Imperial Reckoning

by Caroline Elkins

  Further inflaming settler hatred was Pritt’s utter contempt for the colony’s color bar. He surrounded himself with a multiracial defense team that included a Nigerian lawyer named H. O. Davies; Chaman Lall—a member of the Indian Parliament and close friend of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; and three Kenya residents: Fitz de Souza, Achhroo Kapila, and Jaswant Singh. Throughout the trial this team would daily travel back and forth between Kapenguria and the settler bastion of Kitale, along bad roads that were hardly passable due to the choking dust. In Kitale the mixed-race defense team could neither eat together nor stay in the same hotel, making their legal work extraordinarily difficult. Everyone except Pritt, who stayed in the modest Kitale Hotel, found lodging with local Africans, all of whom were subjected to repeated police raids. Making the situation all the more frustrating was the local district commissioner’s decision to limit the defense team’s contact with their clients to ten minutes before and after court, invoking Kapenguria’s status as a restricted area. Eventually, Pritt successfully contested this mockery, but in no time the atmosphere that enveloped Kapenguria, Kitale, and the thirty-mile stretch between was one of intrigue, fear, and hostility.

  When the trial began on December 3, 1952, the scene outside the makeshift courthouse was as comic as it was menacing. Having deprived the defendants of their rights, shackled and imprisoned them, removed them to Kenya’s wilderness, and rigged their trial, the government also felt compelled to make a dramatic show of force. Planes circled overhead, and yellow armored cars were positioned threateningly around the makeshift courthouse, which had been ringed with barbed wire and gun-wielding troops, cached behind mountains of sandbags. Inside, press coverage was intense as Deputy Public Prosecutor Anthony Somerhough opened the case for the Crown. “May it please Your Honour,” he began. “The charge is that of managing an unlawful society.” He went on to spell out the government’s case, arguing that

  the Crown cannot bind themselves to any particular place in the Colony where this society was managed. The Society is Mau Mau. It is a Society which has no records. It appears to have no official list of members. It does not carry banners. Some details of its meeting and its rites, the instruments of which are got from the local bush, will be heard later in the proceedings. Arches of banana leaves, the African fruit known as the Apple of Sodom, eyes of sheep, blood and earth—these are all gathered when ceremonies take place.24

  After his introduction, which went on to accuse the defendants of misguiding the entire Kikuyu population through bestial rituals, and commanding them to drive out or kill Kenya’s settler population, Somerhough confidently called his first witness. Rawson Macharia took the stand and testified to the fact that he had been present when Kenyatta had administered the Mau Mau oath to several people in Kiambu. That Macharia conceded that these oath ceremonies took place before the government had even proscribed Mau Mau mattered little to Judge Thacker. When Pritt protested, Thacker nevertheless accepted the testimony on the grounds that if Kenyatta had been administering the oath before the proscription, he must have been engaging in similar illegal oath giving after the ban on Mau Mau. It was Macharia’s testimony, the key evidence the judge had for supporting his graft-inspired verdict, that would prove critical in Thacker’s ultimate finding. It was hardly a surprise that after his testimony, Macharia took the next flight out for London, where he took up a two-year residence for studies at a local university—all at the expense of the British government.25

  “I would submit that it is the most childishly weak case made against any man in any important trial in the history of the British Empire,” Pritt argued after the prosecution rested its case.26 Thacker, though, refused to dismiss the charges, gave Pritt a week to pull his defense together, and then went on to spend the recess at the Kitale Club—the area’s one exclusive settler club. The judge had set up quarters there for the entire duration of the trial, spending the evenings and weekends socializing with the local settlers—most of whom would make a day of the courtroom proceedings, bringing picnic lunches served to them by white-gloved African houseboys.

  It was on the first night of this adjournment—January 24, 1953—that the most sensational European murder at the hands of Mau Mau took place. On a farm not far from where Eric Bowker had been murdered, the Ruck family—Roger, Esme, and their small boy—were hacked to death by their trusted servants, one of whom had tenderly carried home the child, six-year-old Michael, after he fell from his pony, just days prior to the attack. The contradiction between the formerly kind and devoted servants and their now savage behavior electrified the settler community. Making matters worse, newspapers in Kenya and abroad published graphic murder details and postmortem photos, including images of young Michael with bloodied teddy bears and trains strewn on his bedroom floor.

