To this day there has never been any form of official reconciliation in Kenya. There are no monuments for Mau Mau, children are not taught about this part of their nation’s past in school, few speak about it in the privacy of their own homes, and, with the exception of the relatives of the Hola massacre victims, there has never been any kind of financial consideration given to those who lost family members in the camps and villages, or property to the local loyalists. Some men and women lost the use of their limbs, others their minds, as a result of the years they spent behind the wire, though neither the former colonial government nor the new independent government did anything to help them piece their lives back together. Insofar as there has been any successful social rebuilding, the burden has been shouldered by local Christian churches. But they too have insisted that bygones remain bygones. If you ask former Mau Mau adherents today if they get along with their loyalist neighbors, the response is generally the same as Mary Mbote’s. “We are Christians, and I do not hate them,” she told me. When I probed a bit further, she expressed a sentiment shared by many other former villagers and detainees. “I hate them; I hate them for what they did to us,” she said. “We all hate them and will not speak to them if we see them outside of church. We even refuse to go to their funerals, which is against the church, but they didn’t go to the funerals of our husbands and children and parents when they killed them. Aye, I despise them.” She then paused before continuing. “You know,” she finally said to me, “this will only change when everyone knows what happened to us. Maybe then there will be some peace once our people are able to mourn in public and our children and our grandchildren will know how hard we fought and how much we lost to make Kenya free for them.” 28
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Oral Sources
Some three hundred interviews were conducted with Kikuyu men and women who either had been detained in the Mau Mau detention camps, prisons, and Emergency villages or had been loyalists during the Emergency. These interviews took place between November 1998 and August 2004 in Kiambu, Murang’a (formerly Fort Hall), and Nyeri districts, as well as in various locations throughout Nairobi. The final data pool, therefore, had a wide geographical distribution in Central Province, and the gender balance was nearly equal.
My research assistant, Terry Wairimu, a Kikuyu woman whose family comes from Nyeri District, accompanied me to all of these interviews, with the exception of several in Nairobi and Kiambu that I conducted myself. I met Terry in the fall of 1998 at the Kenya National Archives, where she was working as a research assistant. She was twenty-four years old, had earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Nairobi, and was fluent in Kiswahili, Kikuyu, Maa, English, and French.
We located many of our interviewees through contacts with their descendants in Nairobi. After initial introductions were made, Terry and I would remain in the rural areas for periods that ranged from several days to several weeks. We were often hosted by our interviewees, or by one of their descendants who lived nearby. During this time, former detainees, villagers, and loyalists introduced us to kinsmen and neighbors who were also willing to speak about their experiences during Mau Mau. Nearly all of those interviewed agreed to be tape-recorded. Interviews were conducted either in English, Kiswahili, Kikuyu, or some combination thereof. In all cases, interviewees decided their language(s) of preference. Generally, English and/or Kiswahili were the preferred languages in Nairobi and its environs; as we traveled north of the city, Kiswahili and/or Kikuyu became the languages of choice. During graduate school and subsequent field trips to Kenya I acquired the Kiswahili language skills that were necessary for conducting interviews. With the help of Terry, who served as my tutor, I began learning Kikuyu in the fall of 1998. Still, I needed Terry’s assistance to conduct the Kikuyu-language interviews, though I was able to follow the content of the oral narratives and engage in casual conversation.
All interviews began with the same query: “Tell us about your experiences during Mau Mau.” After what were often long oral accounts, occasionally lasting several hours, follow-up questions would be asked to clarify any points or to expand further on certain details or incidents. After the formal interview was conducted, as we conversed over tea or a meal, many interviewees would recall incidences or details that they had left out; with the permission of the interviewee some of these testimonies were tape-recorded, though most were documented in my field notebook. Terry transcribed and translated the tapes in Kikuyu, whereas we shared the burden of transcribing and translating those tapes in English and/or Kiswahili. I translated and transcribed the tapes of the interviews that I conducted alone in Nairobi and its surrounding areas.
