deaths "implies that perhaps half of the adult male population would have been wiped out—yet the censuses of 1962 and 1969 show no evidence of this—the age-sex pyramids for the Kikuyu districts do not even show indentations."<ref name="blacker2007">].</ref> His study dealt directly with Elkins' claim that "somewhere between 130,000 and 300,000 Kikuyu are unaccounted for" at the 1962 census,<ref name="elkins2005_366">], p.&nbsp;366.</ref> and was read by both David Anderson and John Lonsdale prior to publication.<ref name="Elstein 07Apr2011">{{cite web |url=http://www.opendemocracy.net/david-elstein/daniel-goldhagen-and-kenya-recycling-fantasy |title=Daniel Goldhagen and Kenya: recycling fantasy |author=David Elstein |date=7 April 2011 |publisher=openDemocracy.org |accessdate=8 March 2012}}</ref> Half of Blacker's own estimate of 50,000 comprises children under the age of ten. David Elstein has noted that leading authorities on Africa have taken issue with parts of Elkins' study, in particular her mortality figures: "The senior British historian of Kenya, John Lonsdale, whom Elkins thanks profusely in her book as 'the most gifted scholar I know', warned her to place no reliance on anecdotal sources, and regards her statistical analysis—for which she cites him as one of three advisors—as 'frankly incredible{{' "}}; "Susan Carruthers of Rutgers University, who noted that Elkins had managed to confuse the Hutu and the Tutsi in Rwanda, said: 'she proves the least reliable guide to history: this was not genocide—history is not well served by its sloppy invocation'."<ref name="Elstein 07Apr2011"/>


In the cities the colonial authorities decided to dispel tensions by raising urban wages, thereby strengthening the hand of moderate union organisations like the KFRTU. By 1956, the British had granted direct election of native Kenyan members of the Legislative Assembly, followed shortly thereafter by an increase in the number of local seats to fourteen. A Parliamentary conference in January 1960 indicated that the British would accept "one person—one vote" majority rule.
The British likely killed in excess of 20,000 Mau Mau militants,<ref name="anderson2005_4"/> but in some ways more notable is the smaller number of Mau Mau suspects dealt with by capital punishment: by the end of the Emergency, the grand total was 1,090. At no other time or place in the British empire was capital punishment dispensed so liberally—the total is more than double the number executed by ].<ref name="anderson2005_7">], p. 7.</ref>


==Deaths==
The number of deaths attributable to the Emergency is disputed. David Anderson estimates 25,000<ref name="Bloody uprising of the Mau Mau"/> people died; British demographer John Blacker's estimate is 50,000 deaths—half of them children aged ten or below.
He attributes this death toll mostly to increased malnutrition, starvation and disease from wartime conditions.<ref name="Blacker 2007">{{Harvnb|Blacker|2007}}.</ref>

Caroline Elkins says "tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands" died.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pxiv">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=xiv}}.</ref> Elkins' numbers have been challenged by Blacker, who demonstrated in detail that her numbers were overestimated, explaining that Elkins' figure of 300,000 deaths "implies that perhaps half of the adult male population would have been wiped out—yet the censuses of 1962 and 1969 show no evidence of this—the age-sex pyramids for the Kikuyu districts do not even show indentations."<ref name="Blacker 2007"/>

His study dealt directly with Elkins' claim that "somewhere between 130,000 and 300,000 Kikuyu are unaccounted for" at the 1962 census,<ref name="Elkins 2005 p366">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=366}}.</ref> and was read by both David Anderson and John Lonsdale prior to publication.<ref name="Elstein 07Apr2011"/> ] has noted that leading authorities on Africa have taken issue with parts of Elkins' study, in particular her mortality figures: "The senior British historian of Kenya, John Lonsdale, whom Elkins thanks profusely in her book as 'the most gifted scholar I know', warned her to place no reliance on anecdotal sources, and regards her statistical analysis—for which she cites him as one of three advisors—as 'frankly incredible'."<ref name="Elstein 07Apr2011"/>

The British possibly killed more than 20,000 Mau Mau militants,{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=4}} but in some ways more notable is the smaller number of Mau Mau suspects dealt with by capital punishment: by the end of the Emergency, the total was 1,090. At no other time or place in the British Empire was capital punishment dispensed so aggressively—the total is more than double the number executed by ].{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=7}}

] suggests that more than one hundred thousand Africans, mostly Kikuyus, may have died in the concentration camps and emergency villages.<ref>{{cite book|title=Unbowed: a memoir|authorlink=Wangari Maathai |first=Wangari |last=Maathai|page=68|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=2006|isbn=0307263487}}</ref>

Officially 1,819 Native Kenyans were killed by the Mau Mau. David Anderson believes this to be an undercount and cites a higher figure of 5,000 killed by the Mau Mau.<ref name="Elstein 07Apr2011"/>{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=84}} In addition, 95 British military personnel died as a result of the conflict.<ref>{{Cite web |date=25 March 2021 |title="UK armed forces Deaths: Operational deaths post World War II" |url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/972075/20210325_UK_armed_forces_Operational_deaths_post_World_War_II-O.pdf |website=Ministry of defense}}</ref>

==War crimes==
{{Main|List of war crimes#1952–1960: Mau Mau uprising}}]s have been broadly defined by the ] as "violations of the ]", which includes ], ]ings of ] targets, ], ], ], and murder of ] and ]. Additional common crimes include ], ], and the destruction of ] not warranted by ].<ref>{{cite book|author=Gary D. Solis|title=The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FKf0ocxEPAC&pg=PA301|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-48711-5|pages=301–303|access-date=17 November 2015|archive-date=9 April 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023657/https://books.google.com/books?id=6FKf0ocxEPAC&pg=PA301#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>

David Anderson says the rebellion was "a story of atrocity and excess on both sides, a dirty war from which no one emerged with much pride, and certainly no glory".{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=2}} Political scientist ] describes the campaign against the Mau Mau as an example of ], though this verdict has been fiercely criticised.<ref name="Elstein 07Apr2011"/>

=== British war crimes ===
{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = We knew the slow method of torture was worse than anything we could do. Special Branch there had a way of slowly electrocuting a Kuke—they'd rough up one for days. Once I went personally to drop off one gang member who needed special treatment. I stayed for a few hours to help the boys out, softening him up. Things got a little out of hand. By the time I cut his balls off, he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket. Too bad, he died before we got much out of him.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p87">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=87}}.</ref>
| quote = Contrary to African customs and values, assaulted old people, women and children. The horrors they practiced included the following: decapitation and general mutilation of civilians, torture before murder, bodies bound up in sacks and dropped in wells, burning the victims alive, gouging out of eyes, splitting open the stomachs of pregnant women. No war can justify such gruesome actions. In man's inhumanity to man there is no race distinction. The Africans were practising it on themselves. There was no reason and no restraint on both sides.<ref name="ogot2005_502"/>
| source = One settler's description of British interrogation. The extent to which such accounts can be taken at face value has been questioned.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bethwell |first1=Ogot |title=Review: Britain's Gulag |journal=The Journal of African History |date=2005 |volume=46 |issue=3 |page=494}}</ref>
| source = —Bethwell Ogot
| align = right | align = right
| width = 40% | width = 40%
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| quoted = yes | quoted = yes
| salign = right | salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}Mau Mau militants were guilty of numerous atrocities. The most notorious was their attack on the settlement of Lari, on the night of 25–26 March 1953, in which they herded Kikuyu men, women and children into huts and set fire to them, hacking down with ] anyone who attempted escape, before throwing them back in to the burning huts.<ref name="anderson2005_C4">], Chapter&nbsp;4: Death at Lari: The Story of an African Massacre.</ref> The attack at Lari was so extreme that "African policemen who saw the bodies of the victims .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. were physically sick and said 'These people are animals. If I see one now I shall shoot with the greatest eagerness{{' "}},<ref name="french2011_72"/> and it "even shocked many Mau Mau supporters, some of whom would subsequently try to excuse the attack as 'a mistake{{' "}}.<ref name="anderson2005_127">], p.&nbsp;127.</ref> A retaliatory massacre was immediately perpetrated by African security forces who were partially overseen by British commanders. Official estimates place the death toll from the first Lari massacre at 74, and the second at 150, though neither of these figures account for those who 'disappeared'. Whatever the actual number of victims, "he grim truth was that, for every person who died in Lari's first massacre, at least two more were killed in retaliation in the second."<ref name="anderson2005_132">], p.&nbsp;132.</ref>
}}{{See also|British war crimes}}


The British authorities suspended ] in Kenya. Many Kikuyu were forced to move. According to British authorities 80,000 were ]. ] estimated that between 160,000 and 320,000 were interned in ] also known as concentration camps.<ref name=Guard>{{Cite news |date=18 August 2016 |title=Mau Mau uprising: Bloody history of Kenya conflict |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau |access-date=3 July 2021 |archive-date=1 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601152655/https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-truth-british-empire-caroline-elkins-mau-mau |url-status=live }}</ref>{{efn|Other estimates are as high as 450,000 interned.{{Citation needed|reason=Which estimates?|date=September 2022}}}} Most of the rest—more than a million Kikuyu—were held in "enclosed villages" as part of the villagisation program. Although some were Mau Mau guerrillas, most were victims of ] that colonial authorities imposed on large areas of the country. Thousands were beaten or ] to extract information about the Mau Mau threat. Later, prisoners suffered even worse mistreatment in an attempt to force them to renounce their allegiance to the insurgency and to obey commands. Prisoners were questioned with the help of "slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging until death, pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight, and burning eardrums with lit cigarettes."{{sfn|Curtis|2003|p=324}} The use of castration and denying access to medical aid to the detainees by the British were also widespread and common.{{sfn|Curtis|2003|pp=324–330}}{{sfn|Elkins|2005|pp=124–145}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire |pages=150–154 |publisher=W. W. Norton |author=David Anderson |date=23 January 2013}}</ref> As described by Ian Cobain of ''The Guardian'' in 2013:<blockquote>Among the detainees who suffered severe mistreatment was ], the grandfather of ]. According to his widow, British soldiers forced pins into his fingernails and buttocks and squeezed his testicles between metal rods. Two of the original five claimants who brought the test case against the British were castrated.<ref name="MAU">{{cite news |author=Cobain, Ian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/05/kenyan-mau-mau-payout-uk-regret-abuse |title=Kenya: UK Expresses Regret Over Abuse as Mau Mau Promised Payout |date=5 June 2013 |work=The Guardian |location=London |quote=Among the detainees who suffered severe mistreatment was Hussein Onyango Obama, the grandfather of Barack Obama. According to his widow, British soldiers forced pins into his fingernails and buttocks and squeezed his testicles between metal rods. Two of the original five claimants who brought the test case against the British were castrated. |access-date=12 December 2016 |archive-date=2 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170302094811/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/05/kenyan-mau-mau-payout-uk-regret-abuse |url-status=live }}</ref></blockquote>
Aside from the Lari massacres, Kikuyu were also tortured, mutilated and murdered by Mau Mau and the British on many other occasions.<ref name="ogot2005_502">], p.&nbsp;502.</ref> Mau Mau racked up 1,819 murders of their fellow Africans, though again this number excludes the many additional hundreds who 'disappeared', whose bodies were never found.<ref name="anderson2005_84"/> For their part, as already discussed, the British colonial government eventually instituted a system of detention and torture that was sanctioned at the highest levels of government in London, as well as carrying out any number of extra-judicial executions and various massacres, such as that of twenty Kenyans at Chuka in June 1953.<ref name="anderson2006"/>


The historian Robert Edgerton describes the methods used during the emergency: "If a question was not answered to the interrogator's satisfaction, the subject was beaten and kicked. If that did not lead to the desired confession, and it rarely did, more force was applied. Electric shock was widely used, and so was fire. Women were choked and held under water; gun barrels, beer bottles, and even knives were thrust into their vaginas. Men had beer bottles thrust up their rectums, were dragged behind Land Rovers, whipped, burned and bayoneted... Some police officers did not bother with more time-consuming forms of torture; they simply shot any suspect who refused to answer, then told the next suspect, to dig his own grave. When the grave was finished, the man was asked if he would now be willing to talk."<ref>{{cite book |first=R. |last=Edgerton |title=Mau Mau: An African Crucible |location=London |publisher=I.B. Tauris |year=1990 |pages=144–159 |isbn=1-85043-207-4}}</ref>
Thirty-two European and twenty-six Asian civilians were also murdered by Mau Mau militants, with similar numbers wounded. The most well known European victim was Michael Ruck, aged six, who was hacked to death with pangas along with his parents, Roger and Esme, and one of the Rucks' farm workers, Muthura Nagahu, who had tried to help the family.<ref name="anderson2005_94">], p.&nbsp;94.</ref> Newspapers in Kenya and abroad published graphic murder details, including images of young Michael with bloodied teddy bears and trains strewn on his bedroom floor.<ref name="elkins2005_42">], p.&nbsp;42.</ref>


{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = lectric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire. Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, and hot eggs were thrust up men's rectums and women's vaginas. The screening teams whipped, shot, burned and mutilated Mau Mau suspects, ostensibly to gather intelligence for military operations and as court evidence.<ref name="elkins2005_66">], p.&nbsp;66.</ref> | quote = lectric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire. Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, and hot eggs were thrust up men's rectums and women's vaginas. The screening teams whipped, shot, burned and mutilated Mau Mau suspects, ostensibly to gather intelligence for military operations and as court evidence.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p66">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=66}}.</ref>
| source = —Caroline Elkins | source = —Caroline Elkins
| align = right | align = right
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| quoted = yes | quoted = yes
| salign = right | salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}A British officer describes his actions after capturing three Mau Mau suspects:<blockquote>I stuck my revolver right in his grinning mouth and I said something, I don't remember what, and I pulled the trigger. His brains went all over the side of the police station. The other two Mickeys were standing there looking blank. I said to them that if they didn't tell me where to find the rest of the gang I'd kill them too. They didn't say a word so I shot them both. One wasn't dead so I shot him in the ear. When the sub-inspector drove up, I told him that the Mickeys tried to escape. He didn't believe me but all he said was 'bury them and see the wall is cleared up.'<ref name="anderson2005_299–300">], pp. 299–300.</ref></blockquote>Settler groups, displeased with the government's response to the increasing Mau Mau threat created their own units to combat the Mau Mau. One settler with the Kenya Police Reserve's Special Branch described an interrogation of a Mau Mau suspect: "By the time I cut his balls off he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket. Too bad, he died before we got much out of him."<ref name="elkins2005_87">], p. 87.</ref>
}}


In June 1957, ], the attorney general of the British administration in Kenya, wrote to the ], ], detailing the way the regime of abuse at the colony's detention camps was being subtly altered. He said that the mistreatment of the detainees is "distressingly reminiscent of conditions in ] or ]". Despite this, he said that in order for abuse to remain legal, Mau Mau suspects must be beaten mainly on their upper body, "vulnerable parts of the body should not be struck, particularly the spleen, liver or kidneys", and it was important that "those who administer violence ... should remain collected, balanced and dispassionate"; he also reminded the governor that "If we are going to sin", he wrote, "we must sin quietly."<ref name="MAU" /><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/05/kenyan-mau-mau-payout-uk-regret-abuse |title=Sins of colonialists lay concealed for decades in secret archive |date=18 April 2012 |work=The Guardian |location=London |access-date=12 December 2016 |archive-date=2 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170302094811/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/05/kenyan-mau-mau-payout-uk-regret-abuse |url-status=live }}</ref>
After the discovery of the Lari massacre (between 10&nbsp;pm and dawn that night), colonial security services retaliated on Kikuyu suspected of being Mau Mau.<ref name="anderson2005_130">], p. 130.</ref> These were shot, and later denied burial. There is also evidence that these reprisal shootings continued for several days. (See the reports of 21 and 27 men killed on 3 and 4 April, respectively.)<ref name="anderson2005_133">], p. 133.</ref>


According to author ], three out of every four Kikuyu men were in detention in 1954. Maathai states that detainees were made to do forced labor and that their land was taken from them and given to collaborators. Maathai further states that the Home Guard in particular, raped women and had a reputation for cruelty in the form of terror and intimidation, whereas the Mau Mau soldiers were initially respectful of women.<ref>{{cite book|title=Unbowed: a memoir|author=Wangari Maathai|pages=65, 67|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|date=2006|isbn=0307263487}}</ref> Only a small handful of rape cases went to trial. Fifty-six British soldiers and colonial police officers were tried for rape, of which 17 were convicted. The harshest sentences imposed were six-year sentences imposed on three British soldiers convicted of gang-raping a woman.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=David M. |last2=Weis |first2=Julianne |date=2018 |title=The Prosecution of Rape in Wartime: Evidence from the Mau Mau Rebellion, Kenya 1952–60 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26564585 |journal=Law and History Review |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=267–294 |doi=10.1017/S0738248017000670 |issn=0738-2480 |jstor=26564585 |access-date=8 February 2024 |archive-date=8 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240208055326/https://www.jstor.org/stable/26564585 |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 1952 the poisonous ] of the ] was used by members of Mau Mau to kill herds of cattle in an incident of ].<ref name="carus2002_63-65">{{cite book
| last = Carus
| first = W. Seth
| title = Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents Since 1900
| pages =
| publisher=Fredonia Books
| year = 2002
| edition = Reprint of 1st
| location = Amsterdam}}</ref>


====Chuka massacre====
==Legacy==
The ], which happened in ], was perpetrated by members of the ] B Company in June 1953 with 20 unarmed people killed during the Mau Mau uprising. Members of the 5th KAR B Company entered the Chuka area on 13 June 1953, to flush out rebels suspected of hiding in the nearby forests. Over the next few days, the regiment had captured and executed 20 people suspected of being Mau Mau fighters for unknown reasons. The people executed belonged to the ]—a loyalist militia recruited by the British to fight the guerrillas. All of the soldiers involved in the Chuka patrols were placed under open arrest at Nairobi's Buller Camp, but were not prosecuted. Instead, only their commanding officer, Major Gerald Selby Lee Griffiths, stood trial. Furthermore, rather than risk bringing publicity to the incident, Griffiths was charged with the murder of two other suspects in a separate incident that had taken place several weeks earlier. He was acquitted, but following public outcry, Griffiths was then tried under six separate charges of torture and disgraceful conduct for torturing two unarmed detainees, including a man named Njeru Ndwega. At his court-martial, it was stated that Griffiths had made Ndwega take off his pants, before telling a teenage African private to castrate him. When the private, a 16-year-old Somali named Ali Segat, refused to do this, Griffiths instead ordered him to cut off Ndwega's ear, to which Segat complied.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=1954-03-22 |title=KENYA: Court-Martial |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,819577,00.html |access-date=2024-03-21 |magazine=Time |language=en-US |issn=0040-781X |archive-date=21 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240321043152/https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,819577,00.html |url-status=live }}</ref> On 11 March 1954, Griffiths was found guilty on five counts. He was sentenced to five years in prison and was ] from the Army.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1954-03-12 |title=Griffiths |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sydney-morning-herald-griffiths/143798091/ |access-date=2024-03-21 |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |pages=1 |archive-date=21 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240321043202/https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sydney-morning-herald-griffiths/143798091/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He served his sentence at ] in London.<ref name="auto">{{cite web |last1=Anderson |first1=David |date=September 2008 |title=A Very British Massacre |url=https://historyslc.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/a-very-british-massacre.pdf |accessdate=16 August 2020 |website=] |archive-date=1 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191101080555/https://historyslc.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/a-very-british-massacre.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{London Gazette
Though Mau Mau was effectively crushed by 1956, it was not until the ], in January 1960, that African majority rule was established and the period of colonial transition to independence initiated.<ref name="wasserman1976_1a">], p. </ref> Before the conference, it was anticipated by both African and European leaders that Kenya was set for a European-dominated multi-racial government.<ref name="wasserman1976_1a"/>
| issue = 40270
| date = 3 September 1954
| page = 5124
| supp = y
}}</ref> None of the other ranks involved in the massacre has been prosecuted.<ref name="FAB">{{cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=David |last2=Bennett |first2=Huw |last3=Branch |first3=Daniel |date=August 2006 |title=A Very British Massacre |url=http://www.historytoday.com/david-anderson/very-british-massacre |journal=History Today |volume=56 |issue=8 |pages=20–22 |access-date=21 March 2024 |archive-date=5 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190105091255/https://www.historytoday.com/david-anderson/very-british-massacre |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://allafrica.com/stories/200607170327.html|title=Kenya: Unveiling Secrets of Kenya's|first=David|last=Anderson|newspaper=The Nation|date=17 July 2006|via=AllAfrica|access-date=8 April 2024|archive-date=15 November 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231115005652/https://allafrica.com/stories/200607170327.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{citation |title=MoD 'refusing to release file on massacre of Kenyans' |date=10 July 2006 |work=Telegraph.co.uk |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1523502/MoD-refusing-to-release-file-on-massacre-of-Kenyans.html |access-date=21 March 2024 |archive-date=2 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231202091437/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1523502/MoD-refusing-to-release-file-on-massacre-of-Kenyans.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Lewis|first=Joanna|s2cid=154259805|date=April 2007|title=Nasty, Brutish and in shorts? British colonial rule, violence and the historians of Mau Mau|journal=The Round Table|volume=96|issue=389|pages=201–223|doi=10.1080/00358530701303392|issn=0035-8533}}</ref><ref name="auto"/>


====Hola massacre====
There is continuing debate about Mau Mau's and the rebellion's effects on decolonisation and on Kenya after independence. Regarding decolonisation, the most common view is that Kenya's independence came about as a result of the British government's deciding that a continuance of colonial rule would entail a greater use of force than that which the British public would tolerate.<ref name="nissimi2006">], p. Nissimi argues, though, that such a view fails to "acknowledge the time that elapsed until the rebellion's influence actually took effect explain why the same liberal tendencies failed to stop the dirty war the British conducted against the Mau Mau in Kenya while it was raging on."</ref> Another view downplays the contribution of Mau Mau to decolonisation,<ref name="wasserman1976_1b">], p. "Although the rise of nationalist movements in Africa was certainly a contributing factor in the dismantling of the colonial empires, one cannot wholly attribute the 'demise of colonialism' to the rise of nationalism.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. he decolonization process was shaped by an adaptive reaction of colonial political and economic interests to the political ascendency of a nationalist elite and to the threat of disruption by the masses."</ref> while others contend that as the 1950s progressed, nationalist intransigence increasingly rendered official plans for political development irrelevant, meaning that after the mid-1950s British policy increasingly accepted African nationalism and moved to co-opt its leaders and organisations into collaboration.<ref name="berman1991_189"/>
The ] was an incident during the conflict in ] against ] at a colonial detention camp in ]. By January 1959, the camp had a population of 506 detainees, of whom 127 were held in a secluded "closed camp". This more remote camp near ], eastern Kenya, was reserved for the most uncooperative of the detainees. They often refused, even when threats of force were made, to join in the colonial "rehabilitation process" or perform manual labour or obey colonial orders. The camp commandant outlined a plan that would force 88 of the detainees to bend to work. On 3 March 1959, the camp commandant put this plan into action—as a result, 11 detainees were clubbed to death by guards.<ref>Maloba, Wunyabari O. ''Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt''. (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 1993) pp. 142–143.</ref> 77 surviving detainees sustained serious permanent injuries.<ref name="ogiek">{{cite web|url=http://www.ogiek.org/indepth/special-report-3.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041021223543/http://www.ogiek.org/indepth/special-report-3.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=21 October 2004|title=indepth/special-report-3|publisher=ogiek.org|access-date=28 July 2016}}</ref> The British government accepts that the colonial administration tortured detainees, but denies liability.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20543140|title=Mau Mau massacre documents revealed|publisher=BBC News|date=30 November 2012|access-date=6 December 2013|archive-date=5 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220305111344/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20543140|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Link to Barack Obama===
Sarah Obama, President Barack Obama's grandfather's wife told him that her husband was imprisoned for six months and tortured before being tried in a British court.<ref name="falk2010">{{cite book |title=The Riddle of Barack Obama: A Psychobiography |last=Falk |first=Avner |isbn=9780313385872 |year=2010 |publisher=Greenwood Pub Group |page=}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Mail Foreign Service |title=Barack Obama's grandfather 'tortured by the British' during Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion |date=3 December 2008 |newspaper=The Daily Mail |url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1091499/Barack-Obamas-grandfather-tortured-British-Kenyas-Mau-Mau-rebellion.html}}</ref> The records of the trial were not kept as colonial documents older than six years were destroyed by the British.<ref name="falk2010"/> Based on the account contained within his memoirs, '']'' suggested that his antipathy to British colonialism may be increased due this.<ref name="times_031208">{{cite news |author=Ben Macintyre |title=Tale of family torture may strengthen Barack Obama's animosity |date=3 December 2008 |newspaper=The Times |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5276030.ece}}</ref> Several prominent media organisations suggest that the return of a bust of Winston Churchill from the White House by Barack Obama, loaned by the British government to his predecessor, is related to his grandfather's mistreatment.<ref name="macintyre|orengoh">{{cite news |author1=Ben Macintyre |author2=Paul Orengoh |title=Beatings and abuse made Barack Obama's grandfather loathe the British: The President-elect's relatives have told how the family was a victim of the Mau Mau revolt |date=3 December 2008 |newspaper=The Times |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article5276010.ece}}
</ref><ref name="hari">{{cite news |author=Johann Hari |title=The Two Churchills |date=12 August 2010 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/books/review/Hari-t.html?pagewanted=all}}</ref><ref name="shipman">{{cite news |author=Tim Shipman |title=Barack Obama sends bust of Winston Churchill on its way back to Britain |date=14 February 2009 |newspaper=The Telegraph |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4623148/Barack-Obama-sends-bust-of-Winston-Churchill-on-its-way-back-to-Britain.html}}</ref>

