93. Nyaruai, interview, 21 March 1999.
94. Wamahiga Wahugo, interview, Chinga, Othaya, Nyeri District, 26 February 1999.
95. Gathoni Mutahi, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999; and anonymous, Westlands, Nairobi, 8 August 2003.
96. Mwaria Juma, interview, Kiamariga, Mathira, Nyeri District, 10 February 1999.
97. KNA, AH 9/32/251, memorandum from Cusack to the Resettlement Committee, “Movement of Detainees from Reception Centres to Works Camps,” 4 May 1955; and PRO, CO/822/795/86, memorandum from Gorell Barnes, “Factors Affecting the Release of Detainees,” June 1956. Note that the total rundown of detainees was offset by an intake figure of approximately seven hundred new detainees per month. This intake number remained constant through 1956.
98. KNA, AH 9/31/40 and KNA, JZ 8/8/108, memorandum from K. M. Cowley, “Repatriation of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru who have not been Detained to the Central Province,” 10 December 1954; and KNA, AH/9/31/65, memorandum from Wainwright, “Repatriation of Kikuyu by Magistrates,” 25 February 1955.
99. KNA, MAA (ARC) 2/5/222I/151, memorandum from Magor, “Co-ordination of Movement, Kikuyu, Embu and Meru,” 15 April 1955.
100. Terence Gavaghan, Of Lions and Dung Beetles: A “Man in the Middle” of Colonial Administration in Kenya (Devon: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1999), 212.
101. R. J. M. Swynnerton, A Plan to Intensify the Development of African Agriculture in Kenya (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1954). See also M. P. K. Sorrenson, Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country: A Study in Government Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), parts 2 and 3.
102. Note that after independence, a government commission investigated the claims of injustice. Though it denied any corruption or exclusionary tactics in the demarcation and consolidation process, it did state, “It should not be thought that enclosure is necessarily of benefit to every member of the community. In practice it is invariably the more influential members of the community who are the first to enclose.” Report of the Commission on Land Consolidation and Registration in Kenya, 1965–66 (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1966), paragraph 67, as quoted in Bruce Berman, Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination (London: James Currey, 1990), 368. The report provides full details on the results of land consolidation and attempts to exculpate the loyalist crowd from any wrongdoing during the Emergency and from charges of corruption during the postindependence period.
103. Note that for years the British colonial government had sought to introduce land consolidation but was met with strong resistance from much of the local Kikuyu population—many of whom would later join the Mau Mau movement. The local Administration was very keen to, in the words of J. M. Golds and Frank Loyd, “strike while the iron is hot”—that is, to push land consolidation through while the dissenters were locked away, unable to challenge the so-called land reform. See Sorrenson, Land Reform, 115.
104. Sorrenson, Land Reform, 232.
105. PRO, CO 822/794/12, Alastair Matheson, “Re-educating Mau Mau Detainees—Progress of Rehabilitation Work in Kenya,” 25 October 1954; and PRO, 822/794/37, memorandum from Cusack, “Progress Report on the Rehabilitation of Mau Mau in Detention Camps,” 13 April 1955.
106. PRO, CO 822/797/6, minister for forest development, “Scheme for Reabsorption of Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru,” 8 December 1954. M. P. K. Sorrenson asserts that the resettlement of Kikuyu in the high bracken areas was also an official part of the government’s resettlement program (see Sorrenson, Land Reform, 220). Nairobi, however, did not pursue this potential, as Carruthers Johnston, along with others in the Administration, believed that “the land is already owned and, in many areas, by loyalists. To dispossess the loyalists for the benefit of Mau-Mau sympathisers would be a fatal error.” See PRO, CO 822/794/45, memorandum from Carruthers Johnston to the Resettlement Committee, “Absorptive Capacity in Kikuyu Districts,” 7 May 1955.
107. PRO, CO 822/797/6, minister for forest development, “Scheme for Reabsorption of Kikuyu, Embu, and Meru,” 8 December 1954.
108. PRO, CO 822/797/8, Resettlement Committee, “Long Term Absorption of Displaced Kikuyu—Absorption in Kikuyu Districts,” 15 February 1955.
109. The breakdown by district for the surplus population in Kiambu, Fort Hall, and Nyeri:
Source: PRO, CO 822/797/8, memorandum from the Resettlement Committee, “Long Term Absorption of Displaced Kikuyu—Absorption in Kikuyu Districts,” 15 February 1955.
110. PRO, CO 822/798/34, minutes of the Council of Ministers, Resettlement Committee, seventeenth meeting, 27 April 1956.