In addition to ex-detainees and villagers, several former colonial administrators, missionaries, settlers, lawyers, and politicians were interviewed between 1997 and 2004 in both the United Kingdom and Kenya. I conducted all of these interviews alone and in English. Some of those interviewed asked to remain anonymous; others spoke with the knowledge that their names would be included within this book. Most of these interviews were tape-recorded; the remainder were documented through handwritten notes or on computer. All interview tapes, transcripts, and notes remain in my possession.
Archival Sources
During the course of research, archives in Kenya, the United Kingdom, and the United States were consulted. In addition to those archives listed below, the following collections were used: Imani House, Anglican Church of Kenya, Nairobi; Presbyterian Church of East Africa, Nairobi; Macmillan Library, Nairobi; University of Nairobi Library, Nairobi; St. Paul’s Theological Seminary, Limuru, Kenya; Imperial War Museum, London; British Library, London; University of Durham Library, Durham, England; School of Oriental and African Studies Library, London; Seeley Historical Library, Cambridge, England; British Museum, Colindale, England; Church Missionary Society Archive, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England; Church of Scotland Missions Archive, Edinburgh University Library, Edinburgh, Scotland; Africa Inland Mission Archive, Billy Graham Center, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois; and Harry Elkins Widener Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Kenya National Archives, Nairobi, Kenya
A significant number of deposits were consulted from the Central and Rift Valley provinces, as well as from a variety of ministries, departments, and private collections. Annual reports from several departments and ministries were extremely useful in this study. These include: Native Affairs Department, later renamed African Affairs Department, 1934–63; Community Development Department and Community Development and Rehabilitation Department, 1952–60; Report on the Treatment of Offenders, 1950–63; and the annual reports for various provinces and districts throughout the colony during the years 1952 to 1963. In addition, the Kenya Legislative Council Debates were consulted at the National Archives. The deposits from the Kenya National Archives used in this book include:
Archdeacon Peter Bostock, papers
Chief Secretary’s Office
Community Development Department
Department of Information
District Commissioner, Embu
District Commissioner, Fort Hall
District Commissioner, Garissa
District Commissioner, Laikipia
District Commissioner, Lokitaung
District Commissioner, Meru
District Commissioner, Naivasha
District Commissioner, Nakuru
District Commissioner, Nanyuki
District Commissioner, Nyeri
District Commissioner, Teita
District Commissioner, Thika
District Commissioner, Uasin Gishu
Labour Department
Ministry of African Affairs
Ministry of Internal Security and Defence
Murumbi Papers
Office of the President
Prisons Department
Probation Department
Provincial Commissioner, Central Province
Provincial Commissioner, Rift Valley Province
Public Record Office, London, England
The House of Commons Debates, the House of Lords Debates, the Kenya Official Gazettes, and various newspaper microfilms were consulted at the Public Record Office (PRO). The series consulted include:
CAB 128—Cabinet minutes (CM and CC series)
CAB 129—Cabinet memoranda (CP and C series)
CO 533—Kenya, original correspondence
CO 822—East Africa, original correspondence
CO 847—Africa, correspondence
CO 859—Social Services Department
CO 912—Advisory Committee on the Treatment of Offenders in the Colonies and Related Bodies, minutes and papers
CO 968—Defence, original correspondence
CO 1022—South East Asia Department, original correspondence
CO 1030—Far East Department, registered files
WO 236—General Sir George Erskine, papers
WO 276—East Africa Command, papers
Rhodes House Library, Oxford, England
Rhodes House (RH) contains a wealth of documentation from personal and private collections. In addition, the archive contains a variety of useful official reports and secondary materials from the period. The deposits consulted were:
Mss. Afr. s. 424—miscellaneous documents