===Compensation claims===
Until September 2003, the Mau Mau movement was banned.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1531184/Mau-Mau-veterans-issue-writ-deadline.html |title=Mau Mau veterans issue writ deadline |author=Mike Pflanz |date=11 October 2006 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |accessdate=11 February 2012}}</ref> Since the ban was removed, former Mau Mau members who were castrated or otherwise tortured have attempted to sue for compensation from the British government,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/mau-mau-veterans-to-sue-over-british-atrocities-417565.html |title=Mau Mau veterans to sue over British 'atrocities' |author=Anthony Mitchell |newspaper=The Independent |date=26 September 2006 |accessdate=12 April 2011}}</ref> their lawyers having documented about 6,000 cases of human rights abuses.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/2416049.stm#4 |newspaper=BBC News |title=Kenya: White Terror |date=9 November 2002 |author=John McGhie}}</ref> The British government has stated that the issue was the responsibility of the Kenyan government on the grounds of ] for former colonies, relying on an obscure legal precedent relating to Patagonian toothfish<ref name="Guardian 05.04.2011">{{cite news |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/05/kenyans-sue-uk-colonial-human-rights-abuses |title=Kenyans sue UK for alleged colonial human rights abuses |author=Owen Bowcott |date=5 April 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |accessdate=11 February 2012}}</ref> and the declaration of martial law in Jamaica in 1860.<ref name="Guardian 07.04.2011">{{cite news |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/07/kenyans-mau-mau-compensation-case |title=Mau Mau victims seek compensation from UK for alleged torture |author=Owen Bowcott |date=7 April 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |accessdate=11 February 2012}}</ref> Around 12,000 Kenyans had sought compensation.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/852900/-/pvtdfjz/-/index.html |title=UK snubs compensation claim by Mau Mau victims |author=Paul Redfern |newspaper=The East African |date=31 January 2010}}</ref> In July 2011, a British judge ruled that the Kenyans could sue the Foreign Office for their alleged torture.<ref name="Guardian_21072011">{{cite news |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/21/mau-mau-torture-kenyans-compensation |title=Mau Mau torture claim Kenyans win right to sue British government |author=Owen Bowcott |date=21 July 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |accessdate=21 July 2011}}</ref> Explaining his decision, Mr Justice McCombe said the claimants had an "arguable case" and it would be "dishonourable" to block the action.<ref name="BBC_21072011">{{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14232049 |title=Mau Mau Kenyans allowed to sue UK government |author=Dominic Casciani |date=21 July 2011 |newspaper=BBC News |accessdate=21 July 2011}}</ref>


=== Mau Mau war crimes ===
====Discovery of 'missing' documents====
{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = Mau Mau fighters, ... contrary to African customs and values, assaulted old people, women and children. The horrors they practiced included the following: decapitation and general mutilation of civilians, torture before murder, bodies bound up in sacks and dropped in wells, burning the victims alive, gouging out of eyes, splitting open the stomachs of pregnant women. No war can justify such gruesome actions. In man's inhumanity to man, there is no race distinction. The Africans were practicing it on themselves. There was no reason and no restraint on both sides.<ref name="Ogot 2005 502"/>
| quote = The fact that it has always been British policy to withdraw or destroy certain sensitive records prior to Independence has never been advertised or generally admitted.<ref name="times_05042011a"/>
| source = —The Commonwealth Office, 1967 | source = —]
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}In 2011, papers documenting the suppression of the Mau Mau revolt, and which had been 'missing' for fifty years, were uncovered in connection with the above-mentioned legal case.<ref name="times_05042011a">{{cite news| newspaper=The Times |date=5 April 2011 |title=50 years later: Britain's Kenya cover-up revealed |author=Ben Macintyre |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2972562.ece |accessdate=6 April 2011}}</ref> In 2006, lawyers for Leigh Day, the legal firm representing the Kenyan litigants, submitted a ] (FoI) request for "a final tranche of documents relating to the suppression of the Mau Mau held by the Public Record Office" that the government was "refusing to release"; the FCO response explicitly denied the existence of missing files, stating that all information they had held had been transferred to ].<ref name="cary_report">{{cite web |url=http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/migrated-archives |last=Cary |first=Anthony |title=Report on Migrated Archives |publisher=Foreign and Commonwealth Office |date=24 February 2011 |accessdate=13 May 2011 |quote=As British dependent territories came to independence decisions had to be taken about which papers to destroy, which to leave for successor administrations, and which to ship back to the UK. The general rule, as set out in a Colonial Office guidance telegram of 3 May 1961 on the 'disposal of classified records and accountable documents', was the successor Governments should not be given papers which:<br />
}}
* might embarrass HMG or other Governments;
* might embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants or others eg police informers;
* might compromise sources of intelligence information; or
* might be used unethically by Ministers in the successor Government
In addition ''"There would be little object in handing over documents which would patently be of no value to the successor Government"''. A great many documents were destroyed on this basis, but others were returned to the UK. These became the so-called 'migrated archives', eventually totalling around 8,800 files.}}</ref> (The Treasury Solicitors' response to Leigh Day went even further by stating that not only were all relevant documents with The National Archives but that they were also in the public domain).<ref name="cary_report"/> It was only the persistence of a handful of FCO officials, notably Edward Inglett, and a witness statement by Professor David Anderson in December 2010 alleging "systematic withholding by HMG of 1500 files in 300 boxes taking up 100 linear feet", that eventually resulted in their coming to light in January 2011.<ref name="times_12042011a">{{cite news| newspaper=The Times |date=12 April 2011 |title=Foreign Office says sorry for misplacing Mau Mau papers |author1=Ben Macintyre |author2=Billy Kenber |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2981762.ece |accessdate=12 April 2011}}</ref> It is not the first time a UK government department has systematically withheld files regarding British crimes during the Emergency—and not the first time that Professor Anderson has been involved in challenging it.<ref name="anderson2006">]. " he shooting of twenty Kenyan civilians at Chuka in June 1953 has been hidden behind a veil of official secrecy. Evidence on these events should have been released into the Public Record Office in 1984. The file was withheld by the Ministry of Defence and marked for closure until 2038. Requests under the Freedom of Information Act secured its release in January 2006, and we can now reconstruct the disturbing story of the Chuka massacre. But not everything on this file has been revealed: and that raises tough questions about the culpability of the British Army in colonial war crimes, official secrecy, and the inadequacies of Freedom of Information legislation".</ref><ref name="Telegraph_10072006">{{cite news |url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1523502/MoD-refusing-to-release-file-on-massacre-of-Kenyans.html |author=Ben Fenton |date=10 July 2006 |title=MoD 'refusing to release file on massacre of Kenyans' |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |accessdate=7 July 2011}}</ref>


====Lari massacres====
{{quote box
{{Main|Lari massacre}}
| title =
Mau Mau militants perpetrated numerous war crimes. One such incident was their attack on the settlement of ], on the night of 25–26 March 1953, in which they herded men, women and children into huts and set fire to them, hacking down with ]s anyone who attempted escape, before throwing them back into the burning huts.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|pp=119–180}} The attack at Lari was so extreme that "African policemen who saw the bodies of the victims ... were physically sick and said 'These people are animals. If I see one now I shall shoot with the greatest eagerness{{' "}},<ref name="French 2011 72"/> and it "even shocked many Mau Mau supporters, some of whom would subsequently try to excuse the attack as 'a mistake{{' "}}. A total of 309 rebels would be prosecuted for the massacre, of which 136 were convicted. Seventy-one of those convicted were executed.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=127}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire |url=http://uni360y1y.wdfiles.com/local--files/lecture-ten-friday-november-16-2007/Histories%20of%20the%20Hanged.pdf |page=175 |access-date=24 June 2023 |archive-date=24 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230624204817/http://uni360y1y.wdfiles.com/local--files/lecture-ten-friday-november-16-2007/Histories%20of%20the%20Hanged.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
| quote = t has been admitted in the House of Lords that the Foreign Office "irregularly" holds 9,500 files from 36 other former British colonies. Do these hold further horrors yet to be revealed of colonial mis-<br/>deeds? The discovery of this vast tranche of documents has prompted historians to suggest that a major reappraisal of the end of Britain's empire will be required once these materials have been digested—a "hidden history" if ever there were one.<ref name="Guardian 25 July 2011"/>

| source = —Professor David Anderson, July 2011
A retaliatory massacre was immediately perpetrated by Kenyan security forces who were partially overseen by British commanders. Official estimates place the death toll from the first Lari massacre at 74, and the retaliatory attack at 150, though neither of these figures account for people who may have been 'disappeared'. Whatever the actual number of victims, "he grim truth was that, for every person who died in Lari's first massacre, at least two more were killed in retaliation in the second."{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=132}}
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Aside from the Lari massacres, Kikuyu were also tortured, mutilated and murdered by Mau Mau on many other occasions.<ref name="Ogot 2005 502"/> Mau Mau were estimated to have killed 1,819 of their fellow native Kenyans, though again, this number may exclude those whose bodies were never found. Anderson estimates the true number to be around 5,000.{{sfn|Anderson|2005|p=84}} Thirty-two European and twenty-six Asian civilians were also murdered by Mau Mau militants, with similar numbers wounded. The best known European victim was Michael Ruck, aged six, who was hacked to death with ] along with his parents, Roger and Esme, and one of the Rucks' farm workers, Muthura Nagahu, who had tried to help the family.<ref name="Anderson 2005 p94">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|p=94}}.</ref> Newspapers in Kenya and abroad published graphic murder details, including images of young Michael with bloodied teddy bears and trains strewn on his bedroom floor.<ref name="Elkins 2005 p42">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|p=42}}.</ref>
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In 1952, the poisonous ] of the ] was used by members of Mau Mau to kill cattle in an incident of ].<ref name="carus2002_63-65">{{cite book| last = Carus| first = W. Seth| title = Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents Since 1900| pages = | publisher=Fredonia Books| year = 2002| edition = Reprint of 1st| location = Amsterdam| quote = This episode is not mentioned in histories of the Mau Mau revolt, suggesting that such incidents were rare.}}</ref>
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==Legacy==
| title_fnt =
Although Mau Mau was effectively crushed by the end of 1956, it was not until the ], in January 1960, that native Kenyan majority rule was established and the period of colonial transition to independence initiated.<ref name="Wasserman 1976 1a">{{Harvnb|Wasserman|1976|p=}}.</ref> Before the conference, it was anticipated by both native Kenyan and European leaders that Kenya was set for a European-dominated multi-racial government.<ref name="Wasserman 1976 1a"/>
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There is continuing debate about Mau Mau's and the rebellion's effects on decolonisation and on Kenya after independence. Regarding decolonisation, the most common view is that Kenya's independence came about as a result of the British government's deciding that a continuance of colonial rule would entail a greater use of force than the British public would tolerate.<ref name="Nissimi 2006 2">{{Harvnb|Nissimi|2006|p=2}}.</ref> Nissimi argues, though, that such a view fails to "acknowledge the time that elapsed until the rebellion's influence actually took effect explain why the same liberal tendencies failed to stop the dirty war the British conducted against the Mau Mau in Kenya while it was raging on". Others contend that, as the 1950s progressed, nationalist intransigence increasingly rendered official plans for political development irrelevant, meaning that after the mid-1950s British policy increasingly accepted Kenyan nationalism and moved to co-opt its leaders and organisations into collaboration.<ref name="Berman 1991 189"/><ref name="Bra&Che 2006 11">{{Harvnb|Branch|Cheeseman|2006|p=11}}: "The co-option of sympathetic African elites during the colonial twilight into the bureaucracy, the legislature and the private property-based economy meant that the allies of colonialism and representatives of transnational capital were able to reap the benefits of independence. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The post-colonial state must therefore be seen as a representation of the interests protected and promoted during the latter years of colonial rule. Under Jomo Kenyatta, the post-colonial state represented a 'pact-of-domination' between transnational capital, the elite and the executive."</ref>
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It has been argued that the conflict helped set the stage for Kenyan independence in December 1963,<ref name="Percox 2005 752">{{Harvnb|Percox|2005|p=752}}.</ref> or at least secured the prospect of Black-majority rule once the British left.<ref name="Londsale">{{Harvnb|Lonsdale|2000|pp=109–110}}. "Mau Mau, despite its problematic claims to be called 'nationalist' .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. forced the issue of power in a way that KAU had never done. It was not that Mau Mau won its war against the British; guerrilla movements rarely win in military terms; and militarily Mau Mau was defeated. But in order to crown peace with sustainable civil governance—and thus reopen a prospect of controlled decolonization—the British had to abandon 'multiracialism' and adopt African rule as their vision of Kenya's future. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The blood of Mau Mau, no matter how peculiarly ethnic in source and aim, was the seed of Kenya's all-African sovereignty."</ref> However, this is disputed and other sources downplay the contribution of Mau Mau to decolonisation.<ref name="Wasserman 1976 1b">{{Harvnb|Wasserman|1976|p=}}: "Although the rise of nationalist movements in Africa was certainly a contributing factor in the dismantling of the colonial empires, one cannot wholly attribute the 'demise of colonialism' to the rise of nationalism. ... he decolonization process was shaped by an adaptive reaction of colonial political and economic interests to the political ascendency of a nationalist elite and to the threat of disruption by the masses."</ref><!--
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A crucial contribution was Kenyatta's mollifying landless former Mau Mau militants withs yadda yadda finish tomorrow.<ref name="Ogot 2012 111">{{Harvnb|Ogot|2012|p=}}.</ref>-->
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}Upon their discovery, ] ] requested , a former British High Commissioner to Canada, to conduct an internal review into why the documents, known as ''migrated archives'', had not been spotlighted by the FoI requests.<ref name="cary_report"/> In a highly sympathetic report the next month, Cary nonetheless judged that despite the involvement of relatively junior staff who had been genuinely ignorant about the contents of the files, there had been more knowledgeable staff who were perfectly aware of the documents' importance but who had chosen not to share their widsom.<ref name="cary_report"/> "It was perhaps convenient to that the migrated archives .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. did not need to be consulted for the purposes of FOI requests, while also being conscious of the files as a sort of guilty secret, of uncertain status and in the 'too difficult' tray", Cary concluded.<ref name="cary_report"/><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13336343 |title=Mau Mau torture files were 'guilty secret' |author=BBC News |date=9 May 2011 |accessdate=12 May 2011}}</ref> After making Cary's report public in May 2011, Hague declared his "intention to release every part of every paper of interest subject only to legal exemptions."<ref name="hague_statement">{{cite web |url=http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/news/latest-news/?view=PressS&id=592664082 |title=Foreign Office publishes review on release of colonial documents |date=5 May 2011 |publisher=FCO |accessdate=13 May 2011}}</ref>

On 12 December 1964, ] issued an amnesty to Mau Mau fighters to surrender to the government. Some Mau Mau members insisted that they should get land and be absorbed into the civil service and Kenya army. On 28 January 1965, the Kenyatta government sent the Kenya army to Meru district, where Mau Mau fighters gathered under the leadership of Field Marshal Mwariama and Field Marshal Baimungi. These leaders and several Mau Mau fighters were killed. On 14 January 1965, the Minister for Defence Dr Njoroge Mungai was quoted in the ] saying: "They are now outlaws, who will be pursued and brought to punishment. They must be outlawed as well in the minds of all the people of Kenya."<ref>{{cite journal |author=Anaïs Angelo |date=2017 |title=Jomo Kenyatta and the repression of the 'last' Mau Mau leaders, 1961–1965 |journal=Journal of Eastern African Studies |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=442–459 |doi=10.1080/17531055.2017.1354521|s2cid=148635405 }}</ref><ref>Kenya National Assembly Official Record. 12 July 2000. Parliamentary debates. pages 1552-1553</ref>

On 12 September 2015, the British government unveiled a Mau Mau memorial statue in Nairobi's Uhuru Park that it had funded "as a symbol of reconciliation between the British government, the Mau Mau, and all those who suffered". This followed a June 2013 decision by Britain to compensate more than 5,000 Kenyans it had tortured and abused during the Mau Mau insurgency.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/british-backed-mau-mau-memorial-set-to-open-in-rare-colonial-apology/articleshow/48909490.cms|title=British-backed Mau Mau memorial set to open in rare colonial apology|agency=AFP|date=11 September 2015|work=The Economic Times|access-date=26 September 2016|archive-date=4 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170104194938/http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/british-backed-mau-mau-memorial-set-to-open-in-rare-colonial-apology/articleshow/48909490.cms|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Compensation claims===
In 1999, a collection of former fighters calling themselves the Mau Mau Original Group announced that they would attempt a £5&nbsp;billion claim against the UK on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans for ill-treatment that they said they had suffered during the rebellion, though nothing came of it.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/1999/0821/99082100081.html |title= Former guerrillas seek damages |date= 8 August 1999 |newspaper= The Irish Times |access-date=30 May 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/426100.stm |title= Mau Mau compensation demand |date= 20 August 1999 |publisher= BBC News |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 15 April 2004 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20040415033152/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/426100.stm |url-status= live }}</ref> In November 2002, the Mau Mau Trust{{mdash}}a welfare group for former members of the movement{{mdash}}announced that it would attempt to sue the British government for widespread human rights violations it said had been committed against its members.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2429227.stm |last= Thompson |first= Mike |date= 9 November 2002 |title= Mau Mau rebels threaten court action |publisher= BBC News |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 23 April 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060423065327/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2429227.stm |url-status= live }}</ref> Until September 2003, the Mau Mau movement was banned.<ref name="BBC ban">{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3196245.stm |last= Plaut |first= Martin |date= 31 August 2003 |title= Kenya lifts ban on Mau Mau |publisher= BBC News |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 14 March 2007 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070314053439/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3196245.stm |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1531184/Mau-Mau-veterans-issue-writ-deadline.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1531184/Mau-Mau-veterans-issue-writ-deadline.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Mau Mau veterans issue writ deadline |author=Mike Pflanz |date=11 October 2006 |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |access-date=11 February 2012 |location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Once the ban was removed, former Mau Mau members who had been castrated or otherwise tortured were supported by the Kenya Human Rights Commission, in particular by the commission's George Morara, in their attempt to take on the British government;<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/mau-mau-veterans-to-sue-over-british-atrocities-417565.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220512/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/mau-mau-veterans-to-sue-over-british-atrocities-417565.html |archive-date=12 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Mau Mau veterans to sue over British 'atrocities' |last= Mitchell |first= Andrew |newspaper=The Independent|date=26 September 2006 |access-date=12 April 2011 |location=London}}</ref><ref name="HG 2012">{{cite news |url= http://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/news/professor-elkins-helps-make-case-aged-kenyan-veterans-deserve-justice |last= Ireland |first= Corydon |date= 1 September 2011 |title= Justice for Kenya's Mau Mau |newspaper= ] |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 7 April 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120407025907/http://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/news/professor-elkins-helps-make-case-aged-kenyan-veterans-deserve-justice |url-status= live }}</ref> their lawyers had amassed 6,000 depositions regarding human rights abuses by late 2002.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2416049.stm |last= McGhie |first= John |date= 9 November 2002 |title= Kenya: White Terror |publisher= BBC |access-date= 26 May 2012 |archive-date= 6 February 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080206191801/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2416049.stm |url-status= live }}</ref> 42 potential claimants were interviewed, from whom five were chosen to prosecute a test case; one of the five, Susan Ciong'ombe Ngondi, has since died.<ref name="HG 2012"/> The remaining four test claimants are: Ndiku Mutua, who was castrated; Paulo Muoka Nzili, who was castrated; Jane Muthoni Mara, who was subjected to sexual assault that included having bottles filled with boiling water pushed up her vagina; and Wambugu Wa Nyingi, who survived the ].<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/12998628 |title= 'He came with pliers'—Kenyan alleges torture by British colonial authorities |publisher= BBC News |date= 7 April 2011 |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 16 July 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120716122739/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/12998628 |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12994190 |title= Mau Mau case: UK government cannot be held liable |publisher= BBC News |date= 7 April 2011 |access-date= 29 May 2012 |archive-date= 27 April 2012 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120427031552/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12994190 |url-status= live }}</ref><ref name="Permission 2011">{{cite news |url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3101139.ece |last= McConnell |first= Tristan |date= 21 July 2011 |title= Kenyan veterans celebrate first victory in compensation claim |newspaper= The Times |access-date= 29 May 2012 |archive-date= 18 March 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150318181210/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3101139.ece |url-status= live }}</ref>

] of ''The Times'' said of the legal case: "Opponents of these proceedings have pointed out, rightly, that the Mau Mau was a brutal terrorist force, guilty of the most dreadful atrocities. Yet only one of the claimants is of that stamp{{mdash}}Mr Nzili. He has admitted taking the Mau Mau oath and said that all he did was to ferry food to the fighters in the forest. None has been accused, let alone convicted, of any crime."<ref name="not accused">{{cite news |url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article2977473.ece |last= Macintyre |first= Ben |date= 8 April 2011 |title= In court to face the ghosts of the past |newspaper= The Times |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 17 March 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150317211426/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/law/article2977473.ece |url-status= live }}</ref>

Upon publication of Caroline Elkins' '']'' in 2005, Kenya called for an apology from the UK for atrocities committed during the 1950s.<ref>{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4318277.stm |title= UK 'atrocity' apology |date= 4 March 2005 |publisher= BBC News |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 16 June 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060616153605/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4318277.stm |url-status= live }}</ref> The British government claimed that the issue was the responsibility of the Kenyan government, on the ground of ] for former colonies, relying on an obscure legal precedent relating to ]<ref name="Guardian 05.04.2011">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/05/kenyans-sue-uk-colonial-human-rights-abuses |title=Kenyans sue UK for alleged colonial human rights abuses |author=Owen Bowcott |date=5 April 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=11 February 2012 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930042813/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/05/kenyans-sue-uk-colonial-human-rights-abuses |url-status=live }}</ref> and the declaration of martial law in Jamaica in 1860.<ref name="Guardian 07.04.2011">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/07/kenyans-mau-mau-compensation-case |title=Mau Mau victims seek compensation from UK for alleged torture |author=Owen Bowcott |date=7 April 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=11 February 2012 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930043003/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/07/kenyans-mau-mau-compensation-case |url-status=live }}</ref>