111. Stanley Njuguna, interview, Ruthigiti, Karai, Kiambu District, 9 August 2003.
112. Joshuah Murakaru, interview, Kirimukuyu, Mathira, Nyeri District, 22 February 1999.
113. Nyaruai, interview, 21 March 1999.
114. Lucy Ngima, interview, Ruguru, Mathira, Nyeri District, 3 October 2002. I also interviewed Lucy several times in January and February 1999 when she shared similar accounts of half-caste children being born in her location of Nyeri District during the Emergency.
115. Kiruku, interview, 13 August 2003.
116. Several women I spoke to discussed barrenness as a result of sexual violence, as did H. K. Wachanga in his autobiography, The Swords of Kirinyaga (Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau, 1975), 163.
117. Karega Njoroge, interview, Mugoiri, Kahuro, Murang’a District, 16 January 1999.
118. Kuria, interview, 13 August 2003.
119. Murakaru, interview, 22 February 1999.
120. Some feminist scholars depict the Kikuyu women from this period as assertive and completely independent of men. Kikuyu women, however, often take a different view—one that is clearly manifested when they discuss their anger with their husbands and fathers for not fulfilling their roles as guardians of the homesteads, or riigi. This gendered shame was expressed explicitly by the men themselves, though it can also be found in the silences or absence of women in most of the male-scripted Mau Mau memoirs. That there are few women in these male narratives reveals much about the nature of the war and the gendered shame the authors felt both during the conflict and in its aftermath. I explore the issue of gendered shame more fully with John Lonsdale in “Memories of Mau Mau in Kenya: Public Crises and Private Shame,” in Memoria e Violenza, ed. Alessandro Triulzi (Naples: L’Ancora del Mediterraneo, forthcoming, 2005). For feminist perspectives on Mau Mau and women’s participation, see Kathy Santilli, “Kikuyu Women in the Mau Mau Revolt,” Ufahamu 8, no. 1 (1977–78): 143–59; Jean O’Barr, “Introductory Essay,” in Passbook Number F.47927 by Muthoni Likimani (London: Macmillan, 1985), 1–37; Tabitha Kanogo, “Kikuyu Women and the Politics of Protest: Mau Mau,” in Images of Women in Peace and War, Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspectives, ed. Sharon Macdonald et al. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 78–96; and Cora Ann Presley, Kikuyu Women, the Mau Mau Rebellion, and Social Change in Kenya (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992).
121. KNA, AB 2/41/25, speech made by the minister of community development, B. Ohanga, to the Legislative Council on 16 November 1956.
122. KNA, MAC/KEN 31/7, James Maina Wachira (on behalf of the people of Mahiga, Othaya, Nyeri), “Memorandum. Nyeri District. Our Grievances and our Requests to the Kenya Government,” 30 October 1959.
123. PRO, CO 822/1421/30, Inward telegram from Pritchard to Buist, 3 April 1957; and memorandum from J. Pinney, district commissioner, Fort Hall, 7 June 1954, to Chief Ignatio Morai in Sorrenson, Land Reform, 114.
124. Editorial, New Statesman and Nation, 23 March 1957. For further details on the correlation between the increased rate of release, the unemployment and overcrowding crisis in the reserves, and the increase in movement and curfew violations, see “Castle Arrest Debates,” in House of Commons Debates, March and April 1957.
Nine: Outrage, Suppression, and Silence
1. “Labour to Fight Kenya Thugs,” Tribune, 30 September 1955.
2. See, for example, House of Commons Debates (
HCD), vol. 508, cols. 1551–53, 3 December 1952; HCD, vol. 512, cols. 359–60 and cols. 363–64, 4 March 1953; HCD, vol. 514, col. 2121, 29 April 1953; and HCD, vol. 528, cols. 193–99, 16 June 1954. For direct inquiries to the Colonial Office regarding the detainees’ knowledge of their right to appeal, see PRO, CO 822/451/16, letter from E. M. David to Baring, 13 July 1953; and PRO, CO 822/451/17, letter from Crawford to E. M. David, 28 August 1953. For early inquiries regarding the “starvation” of the repatriates in the reserves, see, for example, PRO, CO 822/476/5, telegram from Baring to secretary of state for the colonies, 16 November 1953. For Labour MPs bringing detainee allegations and requests directly to the floor of the Commons, see, for example, PRO, CO 822/912/18/15, parliamentary questions, 22 February 1956. In this instance, Barbara Castle was raising concerns of several Manyani detainees who had written to her from within the Pipeline. By 1953 the Opposition also became much more detail-oriented in its requests from the Conservative government regarding the camps. For instance, the Labour MPs demanded arrest, screening, detention, and release statistics on a near fortnightly basis; posed questions regarding the nature and duration of labor in the camps and villages; demanded to know the extent and treatment of disease and malnutrition in both the Pipeline and reserves; sought death figures for both the camps and villages; and requested the list of detention camps that offered rehabilitation programs. See, for example, HCD, vol. 512, cols. 359–60, 4 March 1953; HCD, vol. 514, col. 2121, 29 April 1953; HCD, vol. 526, col. 1130, 14 April 1954; HCD, vol. 531, cols. 485–88, 28 July 1954, and col. 163, 20 October 1954; HCD, vol. 535, col. 139, 15 December 1954; HCD, vol. 537, cols. 1272–73, 23 February 1955; HCD, vol. 540, cols. 169–71, 20 April 1955; HCD, vol. 545, cols. 185–86, 26 October 1955; and HCD, vol. 549, col. 374, 22 February 1956.
