Colonial Transformation of Kenya: The Kamba, Kikuyu, and Maasai from 1900-1939 9781400871445

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The Colonial Transformation of Kenya

ROBERT L. TIGNOR

The Colonial Transformation of Kenya The Kamba, Kikuyu, and Maasai from 1900 to 1939

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

COPYRIGHT © 1976 BY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Published by Princeton University Press Princeton and Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging In Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Composed in Linotype Baskerville and printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press at Princeton, New Jersey

To Marian

CONTENTS

List of Tables

viii

Preface

ix

Abbreviations

x1

I Introduction: The Creation of Colonial Societies in Kenya II Early Contacts: Pacification and Land Losses III Colonial Chiefs Appendix

to Chapter III

IV Maasai Warriors V Labor to 1914

3 15 42 68 73 94

V I Education to 1914

111

VII Labor in the 1920s

145

VIII Labor in the Depression I X Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s X Kikuyu Nationalism X I Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s X I I Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period XIII Kikuyu Agriculture

186 203 226 255 273 288

X I V The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba: Problems of Overstocking

310

X V Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

331

X V I Conclusion: Three Societies in 1939

355

Bibliography

361

Index

367

LIST OF TABLES

2-1

Settler Farming in Kenya

6-1

The Missions and Dates at which Schools Were Established

112

Attendance at Thogoto and Tumu Tumu

220

13-1

Acreage of Wattle Planted in Kenya

296

13-2

Agricultural Exports from the Three Kikuyu Districts,

9-1

1932

13-3

25

297

Quantities Passed through Inspection Stations for Export from Central Province, 1937

302

14-1

Inoculations against Rinderpest and Pleuropneumonia

319

14-2

Stock Slaughtered in

328

1935

PREFACE

The problem which I have sought to explore in this book is the impact of colonial rule on African peoples. My overarching interest has been to examine how African lives were affected by the establishment of a colonial system over them. In what ways did Africans do things differ­ ently? In what ways did their lives remain unchanged? As a result I have put the highlands of Kenya at the center of this study rather than London or even Nairobi. Two interrelated questions have bulked large in this essay. Was British colonial rule in Kenya modernizing for the Africans or a hindrance to modernizing change? Why did African peo­ ples living in the same geographical area and gaining exposure to the same colonial agencies have such radically different colonial experi­ ences? Can these differences be explained largely in terms of colonial programs or are they the result of the different institutions which Afri­ can communities brought into the colonial period and through which they filtered colonial policies? In the course of numerous research trips on three different conti­ nents, I have incurred a host of obligations to library staffs, govern­ ment and private organizations, university faculties, and interested individuals. Although it would be impossible to mention all of them, I would like to note a few. This research project was sponsored by the Princeton University Center of International Studies, and I am pleased to express my gratitude to its director, Professor C. E. Black. Many people read drafts of the chapters at various stages of preparation, but I would be woefully remiss if I did not single out Professor A. J. Mayer for his conscientious reading of so much of the original manuscript. I thank the editors of the Journal of African History and the Interna­ tional Journal of African Historical Studies for permission to use in somewhat different form articles I published in their journals. Finally and most important of all, I record appreciation to my wife for her manifold forms of support, especially her cheerful willingness to leave home every four or five years to embark upon a new research trip.

ABBREVIATIONS

ADC

Acting District Commissioner

AIM

Africa Inland Mission

CMS

Church Missionary Society

CO

Colonial Office

CSM

Church of Scotland Mission

DC

District Commissioner

DO

District Officer

EAA

East African Association

FO

Foreign Office

GMS

Gospel Missionary Society

HCSP

House of Commons Sessional Papers

IBEA

Imperial British East Africa Company

KA

Kikuyu Association

KCA

Kikuyu Central Association

KFA

Kenya Farmers Association

KISA

Kikuyu Independent Schools Association

KLC

Kenya Land Commission

KNA

Kenya National Archives

LNC

Local Native Council

NITD

Native Industrial Training Depot

PC

Provincial Commissioner

PCEA

Presbyterian Church of East Africa

PRO

Public Record Office

The Colonial Transformation of Kenya

CHAPTER I

Introduction: The Creation of Colonial Societies in Kenya

The central highlands of Kenya are those elevated portions of East Africa which European colonists entered from the beginning of the twentieth century in an effort to make Kenya a white settlement area. This region is also the homeland of three African peoples—the Kamba, Kikuyu, and Maasai. This work is a study of the ways in which these three societies were colonized, the impact this colonization had upon their traditional ways of life, and the different patterns of change and continuity that marked their experiences roughly from igoo to 1939. The cultures that came into contact with each other in the highlands —that is, the African and the British—were in many ways exceedingly different. In many other parts of the world the European colonial era had been preceded by a long period of increasingly intense commer­ cial and cultural contacts with Europe during which many European ideas and ways were disseminated. As these societies grew aware of the strength of Europe, they sought to adapt much of it. In Egypt, for example, Muhammad Ali (1805-1848) initiated a scheme of "defensive modernization" and tried to embrace Western science and technology in an effort to place Egypt militarily and economically on a par with Europe. In many parts of West Africa European merchants and mis­ sionaries were spreading European ideas and institutions and creating a Western-educated intelligentsia well before the British, French, and German diplomats partitioned this section of the world. But in the cen­ tral highlands of East Africa, the indigenous communities were largely untouched by Europeanizing influences, and thus, the British and Afri­ can civilizations faced each other, often in stark contrast, as the British brought this region under control between 1890 and 1900. Without seeking to exaggerate these differences or to leave the impression that the African societies were "primitive," it can be seen that the contrasts between the two were striking and obvious in many areas. These three African societies were small-scale and politically acephalous. They did not have chiefs. They produced largely for their own needs, relying on a rudimentary technology. While they educated and socialized their young people, this education did not involve formal schools, class-

4—Introduction

rooms, examinations, and specialist teachers which were the basis of the Western system. Thus, when the British established a system of colonial rule in the central highlands, they asserted control over peoples who were preliterate, who had not previously used formal systems of money, who had not engaged in wage laboring, and who were not accustomed to sending their children to schools for long periods of their youthful lives. The efforts of the British administrators, settlers, and mission­ aries to get Africans to do many of these novel things, naturally enough, were not readily or easily accepted. The Africans had their own techniques for aggregating labor forces, such as the mechanism of family labor or the use of age-grades to undertake cooperative work projects. But by and large they did not engage for work in response to wages. Since children were an essential element in the agricultural and pastoral economies of African peoples, parents were reluctant to send them to schools. To be sure, there were colonial innovations which were accepted with alacrity. The highland peoples quickly took up the use of the new colonial money, and they participated in a widening and more vigorous commercial life, disposing of their agricultural and pastoral surpluses with enthusiasm. But toward many of the colonial reforms resistance was widespread and strong, as marked among the Kikuyu who later took a lead in these areas as it was among the Kamba and the Maasai who remained much more hostile to new patterns for a much longer period of time. African resistance cannot be explained wholly or even primarily in terms of the novelty of these activities. Other factors were important. In the first place the first contacts between the British and the Africans left a legacy of mistrust and ill will. Both the Kikuyu and Kamba were dealt military defeats by British troops in a series of punitive expedi­ tions. While the Maasai managed to avoid violent, military confronta­ tion with the Protectorate government, they lost land to incoming set­ tlers as did their Kamba and Kikuyu neighbors. The Maasai lost the largest area of land, but the manner of land alienation was probably more injurious to the Kikuyu. The Maasai were twice moved off their lands which were then opened to European settlers, but at least they remained intact as a tribe and lived separate from the settler popula­ tion. The Kikuyu did not gain even this small measure of administra­ tion protection. Many lost the very lands they were cultivating, and they were quickly and dramatically turned into an agricultural pro­ letariat for European farmers. Since many of these land losses occurred in the first decade of British rule, they implanted in BritishAfrican relations a bitter and divisive issue which was never fully

The Creation of Colonial Societies in Kenya—5 resolved. Land losses engendered such feelings of hostility among Africans that even the most innocent and beneficial British impulses aroused suspicion and were thought to harbor ulterior and evil motives. In the second place, the innovations sponsored by the British require attention, particularly education and wage laboring. These were fun­ damental European institutions, but in being carried into Africa, they were altered and emasculated in order to make them fit with the co­ lonial system. Large numbers of unskilled African laborers were required to build and maintain railways, to work on European agri­ cultural estates, and to serve in Kenya's new burgeoning cities. But the wages offered were exceedingly low and remained so throughout the time-period of this study. A comparison with wages paid to unskilled British workers of this time would be ludicrous. Moreover, at a time when legislation was being developed in the industrial states of West­ ern Europe to safeguard and ameliorate working conditions, laboring conditions in Kenya, as they were throughout the rest of Africa, were oppressive and exploitative. Although the Kenya administration did try to legislate minimum standards of housing, food, provision, and medical attention, many employers paid little heed to the legislation. Even when they did, African workers, especially in the cities, were still crowded into hovels, given a diet which the Medical Department ad­ mitted to be inadequate, and paid a wage which did not enable them to live with their families. Not surprisingly, then, various forms of compulsion were required to procure the requisite African work force. Western education was similarly transformed as it was carried over­ seas and developed in Kenya. Missionaries played the leading educa­ tional role, and in general these men and women espoused a conserva­ tive, fundamentalist, and strongly evangelical brand of Christianity, rather than the modernist and rationalist type also emerging in West­ ern Europe and the United States at this time. This was especially true of three Protestant groups: the African Inland Mission (AIM); the Gos­ pel Missionary Society (GMS); and the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM). These three had great influence among the Kikuyu while the AIM was the only mission to work among all three of the highland peo­ ple from the outset of the colonial period. The AIM and GMS were offshoots of a late nineteenth-century revivalist movement in the United States. Their agents went to Africa primarily to make conver­ sions. They evaluated education largely as an instrument for achieving this goal. Other missions, most notably the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the CSM had a wider view of education, but they were in­ clined to accept the prevailing educational philosophy in colonial

6—Introduction

Africa that Africans should be trained mainly for subordinate roles as clerks, teachers, evangelists, and artisans, always working under Euro­ pean supervision. An important factor justifying and rationalizing the transformation of European ideas and institutions in Africa was racism, which all European groups — administrators, missionaries, and settlers — espoused. Because Europeans believed that Africans were inferior be­ ings as well as inefficient laborers, they felt justified in giving them a wage that no European would have worked for. Missionaries and other educators argued that at the present stage of African develop­ ment, the best form of education was one that stressed manual skills and did not provide much advanced literary learning. Because opposition to wage laboring and education was so pro­ nounced, violence was required to force people to embark on these new undertakings. Various types of violence and compulsion were employed. In the first two decades (1900-1920) force tended to be overt and often physical, but this type of control gave way to more subtle forms of coercion in the interwar period. The colonial adminis­ tration was much more effective in bringing coercion to bear upon Kikuyu society, and it was for this reason that the Kikuyu entered upon laboring and schooling in larger numbers than the Maasai or the Kamba. The colonial administration and other European agencies pos­ sessed more mechanisms by which they could control and dominate the Kikuyu and through which they could compel the Kikuyu to do the things that they wanted done. In the first place the British had military and technological su­ periority. This underlay the entire colonial system and was invoked when the system was threatened. The major period when military force was in continuous use was the so-called era of pacification. At that time the British used violence in an exemplary fashion, hoping to render its further use unnecessary. When the British sent forces against recalcitrant groups, they inflicted severe military lessons, burn­ ing villages, expropriating livestock, and in some cases killing large numbers. These forays were designed to demonstrate, not only to the people against whom they were sent, but to their neighbors as well that resistance was futile and rained down intolerable destruction. In­ sofar as these lessons were well learned, overt military violence was no longer necessary. But even after the era of pacification, there were occasions when the iron-hand of military domination had to be taken out of the silk glove of indirect control. During anticolonial disturb­ ances among the Kamba, the British sent a contingent of troops through the region. Then again during the First World War the Brit-

The Creation of Colonial Societies in Kenya—7

ish had to dispatch units of police and army into the African reserves to recruit young men for the much hated carrier corps. Another aspect of colonial coercion was the control that Europeans exercised over those Kikuyu families who found themselves living sud­ denly on land alienated to settlers. Unable to find land within their own reserve, they were quickly transformed into agricultural laborers on these estates. In addition mission societies also acquired land on which Kikuyu families lived, and they used their control over the pop­ ulation not only to secure a work force on the agricultural portions of their estates but also to compel attendance at church and in the first mission schools as well. In these early British-African contacts when coercion was overt and physical, Kikuyu colonial chiefs played a decisive role in compelling people to shoulder unpopular burdens. The chiefs were, for many years, the principal labor recruiters in the Kikuyu districts, rounding up young men and sending them under guard to work destinations. They also supplied some of the first school children to mission schools. Powerful and cooperative colonial chiefs emerged among the Kikuyu, with British backing, in part because there were a number of enter­ prising men who realized that they could better themselves by collab­ orating with the British and also because these men were able to create rudimentary instruments of local government, mainly composed of a large number of young followers who did their bidding and that of the British overrulers. The Kamba and Maasai did not establish powerful collaborating chiefs. Many Maasai leaders showed little interest in close cooperation with the British while one particular segment of Maasai society—the warriors—rose in sporadic outbursts of violence when the colonial administration was seeking to effect far-reaching transformations in Maasai society. Kikuyu chiefs were able to fashion these local administrative organs because of certain predispositions or vulnerabilities in Kikuyu precolonial social structure. Unlike their Maasai and Kamba neighbors, the Kikuyu had a lower stratum of poorer families who were attached to the wealthier, more powerful families mainly as tenant farmers. It was from this segment that the Kikuyu chiefs drew their followers and built the para-administrative and military bodies which were such powerful instruments of local domination. There was another form of compulsion at play in early BritishAfrican relations—the compulsion borne of economic necessity. The period when the British entered the Kenya highlands was a harsh one for the Maasai, Kamba, and Kikuyu. Cattle diseases wreaked havoc on the stock-rearing economies while human epidemics and famines

8—Introduction caused suffering and loss of life. Many of the first individuals to convert to Christianity were persons who had originally taken refuge with the missions during these troubled times. A more subtle form of violence was a cultural assault on African tra­ ditions. These attacks were made by all European groups, who shared a low regard for precolonial Africa. But perhaps the most effective at­ tack was launched by the missionaries who used the pulpit and class­ room to condemn the African past and to pressure people for change. The years of overt coercion culminated in the First World War when Africans were physically recruited in large numbers to serve in the British military campaigns in East Africa. At the conclusion of the war, however, changes began to occur in the colonial system and the forms of domination. International pressures were influential in caus­ ing amelioration in the colonial system. Kenya had acquired an un­ savory reputation among humanitarian and religious bodies in Great Britain for its oppression and exploitation of the African population. When the colonial government tried to establish the old system of forcible recruiting through chiefs after the war, as embodied in the Labor Circular No. ι of 1919, a furor of protest burst forth from these organizations. Additionally, European attitudes toward Africa were changing. The trustee principle had been enunciated in the new League of Nations, and the European colonial powers were expected to assume responsibility for uplifting and bettering the peoples they ruled. Nevertheless, new, more subtle forms of compulsion still remained at the heart of colonial control. Wage laboring conditions, for instance, did not improve dramatically in the interwar period. But the original system of procuring labor simply by rounding people up in addition to being morally repugnant was no longer required. Taxation became a factor driving Africans out in search of wages. Although taxes were first introduced into Kenya in 1901, it was not until 1910 that they had to be paid in money, rather than kind, and not until the war and there­ after that they began to be increased sharply and to be collected effi ciently. Those persons unable to raise money through the sale of their agricultural or pastoral surpluses were often forced into the labor market in search of wages. Going hand in hand with taxation as a factor compelling people to look outside their traditional economy for money was population growth in areas where land and agricultural resources were limited. This situation affected the Kikuyu reserve, which in the interwar period began to feel the pressures of a heavy population pressing on limited land resources. A small landless class came into being. Small landowner families suffered from fragmented holdings and were often

The Creation of Colonial Societies in Kenya—9 compelled to supplement their income by work stints on European farms or in the cities. To be sure, the Kikuyu took considerable advan­ tage of their central location to commercialize their agriculture, but through settler pressures they were prohibited from growing the most lucrative cash crop their land would have supported—namely coffee. Hence they were able to grow only less profitable commodities like maize, beans, and wattle. Many small farmers were not able to meet their cash needs through the sale of these crops and were forced to devise wage-earning alternatives. Many of the same pressures stimulated a burgeoning Kikuyu inter­ est in education. Whereas most forms of wage laboring were unattrac­ tive and only persons unable to raise money in other ways engaged in them, the desire for education spread like wildfire among the Kikuyu, rich and poor alike. Those able to obtain higher levels of training— admittedly a frustratingly small proportion of the number of those who went to school were rewarded with well paying jobs and an escape from rural poverty. In contrast the Kamba and Maasai remained aloof from schools and wage laboring although high taxes coupled with the impact of the de­ pression began to undermine the economic self-sufficiency of the Kamba and drove some of them out of the reserve into the wage labor market place. Livestock served as a barrier against colonial control. Traditionally the possession of livestock had instilled in families a sense of economic and political autonomy, for individual families could subsist, even in harsh times, from the blood, milk, and meat of their herds. The colonial experience tended to heighten this attachment, for the Maasai and Kamba were able to sell their pastoral surpluses and thereby pay their taxes. They looked upon their flocks as a safeguard against the distasteful undertakings they saw the Kikuyu engaged in. Moreover, colonial veterinarian policies reduced the incidence of cer­ tain major livestock diseases and enabled stock-rearers to accumulate larger herds. Although it was not particularly easy for stock-rearers to dispose of their herds for money, since the demand for livestock was limited, these families did feel that they were growing wealthier in the colonial period. Whereas the Kikuyu saw the size of their landholdings decrease as a result of land alienation to Europeans and then increases in population, Maasai and Kamba herders saw their flocks increase and their wealth in traditional terms grow. Thus, they did not feel the same economic pressure to leave the reserves in search of paid labor or to look to education to open up new occupations. It was against this background of attachment toward livestock, not only traditional but also heightened by colonial experiences, that the Kamba resisted a government program of radical destocking in 1938.

10 — Introduction The administration believed that an excessive livestock population was destroying the vegetation and soil in the Kamba reserve. But the Kamba regarded the government program to cull livestock from their reserve as an assault on their wealth and an effort to "Kikuyuize" them, to turn them into a labor reservoir for European farmers. Hence this previously politically quiescent people created a movement of protest, organized a boycott of the government program, marched on Nairobi, and established a political party to resist the administration. While the Kikuyu were more rapidly "colonized" than their high­ land neighbors, they also sought to derive a greater advantage from their colonial experiences than their colonial rulers were willing to allow them. They called for the full fruits of Europeanization rather than the distorted and weakened forms that the administrators, set­ tlers, and missionaries had brought them. The unskilled wage labor force began to organize and use the strike as a weapon of protest. The Mombasa dock workers strike of 1939 was a harbinger of the future. Everywhere in Kikuyuland there were demands for more education and more advanced literary schooling so that Africans could move out of their subordinate posts and qualify for occupations of real wealth, prestige, and power. These pressures led eventually to the creation of independent Kikuyu schools. The most generalized and successful anticolonial sentiments were expressed by educated Kikuyus. These feelings were crystallized after the First World War, a propitious time because of the sufferings inflicted on the African populations during the war coupled with renewed labor exploitation after the war. Politi­ cal associations came into being. Kikuyu anticolonialism was propelled forward into increasingly radical directions by clan and personal rival­ ries, many of which had been exacerbated by a divisive and disequilibrating colonial impact. From 1924 onward the leading Kikuyu anti­ colonial organ was the Kikuyu Central Association which experienced its most explosive moments in 1929 in a struggle with evangelical Prot­ estant missions over an attempt to eradicate the traditional Kikuyu custom of female circumcision among Christian converts. This is a study of the creation of colonial societies. Colonial societies, almost by definition, possess a set of superior-inferior relationships in which the colonized is held in economic and political subjection to his rulers. No community is likely to find these subordinate roles attrac­ tive, and many of its members are likely to resist their establishment, all the more so if many of the economic and political activities are novel. The creation of such a colonial society is likely to require con­ siderable violence, of many types, ranging from overt military force and physical assaults, to more subtle economic pressures, such as bur­ densome taxation, restrictions against cash cropping, and land hunger

The Creation of Colonial Societies in Kenya—11

as well as cultural deprivation, such as intellectual assaults on one's traditions. The Kikuyu were more rapidly colonized than the Kamba and Maasai because they afforded the colonial overrulers more levers of control. The Kikuyu already had a relatively dense population and a poorer stratum of tenant farmers when the British occupied the country. The poor and economically weak were vulnerable to colonial domination. The Kikuyu created a group of active collaborators through whom British colonial violence was channelled and the new colonial economy and polity established. But the dialectic of colonial­ ism is such that the first to be colonized tend to be the first to espouse anticolonialist and nationalist feelings and to be the people, because of education and intimate contact with their rulers, who are capable of organizing and articulating a movement of protest. This the Kikuyu also did. These then are the themes which the later chapters develop.

On the eve of colonial rule these three societies had a number of markedly similar institutions as well as some dissimilar ones, most of which were to prove important in shaping the processes of colonial change. Linguistically the Kikuyu and Kamba were Bantu-speaking peoples; the Maasai spoke a Nilotic language. The Kikuyu who re­ garded Muranga (Fort Hall district in the colonial period) as their heartland had been expanding throughout the nineteenth century, col­ umns of families moving northward into Nyeri and others southward into Kiambu. Like the other highland peoples, the Kikuyu were hard hit by a series of catastrophes in the 1890s. Drought, famine, rinder­ pest, and smallpox swept through the region bringing great loss of life. The Kikuyu suffered considerable depopulation; many families re­ treated from their pioneer settlements in the Kiambu region to seek refuge with relatives in Muranga. This retreat gave southern KikuyuIand its deceptive appearance of being unoccupied at the time that European settlers and administrators were entering the area. Politically the Kikuyu were acephalous. They were divided into a number of relatively autonomous communities located on ridges into which much of their region was divided. On these ridges the people were governed by councils of elders. Society was divided into age groups. Young adult males served as warriors and defended the com­ munity against attack while raiding others for wealth. Older, married men, known as elders, exercised judicial, legislative, and executive powers while meeting in councils. Although in theory each elder had as much right to speak in the councils as any other person, in practice certain individuals were more highly respected because of their

12—Introduction wealth, military valor, and well-recognized wisdom. Indeed, early colonial records show that certain influential leaders had begun to as­ sume far-reaching powers over others. One such individual, Wayaki, had large landed estates in the Kiambu region which gave him great wealth and accorded him much respect among his peers. Whether Wayaki and others like him were in the process of transforming the acephalous and democratic Kikuyu polity into a society with chiefs is virtually impossible to ascertain, however. Another significant aspect of hierarchy that existed within the otherwise egalitarian Kikuyu so­ ciety was the presence of large landowning families who competed vigorously with each other to increase their landholdings, the number of wives they married, the children they produced, and the number of tenant farmers who begged land from them and hence were economi­ cally and politically allied to them. This highly charged, competitive environment was to prove responsive to the colonial intrusion. Economically the Kikuyu were mainly agriculturalists, growing a wide variety of crops, especially maize and millet. Although they used livestock as a source of wealth and a mark of prestige as did the Kamba and the Maasai, they had much smaller herds than their neigh­ bors. No doubt their heavy population densities compelled them to rely on agriculture and forced them to restrict the size of their herds. As a result of their predominant agricultural orientation and their ex­ tremely heavy population concentrations in certain locales, people attached great importance—almost reverence—to the land. They were to resent, with a bitterness unmatched by other Kenyan African peo­ ples, their substantial land losses to European settlers. The Kikuyu also enjoyed a relatively brisk commercial life. They exchanged different agricultural and artisan products among themselves, engaged in trade with coastal merchants, and organized large caravans for trade with the pastoral Maasai. Inhabiting a large expanse of land to the east of the Kikuyu, the Kamba had many institutions similar to those of their neighbors. Also acephalous, they followed an age-grading system like that of the Kikuyu. The Kamba practiced a mixed economy of agriculture and stock-rearing. In the wetter, western part of their lands, around Machakos where the population tended to be dense, the cultivation of maize and millet was economically more important than stock-rearing. But in the dryer, less populous Kitui region stock-rearing predomi­ nated; agriculture was practiced as the climate and the soil allowed. Like other East African peoples, including the Maasai and the Kikuyu, the Kamba placed a high regard on livestock, especially cattle, which not only provided the people with milk, meat, and hides, but were a currency of exchange and hence favored as objects of wealth and pres-

The Creation of Colonial Societies in Kenya—13

tige. The British colonial authorities were quick to discover this Kamba attachment to cattle which could result in allowing herds to increase beyond the carrying capacity of the land. But they had little success in inculcating new attitudes toward the rearing and selling of stock. Their one major and dramatic effort to destock the Kamba in the 1930s led to an outpouring of anticolonial agitation. One of the significant Kamba developments of the mid-nineteenth century was the burgeoning of their long-distance commercial· activity. The Kamba-inhabited areas lay along several important Swahili cara­ van routes into the interior and served as entrepots for the exchange of commodities. Slaves and ivory were the main exports to the coast while beads, cloth, and other items were valued imports. One welltravelled route stretched from Takaungu on the coast via the Sabbaki and Athi rivers into Kituiland through Ikutha, Kitui, and Kisani, and finally to Muranga and even the Maasai country. The Kamba them­ selves organized their own trading caravans to the coast. The most powerful merchant leader in the mid-nineteenth century, Kivoi, also exercised considerable political powers in his area, causing a Euro­ pean traveller who observed him—the famous missionary explorer, J. Krapf—to regard his powers as those of a chief. There are of course many Maasai-speaking peoples in East Africa, but this study will focus on the Maasai located in the Rift Valley of Kenya. They were mainly a pastoral people abjuring and even dis­ paraging agricultural pursuits. They tried to subsist as much as possi­ ble from the produce of their herds, especially their much favored cat­ tle, although they engaged in a limited trade with their agricultural neighbors. The Maasai underwent dramatic fluctuations in their political and economic well being in the late nineteenth century and at the onset of British colonial rule. In the mid-nineteenth century the pastoral Maasai may have been at the apex of their power. Having defeated their erstwhile neighbors and competitors—the semipastoral and agri­ cultural Maasai, sometimes known as the Iloikop—they held sway in the Rift Valley where their herds prospered. For a short period a frag­ ile unity was created among the diverse and usually autonomous sec­ tions under the leadership of a powerful laibon, Mbatian. Maasai laibons were religious and magical leaders whose powers were nor­ mally advisory and consultative rather than executive, but Mbatian was able to exalt the authority of his office and bring a tenuous unity to his people. Nonetheless, this delicate balance collapsed on Mbatian's death. Two of his sons—Olonana and Senteu—struggled for domination and split the people into competing factions. Following this political strife, the Maasai were further ravaged by drought, famine, smallpox,

14— Introduction

and most devastatingly of all, a horrendous rinderpest epidemic, which was introduced into Africa for the first time in 1889 and swept through the highlands with astonishing virulence around 1890. The Maasai suffered grievously. Many families were forced to seek refuge among the Kikuyu and Kamba, and a large contingent threw them­ selves upon the mercy of the entering British. Whole sections were threatened with extinction. Except for the brief period of unity under laibon Mbatian the pas­ toral Maasai were divided into a number of autonomous and usually geographically separate sections. Nonetheless, these sections shared a common culture and common institutions. They were without chiefs, and their societies were divided, as were the Kikuyu and Kamba, into warrior and elder age-grades. The precolonial legacies which these three communities brought into the colonial period were to prove influential in their responses to colonial rule. In many ways the highland peoples were profoundly similar. Lacking chiefs and organized around age-grading arrange­ ments, they were highly individualistic and achievement oriented. A man's status in society was measured by his wealth and capabilities rather than his birth or social connections. The most striking differ­ ences were economic and demographic. The Kikuyu were primarily an agricultural people. The Kamba were mixed farmers, cultivating the soil and herding, while the Maasai were entirely pastoral, shunning agricultural pursuits. The demographic situation of each community was also strikingly different. The Kikuyu were a densely populated people, the Kamba less so, and the Maasai had low man-land ratios as befitted a purely pastoral society. There were differences in social structure which no doubt flowed from the economic and demographic conditions. The Kikuyu were socially more differentiated. An impor­ tant distinction existed between independent landowners and tenant farmers. Although there was movement between these two strata, at any given moment an upper and lower stratum existed. The Kikuyu people were also divided into competing factions, revolving around powerful families whose economic and political strength was swelled by acquiring land, marrying many wives, having large families, and attracting tenant farmers onto their land. The Kamba and Maasai did not have these economic strata. To be sure, in both societies there were poor individuals, but most heads of families were independent stockowners and possessed a measure of independence because they owned livestock.

CHAPTER II

Early Contacts: Pacification and Land Losses

The first African-British contacts in the central highlands set the stage for the creation of colonized societies. They revolved around the sup­ pression of overt resistance to British domination and were followed by the alienation of African land to incoming settlers. The Kamba and Kikuyu felt the effects of British military strength in a series of cam­ paigns, called euphemistically by the British punitive expeditions, which were designed not only to punish dissident African groups but also to elevate to power friendly, collaborating African leaders. The Maasai avoided military confrontation with the British, mainly through cautious leadership on their part and a desire by British offi­ cials not to antagonize a people thought by many to be the most trucu­ lent in East Africa. After pacification, large amounts of African land were appropriated by incoming settler farmers, mainly between 1903 and 1911. The man­ ner in which this land was alienated shaped many future develop­ ments. The Maasai probably lost the most land in their two spectacular and controversial moves of 1904 and 1912-1913. But they were moved en masse by the administration, and when the moves had been completed, they still lived separate from the European farming popu­ lation. Although their land was certainly not so plentiful or so produc­ tive as it had been before, they were able to pursue their traditional stock-rearing activities. The Kamba lost the least amount of land, and by and large, those who lost land moved back into the Kamba reserve. In glaring contrast were the Kikuyu land alienations, particularly those in southern Kikuyuland or Kiambu district. Here many Kikuyu fami­ lies were not moved off the land alienated to European settlers but were quickly transformed from independent landowners into tenant farmers under the domination of European settlers. The decade (1890-1900) during which the British were bringing East Africa under their suzerainty produced harsh times for the high­ land peoples. The chief cause of the suffering was probably rinderpest, introduced for the first time into the African continent in 1889. This disease swept from Somaliland all the way to South Africa and crossed the highland area of Kenya around 1890.1 Cattle had developed no 1 C. Van Onseln, "Reaction to Rinderpest in Southern Africa, 1896-97," Journal of African History, Vol. xii, 3, 1972, p. 473.

16—Early Contacts immunities against this disease, and the loss of life was immense. As often occurs during severe livestock epidemics, other catastrophes fol­ lowed in their wake. There was famine, particularly severe among people like the Maasai and Kamba who depended on their livestock for nourishment, and this was followed by smallpox. All three peoples experienced a series of disasters lasting from around 1890 until the turn of the century. But the Maasai suffered the most; their difficulties were compounded by a civil war. The political conflicts, the diseases, and famines undermined the strength of the Maasai.2 Many threw themselves at the mercy of the Kikuyu and were taken into Kikuyu homesteads. About 1,000 Matapatu and Kaputiei, under Olonana, sought assistance from the Im­ perial British East Africa Company, stationed at Fort Smith.3 The Company took them in and established a settlement for them. Their numbers grew to 5,000 as others also sought refuge at the station, and later Francis Hall moved them to Ngong.4 Another grouping, mainly of Purko, concentrated around Lake Naivasha in the Rift Valley, one of the rich Maasai grazing areas.5 Many observers at the time and later attached great importance to these events and felt that had the British not entered the highlands when they did Maasai society would have been shattered. The Kenya Land Commission's opinion was that "but for British protection the Maasai would have become a factor of comparatively minor impor­ tance and their country might have gradually been occupied by other tribes."8 There were certainly many British officials who felt that the Maasai reluctance to embrace change was the result of a declining civilization, one that had lost its vitality at the end of the nineteenth century. This point of view was strongly enunciated in a 1921 Maasai reserve annual report: The Maasai are a decadent race and have survived through being brought under the protection of British rule. But for this they would certainly have been exterminated by the more virile and 2 This material is taken from Alan H. Jacobs, "The Traditional Political Organ­ ization of the Pastoral Masai," D.Phil., Oxford University, 1965. There is also much historical evidence in the Kenya Land Commission (KLC), House of Commons Ses­ sional Papers (HCSP). Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556, pp. 19, 185, and 248. 3 No. 55, Mackenzie to Foreign Office, April 16, 1894, enclosing Ainsworth to Pigott, February ig, 1894, Public Record Office (PRO) Foreign Office (FO) 403/194 and Francis Hall to Father, February 12, 1894, Hall Papers, s. 57, Rhodes House Library, Oxford. 4 No. 10, Hardinge to Salisbury, March 10, 1896, enclosing Ainsworth to Hardinge, January 20, 1896, PRO FO 403/226. 5 No. 125, Crauford to Salisbury, May 12, enclosing Hinde to Crauford, April 5, 1899, PRO FO 403/281. e K L C , HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556, p. 186.

Pacification and Land Losses—17 numerous African tribes. They remain primitive savages who have never evolved and who under present condition, in all probability, never can evolve. Their environment is fatal. They live under con­ ditions of indescribable filth in an atmosphere of moral, physical, and mental degeneration. A large proportion of them are diseased or deformed. The infant mortality is appalling, and the birth rate an extraordinarily low one.7 Such a gloomy view seems unwarranted, however. The rapidity with which they were able to restore their herds in the first decade of the twentieth century testifies to the resilience of their society. On Laikipia Maasai herds increased; by 1910 there were an estimated 80,000 cattle and 1,500,000 sheep and goats, and Maasai in the East Africa Protec­ torate in general were said to have 130,000 cattle and 2,230,000 sheep in the same year.8 Moreover the personal stories of many Maasai, tak­ ing refuge with Kikuyu families, even working for a time as day la­ borers in Nairobi, with the firm intention of reestablishing their tradi­ tional way of life demonstrates the energy of these people. Needless to say there is little to suggest that Maasai conservatism to change stemmed from any decline in the vitality of their society. The disasters of the 1890s struck the Kikuyu and Kamba nearly as hard as the Maasai. Both societies were expanding territorially. From their central location in Muranga (later called Fort Hall district) Kikuyu colonies moved northward into Nyeri and south into Kiambu. The losses of life and livestock in the late 1890s caused some Kikuyu to retreat from Kiambu and return to Fort Hall, giving southern Kikuyuland an appearance to the incoming Europeans of being more vacant than it truly was. For approximately 150 years the Kamba had been expanding from a central area in the Mbooni hills. According to British investigations in the 1930s Kisau and Kaumoni were occupied about 150 years before the coming of the British at approximately the same time that the movement to Kitui occurred. Nzaui, Mbitini, Mukaa, and Kalama were taken over 100 years before the arrival of the British. The occupation of Maputi and Iveti took place around 1850 and Kangundo in the 1880s and 1890s. Matungulu was occupied by people from Kangundo, Iveti, and Mbooni around igoo, and until World War I it was sparsely in­ habited.9 ι Masai Reserve, Annual Report, 1921, R. W. Hemsted, Kenya National Archives (KNA) PC/SP 1/2/1. 8 Memorandum on the Masai, A. C. Hollis, July 5, 1910, H C S P , Vol. 52 1911, cd. 558. P- !90 "The Akamba of the Machakos District," D. O. Brumage, pp. 80-83, Machakos District Political Record Book, KNA DC/MKS 4/10.

18—Early Contacts

The British interest in what was later called Kenya Colony and Pro­ tectorate stemmed mainly from their commitments in Uganda. Uganda contained the headwaters of the Nile, of strategic importance to the British, and in Buganda it possessed a burgeoning Christian commu­ nity. If Uganda was to be controlled and supplied, the British needed to occupy Kenya. The first British claims in Kenya were staked out by William Mackinnon's Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEA), a largely unsuccessful private commercial firm. The Foreign Office established a protectorate in 1895 called the East Africa Protectorate and transferred its authority to the Colonial Office in 1905. Only in 1920 was the name of the colony changed to Kenya. Under Colonial Office rule Kenya was governed much like other British colonies in Africa. The head of the administration was the Gov­ ernor, who was appointed by the Colonial Office. He and his central staff, known as the secretariat, drew up policies submitting them to the Colonial Office for comments and approval. The British Parliament played a marginal role in colonial affairs. Its members initiated debate on colonial questions when they saw fit, but usually they did so only when large questions of policy were at issue. In 1905 the East Africa Protectorate established a Legislative Council which had a small con­ tingent of settler representatives. Although the number of settler rep­ resentatives was increased, and settlers were permitted to elect their delegates after the First World War, the administration controlled the Legislative Council because government officials were always in a ma­ jority. Thus, the state could enact any legislation it wished, although the right of settler members to express their opposition to government policy in debates was not taken lightly by the state. The Colonial Office had veto power on any legislation enacted in Kenya—a power it used on occasions. The British acquisition of the highlands of Kenya and suzerainty over the Maasai, Kikuyu, and Kamba was punctuated by violent epi­ sodes. The Kikuyu and Kamba experiences were relatively similar and rather violent. As the Imperial British East Africa Company extended its control inland, it established stations, or more precisely, fortified stockades, at Machakos (1889) and Dagoretti (i8go). Lugard opened the station at Dagoretti, gaining valuable help from Wayaki, a leading Kikuyu personality in the area.10 But relations soon degenerated, and the IBEA was forced to abandon its fort in 1891, after which the Ki­ kuyu burned it to the ground.11 The IBEA constructed another fort at Fort Smith, launching a punitive expedition against the Kikuyu for 10 Captain F. D. Lugard, T h e Rise of our East African Empire (London, 1893), 1, 326. 11 Ibid., 11, 535.

Pacification and Land Losses—19

their earlier actions. In the years that followed relations between the IBEA and the surrounding Kikuyu can only be described as warlike. The Kikuyu lay in hiding around the fort in hopes of cutting off strag­ glers going to and from the stockade; the Company gathered its provi­ sions by sending heavily armed parties to expropriate food from the Kikuyu fields.12 In 1893 Wayaki, still the leading Kikuyu figure in the area, attacked a British agent at the station, Purkiss, and he himself died being transported to the coast prior to being exiled. Lugard re­ gretted the breakdown in friendly relations with the Kikuyu and at­ tributed it to the actions of Swahili caravans who often treated African peoples rudely and raided them for supplies as they pleased. Lugard felt that the Kikuyu looked upon the IBEA as simply another of these hated outside intruders and therefore opposed them.13 In like fashion the British extended their authority out from the sta­ tion and brought the rest of Kiambu and all of Fort Hall and Nyeri districts under control. Francis Hall commanded the pacification of Kiambu district, and his letters to his father give graphic accounts of these military forays. In 1893 Hall punished the Guru Guru people for their attacks on a leading Kikuyu collaborator, Kinyanjui.14 In 1898 and then again in 1901 and 1902 punitive expeditions were launched against the Muraka peoples for attacking Swahili caravans and ob­ structing the government. In an 1899 expedition Hall's forces de­ stroyed a tremendous number of villages and captured some 10,000 goats and a few cattle.15 In 1900 he founded a station at a place later called Fort Hall; the district attached to it was brought under control through a series of punitive expeditions. A military foray into the north, led by Meinertzhagen in 1902, resulted in the founding of Nyeri station, the administrative headquarters of Nyeri district.16 The pacification of the Machakos Kamba produced a movement of resistance. As at Dagoretti there were early difficulties between the African people and the British company.17 John Ainsworth, who was in charge of the IBEA station at Machakos, led an expedition in 1893 into the district surrounding the station and attacked the kraal of the dominant leader in the area.18 The most serious resistance occurred in 1894 and was led by Qumatu, whom the British described as a chief. 12 Portal to Rosebery, January 31, 1893, HCSP, Vol. 62, 1893-94, c. 7109 and Major J.R.L. MacDonald, Soldiering and Surveying in British East Africa (London, 1897), pp. 112ff. 13 Lugard, The Rise of our East African Empire, 11, 535. 14 Extracts from the Diary of Francis Hall, June 6, 1893, Hall Papers, s. 57, Rhodes House Library, Oxford. isFrancis Hall to Father, March 1, 1899, ibid. 16 Colonel R. Meinertzhagen, Kenya Diary, 1902-1906 (London, 1957), pp. 6off. 1 ' Lugard, Rise of Our East African Empire, 1, 318. 1 5 MacDonald, Soldiering and Surveying in British East Africa, p. 47.

20—Early Contacts His headquarters was located at Mwala where he and his people were active in slave raiding into Kikuyuland. Ainsworth's efforts to put a stop to these activities only resulted in Qumatu's effecting an alliance with the neighboring communities of Muthey, Kathomi, and Kiviluki. It was reported that all the paths in the area were guarded by war­ riors, that Qumatu had spread a report that he had become possessed of dhowa (medicine) which made guns harmless, and that the Euro­ peans who entered his district would die. In 1894 the British despatched a punitive expedition against Mwala consisting of 130 Swahilis, 20 Kamba askaris, and 800 Maasai auxiliaries which burned the rebel villages and took away cattle and goats.19 After this raid Qumatu came into the Machakos station and sued for peace, paying 4 bullocks and 100 goats as a fine. This expedition did not entirely pacify this re­ gion. In 1895 and 1896 Ainsworth despatched punitive expeditions against Charna, Kanjalu, Mwalu, and other villages.30 Finally between 1895 and 1897 other military expeditions were sent against Kilungu, Mukaa, Mbooni, and Kangundo as Machakos district was brought ef­ fectively under British overrule.21 The Maasai were able to avoid punitive expeditions. A major con­ frontation did occur in 1895 when some warriors turned upon a cara­ van and killed a number of Swahili and Kikuyu porters. A former English official and trader, Andrew Dick, came upon the scene and sought to recapture the caravan's lost property. Employing his rifle to devastating effect, he killed an estimated 100 warriors before being killed by a spear. Such incidents, especially the killing of a European, were often the basis of severe punitive measures. But when inquiries showed that the Maasai had been justified in attacking the caravan because its members had looted the Maasai and tampered with their women, the British decided against further retaliation.22 The period of pacification (1890-1902), if it can be called that, had some important implications for later colonial developments. The fact that the Maasai did not experience a punitive expedition while the Kikuyu and Kamba did should not be exaggerated. The Kikuyu and Kamba did not suffer overwhelming military defeats at the hands of No. 175, Kemball to Foieign Office, May 11, 1894, enclosing Ainsworth to Pigott, March 16, 1894 and March 20, 1894, PRO FO 403/194. 2 « No. 34, Hardinge to Salisbury, December 19, 1895, enclosing Ainsworth to Hardinge, December 3, 1895; No. 128, Hardinge to Salisbury, January 9, 1896, en­ closing Ainsworth to Hardinge, December 16, 1895, PRO FO 403/225; and No. 195, Hardinge to Salisbury, May g, 1896, enclosing Ainsworth to Hardinge, April 2, 1896 and Ainsworth to Hardinge, April 20, 1896, PRO FO 403/226. 21 Machakos District Political Record Book, p. 3, KNA DC/MKS 4/1. 22 Report on the British East Africa Protectorate, 1897, p. 67, Hardinge, HCSP, Vol. 60, 1898, c. 8683 and No. 56, Berkeley to Salisbury, February 11, 1896, enclosing Jackson to Berkeley, January 23, 1896, PRO FO 403/226.

Pacification and Land Losses—21 the British. Many punitive expeditions found villages deserted and ad­ ministered their military lesson simply by burning huts and carrying off whatever livestock had been left behind. There were instances of considerable loss of life. In the 1902 confrontation with the Muraka Kikuyu 200 were killed while in the Iraini encounter the number of Kikuyu killed may have been as many as 1,500.23 Still there was no punitive expedition launched against the Kikuyu or Kamba of as devastating proportions as the sorties against the Nandi in 1905-1906 when this much less populous people lost an estimated 1,750 and their ritual expert (orkoiyot), Koitalei.24 Moreover, before Dick was killed, he had shot 100 Maasai in what W. MacGregor Ross rightly called the "quaintest punitive expedition in British history."25 What was more important than these clashes and the amount of blood spilled was the emergence of collaborators—men willing to co­ operate with the British overrulers. The individual who seemed to be the most promising collaborator was Olonana, son of Mbatian and laibon of the Kaputiei. Misjudging his powers, the British considered Olonana to be paramount chief of all the Maasai when in fact he had only magical-religious powers, not political authority, and his influence was largely confined to the Kaputiei and Purko sections. Having sought refuge with Hall, he was present at the government camp when news of Dick's death was brought; according to British accounts he feared retaliation and was impressed by the justice and moderation of the government when they accepted the Maasai case.26 Olonana facili­ tated the two major land moves of the Maasai. The British had good reason to feel that their interests were protected through him. In Kikuyuland the reactions to the British were much more extreme and varied. Writing in 1893, Hall described the way the British pres­ ence intensified Kikuyu factional rivalry. "The district has two factions, the distant one composed of men who have always been our sworn foes and in spite of several thrashings never made friends; while the second is composed of our near neighbors who, besides being willing and well able to help us in fighting, form a valuable series of outposts through which it would be impossible for any hostile force to pass for the pur­ pose of attacking the fort."27 No doubt the most influential of the 23 G. H. Mungeam, British Rule in Kenya, 1895-1912: The Establishment of Ad­ ministration in the East Africa Protectorate (Oxford, 1966), pp. 84-85. 2i Ibid., pp. 156-158. 25 W. Ma^Gregor Ross, Kenya from Within: A Short Political History (London, 1927), p. 133. 26 Report on the British East Africa Protectorate, 1897-98, p. 4, Hardinge, HCSP, Vol. 63, 1899, c. 9125. Extracts from the Diary of Francis Hall, June 6, 1893, Hall Papers, s. 57, Rhodes House Library, Oxford.

22—Early Contacts

"friendlies" was Kinyanjui wa Githirimu. The historical record is not clear on his background although in two places he is said to have been a landless hunter.28 All accounts agree that he was traditionally not a great man among the Kikuyu (a muthamaki), but rose to prominence by attaching himself to the IBEA and the British. There were other Kikuyu collaborators through whom British rule was channeled: Kioi in Kiambu; Karuri in Fort Hall; and Wambugu in Nyeri, to mention only the most famous. In the pacification of Kambaland a similar group of collaborators emerged although, unlike the Kikuyu chiefs, they were not able to con­ solidate power and become effective agents of local administration.

As the British took over East Africa, many officials were struck by the possibilities its elevated regions offered for European settlement. Lugard, Johnston, and others extolled the exhilarating climate and pic­ tured vast empty lands awaiting development. The construction of a costly railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria put additional pressure on the British government to devise means by which the East Africa Protectorate could pay for its administration and the railway. Many thought of sponsoring European immigration and relying on immi­ grant farmers to develop the country's resources. Although a few enterprising European settlers entered the Protec­ torate before 1900, the first influx of settlers did not begin to occur until 1903. Most of these early incomers were of British nationality and came from Great Britain or South Africa in hopes of taking up land and becoming farmers. At no time was the European population in Kenya ever large. Indeed, even at its height after World War II, it did not exceed 60,000 persons. Before World War I only a trickle of Euro­ peans had entered the East Africa Protectorate, little more than 3,000 according to a 1911 census—a figure which included European admin­ istrators, missionaries, and merchants as well as settler farmers. There are unfortunately no firm statistics on this early immigrant farming community; no breakdown on their nationalities; their wealth; their previous occupations; and the size of their holdings in East Africa. Many of the incomers took up land under a scheme formulated by High Commissioner Charles Eliot (1901-1904) permitting them to occupy 160 acres of land freehold with an option to purchase an ad­ joining 480 acres provided certain development requirements were met. As a result, there was a substantial group of medium-sized (under one thousand acres) European landowners. But most settler 28 Quarterly Report, Ukamba Province, 1909, p. 95, C. W. Hobley, KNA DC/MKS 1/5/1 and testimony of Harry Thuku, KLC, Evidence, 1, 217.

Pacification and Land Losses—23

farmers aspired to accumulate larger estates, and many men, like Delamere, Chamberlain, Flemmer, and others, did. Moreover, because these men exercised predominant political influence among the set­ tlers, Kenya had the reputation as being a colony of large and wealthy European farmers. The administration and settlers themselves did lit­ tle to change this impression. Through their publicity, they tried to attract individuals with means and rarely portrayed Kenya as a refuge for poor and struggling families. Following World War I the Colonial Office undertook to increase the number of Europeans in Kenya by settling a group of ex-soldiers there. This scheme was discussed while the war was still in progress. In 1916 Governor Belfield estimated that the total area of land sur­ veyed and awaiting alienation was 3,200 square miles, mainly in Laikipia, North Kenya, and Trans Nzoia. Belfield thought that about half of this area could be set aside for the settlement scheme and would provide 5,000 farms of 160 and 240 acres.29 Following the war more definite plans were formulated. The Colonial Office agreed to establish two types of applicants. Those in the first group, called class A, were to be men of small means and were to be given free grants of small farms. Those in class B were to be men with £1000 capital and an assured income of £200 per year. They were to purchase larger farms. In a Colonial Office memorandum of April 14, 1919, a plan was drawn up to allocate 250 A farms and 800 B farms, with the total acre­ age in the first instance being confined to 500,000 acres.30 In fact, when the scheme was carried into effect 1,052 class B farms and 257 class A farms were created—a total of 2.5 million acres. The government re­ ceived over 1,600 applications for farms and approved 1,352.31 The major areas of alienation were the Trans Nzoia, Laikipia, North Kenya and Nyeri; according to a Colonial Office minute the scheme doubled the settler population.32 Many of the approximately 1,000 ex-soldiers who eventually went out to Kenya experienced great difficulty in their new enterprise. Most had little experience as farmers. Farms were often remote from the railway and roads and were not economically viable. Many men sold out, finding it difficult to make a success of their work. Some of the original farms were never even taken up as the ex-soldiers did not bother to travel to Kenya. Assessing the overall success of the scheme, the Ormsby-Gore Commission of 1924-1925 stated that in all 1,031 new 29 Confidential, 30

Belfield to Bonar Law, August 16, 1916, PRO CO 533/169. Memorandum by Colonial Office, East Africa Protectorate Land Settlement

Scheme, April 13, 1919, PRO CO 533/208. 31

No. 1038, Northey to Milner, October 30, 1919, PRO CO 533/214.

32 I b i d , and No. 490, Northey to Milner, October 30, 1919, PRO CO 533/210.

24—Early Contacts

farms were allotted. Of these 770 remained in the possession of the original owners or their transferees. The number of transferees from the original allottees was believed to be 225 while 215 farms had been returned to the government. Thus, nearly half of the original occupiers had left their estates by 1924.33 The ex-soldier settlement scheme was the last major increase in the settler population before World War II. In 1924 the Commissioner of Lands remarked in the Legislative Council that there was "very little more left than the farms which have already been surveyed."34 The Commissioner's statement was prompted by Delamere's suggestion that the African peoples were taking up more land than they actually needed and that the state could find more land for alienation to Euro­ peans if it wanted. Delamere claimed: This country is populated in many areas by scattered nomadic people owning cattle and producing very little for the country. After all, you have enormous areas of the richest agricultural land in Africa in Kikuyu country. A third of that land is probably only being used, owing to the system of cropping and fallowing which the natives follow. All the land in the world has to be put to the best use and the result of the system followed in the Kikuyu coun­ try is that one of the world's richest Eireas has one-third of its land lying idle.35 Besides the questionable accuracy of this statement, by 1924 there was no likelihood of large land excisions from African reserves. African nationalist opposition had already appeared, and groups in Great Brit­ ain were growing critical of settler-African relations. Under the administration of Edward Grigg, Governor of Kenya from 1925 to 1930, another effort was made to increase European set­ tlement. Grigg popularized the notion of bringing in a large number of settlers and filling up sparsely populated European districts. His vi­ sion was of many small European farmers, men who would farm their own homesteads without resort to African labor, which during these years was in especially short supply.36 These immigrants would swell the European population and make Kenya a true European settlement colony. But Grigg's plans depended on the creation of financial insti­ tutions capable of supporting men of moderate means. Land and agri33 Report of the East Africa Commission, p.

160,

HCSP, Vol.

9, 1924-1925,

cmd.

2387.