In July 2011, "George Morara strode down the corridor and into a crowded little room where 30 elderly Kenyans sat hunched together around a table clutching cups of hot tea and sharing plates of biscuits. 'I have good news from London', he announced. 'We have won the first part of the battle!' At once, the room erupted in cheers."<ref name="Permission 2011"/> The good news was that a British judge had ruled that the Kenyans could sue the British government for their torture.<ref name="Guardian_21072011">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/21/mau-mau-torture-kenyans-compensation |title=Mau Mau torture claim Kenyans win right to sue British government |author=Owen Bowcott |date=21 July 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |access-date=21 July 2011 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930132912/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/21/mau-mau-torture-kenyans-compensation |url-status=live }}</ref> Morara said that, if the first test cases succeeded, perhaps 30,000 others would file similar complaints of torture.<ref name="Permission 2011"/> Explaining his decision, ] said the claimants had an "arguable case",<ref name="BBC_21072011">{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14232049 |title=Mau Mau Kenyans allowed to sue UK government |author=Dominic Casciani |date=21 July 2011 |publisher=BBC News |access-date=21 July 2011 |archive-date=21 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721112510/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14232049 |url-status=live }}</ref> and added:
The documents had been flown out of Africa on the eve of Kenya's independence because they "might embarrass Her Majesty's Government".<ref name="cary_report"/><ref name="times_05042011b">{{cite news| newspaper=The Times |date=5 April 2011 |title=Tales of brutality and violence that could open the claims floodgate |author=Ben Macintyre |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2973063.ece |accessdate=6 April 2011}}</ref> "Embarrassment hardly covers it," remarked a ''Times'' editorial, noting that "the covert history of colonial administration in Kenya bears comparison to the methods of torture and summary execution in the French war in Algeria."<ref name="times_05042011c">{{cite news| newspaper=The Times |date=5 April 2011 |title=Crimes of colonialism |author=Editorial |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article2972824.ece |accessdate=6 April 2011}}</ref> Between 1963 and 1994 the files were stored in Hayes repository; in 1994 they were moved to ], to save on storage costs.<ref name="cary_report"/> In 1967, in 1974, and again in 1982, Kenya asked for them to be released, but the UK refused.<ref name="cary_report"/><ref name="times_05042011b"/>
{{blockquote|It may well be thought strange, or perhaps even dishonourable, that a legal system which will not in any circumstances admit into its proceedings evidence obtained by torture should yet refuse to entertain a claim against the Government in its own jurisdiction for that Government's allegedly negligent failure to prevent torture which it had the means to prevent. Furthermore, resort to technicality ... to rule such a claim out of court appears particularly misplaced.<ref name="Times 21Jul2011">{{cite news |url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3100937.ece |last1= Macintyre |first1= Ben |last2= Ralph |first2= Alex |last3= McConnell |first3= Tristan |date= 21 July 2011 |title= Kenyans can sue over 'colonial torture' |newspaper= The Times |access-date= 29 May 2012 |archive-date= 18 March 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150318182719/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3100937.ece |url-status= live }}</ref>}}A ''Times'' editorial noted with satisfaction that "Mr Justice McCombe told the FCO, in effect, to get lost. ... Though the arguments against reopening very old wounds are seductive, they fail morally. There are living claimants and it most certainly was not their fault that the documentary evidence that seems to support their claims was for so long 'lost' in the governmental filing system."<ref name="Times ed 2011">{{cite news |url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3101596.ece |author= Editorial |date= 22 July 2011 |title= Good News from London |newspaper= The Times |access-date= 29 May 2012 |archive-date= 18 March 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150318185731/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article3101596.ece |url-status= live }}</ref>


{{quote box {{quote box
| quote = If we are going to sin, we must sin quietly.<ref name="times_12042011">{{cite news |newspaper=] |date=12 April 2011 |title=Torture device No 1: the legal rubber stamp |author=Ben Macintyre |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/benmacintyre/article2981528.ece |access-date=12 April 2011 |archive-date=4 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004210117/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/benmacintyre/article2981528.ece |url-status=live }}</ref>
| title =
| quote = If we are going to sin, we must sin quietly.<ref name="times_12042011">{{cite news| newspaper=The Times |date=12 April 2011 |title=Torture device No 1: the legal rubber stamp |author=Ben Macintyre |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/benmacintyre/article2981528.ece |accessdate=12 April 2011}}</ref>
| source = —Kenyan Attorney-General Eric Griffith-Jones | source = —Kenyan Attorney-General Eric Griffith-Jones
| align = left | align = left
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| salign = right | salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}During the course of the Mau Mau legal battle in London, a large amount of what was stated to be formerly lost Foreign Office archival material was finally brought to light, while yet more was discovered to be missing.<ref name="Elkins 2011">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2011}}.</ref> The files, known as '']'', provided details of British human rights abuses (torture, rape, execution)<ref>{{cite news |date= 18 July 2012 |title= Kenyans were tortured during Mau Mau rebellion, High Court hears |url= https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/9407422/Kenyans-were-tortured-during-Mau-Mau-rebellion-High-Court-hears.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/9407422/Kenyans-were-tortured-during-Mau-Mau-rebellion-High-Court-hears.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |newspaper= ] |access-date= 18 March 2013 |location=London}}{{cbignore}}</ref> in its former colonies during the final stages of empire, including during Mau Mau, and even after decolonisation.
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}Amongst other things, the records confirmed "the extent of the violence inflicted on suspected Mau Mau rebels"<ref name="times_13042011">{{cite news| newspaper=The Times |date=13 April 2011 |title=Brutal beatings and the 'roasting alive' of a suspect: what secret Mau Mau files reveal |author1=Ben Macintyre |author2=Billy Kenber |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2983138.ece |accessdate=13 April 2011 |quote=Sir Evelyn Baring, the Governor of Kenya, in a telegram to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, reported allegations of extreme brutality made against eight European district officers. They included "assault by beating up and burning of two Africans during screening " and one officer accused of "murder by beating up and roasting alive of one African". No action was taken against the accused.}}</ref> in British detention camps documented in Caroline Elkins' otherwise flawed study.<ref name="guardian_14042011a">{{cite news |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/14/torture-mau-mau-camps-kenya |author=Caroline Elkins |date=14 April 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |title=My critics ignored evidence of torture in Mau Mau detention camps |accessdate=14 April 2011}}</ref> Baring himself was aware of the "extreme brutality" of the sometimes-lethal torture meted out—which included "most drastic" beatings, solitary confinement, starvation, castration, whipping, burning, rape, sodomy, and forceful insertion of objects into orifices—but took no action.<ref name="guardian_11042011">{{cite news| newspaper=The Guardian |date=11 April 2011 |title=Mau Mau abuse case: Time to say sorry |author=Editorial |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/11/mau-mau-empire-british-government-responsibility |accessdate=14 April 2011}}</ref><ref name="times_13042011"/> Baring's inaction was despite the urging of people like Arthur Young, Commissioner of Police for Kenya for less than eight months of 1954 before he resigned in protest, that "the horror of some of the should be investigated without delay".<ref name="times_13042011a">{{cite news| newspaper=The Times |date=13 April 2011 |title=Taking on the Boss: The quiet whistleblowers on events in Kenya deserve praise |author=Editorial |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article2982973.ece |accessdate=13 April 2011}}</ref> In February 1956, a provincial commissioner in Kenya, "Monkey" Johnson, wrote to the Attorney General, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, urging him to block any enquiry into the methods used against the Mau Mau: "It would now appear that each and every one of us, from the Governor downwards, may be in danger of removal from public service by a commission of enquiry as a result of enquiries made by the CID."<ref name="Indie 08.04.2011">{{cite news |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cabinet-hushed-up-torture-of-mau-mau-rebels-2264955.html |title=Cabinet 'hushed up' torture of Mau Mau rebels |author=Andy McSmith |date=8 April 2011 |newspaper=The Independent |accessdate=10 February 2012}}</ref><p>Commenting on the papers, David Anderson stated that the "documents were hidden away to protect the guilty",<ref name="times_05042011b"/> and "that the extent of abuse now being revealed is truly disturbing."<ref name="Guardian 25 July 2011">{{cite news |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/25/kenya-empire-mau-mau-britain |title=It's not just Kenya. Squaring up to the seamier side of empire is long overdue |author=David Anderson |date=25 July 2011 |newspaper=The Guardian |accessdate=27 July 2011}}</ref> "Everything that could happen did happen. Allegations about beatings and violence were widespread. Basically you could get away with murder. It was systematic", Anderson said.<ref name="bbc_07042011"/><ref>For more on Anderson's reaction to the 'missing' papers, see:

* {{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13317076 |title=Colonial secret papers to be made public |newspaper=BBC News |date=6 May 2011 |accessdate=12 May 2011}}
Regarding the Mau Mau Uprising, the records included confirmation of "the extent of the violence inflicted on suspected Mau Mau rebels"<ref name="times_13042011">{{cite news |newspaper=] |date=13 April 2011 |title=Brutal beatings and the 'roasting alive' of a suspect: what secret Mau Mau files reveal |author1=Ben Macintyre |author2=Billy Kenber |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2983138.ece |access-date=13 April 2011 |quote=Sir Evelyn Baring, the Governor of Kenya, in a telegram to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, reported allegations of extreme brutality made against eight European district officers. They included 'assault by beating up and burning of two Africans during screening ' and one officer accused of 'murder by beating up and roasting alive of one African'. No action was taken against the accused. |archive-date=4 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004210420/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2983138.ece |url-status=live }}</ref> in British detention camps documented in Caroline Elkins' study.<ref name="guardian_14042011a">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/14/torture-mau-mau-camps-kenya |author=Caroline Elkins |date=14 April 2011 |newspaper=] |title=My critics ignored evidence of torture in Mau Mau detention camps |access-date=14 April 2011 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930033530/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/14/torture-mau-mau-camps-kenya |url-status=live }}</ref> Numerous allegations of murder and rape by British military personnel are recorded in the files, including an incident where a native Kenyan baby was "burnt to death", the "defilement of a young girl", and a soldier in Royal Irish Fusiliers who killed "in cold blood two people who had been his captives for over 12 hours".<ref name="Torture 2011">{{cite news |url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article2992053.ece |last= Kenber |first= Billy |date= 19 April 2011 |title= New documents show how Britain sanctioned Mau Mau torture |newspaper= ] |access-date= 29 May 2012 |archive-date= 17 March 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150317212807/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article2992053.ece |url-status= live }}</ref> Baring himself was aware of the "extreme brutality" of the sometimes lethal torture meted out{{mdash}}which included "most drastic" beatings, solitary confinement, starvation, castration, whipping, burning, rape, sodomy, and forceful insertion of objects into orifices{{mdash}}but took no action.<ref name="guardian_11042011"/><ref name="times_13042011"/> Baring's inaction was despite the urging of people like Arthur Young, Commissioner of Police for Kenya for less than eight months of 1954 before he resigned in protest, that "the horror of some of the should be investigated without delay".<ref name="times_13042011a"/> In February 1956, a provincial commissioner in Kenya, "Monkey" Johnson, wrote to Attorney General ] urging him to block any enquiry into the methods used against Mau Mau: "It would now appear that each and every one of us, from the Governor downwards, may be in danger of removal from public service by a commission of enquiry as a result of enquiries made by the CID."<ref name="Indie 08.04.2011">{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cabinet-hushed-up-torture-of-mau-mau-rebels-2264955.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220512/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cabinet-hushed-up-torture-of-mau-mau-rebels-2264955.html |archive-date=12 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Cabinet 'hushed up' torture of Mau Mau rebels |author=Andy McSmith |date=8 April 2011 |newspaper=The Independent|access-date=10 February 2012 |location=London}}</ref> The April 2012 release also included detailed accounts of the policy of seizing livestock from Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels.<ref name="BBC 2012 docs"/>
* {{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |title=Mau Mau blame 'goes right to the top' |work=Today |publisher=BBC |author=Mark Thompson |date=7 April 2011 |accessdate=12 May 2011 |at=02:38–03:31 |quote=These new documents were withheld because they were considered to be particularly sensitive, so we can but imagine what will be in these documents.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Senior members of the Commonwealth Office in London ''did'' know what was happening; senior legal officials in London ''did'', to some extent, sanction the use of coercive force; and also, at Cabinet level, the Secretary of State for the Colonies certainly knew of the excesses that were taking place.}} (The quote is of Anderson).</ref> An example of this impunity is the case of eight colonial officials accused of having prisoners tortured to death going unpunished even after their crimes were reported to London.<ref name="Indie 08.04.2011"/> The Kenyan government sent a letter to Hague insisting that the UK government was legally liable for the atrocities.<ref name="times_05042011b"/> The Foreign Office, however, reaffirmed its position that it was not, in fact, liable for colonial atrocities,<ref name="times_05042011b"/> and argued that the documents had not "disappeared" as part of a cover up.<ref name="ft_050411">{{cite news |url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c4fde0d2-5fb6-11e0-a718-00144feab49a.html |author=James Blitz |newspaper=The Financial Times |date=5 April 2011 |title=Mau Mau case casts light on colonial records |accessdate=9 April 2011}}</ref> Edward Inglett made an unofficial, personal apology for the Foreign Office's "misplacing documents".<ref name="times_12042011a"/>{{quote box

| title =
{{quote box
| quote = Main criticism we shall have to meet is that 'Cowan plan' which was approved by Government contained instructions which in effect authorised unlawful use of violence against detainees.<ref name="bbc_12042011">{{cite news|newspaper=BBC News |date=12 April 2011 |title=British Mau Mau abuse papers revealed |author=Dominic Casciani |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13044974 |accessdate=12 May 2011}}</ref>
| quote = Main criticism we shall have to meet is that 'Cowan plan'<ref>Question, House of Lords, London 12 May 1959 – {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240409023846/https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1959/may/12/deaths-in-kenya-detention-camp |date=9 April 2024 }}</ref> which was approved by Government contained instructions which in effect authorised unlawful use of violence against detainees.<ref name="bbc_12042011">{{cite news |publisher=BBC News |date=12 April 2011 |title=British Mau Mau abuse papers revealed |author=Dominic Casciani |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13044974 |access-date=12 May 2011 |archive-date=3 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110503211353/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13044974 |url-status=live }}</ref>
| source = —Colonial Secretary ]
| source = Colonial Secretary ]
| align = right | align = right
| width = 53% | width = 35%
| fontsize = 85% | fontsize = 85%
| bgcolor = AliceBlue | bgcolor = AliceBlue
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| sstyle = text-align: right;}}Commenting on the papers, David Anderson stated that the "documents were hidden away to protect the guilty",<ref name="times_05042011b">{{cite news |newspaper=] |date=5 April 2011 |title=Tales of brutality and violence that could open the claims floodgate |author=Ben Macintyre |url=http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2973063.ece |access-date=6 April 2011 |quote=A letter was sent to William Hague on March 31 stating: 'The Republic of Kenya fully supports the claimants' case and has publicly denied any notion that responsibility for any acts and atrocities committed by the British colonial administration during the Kenya 'Emergency' was inherited by the Republic of Kenya.' |archive-date=4 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004205836/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2973063.ece |url-status=live }}</ref> and "that the extent of abuse now being revealed is truly disturbing".<ref name="Guardian 25 July 2011">{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/25/kenya-empire-mau-mau-britain |title=It's not just Kenya. Squaring up to the seamier side of empire is long overdue |author=David Anderson |date=25 July 2011 |newspaper=] |access-date=27 July 2011 |archive-date=30 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930123152/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/25/kenya-empire-mau-mau-britain |url-status=live }}</ref> "Everything that could happen did happen. Allegations about beatings and violence were widespread. Basically you could get away with murder. It was systematic", Anderson said.<ref name="bbc_07042011">{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12997138 |title=Mau Mau uprising: Bloody history of Kenya conflict |publisher=BBC News |date=7 April 2011 |access-date=12 May 2011 |quote=There was lots of suffering on the other side too. This was a dirty war. It became a civil war{{mdash}}though that idea remains extremely unpopular in Kenya today. |archive-date=10 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410182853/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12997138 |url-status=live }} (The quote is of Professor David Anderson)</ref><ref>For more on Anderson's reaction to the 'missing' papers, see:
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}
* {{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13317076 |title=Colonial secret papers to be made public |publisher=BBC News |date=6 May 2011 |access-date=12 May 2011 |archive-date=9 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110509052134/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13317076 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |title=Mau Mau blame 'goes right to the top' |work=Today |publisher=BBC |author=Mark Thompson |date=7 April 2011 |access-date=12 May 2011 |at=02:38–03:31 |quote=These new documents were withheld because they were considered to be particularly sensitive, so we can but imagine what will be in these documents.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Senior members of the Commonwealth Office in London ''did'' know what was happening; senior legal officials in London ''did'', to some extent, sanction the use of coercive force; and also, at Cabinet level, the Secretary of State for the Colonies certainly knew of the excesses that were taking place. |archive-date=10 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410213759/http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9449000/9449775.stm |url-status=live }} (The quote is of Anderson)</ref> An example of this impunity is the case of eight colonial officials accused of having prisoners tortured to death going unpunished even after their actions were reported to London.<ref name="Indie 08.04.2011"/> Huw Bennett of King's College London, who had worked with Anderson on the Chuka Massacre, said in a witness statement to the court that the new documents "considerably strengthen" the knowledge that the British Army were "intimately involved" with the colonial security forces, whom they knew were "systematically abusing and torturing detainees in screening centres and detention camps".<ref name="Torture 2011"/> In April 2011, lawyers for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office continued to maintain that there was no such policy.<ref name="Torture 2011"/> As early as November 1952, however, military reports noted that "he Army has been used for carrying out certain functions that properly belonged to the Police, eg. searching of huts and screening of Africans", and British soldiers arrested and transferred Mau Mau suspects to camps where they were beaten and tortured until they confessed. Bennett said that "the British Army retained ultimate operational control over all security forces throughout the Emergency", and that its military intelligence operation worked "hand in glove" with the Kenyan Special Branch "including in screening and interrogations in centres and detention camps".<ref name="Torture 2011"/>


The Kenyan government sent a letter to the ], ], insisting that the UK government was legally liable for the atrocities.<ref name="times_05042011b"/> The Foreign Office, however, reaffirmed its position that it was not, in fact, liable for colonial atrocities,<ref name="times_05042011b"/> and argued that the documents had not "disappeared" as part of a cover-up.<ref name="ft_050411">{{cite news |url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c4fde0d2-5fb6-11e0-a718-00144feab49a.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c4fde0d2-5fb6-11e0-a718-00144feab49a.html |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |author=James Blitz |newspaper=] |date=5 April 2011 |title=Mau Mau case casts light on colonial records |access-date=9 April 2011}}</ref> Nearly ten years before, in late 2002, as the BBC aired a documentary detailing British human rights abuses committed during the rebellion and 6,000 depositions had been taken for the legal case, former district colonial officer ] had expressed concern that compensation be paid soon, since most victims were in their 80s and would soon die. He told the BBC: "What went on in the Kenya camps and villages was brutal, savage torture. It is time that the mockery of justice that was perpetrated in this country at that time, should be, must be righted. I feel ashamed to have come from a Britain that did what it did here ."<ref>{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2416049.stm |last= McGhie |first= John |date= 9 November 2002 |title= Kenya: White Terror |work= Correspondent |publisher= BBC |access-date= 26 May 2012 |archive-date= 6 February 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080206191801/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2416049.stm |url-status= live }}</ref>
The release of these documents has sparked similar actions from veterans of other anti colonial struggles, such as the ] campaign against the British occupation of Cyprus.<ref>{{cite news | author=Michael Theodoulou | title = Greek Cypriots intend to sue Britain over torture in 1950s uprising | date = 13 April 2011 | url = http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2983111.ece |work=The Times | accessdate =9 May 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | author=Patrick Dewhurst | title = EOKA fighters to sue Brits over torture | date = 14 April 2011 | url = http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/eoka-fighters-sue-brits-over-torture/20110414 | work=] | accessdate =9 May 2011}}</ref>

Thirteen boxes of "top secret" Kenya files are still missing.<ref name="MaKe 15Apr2012">{{cite news |url= http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2987040.ece |title= Hundreds more top secret files missing in Mau Mau abuse case |last1= Macintyre |first1= Ben |last2= Kenber |first2= Billy |date= 15 April 2011 |newspaper= ] |access-date= 26 May 2012 |quote= In a statement to the court dated March 8, released to ''The Times'' yesterday, Martin Tucker, head of corporate records at the Foreign Office, reported that the 13 missing boxes could not be found. 'There were at one time a further 13 boxes of material retrieved from Kenya at independence which are additional to the documents discovered in Hanslope Park in January of this year', he wrote. He found evidence that the files had once been stored in the basement of the Old Admiralty Building in Whitehall, but traces of them had vanished after 1995. |archive-date= 17 May 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150517122008/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2987040.ece |url-status= live }}</ref><ref name="Elkins 18Apr2012">{{cite news |url= https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/apr/18/colonial-papers-fco-transparency-myth |last= Elkins |first= Caroline |date= 18 April 2012 |title= The colonial papers: FCO transparency is a carefully cultivated myth |newspaper= ] |access-date= 7 May 2012 |archive-date= 1 September 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140901081050/http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/apr/18/colonial-papers-fco-transparency-myth |url-status= live }}</ref>

In October 2012, Mr Justice McCombe granted the surviving elderly test claimants the right to sue the UK for damages.<ref>{{cite news |last= Cobain |first= Ian |date= 5 October 2012 |title= Mau Mau torture case: Kenyans win ruling against UK |url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/05/mau-mau-veterans-win-torture-case |newspaper= ] |access-date= 6 May 2012 |archive-date= 31 October 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131031191413/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/05/mau-mau-veterans-win-torture-case |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1= Day |first1= Martyn |author-link= Martyn Day (lawyer) |last2= Leader |first2= Dan |date= 5 October 2012 |title= The Kenyans tortured by the British must now be justly treated |url= https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/05/kenyans-tortured-by-british |newspaper= ] |access-date= 6 May 2012 |archive-date= 4 March 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160304103414/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/05/kenyans-tortured-by-british |url-status= live }}</ref> The UK government then opted for what the claimants' lawyers called the "morally repugnant" decision to appeal McCombe's ruling.<ref>{{cite news |last= Townsend |first= Mark |date= 23 December 2012 |title= Fury as Britain fights ruling on Kenya torture victims |url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/23/britain-fights-kenya-torture-ruling |newspaper= ] |access-date= 6 May 2013 |archive-date= 5 September 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130905024523/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/23/britain-fights-kenya-torture-ruling |url-status= live }}</ref> In May 2013, it was reported that the appeal was on hold while the UK government held compensation negotiations with the claimants.<ref name="Guardian 5 May 2013">{{cite news |last1= Cobain |first1= Ian |last2= Hatcher |first2= Jessica |date= 5 May 2013 |title= Kenyan Mau Mau victims in talks with UK government over legal settlement |url= https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/05/mau-mau-victims-kenya-settlement |newspaper= ] |access-date= 6 May 2012 |archive-date= 25 June 2023 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230625164614/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/05/mau-mau-victims-kenya-settlement |url-status= live }}</ref><ref name="Bennett 05May12">{{cite news |last= Bennett |first= Huw |date= 5 May 2013 |title= Kenyan Mau Mau: official policy was to cover up brutal mistreatment |url= https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/05/kenyan-mau-mau-cover-up-mistreatment |newspaper= ] |access-date= 6 May 2013 |archive-date= 10 October 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131010004007/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/05/kenyan-mau-mau-cover-up-mistreatment |url-status= live }}</ref>

===Settlement===
On 6 June 2013, the foreign secretary, William Hague, told parliament that the UK government had reached a settlement with the claimants. He said it included "payment of a settlement sum in respect of 5,228 claimants, as well as a gross costs sum, to the total value of £19.9 million. The Government will also support the construction of a memorial in Nairobi to the victims of torture and ill-treatment during the colonial era."<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-to-parliament-on-settlement-of-mau-mau-claims|title=Statement to Parliament on settlement of Mau Mau claims|website=GOV.UK|language=en|access-date=22 March 2019|archive-date=22 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190322151801/https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-to-parliament-on-settlement-of-mau-mau-claims|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22790037|title=Mau Mau abuse victims to get payouts|date=6 June 2013|access-date=22 March 2019|language=en-GB|archive-date=23 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190323170304/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22790037|url-status=live}}</ref> However he added, "We continue to deny liability on behalf of the Government and British taxpayers today for the actions of the colonial administration in respect of the claims".<ref name=":1" />