Mss. Afr. s. 486—Sir Arthur Young, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 596—Electors’ Union and the European Elected Members Organisation, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 721—Eric Frank Martin, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 746—Sir Michael Blundell, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 782—Elspeth Huxley, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 846—Mrs. J. C. Appleby, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 917—Christopher Todd, memoirs
Mss. Afr. s. 929—Kenya Emergency Liaison Committee
Mss. Afr. s. 1574—Lord Howick (Sir Evelyn Baring) and Dame Margery Perham, interview
Mss. Afr. s. 1579—S. H. Fazan, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 1580—Major General Sir Robert Hinde, KBE, CB, DSO, papers Mss. Afr. s. 1619—Christopher L. Todd, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 1681—Africa Bureau, records
Mss. Afr. s. 1770—Thomas Askwith, Memoirs of Kenya, 1936–61
Mss. Afr. s. 2095—Terence Gavaghan, Corridors of Wire
Mss. Afr. s. 2100—Thomas Askwith, correspondence
Mss. Afr. s. 2154—Elspeth Huxley, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 2166—Thomas Askwith, papers
Mss. Afr. s. 2213—Sir Eric Griffith-Jones, papers
Mss. Brit. Emp s. 332—Arthur Creech Jones, papers
Mss. Brit. Emp s. 365—Fabian Colonial Bureau, papers
Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 525—Oliver Lyttelton (Lord Chandos), papers
Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 527/528—End of Empire, Kenya, transcripts
Official Publications
United Kingdom
All documents listed were published by HMSO in London.
Correspondence Relating to the Flogging of Natives by Certain Europeans in Nairobi. Cmnd. 3256. 1907.
Report of the Kenya Land Commission. Cmnd. 4556. 1934.
Colonial Office. Report on Kenya. 1945–63 (annual).
Report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies by the Parliamentary Delegation to Kenya, 1954. Cmnd. 9081. 1954.
Documents relating to the death of eleven Mau Mau detainees at Hola Camp. Cmnd. 778. 1959.
Record of Proceedings and Evidence in the Inquiry into the deaths of eleven Mau Mau detainees at Hola Camp in Kenya. Cmnd. 795. 1959.
Report on the Nyasaland Commission of Inquiry. Cmnd. 814. 1959. Further Documents relating to the death of eleven Mau Mau detainees at Hola Camp. Cmnd. 816. 1959.
Historical Survey of the Origins and Growth of Mau Mau. Cmnd. 1030. 1960.
Colony and Protectorate of Kenya
Unless noted, all documents listed were published by the Government Printer, Nairobi.
Report of the Native Labour Commission, 1912–13. 1914.
Kenya Land Commission, Evidence. 3 vols. 1934.
Report of the Committee on Juvenile Crime and Kabete Reformatory. 1934. Report on African Education in Kenya. 1949.
African Population of Kenya Colony and Protectorate: Geographical and Tribal Studies. Nairobi: East African Statistical Department, 1953.
J. C. Carothers. The Psychology of Mau Mau. 1954.
Emergency Regulations Made under the Emergency Powers Order in Council, 1939. 1954.
Report of the Committee on African Wages. 1954.
R. J. M. Swynnerton. A Plan to Intensify the Development of African Agriculture in Kenya. 1954.
Report on the General Administration of the Prisons and Detention Camps in Kenya. 1956.
Administrative Enquiry into Allegations of Ill-treatment and Irregular Practices Against Detainees at Manyani Detention Camp and Fort Hall District Works Camps. 1959.
Report on the Committee on Emergency Detention Camps. 1959.
Secondary Sources
Unpublished Theses
Gachihi, Margaret Wangui. “The Role of Kikuyu Women in the Mau Mau.” Master’s thesis, University of Nairobi, 1986.
Heather, Randall. “Intelligence and Counter-insurgency in Kenya, 1952–56.” Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1993.
Njonjo, A. L. “The Africanisation of the ‘White Highlands’: A Study in Agricultural Class Struggles in Kenya, 1950–1974.” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1977.
Pugliese, Christiana. “Author, Publisher and Gikuyu Nationalist: The Life and Writings of Gakaara wa Wanjau.” Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1993.
Redley, M. G. “The Politics of Predicament: The White Community in Kenya, 1918–1932.” Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1976.
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