34 Proceedings of the Kenya Legislative Council, Second Session, 1924, p. 245. Ibid., p. 244. 36 Colonial Office Memorandum on Settlement in Colonies not Possessing Respon­ sible Government, September, 1930, PRO CO 533/398/16114/A and Colonial Office Minute, PRO CO 533/397/16078. 35

Pacification and Land Losses—25 cultural banks were required. The depression put an end to these ideas as the settler population was forced to devote all its energies to keep­ ing its farms going and there was little thought of enticing new immi­ grants to Kenya. Despite Kenya's international reputation as a settlement colony, the total European population was never large and the total European settler population was even smaller. In 1911, for example, there were only 3,175 Europeans in the East African Protectorate.37 The 1936 cen­ sus estimated the European population at 12,529 and the 1931 census put it at 16,812, of which 92 per cent were of British nationality. According to this last census, of the adult males between the ages of 20 and 49, 31 per cent were employed in agriculture and 23 per cent in administration and defense.38 These figures suggest that Euro­ pean farmers as a group were not populous; such an impression was confirmed by the statistics collected by the Agriculture Department. Table 2-1 shows that the number of European occupiers in 1929 was TABLE 2-1

Settler Farming in Kenya Years

European Area in Occupiers Cultivation

Percentage in Principal Crops Wheat Maize Sisal

Coffee

1922 1923 1924 1925 1926

1,386 1,466 1,618 1,695 1,809

234,055 274,139 346,988 392,628 463,864

18.5 19.0 17.3 16.6 14.9

1927 1928

1,901 1,971

1929 1930

2,035 2,097

512,543 592,741 635,590 643,644

1931 1932 1934

2,106 2,107 2,027

14.6 14.2

32.2 36.4 40.7 39.7 41.7 37.5 36.4

15.9 14.2 13.1 13.4 13.0 13.9 15.5

5.9 5.6 6.0 5.4 9.4 12.8 14.9

14.2 14.9

38.5 32.1

17.2 21.4

10.4 11.0

659,557 613,557

14.6 16.1

30.6 26.1

20.8 23.7

10.4 7.0

556,182

18.4

20.3

25.5

6.3

Source: Compiled from censuses of the Agriculture Department, 1922-1934.

only 2,035 and the total amount of land they cultivated was only 635,590 acres. Nonetheless, the European farmers owned 5,000,648 acres. Some of this land was grazed, but a considerable proportion was put to no effective use—a fact commented upon frequently by landhungry African farmers and pastoralists. It was not until after World War I that European agriculture became well enough established to dominate the export picture of Kenya. As the same table demonstrates, 37 East African Standard, October ig, 1911. 38 Kenya, Census of non-Native Population, 1926, p. 22 and 1931, pp. 8 and 42.

26—Early Contacts

maize was the principal crop until European prices declined in the depression. Although coffee was planted on only 15 per cent of the cul­ tivated land, it proved to be a most profitable commodity, withstand­ ing the depression much better than sisal, wheat, or maize. Had a traveller toured the European agricultural estates in the high­ lands in 1930, for example, he would have seen many different kinds of agriculture. Starting in the southeast at Masongeleni and Kibwezi at the border of the highlands, he would encounter large sisal planta­ tions, with factories for preparing fiber. On the Athi plains, not far from the Kamba reserve, there were fruit farms and coffee estates. Ostrich farming had once been popular there until the demand for feathers had failed. Further west around Thika were cofEee and sisal estates, while Kiambu had some of the richest coffee land in the col­ ony. On the western side of Kiambu district at Limuru and the escarp ment, there was coffee and tea. In North Nyeri district mixed farming and stock-rearing were the order of the day as was the case at Nakuru and Naivasha in the Rift Valley. On Kinangop plateau, once the cherished circumcision lands of the Maasai, there were profitable wheat farms. Pyrethrum would soon be grown there. Laikipia had enormous ranches while Kericho was the center of tea estates. Londiani, Trans Nzoia, and Uasin Gishu specialized in mixed farming and stock-rearing. Until the depression maize was grown in these areas in large quantities, but the decline in world prices made it unprofitable, and it was replaced by wheat and dairy farming.39 European settlers moving into the highlands, expropriated land be­ longing to Africans. Despite reports of vast undeveloped tracts of land, there was much less arable, unclaimed land than was at first realized. The alienation of African lands occurred mainly in the years 1903 to 1911. It was not until 1903 that the first large wave of settlement oc­ curred; by 1911 the second Maasai treaty had been signed, the state was demarcating reserves for African peoples, and the Colonial Office and interested observers in Great Britain were scrutinizing plans for allocating land to Europeans more carefully to make sure that African rights were not infringed. The major alienations in Kikuyuland occurred between 1903 and 1907 and were focused on the southern part of the Kikuyu area (Kiambu district). It was this area into which the Kikuyu had been ex­ panding in the nineteenth century but from which many families re­ treated as a result of the disease and famine of the last decade of the nineteenth century. According to the report of the Kenya Land Com39 This is a composite portrait taken from many different sources. A more de­ tailed examination of settler farming will be found in the chapters on labor.

Pacification and Land Losses—27

mission (1934) the total amount of unequivocal Kikuyuland en­ croached upon by Europeans was 125 square miles, 16 of which had been abandoned after 1895 in their retreat from Kiambu. Of this total over 93 square miles were in Kiambu district. The alienations occurred at Kikuyu station (7.5 square miles), between Kabete and Kiambu (23 square miles), Kamiti River (7.75 square miles), Ngwa to Chania River (17 square miles), north of the Chania River (15.5 square miles), Limuru farm block (77 square miles), crown land reserve near Saba Saba (1 square mile), Nyeri block (6.75 square miles), and various en­ claves of land turned over to the missions inside the reserve (.2 square mile). 40 In Kiambu the Kenya Land Commission estimated that the total number of families who lost land was 1,594 or 7,950 individuals at an average figure of 5 per family. 41 These Kikuyu occupiers were paid 3,848 rupees for their lands, or an average of 4 rupees for a 2 acre plot of land. The Commission speculated that 962 households had re­ ceived compensation, while 632 had not. 42 At the time the Europeans were encroaching on the southern Kikuyu region, the administration held the view that the Kikuyu, like all African peoples, had no concept of private landholding, but used land temporarily and moved on to new territory after exhausting the soil.43 Hence settlers were permitted to compensate African cultivators at the rate of 2 rupees per acre for occupiers' rights, but did not pay any com­ pensation for landholding rights. 44 Not until 1910-1912 did closer sur­ veys of the Kikuyu land tenure system reveal that the Kikuyu did indeed have a clear notion of land rights. District officers, Beech, Hobley, and Dundas, showed that families owned pieces of land, called ithaka and that these ithaka were precisely demarcated and known to all residents in an area. Conducting a close survey in a location near Dagoretti, Beech was able to identify 37 ithaka as well as the ahoi or tenant farmers residing on these estates. He believed that these land rights derived from three Kikuyu who had purchased the area from •to KLC, pp. 71-77, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. 41 Ibid., p. 100. This figure was arrived at by estimating the density of population in alienated areas. Discounting the 16.25 square miles of land the Kikuyu abandoned, the Commission believed that the remaining 93.25 were about half as heavily popu­ lated as the rest of the reserve. The Commission estimated that the density was 73 persons to the square mile and an average family size was 5, hence the conclusion that the area had been inhabited by 1,594 families. 42 Ibid., p. 102. 43 See, as an example, East Africa Protectorate, Report of the Land Committee, 1905, p. 24, House of Lords Papers, Vol. 9, 1907, p. 158. « "Settlement of Native Rights and Future Settlement of Labor Colonies on Farms," C. C. Dundas, December 28, 1911, Kikuyu District Political Record Book, 1908-12, KNA PC/CP 1/4/1.

28—Early Contacts one of the original inhabitants in the area who belonged to the Dorobo tribe.45 In his testimony to the Joint Select Committee, Canon Harry Leakey summed up the errors of the early years: "We thought that the natives were just living more or less on common law land. The govern­ ment said the whole land was crown land and any European who came along was told to choose and select what he liked. . . . We did not real­ ize at all then, as I know now that every single inch of ground there has an owner."46 An important Kikuyu land grievance was the creation of forest re­ serves in Kikuyu districts. The Forest Department set aside forest reserves in order to preserve timber resources which the Kikuyu in their expansion were fast destroying. But the demarcation of some zones caused bitter feelings. The two areas where the most ill will arose were in southern Kiambu district and northern Nyeri. While the Forest Department had no difficulty demarcating boundaries from Nyeri to Limuru, along the whole of the western boundary from Kijabe to Ngong, "the forest was honey-combed with shambas," ac­ cording to A. G. Baker, who fixed the boundaries there.47 LieutenantGovernor F. Jackson had to be brought from Nairobi to negotiate a boundary agreement with the chiefs. All those within the forest line were evicted and the boundary patrolled by forest guards. Beech men­ tioned in 1912 that over 1,000 huts were removed from the escarpment to Ruiru, and this engendered exceedingly bad feelings with the Forest Department. Although the Kikuyu were allowed to gather firewood three days a week, they continued to complain that the Department gazetted too much land and failed to compensate the ithaka holders. Moreover the forest boundaries were patrolled by guards who ex­ ceeded their powers, confiscating axes and straps from the men caught inside the forest zone and seducing women.48 The problem in Nyeri was somewhat different. There the Kikuyu remonstrated that they were deprived of one of their most revered sacrificial sites through the creation of a forest zone on Nyeri hill.49 In testimony to the Kenya Land Commission chief Wambugu of Nyeri and Macharia wa Kinungi 45

"Native Land Tenure in Dagoretti District," M.W.H. Beech, Kikuyu District Political Record Book, 1912-14, KNA PC/CP 1/4/2. 46 Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, HCSP, Vol. 7, 19301931, 11, 249. The Kenya Land Commission did not accept this view, however, doubt­ ing that the idea of private estates had evolved among the Kikuyu before the ap­ pearance of the British. The Commission believed that all that existed in 1900 was political suzerainty over ridges and not an explicit system of private landholding. KLC, pp. 89 and 146, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. 47 Memorandum, A. G. Baker, KLC, Evidence, 1, 454-456. 4SDagoretti, Annual Report, 1912-1913, M.W.H. Beech, KNA DC/KBU/4. 49Nyeri District, Annual Report, 1930, J.W.K. Pease, p. 22, KNA DC/NYI/i.

Pacification and Land Losses—29 also expressed discontent at the policy of fining peoples for trespassing or cutting firewood in forest areas.50 The impact of the lost lands for the Kikuyu will only become fully clear after considering labor, agriculture, and political protest. But a few generalizations are in order now. Kikuyu resentment on this issue beclouded their entire relationship with the government. Every gov­ ernment proposal was viewed with suspicion as an effort to deprive them of territory. Land was the prime issue of nationalist agitation, but it was also taken up by the most conservative collaborationist chiefs. The loss of lands that had once belonged to the Kikuyu, but espe­ cially the drawing of boundary lines around the Kikuyu land unit jeopardized the traditional processes of political and economic expan­ sion. Although this phenomenon is quite imperfectly known, it would appear that as areas became densely populated, groups of Kikuyu banded together to expand into new territories. If the admittedly scanty evidence from Kiambu district can be trusted, these bands were composed of a few wealthy and powerful individuals who became in­ dependent landholders of substantial tracts, supported by a large cast of ahoi or tenant farmers, who presumably helped to defend the area and cleared it for cultivation.51 The ultimate goal of these ahoi, some of whom were small landholders themselves in locations they left, was to gain sufficient economic resources to strike out on their own into vir­ gin territory and become independent landowners. The coming of the British, land alienations, and the drawing of reserve boundaries sealed off areas into which new Kikuyu bands would probably have ex­ panded. Thus, new tensions were generated between ahoi and ithaka owners.52 Certainly evidence from the 1930s reveals that the ahoi lived in a state of considerable insecurity. They were in danger of being evicted from their farms and tried to claim permanent rights over land.53 By the same token landholders feared losing their rights in the land to ahoi, and this may have been one reason that these families in the 1920s and 1930s demanded land-ownership titles from the state. Another of course was their fear of further land alienations. One of the most dramatically important developments linked with the alienation of Kikuyu land was the creation of an instantaneous African squatter population in Kiambu district. A squatter was a per50 KLC, Evidence, 1, 82 and 112. 51 See the findings of Beech on ithaka owners and ahoi in Dagoretti before World War I. "Native Land Tenure in Dagoretti District," Kikuyu District Political Record Book, 1912-14, KNA PC/CP 1/4/2 and the report by L. J. Lightbody in Dagoretti Political Record Book, 1913-19, KNA DC/KBU/77. 52Godfrey Muriuki, "A History of the Kikuyu to 1904," Ph.D. thesis, London University, 1969, p. 93. 53 Kenya, The Kikuyu Lands (Nairobi, 1945), p. 23.

30—Early Contacts son who lived and worked on a European farm, being compensated for his work partly in wages and partly by being allowed to farm a small piece of land. Most of the early Kikuyu squatter population came into being in clear violation of the land laws drawn up by the British them­ selves. The basic land law under which land was alienated from the Kikuyu, Kamba, and Maasai was the Crown Lands Ordinance of 1902. This proclaimed that all public land (i.e., vacant land) was crown land and could be leased or sold to Europeans. Two important clauses in the ordinance (sections 30 and 31) dealt with African landed rights, however. Section 30 stipulated that "in all dealings with crown land regard shall be had to the rights and requirements of the natives, and in particular the commissioner shall not sell or lease any land in the actual occupation of natives." In section 31 the government was per­ mitted to "grant leases of areas of land containing African villages or settlements, but land in the actual occupation of natives at the date of the lease shall, so long as it is actually occupied by them, be deemed excluded from the lease." In other words, the state could lease land on which Africans lived, provided that the land actually under cultivation was excluded from the lease. If an African living on land leased to a European left his estate, his land automatically passed to the lessee. In fact the correspondence of John Ainsworth makes it clear that the ad­ ministration encouraged settlers to remove African occupiers from the land rather than to exclude areas under African cultivation as section 31 of the land law required. On November 30, 1903, Ainsworth wrote his assistant in Kiambu district that he was to help arrange compensa­ tion for Africans where settlers were ready to take over the land. If an African cultivator did not want to leave the land, he must either agree to "bunch up" or shift to an area reserved for African settlement.54 Even so the law stipulated that those who were not compensated and did not leave were to remain in undisturbed occupation of their lands. In fact, this law was a dead letter; the Chief Native Commissioner in 1932, A. de V. Wade, stated that he knew of no case in which section 31 of the Crown Lands Ordinance of 1902 had ever been invoked.55 In this way Kikuyu rightholders were turned into tenant squatters living on European estates, and when the first squatter ordinance was enacted in 1918 it was applied to all Africans residing on European estates, whether they could claim rights in the land or not. As one Eu­ ropean stated in his evidence given to the Kenya Land Commission, when the squatter ordinance of 1918 came into effect, "all natives on the land were either turned into squatters or they had to go. They sims-iThis correspondence can be found in KNA DC/MKS 10A/1/1, especially Ainsworth to Η. H. Horner, Assistant Collector, Kiambu, November 30, 1903. 55 KLC f Evidence, i, 80-81.

Pacification and Land Losses—31

ply went because they were told to."56 Reviewing Ainsworth's corre­ spondence of 1903 for the Kenya Land Commission, A. de V. Wade stated that the district officer of Kiambu rode "roughshod" over Kikuyu rights.57 Although some of the Kikuyu occupiers whose lands were alienated left their estates, it is also clear that a large number stayed on. The annual reports of Kiambu district before World War I estimated that nearly one-fourth of the Kikuyu living in Kiambu dis­ trict actually resided on European estates in the district as squatter laborers.58 A large proportion must surely have been the former land­ holders. Two specific cases illustrate the process by which Kikuyu rightholders were turned into an agricultural proletariat often on their own estates. The Church of Scotland Mission under the direction of Ruffele Scott acquired a 3,000 acre estate at Thogoto, just outside Nairobi, in the first few years of the twentieth century. Having come to East Africa from Nyasaland, Scott hoped to establish a large agricultural and industrial estate at Thogoto which would generate revenue and enable the mission to extend its work. The estate had a number of Kikuyu rightholders living on it; Scott encouraged other Kikuyu to set­ tle as squatter laborers. In violation of the law of 1902 the mission moved families around in order to open up certain locations for agri­ cultural development and mission work. In time the original distinc­ tion between owners and squatters was blurred. After Henry Scott had succeeded Ruffele Scott as head of the mission, the first labor agree­ ment was introduced in 1908. This one-year agreement was followed by other later contracts in subsequent years. According to these ar­ rangements those who lived on the estate had to agree to provide a certain amount of labor on the mission farm and to send some of their children to the mission school. Certain individuals refused to sign the agreement and left. Later some returned, apparently unable to find land elsewhere, and agreed to these labor arrangements.59 Comment­ ing on the mission memorandum which described this sad, but by no means unusual story, J. W. Arthur later head of the mission, quite rightly placed considerable blame on the administration for failing to call the violations of the law to the mission's attention.60 The second story involved the Njunu family, one of the many whose land was alienated in the Kabete area where the government expropri­ ated land for the Native Industrial Training Depot, the Church Mis­ sionary Society station, the Scott Agricultural Laboratory, and a gov56 Testimony of Lt. Colonel O. F. Watkins, February 3, 1933, KLC, Evidence, 111, 2907. 57 Ibid., i, 80-81. 58 See Chapter XX. 59 KLC, Evidence, 1, 815-834. GO Ibid., 1, 465.

32—Early Contacts

ernment experimental farm. After being bought out by the state, the Njunu family was moved over the river. Life was made uncomfortable for them there, and they squatted for a time on a European estate at Mbagathi. When this land was sold to another owner, the family was adrift again and finally given land by the administration at Ngong. But this was only to be a temporary arrangement as the land belonged to the Maasai.61 There was great truth in a 1924 Kikuyu petition describ­ ing the Kikuyu as "wanderers" drifting from one estate to another. The Kikuyu sense of land loss was deep and abiding. Much bitter­ ness stemmed from the fact that many Kikuyu lost control over the very land they continued to occupy and were transformed into an agri­ cultural proletariat. Land alienations brought southern Kikuyus into intimate contact with the settler population. It fueled a Kikuyu anticolonial movement, especially as the population began to expand and to press heavily on the land in the interwar period. As the British grew aware of these land grievances and became ap­ prehensive about the political explosiveness of this issue, they sought to allay insecurities by giving the Kikuyu and other African tribes spe­ cially designated reserves which were supposed to be inviolate. This idea was developed by Ainsworth when he was subcommissioner of Ukamba province in 1903. Ainsworth was concerned lest Kikuyu culti­ vators be moved about at will as Europeans encroached farther into their area, and he wanted to establish special homesteads for them. He suggested that "a definite line [be] fixed beyond which no European settler would be allowed to take up land. As Kikuyu occupiers now liv­ ing within the area within which European settlers are taking up land . . . require to move, they could move into the reservation."62 Between 1905 and 1912 Ainsworth and other British officials endeavored to es­ tablish the boundaries of these reserves. This concept of African reserves was further elaborated after the First World War. This is not the place to enter this complex and con­ troversial subject which is well served by other studies. British efforts, however, to remove this bitter issue from African politics through the creation of special land trust boards and then through the appointment of a high-powered land commission (the Kenya Land Commission) to invesitage all aspects of the question and to make recommendations were not successful. The Kikuyu remained dissatisfied with govern­ ment efforts to provide compensation for earlier losses, and in 1939 they were still intensely suspicious of government designs on African land. Indeed, as subsequent chapters will demonstrate, land was al­ ways an evocative issue with Kikuyu nationalist groups. 6i Memorandum of Canon Harry Leake, ibid., 1, 868. »2 Ainsworth to Eliot, October 23, 1903 in KLC, Evidence, 1, 51.

Pacification and Land Losses—33 The Maasai lost land in two spectacular and controversial moves which occasioned the resignation of Governors Eliot and Girouard.63 The first move occurred in 1904 in order to make available large amounts of land in the Rift Valley. The East African Syndicate had applied for 320,000 acres, Delamere for 100,000, and Chamberlain and Flemmer for 32,000 each in this region. Having little regard for the Maasai way of life, High Commissioner Charles Eliot felt no hesitation in removing the Maasai from the region and opening the land to Eu­ ropean settlement. Some of his subordinate officials, most notably Jack­ son and Bagge, did not share his views. Both talked with Maasai elders and concluded that while the concession to the East African Syndicate was acceptable, the Maasai were anxious to retain the rest of their Rift Valley estate. Jackson was not opposed to applications north of Nakuru and Elmenteita as the Maasai had not occupied this area, but he re­ sisted the notion of granting land to other than the Syndicate south of this zone since this was the heartland of the Rift Valley Maasai.64 Although Eliot was forced to resign over these land concessions, the Maasai were moved. As a prelude to the move a number of their lead­ ers signed a treaty in 1904, stipulating that the Purko, Kakonyukie, Loita, and Damat sections were to move northward to Laikipia while the Kaputiei, Matapatu, Dokolani, and Sigarai would withdraw into a southern reserve. A road linked the two reserves so that communica­ tions could be maintained, and a 5 mile area on the Kinangop was set aside for circumcision and other important tribal ceremonies. The treaty guaranteed the Maasai security of their reserves forever and was signed, not only by paramount chief, Olonana, but a number of others, including ole Gelishu and Masikonte, both of whom were to oppose the second move at various times.65 The first move was not completely successful. John Stauffacher, an Africa Inland missionary in close contact with the Maasai, wrote that at first large numbers refused to leave their homesteads and the gov­ ernment had to delay the move. They held a great meeting at Naivasha, and some of the warriors asserted that they would rather die fighting than move.66 In fact large numbers scattered and did not move north­ ward. Many of the Kakonyukie remained at Naivasha, encouraged by 63 There are many accounts of these events. Mungeam, British Rule in Kenya, 1895-1912·, Sorrenson, The Origin of European Settlement in Kenya·, and Sandford, An Administrative and Political History of the Masai Reserve are recommended. M No. io, Memorandum by Jackson, February 22, 1904, HCSP, Vol. 6a, 1904, cd. 2099. 65 The two Maasai treaties may be found in Belfield to Harcourt, Confidential, January 16, 1913, PRO CO 533/115. «β John Stauffacher to Florence Minch1 January 12, 1904, Stauffacher Letters, Kenya.

34—Early Contacts

the government to herd livestock for the East African Syndicate. Other Kakonyukie, dissatisfied with grazing conditions in the north, returned to the Rift Valley. The Loita and Damat and some Purko retreated south into the Loita hills, an area which was to become part of the Maasai reserve after the second move but was not so in 1904. Later the government estimated that 2,000 Purko alone were living illegally in these hills, with 20,000 cattle and 500,000 sheep and goats.67 By and large, only the Purko, led by ole Gelishu and Masikonte, moved to Laikipia. Within a few years, as their herds began to increase, they found the grazing inadequate and were permitted to cross over the Uaso Nyiro River boundary to seek more pasturing.68 Even as the Maasai in Laikipia were acclimatizing themselves to the region, the government was contemplating moving them again. In 1908 preliminary plans were discussed, and in January, 1909, Governor Hayes Sadler interviewed Olonana who spoke in favor of reuniting all the Maasai in an enlarged southern reserve. British officials contended that Olonana was strongly in favor of the idea as a means of enhancing his power and keeping the tribe united. Following the interview with Olonana, government officers, Bagge and Hollis, conducted tours of an extended southern reserve which was to stretch westward from the border of the old southern reserve to the Mara River. They reported favorably on the territory, but expressed concern over its water re­ sources. G. K. Watts studied the water condition and submitted a re­ port recommending improvements.69 The true reason for the government's eagerness to evacuate Laikipia was to make it available for European settlement. Before the Maasai moved to Laikipia in 1904, the state had promised concessions there to a few settlers. All but Delamere and Cole had accepted land else­ where, but these two continued to press their interests. In April, 1910, the Land Office accepted these claims. Moreover, in 1909 the adminis­ tration had entered into negotiations with twenty-four settlers holding estates in the area to be added to the southern Maasai reserve and promised to compensate them with Laikipia land. Officials of the East Africa Protectorate, most notably Governor Girouard, kept these promises hidden from the Colonial Office, despite being asked about them. The Colonial Office was unable to discover the full story until 67 Memorandum on the Masai, A. C. Hollis, p. 17, July 5, 1910, H C S P , Vol. 52, 1911, cd. 558. 68 Ibid, 69 There is a detailed account of these developments in a report, "Removal of the Northern Masai from Laikipia to the Southern Reserve," undated by H. R. McClure, KNA DC/KAJ 1/1/1.

Pacification and Land Losses—55

late in 1912 when the Maasai move from Laikipia was already well under way.70 Though the Maasai were not successfully moved from Laikipia until 1912-1913, the government sought to begin a move as early as Febru­ ary, 1910. At that time Purkojunior moran were holding their E-Unoto or graduation ceremonies on Kinangop. Olonana complained to McCIure, the administrative officer, that these ceremonies were being conducted without his sanction and further weakened his authority. He asked to have the moran come to the southern reserve. Girouard agreed, and the Purko moran, with 7,000 head of cattle, moved south.71 Girouard followed this action with a report to the Colonial Office in April, 1910, stating that the Maasai were being moved from Laikipia at the wish of Olonana and to support his authority. In astonishment and dismay, the Colonial Office ordered the move stopped, called for information, and insisted that the Maasai could not be moved without negotiating a new treaty. Such a treaty was signed one year later, in April, 1911, undoubtedly under considerable duress. The leader of the opposition was ole Gelishu, a senior Purko warrior, who complained that the land which they were to be moved into was dry, fly infested, and already populated.72 Ole Gelishu had actually signed the 1911 treaty but claimed he did so under threat of deportation, a charge the Colonial Office chose to disbelieve.73 Following the signing of the treaty, a move was begun in June, 1911, but proved to be a failure and was stopped in September. This effort failed partly because 3 of the 4 routes used by the Maasai herds con­ verged on the Mau Summit where after a short time the feeding grass had been exhausted. Also, word was passed back that the area into which they were going was already occupied by the Loita, Damat, and some Purko—those groups who had not moved northward in 1904.74 In light of the information that the extended southern reserve was not unoccupied, the government added the Trans Mara region to the reserve, describing this region as "some of the finest grazing land in the Protectorate, exceedingly well watered and superior to the former northern reserve."75 The reports sent back to the Colonial Office were 70 No. 771, Belfield to Harcourt, October 31, 1912, PRO CO 533/107. 71 "Removal of the Northern Masai from Laikipia to the Southern Reserve," H. R. McClure, KNA DC/KAJ 1/1/1. rzCollyer, DC, Rumuruti, to PC, August 29, 1910 in Confidential, Belfield to Harcourt, February 6, 1913, PRO CO 533/116. 73 Collyer, DC, Rumuruti, to Officer in Charge, Masai Reserve, November 20, 1911 in Confidential, Belfield to Harcourt, February 6, 1913, ibid. 74 Laikipia, Annual Report, 1912, KNA DC/LKA 1/1. 75 No. 624, Girouard to Harcourt, November 3, 1911, PRO CO 533/92.

36—Early Contacts uniformly glowing in their descriptions of this region. Nevertheless, ole Gelishu resumed his opposition, if anything in a more determined fashion. He sent his own agents to investigate the Trans Mara, and they returned with a report that it was marred by game pits and sleep­ ing sickness.76 Again ole Gelishu was pressured. At a meeting held on February u, 1912, he was told that if the Maasai did not move from Laikipia, the government could not guarantee that their herds would be allowed into the pastures beyond the boundaries as they had in the past.77 The long-drawn out and controversial second move was finally con­ summated between June, 1912, and April, 1913. According to the East African Standard report, in all 10,600 people, 200,000 cattle, and 1.5 million sheep and goats were evacuated from Laikipia.78 Although ole Gelishu accompanied the rest of the Purko south, he continued to up­ braid the government. In a meeting with Governor Belfield he spoke again of the land's inadequacy; on this occasion he was supported by the usually progovernment chief, Masikonte.79 As more detailed re­ ports on Trans Mara were made available, ole Gelishu's fears about this area, cynically referred to as "the Garden of Eden" at the Colonial Office, were found to contain much justification. In early 1913 Hemsted wrote that "the account of this region is not quite as favorable as I should have anticipated." He found the district partly inhabited by the Siria section and some Loita. In the northern part of the Trans Mara, he suspected, east coast fever was prevalent, and pasturage there was of poor quality. In the west there was fly. Hemsted con­ cluded his report with the comment that fortunately the area would be required only "in exceptional seasons."80 One can well imagine the frustration at the Colonial Office as they read this report. They had originally been told that the Trans Mara was superior to Laikipia, well watered, uninhabited, and without fly. The Colonial Office minute was fully justified: "How far is it permissible to believe anything said to anybody in the East Africa Protectorate!" Ole Gelishu and other opponents sought to resist the move in one last action. Through a group of European lawyers they brought court proceedings against the Protectorate government. The suit was brought in the name of 8 Maasai—3 leading Purko moran and 6 moran ™ Bowring to Harcourt, June 5, 1912, PRO CO 533/104. ?? Report of meeting held on February 11, 191a with PC, Secretary for Native Affairs, DC, Naivasha, ADC, Ngong, ADC, Rumuruti, ADC, Mau, Ngong Political Record Book, KNA DC/KAJ 1/2/1. 78 East African Standard, May 3, 1913. 79 Confidential, Belfield to Harcourt, December 17, 1912, PRO CO 533/109. 80 No. 323, Belfield to Harcourt, June, 1913, enclosing report by R. W. Hemsted on the Trans Mara, PRO CO 533/118.

Pacification and Land Losses—37 from the Kakonyukie. It is significant that the action was taken by the moran, rather than the elders, because, as we shall see, the warriors tended to be the most energetic segment of Maasai society in resisting British overrule. One of the ironies of the case was that, although ole Gelishu was certainly the moving force in this fight, suit was brought against him as well as the other Maasai who had signed the 1911 treaty. The plaintiffs argued that many of those who had signed this agreement did so under duress, including ole Gelishu, and even so their signatures did not bind the rest of the tribe.81 The case was heard by the East Africa Protectorate High Court and dismissed on the grounds that these treaties were acts of state and lo­ cal courts had no jurisdiction over them.82 Unlike the Kikuyu, the Maasai were moved off lands alienated to Europeans and did not become squatter laborers from the outset. Nonetheless, the Maasai land losses constituted a considerable hard­ ship. The alienation of the Naivasha-Nakuru region was a major blow. Large numbers had repaired to this area because of its rich grazing lands following the 1890s disasters. In 1904 Jackson wrote that Lakes Nakuru and Naivasha were their "best and favorite grazing lands."83 Bagge, an administrative officer, also opposed to the first move, added that the one answer the Maasai gave to the question of European set­ tlement was: "Leave us Naivasha Lake and the surrounding grazing grounds."84 The 500 square miles turned over to the East African Syn­ dicate in the heart of this area had been occupied by 3,000 Maasai, 15,000 cattle, and 250,000 sheep and goats.85 The Maasai complained to the Kenya Land Commission about their lost lands and remarked on the unsuitability of their reserve. In their memorandum they stated that the area they inhabited was "waterless and without forest [and] it will be agreed that it is totally inadequate and utterly unsuitable for the requirements of a nomadic people with a pastoral occupation as we are invariably described."86 They added that they wanted land "suitable for agriculture" to be added to the re­ serve and suggested that if Laikipia were returned to them, they would practice mixed farming there. The Commission had little sym­ pathy for these complaints, arguing that the Maasai had "some of the finest agricultural and pastoral land in Kenya. . . . The Maasai are si Morrison to Colonial Office, June 28, 1912, PRO CO 533/115 and Confidential, Belfield to Harcourt, January 16, 1913, PRO CO 533/116. S2Telegram, Belfield to Harcourt, May 28, 1913, PRO CO 533/118. 83 No. 10, Memorandum by Jackson, February 22, 1904, HCSP, Vol. 62, 1904, cd. 2099. 84 Begge to Jackson, July 29, 1903, ibid. S5Jackson to Colonial Office, August 19, 1909, PRO CO 533/61. 86 KLC, Evidence, 11, 1224.

38—Early Contacts

probably the most wealthy tribe in Africa both in matters of land and stock which they are able to keep on it."87 The Commission went on to argue that the Maasai had received "generous treatment" at the hands of the government. They had vast lands and a guarantee from the Brit­ ish not to convey any land within their boundaries by lease or grant without the consent of their paramount chief! It even upbraided these people for tying up potentially valuable agricultural areas on the Mau slopes in the Trans Mara, and in the southeast and northwest corners of the reserve.88 These glowing accounts did not go unchallenged, however. S. F. Deck, Provincial Commissioner, filed a minority view questioning the adequacy of the land and pointing out that 2 million acres were either waterless or fly infested.89 In 1934 a government entomologist, E. A. Lewis published a preliminary report on the reserve in which he sug­ gested that of the total area of 10 million acres, 3 million were arid or semi-arid, 800,000 were infested with tsetse fly, and 300,000 with east coast fever.90 The loss of the superior grazing around Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru did indeed hamper the Maasai economy. Before the coming of the British the Maasai grazed their herds on low lands during the wet weather when water supplies were good and then repaired to the higher and wetter regions during the dry season. Movement between two areas conserved water and grazing resources, allowing each area to be rested and to have its fertility restored. The loss of the dry weather grazing forced the Maasai to overwork the more arid south­ ern reserve, resulting in loss of vegetation, soil erosion, and overall de­ cline in grazing. In the twentieth century the reserve became progres­ sively less able to support its livestock.91 The Kenya administration was generally unsympathetic toward pas­ toral peoples, believing that they were wasteful of land and were not as industrious as agricultural peoples. Indeed, some officials even justi­ fied taking land away from Africans on the grounds that this would compel them to give up their attachment to cattle and make them more prosperous and hard working farmers. Holding these views, the ad­ ministration was not averse to moving the Maasai out of their richest grazing lands in the Rift Valley and Laikipia. The second move left the 87 KLC, p. 190, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. 88 Ibid., p. 191. 89 KLC, Evidence, 11, 1179. 90 E. A. Lewis, Tsetse Flies in the Masai Reserve, Kenya Colony, 1034, KNA DC/KAJ 4/5/2. 91 P. E. Glover and M. D. Gwynne, "The Destruction of Masailand," The New Scientist, August, 1961, Vol. 11, No. 249, pp. 450-453. In 1903 Jackson noticed the transhumance of the Maasai reporting that they spent half the year in the Rift Valley and the other half on the plateau to the east. No. 17, Jackson to Eliot, July, 1903, HCSP, Vol. 62, 1904, cd. 2099.

Pacification and Land Losses—39

Maasai in an area not so prosperous as their former lands, but still en­ abled them to pursue their traditional stock-rearing economy in more straightened circumstances. In contrast to the Kikuyu the Maasai were moved en masse and remained intact as a tribe. They did not suffer the fate of many Kikuyu families forced to wander from one place to an­ other, begging land and work. Nevertheless, the moves dealt a severe psychological and political blow to the Maasai, fully as decisive as bat­ tlefield losses. They brought home to the people their military weak­ ness vis-a-vis the British, and they did much to discredit the group of warriors then in power for failing to mount any true resistance.

The Kamba land losses were much less spectacular than those of the Kikuyu and Maasai, but annoying, nonetheless. Between 1906 and 1909 the Kamba lost approximately one-third of the sparsely populated re­ gion of Kikumbuliu, located at the extreme southeast of Machakos dis­ trict.92 Bitter disputes occurred along the western boundary of Machakos reserve, especially near Machakos township. The Kamba lost Mua Hills which became a profitable fruit farming area under Eu­ ropean ownership. These hills were unoccupied before 1895, but Ainsworth had given the Kamba permission to occupy them during the rinderpest outbreak in that year.93 When settlers cast their eyes on them, the Kamba were expropriated on the grounds that the land had not been theirs before the coming of the British and there was ample land in the northern part of Machakos district around Matungulu and Kangundo.94 Using the same argument, the government removed the Kamba from Matwoyi River and the Donyo Sakuk area in 1912 where in fact some of the families from Mua Hills had gone after their earlier expulsion.95 Another area of controversy was the western boundary of the reserve which was demarcated in 1906. In a subsequent demarca­ tion in 1910 a triangular area of about 3,000 acres was removed from the reserve around Machakos township with the intention of alienating the land to European farmers. The Kamba protested and pointed out that they had established a large number of homesteads in the area. The colonial government decided not to throw the land open to Euro­ pean settlement as originally intended but to make it commonage on which the Kamba could graze livestock.96 Nonetheless, this decision 92 PC, Ukamba, to Secretary of the Administration, December 7, 1908, KNA DC/MKS 10A/8/1. β3 KLC, p. 215, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. 94 Machakos District Political Record Book, 1911, p. 239, KNA DC/MKS 4/1. F. Traill, Senior Commissioner, to Chief Native Commissioner, December 29, 1923, in KLC, Evidence, n, 1324. ββ Machakos District Political Record Book, 1911, pp. 191-193, KNA DC/MKS 4/1.

40—Early Contacts still left aggrieved those Kamba who were forced to remove their homesteads from the area. Almost thirty years later, 187 of them filed protests stating their losses to the Kenya Land Commission.97 One final issue was a 100-acre estate at Ngaleni, which the Kamba had turned over to Stuart Watt on the understanding that he would open a mis­ sion station. Instead Watt used the land for a fruit farm.98 Although the Kenya Land Commission felt that the Kamba had been amply compensated for any land losses they might have sustained through the "addition" of previously unoccupied land in Matungulu and Kangundo, what the commissioners lost sight of was that those who had lost land by and large did not take up farms in the more sparsely populated northern part of the reserve but returned to the already crowded Iveti location.99 Iveti became the most disenchanted area in Machakos reserve and led the opposition to the government efforts to destock the reserve in 1938. Like the Kikuyu and Maasai the Kamba resented these land losses and felt insecure in their reserve. Africa Inland missionary, C. F. Johnston wrote to the district officer in 1919 that the reason for Kamba suspicion of the government was the issue of land.100 Another Africa Inland missionary, G. W. Rhoad, drafted a Kamba petition to the gov­ ernment in 1925 complaining that the Kamba were "bereft of their grazing areas and insecure in their reserve." They claimed that their present reserve comprised only about one-half of the territory which was originally theirs. Their chief grievance was the loss of the Mua Hills, Donyo Sabuk, Kilima Kiu, and the Yatta Plains.101 There is even more revealing information in the Kamba testimony to the Kenya Land Commission. When the commissioners sought to warn Kamba leaders about overstocking in their reserve, they were rebuffed with the claim of lost lands. James Mutua, an influential councillor, stated that the Kamba had complete right to graze their cattle on the Yatta Plateau as they had grazed on it before the British came and had purchased it for 12,000 rupees from the government. Kamisi Mukuna argued that the Kamba reserve did not have too many cattle, only too little land, and Dunda Wanduli warned that the question of limiting stock could not be raised separately from the land issue. Kitia Wakibati stated that he 97 KLC, Evidence, n, 1396-1419. ssKLC, p. 215, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. 09 The Kenya Land Commission felt that Iveti before World War I was not so crowded as to prevent those leaving alienated farms from finding land. KLC, Evi­ dence, 11, 1312. 100 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1918-1910, G. H. Osborne, pp. 60-61, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/10. 101 No. 190, Denham to Amery, February 17, 1925, enclosing Memorandum Pre­ sented to the East Africa Commission on behalf of the Kamba tribe by George W. Rhoad, November 5, 1924, PRO CO 533/329.

Pacification and Land Losses—41 had travelled around neighboring European estates. "There are some European shambas so big that it takes four hours to walk from one end to the other, and the area of development is very small."102 Had the colonial authorities paid closer heed to some of these themes they might have avoided the errors and tragedy of the 1938 destocking crisis.

The early contacts of these three peoples with British rulers and entering settlers were clearly important and in many ways traumatic. The Kamba and Kikuyu tasted military defeat, but not on a massive scale. Punitive expeditions were sent out against those factions which obstructed the British effort to establish control. Collaborators were supported. The Kamba and Kikuyu were not able to force intra-tribal unity in resisting colonial rule, except for the Kamba leader, Qumatu, whose defeat ended resistance there. He appears not to have left a tra­ dition of resistance or political unity on which later nationalists built. The Maasai avoided military confrontation, but suffered an enormous economic, political, and prestige setback in their two moves. Each group lost land to settlers. In square miles the Maasai experi­ enced the heaviest losses. What was more important was the process by which land was lost. The Maasai were moved into reserves, and while they lived on the edge of European settlement, they did not in­ terpenetrate. Most of the Kamba also retreated from lost lands. Kikuyu land was alienated from under them; many became instantaneous squatters and agricultural laborers on European estates. The erection of a boundary around the Kikuyu land unit saw the beginning of Kikuyu land hunger and heavy population density—problems which were to become acute by the 1930s. The Kamba were still filling up parts of their reserve; the problem of people pressing heavily on the land was confined to the southwest of the district around Machakos. The Kikuyu reserve, in Kiambu district, was surrounded and closely interpenetrated by European farms. Land alienations brought south­ ern Kikuyu land into close contact with the European population. !"2Kamba testimony is found on pages 1335-1345, KLC, Evidence, 11.

CHAPTER III

Colonial Chiefs

One of the first developments under British rule was the creation of chiefs as agents of local administration. At first British officials were inclined to believe that traditional African societies were governed by chiefs, and thus they sought to locate a leading figure in a community in order to rule through him. But even as they came to realize that most of the Kenyan African peoples did not have chiefs and were ruled through councils of elders, they retained their artificial chieftainships as a convenient, even necessary, instrument of local rule. They deemed it necessary to hold one man accountable for the implementation of their programs and for the preservation of public order. Colonial chiefs became a striking feature of Kikuyu society, but not so among the Maasai or Kamba. Kikuyu chiefs were to play a decisive role in colonial domination in the early years. They built rough-hewn, extremely rudimentary, but effective local administrative organs through which new economic and social forms were introduced. These chiefs not only carried out the tasks required of all colonial chiefs, such as maintaining order and helping with tax gathering, but they were also important in facilitating two far-reaching changes: education and wage laboring.1 In contrast to their Kamba and Maasai counterparts, Kikuyu headmen forcibly implanted these two essential features of the colonial economy and society. Because the British had difficulty estab­ lishing purposive and collaborative local government among the Maasai and Kamba, these peoples remained more autonomous from the colonial system. For administrative purposes the British divided Kenya into a small number of provinces, which were divided in turn into districts and lo­ cations. Provinces and districts were under the jurisdiction of British officials, the provincial commissioners, district commissioners, district officers, and assistant district officers. The locations were the responsi­ bility of chiefs. Although the powers and duties of chiefs gradually evolved, the basic legal framework on which the authority of chiefs rested derived from two ordinances enacted before World War I. A 1902 ordinance gave the chiefs three broad areas of responsibility. They were to maintain public order and could be fined if disturbances 1

See Chapters ν and vi.

Colonial Chiefs—43 occurred in their areas. They were to keep the roads clear, and they could hear petty cases.2 In 1912 these outlines were defined in more detail. To maintain order, headmen were permitted to employ other persons to assist them. They could issue orders restricting the manu­ facture of African liquor, the holding of drinking bouts, the cultivation of poisonous plants, the carrying of arms, and any conduct likely to lead to a riot. Additionally, as the official responsible for village work, the chiefs could require able-bodied males to work in making water courses or engage in other work for the benefit of the community. Fail­ ure to obey the chief resulted in a fine not to exceed 75 rupees or 2 months in prison.3 The Kenya chiefs did not play as important a role in tax collection as did chiefs in many other colonial societies. When hut tax was first introduced in 1901, chiefs were responsible for collecting it. There were many abuses, and a new system was introduced in 1910. Devised by R. W. Hemsted in Kisii, the system entailed payment of tax to Brit­ ish officials rather than chiefs.4 In 1934 chiefs were again given the duty of tax gathering. The depression had made tax collecting even more difficult than it had been before. Whereas in the late 1920s only two months had been needed to bring in the tax, in the 1930s the whole year was required. Only when administrative officers devoted their entire efforts to this undertaking, as they did in 1930 and 1933, was all of the tax collected. Because tax work was taking too much of the ad­ ministrator's time and hurting the government's reputation with the people, the administration decided to give the job back to the chiefs. Again abuses occurred.5 The native authority ordinances of 1902 and 1912 gave the chiefs powers to recruit labor for various purposes. The 1912 ordinance which permitted the chief to turn out laborers for work of benefit to the community (called communal labor) stipulated that no person was to work more than six days in a quarter. The government felt that this type of labor was traditional and did not need to be paid. After World War I there were increased demands for labor, resulting from an in­ flux of settlers and railway construction. The Native Authority amend­ ment Ordinance, 1920, gave a more precise definition to the chiefs' labor recruiting powers. Chiefs were to provide paid porters for gov­ ernment servants on tour and for the government transport depart­ ment. Chiefs could recruit paid laborers for work on the construction 2Regulation

No. 22, October 23, 1902, PRO CO 633/1. Ordinance to Make Further Provision in Regard to the Powers and Duties of Native Chiefs, No. 22, October 16, 1912, PRO CO 633/3. 4Short History of Kenya Province, p. 22, KNA PC/CP 1/1/1. 5 G . W a l s h a n d H . R . M o n t g o m e r y , Report on Native Taxation (Nairobi, 1936), P- 13· 3

44—Colonial Chiefs or maintenance of railways and roads and other work of a public na­ ture. No person was required to work for more than sixty days a year.® In 1921 the Secretary of State for Colonies, Winston Churchill, stipu­ lated that while chiefs could be required to recruit paid porters, there was to be no forcible recruitment of laborers for railway, or other tasks of a public nature, without obtaining the prior consent of the Colonial Office.7 It can be seen that chiefs, as colonial agents, were involved in two major areas of government. They had a responsibility for keeping order, and through their recruitment of labor they played a role in de­ velopmental projects, mainly but not exclusively of a local nature. Kikuyu chiefs proved able to carry out these tasks, while Kamba and Maasai were much less successful. Two other organs were engaged in local administration, on both of which the influence of chiefs was pronounced: native tribunals and local native councils. Both bodies were established by the administra­ tion in an effort to retain traditional African councils through which many African peoples had been governed before the British advent. But in fact in both organs the powers of the chiefs and the needs of the administration were strongly reflected. An 1897 native court ordinance enjoined the government to supervise the judicial activities of tribal authorities, allowing them to employ customary law, subject to the re­ striction that punishments were not to be inhumane or convictions obtained through witchcraft, torture, or "barbarous practices."8 While the country was being pacified, these courts tended to be an arm of the administration. Chiefs sat on them, and the chiefs' power overshad­ owed those of the elders who "were driven into an attitude of apathy, of sulky acquiescence, or even of hostility."9 As the government came to understand the conciliar nature of most traditional Kenyan societies, it sought to revive the power of the elders on the tribunals. These ef­ forts were not successful, however. The prestige of the elders had been seriously eroded, and chiefs continued to dominate tribunals' delibera­ tions. In 1930 the administration reformed the tribunals making them even more an arm of the colonial administration. Before the reform, appeals could be made from the native tribunals to the regular sub­ ordinate courts of the colony. Believing that African touts were mak­ ing too liberal use of this prerogative and thereby weakening the aue This ordinance can be found in HCSP, Vol. 33, 1920, cmd. 873. τ This dispatch of September 5. 1921, is to be found in HCSP, Vol. 24, 1921, cmd. 1509. This decision arose out of the controversy over forced labor described in Chapter VII. SGhai and McAuslan, Public Law and Political Change in Kenya, p. 131 and Arthur Phillips, Report on Native Tribunals (Nairobi, 1944), p. 8. » Ibid., p. 14.

Colonial Chiefs—45 thority of native tribunals and chiefs, the government enacted an ordinance stipulating that judicial appeals would go to district commissioners and provincial commissioners, debarring advocates in cases before the native tribunals, and permitting appeals to the su­ preme court only in serious cases and on questions of law, not fact. Administrative officers could transfer cases from an African to an ad­ ministrative court and review sentences.10 Nevertheless the native tri­ bunals did develop considerable authority in civil disputes and had almost exclusive jurisdiction over land cases.11 The local native councils also evolved from traditional kiamas. Be­ fore they attained any formal recognition in the colonial period, these bodies had been convened to discuss administrative questions and to give advice to chiefs and local British officials. In 1925 the kiamas were made a regular feature of local government and called local native councils. Composed of elected and government nominated members, they debated, under the presidency of the British administrative offi­ cer, important local questions and had the power to tax the people in their districts and to use this money for local expenditures. Chiefs tended to hold responsible positions on the councils. RISE OF THE KIKUYU CHIEFS

All accounts of the traditional polity of the Kikuyu indicate that while ultimate authority in their societies rested in the hands of coun­ cils of elders, great leaders and men of exceptional personality, known as athamaki, often rose to prominence. The Kikuyu may have been moving in the direction of greater centralization of power in the hands of these athamaki. In the southern Kikuyu area Wayaki exercised much influence in the 1890s. The impetus for these changes, according to some, was increased trade with Swahili caravans and the need for greater economic and political coordination.12 Whatever the case may be, and the evidence is far too scanty for any definitive conclusions yet, most of the chiefs who came to prominence under the British were not men who had exercised such powers before the advent of the British. They were men who owed their rise to power to British favor. Even if it is conceded that Kikuyu society was moving in the direction of rule by chiefs, it must also be admitted that new men emerged to exer­ cise this increased authority. The leading colonial chief in Kiambu was Kinyanjui, a man of no traditional standing, a hunter without property. Opinions differed on 10 Ibid., passim, and HCSP, Vol. 9, 1933-34, cmd. 4623, p. 57 and passim. 11 Phillips, Report on Native Tribunals, passim. 12 Sorrenson, Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country, p. 44.

46—Colonial Chiefs

the man and his personality. Harry Thuku, his enemy and a critic, said of Kinyanjui that he was no muthamaki and did not have the powers of oratory so admired by the Kikuyu. 13 He doubted that the Kikuyu would have selected him as their paramount chief had they been given the opportunity. Others praised his speaking ability, and all conceded that he was a shrewd political manipulator and the creator, with Brit­ ish assistance, of the efficient Kiambu local administrative structure. Kinyanjui came to prominence by doing transport work and acting as a guide in punitive expeditions for the Imperial British East Africa Company. When the IBEA closed its fort at Dagoretti, Kinyanjui went with the Company to Mombasa and then returned with Captain Smith to open a new station among the Kikuyu. 14 His real opportunity for power came after the British lost confidence in Wayaki and decided to exile him. They needed a strong man to take charge of administra­ tion around Dagoretti and help bring Kiambu under British rule. Kinyanjui was chosen as this agent and rose to become paramount chief of the Kikuyu, a title which suggested that his authority stretched all the way across Fort Hall and Nyeri districts, but in fact it was limited to Kiambu. Other early Kikuyu chiefs arose in similar circumstances. Many were policemen serving under Kinyanj ui. In Kiambu Mararo and Mukoma were askaris of Kinyanjui, and through his influence they were placed in charge of locations. Kioi became a powerful Kiambu chief who first gained recognition transporting supplies for Ainsworth and the IBEA to Machakos station. 15 Because of a dispute with settlers over labor recruitment, he was made chief over a different location. 16 In Fort Hall the two most powerful early headmen were Karuri and Kibarabara. Although both aspired to become paramount chief of this district and modelled themselves after Kinyanjui, neither was success­ ful. In Fort Hall chiefs failed to establish the same administrative con­ tinuity and control that characterized Kiambu and Nyeri districts. Its local government was marked by more violent contests for powers and cruder techniques of administration. According to several accounts, Karuri was a witch doctor. He had brought into existence a strong force of warriors before the coming of the British, with the help of an English entrepreneur, John Boyes. In contact with Kinyanjui, he threw his influence on the side of the British as they advanced into the Fort Hall area. For a number of years he was the leading chief in the Weithaga area and controlled the appointment of other chiefs in this 13 Harry

Thuku, An Autobiography (Nairobi, 1970), p. 26. Ainsworth Papers, "Reminiscences," p. 4, Rhodes House Library, Oxford. 15 Quarterly Report, Ukamba Province, C. W. Hobley, p. 107, KNA DC/MKS 1/5/1. 16 Kiambu Political Record Book, 11, KNA DC/KBU/3/25. 14

Colonial Chiefs—47 locale. He set up a sugar mill on his land, supplied Naivasha with food, and furnished labor levies to the government and adjoining settler farms. Nonetheless, before his death in 1917, other chiefs were already challenging his supremacy, and he was fast losing his claim to be para­ mount. Kibarabara, deposed in 1912 as "completely useless" to the adminis­ tration, did in fact play an important part in the pacification of Fort Hall. Reported to be a Meru Maasai who had lived in Mombasa and converted to Islam, he went to Fort Hall with the government and led Maasai forays into Kikuyuland at the turn of the century. For his help he was made a chief.17 In Nyeri, Wambugu was the most prominent government headman and became paramount chief. He was originally a humble porter for the government;18 through his loyal services he was placed in charge of an enormous area surrounding Nyeri station. Later his location was divided into five locations, each under a separate chief, and he was elevated to the office of paramount chief. He remained in this position throughout the years of this study and was ably assisted in administer­ ing Nyeri district by three other influential men: Murigo; Nduini; and Nderi. The last was a son of Wangombe who like Karuri had created a powerful following of warriors, with the aid of John Boyes, before the coming of the British.19 All over Kenya, but especially in the central highlands where the administration had its headquarters and most settlers lived, chiefs were under constant pressure to implement state and settler supported programs. They had an obligation to recruit communal labor as well as obtain labor for public work projects, and as we shall observe, set­ tlers expected them to assist in recruiting labor for their farms. The state held them responsible for suppressing stock raiding against other African peoples and especially against European stock ranchers. Mis­ sionaries looked to chiefs to send children to mission schools. In short, a chief was expected to be a prime agent of colonial rule. Many of these changes were unpopular with the people. Efforts to stop cattle raiding were resented. Little interest was displayed in wage laboring or school going at first, and thus the chief's duties entailed compelling people to do things they were opposed to doing. In order to carry out the wishes of the colonial government, chiefs created rudimentary police and administrative organizations capable of coercing people into new activities. Once again Kikuyu chiefs were more successful in 17 Political Record Book, Kenya Province, 1901-26, pp. 258, KNA PC/CP 1 /1 /1. is Kikuyu News, No. 118, December, 1931, pp. 8-10. is The material is summarized from Nyeri annual reports and political record books in the Kenya national archives.