==Mau Mau status in Kenya== ==Mau Mau status in Kenya==
{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = Partisan questions about the Mau Mau war have .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. echoed round Kenya's political arena during 40 years of independence. How historically necessary was Mau Mau? Did its secretive violence alone have the power to destroy white supremacy? or did it merely sow discord within a mass nationalism that—for all the failings of the Kenya African Union (KAU)—was bound to win power in the end? Did Mau Mau aim at freedom for all Kenyans? or did moderate, constitutional politicians rescue that pluralist prize from the jaws of its ethnic chauvinism? Has the self-sacrificial victory of the poor been unjustly forgotten, and appropriated by the rich? or are Mau Mau's defeats and divisions best buried in oblivion?<ref name="lonsdale2003_47">], p.&nbsp;</ref> | quote = Partisan questions about the Mau Mau war have ... echoed round Kenya's political arena during 40 years of independence. How historically necessary was Mau Mau? Did its secretive violence alone have the power to destroy white supremacy? Or did it merely sow discord within a mass nationalism that—for all the failings of the Kenya African Union (KAU)—was bound to win power in the end? Did Mau Mau aim at freedom for all Kenyans? or did moderate, constitutional politicians rescue that pluralist prize from the jaws of its ethnic chauvinism? Has the self-sacrificial victory of the poor been unjustly forgotten, and appropriated by the rich? or are Mau Mau's defeats and divisions best buried in oblivion?<ref name="Lonsdale 2003 47">{{Harvnb|Lonsdale|2003|p=}}.</ref>
| source = —John Lonsdale | source = —John Lonsdale
| align = right | align = right
Line 610: Line 656:
| quoted = yes | quoted = yes
| salign = right | salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}Members of Mau Mau are currently recognised by the ] as freedom/independence heroes/heroines who sacrificed their lives in order to free Kenyans from colonial rule.<ref name="speech2009">{{cite web |url=http://www.nationalheritage.go.ke/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=19&tmpl=component&format=raw&Itemid=54 |format=pdf |title=Speech to the 52nd Commemoration of the Memory of Dedan Kimathi |author=Jacob Ole Miaron, Permanent Secretary of the Vice President Ministry of State for National Heritage and Culture |date=26 February 2009 |accessdate=14 April 2011}}</ref> Since 2010, Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) has been marked annually on 20 October (the same day Baring signed the Emergency order).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kenyalaw.org/klr/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Constitution_of_Kenya__2010.pdf |title=Chapter Two—The Republic |work=] |publisher=National Council for Law Reporting |quote=The national days&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Mashujaa Day, to be observed on 20 October |at=Article 9, p.&nbsp;15}}.</ref> According to the Kenyan Government, Mashujaa Day will be a time for Kenyans to remember and honour Mau Mau and other Kenyans who participated in the fight for African freedom and Kenya's independence.<ref name="speech2009"/> Mashujaa Day will replace Kenyatta Day; the latter has until now also been held on 20 October.<ref>{{cite news |title=Who are Kenya's real heroes?|author=Dominic Odipo|url=http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/columnists/InsidePage.php?id=2000009290|newspaper=The Standard |publisher=Standard Group|location=Nairobi|date=10 May 2010|quote=Changing Kenyatta Day to Mashujaa Day is not just an innocuous and harmless exercise in constitutional semantics.}}</ref>
}}It is often argued that the Mau Mau Uprising was suppressed as a subject for public discussion in Kenya during the periods under Kenyatta and ] because of the key positions and influential presence of some loyalists in government, business and other elite sectors of Kenyan society post-1963.<ref name="Elkins 2005 pp360-363">{{Harvnb|Elkins|2005|pp=360–363}}: "During the run-up to independence and the years that followed, former loyalists also wielded political clout to consolidate their own interests and power. Under Kenyatta many became influential members of the new government. ... This system of loyalist patronage percolated all the way down to the local level of government, with former Home Guards dominating bureaucracies that had once been the preserve of the young British colonial officers in the African districts. Of the numerous vacancies created by decolonization—powerful posts like provincial commissioner and district commissioner—the vast majority were filled by one time loyalists."</ref><ref name="Branch 2009 ppxii-xiii">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|pp=}}.</ref> Unsurprisingly, during this same period opposition groups tactically embraced the Mau Mau rebellion.<ref name="Branch 2009 pxii" />


Members of Mau Mau are currently recognised by the ] as freedom-independence heroes and heroines who sacrificed their lives in order to free Kenyans from colonial rule.<ref name="speech2009">{{cite web |url=http://www.nationalheritage.go.ke/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=19&tmpl=component&format=raw&Itemid=54 |title=Speech to the 52nd Commemoration of the Memory of Dedan Kimathi |author=Jacob Ole Miaron, Permanent Secretary of the Vice President Ministry of State for National Heritage and Culture |date=26 February 2009 |access-date=14 April 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009161558/http://www.nationalheritage.go.ke/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=19&tmpl=component&format=raw&Itemid=54 |archive-date=9 October 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Since 2010, Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) has been marked annually on 20 October (the same day Baring signed the Emergency order).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kenyalaw.org/klr/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Constitution_of_Kenya__2010.pdf |title=Chapter Two – The Republic |work=] |publisher=National Council for Law Reporting |quote=The national days&nbsp;. . . Mashujaa Day, to be observed on 20 October |at=Article 9, p.&nbsp;15 |access-date=11 February 2012 |archive-date=2 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130402042845/http://www.kenyalaw.org/klr/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Constitution_of_Kenya__2010.pdf |url-status=dead }}.</ref> According to the Kenyan Government, Mashujaa Day will be a time for Kenyans to remember and honour Mau Mau and other Kenyans who participated in the independence struggle.<ref name="speech2009" /> Mashujaa Day will replace Kenyatta Day; the latter has until now also been held on 20 October.<ref>{{cite news|title=Who are Kenya's real heroes?|author=Dominic Odipo|url=http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/columnists/InsidePage.php?id=2000009290|newspaper=The Standard|publisher=Standard Group|location=Nairobi|date=10 May 2010|quote=Changing Kenyatta Day to Mashujaa Day is not just an innocuous and harmless exercise in constitutional semantics.|access-date=7 June 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120121125350/http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/columnists/InsidePage.php?id=2000009290|archive-date=21 January 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2001, the Kenyan Government announced that important Mau Mau sites were to be turned into national monuments.<ref name="monuments">{{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1236807.stm |last= Jenkins |first= Cathy |date= 22 March 2001 |title= Monuments for the Mau Mau |publisher= BBC News |access-date= 30 May 2012 |archive-date= 14 May 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060514182307/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1236807.stm |url-status= live }}</ref>
This official celebration of Mau Mau is in marked contrast to a post-colonial norm of Kenyan governments passing over Mau Mau as a symbol of national liberation.<ref name="branch2009_xi">], p.&nbsp;</ref><ref name="anderson2005_335-336">], pp.&nbsp;335–6. " often spoke of the need to 'forgive and forget', and to 'bury the past'. He acknowledged the part the freedom fighters had played in the struggle, but he never once made any public statement that conceded to them any rights or any genuine compensation. Mau Mau was a thing best forgotten.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. In Kenyatta's Kenya there would be a deafening silence about Mau Mau".</ref> Such a turnabout has attracted criticism of government manipulation of the Mau Mau uprising for political ends.<ref name="branch2009_xii-xiv">], pp. </ref>

This official celebration of Mau Mau is in marked contrast to post-colonial Kenyan governments' rejection of the Mau Mau as an engine of national liberation.<ref name="Branch 2009 pxi">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|p=}}.</ref><ref name="Anderson 2005 pp335-336">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2005|pp=335–336}}: " often spoke of the need to 'forgive and forget', and to 'bury the past'. He acknowledged the part the freedom fighters had played in the struggle, but he never once made any public statement that conceded to them any rights or any genuine compensation. Mau Mau was a thing best forgotten. ... In Kenyatta's Kenya there would be a deafening silence about Mau Mau".</ref> Such a turnabout has attracted criticism of government manipulation of the Mau Mau uprising for political ends.<ref name="monuments"/><ref name="Branch 2009 ppxii-xiv">{{Harvnb|Branch|2009|pp=}}.</ref>


{{quote box {{quote box
| title = | title =
| quote = We are determined to have independence in peace, and we shall not allow hooligans to rule Kenya. We must have no hatred towards one another. Mau Mau was a disease which had been eradicated, and must never be remembered again.<ref name="clough1998_25b">], p.&nbsp;</ref> | quote = We are determined to have independence in peace, and we shall not allow hooligans to rule Kenya. We must have no hatred towards one another. Mau Mau was a disease which had been eradicated, and must never be remembered again.<ref name="Clough 1998 p25b" />
| source = —Speech by Jomo Kenyatta, April 1963 | source = —Speech by Jomo Kenyatta, April 1963
| align = left | align = right
| width = 35% | width = 35%
| fontsize = 85% | fontsize = 85%
Line 630: Line 679:
| quoted = yes | quoted = yes
| salign = right | salign = right
| sstyle = text-align: right;
| sstyle = text-align: right;}}It is often argued that Mau Mau was suppressed as a subject for public discussion in Kenya during the periods under Kenyatta and ] because of the key positions and influential presence of some loyalists in government, business and other elite sectors of Kenyan society post-1963.<ref name="elkins2005_360-363">], pp. 360–3. "During the run-up to independence and the years that followed, former loyalists also wielded political clout to consolidate their own interests and power. Under Kenyatta many became influential members of the new government.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. This system of loyalist patronage percolated all the way down to the local level of government, with former Home Guards dominating bureaucracies that had once been the preserve of the young British colonial officers in the African districts. Of the numerous vacancies created by decolonization—powerful posts like provincial commissioner and district commissioner—the vast majority were filled by one time loyalists."</ref><ref name="branch2009_xii-xiii">], pp. </ref> Unsurprisingly, during this same period opposition groups tactically embraced the Mau Mau rebellion.<ref name="branch2009_xii"/> As noted, Mau Mau's politicisation within Kenya appears to continue up to the present.<br/><br/><br/>
}}
{{clear}}


==See also== ==See also==
* '']'', series of films on Kenya
* ], author of ''Gangs and Counter-gangs''
* ]
* ] wa Kirima
* ], author of ''Something of Value'' and ''Uhuru''
* '']''

===Insurgency===
* ], contemporary Kikuyu insurgency within Kenya

===General===
* ]
* ] * ]
*]
*], author of the book ''Gangs and Counter-gangs''
*]
*]
*'']''


==Notes== ==Notes==
{{notelist|refs=
{{note label|Note1|A|A}}The name ''Kenya Land and Freedom Army'' is sometimes heard in connection with Mau Mau. KLFA is ''not'' simply another name for Mau Mau: it was the name that Dedan Kimathi used for a coordinating body which he tried to set up for Mau Mau. It was also the name of another militant group that sprang up briefly in the spring of 1960; the group was broken up during a brief operation from 26 March to 30 April.<ref name="nassimi2006_11">], p. </ref><br/>
{{note label|Note2|B|B}}Between 1895 and 1920, Kenya was formally known as ]; between 1920 and 1963, as ].<ref name="eac1925_148">], p. 148.</ref><br/> <!--{{efn|name=Note2|Between 1895 and 1920, Kenya was formally known as ]; between 1920 and 1963, as ].<ref name="Ormsby-Gore 1925 p148">{{Harvnb|Ormsby-Gore, ''et al.''|1925|p=148}}.</ref>}}-->
<!--{{efn|name=Note5|The hard core of the detainees were those top Mau Mau rounded up during Jock Scott; the second tier collected during later operations; the forest fighters; leaders of the passive support-wing; and those detainees who aberrantly went from grey to black.}}-->
{{note label|Note3|C|C}}"Squatter or resident labourers are those who reside with their families on European farms usually for the purpose of work for the owners.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Contract labourers are those who sign a contract of service before a magistrate, for periods varying from three to twelve months. Casual labourers leave their reserves to engage themselves to European employers for any period from one day upwards."<ref name="eac1925_173"/> In return for his services, a squatter was entitled to use some of the settler's land for cultivation and grazing.<ref name="kanogo1987_10">], p.&nbsp;</ref> Contract and casual workers are together referred to as ''migratory'' labourers, in distinction to the permanent presence of the squatters on farms. The phenomenon of squatters arose in response to the complementary difficulties of Europeans in finding labourers and of Africans in gaining access to arable and grazing land.<ref name="kanogo1987_8"/><br/>
}}
{{note label|Note4|D|D}}During the Emergency, ''screening'' was the term used by colonial authorities to mean the interrogation of a Mau Mau suspect. The alleged member or sympathiser of Mau Mau would be interrogated in order to obtain an admission of guilt—specifically, a confession that they had taken the Mau Mau oath—as well as for intelligence.<ref name="elkins2005_63">], p. 63.</ref><br/>
<!--{{note label|Note5|E|E}}The hard core of the detainees were those top Mau Mau rounded up during Jock Scott; the second tier collected during later operations; the forest fighters; leaders of the passive support-wing; and those detainees who aberantly went from grey to black.-->


==References== ==References==
===Notes===
{{Reflist|3}}
{{reflist}}


==Bibliography== ===Bibliography===
{{Refbegin|colwidth=30em}} {{refbegin|colwidth=30em|indent=yes}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Adekson |first=J. 'Bayo |year=1981 |title=The Algerian and Mau Mau Revolts: a Comparative Study in Revolutionary Warfare |journal=Comparative Strategy |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=69–92 |doi=10.1080/01495938108402629 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal
* {{Cite book |last=Alam |first=S.M. Shamsul |year=2007 |title=Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial Kenya |location=New York,&nbsp;NY |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-4039-8374-9}}
| last = Adekson
* {{Cite journal |last=Anderson |first=David |year=1988 |title=''Smallholder Agriculture in Colonial Kenya: the Official Mind and the Swynnerton Plan''. By Anne Thurston. Cambridge: University Press, 1987. Pp. 141. |isbn=0-902-99319-4 |journal=] |volume=87 |issue=348 |pages=472 |jstor=722455 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098069}}
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| year = 1981
* {{Cite book |last1=Anderson |first1=David |year=2005 |title=Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire |location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |isbn=978-0-297-84719-9}}
| title = The Algerian and Mau Mau Revolts: a Comparative Study in Revolutionary Warfare
* {{Cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=David |last2=Bennett |first2=Huw |last3=Branch |first3=Daniel |year=2006 |title=A Very British Massacre |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/94607680/A-Very-British-Massacre-Anderson-Bennett-Branch-2006 |journal=] |volume=56 |issue=8 |pages=20–22 |ref=none |access-date=10 September 2017 |archive-date=20 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130720032200/http://www.scribd.com/doc/94607680/A-Very-British-Massacre-Anderson-Bennett-Branch-2006 |url-status=live }}
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* Bennett, Huw. Fighting the Mau Mau: The British army and counter-insurgency in the Kenya emergency. Cambridge University Press, 2013.
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* {{Cite journal |last=Berman |first=Bruce |year=1991 |title=Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Modernity: The Paradox of Mau Mau |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/94922305/BERMAN-Bruce-1991-Nationalism-Ethnicity-and-Modernity-The-Paradox-of-Mau-Mau |journal=] |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=181–206 |doi=10.2307/485216 |jstor=485216 |via=Scribd |access-date=10 September 2017 |archive-date=19 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130719075714/http://www.scribd.com/doc/94922305/BERMAN-Bruce-1991-Nationalism-Ethnicity-and-Modernity-The-Paradox-of-Mau-Mau |url-status=live }}
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* {{Cite journal |last=Blacker |first=John |year=2007 |title=The Demography of Mau Mau: Fertility and Mortality in Kenya in the 1950s: A Demographer's Viewpoint |journal=] |volume=106 |issue=423 |pages=205–227 |jstor=4496439 |doi=10.1093/afraf/adm014}}
| doi = 10.1080/01495938108402629
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite book
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* Newsinger, John (1981). "Revolt and Repression in Kenya: The 'Mau Mau' Rebellion, 1952–1960". ''Science and Society'' 45: 159–185.
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* {{cite book
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| title = The Last Mau Mau (Kenya's Freedom Heroes or Villains?): An Excerpt
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| url = http://www.geocities.com/MauMauBook/|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20090724120839/http://geocities.com/MauMauBook/|archivedate=24 July 2009
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* {{cite book
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* {{cite journal
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* {{cite web
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| title = African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902–1964
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| journal=Journal of African History
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* {{cite book |ref = Swainson1980
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|year=1980 |title = The Development of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya, 1918–77
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* {{cite book
| last = Throup
| first = David
| title = Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau, 1945–53
| publisher=James Currey
| location = Oxford
| year = 1987
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| ref = Throup1987}}
* {{cite book
| last = Wasserman
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| title = Politics of Decolonization: Kenya Europeans and the Land Issue 1960–1965
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| ref = Wasserman1976}}
{{Refend}}<!--


==Further reading==
***This is just a time-saving book-template for people to copy-paste when they add to bibliography***
{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}

* {{Cite book| publisher = Verso| isbn = 978-1-78873-577-3| last = Ali| first = Tariq| title = Winston Churchill: his times, his crimes| location = London; New York| date = 2022}}
* {{cite book
* {{Cite book|last1= Barnett | first1= Donald |first2= Karari |last2= Njama |year= 2021|title= Mau Mau from Within: The Story of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army|publisher= Daraja Press, republishing original 1966 title |isbn=978-1-988832-59-3 }}
| last =
* {{Cite book|last= Bennett |first= Huw |year= 2012|title= Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency|location= Cambridge |publisher= Cambridge University Press|isbn= 978-1-107-02970-5 }}
| first =
* {{Cite book |last=Berman |first=Bruce |year=1990 |title=Control & Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination |location=Oxford |publisher=James Currey |isbn=978-0-852-55069-4}}
| year =
* {{Cite book|last1= Berman |first1= Bruce |last2= Lonsdale |first2= John |year= 1992|title= Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa; Book One: State & Class|location= Oxford |publisher= James Currey|isbn= 978-0-852-55021-2 }}
| origyear =
* {{Cite book |last1= Berman |first1= Bruce |last2= Lonsdale |first2= John |year= 1992 |title= Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa; Book Two: Violence & Ethnicity |location= Oxford |publisher= James Currey |isbn= 978-0-852-55099-1 }}
| title =
* {{Cite journal|last= Branch |first= Daniel |s2cid= 154783897 |year= 2006|title= Loyalists, Mau Mau, and Elections in Kenya: The First Triumph of the System, 1957–1958|journal= ] |volume= 53 |issue= 2 |pages= 27–50|jstor= 4187771 |doi=10.1353/at.2006.0069}}
| publisher =
* {{Cite book|last=Clough |first=Marshall S. |year=1990|title=Fighting Two Sides: Kenyan Chiefs and Politicians, 1918–1940 |location=Niwot,&nbsp;CO |publisher=University Press of Colorado|isbn=978-0-870-81207-1}}
| location =
* {{Cite book |last=Corfield |first=Frank |year=1960 |title=The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau: an Historical Survey ''('The Corfield Report')'' |location=Nairobi |publisher=Government of Kenya |isbn=978-0-521-13090-5}}
| year =
* {{Cite book |last= Derrick |first= Jonathan |year= 2008 |title= Africa's "Agitators": Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918–1939 |location= New York |publisher= Columbia University Press |isbn= 978-0-231-70056-6 |url= https://archive.org/details/africasagitators0000derr }}
| isbn =
* {{Cite book| publisher = Alfred A. Knopf| isbn = 978-0-307-27242-3| last = Elkins| first = Caroline| title = Legacy of violence: a history of the British empire| location = New York| date = 2022}}
| ref = }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Grogan |first1=Ewart S. |author1-link=Ewart Grogan |last2=Sharp |first2=Arthur H. |year=1900 |title=From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North |location=London |publisher=Hurst and Blackett |ol=14008812M}}

* {{Cite book|last= Heinlein |first= Frank |year= 2002|title= British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945–1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind|location= London |publisher= Frank Cass|isbn= 978-0-7146-5220-7 }}
-->
* {{Cite book|last= Hewitt |first= Peter |year= 2008 |orig-year= 1999|title= Kenya Cowboy: A Police Officer's Account of the Mau Mau Emergency|location= Johannesburg |publisher= 30° South Publishers|isbn= 978-1-920-14323-7 }}
* {{Cite book|last= Kyle |first= Keith |year= 1999|title= The Politics of the Independence of Kenya|location= Basingstoke |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan|isbn= 978-0-333-72008-0 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Lapping |first=Brian |author-link=Brian Lapping |year=1989 |title=End of Empire |edition=revised |location=London |publisher=Paladin |isbn=978-0-586-08870-8}}
* {{Cite journal|last= Lonsdale |first= John |year= 1990|title= Mau Maus of the Mind: Making Mau Mau and Remaking Kenya|journal= ]|volume= 31 |issue= 3 |pages= 393–421|jstor= 182877 |doi=10.1017/s0021853700031157|hdl= 10539/9062 |s2cid= 162867744 |hdl-access= free}}
* {{Cite book|last= Lovatt Smith |first= David |year= 2005|title= Kenya, the Kikuyu and Mau Mau|publisher= Mawenzi Books|isbn= 978-0-954-47132-3 }}
* {{Cite book|last= Lyttelton |first= Oliver |year= 1962|title= The Memoirs of Lord Chandos|location= London |publisher= Bodley Head}}
* {{Cite book|last1= Marsh |first1= Zoe |first2= G. W. |last2= Kingsnorth |year= 1972|title= A History of East Africa|location= Cambridge |publisher= Cambridge University Press|isbn= 978-0-521-08348-5 }}
* {{Cite book|last= Murphy |first= Philip |year= 1999 |orig-year= 1995|title= Party Politics and Decolonization: The Conservative Party and British Colonial Policy in Tropical Africa, 1951–1964|location= Oxford |publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn= 978-0-19-820505-0 }}
* {{Cite book|last= Murphy |first= Philip |year= 1999|title= Alan Lennox-Boyd: A Biography|location= London |publisher= I.B. Tauris|isbn= 978-1-86064-406-1 }}
* {{Cite book|last=Njagi |first=David |year=1991 |title=The Last Mau Mau (Kenya's Freedom Heroes or Villains?) |oclc=28563585 |publisher=Property Magazine and Guide |location=Nairobi}}
* {{Cite book |last=Ogot |first=Bethwell Allan |year=2012 |chapter=Essence of ethnicity: an African perspective |editor1=Hiroyuki Hino |editor2=John Lonsdale |editor3=Gustav Ranis |editor4=Frances Stewart |name-list-style=amp |title=Ethnic Diversity and Economic Stability in Africa |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=91–126 |isbn=978-1-107-02599-8}}
* {{Cite book|last= Parsons |first= Timothy |year= 1999|title= African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902–1964|location= Hanover,&nbsp;NH |publisher= Heinemann|isbn= 978-0-325-00140-1}}
* {{Cite book|last= Percox |first= David |year= 2011 |orig-year= 2004|title= Britain, Kenya and the Cold War: Imperial Defence, Colonial Security and Decolonisation|location= London |publisher= I.B. Tauris|isbn= 978-1-84885-966-1 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Sandgren |first=David |year=2012 |title=Mau Mau's Children: The Making of Kenya's Postcolonial Elite |location=Madison,&nbsp;WI |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |isbn=978-0-299-28784-9}}
* {{Cite book |last=Thiong'o |first=Ngugi wa |author-link=Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o |year=2010 |orig-year=1997 |chapter=Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary |editor1=Roy&nbsp;R. Grinker |editor2=Stephen&nbsp;C. Lubkemann |editor3=Christopher&nbsp;B. Steiner |name-list-style=amp|title=Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History and Representation |edition=2nd |location=Oxford |publisher=Blackwell Publishing |pages=462–470 |isbn=978-1-444-33522-4}}
* {{Cite book|last= Throup |first= David |year= 1987|title= Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau, 1945–53|location= Oxford |publisher= James Currey|isbn= 978-0-85255-024-3 }}
{{refend}}


==External links== ==External links==
{{commons category}}
*
* from ]. Includes footage of: military operations against Mau Mau; the capture of Dedan Kimathi; capture of ]; the survivors of the Lari massacre and the defendants' trial; Operation Anvil.
*
*
* Controversial 1966 Italian documentary includes restaged & authentic scenes of 'Mau-Mau' aftermath- including damage to white Highland farms, participants' sentencing in local British court, & celebration of Jomo Kenyatta's pardon of all Mau-Mau 'heroes'.
* *
* Podcast about the Mau Mau Uprising and British repression from Radiolab (WNYC – New York Public Radio)
*
*
*
*
* – Royal Engineers and the Mau Mau
*
*


{{Kenya topics}}
===Reviews of Elkins and Anderson===
{{British colonial campaigns}}
* by Nicholas Best
{{authority control}}
* by Max Hastings
*
*
*
*
* (Elkins only)
*
*
*
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*
* by John Lonsdale
* by RW Johnson
*


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Latest revision as of 14:54, 16 January 2025

Anti- colonial Insurgency in Kenya from 1952 to 1960 This article is about the conflict in Kenya. For other uses, see Mau Mau (disambiguation).

