A Bloody Revolt: The Kikuyu Reaction to Colonization

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Anderson

A Bloody Revolt: The Kikuyu Reaction to Colonization

        In 1895, the British made their way through Africa in an attempt to find and control the source of the Nile. In order to do this, they marched through Kenya all the way to Uganda. Along the way, the British came along, and colonized, the Kikuyu, a fairly prosperous African tribe that lived in the central highlands of Kenya. The British transformed the Kikuyu society and way of life, imposing, rather than introducing, western ideas and technology onto them. The result of this was a bloody and prolonged revolt, from which no one benefitted.

        By 1948, the British had restricted some 1.25 million Kikuyu to 2000 square miles of land, while around 30,000 white settlers occupied 12,000 square miles of land formerly inhabited by the Kikuyu, with the most desirable agricultural land in the hands of the settlers. However, the injustices did not end here: because the Kikuyu did not have enough land, many of them were forced to become tenant farmers, and farm patches of land that they had once called home, but now belonged to the European colonizers. Eventually, the setters demanded more and more days from the Kikuyu, while steadily decreasing their income. All of this led to a bitter hatred of the Europeans by the Kikuyu, and ultimately, a revolt.

        The revolt started off small, with simple civil disobedience. Organized by the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), this first form of protest was largely ineffective, and only encouraged speculation on the strange ritual oaths of the KCA, which were traditional among the Kikuyu, and bound the members together, often involving animal sacrifice or the ingestion of blood. Next, the Kenya African Union presented a list of demands to the British Colonial Secretary, demanding the removal of discriminatory legislation to the inclusion of 12 elected black representatives on the Legislative Council. After being completely ignored and contradicted, the Kikuyu lost all hopes that there was a peaceful solution to their problems, and turned to violence.

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        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 ...

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