48—Colonial Chiefs establishing this apparatus of local administration than were Kamba and Maasai headmen. According to the 1912 ordinance chiefs could employ other persons to help them carry out their duties. All of the Kikuyu chiefs sur­ rounded themselves with a retinue of followers, called askaris or tribal retainers. Although armed only with traditional weapons, they consti­ tuted a para-administrative and military arm of the headman. Accord­ ing to Eliot's report of 1903 the two most powerful chiefs, Kinyanjui and Karuri, had a couple hundred men under their command.20 Askaris were generally young persons, selected by the chiefs for their physical prowess. They were used by chiefs to recruit labor, support the chief's authority, and help with tax gathering. Often they terror­ ized people and expropriated their property. Askaris used a great deal of physical violence to carry out the wishes of chiefs, creating what at times surely could be called a reign of terror. Although Europeans were reluctant to expose these abuses, there is still considerable docu­ mentary evidence to this effect, besides a huge amount of oral testi­ mony from African sources. An African Inland missionary, F. McKenrick, living at Kijabe in Kiambu district, wrote that askaris in his area committed outrages against young women and robbed and beat the men, young and old alike.21 When chiefs were given the task of collect­ ing tax in 1935, grave abuses occurred. Archdeacon G. Burns, one of the representatives of African interests in the Kenya Legislative Coun­ cil, reported that tribal retainers beat people in their effort to gather tax.22 It is hardly surprising that sometimes a powerful askari even domi­ nated chiefs. In Ngenda location, in the northern part of Kiambu district, the head tribal retainer, Waiganjo wa Ndotono, was able to overshadow the chief, Gitango. In a petition of complaint to the gov­ ernment a group of chiefs charged Waiganjo with taking most of the kiama fees, although he was not a member of the kiama, and allowing his followers to create a virtual state of terror throughout the location. Askaris made girls sleep with them in a house erected at the entrance to the main village and known as the "Kea" (i.e., KAR or King's Afri­ can Rifles). They also made old men cut roads on Sunday for Waiganjo's private benefit. When chief Gitango, the petition added, came to blows with one of Waiganjo's henchmen, the case was submitted to a kiama, with Koinange sitting as one of the elders. The decision of the court was made against three of Waiganjo's askaris, but Waiganjo pre20 Report by His Majesty's Commissioner on the East Africa Protectorate, 1905, p. 7, Charles Eliot, HCSP, Vol. 45, 1903, cd. 1626. 21 F. M. McKenrick to C. Hurlburt, February 3, 1910, AIM Archives. 22 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, 1935, pp. 1158-1164.

Colonial Chiefs—49 vented its implementation.23 The dispute in Ngenda location was to explode in a tumultous meeting held there by Harry Thuku, supported by Waiganj o, and opposed by the leading chiefs in 1922. Waiganjo was sent into exile following the 1922 nationalist disturbance in Nairobi.24 Although the first Kikuyu chiefs owed their access to power to Brit­ ish support, those who became the most powerful often drew much of their economic and political support from their landholdings. Chiefs used their power to accumulate land and in turn used their control over land as a basis for enhancing their authority. Kinyanj ui's rise to preeminence among the southern Kikuyu rested heavily on large land­ holdings, rather questionably acquired after he became a colonial chief. In testimony given by members of his family to the Kenya Land Commission, they claimed that he had purchased approximately 16,000 acres of land around the Ngong hills from Tibangu, a Maasai Dorobo. Kinyanjui was said to have given in exchange 58 head of cat­ tle, 1,000 sheep and goats, 90 rams, and 10 pots of honey.25 The Dagoretti Political Record Book, on the other hand, recorded that Kinyanjui had allowed Maasai to take refuge with him near Fort Smith, and according to Kinyanjui's account, the Maasai had rewarded him with this gift of land. District Commissioner Beech was of the opinion, however, that another family had prior claim to the land.26 In any case, a man with Kinyanjui's power and British backing was easily able to treat the land as his own. He enhanced his wealth through the sale of portions of this estate to other Kikuyu and Europeans. But more im­ portant, the possession of these large estates meant that Kinyanjui had under his economic and political sway a large number of ahoi willing to do his bidding. No doubt many, if not most, of the askaris who owed him allegiance were from families living on the lands he alleged be­ longed to him. Lightbody's survey of Dagoretti location (Kinyanjui's) showed that he was by far the largest landholder and that of the 1576 huts in the entire location, 739 were on his property.27 Kinyanjui also had land in Kioi's location where an additional 58 huts were on his property, and in location #15 of chief Mukoma, 23 huts were on his properties.28 Kinyanjui's large landholdings in these three locations gave him many dependent followers and were the economic, social, and political basis for his authority in southern Kiambu. 23 This petition may be found in H. Harris, Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Pro­ tection Society to E.F.L. Wood, Colonial Office, August 26, 1921, PRO CO 533/272. 24 See Chapter x. 25 KLC, Evidence, 1, 277-283. 26 Dagoretti Political Record Book, 1908-12, p. 140, KNA DC/KBU/76. 27 Dagoretti Political Record Book, 1913-19, Report by L. J. Lightbody, 1913, KNA DC/KBU/77. 28 Ibid, and Dagoretti Political Record Book, 1908-12, KNA DC/KBU/76.

50—Colonial Chiefs

The data on Kinyanjui only serves to illustrate what was undoubt­ edly a common Kikuyu practice. Chiefs used their influence in native tribunals to settle land cases in their own favor. Most chiefs were able to acquire large holdings, if they did not have them when they came to power. Land provided them with wealth. They could sell crops or, if necessary, they could sell portions of their holdings. But most impor­ tant of all, the landholder had under his influence tenant farming fami­ lies—dependents who could provide the essential manpower of local administration.29 A marked feature of Kiambu administration, less so in Fort Hall, was the considerable administrative continuity of chiefs. These Kikuyu rulers tended to stay in office for a reasonably long time and to pre­ pare the way for their successors, usually relatives. Scholars have tended to believe otherwise, assuming that in societies where chiefs were not traditional such stable government would not be likely. Carl Rosberg and John Nottingham, in their classic study of Kenya nation­ alism, talk about the "recurrent theme of chiefs being deposed and locations being added to or subtracted from bear[ing] vivid witness to the experimental character of the first period of British rule in Kikuyuland."30 Nonetheless, the political record books for Kiambu dis­ trict reveal that between 1905, when records were first systematically compiled, and the late 1930s the average tenure of a chief in Kiambu district was 13 years. During this period of time 17 of them, or 38 per cent were replaced by relatives, mainly sons, thus adding to the ad­ ministrative continuity and stability.31 The Fort Hall figures suggest much less stability. Fort Hall was di­ vided into two divisions. The northern division, known as MaraguaTana, was politically less stable, and the average tenure of a chief was 9 years. Only 6 men, or 11 per cent, were replaced by relatives. In the southern division, called Chania-Maragua, the average tenure was 11 years and 20 per cent of the men were succeeded by sons.32 Perhaps, the greater stability among the southern Fort Hall chiefs was the result of Kiambu influences. The figures for Nyeri are not complete, but the pattern there appears to be comparable to Kiambu. A single individ­ ual, Wambugu, remained in power for a long time and helped to re­ cruit and sustain other, lesser headmen. 29 These Dagoretti surveys also showed that chiefs Kioi and Mukoma had large estates and many dependent ahoi. Ibid. 3° Carl Rosberg and John Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Mau: Nationalism in Kenya (Stanford, 1966), p. 83. 31 See appendices at the end of this chapter. The material is drawn from the political record books of Kiambu district in the Kenya national archives. 32 See appendices at the end of this chapter. The material is drawn from Fort Hall political record books in the Kenya national archives.

Colonial Chiefs—51 That so many sons succeeded their fathers as Kiambu chiefs indi­ cates a quite remarkable development toward hereditary chieftain­ ships, when it is remembered that the Kikuyu were traditionally acephalous. This development did not occur because the British fa­ vored a hereditary chieftainship. By the outbreak of World War I British officials were aware of the conciliar nature of Kikuyu polities. They wanted to retain the institution of chief, but they were not ad­ verse to selecting as chiefs men from previously unrepresented fami­ lies. In reality the chiefs guarded their authority and sought to train their sons as successors. Another commonly held belief about rule through colonial chiefs was that with the passage of time, chiefs tended to be older, more con­ servative, less well educated than important segments in their own society. Once again these assumptions require revision for the Kikuyu. The first chiefs were generally young men, who catapulted to power over more senior and traditionally more prestigious individuals. Even in the 1920s in Fort Hall district the older generation of men com­ plained about the political power of the young. They were especially worried that the young men in their district would not pay genera­ tional fees to them as they should when the younger generation took over power because so many already held important government posi­ tions.33 Although the chiefs were certainly more conservative than radical nationalist members of the Kikuyu Central Association, there was enough turnover in their ranks to bring in younger, better edu­ cated leaders. Under prodding from the missions in Kiambu district the administration appointed four important educated Kikuyu to chieftainships after World War I. In 1919 these men had been chosen to represent the Christian community in kiamas.3i In 1921 and 1922 they were put in charge of locations. Waruhiu wa Kungu was trained by the Gospel Missionary Society at Ngenda and took over Ruiru loca­ tion. As a consequence of the good reports on his work this location was merged with Ruiki in 1926. At Dagoretti Philip Karanj a, from the Church of Scotland Mission at Thogoto, became chief. Josiah Njonjo took over the difficult Kabete location, having been educated at the Church Missionary Society station at Kabete while another Church Missionary Society protege, Mbiu Koinange, took charge of Kiamba location.35 33 See a description of a meeting of chiefs and elders held March 25-26, 1919, ADC to PC, April 19, 1919, Fort Hall Political Record Book, KNA PC/CP 1/7/1. The elders feared that they would not be paid kiama fees owed them by the young, but the government assured them that they need have no apprehension. 34 Interview, Josiah Njonjo, June 4, 1970. 35 Chief's Character Book, 1926-35, KNA DC/KBU 11/1, and Dagoretti Political Record Book, 1924-26, KNA DC/KBU 3/6.

52—Colonial Chiefs The educational attainments of these men varied. Koinange had the least formal education, but they all had some schooling, some knowl­ edge of English, and as younger, Christian men knew much about the changes sweeping through Kikuyuland. They came to constitute the backbone of an influential conservative Kikuyu party, the Kikuyu As­ sociation. Njonjo, Waruhiu, and Koinange all rose within the adminis­ tration, and each was a talented chief. Waruhiu became a senior chief in his division, and after the Second World War the most powerful Kikuyu chief, a veritable paramount chief, although this term was not employed. Njonjo, whom the district commission said was "years ahead of the other headmen in intelligence and progression" also be­ came a senior divisional chief.36 Unquestionably the most able of the three was Mbiu Koinange. Koinange's family land had been in the Limuru area. Much of it was alienated to Europeans, and for a time Koinange lived on a European farm, serving as a headman over the African squatter population. As a result of a dispute with a settler, he withdrew from this area and went into the Kikuyu reserve where he also had considerable land. There he became a progressive Kikuyu farmer. In the Kiambu district annual report for 1914-1915 G.A.S. Northcote singled him out as "a remarkable character . . . coming to the fore in this district" and men­ tioned that he had bought a plow and barbed wire for his farm and was considering paddocking his cattle.37 His enthusiasm for education was evidenced when he opened a Church Missionary Society outschool on his land. By 1918 Koinange had bought a cart for his farm, con­ structed a mill for grinding grain, and experimented with coffee. Be­ cause of the injunction against Africans' growing coffee, he had to rip these plants out of the soil. He was also being instructed for baptism in the Church Missionary Society church.38 Within the administration his talents were frequently praised. At the death of Kinyanjui in 1929, Koinange became the most revered Kikuyu chief. Unlike many other colonial headmen, however, Koinange was a fearless defender of Kikuyu interests. He championed Kikuyu land rights, having lost much land himself. He was an articulate spokesman for the Kikuyu before many Kenya and British commissions, not the least of which was the Joint Select Committee which met in England in 1930-1931 to consider 36 Dagoretti, Annual Report, p. 3, 1927, C.J.W. Lydekker, KNA DC/KBU/21. 37 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1914-15, p. 7, G.A.S. Northcote, KNA DC/ KBU/7. There is also information on Koinange in the KLC, Evidence, 1, 182 and 637. He was put forward originally by Canon Leakey. Arthur to Oldham, Novem­ ber 17, 1929, Box 247, Oldham Papers. 38 Handing Over Report, Kiambu District, 1918, G.A.S. Northcote, KNA DC/KBU/I3.

Colonial Chiefs—53 proposals for uniting Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya. Koinange, James Mutua, a Kamba, and Samuel Apindi, a Luo, were sent to Lon­ don to give representation to African interests. Anyone who has read the transcript of this testimony would admit that Koniange dominated this trio and forcefully presented the African point of view. Although he remained a government chief until after World War II, he grew progressively disenchanted with the government. He rejected the find­ ings of the Kenya Land Commission, believed that government and missions were moving too slowly on education, and wondered whether his philosophy of working with the government was effective. In many ways, although Koinange was the leading Kikuyu chief in the 1930s, he was different from his colleagues. He was much less beholden to the state. He was fearless while others cowered. The people respected him for integrity and his representation of their interests to the state. Other chiefs they tended to fear. Kikuyu chiefs were active in building para-administrative and mili­ tary organizations and using them to facilitate local government and changes favored by colonial authorities. Not only did chiefs carry out the functions legally required of them, such as maintaining order, re­ cruiting communal labor, and paid porters, and helping with tax col­ lection, but they also were responsive to government pressures to facil­ itate a wage labor force and provide children for mission schools. Where chiefs played this active, collaborating role, important political and social consequences flowed from their actions. They undermined precolonial political institutions, engaged in widespread corruption, and produced intense factional struggles for control of the office. These qualities characterized the polities of aggressive colonial collaboration. Corruption was a necessary ingredient for building local administra­ tive systems. The colonial government had little money to spend on its own administration, operating under the constraint that colonies should pay for themselves. Only a small amount of the total revenue was appropriated for local government. Salaries of chiefs were low. In 1912 in Kiambu district Muturi and Kinyanjui were the highest paid chiefs, but their salaries were only a little more than £35 per year.39 Chiefs also obtained part of the tribunals' fees, but the state recog­ nized that this arrangement was a temptation to apportion heavy court fines, and so it tried to put chiefs entirely on government salaries. In 1929 Koinange received 60s. per month and paramount chief Kinyanjui, after almost forty years of service to the state, obtained only 39 Kiambu District Political Record Book, 11, September 2 1 , 1912, KNA DC/KBU

3/25·

54—Colonial Chiefs 225s.40 By 1935, in the midst of the depression, Chief Koinange was re­ ceiving the largest salary of a Kikuyu chief—only 125s. per month.41 These salaries were totally unrealistic and inadequate compensation for the important duties demanded from chiefs. Administrative officers called attention to this shabby treatment on countless occasions, no one more effectively than E.L.B. Anderson, District Commissioner, Ki­ ambu, when he reminded the Provincial Commissioner that a new chief, Maguga, had left his position as teacher where he received 110s. per month to become chief at 60s. Anderson added that "if salaries commensurate with their responsibilities and comparable, at least, with that of the good house boy are not available government is delib­ erately conniving at malpractices in order to make it possible for them to live."42 As E. B. Horne stated in his annual report for Kikuyu province in 1929 chiefs were not able to carry out their administration on the money allocated by the state. "In fact it cannot be done unless a chief makes a little out of his position and in practice of course he gets quite a lot outside his salary."43 Chiefs became the wealthiest persons in a location. They had large landholdings, many wives, and stone homes. In 1912 Beech wrote that Kinyanjui owned many cattle and had "no less than 100 wives."44 In the early 1920s out of 8 chiefs listed in the Dagoretti Political Record Book, Kinyanjui, Njonjo, Mukoma, and Karanja were said to have cars.45 Archdeacon Burns in his criticism of chiefs' gathering tax charged them with "fattening themselves on the poverty of the peo­ ple" and called attention to the fact that many owned £400 to £600 automobiles.46 In addition to enriching themselves chiefs had to appropriate wealth to finance the tribal retainers on which their power so precariously rested. Again the government left chiefs with little alternative but to resort to illegal exactions. For a long time no government salaries were allocated to tribal retainers, and they had to be paid out of the chief's pocket. In the mid-ig2os the government gave them small compensa­ tion, but like the chiefs' salaries and in light of the powers of tribal retainers the wage was inadequate. In order to finance the kind of 40 DC, Kiambu, to Kikuyu Central Association, September 30, 1929, KNA DC/KBU 11/2. 41 No. 66, G.R.B. Brown, DC, Kiambu, to PC, May 22, 1935, KNA DC/KBU 11/2. 42 E.L.B. Anderson, DC, Kiambu, to PC, March 3, 1939, ibid. 4 SKikuyu Province, Annual Report, 1929, pp. 29-30, Ε. B. Home, KNA PC/CP 4/1/2. « Dagoretti, Annual Report, 1912, pp. 4-5, M.W.H. Beech, KNA DC/KBU/4. 45 Dagoretti Political Record Book, 1924-26, KNA DC/KBU/3/6. «Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, 1935, p. 1164.

Oslonial Chiefs—55

local administration the colonial government was demanding and in order to give themselves monetary compensation commensurate with the responsibilities and risks of their office, chiefs had to exact monies illegally from the people. And in reality chiefs and tribal retainers usually took more than was necessary to operate efficient local government. The chiefs devised many ways to enrich themselves. They used the courts to accumulate landholdings. The members of the tribunals fre­ quently took contributions from participants, prompting Phillips to say that the Kiambu courts benefited only "swindlers."47 As recruiters of labor, chiefs accepted bribes to exempt certain peoples. They also received payments from private farmers and recruiting agents for re­ cruiting supposedly voluntary wage labor.48 If necessary, tribal retain­ ers simply expropriated the wealth of others. When the chiefs were allowed to collect taxes, some of these abuses were brought to light. Burns alleged in the Legislative Council debate of 1935 that chiefs forced widows exempted from tax to pay them a bribe to retain their exemptions. He also claimed that stock sold in distress for nonpayment of tax was undervalued and purchased by the chief and his henchmen. The Burns' charges led to investigations. The District Commissioner, of Fort Hall, believed that of the 5000 exemptions allowed in his district, fully one-third to one-half were bought by bribes.49 In Nyeri the Dis­ trict Commissioner said that chiefs sold the cultivation rights of tax defaulters and arranged for private sale of the stock of defaulters among their followers.50 Corruption has been a much discussed feature of contemporary African societies. It has been traced to two sources: long-standing Afri­ can traditions of gift-giving by supplicants to people in power in recompense for political services and favors rendered; and the prob­ lems created when African states obtained their independence—new institutions run by men without experience; the lack of national loyal­ ties; and rule by people who simply sought to enrich themselves. Whatever may be the case in independent African states colonial cor­ ruption among the Kikuyu stemmed directly from the functioning of the colonial system and was not a traditional inheritance. Although many Europeans argued that bribery and illegal exactions were simply an extension of the practice of gift-giving, Africans overwhelmingly regarded this behavior as a violation of traditional norms. Kikuyu in« Phillips, Report on the Native Tribunals, p. 62. 48 See Chapter v. 49 Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1936, p. 2, D. O. Brumage, KNA DC/FH/16. so Handing Over Report, Nyeri, 1937, D. Storrs-Fox to F. G. Jennings, KNA DC/ NYI/19.

56—Colonial Chiefs formants spoke bitterly of the chiefs' oppression and corruption and their drive for enrichment. While they gave grudging admiration to these men for having forged ahead, they accorded genuine respect only to chiefs like Koinange in Kiambu who tried to represent the will of the people to the central government rather than to exploit and oppress. Kikuyu chiefs exercised such considerable powers over their com­ munities that the office was competed for intensely. Communities were often divided into rival factions, each trying to put its candidate into office and to oust its opponents. Where rivalries became intense, espe­ cially where no single faction dominated, those who were temporarily out of office sought to embarrass their rivals by bringing charges of malpractice against them, by holding back taxes, and by refusing to go out on labor levies—always with the intention of bringing administra­ tion to a halt and forcing the British district officer, the final arbiter, to replace the incumbent with their candidate. Those in power, on the other hand, did all in their power to discharge the obligations of local government, hoping to make themselves indispensable to the British, and so impoverish and weaken their rivals that the latter would not be able to attract followers. They sent their enemies out onto labor levies, took land away from them, and in general made conditions oppressive. Local politics was a "zero-sum" game, the holder of the office of chief seeking to enrich his camp at the expense of his opponents and realiz­ ing full well that if his opponents ousted him they could expropriate his wealth and use it to enhance their political machine. Factions were built on client-patron relationships. The young, upwardly mobile at­ tached themselves to powerful patrons and served a period of client­ age, during which a few were singled out for advancement. Some Kikuyu chiefs had originally been tribal retainers and through loyalty gained the chief's support and patronage.51 The benefits and burdens of colonial administration came to fall un­ evenly on local populations. In theory taxes and communal labor obli­ gations were supposed to be divided equally among every able-bodied male in a community. In practice chiefs favored their own supporters and those wealthy enough to bribe them, at the expense of the rest of the population. The result was that chores fell on the vulnerable— political opponents, those not well connected with the ruling elite or not wealthy enough to engage in bribery. One group above all shoul­ dered these burdens—the poor, young, very old, and women—in short si This interpretation is based mainly on reading descriptions of chiefs, their activities, and the clashes between factions found in the annual reports and polit­ ical record books of Kiambu, Fort Hall, and Nyeri districts in the Kenya national archives.

Colonial Chiefs—57

those who lacked economic and political power and were least able to resist the demands of chiefs.52 Kiambu district bore the imprint of Kinyanjui who created a net­ work of patron-client relationships with himself at the apex. His clientism produced relatively stable local government. Rivalries for office were not so pronounced or bitter. Those with money or ability could usually find a patron or even a place in the administration. The powerful exploited the rest of the population as a reservoir for labor recruitment and taxation. Although loss of office was not common in Kiambu, when a man did fall from power, he often saw his wealth diminish. He now fell prey to the courts and the para-administration he had once controlled. Even Kinyanj ui's family experienced this re­ sult. After Kinyanjui's death in 1929 a number of land cases were brought against his heirs, on the grounds that he had acquired his land illegally. The sons lost land, and the family's wealth was reduced. Through Kinyanjui's political astuteness the competition for political office was regulated and mitigated among the southern Kikuyu. Largescale disputes were not common. This was not so among the Fort Hall Kikuyu, where a cohesive ruling elite did not emerge. There competi­ tion for office was intense. A zero-sum game of politics was often played. The Kikuyu political record books contain references to in­ numerable factional rivalries. These often involved competition of different powerful families, but as the colonial experience introduced new elements into Kikuyu society, especially Christianity, education, and party affiliations, these too entered local politics. Indeed, as we shall observe, the growth of Christianity and nationalism had deep roots in local political rivalries. The most spectacular instance of fac­ tional rivalry occurred in Fort Hall district where offices changed hands more frequently than in Kiambu. Fort Hall was not dominated by a few families. Those in power realized that their tenure of power might be short and that rivals were plotting their overthrow. They sought quick personal enrichment and impoverishment of opponents. A great dispute over the office of chief occurred in the ChaniaMaragua division between the Mathanjini mbari and chief Njiri. Charges were first brought against Njiri in 1927, mainly by Kungu, a member of the Mathanjini and the Kikuyu Central Association.53 Njiri was accused of bribery and hearing cases on his own. Again in 1929 the same mbari addressed a petition to the District Commissioner, say52 There is more on this in Chapters ν and vi. But see Archdeacon Owen's state­ ment at a meeting at the Colonial Office, December 16, 1930, that forced labor fell on "those least able to resist the demand." PRO CO 533/404/16381. 53 Kikuyu Province, Annual Report, 1927, p. 9, R. W. Hemsted, KNA PC/CP 4/1/2.

58—Colonial Chiefs

ing that Njiri was extorting large sums through illegal fines.54 This was a common method of embarrassing a chief and forcing his removal. There were few incorruptible chiefs. The District Commissioner in­ vestigated the 1929 complaint and concluded that accusations stemmed from a rivalry between Njiri and Mureu, a subheadman, from the Mathanjini family. Again in 1933 Njiri was accused of poison­ ing enemies and forcing people to leave the location. 55 Finally in 1936 Karanja wa Mwangi of the Mathanjini family revived the charges of bribery and corruption. Karanja was also a member of the Kikuyu Central Association and the Kikuyu Independent Schools Association while Njiri was supported by the Africa Inland Mission which had an important station in the location at Githumu. 56 No doubt some of these charges were valid, as corrupt practices were commonplace. Having a high regard for Njiri as chief, the gov­ ernment kept him in office.57 The rivalry played an important role in politicizing the location. The Mathanjini turned to the nationalist party, the Kikuyu Central Association, while Njiri found support from conservative mission trained Africans. In their role as agents of the colonial power the Kikuyu chiefs un­ dercut and weakened many precolonial institutions. To examine this process properly it is important to have a clear picture of these pre­ colonial structures. Yet information on them is scanty and still a matter of continuing debate. One must use cautiously the findings of anthro­ pologists who have stressed the decentralized, local, and conciliar gov­ ernment of the Kikuyu. These descriptions have undoubtedly been idealized, and no doubt on many occasions, powerful men, much like the twentieth century chiefs, usurped the powers of councils and agegrading organizations. The Kikuyu respected great leaders, athamaki, and these individuals exercised more authority than custom and un­ written constitutions suggested they should have. Nonetheless, Kikuyu society had not evolved into hereditary chieftainships by the coming of the British and government was still run by councils of elders. In precolonial times Kikuyu age-grading bodies performed essential economic and political functions. Circumcised young Kikuyus consti­ tuted an army and a communal work force. Elders were lawmakers and interpreters. Under British colonial rule the age-grades lost much of their political and economic predominance. Communal labor was 54

History of Fort Hall, 1888-1944, KNA DC/FH 6/1. 55 Colonial Office Memorandum, February 10, 1933, PRO CO 533/431/3028. 56 No. 552, Byrne to Ormsby-Gore, October 23, 1936, enclosing Brumage, DC, to PC, August 18, 1936, PRO CO 533/466/38088/1. 57 J- H. Clive, DC, Fort Hall, called Njiri "the outstanding personality among the chiefs." Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1939, p. u, KNA, DC/FH/19.

Colonial Chiefs—59 technically a responsibility of all adult males—a clear alteration of communal work obligations. Although every adult male was eligible for recruitment, in fact chiefs recruited those who were their political antagonists or economically weak. The British justified unpaid com­ munal labor on the grounds that it was traditional and took the place of taxation, but the system as they allowed it to be practiced was far more divisive than communal. It was widely hated, further evidence of its lack of traditionality. Among the Kikuyu, elders meeting in councils were supposed to make political decisions and resolve judicial disputes. Chiefs now be­ came the political executives. The British tried to salvage some of the powers of the elders through the native tribunals and the local native councils. But chiefs had real power; they tended to dominate the na­ tive tribunals or they settled disputes without reference to other native tribunal members. One of the most commonly cited offenses against chiefs was trying cases on their own. An idea found in some scholarly accounts is that people took cases to traditional elders and bypassed chiefs. This is not borne out by much of the Kikuyu evidence. Because chiefs were powerful and could enforce decisions where elders could not, people looked to them to set­ tle disputes. Phillips found the Kiambu tribunal "administering a law which was neither native law nor English law but an unconvincing travesty of both. . . . The indigenous judiciary was driven underground and practiced in fear and trembling lest any tale-bearing government servant should be anywhere around... ."5S Chiefs were appointees of the British, and as such their demon­ strated loyalty to British rule was essential for continuation in office and advancement; as such they were far more agents of the British than representatives of local communities. Although the British held public meetings in Kikuyu locations to select new chiefs, the nominees, despite being acclaimed at these meetings, were invariably government choices. Chiefs did have some measure of independence from the Brit­ ish. Some used their influence to criticize the government and to put the point of view of the people to the state. After World War I, Kikuyu chiefs created a political organization to register complaints against labor levies, rising taxation, and lost lands. KAMBA CHIEFS

The Machakos Kamba were much less successful than the Kikuyu in building effective local administrations. The government appointees 58 Phillips, Report on the Native Tribunals, p. 6a.

60—Colonial Chiefs were much less powerful individuals and were not able to create a stable body of supporters. Not until the 1930s was Machakos district run by talented individuals capable of commanding respect from the people and carrying out the wishes of the state. The Kamba did not produce chiefs able to dominate large areas as Kinyanjui did. Their headmen lacked continuity and stability in office. Between 1911 and 1939> 67 men held the office of chief; their average tenure was 7.7 years. Although this figure was comparable to the turbulent northern division of Fort Hall district, it was only half the Kiambu average. Moreover, there were no powerful Kamba chiefs, whose period of rule stretched out over the whole period of this study, like Wambugu and Njiri. No location was ruled by a single individual from 1911 to 1939. Few chiefs were succeeded by their relatives.59 The pacification of Kikuyuland had produced the first group of Kikuyu chiefs. In Machakos young men also attached themselves to the Imperial British East Africa Company and the successor British co­ lonial regime. These individuals even created the beginnings of a paraadministrative and military structure. They surrounded themselves with bands of followers, which were capable only of looting people and enriching themselves and their chiefs. One of the first Kamba chiefs spawned by the British, Nthiwa wa Tana, had to be checked in 1915 from using his power to usurp the grazing land of others.60 Os­ borne in his report for 1910-1911 mentioned that when Kamba chiefs were first given judicial powers, this was "a signal for the commence­ ment of a general reign of robbery and extortion." Within six weeks, he added, as many as 1000 head of cattle had changed hands.61 Al­ though these rudimentary instruments of control were used to despoil others, they were not an effective arm of British administration as al­ most all District Commissioners reported year after year. The turn­ over of chiefs was too rapid and the bands of followers too small and chaotic. The British officials discovered that the chiefs had to be kept under close surveillance to ensure that they maintained order in their districts and helped with tax collection. In 1909 the District Commis­ sioner wrote that "the majority of the headmen do not appear to be able to exact explicit obedience from their people. They are reluctant to punish insubordination for fear of being called to the district office to explain their action."62 These sentiments were echoed in 1913 when the District Commissioner complained that chiefs showed little energy 59 See appendices at the end of this chapter. These figures were compiled from Machakos district annual reports and political record books in the Kenya archives. 60 Provincial Commissioner's Inspection Book, KNA DC/MKS 22/1/1. si Machakos District, Annual Report, 1910-11, p. 27, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/MKS

1/1/2.

62 Ulu District, Quarterly Report, December, 1909, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/4.

Colonial Chiefs—61

in criminal cases and were not up to the mark in bringing in taxes.63 As we shall note, they were able to play little role in recruiting labor or persuading the young to go to school, an important contribution of the Kikuyu chiefs. A comprehensive picture of local Kamba administration was pro­ vided by G. H. Osborne in 1911. He pointed out that the British had appointed young men as chiefs mainly because they seemed vigorous. Now they realized that these men had no backing, their main charac­ teristic being "unbounded impudence and capacity for every form of extortion and oppression." As a consequence, chiefs "were obliged to form small bodies of followers, frequently of worse character than themselves." Osborne regarded these groups as "the greatest evil in the native reserves for which our rule has ever been responsible," and recommended the suppression of askaris, the limitation of two mes­ sengers to each chief, and the revival of tribal councils.64 During World War I the British placed additional strains on Kamba local government, and these further revealed its weakness and exces­ sive peculation. The Kamba, like other African peoples, were recruited in large numbers for the East African carrier corps. British officials de­ voted nearly all their energies to recruitment in 1917 and part of 1918 and a high proportion of Kamba were pressed into service. Compelled to assist in these forcible recruitments, the Kamba chiefs used their powers to engage in widespread corruption, accepting bribes in order to exempt individuals from the dreaded corps. Corruption was so marked that at the end of the war the British, usually willing to over­ look a certain amount of peculation, removed or fined nearly one-third of the district's chiefs. Three men (Nzioki of Mwala, Ngunzi of Kaumoni, and Ndeti of Kalama) were deposed and imprisoned. Two others (Kyubi of Kangundo and Maitha of Matungulu) were fined.65 In the 1920s Kamba administration remained highly inefficient. The government enhanced the powers of tribal councils, in the hope that the Kamba would respond to more traditional forms of conciliar rule. But District Commissioner Campbell in 1923 remarked that the kiamas evoked little interest. The Kamba, he added, were "not yet sufficiently interested in political matters affecting their own reserve or the out­ side world to render a native council either desirable or necessary."66 Still searching for a formula to obtain closer administration, the gov63 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1914, p. 14, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/2. 64 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1910-1911, p. 27, G. H. Osborne, ibid. 65 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1918-1919, p. 3, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/10. se Machakos District, Annual Report, 1923, p. 5, W.F.G. Campbell, KNA DC/MKS 1 I 1 I 1 5·

62—Colonial Chiefs

ernment in 1925 created an elaborate hierarchy of African adminis­ trators. Locations were divided into sublocations under subheadmen and then into sections run by state designated elders. Twenty such elders were allotted for each location, and they were expected to exer­ cise authority over approximately 200 persons and to work closely with the chief and subheadmen.67 By 1929 the government had abolished the experiment as a failure. The British were forced to admit that the only efficient aspect of its administration over the Machakos Kamba were the forty well-paid tribal retainers located at the central station. The tribal retainers or askaris whom the chiefs recruited were consid­ ered useless.68 Machakos reserve was in fact governed largely by British officers backed up by tribal retainers at the central station, with little help pro­ vided by Kamba chiefs. In 1929, when District Commissioner Camp­ bell brought chiefs to the central station for a training course, he found them woefully ignorant of their duties and still characterized by "apathy and indifference." Unlike their Kikuyu counterparts they lacked a sense of "self importance and prestige."69 Thus colonial rule tended to sit lightly on the Kamba. Chiefs realized that they had to maintain a modicum of order and to help with tax gathering. They car­ ried out these functions, under British prodding, probably as much to keep the administration from interfering further in local matters. But lacking the authority and backing that Kikuyu chiefs had, they did lit­ tle else. They were not the thin end of the colonial wedge. Since they were not vigorous local administrators, their actions did not politicize and factionalize communities as did the work of energetic Kikuyu chiefs, like Njiri. Just prior to World War II, however, new important chiefs came into power. These were men educated in government and mission schools and able to command respect. The most important personali­ ties were Kalovoto Seke from Iveti, appointed in 1937, James Mutua, an important local native councillor in the 1930s, made chief of Maputi location in 1942, Jonathan Kala of Kangundo (1936) and James Mwanthi of Kalama (1939). Their locations tended to be the most pop­ ulous and best educated in the reserve. They were able to exercise power not because they built para-administrative and military organs as the first Kikuyu chiefs had, but because the people living in their Io67

Machakos District, Annual Report, 1923, p. 15, S. H. Fazan, KNA DC/MKS

1/1/15·

es Machakos District, Annual Report, 1929, p. 9, J. M. Silvester, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/22. «a Ukamba Province, Annual Report, 1929, p. 22, W.F.G. Campbell. KNA PC/CP 4/2/3·

Colonial Chiefs—63 cations had gained more education, were in close economic contact with outsiders, and were now eager to use governmental power to their advantage.70 MAASAI CHIEFS

Having moved the Maasai into the extended southern reserve, the British sought to establish the same administrative structure there as existed elsewhere in Kenya. The Maasai failed to respond to these ef­ forts. They made little use of colonial chiefs, the native tribunals, and local native councils. Chiefs did not play an active role in promoting colonial change. They did not recruit labor, public or private, or send children to schools. In reality, leading individuals in Maasai society were relatively easy to identify, as Η. H. Low, District Commissioner, Narok, pointed out in his 1939 report. As moran formed bands, individuals competed with one another for leadership positions, and natural leaders, called laigwenani emerged.71 Although these individuals maintained their influence only as long as they continued to demonstrate ability, many of them served as Maasai leaders when they became elders. As the British began to understand the functioning of the Maasai polity, they had little difficulty identifying these individuals. They designated them as chiefs. Olonana's relationship with the British had caused them to believe that he was paramount chief of the Maasai. His powers were not of that nature, however, and were mainly confined to the Kaputiei and Purko sections. At his death, Seggi was designated his successor. Be­ cause Seggi was a minor, ole Gelishu and Ngaroya were selected as regents.72 By 1918 the British realized their mistake. Bowring, the Colonial Secretary, wanted to abolish Seggi's appointment mentioning that Seggi was unreliable and lacking in energy and moral courage. He was regarded by the Purko with contempt while the Loita, Siria, and other sections did not recognize his authority at all. Bowring added that no such office as paramount chief existed.73 Although to all intents and purposes the position was abolished in 1918, formally this action was taken only in 1923.74 Many of the Maasai colonial chiefs were a different type of person 70 See the Machakos District Political Record Book, KNA DC/MKS 4/9. "i Narok District, Annual Report, 1939, p. 8, Η. H. Low, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/3. " 2 List of Chiefs and Headmen, October 21, 1911, E. C. Crewe-Read, KNA DC/KAJ 1/1/1. 73 No. 218, Bowring to Long, March 28, 1918, PRO CO 533/194. "No. 1037, Coryndon to Devonshire, July 4, 1923, PRO CO 533/296.

64—Colonial Chiefs

from the Kikuyu collaborators. Although willing to hold office, they were distinctly not interested in active cooperation with the British. Proud and traditionally powerful men, they did not want to transform their society, but held office as a means of deflecting British pressures for change. In contrast, most Kikuyu chiefs were active collaborators. Indeed, Kikuyu chiefs often sought to outstrip rivals for the office by making themselves indispensable to the British. Even the early Kamba aspirants to the office seem to have been willing to do the bidding of the British, but were unable to build para-administrative organizations by which to carry out the wishes of their colonial overrulers. Many Maasai chiefs, on the other hand, displayed no interest and even dem­ onstrated ill-concealed hostility to this type of colonial collaboration. Perhaps the best example of the traditional Maasai leader, who was selected to be a chief by the colonial authorities, but was not willing to be a mere agent of British authority was ole Gelishu, who served as chief over the Purko section until his death in 1939. He had a deep at­ tachment to the traditional Maasai way of life. Moreover, he was in­ tensely suspicious of the British—a suspicion borne partly of the two hated moves which he had opposed. As we shall see, while he co­ operated with the colonial authorities in trying to reduce the power of the moran in the 1920s, he did so with the larger vision of preserving as much of Maasai tradition as possible. Yet not all Maasai leaders were unwilling to collaborate, and many colonial chiefs owed their office to British backing. Among the Purko Ngapili ole Masikonte was a promising collaborator. He himself was a leader in social change and was regarded by the British as "loyal and progressive." He was enthusiastic about education, sending two of his sons to mission schools. Before the move to Narok, he owned big gar­ dens at Rumuruti.75 He supported the state's program of developing ghee dairying, and he took an active part in local native council delib­ erations.76 Although a respected traditional leader, his one great draw­ back was his failure to oppose the second and hated Maasai move more vigorously. This aroused suspicion and enmity against him. There were other men, like many of the early Kikuyu and Kamba chiefs, who owed their position mainly to the British. The best example was Lengemojik ole Nakorodo, who had been, according to British parlance, a "boy" for Francis Hall.77 Although he had no social stand­ ing among his section, the Kaputiei, he became a chief with British support and held this office until just before World War II. He was considered a progressive. He spoke English and Swahili and owned a 7 SConfidential,

Northcote to Amery, July 17, 1925, PRO CO 533/332. Laikipia Survey of Events, 1906-11, KNA DC/LKA/i. 77 KLC, Evidence, I, 949.

Colonial Chiefs—65

farm. Other progressive Maasai chiefs with little traditional stature but with firm British backing were Karaga and Eulele.78 Maasai chiefs were an impressive group, on the whole. There were many more men of traditional standing holding this office than was so among the Kikuyu and Kamba. Some, at least, were willing to work with the British to implement reform programs. Many of the chiefs, like ole Gelishu, Masikonte, and Nakorodo, were in power throughout the entire thirty-five years of this study. But these Maasai headmen, like their Kamba counterparts, but to an even more marked degree, were not able to build a supporting apparatus—the para-administra­ tive and military organization so essential to Kikuyu chiefs. In fact the Maasai shunned the organs of local government established by the British. They made little use of the native tribunals, especially for criminal cases. The British mentioned in 1915 that in only three cases were fines affixed and that the courts were powerless to exercise au­ thority over the moranP Even a decade later, in 1926, native tribunals heard only twenty-three criminal cases.80 The Maasai were not litigatious, in extreme contrast to the Kikuyu, who were constantly taking land disputes to the courts. The Maasai settled their own disputes out of court and referred cases arising out of changed circumstances to district courts.81 No real collaborative administration arose. There was no para-administration, no commandeering of stock, and no corruption.

The fact that the Kikuyu created powerful collaborating chiefs and the Kamba and Maasai did not is clear. The reasons for this variation are more difficult to discern. Part of the answer rests with the Kikuyu leaders themselves. Men like Kinyanjui, Koinange, and Wambugu were extraordinary political entrepreneurs. They were political bosses, building a rudimentary political machine through a combination of favors and punishments. But more important the Kikuyu had the social and economic ingredients capable of sustaining rule by chiefs. These were in place before the coming of the British; pressure to create more centralized administration crystallized them. The Kikuyu had power­ ful families before the coming of the British, and there were a multi­ tude of ways in which dependent individuals could be attached to these independent landowning units. Muguri, muhoi, muthami, mwendia ruhiu, muciarwa, and muthoni were all Kikuyu terms which de"8 See Kajiado District, Annual Report, 1927, p. 8, V. M. McKeag, KNA DC/KAJ 2/1/1. 79 Masai Province, Annual Report, 1914-15, KNA DC/NRK/5. so Ibid. si Phillips, Report on the Native Tribunals, p. 141.

66—Colonial Chiefs scribed different types of tenant farming arrangements.82 Through these various means Kikuyu mbaris could swell their numbers and in­ crease their political and economic capability. Travellers through Kikuyuland in the 1890s recorded intense struggles for power going on between different groups. The coming of the British interjected a new actor on the Kikuyu political scene, and enterprising Kikuyu, sometimes even individuals without any previous power or landholdings, arose to take advantage of the British presence. Thus, men with land or men able to gain land through their connection with the British could attach large numbers of dependents to them and use this group to support their rise to power. The economically and socially more dif­ ferentiated Kikuyu traditional society had these rudimentary strata, based largely on landholding, which enterprising Kikuyu exploited to build political organizations at the local level. Kamba and Maasai did not have the same economic and social in­ gredients, for they did not have dependent relationships. Most Kamba and Maasai families were independent landowning and stockowning units. Moreover the Kamba had a marked tradition of political individ­ ualism. Individuals were loath to put themselves in subordination to others and there were few occasions which required joint effort of per­ sons from more than one group of homesteads.83 Lambert emphasized the recurrent hiving-off of groups from each other in order to establish small-scale utuis (groups of homesteads). Of course the Kikuyu were also known as individualistic, but comparing the Kikuyu and Kamba, Lambert concluded that the Kamba were far less politically unified than the Kikuyu, with their government by generation sequence and their grading into ages.84 Since the Kamba reserve was still not densely occupied, individuals who found a chief oppressive could move their homesteads. Every Kamba had a certain economic security and inde­ pendence buttressed by his land and livestock. Because the Kamba did not have a lower stratum of society—a poor peasantry, they did not have individuals who would be eager to attach themselves to the rich and powerful and act as a para-administration and military. 82 A muguri was one given the use of land against a loan of stock. A muhoi was given temporary cultivating rights on the basis of friendship. A muthami was like a muhoi except he had the right to construct buildings on his land. Other tenancies were based on family connections. A muthoni was a landless son-in-law given the use of land. A mwendia ruhui was the father of a widow's children and also allowed land usage belonging to the widow's family. Finally a muciarwa was an outsider, adopted by a landowner, given land and a wife. To create any or all of these re­ lationships a person obviously had to have surplus land. Sorrenson, Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country, p. 11. 83 Symmes C. Oliver, "Individuality, Freedom of Choice, and Cultural Flexibility of the Kamba," American Anthropologist, Vol. 62, No. 2, April, 1965, p. 421. Si Η. E. Lambert, "Land Tenure among the Akamba," African Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, September, 1947, p. 134.

Colonial Chiefs—67 The Maasai were also lacking in a lower stratum. Sparsely popu­ lated, they did not live in congregated settlements. Thus the creation of centralized institutions, like the office of chief, native tribunals, and local native councils, was more difficult there. Finally, the Maasai had a powerful commitment to their traditional way of life, felt by all and affirmed periodically by the moran in outbursts of violence during the colonial period. In the central highlands, and certainly elsewhere, it would appear that oppression by chiefs and early colonial change often went hand in hand in the early colonial period. Many new patterns being intro­ duced by colonial governments were new and greatly resented. To establish these innovations quickly a good deal of coercion was re­ quired and was provided by chiefs backed up by para-administrative and military organs. Writers have often condemned the corruption and terror of chiefs, like the Kikuyu, without recognizing the function of these actions. Actually in the central highlands three distinct pat­ terns of rule through colonial chiefs emerged. Kikuyu chiefs built strong local administrations, using corruption, through which new pat­ terns were implemented. Kamba chiefs sought to use their office to enrich themselves, as the Kikuyu did, and tried to create a retinue of followers, but they were not successful. They developed little con­ tinuity in office and no efficient local administration; hence they were unable to implement programs of change. Maasai chiefs did not create purposive local administration; they neither surrounded themselves with retainers, nor were they litigious or corrupt. Their leaders tended to be much less interested in collaboration.

APPENDIX T O CHAPTER III

K I A M B U K I K U Y U CHIEFS AND THEIR T E N U R E OF O F F I C E

Location,

Ruler,

and Tenure

of

Office

Kiambu Mararo (1908-1926) andWandei (1927-1942) Ting'ang'a Mimi (1905-1931) and Kahehu (1931-1942)

(son)

Ruiki Kamiri (1912-1920) and Njoroge (1920-1926) Ruiru Waweru (1903-1922) andWaruhiu (1922-1952) Kidochoi Waweru (1911-1934) and Magugu (1934-1952) (son) Gaturiamariu Gathecha (1909-1924) and Muhoho (1924-1952) (son) Mangu Mumene (1909-1924), Muchangiru (1924-1927) (son), and Kiranga

( 1 9 2 7 -1 934) Makwa Mwechege (1908-1917) and Warima (1917-1933) (uncle) Matara Machana (?-?), Nderebu (?-?), and Gaturo (1920-1942) Ndarugu Makui

(1911-1934)

Komotho Muturi (1903-1921) and Remingi (1921-1937) Upper Mangu Ndekee (1912-1924) and Gachango (1924-1938) Riruta Kinyanjui (1908-1929) and Daudi (1929-1936) (son) Dagoretti Kioi (1908-1917) and Philip Karanja (1921-1950)

? Mukoma (1908-1936) and Njiri (1936-?) (son)

Appendix to Chapter III—69

Kanyarira Karanja (1908-1922) and Etham (1922-1928) (son) This area' was added to Kabete. Lari Tharari (?-ig2i), Tharani (1921-1928), Nganga (1928-1934) and Makimei (1934-1952) Thembigwa Gatorui (1917-1930) Muguga Ndegwa (1917-1927) and Kihiko (1927-1942) Kabete Njonjo (1921-1952) Upper Kiambu Koinange (1921-?) Gethiga Gathingo (1921-1942) Ngenda Gitango (1912-1921) and Kibathi (1921-1953) (son) In compiling figures I included all men who served in office from 1900 to 1935. There were 45. Their total years in office during this pe­ riod came to 576 or roughly 13 years per man. This manner of calcula­ tion actually underestimates the average tenure of office since, as can be seen from the table, many of the men served for a long period after 1935. Njonjo, Koinange, Waruhiu, Karanja, Makimei, and Muhoho were in office 20 and 30 years, but because 1935 is used as the cut-off point, they are only credited for the years they held office up to 1935. Additionally men like Kinyanj ui, Kioi, and others were in office before the figures given next to their names, but these were the years placed beside their names in the political record book, and I have decided to use them faute de mieux. FORT HALL CHIEFS AND THEIR TENURE OF OFFICE

Maragua-Tana Division. Location Number, Ruler, and Tenure of Office Bi B2 B3 B4

Kahuria (?—1913) and Kinani (1913-1935) Kichimu (1912-1935) Muriranya (1912-1935) Nyagi (?-igi5), Kanyingi (1915-1922), Kakonge (1922-1924), and Maturi (1924-1928) B5 Ruga (no further information)

70—Appendix to Chapter III B6

Munene (?-?), Kihiga (?-igi5), son (1915-1922), and Muthas

B7

Wanga (?-?), Kiai (?-igi6), and Jacob (1916-1935)

B8

Umbia (?-igi2), Mbithi (1912-?), Nyagga (?-?), Jonah (1922-

B9

Kibirio (1912-1922) and his brother (1922-1935)

(1922-1955)

1927), and Kachanda (1927-1935) B i o Muiru (?-igi8) and Ndamiu (1918-1935) Bi 1 Kanyukie (1913-1928) (Replaced by his father) B12 Yigo (?-igi7) andKimotho (1917-1935) B13 Kamau (P-ig^), Waweru (1915-1917), Njoroge (1917-1935) B14 Mugo (?-igi5), Kithia (1915-^22), and Wakomo (1922-^35) B15 Michuki

(igi2-ig35)

B16 Kaweru (?-igi6), Kichuki (1916-1934), and Gikonyo (1935) B17 Mbaria (?-ig22), Njakwe (1922-1934), and Mwangi (1934-1935) B18 Katabarua (?-ig2o) and Kigwaini (1920-1935) B19 Karinga (?-igig), Ngooii (lgig-?), and Karanja (?-ig35) B20 Kacheru

(?-ig2o), Kimaro

1935) B21 Kamiti (?-ig2o) and Kithua

(ig20-ig25), and Wambaa

(1925-

(ig20-ig35)

B22 Wanjohi (?-?), Muraya (?-ig28), and Munyoroko (ig28-ig35) The average tenure of office of these chiefs had to be compiled somewhat differently from the method used for the Kiambu chiefs. The record books often did not give figures on when chiefs first assumed office, but since the first chief listed in the record book for each office was in office in igi2, this year was taken as the beginning year. 1935

w a s ta ken

as the last year since detailed information on chiefs was

not available to me for later periods. Also, in ig36 the number of locations in Fort Hall district was reduced from 32 to 15. Some chiefs served beyond 1935. Between 1912 and 1935, 54 chiefs served for 490 years or an average of nine years in office.

Chania-Maragua Division. Location Tenure Ai

of

Number,

Ruler,

and

Office

Kituku

(1912-?),

Muchiri

(?-ig32),

and Waweru wa Kehia

(1932-1946) A3

Njiri (1912-1951)

A4

Gathaga (1915-^35)

A5

Kibarabara (1912-1923) and Karanja (1923-1945) (son)

A6

Kibathi

(1912-1923), Kagio wa Kibugi

(1923-1928), and Ga-

chanja wa Mukabi (1928-1935) A7

Wainaini (1915-1925) andWachega (1925-1935)

Appendix to Chapter I I I — 7 1 A8

Mahia wa Mara (1912-1915), Mara wa Mahia (1915-1926) (son),

Ag

Ngara wa Gathi

? (1926-1928), and Kimani (1928-1935) (1912-1925), Ngaguna wa Ngara

(1925-1932)

(son), and Joseph Kangethe (1932-1945) A10 Kimani (1913-1946) (son of the man in office previously) A 1 1 Kigwoya (1912-?) andGathimbi (?-ig27), location merged. A12 Gachau wa Miano

(1912-1925)

and Reuben Wanjehia

(1925-

1949) (son) A 1 3 Murachia wa Kikonga (1912-1928) and Kaguthawa (1928-1935) A 1 4 Wanjora (1916-1922), ? (1922-1924), Kimatu wa Wangai (i933)'

a n d

(1925-

Ndungu wa Kagori (1933-1953)

A 1 5 T h u k u (1912-1928) and Kimani (1928-1935) (son) T h e same method of calculation was used here. Between 1912 and 1935, 30 men served as chiefs for 316 years or an average of 11 years.

Machakos District. Location,

Ruler,

and Tenure

of

Office

Iveti Mathendu

(1902-?), Ndeti

(?-ig24), Ndunda

(1924-1929), Musila

(1929-1936), and Kalovoto (1936-?) Maputi Nthiwa (1911-1919), Muli (1919-1920) (son), Mwalili

(1920-1924)

(brother), and Musila wa Mbole (1927-?) Kangundo Chuba Dilwa (1911-1920), Kikubi (1920-1927), Chaolo (1927-1928) Mutaba (1928-?), Kieti (?-i932), Mbiti (1932-1936), and Jonathon Kala (1936-?) Kithangaini Nthiwa

(1911-1917), Wambua

(1917-1939)

(son), and

Mutundo

(1939-?) Manyala Nguta (1910-1927) Location merged with Kithangaini. Matungulu Ntheketha (1911-1912), Muthuki (1912-1915), Maitha

(1915-1927),

Chaolo (1925-1935), Josiah (1935-1939), and Muko (1939-?) Kiteta Kaleli

(1910-1924), Chuli

(1924-1929), Kikata

(1929-1932),

and

Kibindyo (1932-?) Kisau Ndolo (1936-?)

(1911-1934),

Ndolo

Nzioka

(1934-1936),

and

Muthoko

72—Appendix to Chapter III Kibauni Mulinge (1909-1928), Muli (1928-1939), and Ndibo (1939-?) Kaumoni Ngunzi (1911-1918), Mutie (1918-1927), Kilyungi (1927-1938), and Nzalu (1938-?) Nzaui Ngili (1911-1912), Nzioki (1912-?) (son), Wambua (?—1933), and Mutuku (1933-?) Mbitini Ngunyeni

(1911-1912), Nzue

(1912-1927), Nthenge

(1927-1931),

Mulwa (1931-1936), and Kitula (1936-?) Mukaa Nguma (1911-1924) and Kiamba (1924-?) Kilungu Malu (1911-1926) andMulandi (1926-?) Mbooni Siawia (1909-1933) and Mulei (1933-?) Kalama Ndeti (1912-1918), Nthumo (1918-1927), Nzioka (1927-1939), and James Mwanthi (1939-?) Kikumbuliu Musioni (1911-1926), Matundo (1926-1936), and Juma (1936-?) Sixty-eight men served for a period of 524 years, an average tenure of 7.7.

