Mau-mau

2 Pages 427 Words

The Mau-Mau Rebellion (1952 to 1959)

Mau Mau rebellion certainly reveals aspects of the history of British imperialism in Africa previously hidden from view.
Some historians describe the participants in the uprising as a "gang of freedom fighters called ‘Mau Mau', who vowed to free Kenya from colonialism at any cost....To the British, the uprising was such an outrageous attack on colonialism, that it justified any response, and that response when it came, would be brutal and shocking."
Kenya before the uprising, was full of Europeans living a life of idle luxury based on African land and labour. But in the post-Second World War era, resentment against colonial rule increased and one by one, African countries demanded self-rule.
John Maina Kahihu from the Mau Mau's political wing said, "In 1942 we had fought for the British. But when we came home from the war they gave us nothing."
The fiercest opposition to the colonial authorities came from the Kikuyu tribe who, 50 years earlier, had been evicted from their traditional areas to make way for the European farmers. By the end of the Second World War, 3,000 European settlers owned 43,000 square kilometres of the most fertile land, only 6 percent of which they cultivated.
The African population of 5.25 million occupied, without ownership rights, less than 135,000 square kilometres of the poorest land. On the "native reserves" much of the land was unsuitable for agriculture. The poor peasants had been forced to abandon their traditional methods of extensive agriculture and did not have access to the new technology that would make intensive agriculture viable. The population could not feed itself and the peasants were desperate.
This brought about the formation of a secret society amongst the Kikuyu, Kenya's largest tribe, one-fifth of the population. It was called the Land Freedom Army (LFA). It was forcing Kikuyu to swear an oath to take back the land the white man had stolen...