Mau Mau rebellion
Part of the decolonisation of Africa

Troops of the King's African Rifles on watch for Mau Mau rebels
DateMain Conflict
7 October, 1952 – 21 October 1956
Mau Mau Remnants
1956 – 1960
LocationBritish Kenya
Result

British victory

  • Rebellion suppressed
Belligerents

 United Kingdom

Mau Mau rebels

Maasai Bands (from 1954)
Commanders and leaders
United Kingdom Winston Churchill
(1951–1955)
United Kingdom Anthony Eden
(1955–1957)
United Kingdom Harold Macmillan
(1957–1960)
United Kingdom Ian Henderson
United Kingdom George Erskine
United Kingdom Kenneth O'Connor
Evelyn Baring
Terence Gavaghan		 Dedan Kimathi Executed
Musa Mwariama
Waruhiu Itote
Stanley Mathenge (MIA)
Kubu Kubu Executed
Strength
10,000 regular troops
21,000 police
25,000 Kikuyu Home Guard		 35,000+ insurgents
Casualties and losses

3,000 native Kenyan police and soldiers killed

95 British military personnel killed		 12,000–20,000+ killed (including 1,090 executed)
2,633 captured
2,714 surrendered
Mau Mau rebellion
1952

1953

1954

1956

1959

British Colonial Emergencies

The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities. Dominated by Kikuyu, Meru and Embu fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai who fought against the European colonists in Kenya - the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment (British colonists, local auxiliary militia, and pro-British Kikuyu).

The capture of Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi on 21 October 1956 signalled the defeat of the Mau Mau, and essentially ended the British military campaign. However, the rebellion survived until after Kenya's independence from Britain, driven mainly by the Meru units led by Field Marshal Musa Mwariama. General Baimungi, one of the last Mau Mau leaders, was killed shortly after Kenya attained self-rule.

The KLFA failed to capture wide public support. Frank Füredi, in The Mau Mau War in Perspective, suggests this was due to a British divide and rule strategy, which they had developed in suppressing the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). The Mau Mau movement remained internally divided, despite attempts to unify the factions. On the colonial side, the uprising created a rift between the European colonial community in Kenya and the metropole, as well as violent divisions within the Kikuyu community: "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau." Suppressing the Mau Mau Uprising in the Kenyan colony cost Britain £55 million and caused at least 11,000 deaths among the Mau Mau and other forces, with some estimates considerably higher. This included 1,090 executions by hanging.

Etymology

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The origin of the term Mau Mau is uncertain. According to some members of Mau Mau, they never referred to themselves as such, instead preferring the military title Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA). Some publications, such as Fred Majdalany's State of Emergency: The Full Story of Mau Mau, claim it was an anagram of Uma Uma (which means "Get out! Get out!") and was a military codeword based on a secret language game Kikuyu boys used to play at the time of their circumcision. Majdalany also says the British simply used the name as a label for the Kikuyu ethnic community without assigning any specific definition. However, there was a Maji Maji rebellion in German East Africa/Tanzania in 1905/6, ('Maji' meaning 'water' after a 'water-medicine') so this may be the origin of Mau Mau.

As the movement progressed, a Swahili backronym was adopted: "Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru", meaning "Let the foreigner go back abroad, let the African regain independence". J. M. Kariuki, a member of Mau Mau who was detained during the conflict, suggests the British preferred to use the term Mau Mau instead of KLFA to deny the Mau Mau rebellion international legitimacy. Kariuki also wrote that the term Mau Mau was adopted by the rebellion in order to counter what they regarded as colonial propaganda.

Author and activist Wangari Maathai indicates that, to her, the most interesting story of the origin of the name is the Kikuyu phrase for the beginning of a list. When beginning a list in Kikuyu, one says, "maũndũ ni mau", "the main issues are...", and holds up three fingers to introduce them. Maathai says the three issues for the Mau Mau were land, freedom, and self-governance.

Background

The principal item in the natural resources of Kenya is the land, and in this term we include the colony's mineral resources. It seems to us that our major objective must clearly be the preservation and the wise use of this most important asset.

—Deputy Governor to Secretary of State
for the Colonies, 19 March 1945

The armed rebellion of the Mau Mau was the culminating response to colonial rule. Although there had been previous instances of violent resistance to colonialism, the Mau Mau revolt was the most prolonged and violent anti-colonial warfare in the British Kenya colony. From the start, the land was the primary British interest in Kenya, which had "some of the richest agricultural soils in the world, mostly in districts where the elevation and climate make it possible for Europeans to reside permanently". Though declared a colony in 1920, the formal British colonial presence in Kenya began with a proclamation on 1 July 1895, in which Kenya was claimed as a British protectorate.

Even before 1895, however, Britain's presence in Kenya was marked by dispossession and violence. In 1894, British MP Sir Charles Dilke had observed in the House of Commons, "The only person who has up to the present time benefited from our enterprise in the heart of Africa has been Mr. Hiram Maxim" (inventor of the Maxim gun, the first automatic machine gun). During the period in which Kenya's interior was being forcibly opened up for British settlement, there was a great deal of conflict and British troops carried out atrocities against the native population.

Opposition to British imperialism had existed from the start of British occupation. The most notable include the Nandi Resistance led by Koitalel Arap Samoei of 1895–1905; the Giriama Uprising led by Mekatilili wa Menza of 1913–1914; the women's revolt against forced labour in Murang'a in 1947; and the Kolloa Affray of 1950. None of the armed uprisings during the beginning of British colonialism in Kenya were successful. The nature of fighting in Kenya led Winston Churchill to express concern about the scale of the fighting: "No doubt the clans should have been punished. 160 have now been killed outright without any further casualties on our side.… It looks like a butchery. If the H. of C. gets hold of it, all our plans in E.A.P. will be under a cloud. Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenceless people on such an enormous scale."

You may travel through the length and breadth of Kitui Reserve and you will fail to find in it any enterprise, building, or structure of any sort which Government has provided at the cost of more than a few sovereigns for the direct benefit of the natives. The place was little better than a wilderness when I first knew it 25 years ago, and it remains a wilderness to-day as far as our efforts are concerned. If we left that district to-morrow the only permanent evidence of our occupation would be the buildings we have erected for the use of our tax-collecting staff.

—Chief Native Commissioner of Kenya, 1925

Settler societies during the colonial period could own a disproportionate share of land. The first settlers arrived in 1902 as part of Governor Charles Eliot's plan to have a settler economy pay for the Uganda Railway. The success of this settler economy would depend heavily on the availability of land, labour and capital, and so, over the next three decades, the colonial government and settlers consolidated their control over Kenyan land, and forced native Kenyans to become wage labourers.

Until the mid-1930s, the two primary complaints were low native Kenyan wages and the requirement to carry an identity document, the kipande. From the early 1930s, however, two others began to come to prominence: effective and elected African-political-representation, and land. The British response to this clamour for agrarian reform came in the early 1930s when they set up the Carter Land Commission.

The Commission reported in 1934, but its conclusions, recommendations and concessions to Kenyans were so conservative that any chance of a peaceful resolution to native Kenyan land-hunger was ended. Through a series of expropriations, the government seized about 7,000,000 acres (28,000 km; 11,000 sq mi) of land, most of it in the fertile hilly regions of Central and Rift Valley Provinces, later known as the White Highlands due to the exclusively European-owned farmland there. In Nyanza the Commission restricted 1,029,422 native Kenyans to 7,114 square miles (18,430 km), while granting 16,700 square miles (43,000 km) to 17,000 Europeans. By the 1930s, and for the Kikuyu in particular, land had become the number one grievance concerning colonial rule, the situation so acute by 1948 that 1,250,000 Kikuyu had ownership of 2,000 square miles (5,200 km), while 30,000 British settlers owned 12,000 square miles (31,000 km), albeit most of it not on traditional Kikuyu land. "In particular", the British government's 1925 East Africa Commission noted, "the treatment of the Giriama tribe was very bad. This tribe was moved backwards and forwards so as to secure for the Crown areas which could be granted to Europeans."

The Kikuyu, who lived in the Kiambu, Nyeri and Murang'a areas of what became Central Province, were one of the ethnic groups most affected by the colonial government's land expropriation and European settlement; by 1933, they had had over 109.5 square miles (284 km) of their potentially highly valuable land alienated. The Kikuyu mounted a legal challenge against the expropriation of their land, but a Kenya High Court decision of 1921 reaffirmed its legality. In terms of lost acreage, the Masai and Nandi people were the biggest losers of land.

The colonial government and white farmers also wanted cheap labour which, for a period, the government acquired from native Kenyans through force. Confiscating the land itself helped to create a pool of wage labourers, but the colony introduced measures that forced more native Kenyans to submit to wage labour: the introduction of the Hut and Poll Taxes (1901 and 1910 respectively); the establishment of reserves for each ethnic group, which isolated ethnic groups and often exacerbated overcrowding; the discouragement of native Kenyans' growing cash crops; the Masters and Servants Ordinance (1906) and an identification pass known as the kipande (1918) to control the movement of labour and to curb desertion; and the exemption of wage labourers from forced labour and other detested obligations such as conscription.

Native labourer categories

Native Kenyan labourers were of three categories: squatter, contract, or casual. By the end of World War I, squatters had become well established on European farms and plantations in Kenya, with Kikuyu squatters constituting the majority of agricultural workers on settler plantations. An unintended consequence of colonial rule, the squatters were targeted from 1918 onwards by a series of Resident Native Labourers Ordinances—criticised by at least some MPs—which progressively curtailed squatter rights and subordinated native Kenyan farming to that of the settlers. The Ordinance of 1939 finally eliminated squatters' remaining tenancy rights, and permitted settlers to demand 270 days' labour from any squatters on their land. and, after World War II, the situation for squatters deteriorated rapidly, a situation the squatters resisted fiercely.

In the early 1920s, though, despite the presence of 100,000 squatters and tens of thousands more wage labourers, there was still not enough native Kenyan labour available to satisfy the settlers' needs. The colonial government duly tightened the measures to force more Kenyans to become low-paid wage-labourers on settler farms.

The colonial government used the measures brought in as part of its land expropriation and labour 'encouragement' efforts to craft the third plank of its growth strategy for its settler economy: subordinating African farming to that of the Europeans. Nairobi also assisted the settlers with rail and road networks, subsidies on freight charges, agricultural and veterinary services, and credit and loan facilities. The near-total neglect of native farming during the first two decades of European settlement was noted by the East Africa Commission.

The resentment of colonial rule would not have been decreased by the wanting provision of medical services for native Kenyans, nor by the fact that in 1923, for example, "the maximum amount that could be considered to have been spent on services provided exclusively for the benefit of the native population was slightly over one-quarter of the taxes paid by them". The tax burden on Europeans in the early 1920s, meanwhile, was very light relative to their income. Interwar infrastructure-development was also largely paid for by the indigenous population.

Kenyan employees were often poorly treated by their European employers, with some settlers arguing that native Kenyans "were as children and should be treated as such". Some settlers flogged their servants for petty offences. To make matters even worse, native Kenyan workers were poorly served by colonial labour-legislation and a prejudiced legal-system. The vast majority of Kenyan employees' violations of labour legislation were settled with "rough justice" meted out by their employers. Most colonial magistrates appear to have been unconcerned by the illegal practice of settler-administered flogging; indeed, during the 1920s, flogging was the magisterial punishment-of-choice for native Kenyan convicts. The principle of punitive sanctions against workers was not removed from the Kenyan labour statutes until the 1950s.

The greater part of the wealth of the country is at present in our hands. ... This land we have made is our land by right—by right of achievement.

—Speech by Deputy Colonial Governor
30 November 1946

As a result of the situation in the highlands and growing job opportunities in the cities, thousands of Kikuyu migrated into cities in search of work, contributing to the doubling of Nairobi's population between 1938 and 1952. At the same time, there was a small, but growing, class of Kikuyu landowners who consolidated Kikuyu landholdings and forged ties with the colonial administration, leading to an economic rift within the Kikuyu.

Mau Mau warfare

Mau Mau were the militant wing of a growing clamour for political representation and freedom in Kenya. The first attempt to form a countrywide political party began on 1 October 1944. This fledgling organisation was called the Kenya African Study Union. Harry Thuku was the first chairman, but he soon resigned. There is dispute over Thuku's reason for leaving KASU: Bethwell Ogot says Thuku "found the responsibility too heavy"; David Anderson states that "he walked out in disgust" as the militant section of KASU took the initiative. KASU changed its name to the Kenya African Union (KAU) in 1946. Author Wangari Maathai writes that many of the organizers were ex-soldiers who fought for the British in Ceylon, Somalia, and Burma during the Second World War. When they returned to Kenya, they were never paid and did not receive recognition for their service, whereas their British counterparts were awarded medals and received land, sometimes from the Kenyan veterans.

The failure of KAU to attain any significant reforms or redress of grievances from the colonial authorities shifted the political initiative to younger and more militant figures within the native Kenyan trade union movement, among the squatters on the settler estates in the Rift Valley and in KAU branches in Nairobi and the Kikuyu districts of central province. Around 1943, residents of Olenguruone Settlement radicalised the traditional practice of oathing, and extended oathing to women and children. By the mid-1950s, 90% of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru were oathed. On 3 October 1952, Mau Mau claimed their first European victim when they stabbed a woman to death near her home in Thika. Six days later, on 9 October, Senior Chief Waruhiu was shot dead in broad daylight in his car, which was an important blow against the colonial government. Waruhiu had been one of the strongest supporters of the British presence in Kenya. His assassination gave Evelyn Baring the final impetus to request permission from the Colonial Office to declare a State of Emergency.

The Mau Mau attacks were mostly well organised and planned.

...the insurgents' lack of heavy weaponry and the heavily entrenched police and Home Guard positions meant that Mau Mau attacks were restricted to nighttime and where loyalist positions were weak. When attacks did commence they were fast and brutal, as insurgents were easily able to identify loyalists because they were often local to those communities themselves. The Lari massacre was by comparison rather outstanding and in contrast to regular Mau Mau strikes which more often than not targeted only loyalists without such massive civilian casualties. "Even the attack upon Lari, in the view of the rebel commanders was strategic and specific."

The Mau Mau command, contrary to the Home Guard who were stigmatised as "the running dogs of British Imperialism", were relatively well educated. General Gatunga had previously been a respected and well-read Christian teacher in his local Kikuyu community. He was known to meticulously record his attacks in a series of five notebooks, which when executed were often swift and strategic, targeting loyalist community leaders he had previously known as a teacher.

The Mau Mau military strategy was mainly guerrilla attacks launched under the cover of darkness. They used improvised and stolen weapons such as guns, as well as weapons such as machetes and bows and arrows in their attacks. They maimed cattle and, in one case, poisoned a herd.

In addition to physical warfare, the Mau Mau rebellion also generated a propaganda war, where both the British and Mau Mau fighters battled for the hearts and minds of Kenya's population. Mau Mau propaganda represented the apex of an 'information war' that had been fought since 1945, between colonial information staff and African intellectuals and newspaper editors. The Mau Mau had learned much from - and built upon - the experience and advice of newspaper editors since 1945. In some cases, the editors of various publications in the colony were directly involved in producing Mau Mau propaganda. British Officials struggled to compete with the 'hybrid, porous, and responsive character' during the rebellion, and faced the same challenges in responding to Mau Mau propaganda, particularly in instances where the Mau Mau would use creative ways such as hymns to win and maintain followers. This was far more effective than government newspapers; however, once colonial officials brought the insurgency under control by late 1954, information officials gained an uncontested arena through which they won the propaganda war.

Women formed a core part of the Mau Mau, especially in maintaining supply lines. Initially able to avoid the suspicion, they moved through colonial spaces and between Mau Mau hideouts and strongholds, to deliver vital supplies and services to guerrilla fighters including food, ammunition, medical care, and of course, information. Women such as Wamuyu Gakuru, exemplified this key role. An unknown number also fought in the war, with the most high-ranking being Field Marshal Muthoni.

British reaction

The British and international view was that Mau Mau was a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. Mau Mau was "perverted tribalism" that sought to take the Kikuyu people back to "the bad old days" before British rule. The official British explanation of the revolt did not include the insights of agrarian and agricultural experts, of economists and historians, or even of Europeans who had spent a long period living amongst the Kikuyu such as Louis Leakey. Not for the first time, the British instead relied on the purported insights of the ethnopsychiatrist; with Mau Mau, it fell to John Colin Carothers to perform the desired analysis. This ethnopsychiatric analysis guided British psychological warfare, which painted Mau Mau as "an irrational force of evil, dominated by bestial impulses and influenced by world communism", and the later official study of the uprising, the Corfield Report.

The psychological war became of critical importance to military and civilian leaders who tried to "emphasise that there was in effect a civil war, and that the struggle was not black versus white", attempting to isolate Mau Mau from the Kikuyu, and the Kikuyu from the rest of the colony's population and the world outside. In driving a wedge between Mau Mau and the Kikuyu generally, these propaganda efforts essentially played no role, though they could apparently claim an important contribution to the isolation of Mau Mau from the non-Kikuyu sections of the population.

By the mid-1960s, the view of Mau Mau as simply irrational activists was being challenged by memoirs of former members and leaders that portrayed Mau Mau as an essential, if radical, component of African nationalism in Kenya and by academic studies that analysed the movement as a modern and nationalist response to the unfairness and oppression of colonial domination.

There continues to be vigorous debate within Kenyan society and among the academic community within and outside Kenya regarding the nature of Mau Mau and its aims, as well as the response to and effects of the uprising. Nevertheless, partly because as many Kikuyu fought against Mau Mau on the side of the colonial government as joined them in rebellion, the conflict is now often regarded in academic circles as an intra-Kikuyu civil war, a characterisation that remains extremely unpopular in Kenya. In August 1952, Kenyatta told a Kikuyu audience "Mau Mau has spoiled the country...Let Mau Mau perish forever. All people should search for Mau Mau and kill it". Kenyatta described the conflict in his memoirs as a civil war rather than a rebellion. One reason that the revolt was largely limited to the Kikuyu people was, in part, that they had suffered the most as a result of the negative aspects of British colonialism.

Wunyabari O. Maloba regards the rise of the Mau Mau movement as "without doubt, one of the most important events in recent African history". David Anderson, however, considers Maloba's and similar work to be the product of "swallowing too readily the propaganda of the Mau Mau war", noting the similarity between such analysis and the "simplistic" earlier studies of Mau Mau. This earlier work cast the Mau Mau war in strictly bipolar terms, "as conflicts between anti-colonial nationalists and colonial collaborators". Caroline Elkins' 2005 study, Imperial Reckoning, awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, was also controversial in that she was accused of presenting an equally binary portrayal of the conflict and of drawing questionable conclusions from limited census data, in particular her assertion that the victims of British punitive measures against the Kikuyu amounted to as many as 300,000 dead. While Elstein regards the "requirement" for the "great majority of Kikuyu" to live inside 800 "fortified villages" as "serv the purpose of protection", Professor David Anderson (amongst others) regards the "compulsory resettlement" of "1,007,500 Kikuyu" inside what, for the "most" part, were "little more than concentration camps" as "punitive ... to punish Mau Mau sympathisers".

It is often assumed that in a conflict there are two sides in opposition to one another, and that a person who is not actively committed to one side must be supporting the other. During the course of a conflict, leaders on both sides will use this argument to gain active support from the "crowd". In reality, conflicts involving more than two persons usually have more than two sides, and if a resistance movement is to be successful, propaganda and politicization are essential.

—Louise Pirouet

Broadly speaking, throughout Kikuyu history, there have been two traditions: moderate-conservative and radical. Despite the differences between them, there has been a continuous debate and dialogue between these traditions, leading to a great political awareness among the Kikuyu. By 1950, these differences, and the impact of colonial rule, had given rise to three native Kenyan political blocs: conservative, moderate nationalist and militant nationalist. It has also been argued that Mau Mau was not explicitly national, either intellectually or operationally.

Bruce Berman argues that, "While Mau Mau was clearly not a tribal atavism seeking a return to the past, the answer to the question of 'was it nationalism?' must be yes and no." As the Mau Mau rebellion wore on, the violence forced the spectrum of opinion within the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru to polarise and harden into the two distinct camps of loyalist and Mau Mau. This neat division between loyalists and Mau Mau was a product of the conflict, rather than a cause or catalyst of it, with the violence becoming less ambiguous over time, in a similar manner to other situations.

British reaction to the uprising

Between 1952 and 1956, when the fighting was at its worst, the Kikuyu districts of Kenya became a police state in the very fullest sense of that term.

—David Anderson

Philip Mitchell retired as Kenya's governor in summer 1952, having turned a blind eye to Mau Mau's increasing activity. Through the summer of 1952, however, Colonial Secretary Oliver Lyttelton in London received a steady flow of reports from Acting Governor Henry Potter about the escalating seriousness of Mau Mau violence, but it was not until the later part of 1953 that British politicians began to accept that the rebellion was going to take some time to deal with. At first, the British discounted the Mau Mau rebellion because of their own technical and military superiority, which encouraged hopes for a quick victory.

The British army accepted the gravity of the uprising months before the politicians, but its appeals to London and Nairobi were ignored. On 30 September 1952, Evelyn Baring arrived in Kenya to permanently take over from Potter; Baring was given no warning by Mitchell or the Colonial Office about the gathering maelstrom into which he was stepping.

Aside from military operations against Mau Mau fighters in the forests, the British attempt to defeat the movement broadly came in two stages: the first, relatively limited in scope, came during the period in which they had still failed to accept the seriousness of the revolt; the second came afterwards. During the first stage, the British tried to decapitate the movement by declaring a State of Emergency before arresting 180 alleged Mau Mau leaders in Operation Jock Scott and subjecting six of them (the Kapenguria Six) to a show trial; the second stage began in earnest in 1954, when they undertook a series of major economic, military and penal initiatives.

The second stage had three main planks: a large military-sweep of Nairobi leading to the internment of tens of thousands of the city's suspected Mau Mau members and sympathisers ( Operation Anvil); the enacting of major agrarian reform (the Swynnerton Plan); and the institution of a vast villagisation programme for more than a million rural Kikuyu. In 2012, the UK government accepted that prisoners had suffered "torture and ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration".

The harshness of the British response was inflated by two factors. First, the settler government in Kenya was, even before the insurgency, probably the most openly racist one in the British empire, with the settlers' violent prejudice attended by an uncompromising determination to retain their grip on power and half-submerged fears that, as a tiny minority, they could be overwhelmed by the indigenous population. Its representatives were so keen on aggressive action that George Erskine referred to them as "the White Mau Mau". Second, the brutality of Mau Mau attacks on civilians made it easy for the movement's opponents—including native Kenyan and loyalist security forces—to adopt a totally dehumanised view of Mau Mau adherents.