CHAPTER IV

Maasai Warriors

Among the Maasai the warrior class played an instrumental role in inhibiting change. In other societies, especially among the Kikuyu, young men of warrior age were often the first school-goers and the first wage laborers. As the previous chapter indicated, young Kikuyu were recruited by chiefs and formed a para-administrative and mili­ tary organization essential to early colonial change. But in Maasailand warriors were disinclined to go to school. They engaged only in a few highly specialized and well paid types of wage laboring, and they did not become coercive agents for colonial chiefs. On the contrary, they inhibited the development of a collaborating spirit in their society. By retaining a strong sense of their own identity and esprit de corps, the Maasai warriors were a significant element in blocking colonial change. In order to understand the role that the Maasai warriors played in the colonial period, it is essential to consider the age-grading system of these people. Many African societies have age-set systems. These are especially widespread in East Africa, not only among societies which were or are predominantly pastoral (Maasai, Samburu, Rendille, Nandi, Kipsigis, and Turkana) but also among the agricultural Kikuyu and Kamba. Nevertheless, there are important variations in the ageset systems of the various East African peoples, which have been sig­ nificant factors in twentieth-century change. Among the Toposa, Jiye, and Karamoja, age-sets were not clearly defined. The locus of power lay more with the family and the cattle-owning settlement. The Nandi and Kipsigis had age-sets quite similar structurally to the Maasai. They were well defined and had great military significance. But the parish council, composed of all males in a territorial area, also had much po­ litical power. Moreover, the number of individuals in the territorial age-sets was considerably smaller than among the Maasai. Joseph Thomson, the late nineteenth-century traveller, mentioned that some of the Maasai warrior units totalled 3,000, but the Nandi warrior classes capable of unified action were much smaller.1 The Kikuyu had an age-set system, but it did not generate the powerful loyalties and cohesion of the Maasai age-sets. !Joseph Thomson, Through Masailand, p. 347.

74—Maasai Warriors Probably the most highly developed age-set system belonged to the pastoral Maasai. No other Maasai institution had competing political authority. For the Maasai the first politically meaningful age-set is that of the moran. The young Maasai adult is initiated into that stage through circumcision ceremonies. The age of initiation has been de­ creasing in the twentieth century, but in the early part of the century, it was probably between fifteen and twenty. All those young men cir­ cumcised during the same open period, lasting about five years, consti­ tute a single moran group of which there are two for each age-set. The first to be circumcised are known as the right-hand group. They estab­ lish themselves in special warrior villages, or manyattas, and serve as junior warriors until after about ten years they graduate into senior warrior status at a special milk-drinking ceremony, called E-Unoto, at which time they break up their manyattas and begin to marry and set­ tle down. Living in these warrior villages with their mothers and young girls, the moran develop a strong sense of group identity and loyalty which remain with them the rest of their lives. As the righthand nears the end of its term as junior warriors, another group is being initiated through circumcision ceremonies, and is known as the left-hand. They become active junior warriors when the previous group performs the E-Unoto. The basic duties of the warriors are to defend the community from attack, to raid for cattle and other forms of wealth, to learn the arts of governing which they will have to em­ ploy later as elders, and to help with the herding of livestock during the dry season. After both the right-hand and left-hand have gone through their E-Unoto ceremony and graduated into senior warrior status, the two groups are combined at the ol-Ngesherr, or meat-eating ceremony, when they are both graduated into junior elder status. Elders ideally are the source of political authority. They make the decisions to be implemented by the moran. There are three grades of elders; junior elders who are mainly concerned with family matters and mastering the more intricate responsibilities of senior elderhood; the senior elders, who are the supreme power among the Maasai and, meeting in council, settle disputes and decide general policy; and the retired elders who are no longer active in politics, but are often con­ sulted in important matters because of their wisdom. This is an ideal description of Maasai social and political institutions. While elders were supposed to exercise political power, warriors were capable of independent action. Individuals could pass through the various age-sets more quickly or more slowly than their age-mates and could move to a higher status before the appropriate ceremonies had been performed. Indeed, the dynamic and talented individuals were expected to move through the life-cycle more rapidly than their age-

Maasai Warriors—75

mates. There were also local variations in age-set organization and duties from one section to another. The Purko senior warriors, for ex­ ample, lost many of their warrior duties and became in effect junior elders after the E-Unoto ceremony, whereas in other sections senior warriors continued to play an important role in warrior activities.2 Actually there was a delicate balance of powers between elders and warriors. Elders were expected to have the final say in important tribal matters, but warriors had a certain amount of personal political auton­ omy and prerogatives for settling their own affairs. Also, the Maasai gave warriors leeway for some independent action, much like juvenile behavior in modern Western societies. Warriors were expected to be volatile, violence prone, eager, and ready to engage in struggle among age-mates or against other tribes. The movement through the agegrades was not automatic, and each grade had to demonstrate its readiness to move on to the next status. These transitional periods were often accompanied by sporadic outbursts of violence especially among the warriors. Moreover the moran's capacity for eruptive action could even be turned against the elders, and so helped to limit the control of the latter over the warriors. The moran could, for example, organize a cattle raid against an elder or group of elders who seemed especially oppressive to them. Even before the arrival of the British, Maasai society was subject to severe tensions. A civil war between Olonana and Senteu sapped the strength of the people as did the disastrous rinderpest epidemic and subsequent famine of the 1890s. With the establishment of British co­ lonial rule a new set of problems and challenges was posed. British officials quickly recognized the crucial significance of the warrior class, and some of them put forward programs to alter the activities of the moran. In 1906 C. W. Hobley was concerned about the raiding pro­ pensities of the moran and proposed that the state cease to use moran in its punitive expeditions since these only strengthened the Maasai penchant for engaging in raids. Instead, he suggested that the Maasai be encouraged to trade, cultivate, use money, and work outside their reserve for wages.3 The most serious early challenge to the Maasai way of life came with the passage of a stock theft ordinance in 1913. This ordinance empowered the state to fine stock raiders ten times the value of the livestock stolen, and in certain circumstances to compel the 2 This description of Maasai political institutions was compiled from the standard works on the Maasai and accounts in the Kenya national archives. The most authori­ tative study is Alan H. Jacobs, "The Traditional Political Organization of the Pas­ toral Masai," D.Phil., Oxford University, 1965. 3 No. 64, Sadler to the Colonial Office, February 6, 1906, enclosing Hobley on the Masai and their reserve, PRO CO 533/11.

76—Maasai Warriors

family, the village, and even part of the tribe to pay this heavy fine.4 This ordinance was passed both in the interests of the state and the set­ tlers. The state hoped to use it as a weapon for suppressing stock raid­ ing, so prevalent among many of the Kenya African peoples, and then redirecting their attention to other economic activities. The settlers favored the legislation because their own livestock were being stolen. Along with an equally harsh collective punishment ordinance, this law enabled the state to exact extremely heavy fines, not only against the persons immediately responsible for actions but also against those indi­ viduals who in the estimation of the state could have prevented such occurrences or who were unwilling to give needed information to en­ able authorities to detect and punish offenders. The stock theft ordinance and the effort by the state to eradicate stock raiding constituted a considerable challenge to the Maasai econ­ omy and polity, especially the warrior set. In part the warriors owed their existence to raiding, since one of their most important functions was to raid other peoples for livestock and to protect their own com­ munity from the raids of others. Through raids the Maasai increased the size of their herds, most notably after they had been reduced be­ cause of sickness and famine. Raiding enabled the moran to accumu­ late sufficient livestock to make themselves economically self-sufficient of their parents and thus able to marry and become elders. When the British first discussed the suppression of raiding, Maasai elders won­ dered what would become of the "poorer moran who have no livestock and thus cannot marry and settle down as elders." They concluded that "now raiding is forbidden they do not see how they are to acquire wealth."5 The Maasai protests notwithstanding, the British made de­ termined efforts to bring an end to stock raiding. Although they were not entirely successful, almost all the evidence from the colonial period demonstrates that it became exceedingly difficult to carry out raids with impunity and that raiding and the protection of one's own society from raids became a much less significant activity of the warrior class. As soon as the new stock theft ordinance was put into effect, it had a severe impact on the Maasai. As penalties for various moran raids carried out by bands of warriors in the 1910s, the state assessed heavy fines on the population—fines which had to be paid by elders as well as moran and had the effect of driving these two segments of Maasai society apart. Under the British the elders soon learned that moran raids, if detected, brought heavy fines which could only be extin­ guished by a reduction in family herds. These penalties began to per4 No.

869, Belfield to Harcourt, December 14, 1912, PRO CO 533/109. 5 Report on the East Africa Protectorate, 1903-4, p. 6, Stewart, HCSP, Vol. 56, 1905, cd. 22331.

Maasai Warriors—77

suade elders that their interests lay in cooperating with the state in an effort to regulate the warriors and to channel their energies into other avenues. In 1913, for example, a moran raid against the Lumbwa, the Kavirondo, and Africans in German East Africa resulted in a fine of 500 head of cattle on 4 villages.6 The next year a communal fine of 250 head of cattle was imposed for a further raid into German East Africa. In 1917 3 Purko villages were assessed an enormous fine of 60,000 rupees for the murder of 2 Kikuyu, the large sum being exacted be­ cause the state believed the communities were sheltering the culprits, and thus it invoked the collective punishment ordinance.7 Although these fines went into a special fund, called the Maasai Suspense Ac­ count, and were spent on projects in the reserve, the state, rather than the Maasai themselves, determined how the money was spent.8 There were complaints that money was spent against the wishes of the people. The first major outburst involving the moran occurred as World War I was coming to a close and according to British accounts was a reaction against British efforts to recruit moran for military service. In this and subsequent conflicts the leading role was taken by the Purko section or subtribe of the Maasai. The Purko were the most powerful of the Maasai sections, the largest and most intact group following the troubles of the 1890s. They had borne the brunt of the two land moves before World War I, as they had been moved into Laikipia in 1904 before being forced into the enlarged southern reserve in 1913. Lo­ cated in Narok district, they looked upon themselves as the most rep­ resentative section and defenders of Maasai interests. Their warriors felt a special responsibility and status vis-a-vis other Maasai groups. Moreover they had a powerful leader in ole Gelishu, whose opposition to the second Maasai move had immeasurably increased his reputation among the people.9 Until 1918, although other tribes had been recruited in large num­ bers into the army, the Maasai had sent few recruits. To be sure the war had exacted its toll on the Maasai. Many groups had been dislo­ cated by warfare along the border between Kenya and German East Africa and by German military forays into Kenya to disrupt the rail­ way.10 The Maasai had also contributed much livestock to the cam­ paign, an estimated 30,000 cattle and 300,000 sheep, which although supposed to have been given voluntarily were no doubt provided 6 No. 42, Belfield to Harcourt, January 23, 19x3, PRO CO 533/116. ι No. 366, Bowring to Long, June 28, 1917, PRO CO 533/182. 8 No. 533, Bowring to Long, September 17, 1917, PRO CO 533/184. β These views were stated not only by Purko spokesmen, but also by non-Purkos. Interview Mutunkei ole Nchoonka, June 15, 1970 and Moipe ole Kdonyo, July 26, 1970 in Kajiado district. i°Secret, Belfield to Bonar Law, January 3, 1916, PRO CO 533/166.

78—Maasai Warriors

under considerable pressure.11 In mid-1918 Maasai elders agreed to provide recruits who were to be trained at Bukoba on Lake Victoria. But when the state went to obtain these recruits, the Purko moran flat­ ly refused and withdrew in protest into a forest area, defying their elders and dismissing the head moran, ole Pere, who had counseled cooperation with the government. The state then dispatched a com­ pany of Kenyan African Rifles to the district, and on September g, 1918, some of these soldiers killed two Maasai women, wounded sev­ eral other persons, and killed some cattle. Two days later a large group of Purko moran attacked the KAR camp at Olalunga, losing 14 of their own and incurring injuries to 50 or 60 others. Following this conflagration, order collapsed throughout the district, and bands of moran roamed the area, burning and looting stores in Narok and Mara and cutting the telegraph line between Narok and Elmenteita. Even­ tually order was restored, and the Purko agreed to produce the neces­ sary recruits, but never did.12 The British accounts of this uprising stress that it was occasioned by the effort to recruit moran for military service. But this view was flatly contradicted by all the Purko Maasai I interviewed.13 According to them the warriors rose primarily in opposition to the forcing of chil­ dren to attend a new government school being established in Narok township. In fact the attempt of the government to recruit moran into the army and the establishment of a school were part of a larger scheme being developed by the British officer in charge of the Maasai reserve, R. W. Hemsted. Hemsted was one of the most experienced Maasai officers, having been posted to the area in 1911. Convinced that Maasai backwardness must be broken and the Maasai made to enter the modern world, Hemsted began to formulate reform programs in 1918. One scheme he favored was a cattle tax of 2 rupees per head of cattle, which he estimated would realize £93,333, of which he pro­ posed to spend £50,000 on improvements in the reserve. He called the Maasai "the richest natives, if not the richest people in the world. Each man, woman, and child is worth 1,389 rupees and each adult male or property owner nearly 7,700 rupees." Hemsted hoped to compel the Maasai to dispose of some of their stock, at least 50,000 head a year, and to turn the reserve into "a big ranch or estate."14 This part of Hem11Ross,

Kenya From Within, p. 141. The British interpretation can be found in No. 628, Barth to Long, October 15, 1918, PRO CO 533/198; Narok District, Annual Report, 1918-19, pp. 1-3, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/1; the East African Standard, September 16, 1918; and Huxley, White Man's Country, 11, 40-49. 13 In fact I interviewed thirteen Purko Maasai older men at different times and places. 14No. 172, Bowring to Long, March 13, 1918, PRO CO 533/194. 12

Maasai Warriors—79

sted's reform program was not brought to fruition, however, because the government did not believe that there would be a market for so many livestock. Hemsted also wanted to open a government school at Narok, and he pressured elders to send children to school. The school of Narok was opened in 1919, and in evidence given to a special committee estab­ lished to inquire into instability in the Maasai reserve in 1924, a Brit­ ish officer, Colonel Bell, argued that one of the Maasai grievances against the state was the forcible recruiting of their children into schools.15 The causes and nature of the rebellion warrant close scrutiny for what they tell about Maasai society and its resistance to change. Early efforts to recruit children for school met with resentment in nearly all African societies. Force often had to be used to produce the first batch of schoolgoers. Few societies reacted with such intensity to this innova­ tion as the Maasai warriors, however. It is difficult for an outsider to grasp the full measure of their opposition. Informants were not clear about these matters. They likened school going to an unbearable loss comparable to the death or enslavement of a person.16 They felt that if children went to school they would be lost forever to Maasai society. The children involved were not moran, being of precircumcision age, but the moran felt compelled to protect them from what they regarded as exploitation by the state. In this uprising, as in subsequent conflicts with the administration, the warriors took their action in defiance of the elders' advice. They were supported by the Purko laibon, Kimurai, son of Olonana, who traditionally had close affiliations with the moran, and in this case had excited them to violence by predicting the immi­ nent withdrawal of the British. He also provided them with charms and incense which were supposed to convey immunity against bul­ lets.17 The laibon's prestige and economic well-being were intimately bound up with the warriors, for traditionally they sought his advice before raids and shared some of their booty with him. Thus, the state's campaign to bring an end to stock raiding was a direct challenge to the authority of the laibon. To be sure, the elders resented the taking of their children, but counseled the futility of resistance.18 15 The evidence was suppressed in the final report of the Masai Enquiry Commit­ tee, 1926, but was brought to light by Lord Delamere, a member of the Committee, first in confidential correspondence with the Colonial Secretary, G.A.S. Northcote, in KNA, Attorney General 2/113 and then publicly in a debate in the Legis­ lative Council, Debates, 1, 1925, pp. 242ff. is Interview Munke ole Koina, July 19, 1970. 17Interview Mantanya ole Lange, August 1, 1970, an especially reliable source as he spent much of his life collecting Maasai history. is Interview ole Gilai ole Gisa, July 19, 1970, a participant in the uprising.

80—Maasai Warriors

The warriors did of course lose as they expected to, but they were more successful than they realized. The school which they opposed opened under inauspicious circumstances. Probably its limited impact among the Purko owed much to the rebellion. Moreover, no other gov­ ernment schools were opened in Narok district for some time, and a government school was not started in Kajiado district until 1927. The independent warrior action had the effect of slowing educational work among the Maasai.19 R. W. Hemsted, the architect of this policy, was not disillusioned, however, and turned his attention to the moran system, which he now regarded as the basis of Maasai conservatism. For the next two dec­ ades, under Hemsted and various successors, the administration tried to suppress those aspects of the warrior organization which they felt were inimical to social change and orderly government. This policy was carried out with great intensity as a result of large-scale raids made by Purko warriors into occupied portions of former German East Africa in 1918 and 1919—raids that brought loss of life and stock on both sides.20 The goal of Hemsted's program was to limit the mili­ tary capabilities of the junior warriors; this was to be done by disarm­ ing them, hastening the E-Unoto ceremony, at which time they settled down and became senior warriors, and disbanding warrior manyattas, where, according to Hemsted, young men lived free from the control of elders and conceived their plans of raiding and opposing govern­ ment policies. Hemsted's attack on the moran organization was not designed sim­ ply to eradicate their raiding, which was a source of great embarrass­ ment to the state. It was part and parcel of a larger plan to strengthen the authority of the elders, who, unlike the warriors showed a willing­ ness to assist the government in transforming Maasai society.21 Hem­ sted wanted to send children to school, start agriculture, limit the size of flocks by persuading the Maasai to sell more cattle to merchants, and become more money and consumer oriented. But he was not able to get beyond the stage of altering the moran system. The clearest statement of this policy came from the annual report of Kajiado dis­ trict for 1927. This policy may be summarized briefly as the gradual elimination of the old warrior companies or "sirits" and the whole of the mili19 It is not possible to do more than speculate because so much of the local ad­ ministrative correspondence has been lost or destroyed. 20 No. 387A, Northey to Milner, April 30, 1919, PRO CO 533/209. 21 This policy is described in the various annual reports for Narok district, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/1 and succinctly in Confidential, Coryndon to Devonshire, January 19, 1923, enclosing a report by R. W. Hemsted, December 7, 1922, PRO CO 533/292.

Maasai Warriors—81 tary tribal organization bound up with them; the gradual spread of education among the boys now growing up; the improvement of stock industry and in particular the encouragement of the trade in ghee and the establishment of dairies; the opening of the dis­ trict by roads or tracks passable for motor transport; and lastly the encouragement' of the Maasai Councils—the chiefs and elders of the tribe—to take an increasing part in the development of their country.22 As a first step, the Purko right-hand circumcision group, known as il-Meruturut, were hurried through their E-Unoto ceremony in April and May, 1922 and were succeeded by the left-hand, il-Kitoip.23 Here the administration encountered difficulties as a result of moran resent­ ment at efforts to disarm them and disband their manyattas. Opposi­ tion came from two small companies (sirits), known as Laitetti and al-Kanyara in December, 1922. Having presumably learned the futility of open battle with the government, some of the moran decided to flee into the Mau forest area and to live there supplied by friends from the outside, but free of government restrictions. Once again disorder pre­ vailed. There were assaults on a Goan, an Indian, a Maasai elder, and a Kikuyu elder. According to the state "loyal headmen and elders, such as Masikonte and ole Gelishu, were also in grave danger of assassina­ tion, and it is said that moran have openly stated their intention of kill­ ing them."24 The warriors even contemplated some form of guerrilla warfare, but they were surprised by government troops, who were led to their headquarters by Dorobo guides, and were driven from their position. The government estimated ten killed and fifteen wounded.25 As in previous difficulties, the elders and the leading spokesman of the warrior group, Kuntai ole Sangalle, had favored acceptance of the gov­ ernment program. But their advice was disregarded and Kuntai's life was threatened.26 The elder's support for government programs was not hard to un­ derstand. Collaborationist elders could benefit from government sup­ port, as was happening in Kikuyu society. More significantly, the mili­ tary organization of the moran had become a serious liability to the elders. Not only were the defensive and military aspects of the system growing unnecessary in the new colonial era, but the illegal moran raids were bringing onerous government fines. In early 1922 because of murders and thefts carried out by moran the government imposed 22 Kajiado District, Annual Report, 1927, KNA DC/KAJ a/1/1. 23 Narok District, Annual Report, 1922, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/1. 24 Confidential, Coryndon to Devonshire, January 19, 1923, PRO CO 533/292. 25 Narok District, Annual Report, 1922, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/1. 26 Interview Ntugsa ole Kiok and Rumpeni ole Yiankere, August 1, 1970.

82—Maasai Warriors

an enormous collective fine of 10,000 livestock on all the Purko, elders as well as moran.27 Since the elders were obviously the wealthier ele­ ment, they shouldered the heaviest burden of repayment. Their eco­ nomic interest dictated cooperation with the government.28 The government dealt severely with the Maasai following this sec­ ond outburst. It continued to collect the fine of 10,000 cattle imposed earlier. It also arrested 210 moran, of which 167 were convicted and sent to prison. Seven were executed.29 At the same time because of these two outbursts and the generally troubled state of the reserve, the state created a special committee to examine Maasai conditions. The Committee's existence was turbulent. The testimony of one officer, Colonel Bell, was so critical of the government's policies that Bell was censured and retired from the colonial service. This action provoked Lord Delamere to resign from the Committee and to publicize Bell's complaints of government policy, which included the forcible recruit­ ment of school children and the misuse of Maasai funds by the state.30 The final report represented the administration's point of view and even strengthened its intention to undercut the warrior class. The re­ port placed ultimate responsibility for the disturbed condition in the reserve on the moran, echoing the testimony of Masikonte that "if there were no more moran, there would be no further trouble." The outburst of 1922, the report added, was not a protest against the gov­ ernment. It "arose out of the moran organization and the endeavors of the administration to carry out a policy which intended the elimination of this institution and the consequent abolition of the cattle manyattas." Elsewhere the Committee wrote that the disorder was "an ebullition, rather than an outbreak, due to an excess of animal spirits on the part of youths; it had in our opinion no true political signifi­ cance."31 This document confirmed the state in its goal of redirecting warrior energies and undercutting the traditional organization. The next group of moran—the right-hand of the new generation named Salash—gave relatively little difficulty, but only because of ab­ normal circumstances. Fearing another uprising and severe adminis­ trative retaliation, the ruling elders drastically shortened the junior 27 No. 1453, Coryndon to Churchill, October ig, 1922, PRO CO 533/283. 28 This was not just the hope of the government. Some of the Maasai I spoke with stated that elders wanted to alter the moran system, especially Mutunkei ole Nchoonka, June 15, 1970. Also in the meeting of the Kajiado LNC in 1932 the Maasai delegates were emphatic in their support of the government's policy for dis­ banding manyattas and forcing moran to settle. KNA DC/KAJ 5/1/2, Kajiado LNC minutes, June 30-July 2, 1932. 29 Confidential, Coryndon to Devonshire, August 1, 1923, PRO CO 533/296 and Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, May 30, 1924, p. 167. so Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, April 17, 1925, pp. 242-280. 31 Kenya, Report of the Masai Enquiry Committee, 1925, pp. 5-6.

Maasai Warriors—83

warrior period of the Salash. First, they delayed the circumcision cere­ monies until 1926, and then they forced through the E-Unoto in 19281929. This latter event was performed under the most untoward and strained conditions. Without consultation, ole Gelishu, the leading elder, took a small group of moran aside and had them perform the milk-drinking ceremony. This act produced consternation among the rest of the warriors, who opposed the shortening of the moran period, all the more so because the new moran had not yet been constituted. For a time there was the possibility of violence, but moderating in­ fluences prevailed, and the Salash accepted their hastily enforced retirement.32 The position of ole Gelishu is striking. In 1911 he had been the lead­ ing opponent of the second Maasai move. By the 1920s as an elder, however, he was seeking to reduce the authority of the warriors. Yet it must be remembered that he had never been a participant in violent confrontations with the government and had taken part, however re­ luctantly, in the second move when his peaceful challenge failed. Cer­ tainly the experience of twenty years had taught him the futility of openly resisting government authority, and he had come to see the warrior group as an element which was bringing government displea­ sure and increased demands for fundamental change on the Maasai. His actions retained a certain consistency, for he was still trying to pre­ serve as much of the old as he could by making piecemeal and only essential reforms. Ole Gelishu was also acting in accordance with his role as an elder, seeking in this case to contain and restrict the exuber­ ance and violence of the warriors. Elders were expected to perform differently from warriors. They were expected to be more judicious and cool headed. Thus, the deeply conservative ole Gelishu, despite his resentments against the administration, used his influence to reduce the powers of the moran. Although he sponsored these reforms, he was always considered to be a staunch defender of tradition. Unlike certain other Maasai elders, he was not eager to throw in his lot with the co­ lonial administration and collaborate actively with them. Ole Gelishu's experience shows how elders and warriors had differing methods for preserving their traditions. The warriors acted impulsively, emotion­ ally, and often violently, as was their tradition. On the other hand many of the elders tried to negotiate, to make small but timely conces­ sions while preserving their traditions. There was a chasm between the two in the colonial era, which reduced the effectiveness of each in dealing with the colonial overlords. Violence was to recur with the new Purko left-hand, called ilKishun. Narok district was in the hands of another energetic reformer, 32

Narok District, Annual Report, 1929, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/2.

84—Maasai Warriors

Major Clarence Buxton, who had served in the Maasai reserve for more than a decade. Like R. W. Hemsted, he was convinced of the need for total transformation if the Maasai were to enter the modern world. He, too, felt that the moran were the key to social change. While in Kajiado district, he had started a government school in 1927. He was popular among the Maasai, being one of the few administra­ tive officers who merited praise for his services from the Kajiado LNC and a request that he be returned to that district in the future. On taking charge of Narok district, he reaffirmed the policy of suppressing the moran and wrote that "the recognition of the moran system is tan­ tamount to recognizing organized crime which includes murder, as­ saults, theft, disobedience of the orders of the administration and elders, and general indiscipline."33 When Buxton took charge of Narok, Kenya was in the midst of a depression, which, coupled with drought conditions, had seriously af­ fected the Maasai economy. The Maasai were experiencing great diffi­ culty paying tax. Thus, Buxton's scope for action was limited. His plans, however, were ideally suited to the trying economic conditions. The Purko moran were to be encouraged to construct a road between Narok township and Mau and to count their work as payment for their taxes. Buxton warned the Maasai that if they did not engage for road work, they would be prosecuted for failing to pay their taxes. Com­ munal work on roads was common in Kenya; yet the Maasai had done very little of it. Moreover, it was an important modernizing intrusion, since it opened an area to economic contacts, familiarized the popula­ tion with new work routines, and, if the laborers received pay, circu­ lated money in the local economy. Again the elders and spokesmen of the warriors were cooperative. Oimeru ole Masikonte, an elder, played a leading role in encouraging the moran to work, while moran spokes­ men helped to recruit labor and apportion tasks.34 Despite some re­ sentment the work went well, until the laborers came to a forest area a few miles out of Narok township, where the Maasai overseers ordered a group of workers to cut down and haul away some trees. Their refusal sparked off widespread dissatisfaction among the Kishun age group which had been working alongside the older Salash group. When Buxton came to inspect the progress he was driven off. He then returned with police, and in the ensuing encounter two warriors were killed and two wounded; the rest fled. The result of the encounter was 33

No. 367, Wade to MacDonald, July 25, 1935, enclosing report by Major Buxton, July 16, 1935, PRO CO 533/459/38143. 34Details may be found in KNA PC/SP 6/2/1A, a very large file on the riot at Rotian, as well as No. 367, Wade to MacDonald, July 25, 1935, PRO CO 533/ 459/38143·

Maasai Warriors—85 that this experiment in road work was slowed. Buxton tried to save the situation by arguing that the uprising was not a protest against road work, but the baleful influence of that old nemesis, laibon Kimurai, who, he claimed, had excited the moran against the administration. His explanation was not accepted by his superiors, and indeed, the evi­ dence suggests that the uprising was spontaneous, highly specific to the hated work on the road, and unsupported by any outside group or individual.35 In such a fashion another important endeavor in social change was stymied through violent, seemingly futile opposition by the junior warriors. The moran were able to inhibit social change through violent action for a variety of reasons. First, they were the Maasai military organiza­ tion, and they remained armed, though in a rudimentary way with spears and shields, throughout most of this period. Living, as they did, in their own manyattas, they enjoyed a degree of independence from the more accommodationist-minded elders. Their structure of leader­ ship also permitted a great variety of views and the quick carrying into operation of hostile sentiments, if they were held by a majority. Their chief spokesmen—the laigwenani—were chosen by moran, often with the advice of key elders, because of their moderating, compromising, and conservative influences, but moran society was highly democratic and conciliar. Everyone had the right to put his opinion before the group, and the group had the right to accept any view that com­ manded a wide consensus, even when it was at variance with the ad­ vice of the spokesmen. Moreover, the laigwenani were not selected for their military valor. Other leaders held these positions. Thus, when military action was proposed, the moran did not hold the advice of the laigwenani in the same esteem as they would under ordinary circumstances.36 Traditionally there had always been potential for conflict between the elders and warriors; this was intensified by the strains of the co­ lonial era. Warriors were expected to build up their own herds through raiding. Any attempt by the elders to restrict this activity not only clashed with custom, but also undercut the economic well-being 35 Clear accounts of this riot were given by Rev. John Mpaayie, June 3, 1970, Kipopo ole Loisa, June 24, 1970, and Senjaura ole Nchoe, July 18, 1970. There was remarkable unanimity, all the more significant because Kipopo ole Loisa resided in Kajiado district and had to get his information during trips to Narok. 36 Again the most authoritative sources on Maasai political institutions are Jacobs, "The Traditional Political Organization of the Pastoral Masai," and "The Pastoral Masai of Kenya: A Report of Anthropological Field Research." But it is important to know in greater detail how these political structures were actually operating in the early colonial period. M. Merker, Die Masai: Ethnographische Monographie einer Ostajrikanischen Semiten-Volkes (Berlin, 1910), pp. 76-77 has a clear description of the moran leadership system.

86—Maasai Warriors of the moran. By hastening the E-Unoto ceremony and shortening the warrior period, elders were further jeopardizing the economic and social status of moran. When junior moran graduated to senior moran, traditionally they had already established their own flocks and were economically able to contemplate marriage. Now with raiding reduced and the junior-warrior period shortened, many moran did not have enough wealth to marry and were faced with the prospect of living with and working for their fathers—a status demeaning to them, and one that did not deal with the problem of attaining economic suffi­ ciency.37 The colonial presence challenged the moran more than the elders. Traditionally moran had probably enjoyed the greatest pres­ tige in their society; at least many Maasai regarded the warrior years as the zenith of their lifetime. Now, with raiding and defense of the community curtailed, the moran, having little to do, felt an enormous loss of status. While elders could benefit from the colonial presence and could attain powerful political positions in the new colonial ad­ ministration, the moran were threatened with what seemed to them the more distasteful aspects of colonial social change: road work, schooling, military service, tax-paying, and service in the tribal police. All of these factors made the moran ripe for resistance. Moreover, since they felt a special obligation for maintaining the integrity of Maasai society, not only from external threats but also from internal disruption, they had a convenient justification for their uprisings. Maasai resistance was traditional, not only in its desire to inhibit so­ cial change but also in its form. There was little planning. The Purko moran failed to involve their counterparts among the other Maasai sections, although the latter suffered from the same grievances. Maasai hostility tended to erupt into immediate unstructured violence and failed to be channeled through political organizations and articulated programs of reform and opposition. Maasai behavior had always been characterized by the ready acting out of hostilities.38 Even in the face of this militarily more powerful adversary, there occurred these erup­ tive flashes of violence. The obvious futility of Maasai violence was contradicted by the long-term and indirect consequences of their actions. The colonial gov­ ernment was sensitive to violent confrontations, and these uprisings convinced the British that they should slow the pace of reform among the Maasai. Probably the most significant effect of the uprisings was This dilemma was clearly pointed out in a discussion on the moran during a meeting of the Kajiado district LNC in 1932, KNA DC/KAJ 5/1/3, Kajiado LNC minutes, August 12, 1932. 38 W. Goldschmidt, "Theory and Strategy in the Study of Cultural Adaptability," American Anthropologist, Vol. 67, No. 2, April, 1965, p. 405.

Maasai Warriors—87

that they helped to restrict the influence of the elders. Unlike the Kikuyu, the Maasai created few aggressive, collaborationist chiefs willing to implement unpopular policies of change, with force if necessary. There was no leader comparable to Kinyanjui. Such chiefs did not arise, not from lack of material, since certain Maasai showed an incli­ nation to cooperate with the government, but because these men lacked a power base comparable to that which emerged among the Kikuyu. They were not able to create an administrative and military organization through which to keep themselves in power and, among other things, introduce unpopular social change. Although the Maasai moran were able to retain cohesion in the colonial period, it is also clear that the British effort to alter the insti­ tution took its toll. By the late 1930s the Maasai were circumcising the young at an earlier age, and many remained active warriors only for a short period of time. Having lost their function as the military arm of the society, warriors spent much of their time in less prestigious duties, such as cutting down thorn trees, bringing the cattle back to the kraals at night, and drawing water.39 Yet the state was not so sure that its policy of trying to eliminate the warriors as a class had been cor­ rect. In the late 1930s British officers discovered that the prewarrior group, called the layok, was gathering together and behaving in a vio­ lent fashion. In the past these youngsters would have been disciplined by the warriors. The British feared that the layok would take to stock thieving themselves and would assault elders and cohabit with imma­ ture girls.40 As the British grew aware of the delicate checks and bal­ ances that held Maasai society together, they wondered whether they had been right in trying to shorten the moran period. The ultimate irony for the British occurred in 1937 when these doubts caused a divi­ sion within the Purko moran group. One group followed the advice of ole Gelishu and went through their E-Unoto ceremony without estab­ lishing manyattas, but a dissident group, with the permission of a Brit­ ish officer, Major Dawson, were allowed to establish manyattas and to become active moran. After the war, the British established a new pol­ icy. In 1947 they appointed a special moran officer with the duty of getting in touch with the warriors with a view to using their energies for modernizing efforts.41 Most analysts of social change in Africa have focused their research on the tribe itself, but, in fact, tribes are not monolithic units. Differ39 Fosbrook, Social Survey of the Masai of Tanganyika Territory, p. 34, KNA DC/NRK 6/1/1. 40 Intelligence Report, Masai District, April, 1937, KNA PC/SP 3/1/1. 41 Handing Over Report of the Moran Officer, 1952, A. F. Holford-Walker, KNA PC/SP 4/2/1.

88—Maasai Warriors ent groups and individuals within these groups react differently to the opportunities and disadvantages created by change. Much of the re­ ceptivity to change in Africa can be explained by the aggressive response of certain social groups to the economic and political advan­ tages generated by new schools, government positions, new crops, and so forth. By the same token, much resistance is related to loss of status and wealth stemming from these institutions. Even among the Maasai, politically and economically less differentiated than many of their neighbors, different groups, with dissimilar interests, were fundamen­ tal factors in social change. The key was the important division of so­ ciety into age-sets, roughly of young and old. Among the Maasai this division was more significant and clear-cut than in many other of the age-grading societies of East Africa. The warriors' autonomy from their elders was underscored by the former's separate status and the development of group cohesion, loyalty, and ideals in their own vil­ lages. In contrast to accepted belief about the young and social change, the Maasai young were most resistant to change, viewing it as a chal­ lenge to their high traditional status and as benefitting their seniors. Maasai chiefs were unable to undermine warrior unity, and when they tried to sponsor radical change, they encountered moran hostility and resistance. This analysis, focused on institution and group conflict, should have implications for other societies, especially other African age-set socie­ ties. Where age-sets existed, did warriors have fundamentally different goals from elders? Did warriors try to resist modernizing changes on the grounds that they were defending the integrity of society? Age-set systems in East Africa were most pervasive, of course, among the pastoral Nilotic-speaking peoples. There is evidence that Nandi warriors reacted in much the same way and for many of the same reasons as the Maasai. The government's punitive campaigns against them from 1895 to 1906 stemmed from warrior violence, first over the railroad and then over their refusal to move into their newly allocated reserve. Although the military confrontations were exceed­ ingly violent and may have decimated a whole class of warriors, there is evidence that the moran were again contemplating resistance in the 1920s. The government obtained information about this venture and arrested its leaders.42 If the Nandi warriors were rising to resist social change, they were much less successful than the Maasai, not only be­ cause of their more serious military defeats, but also because they were not effective in slowing the pace of change. Many agricultural societies in East Africa also had warrior classes 4 2 G.W.B. Huntingford, T h e Nandi of Kenya: Tribal Control in a Pastoral Society (London, 1953), p. 42.

Maasai Warriors—89

similar to the Maasai, and they brought these institutions into the co­ lonial period. The Kikuyu and Kamba are obvious examples. But there were notable differences. Age-set loyalties were not so highly devel­ oped. The Kikuyu had initiation ceremonies, involving circumcision, but not the elaborate graduation activities. The Kamba ceremonies of initiation were even less elaborate. More fundamentally, there were important cross cutting and competing institutions, one of the most important of which was family and kinship. Especially among the Kikuyu, a number of important landowning families were in existence in 1900. They included not only blood members of a family but also ahoi attached to the land and a group of domestic employees and hangers on. Political activity tended to revolve around these families and also around compact territorial units located on the ridges of Kikuyu coun­ try. Families and ridges competed with one another for increased po­ litical and economic sway; this competition tended again to preclude a strong sense of warrior loyalty. In the colonial period the Kikuyu and Kamba had a greater variety of political institutions and much more institutional flexibility than age-set dominated Maasai society. The colonial administration and enterprising Kikuyu and Kamba individ­ uals could more easily manipulate these institutions for different pro­ grams of social change. The emphasis upon the internal structure of Maasai society as a source of resistance to social change runs counter to many standard interpretations offered to explain the slowness of African pastoral peo­ ples to accept modernizing changes in the twentieth century. African pastoral peoples in general have not played a leading role in educa­ tional change, in the use of money and markets, in wage labor, and in nationalist activity. Their conservatism has naturally intrigued observ­ ers, who have offered various interpretations to account for it. There have been basically four major approaches. One theory suggests that pastoral people had inordinate wealth, in contrast to the poorer and more heavily populated agricultural societies. This wealth, it is argued, not only protected them from the economic demands of colonial ad­ ministrations but also gave them little incentive to change. These peo­ ple could easily pay their taxes from their great wealth, and at the same time they found wage labor unattractive. The same economic pres­ sures, applied by colonial administrations to the agricultural peoples, produced fundamental social and economic dislocation which altered the precolonial society. A second theory is that pastoral societies were consciously isolated from disruptive change by a paternalistic or fear­ ful administration. The administration either feared them because of their military capabilities, or had romantic illusions of them as noble savages. Whichever the case, the government did not make the same

90—Maasai Warriors

demands on them that it made on other societies. Third, some theorists suggest that "the outside world—African farmers and more recently European colonists and Western educated politicians—has had re­ markably little to offer which is of direct and immediate advantage to them."43 According to this theory the outsiders were always trying to compel the pastoralists to do things which were anathema to them, such as becoming settled farmers or sending their children to school. They failed to understand their framework and to work within it by suggesting changes which people could accept without having to re­ nounce their basic way of life. A fourth range of theories places emphasis on the value systems, especially the sense of superiority and disparagement of other peoples. The Nandi have a saying typical of many: "We are Nandi; all other people are nothing."44 According to these theorists, haughtiness, arrogance, and ethnocentrism have been an impenetrable barrier to the outside world. All four of these theories have been suggested in explaining Maasai resistance to change. Some have more validity than others, but none can be accepted without reservations. The Carter Commission, which investigated the Kenya land problem in the 1930s put forward the strongest case for the great wealth of the Maasai.45 Their great wealth was thought to inhibit change and to insulate them from most govern­ ment economic pressures, such as tax-paying. Unfortunately one can use the estimates of population and size of herds only for giving gen­ eral indications. According to one authority, writing at the end of World War I, the average Maasai was thought to possess livestock valued at more than £110.46 In 1930 the average size of an elder's herd was officially estimated at 75 head of cattle, 85 sheep, and 18 don­ keys.47 The Maasai clearly were a wealthy people. Nonetheless their wealth in stock was not easily converted into money for use in the co­ lonial economy. Continuous quarantine restrictions precluded largescale trade in cattle outside the reserve as did a lack of marketing facil­ ities and a small colony-wide demand for trade stock and fresh meat. 43 P. H. Gulliver, "The Conservative Commitment in Northern Tanzania: The Arusha and Masai," Tradition and Transition in East Africa: Studies of the Tribal Element in the Modern Era (Berkeley, 1969), p. 238. 44 Huntingford, The Nandi of Kenya, p. 22. 4 5 KLC, p. 191, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. This argument is restated in G. H. Mungeam, "Masai and Kikuyu Responses to the Establishment of British Ad­ ministration in the East African Protectorate," Journal of African History, Vol. 11, No. i, 1970, p. 140. 46 Sir G. Sandford, An Administrative and Political History of the Masai Reserve (London, 1919), p. 3. 47 Quoted in G.W.B. Huntingford, The Southern Nilo-Hamites (London, 1953), P- 107.

Maasai Warriors—91

People were regularly short of cash. A larger proportion of trade in the Maasai districts was in barter than in the neighboring Kamba and Kikuyu areas. Taxation was introduced by the colonial government in 1901. Ac­ cording to a decree promulgated in 1910, tax was to be paid in money. Everywhere the collection was slow at first, but the Maasai were cer­ tainly paying their share from the outset. Additionally, from 1923 the administration imposed a higher tax on them (20s. rather than 12s.) be­ cause of their supposed greater wealth. In reality the Maasai found the payment of tax difficult; during the depression they were consistently unable to meet their tax payments. The monetary demands placed upon them by the colonial government, especially taxation, put them under as much economic pressure as their neighbors. The amount of land possessed by the Maasai was substantial—ap­ proximately 10 million acres—but its value was a doubtful matter. The Carter Commission was exaggerating when it stated that the reserve had some of the best agricultural land in East Africa. By 1910 the Maasai had reestablished their herds following the drought and dis­ ease of the 1890s. By the 1920s and 1930s the administration was growing concerned with the problem of overstocking in many parts of Kenya. The Machakos Kamba were thought to have the most severe problem, but the Maasai were not far behind, in the minds of the ad­ ministration. To be sure, the Maasai did not face the problem of Iandlessness as did the Kikuyu and even some of the Kamba. But all my in­ formants said that they and their peers in the older generations were greatly dissatisfied with the land given them by the colonial govern­ ment following the second move. The Maasai reserve clearly created economic hardships for the people, principally by depriving them of their old dry-weather grazing area, and it was universally felt by the Maasai to be unsuitable to their needs. An oft-heard theory is that the Maasai were isolated from the forces of change by a paternalistic colonial government which regarded them as "noble savages." Instances of this mentality can certainly be found, for example in the policy of treating the Maasai districts as closed areas and requiring special passes for entering them. Maasai themselves complained that government education officers were not willing to give Maasai students the same literary and Western-oriented curricu­ lum established for the Kikuyu and the Luo.48 Yet the administration was far from isolating the Maasai from change as the careers and pro­ grams of such reformist-minded officers as Hemsted and Buxton made clear. Moreover, unlike many other pastoral peoples who inhabited « Interview Rev. John Mpaayie, June g, 1970.

92—Maasai Warriors

areas far from the center of European administration and commercial activity, the Maasai were close to Nairobi and the European highlands. A variant of the isolation theme stresses the ability of the Maasai to avoid a major military confrontation with the colonial government. Contrasting Nandi and Maasai patterns of social change in the colonial period, Sir G. Sandford argued that later Nandi responsiveness was the result of government punitive expeditions against them.49 But what is meant by this theory? Does it mean that because the Maasai avoided conflict with the colonial authority, they were not aware of British mil­ itary strength? If that is the case, then the theorists are wrong, for the Maasai were acutely aware of their own military impotency vis-a-vis the British. They had fought on the side of the colonial administration in a number of punitive raids. The Maasai undertook the two detested moves of 1904 and 1913 only because they knew resistance to be futile. Or does the theory of military confrontation argue that a decisive mili­ tary defeat fully discredits the traditional institutions and leaders and paves the way for social reforms? If so, then surely there are dramatic setbacks other than battlefield losses which discredit and disgrace. The Maasai moves had much the same impact on the leaders who agreed to them and the warrior class who did not resist. When they had com­ pleted their two mass migrations, the Maasai were reeling from the psychological impact of a defeat fully as disheartening and disruptive as military conflict. In a stimulating article, Robert Merrill has postulated Maasai con­ servatism in the colonial period because the administration failed to offer attractive or viable economic alternatives. According to Merrill, the colonial government failed to adapt education to the Maasai way of life and tried either to make them an agricultural people or settled stock farmers, both of which alternatives clashed radically with their traditions.50 On the surface this explanation has much to commend it. The British administrators had great difficulty in understanding pas­ toral peoples and devising programs which were not strongly at vari­ ance with their traditions. Nevertheless, when one compares the op­ portunities and alternatives offered to other faster changing societies, questions arise. The common criticism of missionary and colonial edu­ cation everywhere was that it was not adapted to the African way of life. Education for the Kikuyu had a strong literary and artisan bias— 49Sandford, An Administrative and Political History of the Masai Reserve, p. 2. This point is also made by G. H. Mungeam in "Masai and Kikuyu Responses to the Establishment of British Administration in the East African Protectorate," pp. 129ft., where the author shows how the Maasai were able to avoid battle with the new administration. so Robert S. Merrill, "Resistance to Economic Change: the Masai," Proceedings of Minnesota Academy of Science, Vol. 28, i960, pp. 120-131.

Maasai Warriors—93 emphases which made many nontraditional demands on Kikuyu school-goers. Early efforts at education were resented and resisted in most African societies, but few people resisted with such tenacity as the Maasai. The economic opportunities afforded to the Maasai—such as engaging in agriculture or establishing settled stock farms—surely clashed with their traditions; but did these innovations challenge tra­ ditional economic practices or social taboos more fundamentally than growing cash crops and clerical or commercial careers among agricul­ tural peoples? The argument for limited economic alternatives often is tautological; it reaffirms, rather than explains, resistance to change. A final set of theories emphasizes the inherently resistant and con­ servative values of the pastoral societies of Africa. This position is persuasively presented by Harold Schneider. Dealing with the Pakot people of Kenya, the author contends that the cattle-rearing culture of East African peoples bred strong feelings of superiority and reluctance to change.51 But no one has fully developed this theory and made a detailed study of the Maasai value system. Can one identify those values that support conservative behavior, how they arise, and why they are so strongly held? From a different perspective Walter Goldschmidt argues that Maasai wealth, in the form of cattle, was very volatile, thus producing high levels of status mobility. Because wealth could be made or lost quickly, the Maasai extolled individual initiative and risk-taking. Their society was not hierarchical, but strongly achievement oriented—values which hardly seem inimical to social change.52 While these theories cannot be discounted, if the interpretation pre­ sented here of early social change is correct, then what was also essen­ tial in implanting new patterns in African societies and undercutting widespread resistance to innovation in the early colonial period was a strong local collaborating elite. Such a phenomenon did not emerge among the Maasai because the moran did not become the coercive agents of colonial chiefs and, more importantly, organized small, but violent outbursts to protest the introduction of radical change. 51 Harold K. Schneider, "Pakot Resistance to Change," Continuity and Change in African Cultures, ed. W. R. Bascom and M. J. Herskovits (Chicago, 1959), pp. 144-167. 52 Goldschmidt, "Theory and Strategy in the Study of Cultural Adaptability," pp. 402-409.

CHAPTER V

Labor to 1914

Two important developments that marked the early colonial regime were the introduction of Western education and wage employment. Because these changes clashed with African traditions, they were brought about only by resorting to considerable force. The British co­ lonial government and settlers had an enormous appetite for African labor. The state built the railway across Kenya between 1896 and 1901, maintained it, constructed branch lines just before World War I, and then engaged in major new extension programs in the early 1920s. Set­ tlers depended on African labor, particularly cheap labor, rather than elaborate farm machinery to bring their estates under cultivation. Not surprisingly, there were severe labor shortages and tense confronta­ tions between settlers and the government. The problem of labor shortage persisted until the great depression which, by bringing a halt to agricultural expansion and governmental spending, caused the labor supply to exceed demand for the first time since the British occupied Kenya. That these labor questions arose is not difficult to understand. The highland peoples were just recovering from a series of crises as the first settlers entered Kenya. Their populations had been reduced, and they were preoccupied with the task of restoring vitality to traditional institutions. Nor had they had extensive contacts with the outside world. To be sure, caravan traders had penetrated into the highlands in the nineteenth century, and the Kamba, most notably, had played a role in facilitating this trade, organizing caravans to the coast. But the interest of these peoples in foreign products was still undeveloped. By and large, they only traded for wire, beads, and cloth.1 Although their wants expanded rapidly, especially those of the Kikuyu, in the early years the desire to purchase foreign commodities did not tempt large numbers of Africans to seek wage employment. Nor did these peoples have a keen interest at first in the new rupees introduced by the Brit­ ish. Their traditional unit of exchange was livestock, and this remained important until World War II. Although the British introduced a hut tax in 1901, at first it could be paid in kind. Until local administration became efficient, only small sums were collected. Only as of the 1910s !Political Record Book, Kenya Province, »901-26, p. 31, KNA PC/CP 1/1/1.

Labor to 1914—95 and 1920s did taxation begin to compel large numbers to seek wage employment in order to acquire money. The peak labor demand pe­ riods for settlers and Africans tended to overlap since both commu­ nities were agricultural and needed their largest labor force during the harvest season. Finally, settlers and government did not offer many positive inducements to attract laborers. Believing that the African was a raw, inefficient, and lazy worker, Europeans paid appallingly low wages. Working conditions were poor. The hours were long; and many employers had deservedly bad reputations for physically and verbally abusing their employees. Working for wages was largely unknown to the Maasai, Kamba, and Kikuyu before the British, advent. The main unit of labor in these so­ cieties was the extended family. Labor obligations were also per­ formed by age-grades. For instance Kikuyu warriors were responsible for village work and Maasai moran assisted with cattle herding. Be­ cause of the flexibility of mbaris and the institution of tenant farming Kikuyu families could increase their numbers easily and obtain larger labor levies. An individual with substantial landholdings could parcel out strips of land to dependents. He could also marry many wives and sire many children, who were an important ingredient of the work force. Unlike a number of other African communities, however, these three peoples did not practice slavery and therefore did not have slave laborers. Although they engaged in slave raiding, they sold the captors into slavery at the coast or assimilated them into their own families.

The railway was the first major economic enterprise in colonial East Africa. It was to stretch from Mombasa to Port Florence and was built between 1896 and 1901. In the preliminary plans the state expected to enlist large numbers of African workers, and instructions were issued to administrative officers to assist in recruiting.2 The railway administration even prepared a scheme for apportioning work among the different tribes through whose territory the railway was scheduled to pass. From Voi to Kinani Teita labor was to be employed. From Mtoto Andei to Kibwezi and then to Muani the Kamba were to take over, and between Muani and Naivasha the Kikuyu were to be re­ cruited. The final stage—Naivasha to Lake Victoria—was to be con­ structed by the Ganda. Apparently the railway administrators were not yet aware of the large Luo and Abaluhya population there. Ac­ cording to the scheme, labor was to be tempted to enlist by "cheap suits, blankets, shirts, hats, umbrellas, etc."3 But the effort to obtain 2No. 211, Crauford to Salisbury, August 12, 1896, PRO FO 403/227. 3 No. 34, Whitehouse to O'Callaghan, March 24, 1897, PRO FO 403/258.

9 6 — L a b o r to 1914

African workmen at this time failed. In 1896, G. Whitehouse, Chief Engineer, warned that African laborers seldom remained for more than a week at a time.4 In that same year, 1,500 Kamba and Kikuyu were brought to Kibwezi to take up employment with the railway sur­ vey party, cutting bush, and with the construction party on the heavier earthwork. These experiences were devastating. The Kibwezi climate was debilitating, and the railway provided inadequate food and medi­ cal attention.5 There were a number of desertions, and after this and other disheartening experiences, African labor was exceedingly hard to procure. The state turned to India and imported indentured In­ dians. By 1903 approximately 32,000 had come to the East Africa Pro­ tectorate, constituting the main railway work force.6 Despite these unsuccessful experiences in recruiting African labor­ ers, in 1903 a suggestion was made that Kenyans be sent to work in South Africa. Although the conclusion of the report was foregone, a government official, W. J. Monson, made an inquiry into Kenya labor, which provides much insight into the view the British had at this time of African laboring potential. On the coast, Monson discovered that slavery had been widespread, but that the Sultan's decree of 1890 stat­ ing that all children born of slave parents after that date were free had brought a diminution in the slave population. In the interior Monson wrote that "the African is essentially a child. Like a child he dislikes sustained effort over a long period of time, is careless of the future, and requires constant supervision."7 The African laborer, he added, was not tempted by high wages, could not look after machinery, but was useful as a stoker, for earthwork, felling timber, and making roads. Because of his laziness it was preferable to pay him by piece­ work. Monson had a low opinion of the pastoral tribes. They were warlike and considered manual labor derogatory. About the Somalis Monson said: "Anyone who could induce them to migrate in large numbers would be welcomed as a benefactor by the Protectorate ad­ ministration and repatriation would, to say the least of it, not be in­ sisted upon."8 The Maasai were an exception because they would enlist as soldiers and policemen. While the Kamba furnished porters and 4 Whitehouse to O'Callaghan, 26th meeting of the railway committee, October 8, 1896, PRO FO 403/224. 5 Crauford to Salisbury, December 23, i8g6, PRO FO 403/241; No. 34, Whitehouse to O'Callaghan, March 24, 1897, PRO FO 403/258; and Report on the Uganda Rail­ way, by Guilford Molesworth, p. 20, 1899, HCSP, Vol. 60, 1899, c. 9331. 6 J. S. Mangat, A History of the Asians in East Africa, c. 1886 to 1945 (Oxford, 1969), p. 37 and Robert G. Gregory, India and East Africa, A History of Race Rela­ tions within the British Empire, 1890-1939 (Oxford, 1971), p. 53. ι W. J. Monson, Report on Slavery and Free Labour in the British East Africa Protectorate, p. 5, HCSP, Vol. 45, 1903, cd. 1631. 8 Ibid., p. 6.