  The next day over fifteen hundred settlers marched on Government House in Nairobi, demanding summary justice and the elimination of the Mau Mau movement by any means necessary. Michael Blundell, a leading settler politician and member of the Kenya Legislative Council, intervened and managed to disperse the crowd, though not before the mob sang one last round of “God Save the Queen.” Blundell, who would soon become one of the most influential settlers in Baring’s government, recalled many years later that the European protesters were “very right wing, a very right wing reactionary, incandescent group.” One settler in particular declared, “Michael, you’ll never cure this problem, you’ll never cure it. You put the troops into the [Kikuyu] villages and you shoot 50,000 of them, men, women and children.”27 This sentiment was becoming all too prevalent within the settler community. The Europeans in Kenya now moved about with guns at the ready. Husbands trained their wives in marksmanship, boarded up their windows, and formed large vigilante groups that claimed to represent the collective will of the settler community. Parents kept children home from school and indoors most hours of the day. No one was thought safe from the Mau Mau threat. Local Europeans chastised the colonial government, and Baring in particular, for being too hesitant in eliminating Mau Mau. Many called for a wholesale extermination of the Kikuyu population.28

  Postmortem photo of Michael Ruck after being hacked to death by Mau Mau insurgents

  Baring refused to meet with any of the settler protesters, which only confirmed their opinion that the governor was aloof and ineffective. But a few days after the murder he completely revamped the organization of Kenya’s security forces, removing them from the police department and reassigning control to the British military. Baring needed to organize a more effective show of force, and Major General W. R. N. Hinde, better known as “Loony” Hinde, flew in to take charge. At first, Hinde and other members of the security forces scoffed at the Kikuyu and their ragtag militia, but the Mau Mau insurgents quickly exposed Britain’s inadequacies in fighting a nonconventional war. Mau Mau became one of the first armed struggles of the twentieth century where superior Western firepower was no match, at least initially, for local knowledge of difficult forest terrain, or for the insurgents’ use of hit-and-run tactics. Because it underestimated the strength and shrewdness of Mau Mau, the colonial government withheld from Hinde the authority and the manpower he needed to seize the initiative and restore local law and order. The security forces were a splintered group partly composed of British military personnel, over whom Hinde had command. But there was also the Kenya Regiment, a volunteer militia of several thousand settlers; the Kenya police force, also with thousands of settlers in its ranks; the Kikuyu loyalists, who would soon begin to fight actively on the side of the colonial government as part of the Home Guard; and the King’s African Rifles, a standing force of African men from Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda, and their European officers, who were deployed en masse to Kikuyuland at the start of the Emergency. Hinde had little control over these units, which instead remained largely under the authority of either Baring or one of his ministers. He found himself in the unenviable position of having to manage an uncoordinated offensive against Mau Mau. All the whi
le, the settlers were demanding more decisive and draconian action, while the various elements responsible for suppressing Mau Mau—the army, the police, the local militias, and the Administration—generally refused to cooperate, let alone work as a single unit.

  When the trial resumed, the Rucks’ shadow hung over the Kapenguria courtroom. The settlers demanded retribution, and the virtually uncontrollable lynch mob had its eyes set on Kenyatta, who had become more than ever the universal scapegoat. During the adjournment numerous articles had flooded into the press in Kenya and in Britain—many of which shared an earlier condemnation of Kenyatta in the Daily Telegraph as “A Small-Scale African Hitler.”29 By the time Kenyatta took the stand his conviction was a mere formality. In his closing argument Pritt surgically disposed of the prosecution’s case and argued powerfully for the legitimacy of African nationalism. If his clients were to have no chance, then at least the QC would publicize their cause. After closing arguments, Judge Thacker continued to make a show of things, adjourning for a month to mull over his findings before delivering his verdict.