3. RH, Mss. Brit Emp. s. 527/528, End of Empire, Kenya, vol. 1, Barbara Castle, Interview, 116.
4. This delegation, known more widely as the Elliot-Bottomley delegation, visited Kenya from 8 to 26 January 1954. During this time the delegation visited one detention camp, Athi River, and, in fact, spent almost half of its time either in Nairobi or in Mombasa—an area of Kenya almost wholly unaffected by the Emergency. The delegation’s itinerary was planned by the British colonial government with the help of the chief public relations officer, Granville Roberts. For further details, see Report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies by the Parliamentary Delegation to Kenya, 1954, Cmnd. 9081 (London: HMSO, 1954).
5. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, Sir Arthur Young, papers, box 5, file 1, Arthur Young, “Introduction to Sir Arthur Young,” no date, 18.
6. Ibid., 14.
7. Ibid., box 5, file 3, 84–89, letter from Arthur Young to Governor Baring, 14 December 1954.
8. PRO, CO 822/1037/7, memorandum from Governor Baring to Gorell Barnes, 6 November 1954.
9. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, Sir Arthur Young, papers, box 5, file 1, Arthur Young, “Introduction to Sir Arthur Young,” no date, 13.
10. Ibid., box 5, file 6, memorandum from assistant commissioner of police, Nyeri, to Young, 22 November 1954, 1.
11. Peter Evans, Law and Disorder or Scenes of Life in Kenya (London: Secker and Warburg, 1956), 275–76.
12. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, Sir Arthur Young, papers, box 5, file 1, Arthur Young, “Introduction to Sir Arthur Young,” no date, 29–30.
13. PRO, CO 822/1293/1, official statement of Colonel Young’s resignation, February 1955; HCD, written answers, 2 February 1955, col. 119.
14. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, Sir Arthur Young, papers, box 5, file 1, Arthur Young, “Introduction to Sir Arthur Young,” no date, 15.
15. PRO, CAB 128/28, CC (55) 3, minute 1, 13 January 1955; and PRO, CAB 128/28, CC (55) 4, 13 January 1955.
16. Kenneth Grubb, president, CMS, H. S. Mance, chairman, Executive Committee, CMS, and H. B. Thomas, chairman, African Committee, CMS, letter to the editor, Times, 22 January 1955. Note that Governor Baring’s declaration of the 18 January amnesty was also published in the Times on 19 January 1955.
17. Church Missionary Society, Kenya—time for Action, 28 January 1955.
18. House of Lords Debates (HLD), vol. 190, no. 19, col. 1139, 10 February 1955.
19. Ibid., cols. 1149 and 1157, 10 February 1955.
20. Barbara Castle, Fighting All the Way (London: Macmillan, 1993), 263–64.
21. Ibid., 264.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid., 265.
24. Ibid., 269.
25. RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, Sir Arthur Young, papers, box 5, file 3, 36–38, top-secret memorandum from Duncan McPherson to Colonel A. Young, 10 December 1954; and RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, box 5, file 3, 101–07, top-secret memorandum from Duncan McPherson to commissioner of police, 23 December 1954.
26. In at least one instance six pages of detailed incident reports—which provide specific accounts of torture and murder—were sent to Governor Baring by Colonel Young with a cover letter that read: “I [Young] therefore suggest that a copy of this letter, together with a copy of the report attached, be forwarded to the Colonial Secretary in order that these facts, which provide the main reason for my departure from Kenya, should be made known to those who will be concerned in the debate.” See RH, Mss. Afr. s. 486, Sir Arthur Young, papers, box 5, file 3, 100–107, confidential letter from A. E. Young to Sir Evelyn Baring, 28 December 1954.
27. RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 527/528, End of Empire, Kenya, vol. 1, Barbara Castle, interview, 117.
28. Letter from Michael Evans to Terence Gavaghan, 11 May 1995 (seen courtesy of Gavaghan).
29. Jean Wanjiru Cliffe, interview, Tigoni, Limuru, Kiambu District, 10 August 2003.
30. Castle, Fighting All the Way, 269–73.
31. “The Truth About the Secret Police,” Daily Mirror, 9 December 1955; and “Justice in Kenya,” New Statesman and Nation, 17 December 1955.