Labor to 1914—97

domestic servants and worked on maintenance gangs, they would not give a large and regular supply because their population was too small. The more numerous and "prolific" Kikuyu offered themselves for work, but usually only for short stints, while the Kavirondo peoples (the Luo and Abaluhya) were useful as porters and skilled laborers. Monson concluded his review of the tribes with this prescient remark: "It is to the Kikuyu and to the Kavirondo that any large employer of labor must look for his supply."9 Still, there was no surplus labor and no possibility of sending indentured workmen to South Africa. Already this report enunciated many European themes about Afri­ can labor. Because workers were inexperienced, it was felt that they needed to be under constant surveillance. High wages were no induce­ ment to work. Since the pastoral peoples could be disregarded, the state and settlers were advised to look to the more populous agricul­ tural peoples, like the Luo and Kikuyu, for their work force. Even as Africans were being recruited in larger numbers for railway work, the railway continued to rely on Asians, both indentured and free. By 1905 the railway had engaged 3,000 Africans, most of whom provisioned themselves and worked on ballast and timber cutting.10 Kamba labor proved unreliable, but the Kikuyu and Luo were respon­ sive. Geographically, the railway was divided into two sections. The first division, from Mombasa to Nairobi, continued to suffer from labor shortages and employed Asian unskilled workmen. On the second divi­ sion labor was more plentiful because of the presence of the Luo and Kikuyu.11 Whenever skilled labor was required, Asians were in de­ mand since there were few qualified Africans. The strike of Asian arti­ sans in July, 1914, over the enforcement of the non-African poll tax convinced the railway, however, of its need to train African labor for skilled positions. By the beginning of 1915 the railway had 5,745 Afri­ can employees, 697 Asians in managerial and supervisory posts, 1,454 Asian artisans, and 2g6 Asian menials.12 The two major employing government agencies were the railway and the Public Works Department. Settlers also needed labor as they were struggling to establish themselves as cash-crop farmers. In 19081909 the leading exports from Kenya were African products: copra, hides, ivory, wax, cotton, and fibers.13 In 1914 hides and skins con­ tinued to dominate the export trade; coffee, maize, and sisal, the lead­ ing European-grown crops, were just beginning to count in the export 9 Ibid., p. 7. 10 Report on the East Africa Protectorate, 1903-1904, p. 5, Stewart, HCSP, Vol. 56, 1905, cd. 233 and No. 388, Stewart to Lansdowne, July 6, 1905, PRO CO 553/2. 11 Uganda Railway, Annual Report, 1906-1907, p. 30. 12 Ibid., 1914-15, p. 4. is Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1908-1909, p. 27.

98—Labor to 1914 figures. The value of exported coffee was approximately one-tenth the value of African hides in 1914.14 The principal revenue earning settler export before 1914 was sisal. Sisal suckers had been imported from German East Africa in 1902 and 1903, and rooted plants had been turned over to a few settlers, princi­ pally T. R. Swift and C. D. Rutherford, whose estate was located at Pundia Milia in the Fort Hall district.15 By 1916, 11 reasonably large firms had approximately 12,000 acres under cultivation and 18 decorti­ cating machines in operation.16 The main sisal growing areas were at Thika, Fort Hall, the Athi plains, and along the southern flank of the Machakos Kamba reserve at Kibwezi, Masongoleni, and Voi. Another promising crop was coffee. Pioneered by a Catholic mission near Nairobi, it was found suitable for cultivation in the highlands, especially in Kiambu, Limuru, Nyeri, and parts of the Rift Valley. By 1917 8,000 acres were in the bearing stage and a further 22,000 acres had been planted.17 Although many coffee estates were large, coffee could be grown on smaller farms and did not demand as heavy an ex­ penditure on equipment as sisal did. Both coffee and sisal required large labor forces, especially during the harvest season. Coffee berries were picked by hand and had to be gathered within a short time or else they spoiled. Njoro in Naivasha Province was the center of wheat raising.18 One of the leading figures there was Lord Delamere. Maize cultivation was also expanding. The railway had reduced rates for carrying maize in­ tended for export just before the war, causing many settlers to turn their attention to this crop. Even so, in 1914 the quality of exported maize (7,050 tons) suffered because of weevil infestation and mixture with dirt and alien seeds.19 All of these settler agricultural enterprises required large African labor levies, and European farmers looked to the state for help in re­ cruiting. Many settlers were not willing to pay high wages. They were just beginning their enterprises, and they were anxious to keep operat­ ing costs low. Moreover, they believed African labor to be untrained, inefficient, and expensive at almost any wage. Although wages varied slightly from one enterprise to another, they were uniformly low. The a Ibid., 1916-17, p. 27. 1 S I b i d . , 1912-13, pp. 72-78. is E. Cowan to Colonial Office, January 4, 1917, PRO CO 533/191· " No. 304, Bowring to Long, June 27, 1917, PRO CO 533/182 and Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, Second Session, 1917, p. 23. i8 East Africa Protectorate, R e p o r t , 1912-13, p. 54, Bowring, HCSP, Vol. 57, 1914, cd. 7050-7052. 19 Department of Agriculture, Annual R e p o r t , 1913-14, p. 85.

Labor to

1 9 1 4 —99

lowest cash wages were paid to squatter laborers since they were also given land on which to raise crops. Although government departments tended to give the same wages as settler farmers so as not to attract labor away from the settlers, certain government departments re­ quired only 28 days of work in contrast to the 30 days required by farmers. In the decade before the war government employing depart­ ments like the railway administration and the Public Works Depart­ ment, paid only 4 or 5 rupees (6.75 to 8s.) to unskilled workers for a month's work, plus food. Such a wage was roughly equivalent to the hut tax of a single African in 1915. It was enough to purchase a sheep or a goat and was about one-third of what it would cost to buy a cow. Since settlers believed that the state had encouraged them to settle in Kenya, they felt that it also had an obligation to make their economic endeavors a success, and this included some measure of assistance in the procuring of litbor when it was not forthcoming. Just what form this assistance should take was a matter of considerable debate. If the voluminous evidence of the native labor commission of 1912-1913 can be considered as a fair measuring rod, many settlers wanted the state to establish a labor recruiting agency. At the very least, they expected government political officers to instill in the African people and their chiefs the virtues and necessity of working for wages. In the decade before World War I, settlers and state began to create a framework of labor laws for Kenya, most of them emerging during acute labor short­ ages and tense settler-state relations. It was not until after the war, however, that comprehensive and detailed labor laws were enacted. The first efforts to establish a labor policy stemmed from the influen­ tial Land Committee Report, which was published in 1905. Previously there was no uniformity in the recruitment of labor, and many prac­ tices existed. Some administrative officers actively procured labor for European farmers. Others felt that the proper government attitude should be complete neutrality between employers and employees. Labor recruiting agencies were emerging and were to play an increas­ ingly influential role until they were condemned by the native labor commission in 1913. Settlers themselves entered the African reserves and recruited labor on their own. The settler-dominated Land Com­ mittee of 1905 emphasized the importance of labor to East Africa's economic development. It asked for the creation of a Commissioner for Native Affairs to supervise all matters relating to the rights and inter­ ests of Africans, to collect information on the tribes, to secure harmony between black and white, and "to supervise matters relating to native labor generally and to devise methods best suited to secure the carry­ ing out of contracts for labor with equal justice to the employer and

100—Labor to 1914

the employee."20 As a consequence of this recommendation Governor Sadler contemplated establishing a Labor Bureau, but at the request of Colonial Office officials he agreed to call the new post, the Secretary for Native Affairs.21 This officer, supported by three assistants, was "to assist in providing and organizing native laborers both for the railway and the Public Works Department of the government and also for pri­ vate employers."22 A. C. Hollis was selected to be Secretary, and one of his first acts was to request a grant of £100 to subsidize chiefs be­ cause of their importance in obtaining labor.23 It is clear, at this stage, that Hollis felt that the state should facilitate labor procuring; in early November, 1907, he issued a circular affirming that the most important duty of his officers would be the regulation of contract labor. "They will be responsible for the recruitment and protection of laborers."24 Nonetheless, Hollis' subsequent investigation of labor recruiting prac­ tices and working conditions shocked him and persuaded him of the need to enact rules for protecting employees. He discovered laborers being seized by chiefs and transported to their work destinations, often under guard. There they were poorly fed, not given blankets, and housed in inadequate huts, which often did not withstand the rain. Government employing departments, like the railway and public works, were equally as guilty as private employers. Immediately, he issued a circular to his officers against using force in obtaining work­ ers, but he mitigated this instruction by adding that chiefs were still to advise people to go out for work.25 On November 18, 1907, Hollis promulgated a new set of labor rules that were to provoke a confrontation between settlers and Governor Sadler.26 The first sentence of the new rules stated that "officers of the administration will do their best to supply labor for settlers, planters, contractors, and others on the following terms." This statement cer­ tainly implied that the government would continue to assist settlers in obtaining labor. But employers were required to erect suitable hous­ ing, provide blankets and food for employees, and keep an ample sup­ ply of medicines on the premises. These provisions stirred the settlers 20 Report of the Land Committee, 1905, p. 22, House of Lords Papers, Vol. 9, 1907, 158. 21 No. 569, Sadler to Colonial Office, October 21, 1906, PRO CO 533/18. 22 Colonial Office to Treasury, March 12, 1907, ibid. 23 No. 307, Sadler to Colonial Office, July 19, 1907, enclosing report by A. C. Hollis, July 12, 1907, PRO CO 533/30. 21 Hollis to Sadler, November 12, 1907, in No. 510, Sadler to Colonial Office, No­ vember 26, 1907, PRO CO 533/32. 25 Hollis to Colonial Office, April 8, 1908, PRO CO 533/43. 2 S Confidential, Sadler to Elgin, March 27, 1908, enclosing notice of November 18, 1907, PRO CO 533/42·

Labor to 19x4—101 who argued that their implementation would raise the cost of labor to them by 25 per cent. They also claimed that administrative officers were telling chiefs and people that they need work for Europeans only if they wanted to and that such advice from a government officer was tantamount to telling people not to work for settlers at all. A dispute ensued between Governor Sadler and a group of settlers, causing the Governor to suspend Delamere and Baillie from their Legislative Council positions for what he regarded as insulting behavior toward him. But the Governor did make some modifications in the rules. Food had to be supplied only if the laborer could not obtain provision nearby, and blankets did not have to be provided to people who did not make regular use of them.27 Historians of Kenya's early colonial history have attached a great importance to these rules, but their significance must not be exag­ gerated. While they did formalize employer obligations toward their employees, in the form of food, blankets, housing, and medicines, they clearly did not end the prevailing system of forcible recruitment of supposedly voluntary wage labor. Nor, in fact, were they intended to bring an end to such a system, but only to take the responsibility for forcible recruitment from the shoulders of British officers and transfer it to chiefs and headmen. For a host of reasons these regulations did not establish fundamentally new labor recruitment patterns. Although Hollis' earlier labor circular forbade government officers from using force in procuring workers, officials were expected to encourage chiefs and the people to offer themselves for work on European farms. Hollis sought to make a distinction between persuading people to go out for work and compelling them. This distinction remained an essential fea­ ture of British labor attitudes throughout the years of this study and was at the root of the controversy surrounding the labor circular No. 1 of 1919. But while political officers were forbidden from recruiting labor themselves and were supposed to prevent all forcible recruit­ ment, they were still expected to pressure chiefs to facilitate labor sup­ plies, and this pressure often resulted in forcible procurement through the chiefs. Moreover, Hollis' circular and regulations failed to deal with so many questions that the practice of administrative officers in recruiting labor could vary widely. Some officers rendered every as­ sistance possible, virtually recruiting labor themselves, while others felt that the government should stand aside and allow labor to come out of its own accord and in response to wage and working condition incentives. Although the Colonial Office concluded that the Kenyan administration should merely lay down conditions for employment 27 Correspondence on this dispute may be found in HCSP, Vol. 71, 1908, cd. 4122.

102—Labor to 1914

and treatment and then "stand aside leaving the settlers to make their own arrangements," the East Africa Protectorate government was not able to detach itself so easily from settler pressure.28 Kenya's basic labor law—the Masters and Servants Ordinance— emerged during these same years. It reflected the strained labor con­ ditions as well as government and settler prejudices against African workmen. First enacted in 1906 and based on Gold Coast and Trans­ vaal precedent, this ruling was an exceedingly harsh and pro-employer piece of legislation. It permitted contracts of up to three years and provided for penalties of as much as three months' imprisonment for a breach of contract. Various other labor offenses were also treated as criminal violations and brought fines and prison sentences. For a bewildering mixture of serious and minor offenses employees could be fined one month's wages or sent to prison for one month. These in­ cluded not starting the work contracted, absence without permission, intoxication, failure to perform the work required, the use of the em­ ployer's property without permission, and use of abusive language against the employer or his wife. A fine of two months' wages or two months in prison could be imposed for causing loss, damage or risk to an employer's property. No fine or term of imprisonment was to cancel any contract. After a laborer completed his prison sentence, he was obliged to work for his employer for a further period equal to the time he speiit in prison plus the term still remaining on his contract. Em­ ployers were subject to fines up to 1,000 rupees or one month in prison for withholding wages, detaining employee's stock, or failing to supply food and other prerequisites agreed to in the contract.29 When the Colonial Office learned of this ordinance in 1906, they ex­ pressed displeasure at receiving so little information about it and be­ ing informed only months after the ordinance had gone into effect. They found the clauses against servants excessively severe, criticizing the provision which permitted an employee to be imprisoned one month for being absent from work without leave since the reason the laborer might not have reported to work was because of illness. The Colonial Office felt that the ordinance "practically gives the employer government assistance in enforcing the terms of the contracts with his laborers."30 Yet after two years of consultation the Colonial Office agreed to allow the ruling to stand largely because it had been in operation so long by then. In 1910 a new Masters and Servants ordinance was enacted, incor28 Colonial Office to Sadler, May 8, 1908, PRO CO 533/44 and East Africa Protec­ torate, Official Gazette, 1906, pp. ii3ff. 29 Masters and Servants Ordinance, 1906, Regulation No. 8, April 2, 1906, PRO CO 630/2 and Colonial Office to Sadler, November 21, 1906, PRO CO 533/16. 30 No. 135, Sadler to Elgin, March 25, 1908, PRO CO 533/42.

Labor to 1914—103

porating Hollis' new labor rules. Employers were required to house labor, unless employees could return home or obtain suitable housing elsewhere. They had to provide food for those who could not provision themselves, as well as blankets and medicines. The same fines and terms of imprisonment were retained for employees' offenses, except that the three-month sentence was reduced to two. During World War I these penalties were made even more severe. For serious offenses against an employer a workman could be fined £5, rather than two months' wages, or imprisoned from two to six months while the penalty for lesser offenses was a fine of £3 or one month in prison or both. It is clear that these rules made contract violations and labor relations conflicts criminal matters, rather than civil disputes, and brought heavy fines and imprisonment, often with hard labor.31 In the central highlands the Kikuyu were far more active in wage employment than the Kamba and Maasai. Indeed, by 1914 the Kikuyu and Luo had already fulfilled Monson's prediction that they would be the major work force of Kenya. The railway administration employed them in large numbers; Kikuyu laborers were to be found all along the railway line. There was a large contingent of them at the coast, and many even worked as employees of wealthy Kamba stockowners.32 Kiambu district fed the European farms nearby and sent a steady stream of squatter laborers to European estates in the Rift Valley. Fort Hall supplied the farms in its district, Mombasa, and European farms in Naivasha, Ukamba, the coast, Tanaland, and Jubaland.33 The Nyeri Kikuyu also worked in their district, Fort Hall, and Kiambu. Many Nyeri Kikuyu crossed the Aberdares to work on Rift Valley estates. As we have already observed, many Kikuyu squatter laborers, prin­ cipally in Kiambu district, were the original landowners and ahoi on land alienated to Europeans. In 1910 the state estimated that the total number of Africans living on European farms in Kiambu district, ex­ cluding the Africa Inland Mission and Church of Scotland Mission estates, was 11,647. These were not all original occupiers, for the popu­ lation was thought to be 60 per cent greater than it had been in 1904.34 Some Kikuyu turned out voluntarily for work. Those anxious to earn money and buy new imported commodities sought out labor. There was mounting pressure to obtain money for tax purposes, and even traditional transactions, like bride price and land exchanges, were gradually being monetized. But by and large early Kikuyu laborers, other than squatters, were forcibly recruited. Many techniques were 31 These ordinances are printed in HCSP, Vol. 33, 1920, cmd. 873. 32 Uganda Railway, Annual Report, 1908-1909, p. 34. 33 Fort Hall Political Record Book, KNA PC/CP 1 /7/1. 34 No. 454, Girouard to Crewe, July 29, 1910, PRO CO 533/75.

1 0 4 — L a b o r t o 1914

used. After the Hollis rules, Europeans organized recruiting firms who supplied labor for a fee. These firms worked among the Kikuyu and Kamba, but they were not as successful in the central highlands in the long run as they were to be in Nyanza province which became the heartland of labor recruiting agencies. Many settlers preferred to re­ cruit labor themselves or to inform the provincial and district govern­ ment officers of their requirements and hope that these individuals would lend assistance. Because the rules in Kenya were so vague, the assistance rendered varied enormously from one officer to another. Needless to say, these issues caused intense antagonisms to develop between settlers and district officers. Settlers also used their own work­ ers to recruit labor in the reserves. Although settler needs were often channeled through recruiting agencies or administrative officers, the linchpin of recruitment was the Kikuyu chief. Recruiting agencies were only as successful as chiefs al­ lowed them to be, and their invariable practice among the Kikuyu was to seek out the chiefs, usually offering them bribes, and ask them to supply the workers. Similarly, when the district officers wanted to pro­ cure laborers for nearby settlers, they took their requests to the chiefs. Often they told chiefs that so many workers were needed from their locations and that they should distribute the burden over the entire population. Even if a district officer did not insist upon a chief supply­ ing labor to designated farms, chiefs realized that their performance, hence their compensation and continuing tenure in office, depended on how their locations were regarded as labor supplying areas. In the political record books a separate page was set aside for the district offi­ cers to comment on the chiefs' labor supplying capabilities. The method for obtaining often reluctant laborers was no more than a "press gang," full of all manner of abuses. In his testimony to the Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa meeting in Lon­ don in 1930, Canon Harry Leakey spoke of "young bloods of a chief blowing a horn and going round villages and collaring folk where he could."35 Resistance was ineffective and foolish. It was met by physical beatings if a person was lucky, but a more prolonged opposition could lead to the confiscation of property, fines, and imprisonment meted out as violations against the native authority ordinance.36 A. C. Hollis, Sec­ retary for Native Affairs, in his testimony to the native labor commis­ sion of 1912-1913 recounted that in 1907 African workers were not only recruited by force but were also kept at work by being ringed by 35 Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, 11, 244, HCSP, Vol. 7, '933-193436 See the testimony of Eland Watson in East Africa Protectorate, Economic Com­ mission, Report, 1919, 1, 229.

Labor to 1914—105 askaris to keep them from deserting.37 In a memorandum of com­ plaints prepared after World War I, a group of Kikuyu chiefs claimed that a common procedure to obtain labor was for a government officer to send an order to a chief to furnish so many girls for a neighboring European plantation where coffee had to be picked. If the chief re­ fused, he was placed under restraint at the government station. The girls were rounded up by tribal retainers and taken under guard to their work destination. The petition added that many were seduced and bore illegitimate children.38 Nearly all the chiefs engaged in some form of forcible recruitment, but among the Kiambu headmen Kinyanjui, Waweru, Mimi, Kioi, and Gathecha were singled out in 1910 as presiding over "good districts for labor."39 In 1913 Dundas admitted that Kinyanjui received bribes and used illegal means to procure labor for settlers.40 Indeed, chief Njiri of Fort Hall district openly admitted in his testimony to the native labor commission that if people refused to go out for work, he would send his retainers to catch them and have their sheep killed.41 It is against this background of labor oppression and collaborating chiefs that an important modern Kikuyu phenomenon must be seen: an enormous exodus of families onto European farms and unoccupied crown land, principally in the Rift Valley. This migration was first re­ marked upon in the annual reports of Kiambu district around 19x0. In 1914-1915 Northcote called attention to the substantial emigration of Kikuyu to Naivasha, Njoro, Nakuru, and Lumbwa.42 To give but one illustration of this pattern, in 1916-1917 there were 3,300 Kikuyu living in Naivasha district, compared with 10 Kamba, 35 Kavirondo, and 80 Maasai. By 1918-1919 the number of Kikuyu had grown to 6,787 out of a total of 7,061.43 As squatters on the land they pioneered the culti­ vation of potatoes, beans, and maize on many European farms. Kikuyu families left their homes for a variety of reasons; the three most important of which were the search for land, new economic op­ portunities, and escape from oppression. Leakey in his testimony to the Kenya Land Commission said that he had interviewed a number of 37 East Africa Protectorate, Native Labor Commission, Evidence, 1912-13, pp. 1-2. 38 H. Harris, Anti-Slavery Society and Aborigines Protection Society, to E.F.L. Wood, Colonial Office, August 26, 1921, transmitting memorandum of grievances put forward by the Kikuyu Association at a meeting with the Senior Commissioner and the Chief Native Commissioner at Dagoretti, June 24, 1921, PRO CO 533/272. 3» Handing Over Report, Kiambu District, 1910, p. 6, H. R. Tate, KNA DC/ KBU/2. 40 Kiambu District, Quarterly Report, 1912, C. C. Dundas, KNA DC/KBU/3. ^iEast Africa Protectorate, Native Labor Commission, Evidence, 1912-13, p. 216. *12 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1914-15, p. 3, G.A.S. Northcote, KNA DC/ KBU/7. 43 Naivasha District, Annual Reports, 1916-17 and 1918-19, KNA DC/NKU/g.

106—Labor to 1914 Kikuyu squatters living in the Elmenteita and Nakuru areas and found that most originally had lost their farms to Europeans in Kiambu. Even those squatters who came from Fort Hall district were in many cases men who had also lost land in Kiambu to Europeans, had re­ treated to Fort Hall, and when they found it difficult to make a living there, had gone into the Rift Valley.44 The Kenya Land Commissioners disagreed with this view and stated that squatters went "of their own free will with a view to better themselves and not as a result of any economic pressure, except such as is connected with shortage of pas­ ture."45 The average squatter, the commission affirmed, was richer in stock than the average African living in a reserve. There is also consid­ erable evidence that families left the reserve to escape the oppressive rule of chiefs. A number of administrative officers contended that fam­ ilies moved in order to get away from forced labor levies, taxation, road work, and other hated and new obligations.46 European estates were slow to come under close government tax control. Also many mi­ grants settled illegally on unalienated crown land where the adminis­ tration often exercised little supervision. G.A.G. Lane in 1917 wrote that 700 men had left the Dagoretti area to escape forced labor and to enjoy the greater freedom elsewhere to cut timber for fuel. He also pointed out that there was much emigration from chief Mukoma's lo­ cation where "petty oppression" existed.47 The government viewed this population transfer with alarm. Offi­ cials were much concerned about the loss of tax revenues and labor resources from reserves, but their main fear was that this flight would undermine the authority of chiefs on whom British administration rested so heavily. If individuals could disobey chiefs and evade pun­ ishment by leaving locations, even the reserve, it would not be long before colonial control would collapse. In spite of its efforts to limit these movements, it was unable to seal off these escape valves until the late 1920s and 1930s when settler farmers no longer wanted large labor forces on their estates. Thus there were many types of labor arrangements into which the Kikuyu entered. On Kiambu coffee farms day laboring was customary. Women and children walked to the farms during the harvesting season and were paid by piece-work. Although the Kikuyu were not noted for accepting long-term contracts, they were willing to work for a month or two before returning to their villages. Most Kikuyu, however, were engaged in some form of squatting or kaffir farming. Kaffir farming 14 KLC, Evidence, 1, 674. 45 KLC, p. 108, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. 46 Testimony of C.R.W. Lane to KLC, Evidence, 1, 405. 47 Dagoretti, Annual Report, 1916-17, p. 10, KNA DC/KBU/10.

Labor to 1914—107

was the equivalent of renting. A landowner allowed an African family or families to occupy his estate and then took part of the crop as pay­ ment for use of the land. There was much governmental opposition to this arrangement since the European occupier could be an absentee landlord and did not develop his estate himself. But kaffir farming was widespread. Squatters, on the other hand, worked on the farms man­ aged by Europeans and received in compensation a small amount of land and usually some wages. But there were many types of squatter arrangements, and there was no clear line separating squatting and kaffir farming. One reason for so little uniformity in squatting con­ tracts was that there were so many different laboring needs on Euro­ pean estates. While ranch owners needed herders, ostrich farmers did not require labor but were happy to surround their estates with Afri­ can kraals so that the cows would be a first line of defense against marauding lions. Sisal farmers, on the other hand, permitted squatters to cultivate crops between the sisal plants as well as keep one-acre shambas, but they did not want livestock because of the damage they might inflict on the sisal plants.48 In the pre-World War I years, squatting and kaffir farming were the preeminent forms of laboring in colonial Kenya. Europeans had large undeveloped estates, and they could easily afford to allocate some of their land to Africans for grazing and cultivation. On some farms Kikuyu squatters had larger grazing areas and enjoyed more generous timber cutting privileges than they did in the reserves, and thus it is little wonder that Kikuyu families saw these areas as a refuge from oppressive rule by chiefs. Additionally, the settlers' principal concern in these years was occupying their lands and securing a modicum of development, sufficient to meet government requirements. On many estates African farmers were not burdened with heavy labor ob­ ligations and could devote most of their time to their own shambas. Nor is it surprising given the vast extent of many European estates that Kikuyu squatters did not regard themselves as employees or laborers but rather as colonists who had claimed new land for their mbaris. To Kikuyu emigrants, the Rift Valley was a new frontier, much as Kiambu had been a nineteenth-century frontier. When Europeans began to fill up this area in the 1920s and 1930s and sought to limit Kikuyu emigra­ tion and even turn people off estates, their action was met with dis­ belief, resistance, and bitterness. The Kikuyu who were forced to leave felt much the same as those Kiambu Kikuyu who had been dispos­ sessed before World War I. 48Machakos District, Annual Report, 1910-11, pp. 18-19, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/2 and DC, Fort Hall to PC, March 25, 1909, KNA PC/CP 9/3/1 which contains a squatter arrangement between Swift and Rutherford and African families.

108—Labor to 1914

Lacking strong collaborative chiefs and an eagerness for more land, neither the Kamba nor the Maasai took a prominent place in early co­ lonial laboring. This was not because of governmental disinterest. The Machakos district had as much settler activity as any other African district with the exception of Kiambu. In 1914 1,400 acres were planted in sisal on the Athi Plains. Coffee was grown on the Mua Hills; coffee, sisal, and citrus at Donyo Sabuk; and at Kibwezi, Masongeleni, and Voi there were large sisal plantations.49 In recognition of these needs the administration kept the issue of labor in front of the Kamba and Maasai chiefs, but to little avail. E. C. Crewe-Read, a District Commissioner at Kajiado, kept a register of applicants for work but like every other officer he was forced to concede that the Maasai en­ gaged only as herdsmen.50 In Machakos district three labor recruiting agencies sought to procure labor in 1915. The Magadi Soda Company obtained some Kamba workers, but they worked for only a short pe­ riod before deserting.51 Most of the work around the Machakos reserve was performed by Kikuyus and Luos, and the only type of labor arrangement that Kambas were willing to enter into was squat­ ting and only as long as families could bring their livestock. In 1918 Machakos district had 27 European farms on which resided 651 mar­ ried African men, 1,028 married women, 365 unmarried warriors, and 9,808 cattle.52 By 1920 596 heads of families were living on 37 farms and possessed over 12,000 head of cattle.53 The Kamba were willing to go out onto nearby estates only if ample pastures were offered them. Nor did they go in large numbers since there was still grazing land to be claimed within the reserve.54 In 1912 another severe labor shortage prompted the state to set up a special commission to investigate the labor problem and make rec­ ommendations. New railway projects were under way, to Magadi and Thika, and settlers were beginning to make advances in coffee and sisal cultivation. In meetings held at the end of 1911, the so-called settlers' parliament, the Convention of Associations, complained of labor short­ ages at Limuru and Nyanza and called on the government to recruit 4 ^Maehakos District, Annual Report, 1914-15, J. L. Lightbody, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/2. 50 Labor, E. C. Crewe-Read, ign, KNA DC/KAJ 1/1/1. S1Machakos District Political Record Book, 1914-20, pp. 66-68, KNA DC/MKS 4/6 and Ukamba Province, Quarterly Report, March, 1912, p. 5, C. W. Hobley, DC/MKS 1/5/8. 52 Machakos District Political Record Book, 1914-20, KNA DC/MKS 4/6. 53 Ukamba Province, Annual Report, 1921, p. 4, F. S. Traill, KNA PC/CP 4/2/2. 54 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1917-18, p. 4, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/10.

Labor to 1914—109 labor for them.55 These complaints prompted the establishment of the Labor Commission. Composed of the Acting Chief Justice, Barth; A. F. Church, chief engineer of the Uganda Railway; R. G. Hamilton, a District Commissioner; Father Brandsma of the Mill Hill Mission; Dr. J. W. Arthur of the Church of Scotland Mission; B. G. Allen, a solicitor; Godfrey William, a settler; C. C. Bowring, Chief Secretary; M. H. Wessels, land agent; and Lord Delamere, the Commission took testimony from over 280 witnesses, of whom 64 were Africans, 14 In­ dians, and 1 Goan. The evidence was a mine of information on prevail­ ing labor practices and European views of African labor. According to W. McGregor Ross, an outspoken critic of settler dominance in Kenya, 68 of the witnesses urged an increase in taxation, 76 a remission of tax for those who could show that they had worked for wages, and 49 a reduction in reserves as methods to swell the labor force. Forty of the African witnesses said chiefs pressured them to work; 21 re­ ported malpractices, principally bribery.56 The Commission's recommendations were extremely significant, but because the report was not published until 1914, most of the proposals were not implemented until after the war. The labor shortages, the commission believed, were the result of a variety of factors, including increased demand, unattractive laboring conditions, and the vast wealth of the tribes in land and livestock. The Commission was ex­ tremely critical of the role of labor recruiting agencies which had be­ come widespread since 1905. They actually inhibited labor, the Com­ mission believed, because they obtained laborers through bribing chiefs. Chiefs, thus, found it to their advantage to interrupt voluntary labor supplies and to hold potential laborers in readiness to enable them to gain bribes from labor recruiters for producing these men. The Commission wanted labor recruiting agencies to cease to play such an active role in labor procurement, and indeed, in the next dec­ ade their influence declined, although they remained influential in Nyanza province. The Commission felt that the labor supply would be enhanced if officers dealing with African people devoted their time exclusively to African administration. Hence, they called for a separa­ tion of African and non-African administration, with non-African areas being administered by resident magistrates—a recommendation which was to be implemented after the war. Administrative officers in charge of African areas should not be moved frequently, but should remain in a single area for a long time, learning the language and acquiring 5 5 East African Standard, January 17 and 18, 1912 and August 3, 1912, and Magadi Soda Company to Colonial Office, August 23, 1912, PRO CO 533/114. 56 W. McGregor Ross, Kenya From Within (London, 1927), p. 93.

110—Labor to 1914

influence over the people. They should use their enhanced authority over the people "to encourage natives under their administration to enter the labor market." Thus, although the commission was not will­ ing to have the state become a labor recruiting agency itself, as many settlers desired, it wanted political officers to encourage African wage laboring and serve as a channel of information between employers and employees. The Commission wanted African reserves to be demar­ cated and to be large enough "for the present population only." Hence a special commission was suggested to define and revise boundaries, allowing agricultural tribes approximately half as much land as they had under cultivation at any given moment. The Commissioners de­ plored kaffir farming because it was so wasteful of labor and allowed many Africans to settle on European farms under little supervision. Squatting was favored if properly regulated. The Commission hoped that a system of identification of Africans similar to the pass system in use in Southern Rhodesia would be brought into effect and would pre­ vent labor desertion. At the present time there was little the settlers or state could do to prevent Africans from leaving work, breaking their contracts, and not returning. All of these recommendations were influ­ ential, and many were implemented immediately after the war.57 The East Africa Protectorate Labor Commission revealed a chaotic and often brutal system of labor recruiting. Many regulations were re­ quired if labor practices were to be standardized. Indeed, most labor re­ lations were regulated by a single ordinance, the Masters and Servants Ordinance, which in addition to being exceedingly harsh to employees was not a sufficiently elaborate piece of legislation to deal with the great variety of labor arrangements prevailing in Kenya. Probably the great­ est confusion reigned over the most common labor form—squatting and kaffir farming. Governor Belfield wrote about the need to design new legislation and his hope of turning the squatter into a laborer pure and simple. The efforts to cope with squatting, along with other labor questions, occupied much of the government's attention after World War I. " East Africa Protectorate, Native Labor Commission, Report and Evidence, pp. 32iff.

CHAPTER Vl

Education to 1914

Early educational changes closely paralleled those in wage laboring. At first African peoples demonstrated little interest and regarded mis­ sionary educators as a threat to their traditions. Disinterest was wide­ spread in the central highlands, but was more effectively overcome among the Rikuyu than among the Kamba and Maasai; by 1920 the Kikuyu attitude toward education had dramatically changed. The missionaries in Kenya, as elsewhere in Africa, were the chief purveyors of Western education. Their interest sprang naturally from a desire to convert Africans and to train enquirers and catechumens to read and understand the Bible. As education became more familiar to Africans and consequently more in demand, the missions recognized that their control of education gave them a large impact on African societies and won many converts. They sought to retain a prominent role even as the colonial state assumed greater educational duties. In the early colonial years, however, the financially hard-pressed Kenyan government was happy to delegate most educational responsibilities to the missionaries. Before 1914 the Kenyan state played a minimal role in African edu­ cation. It did not create a Department of Education until 1911. The administration was content, beginning in 1909, to allocate small sums of money to the missions in order to facilitate their educational endeavors.1 In fact the colonial government was under far more pres­ sure from Asians and European settlers to help them, and most of their educational expenditures at this time were for European and Asian schools. The first government schools in the colony were two schools at Nairobi, run by the Railway Administration, one for European and Eurasian children and the other for Asians.2 By 1914 the state had es­ tablished European schools at Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, and Uasin Gishu, Indian schools at Nairobi and Mombasa, and an Arab school at Mombasa. In contrast, it had opened only a single African school in 1909—at Kitui—and this experiment had failed by 1913.3 Prior to 1890 the central highlands of Kenya had experienced little missionary activity (see Table 6-1). As this area began to be opened up 1

No. 407, Sadler to Colonial Office, September 15, 1908, PRO CO 533/47. 586, Jackson to Colonial Office, October 26, 1905, PRO CO 533/4. 3No. 809, Belfield to Harcourt, September 4, 1914, PRO CO 533/140. 2 No.

TABLE 6-1

The Missions and the Dates at which Schools Were Established Mission

Location

Date

Kikuyu

Church Missionary Society

Kabete Weithaga Nairobi Mutira Kathukani Kahuhia

1900 1904 1911 1912 1913 1922

Church of Scotland Mission

Thogoto Tumu Tumu

1898 1909

African Inland Mission

Kijabe Matara Kinyoma Githumu

1906 1907 1907 1914

Gospel Missionary Society

Kambui Ngenda

1906

Consolata Fathers

Nyeri Limuru Mogoiro Geichanjiro Gecondi Ichigaki Fort Hall Karimi Tetu Gaturi

1903 1904 1907 1911 1912 1912 1913 1913 1913 1914

Holy Ghost Fathers

Nairobi Kiambu Mangu Nairobi (St. Teresa's Convent) Lioki

1900 1902 1906

?

1906 1913

Kamba

African Inland Mission

Kangundo Machakos Mbooni Mukaa Kilungu

1896 1902 1908 1909 1917

Evangelical Lutheran Mission

Ikutha Mulango Myanbani

1898 1900

Education to 1914—113 to European administration and settlement, missions rushed in, seek­ ing to claim spheres of influence. Before World War I seven missions were at work among,the Kikuyu, Kamba, and Maasai: the Church Mis­ sionary Society (CMS), the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM), the Africa Inland Mission (AIM), the Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Leipzig, the Gospel Missionary Society (GMS), the Roman Catholic Consolata Fathers, and the Holy Ghost Fathers. The Church of Scotland Mission, with its headquarters at Edinburgh, took over the work and holdings of the East African Scottish Mission, which at the prompting of the Imperial British East Africa Company, had obtained a 100 square mile estate at Kibwezi. Finding the climate inhospitable and the scanty Kamba population unreceptive, the mis­ sion moved to Thogoto, just outside Nairobi, in 1898. In 1901 the sta­ tion was taken over by the Church of Scotland. The CSM believed in centralizing its missionary and educational activities and allowing the influence of large stations to radiate into the countryside. In Kenya the CSM had three such stations at Thogoto (Kiambu district), Tumu Tumu (Nyeri district), and Chogoria (Embu district). Thogoto was the largest station and the headquarters. By 1912 it had a church, a num­ ber of school buildings where literary and technical instruction was given, a carpentry shop, a quarry, and a hospital.4 The CMS adopted a different approach, creating a larger number of smaller stations, each headed by a single missionary or a few indi­ viduals. Their first station among the Kikuyu was Kabete, occupied in 1900, but their greatest influence was in Fort Hall district. At Weithaga the CMS opened a mission station in 1903 at the encourage­ ment of the powerful Kikuyu chief, Karuri.5 They also established a station at Kahuhia in Fort Hall district, where technical training was begun in 1922. The CMS had a great deal of influence in the area sur­ rounding Weithaga because of the rapport their agent, A. W. MacGregor, was able to establish with the people. At a time when other stations were struggling to win converts Weithaga had already bap­ tized 50 persons. Two Roman Catholic missions operated in the central highlands: the Holy Ghost Fathers and the Consolata Fathers. Founded in the eigh­ teenth century, the Congregation du Saint Esprit nearly collapsed dur­ ing the French Revolution, but was brought back to life in the 1840s by Francois Libermann, a Jewish convert to Roman Catholicism, who 4

G. Hunter, "Notes of a Visit to CSM Station at Kikuyu," Kikuyu News, No. 35,

May, 1912, pp. 1-4 and speech by J. W. Arthur at the opening of the technical school, East African Standard, March 23, igi2. 5 Weithaga Log Book, 1903, CMS archives, Kenya.

J14—Education to 1914 gave the organization a decidedly missionary and African orientation. The Holy Ghost Fathers were closely intertwined with French im­ perialism, aiding in the establishment of numerous French colonies in Africa and working closely with the French colonial administration. Yet one of their biggest areas of endeavor was East Africa where the French exercised little colonial control. After establishing their ec­ clesiastical headquarters on Zanzibar in 1862, the Fathers pushed inland, opening large and successful stations at Bagamoyo and Kili­ manjaro. In 1894 missionaries crossed into British East Africa and established a station at Bura. Then, attracted by the large Kikuyu pop­ ulation and the growing administrative importance of the highlands, the Holy Ghost Fathers opened a station just outside Nairobi in 1899 and followed this important advance with the opening of other Kikuyu sites.6 In its African activities the mission had a strong work and agricul­ tural orientation. Not only did its agents believe in the civilizing and Christianizing influence of disciplined agricultural and handicraft work, but they also realized that through running successful African plantations, they could increase their revenues and hence their mission impact. They experimented with a host of crops. On their estates in German East Africa and the British East Africa Protectorate they grew coffee, vanilla, cocoa, fruit trees, and various types of cereals and legumes brought in from Europe. Indeed, they were responsible for the introduction of the prosperous Arabica coffee industry first into German East Africa and then in the British East Africa Protectorate.7 In the central highlands most of the Holy Ghost Fathers' energies were channeled into the Kikuyu districts. Nonetheless, perhaps in order to keep the Kamba from falling under the exclusive sway of the Protestant Africa Inland Mission, they began work among them. They had no more success at making conversions and spreading education there than the AIM. The first effort was a five-year stint of itinerating carried out by P. Leconte—a completely frustrating endeavor since it produced not a single convert.8 In 1917 the mission opened its first sta­ tion at Kabaa, but three years later it had only a single catechist run­ ning it. In time Kabaa became the educational center of the mission in the highlands and the location of the only Catholic secondary school in Kenya. The real opening among the Kamba came at Kilungu, how­ ever, and was achieved by a small group of Kilungu Kamba who had 0 See J. A. Kieran, "The Origins of Commercial Arabica Coffee Production in East Africa," African Historical Studies, Vol. 2 , No. 1 , 1 9 6 9 , p. 5 1 . ι Ibid., pp. 5 3 f t . and "Progres de la Mission du Tanganika," Annates de la Propa­ gation de la Foi, Vol. 7 5 , 1 9 0 3 , pp. 3 1 6 - 3 1 8 . s Les Missions Catholiques, Vol. 4 9 , 1 9 1 7 , pp. 454-455·

Education to

1914

—115

obtained education in Nairobi and who encouraged the mission to open a station and a school there. Such was done in 1920 despite fierce opposition from the AIM.9 Although the Consolata Fathers were a much smaller mission than the Holy Ghost Fathers, they had a larger impact on the Kikuyu than their Catholic brothers. Founded in 1901 in Turin, this mission also had a strong agricultural and work orientation. It too extolled the vir­ tue of hard work and looked upon plantation agriculture as a means of supplementing limited resources. In 1902 four Consolata mission­ aries were given a tour through Kikuyuland by Allgeyer, the head of the Holy Ghost Mission at Zanzibar, and then encouraged to set up stations among the Kikuyu to supplement the work of the Holy Ghost mission. They were urged to work closely with the powerful Fort Hall chief, Karuri, who, having tired of the CMS, was looking for another mission sponsor. The Consolata Fathers quickly opened a number of stations and moved northward into Nyeri in 1903, with the hope of winning the favor of another influential Kikuyu colonial chief, Wangombe.10 The pragmatic nature of this mission was demonstrated in its early mission establishments. By 1908 the Fathers were running an in­ dustrial workshop at Tusu, an orphanage, a school for catechists, and a large farm at Nyeri.11 The Consolata Fathers in Kenya believed that mission stations should be centers radiating Christian and civilizing influences into the heathen countryside. Their most effective site, in this respect, was their 3,000 acre estate at Nyeri under the direction of R. P. Perlo. Here the mission sought to spread not only Christianity but also advanced agri­ cultural techniques outward. They equipped the farm with the latest machinery and cultivated coffee and wheat. They fostered a commer­ cial interest among their African laborers by selling them imported European clothing. The mission employed two types of Africans: a large number of short-term workers and a few laborers who resided permanently on the estate. Since there was a large turnover of the short-term workers, many Africans living near the estate received an exposure to Christianity and new agricultural methods and carried these ideas into their own communities. From this large clientele, the mission selected a few, mostly young men to constitute the permanent work force and the nucleus of the Christian community living on the farm. These men were selected only after many work stints in which they demonstrated their receptivity to Christianity and their agricul9 Frederic Bugeau, "Une Excursion dans l'Oukamba," i b i d . , 1923, Vol. 55, 1923, P- 52610Letter from R. P. Hemery, July 18, 1902, i b i d . , Vol. 34, 1902, pp. 481-485. 11 I b i d . , Vol. 40, 1908, p. 210.

116—Education to 1914 tural skills. They resided on the farm under strict mission control and were often allowed to visit their original communities only on Sundays. Yet they were given much less onerous and more prestigous tasks than the short-term workers, such as watching herds, irrigating the fields, maintaining roads, and planting coffee. Using these methods, the mis­ sion did have a considerable impact on the surrounding communities, prompting Perlo to remark in 1908 that in the nearby area African families observed Sunday as a day of rest and that many children com­ ing into the station for the first time already knew their vows. He added that in this region "there exists a veritable small republic . . . in which we are the arbiters of peace and war."12 Another member of the society, Father Cagnol0, spoke of the widening circle of huts around the mission churches "where the missionary is a priest, father, major, judge, physician, apothecary, and whatever else the communal life may require in Africa."13 The Africa Inland Mission was the only society to proselytize among all three highland peoples. In many ways its organization, methods, and beliefs were profoundly different from those of its highland Prot­ estant neighbors, the CMS and the CSM, and bear close examination. The Africa Inland Mission was an offshoot of the American revivalist upsurge of the last part of the nineteenth century, epitomized by the turbulent career of that evangelist extraordinaire, Dwight L. Moody. Moody sought to bring Christianity to the "unchurched" and to con­ vert the unconverted. He travelled through the United States and even into Great Britain, organizing great revivalist crusades and using his spellbinding preaching to good effect. Moody pioneered the huge re­ ligious services in amphitheaters and employed large choirs and the most popular hymn singer of his age, Ira Sankey, to give added dimen­ sions to his sermons. His message tended to be quietistic and socially conservative, centered strongly on making conversions to Christianity. Moreover, Moody and his followers were opposed to the modernist and rationalist elements entering Protestantism. Although Moody's attention was focused on the United States and Great Britain, a natural development of his movement was the desire to implant this evangeli­ cal and pietistic Christianity among the peoples of Asia and Africa. The AIM was one of the missions organized in response to this need; the religion it carried into Africa was strongly evangelical, Bible cen­ tered, fundamentalist, socially conservative, and concerned above all else to evangelize or "win souls to Christ" as the AIM agents often wrote. The AIM was initially the vision of Peter Cameron Scott, a Scottish 12 I b i d . , Vol. 40, 1908, p. 237. is C. Cagnolo, T h e A k i k u y u (Torino, 1933), p. 275.

Education to 1914—117

immigrant to the United States who had been a missionary in the Congo from 1890 to 1892 where his brother died. Scott returned to his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with a plan to proselytize "the vast unevangelized region of the Sudan" by entering Africa along the East coast and establishing a chain of mission stations stretching into the interior. He talked of a reputed 60 million Africans living there "practically untouched by the message of Christ."14 Scott was anxious to interest a religious organization in serving as a Home Council for his mission, which was to be called the Africa Inland Mission. In 1895 the Philadelphia Missionary Council agreed to be the Home Council of the AIM. This body, part of the revivalist current of the times, had been formed by C. E. Hurlburt, a well-known YMCA leader in Eastern Pennsylvania. Its goal was to sponsor world-wide evangelism. The Philadelphia Missionary Council also supported a mission to Central America and work among American Indians in the southwest.15 But these latter activities were soon given up and gradually the Philadel­ phia Council devoted all of its attention to being the Home Council of the Africa Inland Mission. An organization closely associated with the Philadelphia Missionary Council was also to play an important role in the beginnings of the AIM. The Pennsylvania Bible Institute, also lo­ cated in Philadelphia and founded by Hurlburt in 1895, was "an inter­ denominational Bible school where young men and women of limited means who were directly called of God into Christian work could be fitted for useful service in the harvest of the Lord."16 Many of the first AIM missionaries were graduates of this school. Having established a mission and called into existence a Home Council, Scott took out the first party of AIM missionaries to the East Africa Protectorate in 1895. Within a year this group grew to fifteen. Scott pushed into the interior establishing the first station in late 1895 at Nzaui among the Kamba.17 But Scott's ambitions were frustrated by climate, health, and bad luck. Within a year he had died, and by 1898 only one missionary remained in the field at Kangundo. The mission might well have disappeared at this juncture save for the energy and foresight of C. E. Hurlburt who guided the development of the AIM from 1898 until his resignation in 1925 and in many respects deserves to be considered its founder. Hurlburt went out to East Africa in 1898 and again in 1901 to survey this area for mission activity. From that moment he assumed a com­ manding position in the work of the AIM, both at home and in East it Hearing and Doing, January, 1896, p. 3. 1$ Ibid,., March-May, 1901, p. 10. 1β Ibid., January, 1896, p. g. 17 Ibid., May, 1896, p. 5.

118—Education to 1914 Africa. Hurlburt succeeded in expanding the AIM home operations from its narrow Philadelphia base and created an ongoing institution in place of Scott's vision. While the first missionaries had been gradu­ ates of the Pennsylvania Bible Institute or friends, relatives, and col­ leagues of Scott, Hurlburt contacted evangelical and revivalist leaders in many parts of the United States and eventually was able to draw mission recruits from all over the country and even from Canada, En­ gland, and Australia. In an effort to enlarge the financial support and recruiting potential of the AIM he established district councils in large cities across the United States. These councils publicized the activities of the AIM, raised funds, and interviewed prospective candidates for mission service from their areas. The first such district council was es­ tablished in 19x1 in Los Angeles under the auspices of T. C. Horton, Superintendent of the Los Angeles Bible School, and this contact en­ abled the AIM to recruit missionaries from California and to solicit funds there.18 Other councils were established in Buffalo, New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Toronto. Although Hurlburt's ambition was clearly to put the AIM on a national, even international, footing, the society drew most of its support and personnel from the large in­ dustrial and prosperous farming states of the northern United States. In 1918 when the Home Office sent out 3,000 letters to people on its active and inactive files for the purpose of organizing prayer bands, it received 1,148 replies. More than one-third (434) came from Pennsyl­ vania while New York and Illinois also had over 100. California, New Jersey, Ohio, Colorado, Michigan, Maryland, and Connecticut fol­ lowed in that order.19 The Africa Inland Mission was a fundamentalist, evangelical society. Since its inception under Scott its overriding goal was to bring Chris­ tianity to the hitherto untouched parts of Africa. It eschewed the fa­ vored areas of missionary work where there was intense competition between different mission bodies in favor of setting up stations in re­ mote, inaccessible regions. It evaluated its agents by their "soul win­ ning" capabilities. Some of the AIM agents felt that the mission should establish stations, train African teachers and preachers as rapidly as possible, and then move on to new untouched regions.20 In 1902 Hurlburt wrote of his distress when he considered the many thousands of Africans who must die "unwarned, uninvited, and unevangelized."21 Thus, the AIM was marked by pioneering work, seeking out remote is Ibid., July-September, 1911, p. 14. 19 Inland Africa, September, 1918, p. 14. 20 See paper by John Stauffacher printed in Hearing and Doing, October-Decem­ ber, igi2, p. 3. 21 Ibid., June, 1902, p. 3.

Education to 1914—119

areas and eager to proselytize among the more intractable peoples. After founding stations among the Kikuyu, Kamba, and Maasai, Hurlburt made two major safaris in 1906-1907 into Western Kenya in order "to spy out the land and to locate new stations."22 He was ready to be­ gin work among eight peoples there: the Samburu, Rendile, Meru, Njemps, Kamasia, Suk, Karamoja, and Turkana. Although the mission was delayed in this undertaking, it did open a station among the Nyamwezi in German East Africa in 1909 and entered the eastern Congo in 1912. A vast expansion of activity occurred during and after World War I, making the AIM one of the largest and most widespread missions in East and Central Africa. A glimpse into the educational backgrounds of the early missionaries provides insights into the training they received and the beliefs they carried into Africa. The AIM journal, entitled Hearing and Doing and later Inland Africa, printed short biographies of some of its agents be­ fore they went to the field. According to McLoughlin's study of Moody, the revivalist movement of the 1880s and 1890s had its great­ est appeal to "country-bred evangelically oriented, intellectually un­ sophisticated, and sentimentally insecure individuals."23 The biograph­ ical data of AIM agents is not complete enough to make definitive statements about the early lives of these men and women. Almost all of them came from the northern part of the United States, from indus­ trial states like Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and prosperous agricultural states like Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. Many of the agents appear to have been raised in small rural communities, however, even in these industrial states, to have been reared in re­ ligiously conservative families, Bible centered and deeply concerned about whether one's soul was "saved," and to have been poor. More than a few had emigrated to the United States as youngsters. Bible Institutes, like Moody and the Pennsylvania Bible Institute, made a conscious appeal to poor Christian young persons. At the turn of the century the Pennsylvania Bible Institute charged $3 per week for all expenses and was willing to help those who could not afford to pay that amount. This Institute proclaimed its willingness to train anyone, no matter how poor, who had a strong evangelical Christian commit­ ment. On educational backgrounds the AIM journal has more complete data, however. Between 1900 and 1914 when the journal ceased to give such detailed information, the educational backgrounds of 48 were provided, certainly a representative sampling since this number consti22 Ibid., April-June, 1907, p. 20. 23 W. G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandson Finney to Billy Graham (New York, 1959), p. 168.