Resistance to both the Mau Mau and the British response was illustrated by Ciokaraine M'Barungu who famously asked that the British colonial forces not destroy the food used by her villagers, since its destruction could potentially starve the entire region. Instead, she urged the colonial forces to guard the yams and bananas and stop the Mau Mau from killing any more residents.

A variety of coercive techniques were initiated by the colonial authorities to punish and break Mau Mau's support: Baring ordered punitive communal-labour, collective fines and other collective punishments, and further confiscation of land and property. By early 1954, tens of thousands of head of livestock had been taken, and were allegedly never returned. Detailed accounts of the policy of seizing livestock from Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels were finally released in April 2012.

State of emergency declared (October 1952)

On 20 October 1952, Governor Baring signed an order declaring a state of emergency. Early the next morning, Operation Jock Scott was launched: the British carried out a mass-arrest of Jomo Kenyatta and 180 other alleged Mau Mau leaders within Nairobi. Jock Scott did not decapitate the movement's leadership as hoped, since news of the impending operation was leaked. Thus, while the moderates on the wanted list awaited capture, the real militants, such as Dedan Kimathi and Stanley Mathenge (both later principal leaders of Mau Mau's forest armies), fled to the forests.

The day after the round up, another prominent loyalist chief, Nderi, was hacked to pieces, and a series of gruesome murders against settlers were committed throughout the months that followed. The violent and random nature of British tactics during the months after Jock Scott served merely to alienate ordinary Kikuyu and drive many of the wavering majority into Mau Mau's arms. Three battalions of the King's African Rifles were recalled from Uganda, Tanganyika and Mauritius, giving the regiment five battalions in all in Kenya, a total of 3,000 native Kenyan troops. To placate settler opinion, one battalion of British troops, from the Lancashire Fusiliers, was also flown in from Egypt to Nairobi on the first day of Operation Jock Scott. In November 1952, Baring requested assistance from the MI5 Security Service. For the next year, the Service's A.M. MacDonald would reorganise the Special Branch of the Kenya Police, promote collaboration with Special Branches in adjacent territories, and oversee coordination of all intelligence activity "to secure the intelligence Government requires".

Our sources have produced nothing to indicate that Kenyatta, or his associates in the UK, are directly involved in Mau Mau activities, or that Kenyatta is essential to Mau Mau as a leader, or that he is in a position to direct its activities.

—Percy Sillitoe, Director General of MI5
Letter to Evelyn Baring, 9 January 1953

In January 1953, six of the most prominent detainees from Jock Scott, including Kenyatta, were put on trial, primarily to justify the declaration of the Emergency to critics in London. The trial itself was claimed to have featured a suborned lead defence-witness, a bribed judge, and other serious violations of the right to a fair trial.

Native Kenyan political activity was permitted to resume at the end of the military phase of the Emergency.

Military operations

Lieutenant General Sir George Erskine, Commander-in-Chief, East Africa Command (centre), observing operations against the Mau Mau

The onset of the Emergency led hundreds, and eventually thousands, of Mau Mau adherents to flee to the forests, where a decentralised leadership had already begun setting up platoons. The primary zones of Mau Mau military strength were the Aberdares and the forests around Mount Kenya, whilst a passive support-wing was fostered outside these areas. Militarily, the British defeated Mau Mau in four years (1952–1956) using a more expansive version of "coercion through exemplary force". In May 1953, the decision was made to send General George Erskine to oversee the restoration of order in the colony.

By September 1953, the British knew the leading personalities in Mau Mau, and the capture and 68 hour interrogation of General China on 15 January the following year provided a massive intelligence boost on the forest fighters. Erskine's arrival did not immediately herald a fundamental change in strategy, thus the continual pressure on the gangs remained, but he created more mobile formations that delivered what he termed "special treatment" to an area. Once gangs had been driven out and eliminated, loyalist forces and police were then to take over the area, with military support brought in thereafter only to conduct any required pacification operations. After their successful dispersion and containment, Erskine went after the forest fighters' source of supplies, money and recruits, i.e. the native Kenyan population of Nairobi. This took the form of Operation Anvil, which commenced on 24 April 1954.

Operation Anvil

Main article: Operation Anvil (Mau Mau Uprising)
British Army patrol crossing a stream carrying FN FAL rifle (1st and 2nd soldiers from right); Sten Mk5 (3rd soldier); and the Lee–Enfield No. 5 (4th and 5th soldiers)

By 1954, Nairobi was regarded as the nerve centre of Mau Mau operations. The insurgents in the highlands of the Aberdares and Mt Kenya were being supplied provisions and weapons by supporters in Nairobi via couriers. Anvil was the ambitious attempt to eliminate Mau Mau's presence within Nairobi in one fell swoop. 25,000 members of British security forces under the control of General George Erskine were deployed as Nairobi was sealed off and underwent a sector-by-sector purge. All native Kenyans were taken to temporary barbed-wire enclosures. Those who were not Kikuyu, Embu or Meru were released; those who were remained in detention for screening.

Whilst the operation itself was conducted by Europeans, most suspected members of Mau Mau were picked out of groups of the Kikuyu-Embu-Meru detainees by a native Kenyan informer. Male suspects were then taken off for further screening, primarily at Langata Screening Camp, whilst women and children were readied for 'repatriation' to the reserves (many of those slated for deportation had never set foot in the reserves before). Anvil lasted for two weeks, after which the capital had been cleared of all but certifiably loyal Kikuyu; 20,000 Mau Mau suspects had been taken to Langata, and 30,000 more had been deported to the reserves.

Air power

For an extended period of time, the chief British weapon against the forest fighters was air power. Between June 1953 and October 1955, the RAF provided a significant contribution to the conflict—and, indeed, had to, for the army was preoccupied with providing security in the reserves until January 1955, and it was the only service capable of both psychologically influencing and inflicting considerable casualties on the Mau Mau fighters operating in the dense forests. Lack of timely and accurate intelligence meant bombing was rather haphazard, but almost 900 insurgents had been killed or wounded by air attacks by June 1954, and it did cause forest gangs to disband, lower their morale, and induce their pronounced relocation from the forests to the reserves.

At first armed Harvard training aircraft were used, for direct ground support and also some camp interdiction. As the campaign developed, Avro Lincoln heavy bombers were deployed, flying missions in Kenya from 18 November 1953 to 28 July 1955, dropping nearly 6 million bombs. They and other aircraft, such as blimps, were also deployed for reconnaissance, as well as in the propaganda war, conducting large-scale leaflet-drops. A flight of de Havilland Vampire jets flew in from Aden, but were used for only ten days of operations. Some light aircraft of the Police Air Wing also provided support.

After the Lari massacre for example, British planes dropped leaflets showing graphic pictures of the Kikuyu women and children who had been hacked to death. Unlike the rather indiscriminate activities of British ground forces, the use of air power was more restrained (though there is disagreement on this point), and air attacks were initially permitted only in the forests. Operation Mushroom extended bombing beyond the forest limits in May 1954, and Churchill consented to its continuation in January 1955.

Swynnerton Plan

Main article: Swynnerton Plan

Baring knew the massive deportations to the already-overcrowded reserves could only make things worse. Refusing to give more land to the Kikuyu in the reserves, which could have been seen as a concession to Mau Mau, Baring turned instead in 1953 to Roger Swynnerton, Kenya's assistant director of agriculture. The primary goal of the Swynnerton Plan was the creation of family holdings large enough to keep families self-sufficient in food and to enable them to practise alternate husbandry, which would generate a cash income.

The projected costs of the Swynnerton Plan were too high for the cash-strapped colonial government, so Baring tweaked repatriation and augmented the Swynnerton Plan with plans for a massive expansion of the Pipeline coupled with a system of work camps to make use of detainee labour. All Kikuyu employed for public works projects would now be employed on Swynnerton's poor-relief programmes, as would many detainees in the work camps.

Detention programme

Further information: List of British Detention Camps during the Mau Mau Uprising

It would be difficult to argue that the colonial government envisioned its own version of a gulag when the Emergency first started. Colonial officials in Kenya and Britain all believed that Mau Mau would be over in less than three months.

—Caroline Elkins

When the mass deportations of Kikuyu to the reserves began in 1953, Baring and Erskine ordered all Mau Mau suspects to be screened. Of the scores of screening camps which sprang up, only fifteen were officially sanctioned by the colonial government. Larger detention camps were divided into compounds. The screening centres were staffed by settlers who had been appointed temporary district-officers by Baring.

Thomas Askwith, the official tasked with designing the British 'detention and rehabilitation' programme during the summer and autumn of 1953, termed his system the Pipeline. The British did not initially conceive of rehabilitating Mau Mau suspects through brute force and other ill-treatment—Askwith's final plan, submitted to Baring in October 1953, was intended as "a complete blueprint for winning the war against Mau Mau using socioeconomic and civic reform". What developed, however, has been described as a British gulag.

The Pipeline operated a white-grey-black classification system: 'whites' were co-operative detainees, and were repatriated back to the reserves; 'greys' had been oathed but were reasonably compliant, and were moved down the Pipeline to works camps in their local districts before release; and 'blacks' were the 'hard core' of Mau Mau. These were moved up the Pipeline to special detention camps. Thus a detainee's position in Pipeline was a straightforward reflection of how cooperative the Pipeline personnel deemed her or him to be. Cooperation was itself defined in terms of a detainee's readiness to confess their Mau Mau oath. Detainees were screened and re-screened for confessions and intelligence, then re-classified accordingly.

here is something peculiarly chilling about the way colonial officials behaved, most notoriously but not only in Kenya, within a decade of the liberation of the concentration camps and the return of thousands of emaciated British prisoners of war from the Pacific. One courageous judge in Nairobi explicitly drew the parallel: Kenya's Belsen, he called one camp.

—Guardian Editorial, 11 April 2011

A detainee's journey between two locations along the Pipeline could sometimes last days. During transit, there was frequently little or no food and water provided, and seldom any sanitation. Once in camp, talking was forbidden outside the detainees' accommodation huts, though improvised communication was rife. Such communication included propaganda and disinformation, which went by such names as the Kinongo Times, designed to encourage fellow detainees not to give up hope and so to minimise the number of those who confessed their oath and cooperated with camp authorities. Forced labour was performed by detainees on projects like the thirty-seven-mile-long South Yatta irrigation furrow. Family outside and other considerations led many detainees to confess.

During the first year after Operation Anvil, colonial authorities had little success in forcing detainees to co-operate. Camps and compounds were overcrowded, forced-labour systems were not yet perfected, screening teams were not fully coordinated, and the use of torture was not yet systematised. This failure was partly due to the lack of manpower and resources, as well as the vast numbers of detainees. Officials could scarcely process them all, let alone get them to confess their oaths. Assessing the situation in the summer of 1955, Alan Lennox-Boyd wrote of his "fear that the net figure of detainees may still be rising. If so the outlook is grim." Black markets flourished during this period, with the native Kenyan guards helping to facilitate trading. It was possible for detainees to bribe guards in order to obtain items or stay punishment.

he horror of some of the so-called Screening Camps now present a state of affairs so deplorable that they should be investigated without delay, so that the ever increasing allegations of inhumanity and disregard of the rights of the African citizen are dealt with and so that the Government will have no reason to be ashamed of the acts which are done in its own name by its own servants.

—Letter from Police Commissioner Arthur Young to Governor Evelyn Baring, 22 November 1954

Interrogations and confessions

By late 1955, however, the Pipeline had become a fully operational, well-organised system. Guards were regularly shifted around the Pipeline too in order to prevent relationships developing with detainees and so undercut the black markets, and inducements and punishments became better at discouraging fraternising with the enemy. The grinding nature of the improved detention and interrogation regimen began to produce results. Most detainees confessed, and the system produced ever greater numbers of spies and informers within the camps, while others switched sides in a more open, official fashion, leaving detention behind to take an active role in interrogations, even sometimes administering beatings.

The most famous example of side-switching was Peter Muigai Kenyatta—Jomo Kenyatta's son—who, after confessing, joined screeners at Athi River Camp, later travelling throughout the Pipeline to assist in interrogations. Suspected informers and spies within a camp were treated in the time-honoured Mau Mau fashion: the preferred method of execution was strangulation then mutilation: "It was just like in the days before our detention", explained one Mau Mau member later. "We did not have our own jails to hold an informant in, so we would strangle him and then cut his tongue out." The end of 1955 also saw screeners being given a freer hand in interrogation, and harsher conditions than straightforward confession were imposed on detainees before they were deemed 'cooperative' and eligible for final release.

In a half-circle against the reed walls of the enclosure stand eight young, African women. There's neither hate nor apprehension in their gaze. It's like a talk in the headmistress's study; a headmistress who is firm but kindly.

—A contemporary BBC-description of screening

While oathing, for practical reasons, within the Pipeline was reduced to an absolute minimum, as many new initiates as possible were oathed. A newcomer who refused to take the oath often faced the same fate as a recalcitrant outside the camps: they were murdered. "The detainees would strangle them with their blankets or, using blades fashioned from the corrugated-iron roofs of some of the barracks, would slit their throats", writes Elkins. The camp authorities' preferred method of capital punishment was public hanging. Commandants were told to clamp down hard on intra-camp oathing, with several commandants hanging anyone suspected of administering oaths.

Even as the Pipeline became more sophisticated, detainees still organised themselves within it, setting up committees and selecting leaders for their camps, as well as deciding on their own "rules to live by". Perhaps the most famous compound leader was Josiah Mwangi Kariuki. Punishments for violating the "rules to live by" could be severe.

European missionaries and native Kenyan Christians played their part by visiting camps to evangelise and encourage compliance with the colonial authorities, providing intelligence, and sometimes even assisting in interrogation. Detainees regarded such preachers with nothing but contempt.

The number of cases of pulmonary tuberculosis which is being disclosed in Prison and Detention Camps is causing some embarrassment.

—Memorandum to Commissioner of Prisons John 'Taxi' Lewis
from Kenya's Director of Medical Services, 18 May 1954

The lack of decent sanitation in the camps meant that epidemics of diseases such as typhoid, dysentery and tuberculosis swept through them. Detainees would also develop vitamin deficiencies, for example scurvy, due to the poor rations provided. Official medical reports detailing the shortcomings of the camps and their recommendations were ignored, and the conditions being endured by detainees were lied about and denied. A British rehabilitation officer found in 1954 that detainees from Manyani were in "shocking health", many of them suffering from malnutrition, while Langata and GilGil were eventually closed in April 1955 because, as the colonial government put it, "they were unfit to hold Kikuyu ... for medical epidemiological reasons".

While the Pipeline was primarily designed for adult males, a few thousand women and young girls were detained at an all-women camp at Kamiti, as well as a number of unaccompanied young children. Dozens of babies were born to women in captivity: "We really do need these cloths for the children as it is impossible to keep them clean and tidy while dressed in dirty pieces of sacking and blanket", wrote one colonial officer. Wamumu Camp was set up solely for all the unaccompanied boys in the Pipeline, though hundreds, maybe thousands, of boys moved around the adult parts of the Pipeline.

Works camps

Short rations, overwork, brutality, humiliating and disgusting treatment and flogging—all in violation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

—One colonial officer's description of British works camps

There were originally two types of works camps envisioned by Baring: the first type were based in Kikuyu districts with the stated purpose of achieving the Swynnerton Plan; the second were punitive camps, designed for the 30,000 Mau Mau suspects who were deemed unfit to return to the reserves. These forced-labour camps provided a much needed source of labour to continue the colony's infrastructure development.

Colonial officers also saw the second sort of works camps as a way of ensuring that any confession was legitimate and as a final opportunity to extract intelligence. Probably the worst works camp to have been sent to was the one run out of Embakasi Prison, for Embakasi was responsible for the Embakasi Airport, the construction of which was demanded to be finished before the Emergency came to an end. The airport was a massive project with an unquenchable thirst for labour, and the time pressures ensured the detainees' forced labour was especially hard.

Villagisation programme

At the end of 1953, the Administration were faced with the serious problem of the concealment of terrorists and supply of food to them. This was widespread and, owing to the scattered nature of the homesteads, fear of detection was negligible; so, in the first instance, the inhabitants of those areas were made to build and live in concentrated villages. This first step had to be taken speedily, somewhat to the detriment of usual health measures and was definitely a punitive short-term measure.

—District Commissioner of Nyeri

If military operations in the forests and Operation Anvil were the first two phases of Mau Mau's defeat, Erskine expressed the need and his desire for a third and final phase: cut off all the militants' support in the reserves. The means to this terminal end was originally suggested by the man brought in by the colonial government to do an ethnopsychiatric 'diagnosis' of the uprising, JC Carothers: he advocated a Kenyan version of the villagisation programmes that the British were already using in places like Malaya.

So it was that in June 1954, the War Council took the decision to undertake a full-scale forced-resettlement programme of Kiambu, Nyeri, Murang'a and Embu Districts to cut off Mau Mau's supply lines. Within eighteen months, 1,050,899 Kikuyu in the reserves were inside 804 villages consisting of some 230,000 huts. The government termed them "protected villages", purportedly to be built along "the same lines as the villages in the North of England", though the term was actually a "euphemism for the fact that hundreds of thousands of civilians were corralled, often against their will, into settlements behind barbed-wire fences and watch towers."

While some of these villages were to protect loyalist Kikuyu, "most were little more than concentration camps to punish Mau Mau sympathizers." The villagisation programme was the coup de grâce for Mau Mau. By the end of the following summer, Lieutenant General Lathbury no longer needed Lincoln bombers for raids because of a lack of targets, and, by late 1955, Lathbury felt so sure of final victory that he reduced army forces to almost pre-Mau Mau levels.

He noted, however, that the British should have "no illusions about the future. Mau Mau has not been cured: it has been suppressed. The thousands who have spent a long time in detention must have been embittered by it. Nationalism is still a very potent force and the African will pursue his aim by other means. Kenya is in for a very tricky political future."

Whilst they could not be expected to take kindly at first to a departure from their traditional way of life, such as living in villages, they need and desire to be told just what to do.

—Council of Kenya-Colony's Ministers, July 1954

The government's public relations officer, Granville Roberts, presented villagisation as a good opportunity for rehabilitation, particularly of women and children, but it was, in fact, first and foremost designed to break Mau Mau and protect loyalist Kikuyu, a fact reflected in the extremely limited resources made available to the Rehabilitation and Community Development Department. Refusal to move could be punished with the destruction of property and livestock, and the roofs were usually ripped off of homes whose occupants demonstrated reluctance. Villagisation also solved the practical and financial problems associated with a further, massive expansion of the Pipeline programme, and the removal of people from their land hugely assisted the enaction of Swynnerton Plan.

The villages were surrounded by deep, spike-bottomed trenches and barbed wire, and the villagers themselves were watched over by members of the Kikuyu Home Guard, often neighbours and relatives. In short, rewards or collective punishments such as curfews could be served much more readily after villagisation, and this quickly broke Mau Mau's passive wing. Though there were degrees of difference between the villages, the overall conditions engendered by villagisation meant that, by early 1955, districts began reporting starvation and malnutrition. One provincial commissioner blamed child hunger on parents deliberately withholding food, saying the latter were aware of the "propaganda value of apparent malnutrition".

From the health point of view, I regard villagisation as being exceedingly dangerous and we are already starting to reap the benefits.

—Meru's District Commissioner, 6 November 1954,
four months after the institution of villagisation

The Red Cross helped mitigate the food shortages, but even they were told to prioritise loyalist areas. The Baring government's medical department issued reports about "the alarming number of deaths occurring amongst children in the 'punitive' villages", and the "political" prioritisation of Red Cross relief.

One of the colony's ministers blamed the "bad spots" in Central Province on the mothers of the children for "not realis the great importance of proteins", and one former missionary reported that it "was terribly pitiful how many of the children and the older Kikuyu were dying. They were so emaciated and so very susceptible to any kind of disease that came along". Of the 50,000 deaths which John Blacker attributed to the Emergency, half were children under the age of ten.

The lack of food did not just affect the children, of course. The Overseas Branch of the British Red Cross commented on the "women who, from progressive undernourishment, had been unable to carry on with their work".

Disease prevention was not helped by the colony's policy of returning sick detainees to receive treatment in the reserves, though the reserves' medical services were virtually non-existent, as Baring himself noted after a tour of some villages in June 1956. The policy of "villagization" did not officially end until around 1962, when Kenya gained its independence from British colonial rule. During the course of the Mau Mau Uprising, it is conservatively estimated that 1.5 million Kenyans were forcibly relocated into these fortified villages. The government of an independent Kenya implementated a similar policy of forced villagization during the Shifta War in 1966 of ethnic Somalis in the North Eastern Province.

Political and social concessions by the British

Kenyans were granted nearly all of the demands made by the KAU in 1951.

On 18 January 1955, the Governor-General of Kenya, Evelyn Baring, offered an amnesty to Mau Mau activists. The offer was that they would not face prosecution for previous offences, but might still be detained. European settlers were appalled at the leniency of the offer. On 10 June 1955 with no response forthcoming, the offer of amnesty to the Mau Mau was revoked.

In June 1956, a programme of land reform increased the land holdings of the Kikuyu. This was coupled with a relaxation of the ban on native Kenyans growing coffee, a primary cash crop.

In the cities the colonial authorities decided to dispel tensions by raising urban wages, thereby strengthening the hand of moderate union organisations like the KFRTU. By 1956, the British had granted direct election of native Kenyan members of the Legislative Assembly, followed shortly thereafter by an increase in the number of local seats to fourteen. A Parliamentary conference in January 1960 indicated that the British would accept "one person—one vote" majority rule.

Deaths

The number of deaths attributable to the Emergency is disputed. David Anderson estimates 25,000 people died; British demographer John Blacker's estimate is 50,000 deaths—half of them children aged ten or below. He attributes this death toll mostly to increased malnutrition, starvation and disease from wartime conditions.

Caroline Elkins says "tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands" died. Elkins' numbers have been challenged by Blacker, who demonstrated in detail that her numbers were overestimated, explaining that Elkins' figure of 300,000 deaths "implies that perhaps half of the adult male population would have been wiped out—yet the censuses of 1962 and 1969 show no evidence of this—the age-sex pyramids for the Kikuyu districts do not even show indentations."

His study dealt directly with Elkins' claim that "somewhere between 130,000 and 300,000 Kikuyu are unaccounted for" at the 1962 census, and was read by both David Anderson and John Lonsdale prior to publication. David Elstein has noted that leading authorities on Africa have taken issue with parts of Elkins' study, in particular her mortality figures: "The senior British historian of Kenya, John Lonsdale, whom Elkins thanks profusely in her book as 'the most gifted scholar I know', warned her to place no reliance on anecdotal sources, and regards her statistical analysis—for which she cites him as one of three advisors—as 'frankly incredible'."

The British possibly killed more than 20,000 Mau Mau militants, but in some ways more notable is the smaller number of Mau Mau suspects dealt with by capital punishment: by the end of the Emergency, the total was 1,090. At no other time or place in the British Empire was capital punishment dispensed so aggressively—the total is more than double the number executed by the French in Algeria.

Wangari Maathai suggests that more than one hundred thousand Africans, mostly Kikuyus, may have died in the concentration camps and emergency villages.

Officially 1,819 Native Kenyans were killed by the Mau Mau. David Anderson believes this to be an undercount and cites a higher figure of 5,000 killed by the Mau Mau. In addition, 95 British military personnel died as a result of the conflict.

War crimes

Main article: List of war crimes § 1952–1960: Mau Mau uprising

War crimes have been broadly defined by the Nuremberg principles as "violations of the laws or customs of war", which includes massacres, bombings of civilian targets, terrorism, mutilation, torture, and murder of detainees and prisoners of war. Additional common crimes include theft, arson, and the destruction of property not warranted by military necessity.