32. HCD, vol. 547, col. 1177, 14 December 1955.
33. Ibid., col. 1181, 14 December 1955.
34. Anne Perkins, Red Queen: The Authorized Biography of Barbara Castle (London: Macmillan, 2003), 140.
35. Castle, Fighting All the Way, 274.
36. “Gestapo Way in Kenya,” Daily Worker, 18 March 1953.
37. KNA, JZ 8/8/85, H. F. Potter, secretariat circular no. 13, “Security of Information,” 15 April 1953.
38. KNA, JZ 8/8/86, B. W. Hemsley, for commissioner of prisons, memorandum, “Security of Information,” 4 October 1954.
39. T. G. Askwith, interview, Cirencester, England, 8 June 1998; anonymous, interview, Nairobi, Kenya, 11 November 1998; and anonymous, telephone interview, 4 May 2004.
40. KNA, AB 2/49/30, memorandum from J. Lewis, “Photographs,” 11 May 1956.
41. Askwith, interview, 8 June 1998. See also KNA, AB 25/211, personnel file, “Miss E. Fletcher, 1954–56.”
42. PRO, CO 822/1239, “Memorandum on Allegations published by Miss Eileen Fletcher on conditions in prisons and camps,” June 1956.
43. “Kenya’s Concentration Camps—An Eyewitness Account,” Peace News—the International Pacifist Weekly, 4 May 1956, 11 May 1956, and 18 May 1956. See also “Eileen Fletcher answers Mr. Lennox Boyd” and “Kenya: Inquiry Demanded—House debates Peace News exposures,” Peace News—the International Pacifist Weekly, 15 June 1956.
44. PRO, CO 822/1239, Eileen Fletcher, Report on My Period of Employment in the Community Development Department of the Kenya Government, July 1956, 6.
45. Ibid., 8.
46. “Kenya’s Concentration Camps,” Peace News—the International Pacifist Weekly, 4 May 1956; PRO, CO 822/1239, Eileen Fletcher, Report on My Period of Employment in the Community Development Department of the Kenya Government, July 1956, 8–10.
47. PRO, CO 822/1239, Eileen Fletcher, Report on My Period of Employment in the Community Development Department of the Kenya Government, July 1956, 8; RH, Mss. Brit. Emp. s. 332, Arthur Creech Jones, papers, box 21, file 4, 33–42, Eileen Fletcher, “My comments on the Government Memorandum concerning my charges about Kenya,” 8 January 1957; and M
ovement for Colonial Freedom, Truth about Kenya—an eye witness account by Eileen Fletcher, 1956.
48. Report of the Committee on Juvenile Crime and Kabete Reformatory (Nairobi: Kenya Government Printer, 1934); and Annual Report on Native Affairs, 1934, 140–42.
49. Note, for example, the observations made by Colin Owen, the principal probation officer during the initial months of the Emergency, whereupon he remarked, “I have been approached by Magistrates in the difficult problem of sentence when dealing with Juvenile Mau Mau cases and considerable anxiety has been shown by the lack of any alternative to imprisonment or detention.” KNA, BZ 16/1/11, memorandum from Colin Owen to provincial commissioner, Rift Valley Province, “Juvenile Mau Mau Cases,” 21 April 1953. Also, under Prisons Standing Order No. 177, juveniles were defined as either (a) child—under fourteen, or (b) young person—fourteen to eighteen. For further details on the number of juveniles in Emergency camps and prisons, see KNA, AB 2/43, minute to file, February 1955. The majority of those not being held in the holding camps were located at Langata Prison. Additionally, many juveniles arrived in Manyani and Mackinnon Road as a result of Special Branch operations. The Special Branch targeted young Mau Mau suspects, took them to local screening centers, where they interrogated them at length, and then deposited them in the camps. See KNA, BZ 16/1/51, memorandum from S. I. Moore to Owen, “Re: Surrendered Terrorists,” 14 June 1954.
50. Perkerra Camp was an open camp located in the Rift Valley for the few thousand squatters who did not go to works camps in their home reserves, but rather remained in the settled areas. Askwith’s department took over this camp, in part because it became a virtual community as thousands of detainees were parked there sometimes for years as they awaited the ban on Kikuyu labor to be lifted on the European farms. See KNA, AB 2/48/41, memo from community development officer in charge, Perkerra, to permanent secretary of community development, 29 October 1957.
51. For extensive details on the foundation and operation of Wamumu Camp, see KNA, AB 1/116, “Administration Youth Camps—Wamumu, 1955–56” KNA, AB 1/117, “Wamumu, 1957–58” and KNA, AB 1/118, “Wamumu—Youth Camp Approved School, 1956–57.”
Imperial Reckoning Page 63