120—Education to 1914

tuted approximately half of those who went out during this period. Of these 48 all but 3 attended a religious institute for some or all of their higher education. The most popular was the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, which had been founded by that noted evangelist preacher, Dwight L. Moody, in 1889 with the intention of training persons for evangelistic careers. Twelve went to the Pennsylvania Bible Institute which had been the chief recruiting agency in the first AIM decade until Hurlburt gave his society a more national focus. Five attended a small religious school in Naperville, Illinois, called Northwestern College, and three the Los Angeles Bible Institute. Although a few of the missionaries had gone to other colleges before enrolling at the Bible Institutes, usually other religious schools, for the vast majority (34) the training they received in the Bible Institutes was their only post-secondary schooling. Only 5 of the 48 attended secular schools: the University of Michigan, Miami University (Ohio), the Atlantic Col­ lege of Osteopathy in Buffalo, New York, and Kansas State Normal (2). The Bible Institutes gave a narrow religious training, usually of two years, with a strong evangelical emphasis, designed, as the Moody Bible Institute stated, to prepare men and women for careers as Chris­ tian workers, Bible readers, gospel singers, teachers and evangelists.24 Those who went as missionaries carried these restricted views into Africa. No doubt influenced by the philosophies of the Bible Institutes, the AIM became the most narrowly and stridently evangelical of the highland missions, subordinating other interests, like education, to the overriding goal of making conversions to Christianity. Also many AIM agents had a firm belief in the imminent Second Coming, and this no­ tion strengthened their desire to concentrate all on making conver­ sions. If Jesus' advent could occur at any moment, then the most im­ portant duty of a mission was not education or even medical work, but converting people to Christianity. From the outset the AIM regarded itself as a faith and prayer mis­ sion, and this trait also differentiated it from the CMS and the CSM. The AIM believed that faith and prayer were efficacious and that truly faithful men could overcome the most monumental obstacles through divine intervention. Trusting to God's help and providence and to faith and prayer, the AIM did not salary its agents or guarantee regular fur­ loughs for those in the field. Its agents were paid as contributions be­ came available, and men and women in Africa were given leave only as funds permitted. In the early days the faith and prayer basis was so strong that missionaries went to the field with little financial backing, trusting to God's protection. But as this arrangement was considered ^ I n l a n d A f r i c a , October, 1920, p. 21.

Education to

1914—121

chaotic and dangerous, the AIM stipulated that no one should go to Africa until money had been raised for his passage, outfit, and first three months' stay. After these three months had elapsed, however, he depended on general funds, plus whatever contributions he was able to raise for his own needs. C. E. Hurlburt reconciled these more strin­ gent later mission requirements with the belief in efficacious faith and prayer by suggesting that the raising of these allowances could be taken as a test of whether a person was truly called. "If then all allow­ ances are paid and the new candidate either personally or through our Executive Council has in answer to his prayer of faith received his out­ fit, passage money, money home, and support for three months we may reasonably believe that God has called him to the field and that the an­ swer to his prayer in supplying these should be sufficient proof that God who has begun a good work in caring for him in answer to prayer will complete it to the end of his service."25 In such a newly established mission, nondenominational, and slowly evolving an administrative structure and clear lines of authority, splin­ tering and fragmentation were inevitable. Many different personalities were housed under one organization, and although they were all of a fundamentalist and evangelical persuasion, they came from a variety of denominations. The Baptists tended to predominate. The leaders of the original Philadelphia Missionary Council were Baptists, and im­ mersion baptism was practiced in the field. But in keeping with the interdenominational nature of the work, all kinds of Protestant churches were represented. P. C. Scott had originally been a member of a Presbyterian Church. When Hurlburt was in the field, he brought under AIM auspices Mennonite missionaries working in the East Africa Protectorate and a small group, at first called the Christian Unity Association, later the Gospel Missionary Society, supported by a church in New Britain, Connecticut. It would have been a monumen­ tal task to weld these disparate groups together, and so there was no surprise, and no apparent regret, when the New Britain, Connecticut, missionaries again detached themselves from the AIM in 1915.26 In addition, by nature revivalist religions were fissiparous. Revivalist preachers extolled the spontaneous religious experience and shunned formal structured forms of religion. These movements tended to be egalitarian, valuing the religious vision of any man, no matter what his station in life or his education. Moody himself had but seven years of education and no theological training. The AIM missionaries were men and women of independent personalities and unyielding religious be2 S C. E. Hurlburt to Executive Council, August 2 , 1915, f. AIM History, AIM Archives. Hearing and Doing, April-June, 1915, p. 16.

122—Education to 1914

liefs. There was a great deal of divisiveness, and two of the pioneer figures, George Rhoad, a missionary to the Kamba, and C. E. Hurlburt himself, left the mission arguing over doctrine, evangelical methods, and the faith basis. Hurlburt organized a mission of his own, called the Unevangelized Africa Mission. An area of immense ambiguity and controversy for the AIM was the role it should play in African education. For obvious reasons the AIM placed less emphasis on education than the CMS and the CSM and had a lesser educational impact on the highlands. Its own agents were not well educated. They did not have nearly so keen an appreciation of the value of education for education's sake as did the CMS and the CSM, many of whom had graduated from leading British universities. To some education was a detour to be avoided in their quest for conversions and their drive into untouched areas. The mission was fearful of tying down its resources in schools. In a 1912 conference held at the mission headquarters at Kijabe in Kenya, John Stauffacher argued that education was "distinctly not our work except insofar as it helps us to hasten on all the more speedily to that which is distinctly our work, the preaching of the Gospel to every needy crea­ ture."27 Later he was to write that "if we are simply to drift with so many other missions into educational work, then I feel very strongly that the AIM will wholly miss the purpose for which it was called into being."28 The AIM was slow to embark on advanced primary and sec­ ondary education because of the money and manpower that would be allocated at the expense of preaching and evangelizing. Yet the mission recognized that education must play a role in missionary endeavor. Even the staunchly evangelical Stauffacher was compelled to admit that among the recalcitrant Maasai education was the best instrument for affecting conversions. C. E. Hurlburt wrote in 1906 that while he was at first critical of all the attention being devoted to schooling, "we owe an obligation to this child people [the Kikuyu] which cannot be discharged in any other way than by teaching them a trade."29 Hurlburt felt that missions could not just teach the Gospel and leave Afri­ cans economically unprepared. They must train them to follow profit­ able occupations. Hence he proposed the establishment of an industrial school at the Kijabe station. A crisis over mission educational policy came to a head shortly after World War I, and though the evidence is far from conclusive, there are tantalizing hints in the AIM journal, Inland Africa, that Hurlburt 27 Ibid., October-December, 1912, p. 3. 28 John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, February 23, 1927, f. AIM History, AIM Archives. 29 Hearing and Doing, April-June, 1906, p. 8.

Education to

1914 —123

planned dramatic changes in the mission's educational stance and in its recruitment of personnel. These departures may have been instru­ mental in his retirement in 1925. In the 1920s the government was tak­ ing a greater interest in education. Although it continued to provide missions with financial support in aid of their educational programs, it insisted that the missions improve the curriculum and the qualifica­ tions of their teachers. Some officials wanted the state to use its reve­ nues not to support the mission schools but to create its own educa­ tional system. In his 1923 annual report, Hurlburt wrote of this crisis and indicated that the mission might need to expend much more money to upgrade the training and qualifications of its African teach­ ers. Arguing that education was the most effective tool for making con­ versions to Christianity, he contended that the vast majority of Chris­ tians were pupils or former pupils of mission schools. He feared the possibility of the state establishing schools and providing a secular curriculum. Hurlburt ended his report with this plea: "The cry of the people is for the missions to give them schools. No other equal oppor­ tunity to give the Gospel to the people is offered in Africa. From these schools nearly all our converts have come. Shall the Africa Inland Mis­ sion enter this door?"30 Although it is not exactly clear what changes in educational policies and methods this report forecast, Hurlburt cer­ tainly intended the AIM to expand its educational programs and to expend more money on schools and teachers. Shortly after the publi­ cation of this important statement, O. R. Palmer, Home Director, and other influential members of the Home Council were asked to resign. Palmer was replaced by H. D. Campbell as Home Director. In perhaps a related article, Roland Smith, head of the British Council and friend of Hurlburt, wrote that missions were suffering from the endeavors of poorly qualified agents and that in the future candidates not only must have the "essential religious characteristics" but must bring special skills of leadership, education, or medical training to their African ministry.31 This article could be read as a criticism of the narrow evan­ gelical training of most AIM agents and suggested that Hurlburt was eager to recruit persons with broader and more skilled training than was hitherto common in the mission. Was Hurlburt seeking to embark on a more diversified program of education, guided by men and women of superior educational talents? If he was, his efforts were thwarted, for in 1925 Inland Africa announced his resignation, citing reasons of health.32 In 1927 Hurlburt's name was removed from the masthead of the journal as General Director, Emeritus. That Hurlburt so I n l a n d A f r i c a , July, 1924, pp. 1-3. si I b i d . , March, 1925, p. 1. s2Ibid.,

September, 1925, p. 6.

124—Education to 1914

was not too sick to continue his work is proved by the fact that he es­ tablished a new mission in that year. In the educational controversy of the mid 1920s the AIM elected to retain its traditional attitude toward education. It refused to accept government grants in aid of mission schools on the grounds that it would not promise to adhere to government demands especially about teachers' qualifications. It wanted to be free to move its agents around as different needs arose. This direction was already signaled in an Inland Africa editorial of July, 1925, written, it seems reasonable to infer, by the new Home Director, H. D. Campbell. The pendulum of mission education, Campbell believed, had swung too far toward mak­ ing education the central missionary endeavor and needed to be set right. "Undue stress is being laid on education. Some of the more con­ servative missionary leaders are not at all disposed to approve of spending large amounts of money to give a secular education to young men and young women in heathen countries, and it is claimed that a disproportionate amount of missionary money is going into such schools. . . . There is a vast difference between teaching the Bible to Christians and giving them such an education as may be required in their work to make them good servants of the Lord and leaders of the Church and spending missionary money in giving instruction to young men and young women who want to be taught in order that they will make a prosperous way in the world in order to become good clerks, good teachers and good doctors."33 In 1931 in a letter to Rose Horton, one of the AIM missionaries, Campbell summed up the AIM's modest educational outlook: "I do not believe that the AIM was sent to Africa to educate the natives of any part of Africa, but I do believe that it is perfectly legitimate to teach people to read the word of God and it is right to train the outstanding Christians in the same way we train Christian workers at home."34 To those missionaries eager to spend more on education Campbell dampened their enthusiasm by remind­ ing them that the churches and individual contributors at home valued evangelical activity and threatened to withdraw support if too much money went into schooling.35 One of the earliest mission societies to enter the interior of Kenya was the Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Leipzig. Through the energy of three men—G. Sauberlich, Izenschmith, and H. Pfitzungen—this society entered the Kitui region in the 1890s.36 They opened three sta33 I b i d . , July, 1925, p. 9. 34 H. D. Campbell to Rose Horton, April 27, 1931, AIM Archives. 35 H. D. Campbell to Lee Downing, March 19, 1935, ibid. 3O Kitui District, Quarterly Report, December, 1909, p. 2, J. B. Ainsworth, KNA DC/MKS 1/3/1.

Education to 1914—125

tions and started rudimentary education. During World War I the German missionaries were deported to India, and the AIM took over their stations. The Gospel Missionary Society was another American group which emerged from the evangelical and revivalist mood of the late nine­ teenth century. In spite of the smallness of the mission, it had an im­ portant impact on the Kikuyu, the only group that it worked with in Kenya. Two of its converts were Harry Thuku, in many ways Kenya's first nationalist, and Waruhiu wa Kungu, an important chief. The first GMS missionaries went to Kenya just before 1900 and began work in Kiambu district. They were sent by the People's Church of Christ in New Britain, a nondenominational evangelical and revivalist church which had been set up in 1888 and was deeply committed to overseas missionary endeavor. This church had close ties with the John Hawley Bible School in Hawleyville, Connecticut, which concentrated on training Bible workers for missionary work.87 Among the first group of GMS agents to Kenya were the two persons who were to form the heart of its activities thereafter: Reverend and Mrs. W. P. Knapp. The first station was opened at Thembigwa, a 600 acre estate in Kiambu district, but soon thereafter the Knapps opened two stations at Kambui and Ngenda which, after the sale of Thembigwa, became the major stations of the GMS. In the United States the organizer and leading GMS figure was Rev­ erend M. S. Anderson, whose career and interests reflected the aspira­ tions of this mission. Born in Western New York state and educated as a teacher and pastor at a Bible school, Anderson organized the Gospel Mission to the people of Syracuse, New York in 1892. The goal was to make conversions, and the technique was to hold open air, nightly meetings, engage in house-to-house visiting, and distribute Bibles and tracts to the people.38 An additional, significant goal of Anderson's Gospel Mission was to send messengers to the regions beyond, espe­ cially to prepare the peoples of the world for the Second Coming, in which Anderson strongly believed. Anderson's evangelical and out­ reach ideas accorded well with the religious philosophy of the People's Church of Christ in New Britain, to which he was called as pastor in 1900. At the time that he made his move, he also began to issue a jour­ nal, called the Gospel Message, which, in addition to circulating An­ derson's religious ideas, especially his belief in prediction through a close reading of the Bible, contained letters from GMS missionaries around the world, including the small band in Kenya. Although the 37 The Gospel Message, Vol. s, November, 1900, p. 2. I am much indebted to Mrs. Faith McKinstry for allowing me to look at these valuable records. 38 Ibid., Vol. i, January, 1899, p. 3.

126—Education to 1914 center of the GMS was the People's Church, Anderson was able to in­ terest other followers in the northeast of the United States whom he visited occasionally and who took a lively and often a financial interest in the activities of the GMS. In February, 1903, Anderson formally endowed the GMS with a constitution and installed himself as the so­ ciety's president.39 Through his influence the AIM and GMS were brought into a loose alliance, and Anderson served for many years on the AIM board.40 Just before and during World War I disputes arose within the GMS which forced Anderson out of the mission and left the society essentially in the hands of the Knapps. In 1913 the AIM demanded that the GMS be incorporated into its organization.41 By this time the GMS had approximately ten missionaries serving in Kenya; most agreed to become regular AIM agents. The Knapps and Dr. John Henderson were unwilling, however, and maintained the GMS as an independent mission.42 In 1912 the Knapps had found a new source of financial sup­ port in the General Missionary Society of the Life and Advent Union, to supplement the money they received from the People's Church.43 Then in 1916 a bitter split occurred in the People's Church, and An­ derson, along with a large contingent of members, withdrew and founded a new church nearby, called the Emmanuel Gospel Church.44 This move severed Anderson's connections with the GMS which con­ tinued to remain affiliated with the People's Church. The GMS re­ mained a small, exclusively Kikuyu mission, which by 1940 had two main stations (Kambui and Ngenda), 18 to 20 outstations, and a num­ ber of hospitals and schools. The death of W. Knapp in 1940 and his wife, Myrtle, in 1941 left the mission without its moving force, and in 1946 the GMS was incorporated into the CSM.45 The missions entering the Kenya highlands experienced early diffi­ culties making converts and filling their classrooms. It was not until 1908 that the CSM at Thogoto baptized its first converts—ten years after the founding of the station. Almost all of those baptized in 1908 and the second group of young men baptized in 1911 were individuals who had sought refuge at the mission camp during famines and re­ mained as domestic servants of the missionaries.46 The Consolata Fa­ thers first baptisms did not take place until 1911, and Marion Steven­ son wrote that at the CSM station of Tumu Tumu it was not until 1912 30 I b i d . , Vol. 6, July, 1904, p. 8. I b i d . , Vol. 8, April, 1906, p. 4. 41I b i d . , Vol. 15, November, 1913, pp. 4-5. 42 I b i d . , Vol. 17, February, 1915, p. 5. 43 H e r a l d of L i f e , Vol. 50, September 12, 1921, p. 11. 44 G o s p e l M e s s a g e , Vol. 18, April, 1916, pp. i-g. 45 H e r a l d of L i f e , Vol. 78, March, 1940, p. 5. 46 K i k u y u N e w s , No. 20, June, 1910, p. 4.

Education to 1914—127 that the first group of people living outside the mission estate were baptized.47 In similar fashion the missions were slow in attracting young men and women to attend their rudimentary schools. Even those who were eventually persuaded to go to school often deserted after a short while. The reluctance of African parents to send their children to schools stemmed in part from the fact that the young were such a vital part of the local economy. Among the pastoral Maasai the young herded cat­ tle. In agrarian societies the young tended herd and helped with the cultivation of crops. But equally important was the African peoples' realization that the missions constituted a dynamic threat to their tra­ ditional ways of life. Whereas administrators tended to be concerned with maintaining political stability and therefore tried not to sponsor programs that clashed profoundly with African traditions, missionaries paid less heed to political stability and were less inclined to worry whether their programs fitted or clashed with African traditions. In­ deed, they sought a break with tradition, a renunciation of ways which they characterized as barbaric, primitive, and irreligious. Rather than trying to adapt religious and social tenets to the African environment, they held out for the full measure of their ideals among their converts. The AIM and CSM forbade drinking and the AIM smoking.48 The AIM had a "fornication chair" in their churches as a means of rooting out this practice. All of the missions expected their followers to give up traditional clothing—skins, rings, and beads—and to wear European clothes. Thus, in the early days Christian adherents were easy to iden­ tify. The Catholic missions were eager to have their converts live around the mission station, physically set off from the "pagan" com­ munity. But even when Christians lived in their own villages, they tended to band together and to shun others. Converts were forbidden to take part in ceremonies or take oaths in which "heathen rites" were practiced.49 The CSM church laws of 1928 give an example of the as­ sault on tradition common among the churches. A Christian was re­ quired "to forsake all customs which are not agreeable to the Word of God, such things pertaining to departed spirits, witchcraft, divination, sexual immorality, intoxicating liquor, evil songs, and female circum­ cision," The Kenya Protestant churches insisted that converts marry only Christians and demanded that a male convert take but one wife, and that a female convert not marry a man who had another wife. 47 Cagnolo, The Akihuyu, p. 271 and Kikuyu News, No. 36, June, 1912. Report and Recommendations Regarding Possibilities of Uniformity in Church Discipline in the Native Churches of the Alliance, August, 1925, A. R. Barlow, Chris­ tian Council of Kenya (CCK), file No. 3. 49 Arthur to Maxwell, Chief Native Commissioner, April 14, 1924, KNA DC/KBU/ 109. 48

128—Education to 1914 African Christians could circumcise their sons only after informing the elders of the church, arranging to use Christian operators, and eschew­ ing all "heathen rites."50 Because of geographical location and heavy population densities, the missionaries focused attention on the Kikuyu. While the missions were content to leave the Kamba and Maasai to the AIM, a logical choice because of the AIM commitment to carry Christianity to groups out­ side the ordinary missionary pale, there was intense competition for spheres of influence in Kikuyuland. Yet the initial impact was limited. The missions attracted few followers, mainly only individuals in straitened economic circumstances, outcasts from traditional society, such as twin children, plus a few enterprising persons. Classrooms had few students and suffered greatly from desertions and absenteeism. Yet, unlike the Kamba and Maasai societies, this early resistance was undercut much more rapidly; by 1920 the Kikuyu were clamoring for more and better schools. The factors important in early wage laboring were also relevant for the implantation of education among the Kikuyu. The Kikuyu did not so much embrace education in this first decade and a half of contact, but had it thrust upon them by aggressive missionaries and a coercive local administration. The first group of Kikuyus were coerced into the classrooms. They did not attend school because they were farsighted individuals who realized more quickly than others the economic or spiritual advantages of schooling. Schoolgoers, like wage laborers, tended to be drawn from that segment of Kikuyu society whose politi­ cal and economic weakness made them vulnerable to control by other more powerful persons. An important factor in the recruitment of school children was con­ trol over the land and the people resident on it. European missions in Kikuyuland had large estates and used their landholding powers to exact obedience from Kikuyu families residing on them. They also at­ tracted land-hungry Kikuyu families to take up farms under their au­ thority. According to the Kenya Land Commission the total amount of land alienated to missions within the Kikuyu reserve was no less than 7,939 acres.51 These lands were acquired at the same time that settlers were taking up estates among the Kikuyu. The Consolata Fathers had a 3,000 acre estate and another 607 acre site in Nyeri district plus a 640 acre estate at Limuru.52 The Holy Ghost Fathers had a 5,000 acre station at Mangu, near Thika and 374 acres just outside Nairobi.53 The 5 QAfrican Church Laws, 1928, CCK, file No. 11. 51 KLC 1 p. 127, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-34, cm d. 4556. 52 PoIitical Record Book, Kenya Province, KNA PC/CP 1/1/1. S3 KLC, Evidence, 1, 607-608.

Education to 1914—129 AIM controlled a large amount of land at Kijabe, on which lived two large family groups—the Mbari ya Kiherko and the Mbari ya Njuguna.51 The CSM had 3,000 acres at Thogoto and a small holding at Tumu Tumu. The GMS took over an area at Kambui, unoccupied be­ cause the Kikuyu believed a curse to be on the land.55 Most of these estates had Africans living on them. According to a report prepared in 1913 by the district officer of Kiambu, the CMS station at Kabete had 37 African huts, while Thogoto had 253, Mangu 224, and Kijabe 207.56 The missions wanted large estates for a variety of reasons. The Catholic societies wished their communities to locate around the mis­ sion, and for this reason they needed land. Missions intended to de­ velop the agricultural potential of their landholdings in order to fi­ nance their activities and to inculcate new agricultural techniques and the virtues of work among the resident African families. The Holy Ghost Fathers were credited with the introduction of coffee cultivation into the Kenya highlands on one of their stations, and the CSM also raised coffee. Yet, the missions were also fully aware that their land acquisitions gave them control over the families living on these grounds. When C. E. Hurlburt obtained governmental permission for the AIM to occupy Kijabe, Stauffacher was ecstatic, writing that "this of course will make it possible for several thousand Kikuyu to locate on mission grounds and will give the mission also full control over them."57 One of the GMS agents, F. W. Krieger, was quick to see the advan­ tages inherent in landholding. Taking up an estate at Thembigwa in Kiambu district in 1902, Krieger wrote that he required all who lived on the premises to work two days every month to develop the estate. He added that he was eager to acquire more land "so that we will have it to give to people when the white settlers have grabbed it all."58 Krieger's prediction proved accurate. Although many of the Africans residing on his land at first left, many came back. According to Krieger, Thembigwa became "a place of refuge to many who would rather live with a missionary than go and join their erratic chiefs."59 With the settlers streaming into the southern Kiambu area, Krieger ap­ plied for more land as a means "to maintain our hold on the people and increase our borders."60 A fine line often separated missionary 54 Ibid., i, 15. 55 Ibid., 1, 769-772. 56 Dagoretti Political Record Book, 1913-19, pp. 47-48, KNA DC/KBU/77. 57 John W. Stauffacher to Florence Minch, March 1, 1905, Stauftacher Letters, Kenya. 58 F. W. Krieger to M. S. Anderson, July 7, 1902, T h e Gospel Message, Vol. 4, September, 1902, p. 6. 59 60

Krieger to Anderson, ibid., Vol. 6, March, 1906, p. 8. Krieger to Anderson, October 4, 1902, ibid., Vol. 5, January, 1903, p. 5.

130—Education to 1914 enterprise from settler activity, as was illustrated by the career of Krieger. Like many other early missionaries Krieger acquired the 600 acre estate at Thembigwa in his own name and farmed the land in ad­ dition to setting up a church. In 1906 he sold this land and purchased a tract further inland, severing his formal connection with the GMS and becoming entirely a settler farmer.61 The fullest illustration of a mission using its landholding power to facilitate school attendance was at the Church of Scotland Mission sta­ tion at Thogoto. On this estate there were a large number of Kikuyu families in residence. Some of them were original occupiers having taken up their ithaka there before the arrival of the Scottish mission­ aries while others were tenant farmers either of the original Kikuyu occupying families or of the Scottish mission. As part of an effort to establish control over these families and Christianize them, the CSM head, H. E. Scott, compelled heads of families to sign an agreement to work for a certain number of days on the mission farms and to send a proportion of their children to school. Those who refused to sign were ordered to leave, and a large number of families did in fact leave.62 Much the same occurred at the AIM estate at Kijabe where African families living on mission property had to attend chapel and work on the mission farms.63 Kikuyu chiefs were influential in early school activities although they played a paradoxical role. Some chiefs actually recruited school children for the missionaries. Chief Kioi had a close relationship with the CSM at Thogoto and sent them a number of students, including Musa Gitau, who was to be one of the first Kikuyu ordained in the Scottish mission.64 The Gospel Missionary Society was invited to set up a station and open a school at Kambui by Chief Waweru wa Kanja. Why Waweru and Kioi helped the missionaries is not clear. Kioi's lo­ cation was near the CSM station, and he may have wanted to stand well with the missions. Others may have thought that the government would look with favor on their support of the missions. Since many early Kiambu chiefs were men who had served with Kinyanjui and through travel in the highlands had a knowledge of European ways, it stands to reason that they would want their people to be educated and learn more about the Europeans. In Fort Hall district Chief Karuri displayed an early interest in missionary education, perhaps as a result of the influence of John Boyes. He was eager to send children si Ibid., Vol. 9, January, 1907, p. 4. 62 H. E. Scott to McLachlan, September 25, 1908, Presbyterian Church of East Africa archives (PCEA) A/i and Kikuyu News, No. 42, May, igig and No. 15, No­ vember, 1909. 63 Hearing and Doing, January-June, 1908, pp. 8-9. 64 Interview with Musa Gitau.

Education to 1914— 1 3 1

to school even before missions had commenced to work in his district. He contacted the CMS missionary, A. W. MacGregor, at Kabete and when MacGregor informed him that he could not immediately open a station in Karuri's area, Karuri sent three young men to Kabete to enter the school. They were Daudi Gakure, his son, Joshua Karuri, his nephew, and Johanna Muturi.65 In 1902 MacGregor opened a station near Karuri, then moved his location to Weithaga which was to be­ come the hub of CMS work in the Fort Hall area for a number of years. Paulo Mbatia, the first Kikuyu to be ordained by the CMS, was recruited by Karuri after the CMS had come into Fort Hall. He men­ tioned that in these early years only boys of less important families were sent to schools.66 Because of a falling out with the CMS, Karuri invited the Consolata Fathers into his area, then had a dispute with them, but was finally reconciled, baptized, and married in their church.67 There was another, rather more contradictory way in which chiefs enabled churches and schools to flourish. Mission stations became a refuge from oppression, in the same fashion that squatting was. In a letter to the British Anti-Slavery Society G. H. Goldfinch wrote that "it has also to be remembered that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good and that the more the unhappy heathen is hustled and worried the more temptation there is for individuals to turn to Christianity anyhow for the time being and sit in the sun with a hymn book upside down and watch his pagan friends and relations being commandeered or engaged on the DC's latest motor road."68 Missionaries sought to exploit this situation. In 1917, at the height of wartime recruiting, Tumu Tumu missionaries insisted that students still in school should be exempted from local work obligations. They wanted their scholars to wear distinctive badges so that chiefs would be able to identify them and not call them out on work gangs. More­ over, the missions sought to use the oppression that scholars faced out­ side the missions as a means of obtaining greater commitment from them. Scholars lost their standing if they failed to wear clean clothing, had paint on their head or body, or failed to attend school regularly.69 The Nyeri District Commissioner agreed that scholars in regular at­ tendance should be liable for government work on the basis of two days in every month only.70 The administration's agreement was re65 Weithaga Jubilee /953 Report. ββ Interview with Canon Paulo Mbatia. 67 Cagnolo, The Akikuyu, p. 277; and letter from R. P. Louis Rault, Les Missions Catholiques, Vol. 48, 1916, p. 353. 68 G. H. Goldfinch, "Missions and Missionaries," c. 1923, Anti-Slavery Papers, G 137, Rhodes House, Oxford. 69 M. S. Stevenson to McClure, DC, Nyeri, November 17, 1917, KNA PC/CP 6/5/1. 70 Minutes of Meeting held at CSM, Tumu Tumu, December 4, 1917, ibid.

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luctant, however, as the District Commissioner, McClure, found CMS students refusing to do road work and assaulting the chiefs retainers. Yet when McClure went to the station he found 9 of the 22 pupils un­ able to read the first few letters of the alphabet, and he suspected that they were there only to escape more hated obligations. 71 Kijabe also profited from the oppression of local chiefs. When the station was first opened in 1903, Downing wrote that the nearest Kikuyu village was four miles away. In that year a chief who had been persecuted by an­ other moved his people numbering over a hundred near the mission. In 1908 many Africans moved onto the mission land to escape the op­ pressive rule of a nearby chief. Downing, station director, estimated that three times as many were on the land in 1908 as there had been before. Social change was causing fragmentation within Kikuyu society. Factions were emerging in local communities and struggling for politi­ cal dominance, land, and economic advantages. Christian communities became an important faction in local politics, and they looked to the missionaries to support their interests. Thus the missionaries tried to maintain friendly relations with British officials. If chiefs and their supporters oppressed the Christian community, as many chiefs did because they regarded the Christians as rivals to their power, the mis­ sionaries reported this to British officials. McKenrick of the AIM, Kijabe, noted a bitter rivalry between Christians and non-Christians near the station and sought to protect the Christian group. 72 In 1917 the missions entreated the government to make sure that Christians received fair treatment on the Kikuyu kiamas and native tribunals and that the laws and rulings of these bodies were not incompatible with Christian tenets. 73 After the war the Protestant missionaries had a few converts appointed to the kiamas and then in 1921 four leading, edu­ cated Christians were selected as chiefs in Kiambu district. This achievement enormously enhanced the standing and the appeal of the missionaries and Christianity, for in the turbulent, competitive politi­ cal climate of the early colonial regime in Kikuyuland the ability of a faction to gain an advantage counted for a great deal. The missions also came to rely on the coercive powers of the state to undercut resistance to education. Not only did they begin to obtain funds from the state for education before 1914, but they were able to have their advanced students sign special, indenture contracts obligat71 Memorandum-Affray at CMS, Ndegwa's location, H. W. McClure, January 5, 1917, KNA DC/NYI/10. 72 F. McKenrick to O. R. Palmer, January 17, 1916, AIM Archives. 73 Dagoretti, Annual Report, 1916-17, p. 11, G.A.G. Lane, KNA DC/KBU/10.

Education to 1914—133 ing them to complete their term of training. Hence if students left school before they had completed their education, the missions could turn to the state and have these students returned. In order to under­ stand how this mission-state relationship came into being, it is neces­ sary to consider the educational views of these two groups as they were evolving before the war. Both were displaying an interest in what was called industrial and technical education—that is the training of individuals for certain specific occupations, mainly artisan, such as carpentry, masonry, bricklaying, stonecutting, and agriculture, but also including teaching. While the missions regarded a measure of lit­ erary training as essential, if only to read the Bible and adhere to Christianity, their leaders were growing apprehensive about produc­ ing young men able to read and write English, but disaffected from their traditional environment because of their education and often un­ able to find work. They feared this element's opposition to colonial rule and missionary goals. Indeed the CMS had discussed the possibility of establishing a technical school in the East Africa Protectorate in 1903 at a meeting at Freretown.74 The first industrial school to be estab­ lished in the highlands was set up by the AIM at Kijabe in 1906. Be­ lieving that his mission could not just give religious instruction but must also provide some practical training, C. E. Hurlburt envisaged a program of technical training on a massive scale and talked about instruction in shoemaking, printing, stonecutting, blacksmithing, tailor­ ing, carpentry, and tanning.75 The AIM industrial school was be­ gun in September, 1906 much more modestly, however, with training in bricklaying and carpentry.76 Hurlburt and other mission leaders felt that this type of education would equip Africans with skills and would be useful to the settler population as well. "The fact that a large part of the upland country is being settled by white people," he wrote, "makes the need greater for a wide range of trades to be taught."77 The state shared these sentiments and welcomed these efforts. The Direc­ tor of Education, J. R. Orr, was an advocate of "practical training." In a letter to Arthur he wrote that educators should not confuse educa­ tion "with mere reading and writing. . . . Reading and writing while necessary to efficient, skilled labor should always be the handmaid of industry."78 The settlers were equally enthusiastic, for they hoped to be able to employ African artisans and eventually to see this class re"4 Minutes of Freretown Executive Committee, August 4, 1903, CMS archives, Kenya. 78 C. E. Hurlburt, "An Industrial School," February 22, 1906, Hearing and Doing, April-June, 1906, p. 8. 76 Hearing and Doing, October-December, 1906, pp. 3-4. 77 Ibid., April-June, 1906, p. 8. 78 Orr to Arthur, December 24, 1913, PCEA, f. Education.

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place the Asians whom the settlers regarded then as the prime threat to their economic and political power in Kenya. H. E. Scott at the CSM, Thogoto tried to persuade colonists that the most certain way of supplanting the Asian population was to train African artisans in mis­ sion schools. 79 A major government report on African education was issued by J. Nelson Fraser from Bombay University in 1909 calling upon the gov­ ernment to emphasize industrial education for the African popula­ tion. 80 The government did endeavor to encourage technical training through a modest scheme of government grants, paying £2 to missions for each student under technical training and £5 for each person who completed his course and successfully passed a state examination. The CSM and AIM took the lead in industrial education, although the AIM refused to take government grants. Thogoto specialized in carpentry, stonecutting and masonry, bricklaying, agriculture, and teacher train­ ing while Tumu Tumu provided hospital training and evangelical work. 81 In 1922 the CMS started technical education at Kahuhia. The AIM at Kijabe continued to expand their technical programs. By 1910 they had established sawmill and cement work and introduced stone­ cutting and laying. 82 Individuals under technical training, for whom state aid was paid, were indentured by the state. They were brought before a district officer and signed a contract stipulating that they would study a particular trade for a requisite number of years. Should they run away, the state had the power to bring them back. At Thogoto, H. E. Scott saw this arrangement as a solution to their problem of absenteeism and desertions. 83 In 1908 Scott admitted that students ran away from school so much that the mission was constantly being forced to proclaim school holidays. 84 There were at this time two levels of mission schools; preliminary or bush schools where students were given a few years' instruction in reading and writing and central schools where they studied two or three additional years and mastered some occupation. The central schools were boarding schools and had a demanding schedule of class­ room assignments, rules of behavior, and work requirements. Many students found the schedule harsh and inflexible and deserted after they had been there for a short while. 85 There was another type of de79

H. E. Scott to McLachlan, February 22, 1911, PCEA A/9. East African Protectorate, Education Report, 1909. si Kikuyu News, No. 16, January, 1910. 82 Handing Over Report, Kiambu District, 1910, H. R. Tate, including letter from Downing to Tate, July 26, 1910, KNA DC/KBU/2. 83 H. E. Scott, letter, October 22, 1909, Kikuyu News, No. 16, January, 1910. 84 H. E. Scott, letter, November 24, 1908, Kikuyu News, No. 10, March igog. 8^ Annual Report, Kikuyu, 1911, Kikuyu News, No. 36, June, 1912, p. 22. 80

Education to 1914—-135 sertion which the missions were equally concerned to curb. Because there were so few well-trained Africans at this time, the demand for anyone with a modicum of education was great, and the temptations to leave school for lucrative employment before a student had com­ pleted his course were enormous. The indenture law prohibited this curtailment of education as well. Thus the practice of indenturing stu­ dents enabled the missions to rely on the state to return those who had signed contracts and then left. According to Musa Gitau, a number of CSM deserters were brought back by the state in the initial years.86 Most Kikuyu entered schools in the first colonial decade not because they were aware of the new economic opportunities of education. There were, of course, exceptional individuals, who because they had traveled more widely or had greater opportunities to interact with Europeans or had a better understanding of the permanence of Euro­ pean rule enrolled in schools of their own accord and expected to gain from education. But by and large the first group of individuals trained in mission schools were forced into the classroom by chiefs or looked to the missions as a refuge from political oppression and economic hardship. Many of the first schoolgoers were there, as the first wage laborers were in the fields, because they were economically and politi­ cally vulnerable to the control and exploitation of the new emerging colonial collaborators. Unlike the wage laborers, however, these young men and women saw their fate dramatically bettered. The missions supported their followers and eventually turned them from an oftpersecuted and beleaguered group to a powerful elite, well repre­ sented in local government and able to look after their own interests. The mission impact added new divisive elements to a Kikuyu society already fragmenting under the impact of colonial rule. Colonial chiefs undermined traditional age-grading and the relationship between elders and warriors. The missions called into existence a Christian community set off from the non-Christians and an educated element, differentiated among themselves by the quality and amount of their education and set off from the uneducated. Although the East African Scottish mission was the first to establish itself among the Kamba through its station at Kibwezi, the dominant mission working there was the AIM. Its early record was one of trag­ edy and suffering. Peter Cameron Scott opened the first station at Nzaui in 1895, and in the next year when his party had been swelled from 8 to 15, he founded additional stations at Sakai, Kilungu, and Kangundo.87 Scott spent much of his first and only year trying to estab8« Interview with Musa Gitau. 87 Excerpts from his diary were published in Hearing and Doing, May and July, 1896.

136—Education to 1914 Iish a farm at Nzaui in an effort to make the station self-supporting. He had enough time, however, to open a small school, attended mainly by outsiders—Nyamwezi, Zanzibari, Sudanese, and Banyoro—and only a few Kamba.88 Yet in 1896 the new mission was in disarray. Scott and two others were dead; his parents and sister who had made up the original party of 8, had left the mission to live at Machakos. Others had returned to the United States. In 1898 the only missionary in East Africa was Hotchkiss, and he resigned when W. G. Bangert replaced him. The next year was a time of trial, for the Kamba were struck by a famine. Bangert spent most of his time dispensing whatever food he could procure as well as medicines. He witnessed such awful scenes of suffering and was so often besieged at the station by Africans des­ perate for food that his nerves were shattered and he was forced to withdraw. Later in 1902 he wrote that he continued to have night­ mares of those terrifying days and would sometimes awaken from a dream of holding a gun in front of his house fending off imaginary Afri­ cans besieging him for food.89 After the famine had passed and new missionaries had arrived, the AIM began to open more stations: Machakos in 1902; Mbooni in 1908; and Mukaa, taken over from the CMS in 1909. The famine had enabled the mission to make some early gains. In 1899 Bangert wrote of Kangundo Africans coming in great numbers to the station and wanting to build there in hope of getting food and protection at a time when there was a great deal of violence within Kamba society and between the Kamba and the Kikuyu.90 Also, the station undertook to rear 16 orphans between the ages of 3 and 15 whose parents had died in the famine. Still the missions did not make many inroads before 1914. There was no great upsurge of interest in Christianity or education. In large part the AIM was tolerated and ig­ nored, except at Kangundo where E. J. Harrison's inflexible attitudes and continual interference in the daily affairs of the people aroused open opposition.91 In Kitui where the Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Leipzig had opened stations the results were similarly disappointing. When the mission left Kitui during the war, their record was hardly imposing. They had baptized 95 Christians, had 2 African agents, 3 rudimentary schools, 22 boy students and 6 girl students.92 When A. F. Waechter, an AIM missionary went to one of these stations to bring it under AIM 88 P. C. Scott, Annual Report, i b i d . , January, 1897, pp. 8-12. 89 I b i d . , September-October, 1902, p. 3. 90 I b i d ., October, 1899, p. 2. 91 Machakos District Political Record Book, December 1, 1911, K. R. Dundas, p. 172, KNA DC/MKS 4/1. 92 C. Paul to C. E. Hurlburt, August 16, 1915, Oldham Papers, Box 248, f. Leipzig Mission.

Education to

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control in 1915, he delivered his first sermon in the rough chapel there to 6 persons.93 This was the total impact of 3 Europeans working for nearly 25 years. In 1909 J. B. Ainsworth, brother of John Ainsworth, began the first government African school in Kenya at Kitui. Established as a school for sons of chiefs this experiment lasted a scant 4 years. The Kitui Kamba were profoundly disinterested, and students were only pro­ cured when government officials insisted that chiefs send children. The administration was disappointed in the African teacher, Arthur Sheti, a Giriama, trained at the' coast, who taught in Swahili. District Com­ missioner Osborne was horrified to discover that Sheti was interjecting religious training in the curriculum and using the Prayer Book and Bible stories to teach reading. To the chagrin of the administration the young Giriama teacher took his students to a Christian wedding.94 The government school was supposed to provide secular education, and government officials hoped that education disassociated from religious training would be palatable to the Kamba. Of course, it was virtually impossible to recruit teachers who had not been trained by the mis­ sions or to find reading materials which missions had not had a hand in preparing. As the administration grew disinterested in the school, the Kamba ceased to send their children, and it passed out of existence in 1913. Among the three highland peoples the most promising initial edu­ cational experiment seemed to be taking place in Maasailand. The mis­ sionary effort there was bound up with two extraordinary personali­ ties, John W. Stauffacher and his wife, Florence Minch Stauffacher. John Stauffacher was born and raised on a farm in southern Wisconsin about thirty miles from Madison. Even as a youngster his domineering religious ways earned him the nickname, "the preacher." He attended the Bible School of Northwestern College at Naperville, Illinois, where he became involved in the Christian Student Volunteer Movement which had grown out of a series of summer student religious confer­ ences organized by Moody. The volunteer movement had as its motto "the evangelization of the world in this generation." He also met his future wife, Florence Minch there. These two AIM agents were among the first fruits of Hurlburt's efforts to extend AIM influence beyond Pennsylvania. In 1903 John Stauffacher went to Africa and was given responsibility for Maasai evangelism. In 1905 he was joined by Flor­ ence Minch, and they were married there.95 93 Hearing and Doing, October-December, 1915, January-March, 1916, p. 13. 94 Kitui District, Quarterly Report, September, 1910, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/ MKS 1/1/3 an( l Ukamba Province, Quarterly Report, 1909, p. 152, C. W. Hobley, KNA DC/MKS 1/5/1. as Josephine Hope Westervelt, On Safari for God, pp. nff.

138—Education to 1914

Even in a fundamentalist and strongly evangelical mission, John Stauffacher counted himself on the extreme. He believed in the inerrant Scriptures and was almost violently opposed to modernist cur­ rents in religious thinking. He took exception to one of the AIM lead­ ers, Lee Downing, assuming the chairmanship of the Kenya Missionary Council in the 1920s.96 He also opposed a combined missionary pro­ posal to establish a "central college" in Kenya just after World War I for fear that such an institution would be used to inculcate modernist religious ideas. As a person Stauffacher was given to extremes in his moods, fluctuating from intense and joyous optimism to enervating moments of gloom. For this reason one must read his remarkably de­ tailed and personally revealing Maasai letters with considerable caution. In his early contacts with the Maasai Stauffacher traveled about the Rift Valley sleeping under a tent, and even on one occasion spending a night in a Maasai kraal. His perseverance yielded results, for in 1904 and again in 1905 Stauffacher was invited to hold meetings with the so-called paramount chief of the Maasai, Olonana. The 1905 meeting was arranged by Agale Ol Guriso, half brother of Olonana and augured bright prospects for the future. At this meeting, held in Nai­ robi and attended by Olonana, Senteu, subcommissioner Ainsworth, 30 influential Maasai elders, and Stauffacher, Olonana invited the AIM to work among his people. Senteu also extended promises of his help. The Maasai leaders asked that they might have a teacher for their chil­ dren and promised to send as many children as needed up to 40. Since the students were to be sent by their parents and registered by the subcommissioner, Stauffacher felt that "we can hold the boys in perfect discipline having all the powers back of us."97 Stauffacher proposed to establish a mission station about eight miles from Nairobi where in addition to schooling, which he believed "must be one of the leading features of the Maasai work," he hoped to evangelize at least 20 vil­ lages, containing approximately 100 people, mostly permanently set­ tled. He also wanted to attract a large number of poor Maasai clus­ tered about Nairobi and intended to set them to gardening, believing that "only as the Maasai begin cultivation and industry . . . can they hope to continue to exist as a tribe."98 Although nothing came of this proposal, possibly because Olonana ββ John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, February 23, 1927, f. AIM History, AIM Archives. 97 John W. Stauffacher to Florence Minch, June 13, 1905, Stauffacher Letters, Kenya. ο» Stauffacher to Culley, July 11, 1905, Hearing and Doing, October, 1905, p. 6.

Education to

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did not have the powers of a chief and could not deliver the boys he promised, Stauffacher's efforts did produce a small Maasai Christian community. Two of his followers were men who had been converted to Christianity before his arrival: Josiah Shanga, whom Stauffacher engaged as a teacher and evangelist and a man named Enoch. Shanga had been baptized many years before, had learned to read, write, and speak English, and even spent 18 months in England with a CMS mis­ sionary, returning to Africa as a member of Pilkington's expedition to Uganda." Another individual only identified as "Enoch" in occasional references in the AIM journal, was a Kamasia Maasai, who had been taken to Mombasa as a young man and spent several years at the Freretown mission where he studied in the Divinity School, became fluent in Swahili, and gained a fair understanding of English. Later he became a teacher and evangelist among the Kikuyu and went with Stauffacher to Olonana's kraal, expressing to the American missionary his enthusiasm for mission work.100 Although both Shanga and "Enoch" ceased to work with Stauffacher for awhile, they rejoined him when he moved his station to Rumuruti in Laikipia. Enoch was still serving the AIM in the early 1920s translating hymns into Maasai and serving as head teacher in the mission school.101 While these two men had little standing among the traditional Maasai, having lived for so long outside their society, the same could not be said of Stauffacher's outstanding protege, Molonket ole Sempele. The son of a once powerful and wealthy Kakonyukie Maasai who had nine wives and large herds before the rinderpest epidemic, Sempele was a young lected to be a leader (the il-majuli sirit).102 sionary work and was His opportunity came

man of high traditional standing who was se­ (Iaigwenak) of a Kakonyukie warrior company Around 1900, Sempele had learned about mis­ curious to gain a knowledge of European ways. when Stauffacher sought a Maasai to teach him

the language. In November, 1903, Sempele volunteered, being paid 3 rupees a month for this work. He taught Stauffacher Maasai, while Stauffacher taught him English. In September, 1904, Sempele was bap­ tized.103 Yet because of his traditional position he was always under great pressure from other Kakonyukie to leave the mission station and rejoin his tribe. He resisted many entreaties, but finally yielded at the end of 1904 or the beginning of 1905, at the time of the first Maasai Stauffacher to My Dear Brother, March 31, 1905, ibid., July, 1905, p. 7. !0° Stauffacher, "The Prodigal Son," ibid., October-December, 1907, p. 7. 101 Mrs. George Woodley, "The Road to Syabei," Inland Africa, January, P. 3· 102 Ngong Political Record Book, KNA DC/KAJ 1 / 2 / 2 . 103 Stauffacher to Fellow Workers, Hearing and Doing, April-May, 1905, pp.

1922,

7-9.

140—Education to 1914 move, apparently to participate in the circumcision ceremonies and to become a warrior.104 Although he promised to return to the station, he did not. Stauffacher finally located him at Naivasha living in great dis­ tress. Sempele told the American missionary that his people were bitter about the move from the Rift Valley and were refusing to stay on the lands allocated to them. He declined to desert them in this time of hardship.105 Yet by 1906 Sempele had left his warrior company and rejoined Stauffacher in his new Rumuruti station. Formally renouncing his Maasai office before a government administrator, Sempele took up residence at Rumuruti and began to cultivate a field. In 1909 his desire to learn more about white men prompted him to accompany the Stauffachers on their American furlough. Sempele studied in Afro-American schools in North Carolina and Boydton, Virginia, and he did not return to East Africa until 1913.106 Having little success with his mission near Ngong, in 1905 Stauffacher decided to follow the northern Maasai in their move to Laikipia and to open a station at Rumuruti. Once again waxing eloquent about God's plan for the Maasai, Stauffacher was full of optimism and en­ thusiasm. He felt that Laikipia, with its inadequate grazing, would soon drive these people to farming. He saw the Maasai at a time of "great and sudden changes" when they would either lose heart and be­ come extinct or "their present condition will cause them to break away from their old customs and seek new things."107 Surveying the new re­ serve, Stauffacher located his 100 acre station in a swampy, but fertile section of the Guaso Nyiro river basin—part of a large area Stauffacher estimated to be about 1,000 acres, capable of growing all kinds of foods during any season of the year. Here Stauffacher hoped to attract the poorer Maasai and to engage them in farming which he continued to believe would be the salvation of the tribe. He favored agriculture not only because of its economic benefits but also because he saw it as undermining the attachment to pastoralism and opening the Maasai to transforming change, including education and Christianity. Stauffacher was certain that this was God's plan for the Maasai and wrote to the readers of the AIM journal that "Satan has tried in every way to overcome me. I have met only one man outside our mission, Mr. Gilkison [Rumuruti District Officer] who had any words of hope whatever ιοί John W. Stauffacher to Florence Minch, March 1, 1905, Stauffacher Letters, Kenya. 1 OsStauffacher to My Dear Brother, March 31, 1905, Hearing and Doing, July, 1905, p. 8. 1 OBlbid., April-June, 1912, p. 14. 107 Stauffacher to My Dear Brother, March 31, 1905, ibid., July, 1905, p. η.

Education to 1914—141 for the tribe and yet, as I said before, I say again, God has his plan, and it cannot and will not fail."108 At first the mission realized some successes. Assisted by Shanga, Enoch, and Sempele and for a few years three other American mission­ aries, the mission school took in 10 pupils and was forced to turn away others for want of space. Those missionaries who could be spared from work at the station traveled around to the Maasai kraals in the vicinity, making contact with approximately 150 people.109 The most notable convert during this period was Tagi Olobosioki ole Kindi. Along with other young Maasai Kindi had joined the East Africa Protectorate's African army and had risen to the rank of Sergeant. Attending the mis­ sion school at Rumuruti, run at that time by Bertha Simpson, Kindi decided to leave government service, despite a promise of a promotion to Sergeant-Major and a raise in pay. Kindi proved to be an apt pupil, indeed a most remarkable linguist. Within a short while he was able to read English, Swahili, Kikuyu, and Maasai; as an evangelical preacher he had few peers. Reading from an English Bible, he was able to make simultaneous translations into Kikuyu, Maasai, and Swa­ hili. His great contribution to missionary endeavors was his Maasai translation of the New Testament, completed and published just be­ fore his tragic death in a shooting accident in 1923.110 Although the school was at first a minor success, its existence de­ pended in large part on the mission's paying students to attend. The routine of work and study was arduous. Rising at 7:00, the students were set to work in the mission garden until 9:00. Classes then began and continued until noon, including a short religious service. From noon to 5:30 the pupils worked on the buildings or whatever needed to be done at the station. But when the money ran out and students were asked to attend without pay, attendance declined. In 1908, the Rumuruti school, with 5 missionaries overseeing its activities, had only 2 small girls, 1 grown-up girl, 2 young boys, and 6 grown-up boys, all of whom, Stauffacher admitted, were held up to "continual ridicule."111 In 1909 Stauffacher went on leave to help recruit agents for the AIM entry into the Belgian Congo. He left the work in the hands of the Barnetts, but when the Maasai were again moved, the AIM terminated its work, not to resume until 1918. The Stauffachers went to the Congo in 1912. Just before John Stauffacher left, he presented a paper to an AIM conference at Kijabe where he argued that the mission "dare not limit 108

Stauffacher to Culley, September 28, 1905, ibid., p. 3. 109 Stauffacher to Dear Friends at Home, ibid., April-June, 1906, pp. 11-13. no Obituary by Stauffacher, Inland Africa, December, 1923, pp. 5-7. 111 Hearing and Doing, January-June, 1908, pp. 5-7.

142—Education to 1914

ourselves to a few for a long period of questionable development while millions exist who know not even the name of Christ. . . . Never, never let us get the idea that we have a certain small sphere for which alone we are held responsible and the rest of the world may care for itself the best it can."112 While these words certainly bespoke the general AIM evangelical philosophy of continuous movement into new regions, perhaps Stauffacher was also trying to reconcile himself to leaving the Maasai, with so much undone. For a brief period during the war the CSM also became involved with the Maasai. At the request of "paramount chief" Seggi, J. W. Ar­ thur opened a school at Ngong and sent a young Maasai convert, Paul Lekimani, as teacher and preacher. Lekimani was a Kaputiei who had attended the CMS school at Kabete after having been a personal at­ tendant to Lord Delamere; he had been baptized and worked on a farm at Limuru for eight years.113 At first two of Masikonte's sons attended, but when they were put to work, Masikonte withdrew them and sent them to the AIM station at Kijabe.114 The Ngong school also collapsed from lack of interest, although a small Christian community persisted around Lekimani. These Maasai Christians eventually joined with the CSM community at Thogoto and were later under the Kikuyu pastor, Musa Gitau.115 Why then was the record of evangelical and educational endeavors among the Maasai so dismal, particularly in light of the StaufEachers' enormous commitment. No doubt part of the failure stemmed from the attitudes and methods employed by the Stauffachers themselves. They tended to accept the widespread idea that the Maasai were a declining people and wrote often about "this fast disappearing old tribe."116 To arrest decline John Stauffacher felt that drastic measures were in or­ der, and for this reason he tried to foster experiments in agriculture and to break the Maasai reliance on stock-rearing. Comparing the Maasai and Kikuyu, Stauffacher predicted a bright future for the Kikuyu because they were willing to work for Europeans, at almost any wage, and were eager to trade agricultural surpluses. He antici­ pated that the Kikuyu would learn new skills and grow wealthy in the colonial period. In contrast the Maasai were not willing to work under the authority of another person or for low wages and were reluctant nz Ibid., October-December, 1912, p. 4. Interview with Paul Lekimani and Narok District, Annual Report, 1914-15, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/1 and Memorandum by Canon Harry Leakey, November 29, 1932, KLC, Evidence, 1, 851. Arthur to Weir, December 20, 1928, PCEA. us Interview with Lois Nyaiku. 1Je StaufFacher to Culley, September 28, 1905, Hearing and Doing, December, 1905, p. 1. 113

Education to 1914—143

to dispose of their stock. While Stauffacher's critique of the two socie­ ties had elements of truth in it, his effort to bring dramatic transforma­ tion to the Maasai made people suspicious of the AIM station and reluctant to send their children to school. Another reason for the failure was that the small Christian commu­ nity at Rumuruti had little impact on the rest of Maasai society. The Maasai lived dispersed and not many had an opportunity to come into contact with converts or missionaries. Moreover, most of the converts, with the exception of Sempele, were men of low traditional standing who had little influence over others. Many had not gone through the traditional tribal ceremonies and had not become warriors. Even Sempele had renounced his position in the tribe and had shaved his head and put on new clothes, to symbolize his break with the past. People living at the station were called Olashumba, meaning Swahili or foreigner.117 They tended to be poor. They had few cattle and eked out their living through agriculture, which the traditional Maasai despised. Thus, unlike the first group of educated Kikuyu, who became clerks, teachers, and evangelists and through earning good salaries were objects of envy to other Kikuyus, the impoverished life of the Rumuruti community held little appeal for others. The station was to be avoided, as Stauffacher noted when he remarked that individuals who came to the station displayed fear and were relieved to get away.118 Perhaps the chief reason for failure was the inability of the mission to attract members of the warrior class, who in other tribes, were con­ stituting the bulk of the first schoolgoers. Young children were under the influence of their parents and were needed in the family economy. Warriors had more independence from parental control, and with the curtailment of raiding much less defined political and economic duties than previously. The Maasai warriors had a strong sense of esprit and tradition, and as the efforts to induce Sempele to rejoin his warrior band made clear, these traditions were retained during the early co­ lonial period. From the moment Sempele went to the AIM station in 1903, at least until 1908 he was constantly besieged with pleas and threats to return. The Kakonyukie section sent a delegation of women to plead with him and later a delegation of warriors to argue with him. He was offered bribes and threatened with curses and poisoning. His mother entreated him and sat under a tree near the station, claiming that she would not move until he returned. That these pressures had an effect on Sempele was demonstrated by the number of times he left the station to live with his people. More importantly, these incidents Ibid.., January-June, 1908, p. 6. us Ibid., January, 1907, p. 10.

