Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963. Tabitha Kanogo
A direct product of the 1937 RNLO, the Olenguruone scheme accommodated some of the squatters evicted under the provisions of the Ordinance. Olenguruone became a hotbed of Kikuyu squatter opposition to government measures and a rallying point for Kikuyu political mobilisation. Chapter Four tries to evaluate the significance of Olenguruone amidst growing squatter agitation and dissent. It was at Olenguruone that the use of the oath as a tool for massive mobilisation was initiated as squatters and Olenguruone residents accelerated their struggle against ‘the slavery of the White Highlands’. This laid the foundations for the Mau Mau rebellion.
It is a firm conviction of this study that Kikuyu squatters played a crucial role in the initial build-up of the events that led to the outbreak of the Mau Mau war. Pushed to the wall, squatters became easy targets for political mobilisation and by 1950 most Kikuyu squatters in Nakuru District had taken both the Olenguruone oath of unity and the Kikuyu Central Association oath of loyalty. Both oaths demanded a commitment to opposing the government. On settler farms and estates, acts of sabotage, including maiming settler stock, intimidation and killing squatters opposed to anti-settler and anti-government activities, were on the increase prior to the declaration of the state of emergency. Chapter Five, which explains the socio-economic basis of Mau Mau amongst the squatters, argues that there was a strong correlation between a squatter’s socio-economic status (within the farm labour hierarchy) and his or her response to the Mau Mau movement. It also reveals the expansionist aspect of the struggle in that squatter freedom fighters had anticipated appropriating the White Highlands from the European settlers. The squatters were not, however, the only people with a claim to the area, but their prowess, as evidenced in the struggle for the White Highlands, can partly be explained by their custodial attitude towards other groups with a stake in the region.
In the final chapter, a bird’s-eye view of the decolonisation process provides the context in which the squatters experienced their ultimate disinheritance. The terms of the independence settlement were decided at the Lancaster House talks,12 where it was agreed that land in the White Highlands would be released on a ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ basis. The question of a free distribution of land was covered by the talks only in so far as it could be used as a stop-gap measure to forestall the illegal occupation of settler land. Post Mau Mau political mobilisation among the squatters under the Kenya Land Freedom Army (KLFA) is of special interest because, although decolonisation was orchestrated in London away from the forest battlegrounds, KLFA members were committed to resuming the armed struggle should decolonisation fail to give them free land. Although some may view their stand as evidence of political naivety, it does at least indicate the determination of these people to attain the means with which to acquire a decent livelihood. Their sense of betrayal is well documented by the former freedom fighters.
By and large, this book is about squatters and labour. Oral data collected from former squatters were used extensively in reconstructing the history of the period and were particularly useful in revealing the aspirations, expectations, attitudes, motives and responses of squatters under settler domination. Such insights are obviously lacking in official documents, but these were nevertheless invaluable for establishing government and settler positions on various issues. They were also useful for substantiating some of the squatters’ own accounts and provided sources of quantitative data, which is impossible to retrieve with any precision from oral interviews. Although it was difficult to locate people who had been among the pioneer squatters, once they were located these informants proved invaluable in describing early squatter-settler relations. Former squatters who moved to the White Highlands during and after the First World War were easier to locate and interview. Together, these informants were crucial in the writing of this book – a study of squatter experiences as recounted by the squatters themselves.
Notes
1. KNA, PC RVP 6A/16/4, Minutes of the meeting in the Ministry of Local Government, Health and Housing on 16 November 1955, between Representatives of the Government and Representatives of the Nakuru County Council.
2. For the nature and extent of land alienation see Sorrenson, M.P.K., The Origins of European Settlement in Kenya, London, OUP, 1968.
3. See, for example, Mwangi-Wa-Githumo, Land and Nationalism: The Impact of Land Appropriation and Land Grievances upon the Rise and Development of Nationalist Movements in Kenya, 1885–1939, Washington, D.C., University Press of America, 1981.
4. In general, the establishment of colonial rule in Africa necessitated the generation of labour both for the administration of the colony and for the maintenance of the economy therein. See Sandbrook, R. and Cohen, R. (eds), The Development of an African Working Class, London, Longman, 1975, p. 15. See also Mosley, P., The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia 1900–1963, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
5. Clayton, A. and Savage, D. C., Government and Labour in Kenya, 1895–1963, London, Frank Cass, 1974, give a full account of the evolution of various categories of labour in the colony. Also, see especially Van Zwanenberg, R. M. A., Colonial Capitalism and Labour in Kenya, 1919–1939, Nairobi, East African Literature Bureau, 1975.
6. Interview, James Mumbu Muya, alias Kinuthia Muya, 14 October 1976, Elburgon.
7. Interview, Arphaxad Kiiru Kuria, 21 September 1976, Elburgon. The abundance of land was constantly mentioned by informants as having been a major determinant of squatter movement to the White Highlands.
8. For the majority of settlers, capital was scarce and farming in the White Highlands difficult. See, for example, Simpson, A., The Land that Never Was, London, Selwyn and Blout, 1937; and Whittaker, E. Dimbilil: The Story of a Kenya Farm, London, Morrison and Gibb, 1956, for an insight into the daily struggles the settlers faced.
9. Ghai, Y.P. and McAuslan, J.P.W.B., Public Law and Political Change in Kenya, Nairobi, OUP, 1971, pp. 83–4. From a previous average of 90 days per year, the squatter was required to do at least 180 days’ work per year after the enactment of the 1918 RNLO.
10. ibid., pp. 95–6.
11. See Rosberg, C. and Nottingham, J., The Myth of Mau Mau: Nationalism in Kenya, Nairobi, EAPH, 1966, pp. 248–59.
12. Among other works, Wasserman, G., The Politics of Decolonization: Kenya Europeans and their Land Use, 1960–1965, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976 analyses how decolonisation was organised so as to give the upper hand in the deliberations to the settlers and colonial government.
One
The Genesis of the Squatter Community, 1905–18
By the end of the First World War, the squatter system had become an established part of the socio-economic structure of European farms and plantations in Kenya, with Kikuyu squatters comprising the majority of agricultural workers on settler plantations.1 This study shows how, contrary to settler and colonial government intentions, the squatter phenomenon was created as a response to the difficulties of settlers in securing labour power and of Africans in gaining access to arable and grazing land.
To some extent, the squatters did meet the settlers’ labour needs, but on terms other than those preferred by the settlers. The squatters, trying to cope as best they could with pressures from their own society, which were intensified by land alienation and labour extraction by the chiefs, exploited the weaknesses and dependence of the settler economy to turn themselves precisely into the kind of independent community the settlers and government feared. The squatter and settler communities thus created two incompatible systems. This dichotomy reached successive crises during the kifagio period (when the squatters lost their livestock) and in the Mau Mau rebellion.
The development and success of the European settler plantation agriculture as the basis of Kenya’s economy depended heavily on the availability of land, labour and capital. In a series of excisions, the government alienated about 7 million acres of