At first Mau Mau actions ran unchecked, as the Governor at the time, Sir Philip Mitchell, was only months from retirements, and he simply ignored the warning signs. The Mau Mau started out in June 1951 by capturing control of the formerly loyalist Nairobi Kenya African Union (KAU). From there they set up a secret Central Committee to organize their “oath campaign” throughout Nairobi, which was simply their way of recruiting people, as initiation into the Mau Mau required ritualistic oaths. The Central Committee quickly went to work in Nairobi, and soon had armed squads they used to enforce their policies, protect members, and kill enemies.
Next, the KCA sought to gain control of the entire KAU at a countrywide conference, but they were beat by Jomo Kenyatta. However, even with this setback, pressure from the KCA caused the KAU to adopt a pro-independence position for the first time ever.
After some time and success the Central Committee slowly began to extend its oath campaign outside of Nairobi, causing a few setbacks. The Central Committee’s stance of active resistance caused them to loose support throughout the White Highlands and the Kikuyu reserves. Also, they became even bolder in their acts of violence, killing people in broad daylight, and vandalizing the houses of Europeans, sometimes even setting fire to them. All of this together combined caused the KCA’s influence to steadily fall until it only had authority in the Kiambu District.
In June of 1952, Mitchell was replaced by Henry Potter as acting Governor. Almost immediately he was made aware of the Mau Mau problem, and for the first time, something was done to stop the Mau Mau. However, the actions taken against the Mau Mau were very little, and largely ineffective, hence, Potter was replaced by Sir Evelyn Baring in October of 1952, who, realizing the seriousness of the problem, declared a state of emergency.
The British acted immediately, arresting nearly 100 people on the same day the Emergency was declared in an operation called Jock Scott. The intent of this operation was to get rid of all of the rebel leadership, thus stopping the rebellion in its tracks, and over the course of 25 days around 8,000 people were arrested. This had the opposite affect unfortunately, and violence actually increased, with the first European killed two weeks after the state of Emergency was declared. This was because the British only managed to capture the political leadership of the Nairobi Central Committee, while the military leaders took refuge in the wilderness, and the military leaders encouraged local rebel committees to strike back.
Eventually, the Nairobi Central Committee repopulated its senior ranks and by January 1953, it had renamed itself the Council of Freedom, and decided to launch a full out war of liberation. In order to do this, they reorganized the rebel organizations into two wings: and active one and a passive one. The Passive Wing’s purpose was to supply weapons, ammunition, food, money, intelligence, and recruits. The Active Wing, also called the Land and Freedom Armies, was simply there to fight.
The Mau Mau were at a distinct disadvantage in terms of weapons, with the panga, a common agricultural tool, their most widely used weapon. They did have guns, but very few, with only 460 precision made firearms for the entire rebellion. This led to rebels trying to make their own guns, but most of them simply exploded when fired.
Also, The Mau Mau were extremely disorganized. They had no plan for national victory, no one trained in the art of guerrilla warfare, and no plan to get more modern weapons. Despite this, the small amount of British troops and a lot of popular support gave the Land and Freedom Armies a slight advantage in the first half of 1953. However, this soon ended, with the Mau Mau causing little damage, even with the upper hand because of their tactics.
The Land and Freedom Armies generally attacked by night, and usually only isolated farms, which did little to further their goal. Furthermore, they organized themselves into a cell structure, rather than working together, with bands of around 100 Mau Mau working independently. This meant that very little was accomplished, because the cells rarely coordinated and worked together. However, there were several exceptions to this, such as the attack on the loyalist village of Lari on March 25 to March 26, 1953 by nearly 1,000 rebels.
Finally, in April of 1954, the British began to realize the extent of the rebel organizations, and this spelled the beginning of the end for the Mau Mau. The British simply shut down Nairobi, and arrested over 17,000 Africans, effectively destroying the Passive Wing of the revolt. Once done in Nairobi, the authorities repeated the exercise in other areas, and by the end of 1954, 77,000 Kikuyu were in concentration camps.
Without the support of the Passive Wing, the Land and Freedom Armies began to fall, and in January of 1954 when the British began to comb the forests of the Aberdare Mountains for rebels, they met little resistance. The hunt for rebels, now even more deeply embedded in the forests, continued for several years until the Mau Mau were basically non-existent. The uprising finally ended in early 1956 with the capture of the last Mau Mau leader, Dedan Kimathi in October of 1956, although some Mau Mau remained in the forests until 1963.
Despite the fact that the British clearly won, crushing the rebellion, the Kikuyu still ended up having their demands granted. This was because the British had the choice between an unstable colony that was costing a fortune, and a stable colony run by Africans that contributed to the empire economically. Effectively, the British cut their losses and gave in.