144—Education to

1914

suggest the kinds of peer-group and tribal sanctions that must have prevented other warriors from leaving their people. Sempele's defec­ tion was rationalized by saying that he had been bewitched by Stauffacher. By the commencement of World War I the African educational scene was probably as chaotic as wage laboring and as much in need of regu­ lation. The role of the missions was dominant, but Director Orr was devising schemes for establishing government schools. The Kikuyu were more deeply involved in education than their highland neigh­ bors. They were about to experience an educational take-off in the 1920s. In contrast the Maasai schools were closed, a dismal failure in the light of the Stauffachers' efforts. Although the AIM maintained schools among the Kamba, no great enthusiasm existed there.

CHAPTER VII

Labor in the 1920s

The decade of the 1920s was a period of relative prosperity for settler farming and might even be called the golden age of European agricul­ ture. Coffee, sisal, maize, and tea became Kenya's leading exports. As settler farming expanded, so did its needs for labor, and the 1920s was again marked by labor shortages and sharp labor disputes. In order to understand African laboring, the fluctuation in its supply and demand, and continued strained government-settler relations over this issue, it is necessary to present further background data on European agricul­ ture and to consider the role the state played in supporting the Euro­ pean farming population. The decade of the 1920s did not open auspiciously. The return of Europeans who had fought in the war and an influx of new settlers— the ex-soldiers—put more men on the land than had ever been there before. Labor shortages became acute and provoked the greatest labor controversy in Kenya's modern history. There were also currency fluc­ tuations. After the war the value of the rupee soared from its prewar standard of is. 4d. to 2s. iod. at one stage. In negotiations with Gov­ ernors Coryndon and Northey of Uganda and Kenya in London, the Colonial Office fixed the exchange rate of the rupee at 2s., in spite of Northey's objections.1 Northey did not believe that the rupee would be able to maintain its high value, and his fears proved correct. Al­ though the rupee declined, the Colonial Office refused to alter the ex­ change ratio. At the new rate Kenyans received more English shillings for their rupees than they had before the war, but Kenya's exports, on which the settlers relied so heavily, earned fewer rupees and conse­ quently the heavily indebted farmers had less money to pay their Kenya creditors. In effect this change in rates meant that the indebted­ ness of Kenya farmers increased by 50 per cent. Finally there was a downswing in world prices at the end of 1920, just when settler agri­ culture appeared to be making strong advances. Coffee export earn­ ings fell from £244,468 in 1919 to £92,507 in ig2o; the export value 1 J) 20 of maize which had risen from £21,437 in 1919 to £113.973 fell precipitously to £14,762 in 1921, aided by severe drought condi1 Northey to Under Secretary of State, January 7, 1920, PRO CO 533/253.

146—Labor in the 1920s tions.2 One commodity was dealt a blow from which it never recov­ ered: flax. Many settlers had pinned their hopes on this crop at the end of the war; the decline in prices destroyed the experiment. These setbacks forced the state and the settlers to reevaluate their agricultural programs. The state carried out a general retrenchment in spending but at the same time made new efforts to aid European agriculture. In 1922 and 1923 a special committee, called the Bowring Committee, examined the hard-pressed Kenya economy; its final re­ port, published in 1923, indicated the directions of economic activity in Kenya in the 1920s. The Bowring Committee argued that Kenya farmers should concentrate on maize cultivation which would provide the railway with bulk shipping. It also recommended that the railway rates be reduced on commodities bound for export while higher rates be charged on inbound traffic. Finally, it proposed a new tariff struc­ ture, designed to protect and promote settler agricultural activities by erecting tariffs on wheat, flour, and various dairy products.3 These recommendations were carried into effect. Although in the long run many were found lacking, they stimulated a major advance in Kenya agriculture which was sustained until the depression of 1929. In this period the value of Kenya's exports rose from £669,020 in 19191920 to £2,839,492 in 1928.4 Accompanying this export expansion was a growth in the European population—from 9,651 in the census of 1921 to 16,812 in 1931. The farming population nearly doubled. In 1920 there were 1,183 European occupiers in possession of 3,157,440 acres while in 1930 there were 2,097 occupiers holding 5,111,161 acres.5 Maize underwent a remarkable expansion, and though it was not as large a revenue earner as coffee, it was by far the most widely grown European crop. The type of maize grown by European farmers was known as flat white maize. Consisting of hybrids of hickory, Natal white horse tooth, and ladysmith white, this maize was different from the mixed, yellow maize traditionally grown by African farmers.6 The amount of land planted in maize rose from 32,109 acres in 1919-1920 to 215,960 in 1928 and its export earnings grew from £113,973 in 19191920 to £505,893 in 1927.7 Not only was maize grown for export; it was also purchased in large quantities by state labor employing depart­ ments and settler farmers since it was the staple commodity in the food 2 Taken from the Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture. 3 Kenya, Final Reports of the Economic and Financial Committee, 1922-23. 4 Kenya, Report of the Agriculture Commission, 1929, p. 1. 0 Department of Agriculture, A Decade of Agricultural Progress in Kenya, A. Holm, 1931, p. 1. β Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1924, p. 4. ι Department of Agriculture, Annual Reports and Kenya, Report of the Agricul­ ture Commission, 1929, p. 45.

Labor in the 1920s—147 rations allocated to African employees. In general, in the 1920s Euro­ pean-grown flat

white maize was exported and African-grown maize,

both mixed and some flat force.

white, was used to feed the African labor

The state was so optimistic about the prospects of maize cultivation even for European settlers with little farming experience and average savings that it wrote this glowing account in 1924 as an inducement for men to come to Kenya as farmers: "Maize is an easy crop to grow and harvest and the rules are so simple that any intelligent man can get to know how to do it in a matter of a few months. A novice need not fear making a start for himself. . . . Let it be said in all earnestness that to the right sort of man with a capital of £2000 to 3000 the pursuit of maize growing in Kenya offers no illusory promise. It is a golden certainty." 8 While the expansion of maize was the most spectacular development of the 1920s, other commodities also prospered. Wheat cultivation ex­ panded from 4,613 acres in 1920 to 88,429 in 1928; coffee from 27,813 to 84,073 and sisal from 30,698 to 91,909. Coffee became the major rev­ enue earner, its export value being £1,140,540 in 1927 compared with £7 1 ,545 in 1919-1920, the export value of sisal in 1928 was £330,315. 9 The state greatly assisted this agricultural expansion by providing a number of supports including research programs at the Agricultural Department, labor recruiting pressures, and favorable tax policies. Two other influential supports were its railway rating policy and tariff protection. The railway was a special object of interest to settlers. Some of the most heated and sophisticated debates in the Kenya Legis­ lative Council occurred over railway rating, and though this subject was exceedingly complex and technical, the unofficial members of Kenya's parliament were masters of its details. The railway had begun to reduce some of its downward traffic rates before World War I, but there was general consensus that these rates were still high and an im­ pediment to agricultural expansion. Speaking to the Legislative Coun­ cil in July, 1920, Governor Northey promised reform, stating that cheap transportation was a goal of his administration. 10 As a consequence, F. D. Hammond was sent from England to investigate and wrote a report critical of previous policies. He said that the railway had been run as a revenue earning branch of the Kenya administration between 1903 and 1921 during which period the Kenya government had ex8

Kenya Empire Exhibition Council, Kenya, its Industries, Trade, Sports, and

Climate (Nairobi, 1924), pp. 69-72. 9 Department of Agriculture, A nnual Reports. 10 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, Second Session, 1920, pp. 104-105.

148—Labor in the 1920s tracted £1.7 million from its receipts, while creating no betterment fund or replacing old equipment. Hammond proposed taking the rail­ way administration out of the hands of the Kenya government, estab­ lishing a railway council for its governance, using surpluses generated by railway receipts for modernizing equipment, and laying aside money for future use. He also felt that railway receipts would expand most rapidly and the country would be benefited economically if the railway pared its downward rates in order to facilitate exports while keeping its inward rates high. Although Delamere and others criticized the Hammond report for wresting control of the railway administration from Kenya, its recom­ mendations were generally implemented and proved of enormous ben­ efit to Kenya's settlers. In 1922 C.L.N. Felling was made General Man­ ager of the Uganda Railway, and a railway council was established, with the Governor of Kenya as the High Commissioner of Transport and 4 official and 4 unofficial members drawn from Kenya and Uganda. Felling became a popular administrator with the settlers, especially Delamere, who ceaselessly congratulated him in the Legisla­ tive Council for his handling of railway matters. Although Felling maintained ample betterment funds, he implemented the settler policy of reducing downward rates, thereby stimulating increased agricul­ tural exports. An important and controversial reform enacted during these years was the rating of maize at is. per bag shipped from any station on the main line. In order to pay for cheap downward traffic, inbound goods tended to pay high rates. One of the commodities charged at the highest rate was cotton cloth which was an important consumer product of the African population. Moreover, the railway also supported settler farming by providing them with what were called country produce rates. The railway charged low rates for cer­ tain commodities railed inside East Africa, such as wheat, flour, and dairy produce, while the same commodities paid higher rates if they were first imported into the country. This rating policy served as an in­ direct tariff on imports and thus provided additional protection to settler economic interests.11 A second important government support, also recommended by the Bowring Committee, was tariff protection. Until the conclusion of World War I, East African customs were regulated by the Brussels and Berlin conventions. These duties were changed in 1922 and 1923 by the governments of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika Territory.12 11

M. F. Hill, The Permanent Way: The Story of the Kenya and Uganda Railway

(Nairobi, 1949), pp. 419-440. 12 Speech by the Kenya Treasurer, R. C. Grannum, Record of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, December 31, 1923, p. 86.

Labor in the 1920s —149 The new schedule of tariffs benefited the European farmers by estab­ lishing a 30 per cent import duty on maize meal, wheat, and flour,

a

duty of is. per lb. on butter and cheese, and protection for bacon and ham. 13 The settlers had a considerable interest in all of these products; the duties, in conjunction with an East African customs union and favorable railway rates, enabled the European community in Kenya to exploit the East Africa market. They had particular success in flour. In 1922 Kenya flour supplied less than half the local East African need; by 1928 it supplied most of it. 14 Tariff arrangements were altered in 1930 to give Uganda and Tan­ ganyika Territory fairer treatment. The 1930 schedule established a low basic duty to provide revenue and allowed each colony to enact additional duties, as a means of affording protection to its own in­ dustries. In this way Uganda and Tanganyika were kept in the cus­ toms union without sacrificing their economic interests to those of Kenya. 15 In the 1920s the state assisted the maize export industry by agree­ ing to inspect, grade, and condition maize bound for export. Before 1923 maize had merely been shelled and put in bags for export. Since much of it was of inferior quality, had weevil infection, and was mixed flat white and yellow, its reputation abroad was poor, and it com­ manded low prices. 16 In 1923 the state undertook the compulsory grading of exported maize, 17 and in 1924 it established a conditioning plant at Mombasa where maize was dried under regulated condi­ tions. 18 The reputation of Kenya's maize improved enabling it to obtain higher prices. These were important props of settler agriculture—an importance sometimes ignored by state and settler as they basked in the prosperity of the 1920s. But the depression brought a decline in world commodity prices and revealed just how precarious Kenya's agrarian economy was and how much it relied on government supports, which an im­ pecunious state in the 1930s found so much more difficult to sustain. Much of European agriculture was economically marginal. In fact, European agriculture can be divided roughly into two groups—the individual farmer or "colonist" who owned a relatively small planta13 There were attacks against these tariffs as injurious to the Asians and Africans by W. MacGregor Ross and B. S. Varma in Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legis­ lative Council, May 25, 1922. 14 Hill, The Permanent Way, p. 489. is Ibid., p. 491. is Elspeth Huxley, No Easy Way: A History of the Kenya Farmers' Association

and Unga Limited (Nairobi, 1957), p. 53. 17 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1923, p. 13. 18 Ibid., 1924, p. 10.

150—Labor in the

1920s

tion and the heavily capitalized European agricultural company or in­ dividual, like Delamere, who ran large estates where crops like tea and sisal were often raised.19 It was this first group of "colonist" farmers who constituted the majority of the settlers and whose economic well being was so precarious. These farmers raised crops like maize, wheat, and coffee which African farmers could cultivate more cheaply be­ cause they were willing to work on lesser profit margins. The settlers needed large profit margins if they were to maintain their high stan­ dards of living, their expensive homes and servants, their automobiles, and their frequent trips to England. The only way that European agri­ culture could realize these profits, given prevailing world prices, was through a host of artificial supports, such as tariff protection, biased railway rates, prohibitions against the cultivation of certain cash crops by Africans, and the compulsory recruitment of Africans off their own farms and onto European estates as cheap agricultural laborers.20 The railway was probably the chief economic prop of the "colonist" farmer. Its administration was dominated by settler interests. Its High Com­ missioner of Transport was the Governor of Kenya, and four of its allpowerful railway council members were representatives of settler in­ terests.21 Although the railway administration was legally autonomous from Kenya, its budget was vigorously debated in the Kenya Legisla­ tive Council, and the General Manager of the railway was under un­ remitting pressure to be responsive to settler economic interests, espe­ cially in rating policy. The result was that railway rates favored settlers. The single rate for maize was exceedingly cheap; in the depression the railway was compelled to carry much maize at a loss. Also the country produce rates caused additional losses and were only thinly disguised tariffs.22 While the state gave considerable assistance to settler farmers, European agriculture was even more dependent on cheap, unskilled African labor. Farm machinery was expensive and fuels were costly, and settler farms were little mechanized. In 1930 each occupier had an average of only 3 ploughs, 2 harrows, and 3 cultivators. There were only 1,060 gas and oil engines, 204 steam engines, 1,395 motor tractors, 501 churns, 593 separators, but these were divided among 2,100 occupiers, whose average farm holding was 2,437 acres, of which 250 were actually under cultivation.23 As a result European 19 Appendix 10, Memorandum from Sir Humphrey Leggett, Joint Select Com­ mittee on Closer Union in East Africa, HCSP, Vol. 7, 1930-1931, m, p. 48. 20 Ibid., π, 669s to Oldham, June 10, 1921, Oldham Papers, Box 248, London. Hooper to Oldham, August, 1921, Oldham Papers, Box 247, London. 84 McKenrick to S. E. Jones, Secretary of the Missionary Alliance, August 8, 1921, Oldham Papers, Box 246. ss Stevenson to Oldham, October 13, 1921, Oldham Papers, Box 240. 83

Labor in the

1920s— 1 7 3

The African and particularly the uneducated African is not as other people or at least he cannot be treated as other people. Afri­ cans have in the past, do in the present, and will for some time yet to come stand in the need of a beneficent absolutism. . . . Examine the whole history of African races and it will be found that left to themselves with no other power beyond their own, they have never made any real or permanent progress. Left to themselves they have reached a certain point, then receded, and finally been either submerged or have disappeared.86 Oldham maintained a heightened concern over these labor questions until in September, 1921 the Secretary of State for Colonies, Winston Churchill, issued a new, definitive, and comprehensive despatch on labor, to be followed in Kenya. Dividing labor into three general types, Churchill found no objection to unpaid communal labor which was traditional and of profit to the local community. For the second type of labor—labor for private employees—Churchill's new rules per­ mitted no compulsion. Administrators and chiefs were to inculcate habits of industry among the people, but a person was free to work in­ side or outside the reserve. The only special responsibility the admin­ istration had in respect to this labor was to provide information to Africans as to where labor was needed and to employers about the sources of African labor. The administration was to take no part in re­ cruiting. Although Churchill wrote that he did not like compulsory labor for government projects and hoped it would not be used, yet the power would remain on the statute book; it could be used to obtain paid porters for government officers or for the transportation of urgent government provisions. Otherwise forced labor for state projects was to be called out only in dire emergencies, and then only with the prior authorization of the Secretary of State for specified works and periods of time.87 The labor crises of 1919 to 1921, like the Indian dispute of 1921 to 1923, focused British attention on Kenya. Although the doctrine of African paramountcy was enunciated in connection with the Indian problem and in a White Paper entitled "Indians in Kenya," it owed a great deal to these labor controversies. These had brought African conditions, as distinct from European and Asian problems, to the at­ tention of the Colonial Office and the British public. What role were Africans to play in the economic and political development of Kenya? 86 Minutes of Meeting at the Colonial Office, December 14, 1920, PRO CO 533/247. See Minutes of Colonial Office Meeting, August 11, 1921, PRO CO 533/270; Wood to Oldham, August 19, 1921, Oldham Papers, Box 238; and HCSP, Vol. 24, 1921, cmd. 1509. 8?

174—Labor in the

1920s

Was their time best spent working on European farms? Some an­ swered in the affirmative. Many believed that settlers were the most dynamic economic force in East Africa and that Africans, left to their own devices, did not engage in vigorous economic activity. But this oft-repeated theme was denied by others who argued that Africans must be allowed to develop their own land and reserves, in addition to engaging in paid employment. A corollary of this conclusion was that the state needed to take in hand the agricultural and educational training of Africans. Even as African paramountcy was proclaimed, the Governor of Kenya was beginning to appropriate funds for African agriculture and education. The Churchill despatch did not put an end to forced labor, nor was it intended to. In 1924-1925 the railway administration engaged in large-scale construction programs on its Uasin Gishu and Nyeri lines. Unable to obtain a sufficient supply of labor through its recruiters at Kisumu, the Kenya government was given permission to recruit, by compulsion, a maximum of 4,000 men for these undertakings. A small number of Kamba were among those recruited. 88 This type of labor— compulsory paid labor for government—was not again a matter for discussion until 1931 when the British government wanted to ratify the Convention of the International Labor Conference and noticed that the Native Affairs Department annual report for 1929 showed 108,113 man days of forced labor, involving 11,437 men · As this was the highest figure in 4 years, the Colonial Office queried Governor Byrne who agreed to do all in his power to dispense with compulsory labor. 89 Still he confessed that forced labor would be needed for at least 5 more years for government transport work. 90 Under Colonial Office pressure the numbers forcibly recruited declined in the 1930s. The Churchill despatch retained the familiar ambiguity about chiefs encouraging and advising the young to work and yet not actually en­ gaging in labor procurement. This confusion persisted in new labor circulars issued in the 1920s, usually at peaks of acute labor shortages. In 1925 the Chief Native Commissioner issued a confidential directive to administrators to encourage the African population to go out to work. The circular directed barazas to be held where government offi­ cers would stress that Africans "willing to enter into employment out­ side the reserve should not be discouraged from doing so." 91 In 1926 Governor Grigg issued an extraordinary circular, with alarming paral88 No. 1580, Coryndon to Amery, December 15, 1924, PRO CO 533/315; No. 3, Telegram, Amery to Coryndon, January 14, 1925 in HCSP, Vol. 21, 1924-1925, cmd. 2464; and Telegram, Denham to Amery, March 12, 1925, PRO CO 533/330. 89 Passfield to Byrne, May 16, 1931, PRO CO 533/17097. so No. 103, Byrne to Passfield, July 23, 1931, ibid. Confidential, Coryndon to Amery, January 8, 1925, PRO CO 533/328.

Labor in the 1920s—175 lels to the 1919 document. This proclamation called on the government to hold barazas to encourage the young to work. "All official headmen and people should understand that the government desires all those able-bodied men who are not engaged in production within the re­ serves to assist in production in the alienated areas." The most startling section instructed officers to inspect kipandes and where it was appar­ ent that an able-bodied African "was not cooperating in the dual pol­ icy," the wishes of the government should be explained to him. "Unless he can satisfy the officer as to his industry within his reserve or elects to offer himself for employment, his name and particulars should be noted so that he may be among those called out when occasion next arises for work under the Native Affairs Department."92 The Colonial Office disallowed this section.

These ordinances established a new legal framework for African laborers. Kikuyu problems had prompted much of the legislation since the Kikuyu constituted the vast majority of squatters, and Kikuyu chiefs had been energetic labor recruiters before and during the war. Of course, laws could not change practice at once. The government was slow in creating the administrative machinery for enforcing the squatter contracts and did not begin to attest contracts until the mid and late 1920s. Older chiefs still felt that their performance was based on their ability to encourage labor in their locations. Only as newer, younger men were brought into office did the prevailing attitudes change. Among the three highland peoples the Kikuyu stretched out their lead in wage employment over the Kamba and the Maasai in the 1920s. Statistics again are few and unreliable, but in 1925 the District Com­ missioner of Kiambu, H. W. Gray, surveyed 10 of the 22 locations in the district and found that 40 per cent of all adult males were at work, 21 per cent were resting in the reserve, having returned recently from work, and 33 per cent were men over the working age. Thus of those of the right age and physically fit Gray found close to 90 per cent had worked or were working at any given time.93 In Fort Hall H. R. Tate claimed that nearly all young men went out to work for three or four months a year.94 Kikuyu laboring was becoming less chaotic and more routinized and patterned than it had been before 1914 when chiefs rounded people up and sent them under guard to farmers. In the 1920s the Kikuyu 92

No. 986, Grigg to Amery, November 16, 1926, PRO CO 533/348. 93 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1925, p. 14, H. W. Gray, KNA DC/KBU/18. 9t Kenya Province, Annual Report, 1917-18, p. 37, H. R. Tate, KNA PC/CP 4/1/1.

176—Labor in the 1920s were gravitating toward certain occupations and shunning others. The work that they found least attractive was sisal cutting and laboring in railway fuel camps and ballast breaking camps. These tasks tended to be performed by the Luo. On the other hand many Kikuyu women and children, as well as some men, engaged in day laboring, going out from their villages to farms and returning to their homes at night. Coffee was harvested in this fashion largely by Kikuyu day laborers, who were paid by the tin and could earn approximately is. a day. During the picking season more than 10,000 pickers were required by the Kiambu coffee estates per day, and £30,937 was paid out in wages.95 Because Kiambu labor was not adequate to handle the entire coffee harvest in that district, settlers hired trucks to bring in families from Fort Hall, Nyeri, and Embu.96 Unlike the Luo and Luhya, Kikuyu employees did not usually en­ gage in long-term contracts (6 months), although they were willing to sign 30-day agreements with the railway, public works department, and settlers. Although the Kikuyu were often willing to renew these contracts once or twice and to return to the same employer year after year, they returned to their homesteads more regularly than labor re­ cruited from Nyanza province. Squatting still remained the most popular form of paid employment for the Kikuyu. As areas close to the reserve became densely populated with squatter families, other families proceeded further up country to Naivasha, Nakuru, and Laikipia.97 Kikuyu squatters filled up Laikipia after World War I. In 1920 this area, so bitterly fought for by the Purko Maasai before 1914, had only 18 European farms. By 1921 there were 58 settlers, and as settlers came in greater numbers so did Kikuyu families. In 1922 there were 156 Kikuyu squatters. By 1926 the number had grown to 4,822 compared with 90 Luo and Luhya, 366 Maasai, and 10 Kamba. In 1928 the African population had swelled to 7,802, almost entirely Kikuyu.98 Squatting tended to be more attractive in areas just coming under European occupation rather than regions where European farmers had been established for a long time. In newly occupied regions Euro­ pean farmers did not enforce the squatter law rigorously. They often did not insist on 180 days of work, and they did not keep their records in order. They were anxious to obtain labor, in order to begin work on their estates, and did not impose onerous laboring obligations. But after Europeans had settled in an area for a number of years and be95 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1926, p. 14, H. W. Gray, KNA DC/KBU/19. 96 Kikuyu Province, Annual Report, 1926, p. 22, KNA PC/CP 4/1/2. 97 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1922, W.A.F. Platts, KNA DC/KBU/15. 98 Laikipia District, Annual Reports, 1920s, KNA DC/LAK and DC/RUM/6.

Labor in the 1920s—177 gun to develop their estates, each farmer had less surplus land and a greater need to extract labor from squatting families. In these locales occupiers insisted on enforcing the squatter law. By the late 1920s squatting had become a far less attractive prospect than it had been a decade before. Although the new law was not everywhere vigorously enforced, it still gave European landholders the power to limit the number of families and the amount of African livestock on their land and to insist on considerable labor obligations. European farmers increasingly were enforcing these obligations and even forcing families they considered as surplus laborers off their estates. Rift Valley families entreated Koinange when they learned he was to testify before the Joint Select Committee to tell the British Gov­ ernment that they lived in fear of being forced off the land and had nowhere else to go." Wherever the state brought the 1925 squatter ordinance into operation and compelled heads of families to sign con­ tracts, hardships occurred and bitter feelings were displayed. In 1925 the state attested over 2,000 squatter contracts in Naivasha district and reported that many families left rather than sign. 100 In 1926 the police and the Native Affairs Department ferreted out a large number of unauthorized squatters and returned them to the reserve. 101 In 1928 and 1929, probably with some encouragement from the Kikuyu Cen­ tral Association, squatters in Naivasha and Nakuru districts refused to sign contracts. 102 They did not regard themselves as mere agricultural employees, serving at the whim of a European employer and, land­ owner. They saw themselves as colonists staking out new land for their mbari. Many had not signed contracts previously or had made favora­ ble agreements with occupiers. The state's insistence on the terms of the squatters ordinance—making them in effect a laboring class, rather than independent landowners, who also owed labor duties to Euro­ pean occupiers—embittered them. Yet in 1928 and 1929 they were finally left with but two alternatives: to sign contracts under the squat­ ters ordinance or leave. The Maasai were still willing to enter paid employment only as herdsmen and only at abnormally high rates of wages. An estimated 700 were at work on ranches at Naivasha, Mau, Nakuru, Gilgil, and Laikipia in 1925. 103 The Maasai reserve was not like some regions in­ habited by other East African pastoral groups, such as the Turkana T estimony of Koinange, April 28, 1931, Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, HCSP, Vol. 7, 1930-31, 11, 402. IooNaivasha District, Annual Report, 1925, p. 1, K. L. Hunter, KNA DC/NKU/g. 1° 1 Naivasha District, Annual Report, 1926, E. C. Crewe-Read, ibid. I 02 Nakuru District, Annual Report, 1928, p. 5, E. C. Crewe-Read, KNA PC/RVP 2/10/4 and Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1929, p. 83. 103 Masai Reserve, Annual Report, 1925, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1.

178—Labor in the 1920s and the Samburu districts. It was not bereft of wage laboring oppor­ tunities or isolated from modernizing economic activities. In the heart of the Maasai reserve was a sodium carbonate extracting company, the Magadi Soda Company, to which ran a branch line of the Kenya and Uganda Railway. The reserve also had marble quarries. Indeed in 1931 the railway employed 247 workmen, the Soda Company 463, and the marble quarries 109. All of this labor came from outside the reserve, however, as did the public works department employees who constructed dams, water works, and roads in the reserve. Most of the labor was Luo, Kisii, Kikuyu, Meru, and Kamba.104 Nor were the Kamba a major labor element in the 1920s although they were beginning to enter employment in larger numbers at the end of the decade. They still had a deserved reputation for shunning most forms of paid labor, having deserted the Uasin Gishu railway project when forcibly recruited in 1923.105 The Provincial Commissioner of Ukamba province complained in 1925, in the midst of a labor shortage in that year, that "constant efforts have been made to induce the Ukamba to come out but with no result."106 The picture was not as bleak as some administrators suggested. S. H. Fazan carried out a review of the labor situation in Machakos reserve in October, 1927, and found 6,805 Kamba working for wages within the district as employees of the Public Works Department, the railway, European farmers, traders, and the Africa Inland Mission. He also found 2,581 working outside the district, and this total, he calculated, to be 20 per cent of the adult males between the ages of 15 and 40.107 Yet this figure of 20 per cent was in marked contrast to Gray's estimate of 40 per cent of all Kiambu males in paid employment and demonstrated again the lesser Kamba interest in working for wages. In general the Kamba were willing to squat on nearby European farms and to enter the police force and the Kenya African Rifles, but no other occupations attracted them. This situation was beginning to alter in the late 1920s and early 1930s, ac­ celerated by bad drought and famine conditions. The Kamba began to seek work at Kiambu and Thika, even on sisal plantations which the Kikuyu shunned because of their oppressive laboring conditions.108 In 1929 two labor recruiters started to work in the Machakos reserve.109 10* I b i d . , 1931. 105 Machakos District, Annual Report, 102¾, p. 10, W.F.G. Campbell, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/15. ice Confidential, Denham to Amery1 September 1, 1925, PRO CO 533/333. 107 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1927, p. 33, S. H. Fazan, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/15· i° 8 Machakos

District, Annual Report, 1928, p. 15, J. M. Silvester, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/22. 109 Ukamba Province, Annual Report, 1929, p. 52, W.F.G. Campbell, KNA PC/CP 4/2/3·

Labor in the 1920s—179 One of the reasons that Africans in the 1920s were still reluctant to engage in wage labor was because laboring conditions were so poor as the descriptions found in the annual reports of the Native Affairs and Medical Departments demonstrate. The Native Affairs Department divided the country into three main labor sections. Division I, consist­ ing of Trans Nzoia, Uasin Gishu, and Nandi, employed largely squat­ ter labor. The estates that offered employment to large numbers were a sisal farm at Lugari which had 600 casual workers and 102 squatter families and the tea estates at Kericho where 1,600 were employed in 1920 on 3 plantations alone.110 The Medical Department, in 1929, found that most of the squatters' huts in this region were made of mud and wattle and were extremely unsanitary.111 The housing on the Kericho tea estates was also inadequate, consisting of grass huts.112 Division II (Ravine, Nakuru, Naivasha, and Laikipia) was populated largely by European maize and stock farms, worked by Kikuyu squat­ ters. There were also 14 railway fuel contractors located there, many in poor financial condition. A sisal plantation at Longonot employed 800, and 8 saw mills offered work to 30 to 100 individuals each.113 Di­ vision III (Nairobi, Kiambu, Nyeri, Machakos, Kitui, Voi, Mombasa, and the Coast) had European coffee estates around Nairobi, Kiambu, and Nyeri, but was mainly composed of contractors' fuel and ballast camps and sisal plantations. The railway used timber for much of its fuel and hired out the task of cutting trees and delivering timber to private subcontractors. Since these contractors quickly exhausted most of the timber resources close to the railway line, their camps had to be situated three-fourths of a mile or more from the line, and the employees had to carry cut logs long distances after felling the trees.114 This was hard work, and these camps had a bad reputation with labor­ ers. So did the ballast breaking camps, also run by subcontractors for the railway administration. In these camps employees were paid by task. An employee had to break 20 cubic feet of 2.5 inch gauge ballast to obtain his pay for the day.115 The housing and working conditions in the ballast camps were appallingly bad. In 1928 the camps had two epidemics and reported several cases of scurvy caused by improper feeding.116 There were many notices of strikes and desertions. Al110 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1926, p. 72 and Annual Report, 1927, p. 82. 111 Medical Department Annual Report, 1929, p. 22 "2 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1926, p. 72. us Ibid., 1927, p. 67. in East Africa Protectorate, Uganda Railway, Administration Report, 1909-10, P- 17· 115 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1928, p. 97. lie Ibid.

180—Labor in the 1920s

though some Kikuyu offered themselves for work in these camps, by and large the laborers were Luo from Nyanza province. On the numerous sisal estates between Nairobi and the coast, an estimated 11,000 to 15,000 Africans were employed in the late 1920s. Many of them were paid by piece-rate. These estates also had bad rep­ utations. Their housing was primitive wattle and daub huts with thatched roofing.117 Medical attention was sadly deficient; on some estates where 400 to 1,000 men worked, there was no treatment avail­ able except a few drugs dispensed by African dressers.118 In 1927 two plantations at Kilifi and Kibwezi experienced outbreaks of typhoid. Again most of the labor was Luo, recruited on 6-month contracts by professional recruiting agencies in Kisumu. Recruiters advanced the laborers the money to pay their hut tax, rail fare, food, and blankets.119 These laboring conditions were indeed bad. The Native Affairs De­ partment and the Medical Department reported favorably only on the housing of the Railway Department which consisted of simple, but watertight and clean concrete structures.120 The food rations were in­ adequate. The law required that each worker be provided with two pounds of food each day. This was mainly maize meal, which in the opinion of the Medical Department constituted an insufficient diet for a worker.121 Yet even the government departments provided their em­ ployees with this ration. Perhaps the most frightening situation created by laboring was to be found in towns, European settlement areas, and large laboring camps where well before 1914 a heavy disproportion of men led to many nontraditional social relationships, including widespread prosti­ tution, and to the serious outbreaks of venereal disease. One of the first to describe what was to become a well-known African situation and to call for reform was Norman Leys, a government health officer who was later transferred from Kenya because of his criticisms of colonial poli­ cies. In an appendix to his health report on Nakuru district (1909), Leys called attention to a "pandemic" of venereal disease among the African population in the district. The disease could only be checked, he felt sure, by a radical change in African social conditions. Nakuru, like all other labor areas, had a much larger number of men than wom­ en, most of whom established only temporary alliances with men and transmitted venereal disease. Leys identified 4 classes of African wom­ en in Nakuru. First were the prostitutes, who charged 1 to 3 rupees 117

Ibid., 1927, p. 69. us Ibid., 1928, p. 98. Medical Department, Annual Report, 1922, p. 55. 120 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1929, p. 129. 121 Medical Department, Annual Report, 1929, p. 26. 119

Labor in the 1920s—181 and earned, in Leys estimation, as much as an artisan in Europe. In 1900 most of the prostitutes were Maasai women, but a decade later more than half were Lumbwa and Nandi. Prostitution was especially rife along the railway, and prostitutes were reported to arrive at a rail­ way camp a few days before workers got paid and to leave a few days later. The second class of women were concubines. Leys estimated that two-thirds of the women in the district were concubines, who agreed to live with a man for money. These alliances were invariably short­ lived, and the concubines also spread venereal disease from one mate to another. The third class of women were those who lived permanent­ ly with one man, usually after the birth of a child, and the fourth group were legally married women. Leys felt that venereal disease would continue to spread through these immigrant populations and would enter the reserves unless African laborers were enabled to bring their wives to work camps. He recognized that this would be possible only if higher wages were paid since a wife cost 5 rupees a month in food and clothing, or the equivalent of a whole month's pay. Leys also realized that traditional marriage customs made marriage difficult. Few workers accumulated enough capital to pay bride price, and so he hoped that African laborers could be persuaded to use civil mar­ riage and forego dowries. Although his suggestions for reform were not implemented—wages were not raised and Africans did not give up dowry payments—Leys' report identified a social and medical prob­ lem of enormous proportions, not only in Kenya, but emerging every­ where wage laboring was introduced into colonial Africa.122 Under these conditions and considering the uniformly low rate of pay, it is not surprising that many Africans were disinclined to offer themselves for work. Why was it then that the Kikuyu turned out in such large numbers compared with the Kamba and the Maasai? Why did they enter certain occupations and shun others, leaving them main­ ly to the peoples of Nyanza? The reasons for Kikuyu laboring in the 1920s are more complex than those which explain patterns before 1914 when the chief was such an indispensable labor recruiting agent. They involved a combination of political and economic factors. The Churchill despatch notwithstanding, coercion through chiefs continued in this decade. The various labor circulars make this fact clear. A more definitive illustration comes from Ruiru in Kiambu dis­ trict where District Officer Oldfield had close relationships with the European coffee growers. If Africans refused to work on the coffee estates, Oldfield had them do communal labor. In 1925 Oldfield was !22 Appendix to Annual Medical Report, Nakuru District, 1909, KNA PC/NZA 2/3·

182—Labor in the 1920s replaced by S. V. Cooke who refused to continue this arrangement. So enraged were the settlers that they pressed charges against Cooke, who, although exonerated, was posted to another area.123 Still there can be no doubt that overt physical coercion was not nearly so marked in the 1920s. The labor controversies had their ef­ fect; district officers were aware that forcing through chiefs was not permissible. More importantly, changed attitudes pervaded the local administration. Under the guidance of Koinange and other new men, Kikuyu chiefs refused to be merely labor recruiting instruments for European farmers and even brought protests to the colonial adminis­ tration against the forcible recruiting of women by tribal retainers and administrative officers.124 But by the 1920s taxation had become an important economic factor and was compelling Luo and Kikuyu into the labor market. Africans were assessed hut and poll taxes. There was in effect a tax on all males and females over the age of 16. By the 1920s the collection of taxation had become reasonably efficient. The tax paid in Kiambu, Kitui, and Machakos districts in 1913-1914 was £26,712; in 1929 it had risen to £90,706. The rise in the tax rate had also been steep, ascending from 2 rupees in 1901 to 10 rupees in 1920, then to 12s. or 9 rupees in 1923. As we shall see more fully later, the Kamba and Maasai were more able to pay this tax in years not marked by droughts or price declines through the sale of pastoral surpluses. Taxation did not drive them into the labor market in search of money. Although it is not easy to prove, the Maasai and, to a lesser extent, the Kamba did not look upon tax in the same way as the Kikuyu. If they did not obtain the money needed to pay their taxes through selling pastoral products, many sim­ ply refused to pay tax rather than seek wage employment. Although the penalty for nonpayment was imprisonment with hard labor, when large numbers refused to pay, the District Officer usually allowed exemptions or agreed to collect the arrears the next year. In contrast, the Kikuyu did not have such large herds, from which to market dairy products or sell cattle, sheep, and goats. They could make money by selling their agricultural surpluses in Nairobi and to nearby African wage laborers. But some Kikuyu landholdings were too small to pro­ duce surpluses. These families had to look outside for money. The need to obtain tax money was probably the most important force in impelling the Kikuyu into paid employment in the 1920s. Many heads of households were, of course, liable for more than the single tax of 12s., as it was from 1923 onward. A man was responsible 123S. V. Cooke to Goldfinch, March 8 , 1 9 2 5 , Anti-Slavery Papers, G 1 3 7 , Rhodes House Library, Oxford, and W. MacGregor Ross, Kenya From Within, p. 1 1 3 . 124 See p. 2 3 0 .

Labor in the 1920s—183 for paying the tax of each of his wives. He might also bear the tax bur­ den for widows of deceased brothers, since by custom he was responsi­ ble for their well being. If sons over 16 did not earn money, he had to pay their tax as well. It is impossible to estimate the average tax bur­ den of a head of a family, but the figure was clearly well in excess of a single tax. Moreover, between 1910 and 1922 and again in the 1930s the ratio between taxes and wages was moving in an unfavorable di­ rection for the worker, compelling him to work for increasingly longer periods in order to obtain the money needed to pay tax. From 1910 to 1922 the tax rate rose sharply, from 3 rupees (4s.) to 5 rupees in 1915 and then to 16s. in 1922. The average wage of an unskilled worker in 1910 was approximately 5 or 6 rupees a month while in 1922 an un­ skilled worker earned approximately the same. Thus a laborer in 1922 had to work four times as long in order to earn the money to discharge his own tax. During the depression in the 1930s wages declined, but the state refused to reduce taxation. Again, unskilled laborers had to work longer hours to extinguish their tax. Although the need to obtain money for taxes was a decisive force in impelling Kikuyus to undertake paid employment, individuals sought wages for other purposes as well. As education became popu­ lar, individuals were eager to have money for school fees. Kikuyu con­ sumer interests were expanding, and people wanted to purchase new imports. The Kikuyu consumer tastes outstripped those of the Kamba and the Maasai. The Kikuyu were large purchasers of imported cloth and had acquired an interest in such sophisticated items as condensed milk, tea, coffee, aerated waters, tinned fruits, and wheaten bread.125 The traditional interests of the Kamba in beads and wire persisted longer, but the Kamba too were eager to obtain clothing, bicycles, and umbrellas.126 The Maasai proved the most resistant to the attractions of new consumer items; many still prided themselves on subsisting at a very simple standard. But cloth, blankets, and coats were attracting their attention.127 It is clear that there is no simple explanation why the Kikuyu con­ tinued to offer themselves for paid employment in larger numbers in the 1920s than the Kamba and the Maasai. Coercion through chiefs remained a factor, although of lesser importance. The Kikuyu had a greater need for money, partly to pay tax which not everyone could discharge through agricultural activities within the reserve, and partly to purchase consumer goods, pay educational fees, and even buy land or pay dowry. Also large numbers of Kikuyu continued to migrate to 125 Short History of Kikuyu Province, 1911-27, p. 45, KNA PC/CP 1/1/2. !26 Interview with Morar Natha, Machakos, July 9, 1970. 127 Interview with Rev. Paul ole Magiroi, August 1, 1970.

184—Labor in the 1920s European estates as squatter laborers because of a desire for land. By the 1920s the search for land was probably of more importance than flight from oppressive rule by chiefs in stimulating these migrations. The Kikuyu pressed more heavily on the land than did their highland neighbors. In the interwar period some families found it difficult to eke out a living and pay their taxes through agriculture. Indeed, a small landless class was coming into being, and for these landless individuals as well as for small landowners and tenant farmers wage laboring was an essential way to supplement agricultural income. An even more difficult and still more intriguing question is why the laboring patterns of the Kikuyu and the peoples of Nyanza were so dramatically different. Why, for example were the Kikuyu the over­ whelming squatter labor force? Why did the Luo constitute the largest group of laborers in the most arduous occupations—timber cutting, ballast breaking, and sisal? Why were professional recruiting agencies of little importance among the Kikuyu by the 1920s but a dominant force in Nyanza? The answers offered here are tentative since they are not based on any extensive research on Nyanza. Yet many of these characteristics are related to each other and form an integrated pic­ ture of labor responses. The Kikuyu were land conscious. They had higher population densities, and they found an outlet for a surplus, po­ tentially landless population through squatting. There was also enough labor in the vicinity of the Kikuyu districts, especially on coffee farms, to enable the Kikuyu to take care of their money needs for taxes, school fees, and consumer goods, without having to undertake longterm nonsquatting contracts for work at a considerable distance from their homes. Thus, the Kikuyu monopolized squatting, day-laboring, and short-term contracts in the Kikuyu districts and were able to avoid the less desirable, harsh occupations. There were two fundamental types of agriculture laborers among the Kikuyu: those living away from the reserves with their families as squatters on a long-term basis and those engaged on short contracts, usually nearby, and able to re­ turn to their homesteads frequently. The Kikuyu did migrate into cities, both as skilled and unskilled workers, and those living in cities tended to remain for longer periods, although Nairobi was within easy commuting distance from southern Kiambu district. The Luo, on the other hand, had much less of a land problem. They were not so eager to become squatters, since squatters received the lowest wages in Kenya. They needed money for taxes, school fees, and consumer items. The employers most willing to engage Luo labor were the railway, the Public Works Department, and sisal estates. Luo labor was more expensive than Kikuyu labor because the Luo usually had to be brought longer distances from Nyanza. Their rail fares were a

Labor in the 1920s —185 costly overhead expense, which the ordinary farmer in the highlands was not willing to pay because he could obtain Kikuyu labor. The rail­ way, Public Works Department, and sisal estates were compelled, how­ ever, to pay these extra costs in order to have a work force. Private recruiters as well as recruiting agencies facilitated the flow of labor from Nyanza by advancing to the laborers money for hut tax and other expenses, without which these men could not have left their reserves. Perhaps because the overhead costs were higher, the employers drove their workers harder, forcing them to work for piece rate and failing to provide them with adequate housing and medical attention.

CHAPTER VIII

Labor in the Depression

The expansion of the Kenyan economy came to a halt with the depres­ sion. As the world prices for Kenya's exports fell, so fell that country's export earnings and its governmental revenues. The country embarked on a period of government retrenchment and general economic con­ traction. By the beginning of 1931 the world price for Kenya's maize was 50 per cent less than it had been in July, 1929; coffee was selling at 60 per cent of its predepression price; sisal 50 per cent and wheat 50 per cent.1 Kenya's export earnings fell off by 16 per cent in 1929; they expanded to a record high in 1930 (£3,423,000), but this was achieved only with considerable government assistance and record quantities exported. The quantity of coffee harvested that year was a record and was two and a half times greater than the 1929 figure. The 1930 coffee harvest was not to be exceeded until 1935. The quantity of maize exported, also a record, was 3 times the 1929 figure. Even so the earnings from the 1930 exports were only £200,000 over the 1928 fig­ ure when one-third of the quantity of coffee and maize had been ex­ ported. These extraordinary harvests were not maintained in 1931, especially in the face of falling prices, drought, and an invasion of locusts. The total export earnings of that year were 33 per cent less than they had been in the previous year, and Kenya earned less each year until 1935. By 1934 the value of Kenya's exports was only equal to what it had been in 1922 and 1923, just before the great agricultural boom set in.2 Price decline was not the only problem facing be­ leaguered farmers. In 1929 and in the early 1930s the countryside was invaded by locusts which destroyed a great deal of the crop. Also in the 1930s severe drought conditions prevailed. Just as prosperity in the late 1920s had brought agricultural expan­ sion, so the depression produced contraction. The total cultivated area declined from a high figure of 650,965 acres in 1930 to 502,000 acres in 1936. Although the European population had tripled between 1911 and 1921 and doubled between 1921 and 1931, it almost ceased to 1Colonial

Office Memorandum, July 31, 1931, PRO CO 533/404/16393. figures come from the Department of Agriculture, Annual Reports and Colonial Office, Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into and Report on the Financial Position and System of Taxation of Kenya, Colonial No. 116, 1936, pp. 4, 5, 8, and 255. 2These

Labor in the Depression—187

grow in the 1930s.3 Agriculturally, the crop that suffered the sharpest blows was maize. European farmers were unable to realize a profit from the export of maize without considerable state supports. The amount of land planted in maize fell from 212,000 acres in 1930 to 113,000 acres in 1934, and the proportion of its contribution to total export earnings declined from 17 per cent in 1930 to 5 per cent in 1934. Maize exports had been valued at £565,517 in 1930. In 1934 they were worth £104,754. Wheat was similarly affected. In 1930, 79,000 acres were planted in wheat, but this figure had fallen to 35,000 in 1934. Coffee and sisal did not experience such a sharp decline, but their cultivation ceased to expand as it had in the 1920s. Moreover, their export earn­ ings diminished. The 1930 coffee crop was the highest on record at £1,426,869; by 1934 coffee exports were valued at £491,759.4 The state had provided much assistance to European farming in the period of prosperity. In the 1930s the administration was economically pressed, as it had not accumulated surpluses during the expansive years. The government undertook to retrench many programs. Yet it provided additional crucial assistance to European agriculture. In 1930 an Agricultural Advances Ordinance was passed, establishing agricultural advisory boards to provide financing for farmers during the period between the planting and harvesting of crops. In 1930 the boards advanced £68,000 and in 1931 £50,000.5 In the same year the railway reduced its rates for carrying maize, wheat, and barley and also returned four-fifths of the port storage fees for these crops. The state refunded four-fifths of the grading and conditioning charges for maize and wheat in 1930.6 These measures enabled the farmers to ex­ port huge quantities of maize in 1930, but, with prices at even lower levels in the next year, the government again had to come to the res­ cue. In 1931 the Kenya Legislative Council voted a loan of £108,000 to the maize industry in order to raise the price of a bag of maize to the economically viable figure of 6s.7 The loan was supposed to be paid back when maize prices rose to higher figures. But by the time this occurred, there had been so many changes in land ownership that the administration decided to write the loan off as a subsidy. The most im­ portant agricultural creation of these years was a Land and Agricul3

See the Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture for the 1930s. figures come from the Annual Reports of the Department of Agriculture and the Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into and Report on the 4These

Financial Position and System of Taxation of Kenya. 5No.

24, Byrne to Cunliffe-Lister, February 6, 1932, PRO CO 533/419/18027. Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1930, pp. 5ft and Kenya Legis­ lative Council, Debates, July 21, 1930, pp. 608-609. 7 Colonial Office Memorandum, July, 1931, PRO CO 533/404/16393 and Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, January 17, 1931, pp. 1215-1253. 6

188—Labor in the Depression tural Bank, established in 1931 and endowed with £500,000 capital. There was a touch of irony in the founding of this bank. The institu­ tion had originally been promoted by Grigg in the late 1920s in con­ nection with his closer settlement scheme for bringing European farm­ ers of modest means to Kenya. But by the time the bank came into existence its goal was not to facilitate immigration, but rather to pro­ tect the economic well being of the community already living in Kenya. As the depression wore on and continued to jeopardize the existence of the European farmers, settler-state relations became increasingly embittered. The settlers had been frustrated in their vision of estab­ lishing an unofficial majority in the Legislative Council. With the resig­ nation of pro-settler Governor Grigg, the Colonial Office had installed a man more amenable to its wishes and its control—Joseph Byrne—but not well liked by the settler community. In the Legislative Council the settler attack was led by F. W. Cavendish-Bentinck, who in one nota­ ble tirade against the state in 1934 claimed that the government "en­ tirely lost their heads and all sense of proportion and have sunk to adopting the whining, at the same time overbearing tactics of a bully."8 During bitter Legislative Council debates of July and August, 1935, settlers cited a catalogue of political and economic grievances, and four unofficial members walked out of the proceedings in protest.9 Set­ tlers called a special meeting of the Convention of Associations, an organization once known as the settlers' Parliament, but less influential after settlers had gained elective representation in the Legislative Council. In frustration the Convention of Associations attacked the gov­ ernment for failing to keep farmers on the land, not reducing agricul­ tural indebtedness, high taxation, costly administration, resisting the settlers' desire for more control of the colony's affairs, and delay in se­ curing statutory permanence for the privileged position of Europeans in the highlands, as recommended by the Kenya Land Commission. A Vigilance Committee was set up, and according to Governor Byrne, conditions were as turbulent as they had been during the Indian con­ troversy in 1922 when the settlers had also created a Vigilance Com­ mittee and formulated plans for capturing the Governor and effecting a coup d'etat.10 Fortunately for the state and settlers alike there was an upswing in the economy in 1935. Export earnings exceeded by £1,000,000 the disastrous 1934 figures. In 1936 the recovery continued; this was a rec­ ord year for exports. Extreme political belligerence diminished. None­ theless the depression years had left their mark on European farming. s Ibid., 1934, pp. 858-859. » Ibid., 1935, p. 545. 1O Draft Cabinet Memorandum, Affairs in Kenya, December, 1935, PRO CO

533/453/38OO5/3A.

Labor in the Depression—189 Coffee continued to be raised on approximately 100,000 acres through­ out the 1930s. Sisal was much less stable. A number of companies had been forced to cut back their production in the early 1930s. In 1938, as a result of a decline in world prices, some firms had to liquidate their Kenya holdings. Still in 1937 sisal was grown on 166,000 acres. Tea had become an important Kenyan export at the beginning of the depres­ sion. It was grown on estates in Kericho and Limuru by large interna­ tional companies. Although the first exports were not made until 1928, by 1935 tea exports earned £217,047 and accounted for 7 per cent of Kenya's total export earnings. Maize farming was reorganized. The amount of land turned over to its cultivation declined; many farmers, who had relied almost exclusively on maize, became mixed farmers. In addition to raising cereals, they increased the size of their herds and sold dairy products as well as grains. Unable to export such large quantities of maize because of the low world prices, they sought to break into the growing internal maize market which prior to the de­ pression had been supplied mainly by African farmers. A most impor­ tant new crop for the colonist farmer was pyrethrum. Suitable for cul­ tivation at high altitudes, pyrethrum was used in the manufacture of insecticides. The crop began to be grown in the late 1930s; its export value was £6,670 in 1938. Because of the economic contraction brought on by the depression, there was a resultant decline in wage laboring. The average number of men, women, and children employed on European farms fell from 125,885 in 1929 to 106,875 !93311 Accompanying this decline in numbers came a cut in wages. The Native Affairs Department esti­ mated that unskilled African laborers were earning 33 per cent less in 1935 than they had been making in 1926.12 For the first time in Kenya's history there were no complaints about labor shortages. Labor supply exceeded demand despite this general lowering of wages. This was not surprising because while the demands for labor had declined, the state had not reduced taxes on the grounds that the government could not afford to lose revenue. The search for tax money drove Africans into the labor market and compelled them to work longer periods of time to earn enough to discharge their taxes. In addition, laboring had be­ come a recognized economic activity among many people by the 1930s, a well accepted means for making money not only to pay tax, but also to purchase consumer commodities. Labor shortages were not com­ plained of until 1937 when the farming community was again seeking to expand its production in response to improving economic conditions. By and large laboring conditions in the 1930s were not much differ11 Department 12 Native

of Agriculture, Annual Reports. Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1935, p. 180.