David Anderson says the rebellion was "a story of atrocity and excess on both sides, a dirty war from which no one emerged with much pride, and certainly no glory". Political scientist Daniel Goldhagen describes the campaign against the Mau Mau as an example of eliminationism, though this verdict has been fiercely criticised.

British war crimes

We knew the slow method of torture was worse than anything we could do. Special Branch there had a way of slowly electrocuting a Kuke—they'd rough up one for days. Once I went personally to drop off one gang member who needed special treatment. I stayed for a few hours to help the boys out, softening him up. Things got a little out of hand. By the time I cut his balls off, he had no ears, and his eyeball, the right one, I think, was hanging out of its socket. Too bad, he died before we got much out of him.

One settler's description of British interrogation. The extent to which such accounts can be taken at face value has been questioned. See also: British war crimes

The British authorities suspended civil liberties in Kenya. Many Kikuyu were forced to move. According to British authorities 80,000 were interned. Caroline Elkins estimated that between 160,000 and 320,000 were interned in detention camps also known as concentration camps. Most of the rest—more than a million Kikuyu—were held in "enclosed villages" as part of the villagisation program. Although some were Mau Mau guerrillas, most were victims of collective punishment that colonial authorities imposed on large areas of the country. Thousands were beaten or sexually assaulted to extract information about the Mau Mau threat. Later, prisoners suffered even worse mistreatment in an attempt to force them to renounce their allegiance to the insurgency and to obey commands. Prisoners were questioned with the help of "slicing off ears, boring holes in eardrums, flogging until death, pouring paraffin over suspects who were then set alight, and burning eardrums with lit cigarettes." The use of castration and denying access to medical aid to the detainees by the British were also widespread and common. As described by Ian Cobain of The Guardian in 2013:

Among the detainees who suffered severe mistreatment was Hussein Onyango Obama, the grandfather of Barack Obama. According to his widow, British soldiers forced pins into his fingernails and buttocks and squeezed his testicles between metal rods. Two of the original five claimants who brought the test case against the British were castrated.

The historian Robert Edgerton describes the methods used during the emergency: "If a question was not answered to the interrogator's satisfaction, the subject was beaten and kicked. If that did not lead to the desired confession, and it rarely did, more force was applied. Electric shock was widely used, and so was fire. Women were choked and held under water; gun barrels, beer bottles, and even knives were thrust into their vaginas. Men had beer bottles thrust up their rectums, were dragged behind Land Rovers, whipped, burned and bayoneted... Some police officers did not bother with more time-consuming forms of torture; they simply shot any suspect who refused to answer, then told the next suspect, to dig his own grave. When the grave was finished, the man was asked if he would now be willing to talk."

lectric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire. Bottles (often broken), gun barrels, knives, snakes, vermin, and hot eggs were thrust up men's rectums and women's vaginas. The screening teams whipped, shot, burned and mutilated Mau Mau suspects, ostensibly to gather intelligence for military operations and as court evidence.

—Caroline Elkins

In June 1957, Eric Griffith-Jones, the attorney general of the British administration in Kenya, wrote to the Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, detailing the way the regime of abuse at the colony's detention camps was being subtly altered. He said that the mistreatment of the detainees is "distressingly reminiscent of conditions in Nazi Germany or Communist Russia". Despite this, he said that in order for abuse to remain legal, Mau Mau suspects must be beaten mainly on their upper body, "vulnerable parts of the body should not be struck, particularly the spleen, liver or kidneys", and it was important that "those who administer violence ... should remain collected, balanced and dispassionate"; he also reminded the governor that "If we are going to sin", he wrote, "we must sin quietly."

According to author Wangari Maathai, three out of every four Kikuyu men were in detention in 1954. Maathai states that detainees were made to do forced labor and that their land was taken from them and given to collaborators. Maathai further states that the Home Guard in particular, raped women and had a reputation for cruelty in the form of terror and intimidation, whereas the Mau Mau soldiers were initially respectful of women. Only a small handful of rape cases went to trial. Fifty-six British soldiers and colonial police officers were tried for rape, of which 17 were convicted. The harshest sentences imposed were six-year sentences imposed on three British soldiers convicted of gang-raping a woman.

Chuka massacre

The Chuka massacre, which happened in Chuka, Kenya, was perpetrated by members of the King's African Rifles B Company in June 1953 with 20 unarmed people killed during the Mau Mau uprising. Members of the 5th KAR B Company entered the Chuka area on 13 June 1953, to flush out rebels suspected of hiding in the nearby forests. Over the next few days, the regiment had captured and executed 20 people suspected of being Mau Mau fighters for unknown reasons. The people executed belonged to the Kikuyu Home Guard—a loyalist militia recruited by the British to fight the guerrillas. All of the soldiers involved in the Chuka patrols were placed under open arrest at Nairobi's Buller Camp, but were not prosecuted. Instead, only their commanding officer, Major Gerald Selby Lee Griffiths, stood trial. Furthermore, rather than risk bringing publicity to the incident, Griffiths was charged with the murder of two other suspects in a separate incident that had taken place several weeks earlier. He was acquitted, but following public outcry, Griffiths was then tried under six separate charges of torture and disgraceful conduct for torturing two unarmed detainees, including a man named Njeru Ndwega. At his court-martial, it was stated that Griffiths had made Ndwega take off his pants, before telling a teenage African private to castrate him. When the private, a 16-year-old Somali named Ali Segat, refused to do this, Griffiths instead ordered him to cut off Ndwega's ear, to which Segat complied. On 11 March 1954, Griffiths was found guilty on five counts. He was sentenced to five years in prison and was cashiered from the Army. He served his sentence at Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London. None of the other ranks involved in the massacre has been prosecuted.

Hola massacre

The Hola massacre was an incident during the conflict in Kenya against British colonial rule at a colonial detention camp in Hola, Kenya. By January 1959, the camp had a population of 506 detainees, of whom 127 were held in a secluded "closed camp". This more remote camp near Garissa, eastern Kenya, was reserved for the most uncooperative of the detainees. They often refused, even when threats of force were made, to join in the colonial "rehabilitation process" or perform manual labour or obey colonial orders. The camp commandant outlined a plan that would force 88 of the detainees to bend to work. On 3 March 1959, the camp commandant put this plan into action—as a result, 11 detainees were clubbed to death by guards. 77 surviving detainees sustained serious permanent injuries. The British government accepts that the colonial administration tortured detainees, but denies liability.

Mau Mau war crimes

Mau Mau fighters, ... contrary to African customs and values, assaulted old people, women and children. The horrors they practiced included the following: decapitation and general mutilation of civilians, torture before murder, bodies bound up in sacks and dropped in wells, burning the victims alive, gouging out of eyes, splitting open the stomachs of pregnant women. No war can justify such gruesome actions. In man's inhumanity to man, there is no race distinction. The Africans were practicing it on themselves. There was no reason and no restraint on both sides.

—Bethwell Ogot

Lari massacres

Main article: Lari massacre

Mau Mau militants perpetrated numerous war crimes. One such incident was their attack on the settlement of Lari, on the night of 25–26 March 1953, in which they herded men, women and children into huts and set fire to them, hacking down with machetes anyone who attempted escape, before throwing them back into the burning huts. The attack at Lari was so extreme that "African policemen who saw the bodies of the victims ... were physically sick and said 'These people are animals. If I see one now I shall shoot with the greatest eagerness'", and it "even shocked many Mau Mau supporters, some of whom would subsequently try to excuse the attack as 'a mistake'". A total of 309 rebels would be prosecuted for the massacre, of which 136 were convicted. Seventy-one of those convicted were executed.

A retaliatory massacre was immediately perpetrated by Kenyan security forces who were partially overseen by British commanders. Official estimates place the death toll from the first Lari massacre at 74, and the retaliatory attack at 150, though neither of these figures account for people who may have been 'disappeared'. Whatever the actual number of victims, "he grim truth was that, for every person who died in Lari's first massacre, at least two more were killed in retaliation in the second."

Aside from the Lari massacres, Kikuyu were also tortured, mutilated and murdered by Mau Mau on many other occasions. Mau Mau were estimated to have killed 1,819 of their fellow native Kenyans, though again, this number may exclude those whose bodies were never found. Anderson estimates the true number to be around 5,000. Thirty-two European and twenty-six Asian civilians were also murdered by Mau Mau militants, with similar numbers wounded. The best known European victim was Michael Ruck, aged six, who was hacked to death with pangas along with his parents, Roger and Esme, and one of the Rucks' farm workers, Muthura Nagahu, who had tried to help the family. Newspapers in Kenya and abroad published graphic murder details, including images of young Michael with bloodied teddy bears and trains strewn on his bedroom floor.

In 1952, the poisonous latex of the African milk bush was used by members of Mau Mau to kill cattle in an incident of biological warfare.

Legacy

Although Mau Mau was effectively crushed by the end of 1956, it was not until the First Lancaster House Conference, in January 1960, that native Kenyan majority rule was established and the period of colonial transition to independence initiated. Before the conference, it was anticipated by both native Kenyan and European leaders that Kenya was set for a European-dominated multi-racial government.

There is continuing debate about Mau Mau's and the rebellion's effects on decolonisation and on Kenya after independence. Regarding decolonisation, the most common view is that Kenya's independence came about as a result of the British government's deciding that a continuance of colonial rule would entail a greater use of force than the British public would tolerate. Nissimi argues, though, that such a view fails to "acknowledge the time that elapsed until the rebellion's influence actually took effect explain why the same liberal tendencies failed to stop the dirty war the British conducted against the Mau Mau in Kenya while it was raging on". Others contend that, as the 1950s progressed, nationalist intransigence increasingly rendered official plans for political development irrelevant, meaning that after the mid-1950s British policy increasingly accepted Kenyan nationalism and moved to co-opt its leaders and organisations into collaboration.

It has been argued that the conflict helped set the stage for Kenyan independence in December 1963, or at least secured the prospect of Black-majority rule once the British left. However, this is disputed and other sources downplay the contribution of Mau Mau to decolonisation.

On 12 December 1964, President Kenyatta issued an amnesty to Mau Mau fighters to surrender to the government. Some Mau Mau members insisted that they should get land and be absorbed into the civil service and Kenya army. On 28 January 1965, the Kenyatta government sent the Kenya army to Meru district, where Mau Mau fighters gathered under the leadership of Field Marshal Mwariama and Field Marshal Baimungi. These leaders and several Mau Mau fighters were killed. On 14 January 1965, the Minister for Defence Dr Njoroge Mungai was quoted in the Daily Nation saying: "They are now outlaws, who will be pursued and brought to punishment. They must be outlawed as well in the minds of all the people of Kenya."

On 12 September 2015, the British government unveiled a Mau Mau memorial statue in Nairobi's Uhuru Park that it had funded "as a symbol of reconciliation between the British government, the Mau Mau, and all those who suffered". This followed a June 2013 decision by Britain to compensate more than 5,000 Kenyans it had tortured and abused during the Mau Mau insurgency.

Compensation claims

In 1999, a collection of former fighters calling themselves the Mau Mau Original Group announced that they would attempt a £5 billion claim against the UK on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Kenyans for ill-treatment that they said they had suffered during the rebellion, though nothing came of it. In November 2002, the Mau Mau Trust—a welfare group for former members of the movement—announced that it would attempt to sue the British government for widespread human rights violations it said had been committed against its members. Until September 2003, the Mau Mau movement was banned.

Once the ban was removed, former Mau Mau members who had been castrated or otherwise tortured were supported by the Kenya Human Rights Commission, in particular by the commission's George Morara, in their attempt to take on the British government; their lawyers had amassed 6,000 depositions regarding human rights abuses by late 2002. 42 potential claimants were interviewed, from whom five were chosen to prosecute a test case; one of the five, Susan Ciong'ombe Ngondi, has since died. The remaining four test claimants are: Ndiku Mutua, who was castrated; Paulo Muoka Nzili, who was castrated; Jane Muthoni Mara, who was subjected to sexual assault that included having bottles filled with boiling water pushed up her vagina; and Wambugu Wa Nyingi, who survived the Hola massacre.

Ben Macintyre of The Times said of the legal case: "Opponents of these proceedings have pointed out, rightly, that the Mau Mau was a brutal terrorist force, guilty of the most dreadful atrocities. Yet only one of the claimants is of that stamp—Mr Nzili. He has admitted taking the Mau Mau oath and said that all he did was to ferry food to the fighters in the forest. None has been accused, let alone convicted, of any crime."

Upon publication of Caroline Elkins' Imperial Reckoning in 2005, Kenya called for an apology from the UK for atrocities committed during the 1950s. The British government claimed that the issue was the responsibility of the Kenyan government, on the ground of "state succession" for former colonies, relying on an obscure legal precedent relating to Patagonian toothfish and the declaration of martial law in Jamaica in 1860.

In July 2011, "George Morara strode down the corridor and into a crowded little room where 30 elderly Kenyans sat hunched together around a table clutching cups of hot tea and sharing plates of biscuits. 'I have good news from London', he announced. 'We have won the first part of the battle!' At once, the room erupted in cheers." The good news was that a British judge had ruled that the Kenyans could sue the British government for their torture. Morara said that, if the first test cases succeeded, perhaps 30,000 others would file similar complaints of torture. Explaining his decision, Mr Justice McCombe said the claimants had an "arguable case", and added:

It may well be thought strange, or perhaps even dishonourable, that a legal system which will not in any circumstances admit into its proceedings evidence obtained by torture should yet refuse to entertain a claim against the Government in its own jurisdiction for that Government's allegedly negligent failure to prevent torture which it had the means to prevent. Furthermore, resort to technicality ... to rule such a claim out of court appears particularly misplaced.

A Times editorial noted with satisfaction that "Mr Justice McCombe told the FCO, in effect, to get lost. ... Though the arguments against reopening very old wounds are seductive, they fail morally. There are living claimants and it most certainly was not their fault that the documentary evidence that seems to support their claims was for so long 'lost' in the governmental filing system."

If we are going to sin, we must sin quietly.

—Kenyan Attorney-General Eric Griffith-Jones

During the course of the Mau Mau legal battle in London, a large amount of what was stated to be formerly lost Foreign Office archival material was finally brought to light, while yet more was discovered to be missing. The files, known as migrated archives, provided details of British human rights abuses (torture, rape, execution) in its former colonies during the final stages of empire, including during Mau Mau, and even after decolonisation.

Regarding the Mau Mau Uprising, the records included confirmation of "the extent of the violence inflicted on suspected Mau Mau rebels" in British detention camps documented in Caroline Elkins' study. Numerous allegations of murder and rape by British military personnel are recorded in the files, including an incident where a native Kenyan baby was "burnt to death", the "defilement of a young girl", and a soldier in Royal Irish Fusiliers who killed "in cold blood two people who had been his captives for over 12 hours". Baring himself was aware of the "extreme brutality" of the sometimes lethal torture meted out—which included "most drastic" beatings, solitary confinement, starvation, castration, whipping, burning, rape, sodomy, and forceful insertion of objects into orifices—but took no action. Baring's inaction was despite the urging of people like Arthur Young, Commissioner of Police for Kenya for less than eight months of 1954 before he resigned in protest, that "the horror of some of the should be investigated without delay". In February 1956, a provincial commissioner in Kenya, "Monkey" Johnson, wrote to Attorney General Reginald Manningham-Buller urging him to block any enquiry into the methods used against Mau Mau: "It would now appear that each and every one of us, from the Governor downwards, may be in danger of removal from public service by a commission of enquiry as a result of enquiries made by the CID." The April 2012 release also included detailed accounts of the policy of seizing livestock from Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels.

Main criticism we shall have to meet is that 'Cowan plan' which was approved by Government contained instructions which in effect authorised unlawful use of violence against detainees.

Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd

Commenting on the papers, David Anderson stated that the "documents were hidden away to protect the guilty", and "that the extent of abuse now being revealed is truly disturbing". "Everything that could happen did happen. Allegations about beatings and violence were widespread. Basically you could get away with murder. It was systematic", Anderson said. An example of this impunity is the case of eight colonial officials accused of having prisoners tortured to death going unpunished even after their actions were reported to London. Huw Bennett of King's College London, who had worked with Anderson on the Chuka Massacre, said in a witness statement to the court that the new documents "considerably strengthen" the knowledge that the British Army were "intimately involved" with the colonial security forces, whom they knew were "systematically abusing and torturing detainees in screening centres and detention camps". In April 2011, lawyers for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office continued to maintain that there was no such policy. As early as November 1952, however, military reports noted that "he Army has been used for carrying out certain functions that properly belonged to the Police, eg. searching of huts and screening of Africans", and British soldiers arrested and transferred Mau Mau suspects to camps where they were beaten and tortured until they confessed. Bennett said that "the British Army retained ultimate operational control over all security forces throughout the Emergency", and that its military intelligence operation worked "hand in glove" with the Kenyan Special Branch "including in screening and interrogations in centres and detention camps".

The Kenyan government sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, William Hague, insisting that the UK government was legally liable for the atrocities. The Foreign Office, however, reaffirmed its position that it was not, in fact, liable for colonial atrocities, and argued that the documents had not "disappeared" as part of a cover-up. Nearly ten years before, in late 2002, as the BBC aired a documentary detailing British human rights abuses committed during the rebellion and 6,000 depositions had been taken for the legal case, former district colonial officer John Nottingham had expressed concern that compensation be paid soon, since most victims were in their 80s and would soon die. He told the BBC: "What went on in the Kenya camps and villages was brutal, savage torture. It is time that the mockery of justice that was perpetrated in this country at that time, should be, must be righted. I feel ashamed to have come from a Britain that did what it did here ."

Thirteen boxes of "top secret" Kenya files are still missing.

In October 2012, Mr Justice McCombe granted the surviving elderly test claimants the right to sue the UK for damages. The UK government then opted for what the claimants' lawyers called the "morally repugnant" decision to appeal McCombe's ruling. In May 2013, it was reported that the appeal was on hold while the UK government held compensation negotiations with the claimants.

Settlement

On 6 June 2013, the foreign secretary, William Hague, told parliament that the UK government had reached a settlement with the claimants. He said it included "payment of a settlement sum in respect of 5,228 claimants, as well as a gross costs sum, to the total value of £19.9 million. The Government will also support the construction of a memorial in Nairobi to the victims of torture and ill-treatment during the colonial era." However he added, "We continue to deny liability on behalf of the Government and British taxpayers today for the actions of the colonial administration in respect of the claims".

Mau Mau status in Kenya

Partisan questions about the Mau Mau war have ... echoed round Kenya's political arena during 40 years of independence. How historically necessary was Mau Mau? Did its secretive violence alone have the power to destroy white supremacy? Or did it merely sow discord within a mass nationalism that—for all the failings of the Kenya African Union (KAU)—was bound to win power in the end? Did Mau Mau aim at freedom for all Kenyans? or did moderate, constitutional politicians rescue that pluralist prize from the jaws of its ethnic chauvinism? Has the self-sacrificial victory of the poor been unjustly forgotten, and appropriated by the rich? or are Mau Mau's defeats and divisions best buried in oblivion?

—John Lonsdale

It is often argued that the Mau Mau Uprising was suppressed as a subject for public discussion in Kenya during the periods under Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi because of the key positions and influential presence of some loyalists in government, business and other elite sectors of Kenyan society post-1963. Unsurprisingly, during this same period opposition groups tactically embraced the Mau Mau rebellion.

Members of Mau Mau are currently recognised by the Kenyan Government as freedom-independence heroes and heroines who sacrificed their lives in order to free Kenyans from colonial rule. Since 2010, Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) has been marked annually on 20 October (the same day Baring signed the Emergency order). According to the Kenyan Government, Mashujaa Day will be a time for Kenyans to remember and honour Mau Mau and other Kenyans who participated in the independence struggle. Mashujaa Day will replace Kenyatta Day; the latter has until now also been held on 20 October. In 2001, the Kenyan Government announced that important Mau Mau sites were to be turned into national monuments.

This official celebration of Mau Mau is in marked contrast to post-colonial Kenyan governments' rejection of the Mau Mau as an engine of national liberation. Such a turnabout has attracted criticism of government manipulation of the Mau Mau uprising for political ends.

We are determined to have independence in peace, and we shall not allow hooligans to rule Kenya. We must have no hatred towards one another. Mau Mau was a disease which had been eradicated, and must never be remembered again.

—Speech by Jomo Kenyatta, April 1963

See also

Insurgency

  • Mungiki, contemporary Kikuyu insurgency within Kenya

General

Notes

  1. The name Kenya Land and Freedom Army is sometimes heard in connection with Mau Mau. KLFA was the name that Dedan Kimathi used for a coordinating body which he tried to set up for Mau Mau. It was also the name of another militant group that sprang up briefly in the spring of 1960; the group was broken up during a brief operation from 26 March to 30 April.
  2. In English, the Kikuyu people also are known as the "Kikuyu" and as the "Wakikuyu" people, but their preferred exonym is "Gĩkũyũ", derived from the Swahili language.
  3. Though finalised in 1926, reserves were first instituted by the Crown Lands Ordinance of 1915.
  4. "Squatter or resident labourers are those who reside with their families on European farms usually for the purpose of work for the owners. ... Contract labourers are those who sign a contract of service before a magistrate, for periods varying from three to twelve months. Casual labourers leave their reserves to engage themselves to European employers for any period from one day upwards." In return for his services, a squatter was entitled to use some of the settler's land for cultivation and grazing. Contract and casual workers are together referred to as migratory labourers, in distinction to the permanent presence of the squatters on farms. The phenomenon of squatters arose in response to the complementary difficulties of Europeans in finding labourers and of Africans in gaining access to arable and grazing land.
  5. During the Emergency, screening was the term used by colonial authorities to mean the interrogation of a Mau Mau suspect. The alleged member or sympathiser of Mau Mau would be interrogated in order to obtain an admission of guilt—specifically, a confession that they had taken the Mau Mau oath—as well as for intelligence.
  6. The term gulag is used by David Anderson and Caroline Elkins. For Anderson, see his 2005 Histories of the Hanged, p. 7: "Virtually every one of the acquitted men ... would spend the next several years in the notorious detention camps of the Kenyan gulag"; for Elkins, see the UK edition of her 2005 book, Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya.
  7. Other estimates are as high as 450,000 interned.

