Editing History of Kenya (section)

====Mau-Mau Uprising====

{{main|Mau Mau Uprising}}
{{See also|Dedan Kimathi|Forty Group}}
A key watershed came from 1952 to 1956, during the [[Mau Mau Uprising]], an armed local movement directed principally against the colonial government and the European settlers.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clough, Marshall S.|title=Mau Mau memoirs : history, memory, and politics|date=1998|publisher=Lynne Rienner|isbn=1-55587-537-8|oclc=605625460}}</ref> It was the largest and most successful such movement in British Africa. Members of the [[Forty Group|forty group]], [[World War II]](WW2) veterans, including [[Stanley Mathenge]], [[Bildad Kaggia]] and [[Fred Kubai]] became core leaders in the rebellion. Their experiences during the WW2 awakened their political consciousness, giving them determination and confidence to change the system. Key leaders of KAU known as the [[Kapenguria Six|Kapenguria six]] were arrested on the 21st of October. They include [[Jomo Kenyatta]], [[Paul Ngei]], [[Kungu Karumba]], [[Bildad Kaggia]], [[Fred Kubai]] and [[Achieng Oneko]]. Kenyatta denied he was a leader of the Mau Mau but was convicted at trial and was sent to prison in 1953, gaining his freedom in 1961.

An intense propaganda campaign by the colonial government effectively discouraged other Kenyan communities, settlers and the international community from sympathising with the movement by emphasising on real and perceived acts of barbarism perpetrated by the Mau Mau. Although a much smaller number of Europeans died compared to Africans during the uprising, each individual European loss of life was publicised in disturbing detail, emphasising elements of betrayal and bestiality.<ref name=Kyle/> As a result, the protest was supported almost exclusively by the Kikuyu, despite issues of land rights and anti-European, anti-Western appeals designed to attract other groups. The Mau Mau movement was also a bitter internal struggle among the Kikuyu. [[Harry Thuku]] said in 1952, "To-day we, the Kikuyu, stand ashamed and looked upon as hopeless people in the eyes of other races and before the Government. Why? Because of the crimes perpetrated by Mau Mau and because the Kikuyu have made themselves Mau Mau." That said, other Kenyans directly or indirectly supported the movement. Notably, [[Pio Gama Pinto]], a Kenyan of Goan descent, facilitated the provision of firearms to forest fighters. He was arrested in 1954 and detained until 1959.<ref name=Kyle/> Another notable example was the pioneering lawyer [[Argwings Kodhek]], the first East African to obtain a law degree. He became known as the Mau Mau lawyer as he would successfully defend Africans accused of Mau Mau crimes pro bono.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://globaleastafrica.org/global-lives/argwings-kodhek-1923-69|title=Argwings Kodhek (1923-69) &#124; Another World? East Africa and the Global 1960s|access-date=5 November 2020|archive-date=31 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031161414/https://www.globaleastafrica.org/global-lives/argwings-kodhek-1923-69|url-status=live}}</ref> 12,000 militants were killed during the suppression of the rebellion, and the British colonial authorities also implemented policies involving the incarceration of over 150,000 suspected Mau Mau members and sympathizers (mostly from the Kikuyu people) into [[Internment|concentration camps]].<ref>{{Cite journal|vauthors=Blacker J|date=2007|title=The demography of Mau Mau: Fertility and mortality in Kenya in the 1950s: A demographer's viewpoint|journal=[[African Affairs|Afr. Aff.]]|volume=106|issue=425|pages=751|doi=10.1093/afraf/adm066|doi-access=free}} According to John Blacker, demographers have refuted the often repeated allegation that 300,000 Kikuyu died in the uprising. The number was exaggerated by a factor of 10.</ref> In these camps, the colonial authorities also used various forms of [[torture]] to attempt information from the detainees.<ref>{{cite news| url = https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-16/churchill-was-more-villain-than-hero-in-britain-s-colonies| title = Churchill Was More Villain Than Hero in Britain's Colonies - Bloomberg| website = [[Bloomberg News]]| date = 16 February 2019| access-date = 3 May 2019| archive-date = 2 May 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190502083923/https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-16/churchill-was-more-villain-than-hero-in-britain-s-colonies| url-status = live}}</ref> In 2011, after decades of waiting, thousands of secret documents from the British Foreign Office were declassified. They show that the Mau Mau rebels were systematically tortured and subjected to the most brutal practices, men were castrated and sand introduced into their anus, women were raped after introducing boiling water into their vaginas. The Foreign Office archives also reveal that this was not the initiative of soldiers or colonial administrators but a policy orchestrated from London.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/africa-travel/south-africa/new-documents-show-how-britain-sanctioned-mau-mau-torture-rcjwwhjhwb2 | title=New documents show how Britain sanctioned Mau Mau torture | access-date=17 July 2022 | archive-date=2 November 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221102074320/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-documents-show-how-britain-sanctioned-mau-mau-torture-rcjwwhjhwb2 | url-status=live }}</ref>

The Mau Mau uprising set in play a series of events that expedited the road to Kenya's Independence. A Royal Commission on Land and Population condemned the reservation of land on a racial basis. To support its military campaign of counter-insurgency the colonial government embarked on agrarian reforms that stripped white settlers of many of their former protections; for example, Africans were for the first time allowed to grow coffee, the major cash crop. Thuku was one of the first Kikuyu to win a coffee licence, and in 1959 he became the first African board member of the Kenya Planters Coffee Union. The East African Salaries Commission put forth a recommendation – 'equal pay for equal work' – that was immediately accepted. Racist policies in public places and hotels were eased. [[John David Drummond, 17th Earl of Perth]] and [[Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies|Minister of State for Colonial affairs]] stated: "The effort required to suppress Mau Mau destroyed any settlers illusions that they could go it alone; the British Government was not prepared for the shedding of [more] blood in order to preserve colonial rule."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria|last=Klose|first=Fabian|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|year=2013|isbn=9780812244953|translator-last=Geyer|translator-first=Dona|jstor=j.ctt3fhw4p|name-list-style=vanc|chapter=The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|vauthors=Cooper F|date=2014|title=Fabian Klose. Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence: The Wars of Independence in Kenya and Algeria.|journal=[[The American Historical Review|Am. Hist. Rev.]]|volume=119|issue=2|pages=650–651|doi=10.1093/ahr/119.2.650}}</ref><ref name=Kyle/>