  While the colony awaited that verdict, two decisive Mau Mau strikes on March 26 shook Kenya, finally dashing any hopes for a brief, nonshooting war. The first raid took place on Naivasha Police Station in the Rift Valley. There, nearly eighty Mau Mau guerrillas executed a well-planned swoop. They broke into the armory, stole a large supply of firearms and ammunition, and released close to two hundred Mau Mau prisoners before making their escape.30 The British security forces had suffered deep embarrassment, and the Mau Mau were finally recognized by the British military command as a legitimate fighting organization. The second Mau Mau strike took place only a few hours later at Lari, a few miles outside of Nairobi, where a long-standing dispute over land came to a grisly end. After weeks of threats, Mau Mau attacked the homesteads of Chief Luka—a loyalist and beneficiary of a vast land concession from the colonial government—his eight wives, and their followers. The Mau Mau insurgents burned the loyalists in their huts and hacked to death those who tried to escape the fires. They mutilated men and women, old and young alike. In total, ninety-seven Lari residents died, scores of others suffered serious disfigurements, and some two hundred huts were burned and several hundred head of cattle destroyed. With the homesteads still smoldering and the bodies yet to be removed, the colonial government shepherded the press into the area to witness and record the carnage. Official press releases were handed out that described in gruesome detail the carnage resulting from the attack, which the colonial government called the Lari massacre. These releases, though, failed to mention that as many as four hundred Mau Mau were killed by security forces—British and African soldiers, local police officers, and loyalists—during a vengeful reprisal.

  By the time Kenyatta’s judgment was rendered on April 8, the settlers were in a frenzy and the Emergency appeared out of control. When Thacker handed down his guilty verdict against Kenyatta and the other five defendants, it seemed to provide some measure of psychological relief to the local Europeans. Before passing sentence, the judge gave the alleged Mau Mau mastermind one last opportunity to speak. At the time, it seemed it would be his last opportunity to address the public. Kenyatta spoke of the “discriminations in the government of this country” and denied his involvement in directing Mau Mau. “Our activities have been against the injustices suffered by the African people,” Kenyatta implored, “and if in trying to establish the rights of the African people we have turned out to be what you say, Mau Mau, we are very sorry that you have been misled in that direction. What we have done, and what we shall continue to do, is to demand the rights of the African people as human beings that they may enjoy the facilities and privileges in the same way as other people.”31

  It was then Thacker’s turn. Looking down upon the defendants—but focusing solely on Kenyatta—he dismissed the evidence presented by ten exonerating witnesses, and delivered his sentence.

  You, Jomo Kenyatta, stand convicted of managing Mau Mau and being a member of that society. You have protested that your object has always been to pursue constitutional methods on the way to self-government for the African people, and forthe return of land which you say belongs to the African people. I do not believe you. It is my belief that soon after your long stay in Europe and when you came back to this Colony you commenced to organize this Mau Mau society, the object of which was to drive out from Kenya all Europeans, and in doing so to kill them if necessary. I am satisfied that the mastermind behind this plan was yours…. Your Mau Mau society has slaughtered without mercy defenseless Kikuyu men, women and children in hundreds and in circumstances which are revolting and are better left undescribed. You let loose upon this land a flood of misery and unhappiness affecting the daily lives of all races in it, including your own people. You put the clock back many years…. You have much to answer for and for that you will be punished. 32

  He then sentenced Kenyatta and the rest of the Kapenguria Six to the maximum seven years’ imprisonment with hard labor, to be followed by a lifetime of restriction. In other words, they were to live in isolation for the rest of their lives. As soon as the trial was over, Thacker hustled out of the courthouse into an awaiting armored car and took the next flight back to London—twenty thousand pounds richer for his five months of work. Kenyatta and the others were destined to spend years in the desolation of Lokitaung, their later appeals dismissed by the higher courts—including the Privy Council in London, which rejected Pritt’s petition without offering any reason whatsoever.33