References

Notes

  1. Nissimi 2006, p. 11.
  2. Newsinger, John (1981). "Revolt and Repression in Kenya: The "Mau Mau" Rebellion, 1952-1960". Science & Society. 45 (2): 159–185. JSTOR 40402312.
  3. Page 2011, p. 206.
  4. ^ Anderson 2005, p. 5.
  5. Durrani, Shiraz. Mau Mau, the Revolutionary, Anti-Imperialist Force from Kenya, 1948–63: Selection from Shiraz Durrani's Kenya's War of Independence: Mau Mau and Its Legacy of Resistance to Colonialism and Imperialism, 1948–1990. Vita Books, 2018.
  6. ^ David Elstein (7 April 2011). "Daniel Goldhagen and Kenya: recycling fantasy". openDemocracy.org. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
  7. ""UK armed forces Deaths: Operational deaths post World War II"" (PDF). Ministry of defense. 25 March 2021
  8. ^ Anderson 2005, p. 4.
  9. Blakeley, Ruth (2009). State Terrorism and Neoliberalism: The North in the South. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-04246-3.
  10. Osborne, Myles (2010). "The Kamba and Mau Mau: Ethnicity, Development, and Chiefship, 1952–1960". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 43 (1): 63–87. ISSN 0361-7882. JSTOR 25741397.
  11. Anderson 2005.
  12. The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (1994) p. 350
  13. "Kenya: A Love for the Forest". Time. 17 January 1964. ISSN 0040-781X. Archived from the original on 23 April 2020. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  14. The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (1994) p. 346.
  15. Mumford 2012, p. 49.
  16. Füredi 1989, p. 5
  17. Maloba 1998.
  18. ^ Branch 2009, p. xii.
  19. Gerlach 2010, p. 213.
  20. ^ "Bloody uprising of the Mau Mau". BBC News. 7 April 2011. Archived from the original on 2 January 2020. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  21. Kanogo 1992, pp. 23–25.
  22. Majdalany 1963, p. 75.
  23. ^ Kariuki 1975, p. 167.
  24. Kariuki 1975, p. 24.
  25. Wangari Maathai (2006). Unbowed: a memoir. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 63. ISBN 0307263487.
  26. ^ Curtis 2003, p. 320.
  27. ^ Coray 1978, p. 179: "The administration's refusal to develop mechanisms whereby African grievances against non-Africans might be resolved on terms of equity, moreover, served to accelerate a growing disaffection with colonial rule. The investigations of the Kenya Land Commission of 1932–1934 are a case study in such lack of foresight, for the findings and recommendations of this commission, particularly those regarding the claims of the Kikuyu of Kiambu, would serve to exacerbate other grievances and nurture the seeds of a growing African nationalism in Kenya".
  28. Anderson 2005, pp. 15, 22.
  29. Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, p. 149.
  30. Alam 2007, p. 1: The colonial presence in Kenya, in contrast to, say, India, where it lasted almost 200 years, was brief but equally violent. It formally started when Her Majesty's agent and Counsel General at Zanzibar, A.H. Hardinge, in a proclamation on 1 July 1895, announced that he was taking over the Coastal areas as well as the interior that included the Kikuyu land, now known as Central Province."
  31. Ellis 1986, p. 100.
    You can read Dilke's speech in full here: "Class V; House of Commons Debate, 1 June 1894". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Series 4, Vol. 25, cc. 181–270. 1 June 1894. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  32. Edgerton 1989, p. 4. Francis Hall, an officer in the Imperial British East Africa Company and after whom Fort Hall was named, asserted: "There is only one way to improve the Wakikuyu that is wipe them out; I should be only too delighted to do so, but we have to depend on them for food supplies."
  33. Meinertzhagen 1957, pp. 51–52 Richard Meinertzhagen wrote of how, on occasion, they massacred Kikuyu by the hundreds.
  34. Alam 2007, p. 2.
  35. Brantley 1981.
  36. Atieno-Odhiambo 1995, p. 25.
  37. Ogot 2003, p. 15.
  38. Leys 1973, p. 342, which notes they were "always hopeless failures. Naked spearmen fall in swathes before machine-guns, without inflicting a single casualty in return. Meanwhile, the troops burn all the huts and collect all the live stock within reach. Resistance once at an end, the leaders of the rebellion are surrendered for imprisonment ... Risings that followed such a course could hardly be repeated. A period of calm followed. And when unrest again appeared it was with other leaders ... and other motives." A particularly interesting example, albeit outside Kenya and featuring guns instead of spears, of successful armed resistance to maintain crucial aspects of autonomy is the Basuto Gun War of 1880–1881, whose ultimate legacy remains tangible even today, in the form of Lesotho.
  39. Maxon 1989, p. 44.
  40. ^ Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, p. 187.
  41. Mosley 1983, p. 5.
  42. Anderson 2005, p. 3.
  43. Edgerton 1989, pp. 1–5.
    Elkins 2005, p. 2, notes that the (British taxpayer) loans were never repaid on the Uganda Railway; they were written off in the 1930s.
  44. ^ Kanogo 1993, p. 8.
  45. ^ Anderson 2005, p. 10.
  46. Carter 1934.
  47. Shilaro 2002, p. 123.
  48. Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, p. 159.
  49. Edgerton 1989, p. 5.
  50. ^ Kanogo 1993, p. 9.
  51. ^ Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, p. 29: "This judgment is now widely known to Africans in Kenya, and it has become clear to them that, without their being previously informed or consulted, their rights in their tribal land, whether communal or individual, have 'disappeared' in law and have been superseded by the rights of the Crown."
  52. Emerson Welch 1980, p. 16.
  53. Anderson 2004, p. 498. "The recruitment of African labor at poor rates of pay and under primitive conditions of work was characteristic of the operation of colonial capitalism in Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ... olonial states readily colluded with capital in providing the legal framework necessary for the recruitment and maintenance of labor in adequate numbers and at low cost to the employer. ... The colonial state shared the desire of the European settler to encourage Africans into the labour market, whilst also sharing a concern to moderate the wages paid to workers".
  54. ^ Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, p. 173: "Casual labourers leave their reserves ... to earn the wherewithal to pay their 'Hut Tax' and to get money to purchase trade goods."
  55. Shilaro 2002, p. 117: "African reserves in Kenya were legally constituted in the Crown Lands Amendment Ordinance of 1926".
  56. Anderson 2004, pp. 506.
  57. Kanogo 1993, p. 13.
  58. Anderson 2004, pp. 505.
  59. Kanogo 1993, p. 10.
  60. Creech Jones, Arthur (10 November 1937). "Native Labour; House of Commons Debate, 10 November 1937". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Series 5, Vol. 328, cc. 1757-9. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
  61. Elkins 2005, p. 17.
  62. Anderson 2004, p. 508.
  63. Kanogo 1993, pp. 96–97.
  64. Anderson 2004, p. 507.
  65. Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, p. 166: "In many parts of the territory we were informed that the majority of farmers were having the utmost difficulty in obtaining labour to cultivate and to harvest their crops".
  66. "History". kenyaembassydc.org. Archived from the original on 22 May 2019. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
  67. Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, pp. 155–156.
  68. Ormsby-Gore, et al. 1925, p. 180: "The population of the district to which one medical officer is allotted amounts more often than not to over a quarter of a million natives distributed over a large area. ... here are large areas in which no medical work is being undertaken."
  69. Swainson 1980, p. 23.
  70. Anderson 2004, pp. 516–528.
  71. Curtis 2003, pp. 320–321.
  72. R. M. A. Van Zwanenberg; Anne King (1975). An Economic History of Kenya and Uganda 1800–1970. The Bowering Press. ISBN 978-0-333-17671-9.
  73. ^ Ogot 2003, p. 16.
  74. Anderson 2005, p. 282.
  75. Wangari Maathai (2006). Unbowed: a memoir. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 61–63. ISBN 0307263487.
  76. Berman 1991, p. 198.
  77. Elkins 2005, p. 25.
  78. Branch 2007, p. 1.
  79. ^ Elkins 2005, p. 32.
  80. Edgerton 1989, p. 65.
  81. Füredi 1989, p. 116.
  82. Edgerton 1989, pp. 66–67.
  83. Anderson 2005, p. 252.
  84. Anderson 2005, p. 239.
  85. Van der Bijl, Nicholas (2017). Mau Mau Rebellion. Pen and Sword. p. 151. ISBN 978-1473864603. OCLC 988759275.
  86. These guns were more powerful psychologically than they were physically, with Jonathan Ferguson August 28, 2024. Royal Armouries Museum
  87. "Mau Mau reed shafted arrows with some barbed 'wire' iron arrow heads and bound nocks, Kenya, 1953". National Army Museum. Archived from the original on 16 July 2023. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  88. Stoddard, James (2020). Mau Mau Blasters: The Homemade Guns of the Mau Mau Uprising (MA). University of Central Florida. Archived from the original on 12 November 2022.
  89. "When the Mau Mau Used a Biological Weapon". Owaahh. 30 October 2014. Archived from the original on 10 April 2023. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  90. ^ Osborne, Myles (30 January 2015). "'The Rooting Out of Mau Mau from the Minds of the Kikuyu is a Formidable Task': Propaganda and the Mau Mau War". The Journal of African History. 56 (1): 77–97. doi:10.1017/s002185371400067x. ISSN 0021-8537. S2CID 159690162.
  91. Leakey, L.S.B. (1954). "The religious element in Mau Mau". African Music: Journal of the African Music Society. 1 (1): 78–79. doi:10.21504/amj.v1i1.235.
  92. Presley, Cora Ann (1992). Kikuyu Women, the Mau Mau Rebellion and Social Change in Kenya. Boulder: Westview Press.
  93. Füredi 1989, p. 4.
  94. Berman 1991, pp. 182–183.
  95. Mahone 2006, p. 241: "This article opens with a retelling of colonial accounts of the 'mania of 1911', which took place in the Kamba region of Kenya Colony. The story of this 'psychic epidemic' and others like it were recounted over the years as evidence depicting the predisposition of Africans to episodic mass hysteria."
  96. McCulloch 2006, pp. 64–76.
  97. Carothers, J. C. (July 1947). "A Study of Mental Derangement in Africans, and an Attempt to Explain its Peculiarities, More Especially in Relation to the African Attitude to Life". Journal of Mental Science. 93 (392): 548–597. doi:10.1192/bjp.93.392.548. ISSN 0368-315X. PMID 20273401. Archived from the original on 27 October 2023. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  98. Füredi 1994, pp. 119–121.
  99. Berman 1991, pp. 183–185.
  100. Clough 1998, p. 4.
  101. ^ Branch 2009, p. 3.
  102. Anderson 2005, p. 4: "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and so-called 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau."
  103. John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent (1997), p. 641.
  104. ^ "Mau Mau uprising: Bloody history of Kenya conflict". BBC News. 7 April 2011. Archived from the original on 10 April 2011. Retrieved 12 May 2011. There was lots of suffering on the other side too. This was a dirty war. It became a civil war—though that idea remains extremely unpopular in Kenya today. (The quote is of Professor David Anderson)
  105. Newsinger, John (1981). "Revolt and Repression in Kenya: The "Mau Mau" Rebellion, 1952–1960". Science & Society. 45 (2): 159–185. JSTOR 40402312.
  106. Füredi 1989, pp. 4–5: "Since they were the most affected by the colonial system and the most educated about its ways, the Kikuyu emerged as the most politicized African community in Kenya."
  107. Berman 1991, p. 196: "The impact of colonial capitalism and the colonial state hit the Kikuyu with greater force and effect than any other of Kenya's peoples, setting off new processes of differentiation and class formation."
  108. Thomas, Beth (1993). "Historian, Kenya native's book on Mau Mau revolt". UpDate. 13 (13): 7. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 28 May 2010.
  109. "Pulitzer Prize Winners: General Nonfiction". pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on 24 February 2008. Retrieved 16 March 2008.
  110. ^ Ogot 2005, p. 502: "There was no reason and no restraint on both sides, although Elkins sees no atrocities on the part of Mau Mau."
  111. See in particular David Elstein's angry letters:
  112. See Elstein's "Daniel Goldhagen and Kenya: recycling fantasy" Archived 15 December 2018 at the Wayback Machine and Anderson 2005, p. 294.
  113. Pirouet 1977, p. 197.
  114. ^ Clough 1998.
  115. Berman 1991, p. 197: "eveloping conflicts ... in Kikuyu society were expressed in a vigorous internal debate."
  116. Anderson 2005, pp. 11–12.
  117. ^ Branch 2009, p. xi.
  118. Berman 1991, p. 199.
  119. Branch 2009, p. 1.
  120. Branch 2009, p. 2.
  121. Pirouet 1977, p. 200.
  122. Kalyvas 2006.
  123. Edgerton 1989, pp. 31–32.
  124. ^ Nissimi 2006, p. 4.
  125. French 2011, p. 29.
  126. "Mau Mau case: UK government accepts abuse took place". BBC News. 17 July 2012. Archived from the original on 11 August 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  127. ^ French 2011, p. 72.
  128. ^ French 2011, p. 55.
  129. "Ciokaraine: The Story of the Female Meru Diviner". Google Arts & Culture. Archived from the original on 13 August 2020. Retrieved 8 August 2020.
  130. Wright, Thomas J. (4 July 2022). "'Constituencies of Control' – Collective Punishments in Kenya's Mau Mau Emergency, 1952–55". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 51 (2): 323–350. doi:10.1080/03086534.2022.2093475. S2CID 250321705.
  131. Elkins 2005, p. 75: "According to Emergency regulations, the governor could issue Native Land Rights Confiscation Orders, whereby 'ach of the persons named in the schedule ... participated or aided in violent resistance against the forces of law and order' and therefore had his land confiscated".
  132. ^ Wallis, Holly (18 April 2012). "British colonial files released following legal challenge". BBC News. Archived from the original on 14 June 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
  133. ^ Anderson 2005, p. 62.
  134. Elkins 2005, pp. 35–36.
  135. ^ Anderson 2005, p. 63.
  136. Anderson 2005, p. 68.
  137. Elkins 2005, p. 38.
  138. Anderson 2005, p. 69.
  139. Anderson 2005, pp. 62–63.
  140. Andrew 2009, pp. 456–457.
    See also: Walton 2013, pp. 236–286.
  141. Andrew 2009, p. 454. See also the relevant footnote, n.96 of p. 454.
  142. Elkins 2005, p. 39.
  143. ^ Berman 1991, p. 189.
  144. Elkins 2005, p. 37.
  145. Elkins 2005, pp. 37–38.
  146. ^ Clough 1998, p. 25.
  147. ^ French 2011, p. 116.
  148. Edgerton 1989, p. 83.
  149. "They Follow the Dug-Out General". Sunday Mail. Brisbane. 19 April 1953. p. 15. Retrieved 17 November 2013 – via National Library of Australia.
  150. "End May Be Near For The Mau Mau". The Sunday Herald. Sydney. 30 August 1953. p. 8. Archived from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 17 November 2013 – via National Library of Australia.
  151. "PSYOP of the Mau-Mau UprisingSGM" Archived 26 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.) 4 January 2006, accessed 9 November 2013
  152. "Mau Mau General Surrenders". The Sydney Morning Herald. 9 March 1954. p. 3. Archived from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 9 November 2013 – via National Library of Australia.
  153. French 2011, p. 32.
  154. French 2011, pp. 116–7.
  155. Cashner, Bob (2013). The FN FAL Battle Rifle. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-78096-903-9. Archived from the original on 9 April 2024. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  156. Elkins 2005, p. 124: "There was an unusual consensus in the ranks of both the military and Baring's civilian government that the colony's capital was the nerve center for Mau Mau operations. Nearly three-quarters of the city's African male population of sixty thousand were Kikuyu, and most of these men, along with some twenty thousand Kikuyu women and children accompanying them, were allegedly 'active or passive supporters of Mau Mau'."
  157. Henderson & Goodhart 1958, p. 14: "In the first months of the emergency the Mau Mau discipline was so strong that a terrorist in the forest who gave his money to a courier could be almost certain of getting what he wanted from any shop in Nairobi."
  158. Elkins 2005, p. 63.
  159. Elkins 2005, pp. 121–125.
  160. ^ Chappell 2011.
  161. Chappell 2011, p. 68.
  162. Edgerton 1989, p. 86: "Before the Emergency ended, the RAF dropped the amazing total of 50,000 tons of bombs on the forests and fired over 2 million rounds from machine guns during strafing runs. It is not known how many humans or animals were killed."
  163. Chappell 2011, p. 67.
  164. Smith, J. T. Mau Mau! A Case study in Colonial Air Power Air Enthusiast 64 July–August 1996 pp. 65–71
  165. Edgerton 1989, p. 86.
  166. Anderson 1988: "The Swynnerton Plan was among the most comprehensive of all the post-war colonial development programmes implemented in British Africa. Largely framed prior to the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1952, but not implemented until two years later, this development is central to the story of Kenya's decolonization".
  167. Elkins 2005, p. 127.
  168. Ogot 1995, p. 48.
  169. Anderson 1988.
  170. Elkins 2005, pp. 128–129.
  171. Elkins 2005, p. 125.
  172. Elkins 2005, pp. 62–90.
  173. Elkins 2005, p. 109.
  174. Elkins 2005, p. 108.
  175. Elkins 2005, p. 136.
  176. ^ Editorial (11 April 2011). "Mau Mau abuse case: Time to say sorry". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 30 September 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2011.
  177. ^ Elkins 2005, pp. 154–191.
  178. Peterson 2008, pp. 75–76, 89, 91: "Some detainees, worried that the substance of their lives was draining away, thought their primary duty lay with their families. They therefore confessed to British officers, and sought an early release from detention. Other detainees refused to accept the British demand that they sully other people's reputations by naming those whom they knew to be involved in Mau Mau. This 'hard core' kept their mouths closed, and languished for years in detention. The battle behind the wire was not fought over detainees' loyalty to a Mau Mau movement. Detainees' intellectual and moral concerns were always close to home. ... British officials thought that those who confessed had broken their allegiance to Mau Mau. But what moved detainees to confess was not their broken loyalty to Mau Mau, but their devotion to their families. British officials played on this devotion to hasten a confession. ... The battle behind the wire was not fought between patriotic hard-core Mau Mau and weak-kneed, wavering, broken men who confessed. ... Both hard core and soft core had their families in mind."
  179. ^ Elkins 2005, p. 178.
  180. ^ Editorial (13 April 2011). "Taking on the Boss: The quiet whistleblowers on events in Kenya deserve praise". The Times. Archived from the original on 4 October 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2011.
  181. ^ Elkins 2005, pp. 179–191.
  182. Elkins 2005, p. 148. It is debatable whether Peter Kenyatta was sympathetic to Mau Mau in the first place and therefore whether he truly switched sides.
  183. Mike Thompson (7 April 2011). "Mau Mau blame 'goes right to the top'". Today. BBC. 00:40–00:54. Archived from the original on 10 April 2011. Retrieved 12 May 2011.
  184. Elkins 2005, pp. 176–177.
  185. Elkins 2005, pp. 171–177.
  186. Elkins 2005, p. 144.
  187. Elkins 2005, Chapter 5: The Birth of Britain's Gulag.
  188. Curtis 2003, pp. 316–333.
  189. Ian Cobain; Peter Walker (11 April 2011). "Secret memo gave guidelines on abuse of Mau Mau in 1950s". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 12 April 2011. Retrieved 13 April 2011. Baring informed Lennox-Boyd that eight European officers were facing accusations of a series of murders, beatings and shootings. They included: "One District Officer, murder by beating up and roasting alive of one African." Despite receiving such clear briefings, Lennox-Boyd repeatedly denied that the abuses were happening, and publicly denounced those colonial officials who came forward to complain.
  190. Peterson 2008, p. 84.
  191. ^ Elkins 2005, p. 262.
  192. Elkins 2005, pp. 151–2.
  193. Elkins 2005, p. 227.
  194. Curtis 2003, p. 327.
  195. Elkins 2005, p. 153.
  196. Elkins 2005, pp. 240–241.
  197. French 2011, pp. 116–137.
  198. McCulloch 2006, p. 70.
  199. Elkins 2005, pp. 234–235. See also n.3 of p. 235.
  200. Elkins 2005, p. 235. Anderson 2005, p. 294, gives a slightly lower figure (1,007,500) for the number of individuals affected.
  201. Elkins 2005, p. 240.
  202. ^ Anderson 2005, p. 294.
  203. Nissimi 2006, pp. 9–10.
  204. Elkins 2005, p. 239.
  205. Elkins 2005, pp. 236–237.
  206. French 2011, p. 120.
  207. Elkins 2005, p. 238.
  208. Anderson 2005, p. 293.
  209. Elkins 2005, p. 252.
  210. Elkins 2005, pp. 259–260.
  211. ^ Elkins 2005, p. 260.
  212. Elkins 2005, p. 263.
  213. ^ Blacker 2007.
  214. Elkins 2005, pp. 260–261.
  215. Elkins 2005, p. 263: "It is accepted policy that cases of pulmonary tuberculosis ... be returned to their reserve to avail themselves of the routine medical control and treatment within their areas". (The quote is of the colony's director of medical services).
  216. Elkins 2005, pp. 263–4: "The financial situation has now worsened. ... Schemes of medical help, however desirable and however high their medical priority, could not in circumstances be approved". (The quote is of Baring).
  217. Elkins 2005a, p. .
  218. Weis, Julianne; Anderson, David M. "The prosecution of rape in wartime: Evidence from Kenya's Mau Mau rebellion, 1952-60". Academia.edu. Archived from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 4 May 2023.
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Bibliography

Further reading

  • Ali, Tariq (2022). Winston Churchill: his times, his crimes. London; New York: Verso. ISBN 978-1-78873-577-3.
  • Barnett, Donald; Njama, Karari (2021). Mau Mau from Within: The Story of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. Daraja Press, republishing original 1966 title. ISBN 978-1-988832-59-3.
  • Bennett, Huw (2012). Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-02970-5.
  • Berman, Bruce (1990). Control & Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination. Oxford: James Currey. ISBN 978-0-852-55069-4.
  • Berman, Bruce; Lonsdale, John (1992). Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa; Book One: State & Class. Oxford: James Currey. ISBN 978-0-852-55021-2.
  • Berman, Bruce; Lonsdale, John (1992). Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa; Book Two: Violence & Ethnicity. Oxford: James Currey. ISBN 978-0-852-55099-1.
  • Branch, Daniel (2006). "Loyalists, Mau Mau, and Elections in Kenya: The First Triumph of the System, 1957–1958". Africa Today. 53 (2): 27–50. doi:10.1353/at.2006.0069. JSTOR 4187771. S2CID 154783897.
  • Clough, Marshall S. (1990). Fighting Two Sides: Kenyan Chiefs and Politicians, 1918–1940. Niwot, CO: University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0-870-81207-1.
  • Corfield, Frank (1960). The Origins and Growth of Mau Mau: an Historical Survey ('The Corfield Report'). Nairobi: Government of Kenya. ISBN 978-0-521-13090-5.
  • Derrick, Jonathan (2008). Africa's "Agitators": Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918–1939. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-70056-6.
  • Elkins, Caroline (2022). Legacy of violence: a history of the British empire. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-27242-3.
  • Grogan, Ewart S.; Sharp, Arthur H. (1900). From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa from South to North. London: Hurst and Blackett. OL 14008812M.
  • Heinlein, Frank (2002). British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945–1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 978-0-7146-5220-7.
  • Hewitt, Peter (2008) . Kenya Cowboy: A Police Officer's Account of the Mau Mau Emergency. Johannesburg: 30° South Publishers. ISBN 978-1-920-14323-7.
  • Kyle, Keith (1999). The Politics of the Independence of Kenya. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-72008-0.
  • Lapping, Brian (1989). End of Empire (revised ed.). London: Paladin. ISBN 978-0-586-08870-8.
  • Lonsdale, John (1990). "Mau Maus of the Mind: Making Mau Mau and Remaking Kenya". The Journal of African History. 31 (3): 393–421. doi:10.1017/s0021853700031157. hdl:10539/9062. JSTOR 182877. S2CID 162867744.
  • Lovatt Smith, David (2005). Kenya, the Kikuyu and Mau Mau. Mawenzi Books. ISBN 978-0-954-47132-3.
  • Lyttelton, Oliver (1962). The Memoirs of Lord Chandos. London: Bodley Head.
  • Marsh, Zoe; Kingsnorth, G. W. (1972). A History of East Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-08348-5.
  • Murphy, Philip (1999) . Party Politics and Decolonization: The Conservative Party and British Colonial Policy in Tropical Africa, 1951–1964. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820505-0.
  • Murphy, Philip (1999). Alan Lennox-Boyd: A Biography. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-406-1.
  • Njagi, David (1991). The Last Mau Mau (Kenya's Freedom Heroes or Villains?). Nairobi: Property Magazine and Guide. OCLC 28563585.
  • Ogot, Bethwell Allan (2012). "Essence of ethnicity: an African perspective". In Hiroyuki Hino; John Lonsdale; Gustav Ranis & Frances Stewart (eds.). Ethnic Diversity and Economic Stability in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 91–126. ISBN 978-1-107-02599-8.
  • Parsons, Timothy (1999). African Rank-and-File: Social Implications of Colonial Military Service in the King's African Rifles, 1902–1964. Hanover, NH: Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-325-00140-1.
  • Percox, David (2011) . Britain, Kenya and the Cold War: Imperial Defence, Colonial Security and Decolonisation. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-966-1.
  • Sandgren, David (2012). Mau Mau's Children: The Making of Kenya's Postcolonial Elite. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-28784-9.
  • Thiong'o, Ngugi wa (2010) . "Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary". In Roy R. Grinker; Stephen C. Lubkemann & Christopher B. Steiner (eds.). Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History and Representation (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 462–470. ISBN 978-1-444-33522-4.
  • Throup, David (1987). Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau, 1945–53. Oxford: James Currey. ISBN 978-0-85255-024-3.

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