Editing Mau Mau rebellion (section)

==Background==
{{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.{{sfn|Curtis|2003|p=320}}
 |source = —Deputy Governor to Secretary of State<br />for the Colonies, 19 March 1945
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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 [colonial] 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 [[Protectorate#Colonial protection|protectorate]].<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 [[Coast Province|Coastal areas]] 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]]. In 1894, British MP [[Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet|Sir Charles Dilke]] had observed in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|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).<ref name="Ellis 1986 p100">{{Harvnb|Ellis|1986|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=R_IBgm_G8zcC&pg=PA100 100]}}.<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= [[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]] |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 [[Imperial British East Africa Company]] and after whom [[Murang'a|Fort Hall]] was named, asserted: "There is only one way to improve the Wakikuyu [and] 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}} [[Richard Meinertzhagen]] wrote of how, on occasion, they massacred Kikuyu by the hundreds.</ref>

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;<ref name="Alam 2007 p2">{{Harvnb|Alam|2007|p=2}}.</ref> the [[Giriama people|Giriama]] Uprising led by [[Mekatilili Wa Menza|Mekatilili wa Menza]] of 1913–1914;<ref name="Brantley 1981">{{Harvnb|Brantley|1981}}.</ref> the women's revolt against [[forced labour]] in [[Murang'a County|Murang'a]] in 1947;<ref name="Atieno-Odhiambo 1995 p25">{{Harvnb|Atieno-Odhiambo|1995|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=AmFVjigwkxwC&pg=PA25 25]}}.</ref> and the Kolloa Affray of 1950.<ref name="Ogot 2003 15">{{Harvnb|Ogot|2003|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=mbKOXGsytcIC&pg=PA15 15]}}.</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 [[Basuto Gun War]] of 1880–1881, whose ultimate legacy remains tangible even today, in the form of [[Lesotho]].</ref> 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 [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|H.&nbsp;of&nbsp;C.]] gets hold of it, all our plans in [[East Africa Protectorate|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."<ref name="Maxon 1989 44">{{Harvnb|Maxon|1989|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZtcJl7I_5vsC&pg=PA44 44]}}.</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;}}
[[Settler society|Settler societies]] during the colonial period could own a disproportionate share of land.<ref name="Mosley 1983 5">{{Harvnb|Mosley|1983|p=[http://assets.cambridge.org/97805211/02452/excerpt/9780521102452_excerpt.pdf 5]}}.</ref> The first settlers arrived in 1902 as part of [[Charles Eliot (diplomat)|Governor Charles Eliot]]'s plan to have a settler economy pay for the [[Uganda Railway]].{{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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=_go9AGqld1AC&pg=PA8 8]}}.</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 [[wage labour]]ers.

Until the mid-1930s, the two primary complaints were low native Kenyan wages and the requirement to carry an identity document, the ''[[kipande]]''.{{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 [[agrarian reform]] came in the early 1930s when they set up the Carter Land Commission.<ref name="Carter 1934">{{Harvnb|Carter|1934}}.</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 [[expropriation]]s, the government seized about {{convert|7000000|acre|km2 sqmi}} of land, most of it in the fertile hilly regions of [[Central Province (Kenya)|Central]] and [[Rift Valley Province]]s, later known as the [[White Highlands]] 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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aFLdEiAdhesC&pg=123 123]}}.</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 [[Giriama people|Giriama tribe]] [from the coastal regions] 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>

The Kikuyu, who lived in the [[Kiambu County|Kiambu]], [[Nyeri County|Nyeri]] and [[Muranga County|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;<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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=_go9AGqld1AC&pg=PA9 9]}}.</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 [[Masai people|Masai]] and [[Nandi people]] were the biggest losers of land.<ref name="Welch 1980 p16">{{Harvnb|Emerson Welch|1980|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XSngDaqpkoYC&dq=%22heaviest+losers%22%22masai+and+nandi%22&pg=PA16 16]}}.</ref>

The colonial government and white farmers also wanted cheap labour<ref name="Anderson 2004 p498">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vD-ZqX4pbbYC&pg=PA498 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. ... [C]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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=aFLdEiAdhesC&pg=117 117]}}: "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 [[cash crop]]s;<ref name="Kanogo 1993 9"/> the [[Master and Servant Act|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="Kanogo 1993 9"/><ref name="Anderson 2004 p506">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vD-ZqX4pbbYC&pg=PA506 506]}}.</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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=_go9AGqld1AC&pg=PA13 13]}}.</ref><ref name="Anderson 2004 p505">{{Harvnb|Anderson|2004|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vD-ZqX4pbbYC&pg=PA505 505]}}.</ref>

=== Native labourer categories ===
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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=_go9AGqld1AC&pg=PA10 10]}}.</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 [[Kipande system|settler plantations]].<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 [[Member of parliament|MPs]]<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= [[Hansard|Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)]] |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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vD-ZqX4pbbYC&pg=PA508 508]}}.</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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=_go9AGqld1AC&pg=PA183 96–97]}}.</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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vD-ZqX4pbbYC&pg=PA507 507]}}.</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 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>

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. ... [T]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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-pzxavse89gC&pg=PA23 23]}}.</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=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vD-ZqX4pbbYC&pg=PA516 516–528]}}.</ref>

{{Quote box
 |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
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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.<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.