  Like most wars, Mau Mau was as much about propaganda as it was about reality. From the start of the Emergency the colonial government was masterful in its public depiction of Mau Mau. Directing the colonial propaganda war was Granville Roberts, the Kenya public relations officer based in the Colonial Office in London. Almost daily he oversaw the release of government press office handouts that chronicled the unfolding events. Some of the handouts were mundane reading, others lurid in detailing Mau Mau atrocities. Equally powerful as the photographs distributed by the Colonial Office was the language used to describe Mau Mau. The “horror of Mau Mau” stood in contrast to what the public relations officer called the “peaceful and progressive conditions” of Kenya prior to the Emergency.34 The “white” and “enlightened” forces of British colonialism were a stark contradistinction to the “dark,” “evil,” “foul,” “secretive,” and “degraded” Mau Mau.35 These descriptions spilled over into the Kenyan and British press, where sensationalist accounts juxtaposed white heroism with African, or Mau Mau, terrorism and savagery.36 Roberts was not alone. In speeches both Governor Baring and Colonial Secretary Lyttelton used similar language and would often stop just short of providing graphic details of Mau Mau attacks and oathing ceremonies, further titillating listeners and permitting the public to allow its racist imagination and fear to run wild.

  Jomo Kenyatta under guarded escort during the Kapenguria trial

  The press releases were not mere spin-doctoring. They also reflected a colonial world that was organized according to a strongly hierarchical scale of humanity. White racial supremacy in Kenya had long manifested itself in various kinds of primitive settler justice, including public floggings, beating deaths, and summary executions.37 The majority of Africans were at the very bottom of the European settlers’ human hierarchy. The nature and demands of Mau Mau led to an even greater pathological fear by whites of the Kikuyu. It was the distinctive quality of Mau Mau oathing rituals, and methods of killing, that transformed the virulent racism that had been the cornerstone of settler racial attitudes for over half a century into something even more lethal. Settlers and colonial officials alike were repelled by the Kikuyu oaths, which used powerful symbols like goats’ blood and eyeballs, and ram intestines and scrotums. Mau Mau’s method of killing with pangas, or machetes, was likewise bloody and helped to further drive local Europeans into a frenzied state of terror.

  Settler anxiety did of course have a basis in fact, yet the settlers’
dehumanizing view of Mau Mau cannot be completely understood without placing it in its social and historical context. The majority of European settlers who immigrated to Kenya did so with the intention of making Kenya their permanent home; they were establishing farms, schools, and communities not just for themselves but for their children and grandchildren. But after World War II many settlers felt increasingly isolated as the same principles of self-determination that were circulating throughout the world reached Kenya, leaving settlers less certain about the degree of support they might continue to enjoy from their government. Newly repressive colonial policies and practices during Mau Mau would soon create the impression that these fears were somewhat unfounded. But the settlers remained an implacable group, forever suspicious and critical of the “liberals” from London and elsewhere who they believed knew nothing about their country or their “natives.”

  Mau Mau thus ushered in a critical change in the settlers’ already racist hierarchical segregation of humanity. There was a shift in language and belief, from simple white supremacy to one that was overtly eliminationist. In this altered hierarchy the Europeans were clearly positioned at the top, and the Asians and loyalist Africans somewhere in the lower middle. But in the settler imagination, Mau Mau adherents were scarcely part of humanity’s continuum; they were indistinguishable in local thought and expression from the animals that roamed the colony. From the early days of the Emergency, this attitude became accepted orthodoxy for much of the Administration. Frank Loyd, who was later knighted for his formidable service in Britain’s empire, was stationed in Kenya’s Central Province—the heart of Kikuyuland—for the entire Emergency. He thought Mau Mau was “bestial” and “filthy”—an “evil movement” that was “extremely vile and violent.”38 “Mau Mau had to be eliminated at all costs,” he later recalled, “something had to be done to remove these people from society.”39 “Mau Mau was a seething mass of bestiality—we had to go to extraordinary lengths to get rid of this thing,” remembers Terence Gavaghan, a district officer who was stationed in Central Province before later taking over the detention camps in Mwea.40 This sentiment would become more and more widespread as the Emergency wore on, in part because the settlers were so effective in promoting their view of the movement and the drastic steps necessary, they believed, to cleanse the colony of the Mau Mau filth. Insofar as the settlers spoke with one voice, and there certainly existed within the settler population varying degrees of the eliminationist mentality with different views on how Mau Mau should be removed, their voice was constantly front-page news in the colony’s two leading newspapers: the Kenya Weekly News, a highly conservative and pro-government paper, as well as the slightly more moderate East African Standard.