Mau Mau rebellion
The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities.[7] Dominated by Kikuyu, Meru and Embu fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba[8] and Maasai who fought against the European colonists in Kenya, the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment (British colonists, local auxiliary militia, and pro-British Kikuyu).[9][b]
This article is about the conflict in Kenya. For other uses, see Mau Mau (disambiguation).
The capture of rebel leader Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi on 21 October 1956 signalled the defeat of the Mau Mau, and essentially ended the British military campaign.[10] However, the rebellion survived until after Kenya's independence from Britain, driven mainly by the Meru units led by Field Marshal Musa Mwariama. General Baimungi, one of the last Mau Mau leaders, was killed shortly after Kenya attained self-rule.[11]
The KLFA failed to capture widespread public support.[12] Frank Füredi, in The Mau Mau War in Perspective, suggests this was due to a British divide and rule strategy,[13] which they had developed in suppressing the Malayan Emergency (1948–60).[14] The Mau Mau movement remained internally divided, despite attempts to unify the factions. On the colonial side, the uprising created a rift between the European colonial community in Kenya and the metropole,[15] as well as violent divisions within the Kikuyu community:[6] "Much of the struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau."[16] Suppressing the Mau Mau Uprising in the Kenyan colony cost Britain £55 million[17] and caused at least 11,000 deaths among the Mau Mau and other forces, with some estimates considerably higher.[18] This included 1,090 executions by hanging.[18]
Deaths[edit]
The number of deaths attributable to the Emergency is disputed. David Anderson estimates 25,000[18] people died; British demographer John Blacker's estimate is 50,000 deaths—half of them children aged ten or below.
He attributes this death toll mostly to increased malnutrition, starvation and disease from wartime conditions.[210]
Caroline Elkins says "tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands" died.[219] Elkins' numbers have been challenged by Blacker, who demonstrated in detail that her numbers were overestimated, explaining that Elkins' figure of 300,000 deaths "implies that perhaps half of the adult male population would have been wiped out—yet the censuses of 1962 and 1969 show no evidence of this—the age-sex pyramids for the Kikuyu districts do not even show indentations."[210]
His study dealt directly with Elkins' claim that "somewhere between 130,000 and 300,000 Kikuyu are unaccounted for" at the 1962 census,[220] and was read by both David Anderson and John Lonsdale prior to publication.[5] David Elstein has noted that leading authorities on Africa have taken issue with parts of Elkins' study, in particular her mortality figures: "The senior British historian of Kenya, John Lonsdale, whom Elkins thanks profusely in her book as 'the most gifted scholar I know', warned her to place no reliance on anecdotal sources, and regards her statistical analysis—for which she cites him as one of three advisors—as 'frankly incredible'."[5]
The British possibly killed more than 20,000 Mau Mau militants,[6] but in some ways more notable is the smaller number of Mau Mau suspects dealt with by capital punishment: by the end of the Emergency, the total was 1,090. At no other time or place in the British Empire was capital punishment dispensed so aggressively—the total is more than double the number executed by the French in Algeria.[221]
Wangari Maathai suggests that more than one hundred thousand Africans, mostly Kikuyus, may have died in the concentration camps and emergency villages.[222]
Officially 1,819 Native Kenyans were killed by the Mau Mau. David Anderson believes this to be an undercount and cites a higher figure of 5,000 killed by the Mau Mau.[5][223]