190—Labor in the Depression ent from what they had been the decade before. Employers did not have the money to construct new housing, to provide better medical attention, or to improve food rations. The Native Affairs Department admitted that although concrete structures were more economical and sanitary for housing workers than the traditional wattle and daub huts, yet most employers did not have the resources to construct these struc­ tures. The Native Affairs Department and the Medical Department did comment favorably on the working conditions of two new major enterprises, however: the tea estates and the gold mines at Kakamega. In both enterprises almost all the labor was drawn from Nyanza Prov­ ince. The tea estates employed almost 10,000 workers in 1931, and two of the large firms had erected concrete dwellings similar to those of the railway.13 The gold mines at Kakamega had commenced work in 1932. By 1933 a few large European firms were employing approximately 8,000 Africans. They provided reasonable housing, smoke pit latrines, a central cooking system which produced 3 cooked meals a day, an ample supply of medicines, and regular visits from medical orderlies.14 The smaller mining firms, on the other hand, were not so well run. Nor were most other private and company employers throughout the rest of Kenya. Sisal estates had always had a poor reputation among workers. In 1938 some of them brought new and even greater suffering to their employees, who, by this time, were not exclusively Nyanza laborers, but included Kikuyu and Kamba out in search of money with which to pay their tax. The low prices for sisal in that year resulted in the liquidation of many large sisal estates employing hundreds of Africans. One such company was the Kenya Sisal Company, which ran a large estate in Masongeleni. In liquidating this estate, the Board of Gover­ nors in England made no provision to pay wages owed to Africans or even to return the laborers to their home areas. In all, some 1,277 men were owed 11,722s. in wages and were stranded at long distances from their homes.15 They had to be repatriated at the expense of the state. Since many families had lived and worked on these liquidated estates for more than a decade, one can imagine the difficulties they experienced reestablishing themselves in their reserves or finding new jobs outside the reserves.

The depression had an impact on all three of the highland peoples and had repercussions on their wage laboring traditions. By the 1930s no African economy was any longer self-sufficient. Every district was linked to external economic forces through the sale of agricultural and 13 Ibid., 1931, p. 119.

«I b i d . , 1934, p. 167.

1s

Ibid.,

1938, p. 105.

Labor in the Depression—191 pastoral surpluses outside the reserves and through participations in wage employment. Thus the decline in prices and in demand for pro­ duce, the reduction in wages, and the decrease in the demand for labor seriously affected the economic well-being of all Africans. Peo­ ple were unable to raise enough money to pay their taxes, and nearly every African district had substantial tax arrears during the depres­ sion. The Kikuyu continued to look to wage labor as a way to earn money, and they were joined by the Kamba who went out in search of work in ever increasing numbers in the 1930s. Despite harsh economic circumstances in their reserve, the Maasai, on the other hand, still did not turn to most forms of wage labor as an economic alternative. The depression reduced the demand for African labor and cut wages; thus it profoundly affected the well-being of the Kikuyu. All of the Kikuyu district annual reports referred to considerable difficulties in collecting taxes. In fact, tax gathering was requiring so much of the time of British officials, to the detriment of their other duties, that the administration decided to shift this obligation onto the shoulders of the chiefs. The resultant abuses in power have already been described.16 The administration attributed the difficulty in collecting tax among the Kikuyu to passive tax resistance and nationalism. District officers be­ lieved the Kikuyu to be relatively well-to-do through wage laboring and the sale of agricultural surpluses. But while there may have been some conscious tax evasion, it seems more likely that many Kikuyu had difficulty obtaining the necessary funds to pay their tax. This interpre­ tation is consistent with the statement made by many district commis­ sioners that Kikuyus were offering themselves for labor and were be­ ing turned away and that they entered occupations, such as sisal cutting, which they had once shunned. Nonetheless, squatting continued to be the major Kikuyu economic activity outside the reserves, and it too was affected by the depression. Since European farmers were reducing the amount of land under cul­ tivation and moving away from maize toward a mixed farming econ­ omy, they needed a smaller labor force. As a consequence they re­ turned some squatting families to the reserves by refusing to renew their work contracts. S. H. Fazan remarked in 1932 that squatters were returning to Kiambu district and were encountering difficulties in be­ ing assimilated.17 The annual reports of Laikipia for 1931 and Naivasha for 1932 also indicated that surplus squatters were being repatriated.18 16 See p. 55. 17 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1931, pp. 9-10, S. H. Fazan, KNA DC/KBU/ 24·

is Naivasha District, Annual Report, 193a, p. 8, J.W.E. Wightman, KNA DC/ NKU/9 and Laikipia District, Annual Report, 1931, p. 17, H. R. Carver, PC/RVP 2/9/2·

192—Labor in the Depression Nonetheless, by and large squatters were allowed to remain on the land with little to do, and the squatters ordinance of 1925 became a dead law. Even though there was less land under cultivation and less need for a labor force, European farmers still had much surplus land and derived benefit from keeping squatter families on the land. In those harsh economic times, they could extract milk, manure, and stock from the squatters at nominal rates, and kaffir farming returned to prominence.19 Squatter laws had never been vigorously enforced, but now with the economy running at a slow pace, estate owners were con­ tent to keep African families on their land and to extract rental pay­ ments from them.20 These new conditions ultimately prompted the state in 1937 to bring in a new, more stringent ordinance to regulate squatter labor. This ordinance, called the Resident Laborers Ordinance, of 1937, represented the interests of a number of important European groups in Kenya. The state continued to fear the emergence of a large, poorly controlled and undisciplined group of Africans living outside the reserves. It also wanted to prevent the development of absentee European landlord­ ism. In the past settlers had been openly skeptical of these views. They wanted to create attractive laboring conditions in order to induce Africans to leave the reserves; some had opposed the administration's insistence on 180 days labor for squatters. Many settlers saw no harm in kaffir farming, although others agreed that it limited the labor avail­ able to other farms. By 1937, however, new directions in European agriculture made many farmers anxious to regulate squatter labor. Eu­ ropean agriculture was moving away from the maize monoculture of the 1920s to a system of mixed farming. To a stock rearer the uncon­ trolled movement of squatters, with their large herds of cattle, sheep, and goats, was anathema since these herds transmitted diseases. Thus, the state, the ranchers, and the mixed farmers now combined to enact a stringent law. In introducing the Resident Natives Ordinance into the Legislative Council, Attorney General H. C. Willan emphasized that a new and important change in terminology was to come into effect. Calling at­ tention to the fact that the draft bill had no reference in it to the term squatter, he declared: "That is deliberate in order to emphasize that the status of a resident laborer is that of a servant not a tenant."21 Thus, the "species of tenancy" which Judge Barth said inhered in 19 Laikipia District, Annual Report, 1932, p. 2, H. H. Trafford, ibid, and V. M. Fisher, Principal Inspector of Labor, A Note on the Squatter Problem, 1932, KNA PC/RVP GA/27/7. 20 No. 136, Byrne to MacDonald, October 29, 1935, PRO CO 533/461/38223. 21 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, July 28, 1937, p. 130.

Labor in the Depression—193 squatting and which the British Labour Party had insisted on main­ taining in 1924 was abrogated. The Colonial Office now agreed that squatters were to be designated employees, not tenants, which was, of course, what squatters had been in reality, if not in terminology, ever since the first law in 1918. The most important changes in the law were that the labor contracts would stipulate the crops Africans could grow and the stock to be kept. Each employer was required to keep records on their resident laborers' stock to ensure that herds did not become too large. The most controversial clauses of the ordinance provided that if a majority of Europeans in a district agreed, they could pass a ruling fixing the maximum number of laborers any farmer in that dis­ trict could employ and stipulating the number of days each laborer had to work on the occupier's estate so long as that number was not less than 180 days or more than 270. This much debated local option clause, thus, made it possible for a European community to restrict the size of its squatter population and to exact heavy work obligations. The law also permitted local communities, presumably ranchers, to prohibit squatters from keeping stock if the majority of residents fa­ vored this limitation.22 The Colonial Office assented to the bill, but in­ sisted that it was not to come into effect until sufficient land had been secured in the reserves for African squatters who were likely to be turned off farms.23 The bill did not come into effect until 1940. The 1937 bill was a culmination of administrative and settler efforts to render African squatters employees rather than tenants and to de­ prive them of any lingering rights in the land. Nonetheless, it is diffi­ cult to know how the lot of the squatters fared over time since the laws themselves were so loosely and sporadically enforced. It was in the 1920s that squatters first began to experience state authority and to realize that they had not staked out landholding claims. As settler agri­ culture was expanding and becoming more prosperous, the state made efforts to enforce squatter contracts and to demand the appropriate number of work days from squatters. The government expelled fami­ lies not needed by European occupiers. In the 1930s there was no in­ crease in the squatter population because additional labor was not needed. Agricultural contraction had set in, and new lands were not being opened up for cultivation. Thus squatting ceased to be the es­ cape-valve it had been previously for numerous Kikuyu ills—popula­ tion pressure; desire for land; the building up of herds; and relief from tribal oppression. Squatters on the farms themselves, however, enjoyed more freedom than they had in the late 1920s. The 1925 squat22 Kenya, A Handbook of the Labor Laws of Kenya Colony and Protectorate, 1945, pp. 86-105. 23 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1938, p. 88.

194—Labor in the Depression

ter ordinance was not carefully enforced, nor were heavy labor de­ mands made. By the end of the decade, however, an ominous piece of legislation threatened the well being of the squatter. By 1940 the Euro­ pean community had the power to restrict the number of squatters in a district and to prohibit entirely the keeping of stock. The life of the squatter had come a long way from the days when squatting was seen as an escape from harsh tribal authority and as a means of obtaining more land and grazing larger herds than could be done in the reserves. Two other pieces of legislation were added to Kenya's labor laws in the late 1930s: the Employment of Servants Ordinance, 1938, and the Employment of Juveniles Ordinance. The former mainly consolidated the Masters and Servants Ordinance. But it also incorporated stricter recruiting laws as a result of Britain's signing an international conven­ tion on the recruitment of labor.24 Henceforth, all recruiters, whether individual or professional, had to obtain a license from the state before they could recruit. In addition to undergoing medical examinations, a recruited worker had to be brought before a magistrate to have his contract attested and to make sure that he had entered upon his con­ tract voluntarily. Recruiters were permitted to give only one month advances in wages, rather than the larger sums which had been com­ mon before. This change was designed to prevent the advancing of large sums of money to a prospective employee as a way of forcing him to work at a job for a long period of time.25 This law had significant implications for Nyanza Province where the recruiting system was highly developed and where the enticement of African laborers through advances was common. The issue of juvenile labor had been broached in the 1930s in con­ nection with youngsters working on tea estates, in the gold mines, and on pyrethrum farms. To be sure Kikuyu children had worked for years as coffee pickers, but there was much more alarm at boys working as regular laborers on tea estates and in the mines. Questions were asked in the House of Commons, and the Kenya administration created a Commission to investigate the problem. The Commission found that an estimated 35,000 to 36,000 juveniles were working on tea estates and at the Kakamega gold mines. Also some youths were being transported long distances to sisal estates at Voi and near the coast for the purposes of using them to weed and hang sisal out for drying.26 The Committee recommended that no juvenile under 12 should be employed nor should any boy under 14 enter work in an industrial establishment. 24Colonial Office Note by Eastwood, November 21, 1930, PRO CO 533/404/16356 and Confidential, Moore to Passfield, March 31, 1931, PRO CO 533/405/17010. 25 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, July 30, 1937, p. 217. 26 Kenya, Report of the Employment of Juveniles Committee, 1938, pp. 5-6.

Labor in the Depression—195

Juveniles could be employed away from their homes only with the con­ sent of the District Officer. Two decades of intensive wage laboring resulted in considerable Kikuyu population migration. By the 1930s the Kikuyu had begun to reside in cities in large numbers and had migrated, as traders, agricul­ tural and urban laborers, clerks, and independent farmers into nearly every district in the colony. Unfortunately, this exodus is not fully documented in the records and statistics of the period, since African statistics were not carefully compiled at that time, but the census of 1948 reveals these trends. It showed that 50 per cent of the Kiambu Kikuyu lived outside the reserve as did 25 to 30 per cent of the Fort Hall Kikuyu and 40 per cent of the people of Nyeri. In sharp contrast were the Kamba and Maasai statistics. Only 10 per cent of the Machakos Kamba resided outside the reserve; 5 per cent of the Kitui Kamba, and a mere 1 per cent of the Maasai. Kikuyu emigrants were to be found in large numbers in Nairobi, Thika, Nanyuki, Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, Nakuru, Laikipia, and Mombasa.27 The most reliable picture of these developments for the 1930s was compiled by S. H. Fazan in his economic survey of the Kikuyu reserve which he produced for the Kenya Land Commission. In an effort to estimate the amount of money available to Kikuyu families Fazan made calculations of the numbers who worked outside the reserve. Excluding the large day labor force, which worked seasonally on Eu­ ropean coffee farms, Fazan estimated that 10,000 Kikuyu lived and worked in Nairobi, 2,000 at Mombasa, 1,100 in other townships, 1,228 on the railway, and 5,000 as other than squatter laborers in Ki'ambu, Dagoretti, Thika, Fort Hall, Nyeri, Nanyuki, and Rumuruti. This gave a total of 21,316 Kikuyu whose homes were in the reserve but who were working temporarily out of it. Fazan estimated that since there were nearly 53,000 unmarried males ordinarily living in the reserve, the above figure of 21,316 constituted 40 per cent of this total engaged in wage laboring.28 In addition, Fazan calculated that there were more than 110,000 Kikuyu squatters living outside the reserve, located main­ ly in the Rift Valley. The Kikuyu had also infiltrated the Maasai and Kamba reserves and were moving in vast numbers into Embu district as independent farmers and laborers in the 1930s.29 Their immigration into the Maasai reserve was described by one administrative officer as a "veritable penetration pacifique."30 They entered the reserve as trad27 East Africa High Commission, East African Statistical Department, African Population of Kenya Colony, 1948, passim. 28 S. H. Fazan, "An Economic Survey of the Kikuyu Reserve," KLC, Evidence, 1,

996. 29 Embu District, Annual Report, 1934, K. G. Lindsay, KNA DC/EBU/13. so Native AfEairs Department, Annual Report, 1925, p. 38.

196—Labor in the Depression ers. They married Maasai women and took up farming land on the Mau and around Ngong, usually with the approval of individual Maasai families. Periodically, the Maasai Local Native Councils passed resolutions condemning this influx, and from time to time the adminis­ tration expelled Kikuyu families. In the same fashion Kikuyus entered the Kamba reserves, offering themselves as agricultural laborers to wealthy Kamba land- and stockowners. Thus, it is clear that by the 1930s the Kikuyu were geographically mobile. They were a major urban group everywhere in Kenya. Large numbers lived in Mombasa. They were the single most important African group living in Nairobi and the smaller cities of the central highlands. And as an agricultural community they had spread into the Rift Valley and Embu district in huge numbers while smaller groups had infiltrated the Kamba and Maasai reserves. This vast population movement was in glaring con­ trast to the Kamba and Maasai most of whom remained in their reserves. The Kamba continued their gradual entry into wage laboring. Taxes were beginning to drive many in search of work, especially since de­ clining internal prices for Kamba produce made it more difficult for some to pay their taxes. The Maasai, on the other hand, remained dis­ interested in agricultural labor of which they had traditionally disap­ proved. The depression struck them hard, reducing both the demand and the market price for ghee, dairy products, hides and skins, and livestock. They were unable to meet their tax obligations. In 1931 Kajiado district fell short of its tax payments by 22,652s. In 1932 the figure was 11,116s. and in 1933, 22,112s.31 Yet young men still refused to go out as agricultural laborers. Well-to-do Maasai even brought Kikuyu workers into the reserve by means of an elaborate practice called Osinga or Chekut. Under this arrangement a Maasai would give a Kikuyu cattle and treat him as a member of his family, even paying his bride price when he married and receiving in exchange Kikuyu labor. The Chekut, however, had no absolute right over the property given him, and he could be discharged at any time. Many of the rela­ tively small numbers of Maasai who left the reserve in search of work were really Kikuyu.32 Although the Rotian riot had flared up over road work, the admin­ istration continued the experiment of recruiting moran to construct roads in the reserve during the 1930s. They were paid for their work and could use the money to discharge their tax. Yet the results were only modestly successful and did not compare with the communal 31 Kajiado

District, Annual Reports, 1931-33, KNA DC/KAJ a/1/1. District, Annual Report, 1930, Appendix "G," J. V. Lawson, KNA DC/ NRK 1/1/2. 32 Narok

Labor in the Depression—197 labor projects carried out over the years by the Kikuyu or the Kamba. Following the riot Fazan found that the offer of work to moran unable to pay their tax was "practically barren of results."33 Yet the adminis­ tration persisted, and moran were persuaded to construct parts of the Kajiado-Loitokitok road, the Narok-Njoro road, and the road to Mwiyan.34 These were but faint beginnings in exploiting the potential for work of that segment of the population—the young, warrior class— which constituted the bulk of Kikuyu wage laborers. It is exceedingly difficult to determine why the Maasai were so much less responsive to wage laboring opportunities in the harsh economic circumstances of the 1930s than the Kikuyu and the Kamba, who also had a traditional aversion to wage laboring. Surely, one of the answers was the Maasai's strong injunction against agricultural work as de­ meaning to a pastoral people. But of course there were other tasks available to them which they also refused to undertake; by and large, Maasai were willing to work only as herdsmen. Once again, the role of the warrior class was vital. It was, after all, from the warrior classes that most long-term labor came. The Kikuyu and Kamba workers were young men, who before the coming of the British, had been warriors. Why then did the young Maasai warriors resist wage laboring for so much longer than other groups. The Maasai warriors, like the warrior element in other societies, were subject to severe strains in the colonial period. Their raiding activities were curtailed. They were warriors for a shorter period of time. Yet, unlike others, they retained an esprit and identity as warriors. They refused to regard themselves as agricultural laborers and school goers, or to embrace the other new activities young men in Kenya were embarking on. Rather than engage for paid labor (or go to school), they preferred to live traditional lives in their manyattas where they still obtained the prestige traditionally accorded warriors. With their raiding activities reduced and their military func­ tions no longer required, they had time to seek out other activities. Their absence from the reserve would not have disrupted the workings of the Maasai economy. Yet they preferred to stay at home and to go through the motions of being traditional warriors. The British were unable to dismantle the warrior class and to transfer the moran into laborers and school goers. This was still the critical difference between the Maasai reaction to the depression and that of the Kikuyu and the Kamba. The warrior institution persisted among the Maasai largely because it was so central and powerful an element of the traditional society and thus did not succumb to the efforts of elders, chiefs, and the state to do away with it. 33 Masai Reserve, Intelligence Reports, July, 1935, KNA PC/SP 3/1/1. 34 Masai Reserve, Intelligence Reports, 1935-39, ' b i d .

198—Labor in the Depression By the 1930s African laborers were just beginning to develop a sense of group identity and to organize themselves and even to launch strikes in protest against inadequate wages and working conditions. The Luo and the Kikuyu played a pioneering role in labor protest, both agrarian and urban. In the agrarian sector acts of protest tended to be sporadic, isolated, and relatively unsuccessful. A high turnover of agricultural laborers provided little opportunity to organize. None­ theless rural workers informed each other of working conditions on different estates and tried to boycott farms with a bad reputation. At Thika Kikuyu workers were able to force European farmers to allow them to spread their thirty days of work over more than forty-two days which the law demanded. They did so in order to be able to work on their own farms as well as on the European estates. The European farmers allowed this inconvenience and legal breach because they knew they would be unable to procure labor otherwise.35 Moreover, in 1934 Kikuyu coffee pickers tried to organize and boycott coffee farms in an effort to drive up wages. The coffee estates were exceed­ ingly vulnerable since they had to harvest the beans in a short span of time or have them spoil. The state intervened, however, and thwarted the workers' efforts.36 It was on the large plantations, where sisal and sugar were cut and prepared for market, that agricultural laborers organized their most effective strikes against employers. These estates attracted a large number of long-term laborers who consequently had good opportuni­ ties to organize. In many ways these workers tended to resemble an in­ dustrial proletariat. Many toiled in workshops located on the estates. The pace of their work was intense, piece rates often prevailed, and the working conditions, as reported by the Native Affairs Department, were onerous. In 1936 and 1937 serious strikes took place on three sisal estates at Thika, a sisal factory at Mwatate, a sugar estate near Nairobi, and a sugar company at Miwani. The strikes at Thika were intended to lift wages. The other strikes were also protests against low wages and poor working conditions.37 The lot of most agrarian workers was cushioned and ameliorated, however, by several factors. Although wages were uniformly lower than those paid urban, unskilled workers, most rural workers were given small plots of land where they could raise their own food and in some cases graze livestock. Many brought their families onto the estates, and although the housing was unsanitary, it was not much dif35Central

Province, Annual Report, 1936, p. 36, S. H. LaFontaine, KNA PC/CP

4/3/1Central Province, Annual Report, 1935, p. 31, M.R.R. Vidal, ibid. 37 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1936, p. 186 and 1937, p. 212.

Labor in the Depression —199

ferent from that which was customary in the reserves since the labor­ ers constructed the homes themselves. Thus, overcrowding and insuffi­ cient food were not as severe as they were for urban laborers. These arrangements existed even on the large agricultural plantations, like the sugar, sisal, and tea estates, where much of the labor was squatter. The most dramatic strike of African workmen in Kenya's pre-World War II history occurred not on agricultural estates, but in the city of Mombasa in July and August, 1939. The preconditions for strikes and violence were much more pronounced in the cities than in the country­ side. Not only did urban laborers engage on long term contracts and thus have occasion to organize, but urban working conditions were infinitely more trying than those in the countryside. The living and working conditions in Mombasa were appalling; yet they were typical of living conditions in almost all of Kenya's African quarters. In the cities, overcrowding was severe and health standards inadequate. Afri­ cans were attracted to cities by reports of high wages, considerably higher than those available on European farms, only to discover that housing and food costs absorbed most of their wages and forced them to live crowded together in hovels, without their families, subsisting on meager diets. In Nairobi, for example, the African quarter of Pangani had risen without planning. In response to the burgeoning Afri­ can population there, the Nairobi municipality opened a new section, Pumwani, in 1922 with the intention of razing Pangani. But in fact the dilapidated houses in Pangani were not pulled down until 1938, large­ ly because no alternative African housing existed.38 The census of 1931 showed that 312 structures provided housing for 2,230 males and 947 females in Pangani. Pumwani had 317 houses sheltering 3,133 males and 863 females. In all, 629 quite inadequate structures, hardly deserv­ ing of the term houses, were used by 7,173 Africans—an average of 11 persons to a dwelling.39 Inadequate diet was another problem. In 1934 the Medical Department tried to ascertain how much money an aver­ age African worker in Nairobi would need to spend on food in order to attain a minimally acceptable diet. They found that such a diet would cost 13s. 4d., and concluded that "it would appear therefore to be very clear that for the average African in Nairobi, it is, so soon as he has a wife to keep as well as himself, an impossibility to secure any­ thing in the nature of an adequate diet."40 Perhaps the one striking exception to the grim picture of urban 38 Local Government Department, Annual Report, 1928, p. 55 and Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1938, p. 20. 39 Testimony of H. A. Carr, Municipal Native Affairs Officer, Nairobi, February 15, 1932, KLC, Evidence, I, 1119. 111 Medical Department, Annual Report, 1934, p. 43.

200—Labor in the Depression laboring conditions was Eldoret. In 1929 this township was said to have "one of the worst slums in the colony." But in 1930 it built a model African village which contained 15 two-roomed houses, 108 single rooms, bathing and latrine accommodations, a market place, eating house, beer shop, and brewery. Although housing was expensive and somewhat overcrowded, the contrast with other cities was striking. The two-roomed houses rented for 18s. per month and presumably were available to educated African employees rather than unskilled workers. Single rooms cost 15s.; three Africans were permitted to share one room.41 Mombasa was the reputed Eldorado of African labor. Its wages were the highest in the colony and attracted laborers from all over. At the time of the 1939 strike the tribal composition of the unskilled labor force was 5,000 to 6,000 Luo, 5,000 to 6,000 Kikuyu, 2,000 to 3,000 Coast people, 2,000 Kamba, and 3,000 to 4,000 Tanganyika Africans.42 Behind the facade of high wages, however, working and living condi­ tions were probably the most frustrating in all of Kenya. The strike began among employees of the Public Works Department on July 19 in protest over poor housing. These men were quickly joined by em­ ployees of the Municipality, the Electric Light and Power Company, the oil companies, Posts and Telegraphs, vegetable growers, and dairy owners. When on August 1 and 2 the port workers also came out on strike, almost the entire African labor force was involved, and the economy of the city was paralyzed.43 So dramatic, decisive, and unex­ pected was the strike that the government empowered a special com­ mission to investigate and issue a report. The strike should not have been so unexpected. There were two root causes which the commission easily elucidated and one of which— expensive and inadequate housing—had been known for a long time. In 1924 the old town of Mombasa had been described as a collection of wattle and daub huts, unplanned, congested, and in poor sanitary condition.44 By 1931 new housing had been made available at Majengo. Although this section was said to contain better dwellings than the old town, its structures were hard to clean and harbored rats.45 By 1939 a burgeoning African population caused Principal Labor Officer, Allen, to exclaim that the houses at Majengo were "the worst that I 41 Local Government Department, Annual Reports, 1929-31. 42 Kenya, Report of

the Commission of Inquiry Appointed to Examine the Labor

Conditions in Mombasa, 1939, p. 60. 43 Ibid., p. 36. 44 Mombasa, Report on Native Affairs, 1930, KNA DC/MSA/18. 45 Medical Department, Annual Report, 1931, pp. 30-32.

Labor in the Depression—201 have ever seen. I would not call it housing. They were a sort of corru­ gated iron hut provided with a roof of sheet iron."46 The Health Officer also added that many Africans could not find regular lodging and slept anywhere. "In cattle or goat shed, in ramshackle huts made of odd pieces of old corrugated iron and flattened petrol tins, they are to be found in all the odd corners of the island living under conditions of squalor that one hopes their employers are unaware of."47 Even so lodging costs were extraordinarily high. The land and the hovels were owned mainly by Asians, many of whom had borrowed money at high rates to purchase the land. They were forced to charge high rents to pay their creditors and also to cover a high incidence of defaulting among African tenants. The only way laborers could afford to pay their rents was for many persons to share a single room. Other ex­ penses were high. The commission estimated that an African had to spend 18s. 5od. a month on food, water, paraffin, wood, soap, utensils, and tax, not to mention housing. Yet the railway paid its labor only 20s. a month; the Municipality 16s. for "road boys" and 20s. to 30s. for sweepers and "night soil boys."48 Not surprisingly, the vision of El­ dorado had turned to ashes for most African employees. Workers could not afford to bring their families; nor could most manage to save anything. A second serious problem involved port labor which was employed by four firms: the Kenya Landing and Shipping Company; the East African Lighterage Company; the African Wharfage Company; and the Tanganyika Boating Company. The first company had an exclusive right to handle goods once landed on shore. The other three com­ panies off-loaded goods from ships. Although these firms hired some labor on monthly contracts at the reasonably attractive salary of 40s., most of the labor was casual, hired at the cheap rate of is. 5od. per nine-hour day. The firms preferred to hire casual labor by the day be­ cause there was a large floating labor force in Mombasa, and they could easily recruit sufficient labor this way. Each morning that work was available, word would go out through the city and vast numbers of potential laborers would pffer themselves for work. The result was that the Mombasa port labor force was larger than the labor demand. Thus a casual laborer worked only on those days that he was fortunate enough to be selected. Most dock workers lived with the constant in­ security of not knowing from one day to the next whether they would 46 Kenya, Report of the Commission of Inquiry Appointed to Examine the Labor Conditions in Mombasa, 1939, p. 9. 47 Ibid., p. 56. 48 Ibid., p. 6.

202—Labor in the Depression

be able to find work and whether they would be able to make enough money during a week to pay for food and housing.49 These factors combined to produce the explosive Mombasa strike of 1939. Although the Principal Labor Officer contended that the strike was orchestrated by the Young Kikuyu Association (Kikuyu Central Association?) and the East African Labor Trade Union, the Commis­ sion repudiated this fact and claimed that there was no trade union ac­ tivity.50 In fact, African labor organizations were in their infancy al­ though urban working conditions were ripe to be exploited. *$Ibid., p. 3. so No. 564, W. Harragin for the Governor to MacDonald, August sg, 1939, PRO co 533/507·

CHAPTER IX

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s

It is common knowledge that European groups in Africa—settlers, ad­ ministrators, and missionaries—had differing, sometimes incompatible attitudes toward African education. At few times have these differ­ ences been more clearly exposed as in Kenya during the 1920s when the government sought to bring order to the educational chaos that had arisen before World War I. Just as the Kenya government estab­ lished a framework of labor legislation in the 1920s, in the same de­ cade it created a more coherent educational system in which the Kikuyu became deeply involved and which brought about a Kikuyu educa­ tional revolt in 1929. All the European groups recognized a need for regulation and new directions. Before 1914 the missionaries were the chief purveyors of African education. They operated almost without control. When Ainsworth became Chief Native Commissioner in 1918, he admitted that the state had imposed no restriction on the number and in many cases the extent of mission land grants. He admitted that the administration exercised little surveillance over the missionaries who entered the East Africa Protectorate and complained that some, especially the American evangelicals, were men of low educational at­ tainments.1 M.R.R. Vidal, an Assistant District Commissioner in Nyanza Province, expressed a not uncommon opinion among British officials when he described one such American missionary as "not the right sort of person to instill British ideals into the natives of Elgeyo."2 Ainsworth was also troubled by the fact that Kenya had more nonBritish missionaries than British agents, and he feared that these in­ dividuals "unless bound by rules, etc. and strictly supervised will be inclined to instill in the natives their own or their particular country's ideals."3 Moreover, the quality of education in Kenya was disparate. Writing about Fort Hall and Nyeri districts, the Provincial Commis­ sioner, Tate, had high praise for the work of Marion Stevenson of the CSM at Tumu Tumu, but condemned the Italian missionaries who were not even able to speak English or Swahili. Tate added that some 1 Memorandum Regarding Education of Natives in Reserves, J. Ainsworth, No­ vember 12, 1918, KNA DC/ELGM/10. 2 M.R.R. Vidal, DC, Marakwet, to PC, Naivasha, December 7, 1918, ibid. 3 Memorandum Regarding Education of Natives in Reserves, J. Ainsworth, No­ vember 12, 1918, KNA DC/ELGM/10.

204—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s missions did not require examinations of persons they engaged as teachers. 4 Despite financial

limitations the government took an early interest

in African education, providing small grants to missions for technical education in 1909. In 1911 the government created a Department of Education and appointed J. R. Orr as its Director. Two years later, on April 30, 1913, Orr met with Ainsworth, A. MacDonald, the Director of Agriculture, and the Provincial Commissioner of Ukamba and drew up proposals for government African schools, which while only par­ tially implemented in subsequent years revealed a great deal about colonial thinking on education. The men recommended that the state establish primary schools emphasizing technical and agricultural in­ struction. Schools were to be financed

from a portion of the hut and

poll tax receipts. As funds permitted, branch schools were to be opened. What was most interesting in these recommendations was the way in which education was seen as a veritable panacea for a whole host of Kenya's political and economic problems. No doubt reflecting the ideas of Ainsworth and Orr, the proposals envisaged education as making Africans "more useful citizens," improving their relations with the white population, elevating their standards of living, and increas­ ing their wants and "incidentally their desire to earn money." Accord­ ing to this memorandum, the African tendency was to produce "only sufficient for their own requirements." Education would inculcate habits of industry, which would improve not only local production but also the outside labor market. Moreover, by teaching improved agri­ cultural techniques, schools would expand production in the reserves and at the same time release laborers for work on European estates. Although this scheme was not fully implemented, it is revealing of the extraordinarily utilitarian view of education that prevailed not just among Kenya administrators, like Orr and Ainsworth, but among mis­ sionaries as well. Education was rarely justified for its own sake, but rather as an instrument for effecting conversions, facilitating economic development, and producing loyal citizens. 5 Orr was to become the driving force behind government entry into African education in the 1920s. He had marked ideas on the directions he thought education should take, and he did not hesitate to enunciate these ideas in the annual reports of the education department. Orr's philosophy of African education was based on stereotyped, 4 H.

R. Tate, PC, Kenya Province, to Director of Education, September 14, 1918, KNA PC/CP 6/5/1. β Memorandum Dealing with Certain Proposals for the General Education of Natives in Native Districts in the East Africa Protectorate, in Ainsworth to Colonial Office, August 8, 1913, PRO CO 533/130.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s—205 racialist and educationalist ideas current at that time. He believed African peoples to be primitive and child-like and argued that educa­ tion had to be adapted to this essential fact. The African mentality was "undeveloped," he contended, and like the mind of a small child, it must be stimulated into more disciplined and energetic activity by means of handicrafts and manual training. Eye and hand training he held to be valuable "in developing the motor centers of the brain."6 Affirming that African education must proceed from "sensation to pre­ cept to concept," he had the government elementary schools devote three-fifths of their time to gardening and local handicrafts, like matweaving, basket making, and pottery.7 In his 1926 annual report, Orr likened the stage of African development to that of mentally defective children and argued that by training the eye, the ear, and the hand, as educators did in dealing with such children, the brain would be stimulated.8 For Orr the goal of African education was the development of the reserves. He wanted Africans to be taught techniques which they could carry back to their reserves. In the classrooms they should use materials with which they were already familiar. By employing Afri­ can folklore, songs, and traditional customs, the schools, he felt, would instill a respect for traditional life and cause individuals to want to modernize their rural communities rather than to forsake them for em­ ployment in the cities or on European farms. These aims made Orr suspicious of settler and missionary views of African education. The settlers, he felt, were interested only in what was called technical edu­ cation, that is the training of artisans who would be employed in the European sectors of the economy. While not opposing technical educa­ tion, Orr wished to secure some training for the masses, and thus he was apprehensive lest most of the government's educational expendi­ tures went to technical schools. He was even more skeptical of mis­ sionary education because of its emphasis on literary training and its aim at effecting "conversions and a complete break from native cus­ toms and superstitions."9 A literary training was not suited to the pres­ ent stage of African mental development, for Africans were not yet ready to cope with highly abstract forms of thinking. Orr quoted with obvious approval a missionary report that African students in mission schools were subject to numerous mental disorders, and he recom­ mended that each school should have a hospital nearby. "Few natives are able to remain longer than 6 months without requiring some medi­ cal attention."10 As for the education of girls he favored substituting β Department of Education, A n n u a l R e p o r t , 1924, p. 19. 8 Ibid., 1926, p. 15. t Ibid., p. 48. 10 Ibid., 1924, p. 48.

^ I b i d . , 1925, p. 14.

206—Education and the Kikuyu in the

1920s

what he called the three B's for the three R's: baby, bath, and broom. Because of his skepticism of missionary schools, the director of edu­ cation was anxious that the government itself create schools, if only to serve as models to other educators in Kenya. Orr realized this am­ bition in 1915 with the founding of the Machakos Industrial School. Believing that the missions already had "great influence" with the Kikuyu, that they were having their "easiest task" in Nyanza province, and that the Maasai were inaccessible and the Nandi, "sullen, morose, and suspicious," by a process of elimination the government selected the Kamba as the most fertile field for government educational en­ deavor.11 In April, 1915, the Machakos school was opened with twentysix students, and soon thereafter the state created a number of "bush" schools in the Machakos and Kitui districts to feed students into the central institution. The Machakos school revealed Orr's educational philosophy, at least at first.12 There was an emphasis on eye-hand training, and the school was run with strict military discipline. Stu­ dents were divided into companies and followed rigid schedules, for Orr believed that Africans were not yet ready for individual responsi­ bility and required constant surveillance.13 But Orr saw his experiment transformed in directions he did not favor. Increasingly the school's goal was the production of artisans for the European economy, causing Orr to criticize the school in his 1925 report as one of those whose pur­ pose was to serve European settler economic interests. Even at the founding of the school this tendency existed, however. Colonial Secre­ tary Bowring wrote in 19x5 that the school would provide "a constant supply of trained boys fit to join the Railway, public works department, and settlers requiring the services of trained artisans."14 In his 1925 report Orr identified three types of schools in Kenya. Schools like the Machakos school and the Native Industrial Training Depot served European needs. The second type, the mission schools, were intended to effect conversions and eradicate African traditions. Orr favored a third type of school, to be established in the heart of the African reserves, beyond the influence of European settlement, train­ ing young men and women to improve village life and develop their rural economies.15 In the 1920s Orr sought to foster these schools. At the end of the war the government was ambivalent about the de­ gree to which it should become involved in African education. Many 11 Ibid.., 1931, p. 2. 12 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1915-16, J. L. Lightbody, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/2. 13 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1926, p. 16. 14 East Africa Protectorate, Report for 1914-15, p. 30, C. C. Bowring, HCSP Vol. 1 19, cd. 8172-8177. 15 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1925, p. 14.

Education and the Kikuyu in the

1920s —207

officials shared Orr's suspicion of mission schooling. In 1919 the Dis­ trict Commissioner of Meru, A. E. Chamier warned that the African people in his district were hostile to missions and that mission teaching was "usually disruptive. . . ." He believed that "government schools (where there would of course be no interference with their customs) would be well supported."16 Although this point of view was to grow in popularity among government officers as a result of frequent con­ flicts between the missions and the African peoples in the 1920s, it was probably not held by most administrators in 1920. More importantly, the new Chief Native Commissioner Ainsworth did not accept this po­ sition. He believed that Christianity was an indispensable stabilizing force. "To my mind," he wrote, "it stands to reason and common sense that natives who are being raised from paganism and savagedom to a higher form of life must of necessity be brought under the influence of Christian morals; otherwise we shall have an educated pagan still under the influence of his former savage customs and beliefs. Christian teaching is, I believe, the only possible antidote."17 In 1919 a special Commission was set up to suggest guidelines for Kenya education. Composed of settlers, missionaries, and government officials, this Commission rejected a proposal from Orr that the govern­ ment create a school for teacher training with a dozen government African schools attached to it. Instead it recommended increased gov­ ernment support for missionary endeavor, calling upon the missions to provide a basic literary education for students up to eleven years of age, including some hand and eye training, followed by technical edu­ cation for students between the ages of twelve and eighteen. The Com­ mission believed that technical education should be the principal goal of African schools, and the government should subsidize students in the mission technical schools. These "advanced" pupils were to be ap­ prenticed to their trades. The Commission favored doing away with the system of financial support based on examination results and suggested that the state pay two-thirds of the salaries of qualified European and African teachers and part of the building, equipment, and boarding expenses of students undergoing technical education in the mission schools.18 The settler influence was clear in this document, for settlers were enthusiastic about technical education as a way of creating an African artisan class for work on their farms. A beginning was immediately made in implementing these pro­ posals. The government established a board of education in 1920 and is A. E. Chamier, DC, Meru, to PC, November 26, »919, KNA PC/CP 7/1/1. Ainsworth to H. R. Tate, PC, November 25, 1919, ibid. is Report of the Education Commission of the East Africa Protectorate, 1919· passim. 17

208—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s provided grants in aid according to the formula proposed by the Com­ mission. In 1921 it allocated close to £10,000 to eight mission schools almost entirely for the technical training of African apprentices. But these efforts were largely nullified by the economic crises which struck Kenya during the next two years. Forced to cut back its administrative programs and personnel, the government did not appoint the inspec­ tors which the Commission deemed essential to the success of the grant in aid program. In fact, in 1922 the administrative staff of the Educa­ tion Department consisted of the director, a European head clerk, and three non-European clerks. The post of senior inspector of schools had been retrenched. Government inspection of aided schools had to be carried out by one of the teaching instructors who used school holi­ days to tour the mission technical schools. 19 Two major developments conspired to refocus attention on educa­ tion following this first halting effort to establish an educational frame­ work. The first

was the controversy between the Indian and the

European settler populations over land, immigration, and political representation. A consequence of the dispute was a renewed European demand to train Africans to replace Indians as clerks and artisans. This was an argument that H. E. Scott of the CSM had often made in favor of African education before 1914. 20 The same theme had been put for­ ward forcibly in an annual report of the Railway Administration fol­ lowing a strike of Indian artisans which had paralyzed the operations of the railway in 1914. The manager of the railway wrote that the strike "brought before the administration in a very vivid manner the danger of being dependent upon a skilled labor supply that is not resi­ dent in the country and over which we have no control. . . . A remedy exists in the not so distant future in the native labor of the country. I am most strongly of the opinion that it is possible to train and educate the African native so that he becomes a skilled workman." 21 The bitter European-Indian dispute also culminated in the issuance of a White Paper in 1923 which proclaimed the paramountcy of African interests. The idea of paramount African interests was asserted as a way of averting an Indian-European clash. Yet the doctrine did force atten­ tion to be paid to African development. Government officials in Kenya were compelled to be more conscious of conditions in the reserves. Governor Northey spoke of introducing new agricultural techniques and supplying agricultural instructors to African areas. 22 Colonial Office officials noted in April, 1922 that out of a total education vote of J 9 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1922, p. 1. 20 See p. 134. 21 East Africa Protectorate, Railway Administration, Report, 1914-15, p. 4. 22 See p. 293.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s—209

£69,320 only £26,789 was spent on African education and that almost none of the agriculture department's expenditure of £123,552 went into the reserves. They expressed their desire for greater expenditure on programs designed to better the lot of the African people.23 Another development gave an even greater sense of urgency to the need for expanded and properly regulated African education, namely the recession of 1922 to 1924. This economic downswing affected set­ tlers and the state alike and caused both groups to reduce expendi­ tures and to consider more efficient ways of spending their money. The state brought in a proposal for an income tax which the settlers bitterly resented and successfully undermined. But the state and the settlers could agree that one of the most effective means of reducing expenses was through the training of Africans to replace Indians as clerks in the government bureaucracy and as artisans in government technical de­ partments and on European farms. In 1923 the government passed its first ordinance for the establishment of an African civil service. In the Legislative Council debate Treasurer Grannum said that because most of the clerks at that time were immigrants, they were costly and should be replaced by Africans.24 At the Railway Administration Felling won the praise of the settlers by mentioning that he had cut Indian wages by one-sixth and had eliminated almost 3,000 Asian employees while hiring 48 more African clerks, 100 more artisans, and 147 more ap­ prentices. He added that the Railway was also anxious to find places for European artisans in order to keep a "poor white class" like that in South Africa and the southern United States from emerging in Kenya.25 This remark provoked the wrath of Shams ud Deen, an Indian delegate, who while agreeing that the state should promote the inter­ ests of the majority African population, objected to the suggestion that it should favor Europeans over British Indian subjects.26 With so many interests and hopes attached to African education, it was hardly surprising that settler, missionary, and government repre­ sentatives clashed in a bitter, but extraordinarily revealing debate in the Legislative Council in October, 1923. At the end of each year the Kenya Council debated the budgetary estimates for the forthcoming year. On October 30, 1923, the Council looked at the educational esti­ mates. The settlers were exceedingly critical. Led by Lord Delamere, they argued that the country was not getting its money's worth in Afri­ can education and that the proposals of the Education Commission of 1919 had not been truly implemented. Delamere claimed that the arti23 ColoniaI

Office Minute, April, 1922, PRO CO 533/291· 24 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, May 28, 1923 and No­ vember g, 1923. 2 β Ibid., October 17, 1923, p. 11. zslbid., October 17, 1923.

210—Education and the Kikuyu in the

1920s

sans trained by the missions were of inferior quality and could not even be employed. He pointed out that technical training was dis­ persed among the Education Department, the Railway, the Public Works Department, and the missions, and suggested that all technical instruction be centralized in the Railway Administration under Felling whom Delamere already recognized as a capable administrator and a warm supporter of settler interests. He was especially critical of the technical branches of the mission schools and felt that the govern­ ment's grants to these schools were being wasted.27 Delamere's view of education was that the missions should provide elementary educa­ tion and basic literary training while the agriculture and medical de­ partments should train individuals who would improve the economy and health conditions in the reserves. But the higher elementary grades should be devoted to technical training and should produce qualified artisans of use in the European sectors of the economy, which Delamere believed would be the engine of Kenyan economic develop­ ment. In pursuit of this goal Delamere had founded a European and African Traders Organization, the purpose of which was to enforce a boycott against Indian artisans and to act as an employment agency for African and European skilled workmen. According to Delamere's biog­ rapher, Elspeth Huxley, this organization was forerunner of the Native Industrial Training Depot at Kabete.28 In the Council debate the government officials sought to counter the settler attack. Chief Native Commissioner Maxwell made a distinction between the training of artisans, or what was called technical educa­ tion which the settlers wanted, and industrial education which would enable the Africans "to work for the good of their own people." These terms remained important for all future discussion of educational pol­ icy. Technical education usually referred to the training of artisans for employment in cities and on European farms while industrial educa­ tion stood for training designed to improve life in the reserves. Orr also participated in the Legislative Council debate, defending the Education Department on the grounds that without an inspectorate it could not enforce high standards in mission technical schools. He re­ minded the settlers, however, that the White Paper of 1923 called for the all-round elevation of African life which necessitated education that was not merely literary or technical or industrial, but all of these things. The reserves needed attention, for conditions there were "best described as filth of mind and filth of body." Orr concluded his speech by pressing for the reorganization of the Education Department and the creation of a group of "Hamptons and Tuskeegees" throughout 27 Record of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, October 30, 1923. 28 Huxley, White Man's Country, 11, 186.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s—211

Kenya.29 The settlers were not convinced, and they were able to tie down most of the educational appropriations for 1924 to technical edu­ cation as they had in the past. They also demanded that graduates of mission technical schools be examined by an individual from the Pub­ lic Works Department and one from the Railway Administration. To provide the missions with an incentive to upgrade their educational standards the settlers also stipulated that the missions were to be paid a bonus for each individual who passed this examination.30 By the end of 1923 mission educational predominance was in jeop­ ardy. Orr at the Education Department had always been eager for the state to found its own schools. Indeed in 1923 he again proposed estab­ lishing 2 or 3 government schools in the reserves as models for training Africans in handicrafts and useful skills.31 Although most settlers did not agree with Delamere's proposal for centralizing technical training in the Railway Administration, they all condemned the mission's techni­ cal education. So uncertain were the missions about their future role in education that they declined to engage the staff required by the Edu­ cation Department in order to qualify for grants.32 At Thogoto Arthur tried to show that the CSM had trained useful artisans for the Euro­ pean economy. Cataloging the careers of those artisans who had grad­ uated between 1909 and 1919 he contended that 77 per cent were still plying the vocation to which they had been apprenticed.33 Yet the mis­ sions were deeply disturbed by the settler educational emphases. Ar­ thur writing to McLachlan in Edinburgh complained that the settler policy "touches only a few for the benefit of the country while leaving untouched the great masses of the native people."34 While Arthur and other leading missionaries knew the pitfalls of an exclusively literary education, they felt that their primary calling in Africa was evangeli­ cal. Technical training, they argued, was expensive; by forcing the mis­ sions to allocate a great deal of money to central, higher schools it undermined evangelical outreach activities. If 1923 was the year of confusion, 1924 was the year of educational decision. Although many underlying conflicts were not resolved, a number of compromises were aifected. A new educational code of reg­ ulations was enacted and several important new schools took shape. In 29 Record of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, October 30, 1923. so Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, September 15, 1924, P- 163· 31Orr to Coryndon, October 23, 1923, Coryndon Papers, Box 5, file 1, Rhodes House Library, Oxford. 32 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1924, p. 22. 33 J. W. Arthur, "Native Education," n.d., Arthur Papers, Gen. 762, Edinburgh University Library. 34 Arthur to McLachlan, December 5, 1923, CSM Papers 760, Scottish National Library.

212—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s

part, the compromises in Kenya were facilitated through the recom­ mendations of outside bodies, most notably the Colonial Office Ad­ visory Council on Education in the Colonies and the Phelps-Stokes Commission. Set up in 1923, the Colonial Office Advisory Council formulated general education policy for the British colonies and gave guidance to those responsible for implementing policy. Although its famous report on African education was not issued until March, 1925, its ideas had already been put in circulation and influenced Kenya's decisions. It recommended the creation of advisory committees on education, composed of settlers, government officials, missionaries, and representatives of African opinion. With traditional African values breaking down under the onslaught of colonial change, the Council saw religious and moral instruction as a new cement, holding African societies together. "As trustee for the moral advancement of African populations," colonial governments should welcome voluntary agencies but reserve to themselves the direction of educational policy. The states would assist missions through grants in aid.35 In the 1920s the Phelps-Stokes Fund sponsored two educational commissions to investigate and report on African education. Com­ posed mainly of British and American officials, the second Commission visited Kenya in February and March, 1924, at the height of the educa­ tional controversy. It too opted for mission education and encouraged cooperation among all interested groups.36 The first major step to be taken in Kenya in 1924 was the creation of an Advisory Committee on African Education, composed of settler, official, and missionary representatives. This body was to give advice on all educational matters pertaining to the African population.37 Shortly after its formation, the Kenya Legislative Council enacted an ordinance for the management of education in Kenya. This law re­ quired all schools and teachers to be registered with the Education De­ partment and all teachers to be licensed before they could teach. It also gave the state the power to inspect all schools. In each district of the colony separate educational committees for African, Indian, and European education were set up for the purpose of developing com­ prehensive educational programs.38 Orr waxed eloquent over this rul­ ing, claiming that it finally endowed the government with the powers 35 Educational Policy in Tropical Africa: Memorandum Submitted to the Sec­ retary of State for the Colonies by the Advisory Committee on Native Education in the British Tropical African Dependencies, HCSP, Vol. 21, 1924-1925, cmd. 2374. 36 Thomas Jesse Jones, Education in East Africa, passim, and Kenneth J. King, Pan-Africanism and Education (Oxford, 1971). 37 No. 810, Coryndon to Thomas, June 20, 1924, PRO CO 533/311. 38 Kenya, Official Gazette.

Education and the Kikuyu in the

1920s —213

necessary to control education and to ensure high standards. 39 The passage of the ordinance was followed by two other important devel­ opments. During the early 1920s Orr had pressed hard for the estab­ lishment of an inspectorate at the Education Department insisting that the state could not ensure proper standards in mission schools unless it had at least one full-time inspector to report on them. His requests were denied, for financial

reasons, until the end of 1924 when Ε. E. Biss

joined Orr's staff as an inspector. Four other posts were created and manned in 1926. 40 A second development was that the missions agreed to make reli­ gious instruction optional in their schools through an arrangement called the conscience clause. Orr hoped that the conscience clause would make mission schools more palatable to those Africans opposed to missions' using the schools to convert children to Christianity and would silence African demands being heard for the first the creation of institutions. 41

secular government schools in place of

time for mission

Having obtained powers of supervision and inspection, the state next undertook to review its financial

assistance to mission schools. A

strong committee composed of the government's Treasurer, the Chief Native Commissioner, the Director of Education, Arthur, Coney, Playfair, Swann, Forest, and Biss was created to make recommendations on grants in aid. Their report, published in 1925, recognized the need for government schools, but approved the principle of assisting volun­ tary schools. It proposed a considerable increase in grants and ex­ culpated the Education Department from failing to carry out the 1919 recommendations, attributing its failure to its lack of an inspectorate. The report recommended revising and increasing government grants to voluntary schools, and indeed, following the implementation of this report, the state became a major financer

of education. The system by

which grants were to be made did not vary much from that suggested by the 1919 Commission and implemented shortly thereafter but the amounts were increased. Instead of two-thirds of a certified European teacher's salary, the state now paid four-fifths, plus four-fifths of his second class passage to and from Kenya. The proportion of govern­ ment assistance allocated for the maintenance of school buildings and permanent equipment was increased from one-third to one-half. The state also increased its grants for students and their boarding expenses, 38 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1925, p. 5. 40 Confidential, Coryndon to Thomas, October 16, 1924, PRO CO 533/314. 41 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, September 15, 1924, p. 161.

214—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s but, as in the past, it provided money only for those engaged in voca­ tional training in the central schools and apprenticed for this pur­ pose. 42 The report ushered in a vast increase in government educa­ tional expenditures. In 1922 the state had allocated only £23,000 to Arab and African education; by 1930 this figure had jumped to £83,000 of which 45 per cent was grants in aid. 43 The formula for awarding grants in aid was extremely important and greatly influenced the direction of Kenya education between 1926 and 1934 at which time a new grant in aid system was established. It ensured that technical and vocational training remained at the heart of the mission central schools since only those students apprenticed to a trade were eligible for grants. These continued to include carpentry, masonry, agriculture, and teaching. The formula for calculating grants tended to be inflexible and promoted deception both on the part of the missionaries and African students. Since students in the central schools had to pursue a vocation to receive government support, some inden­ tured themselves and followed a vocational course even though they did not intend to practice such a trade after graduation. 44 The mis­ sionary societies also inflated the salaries of their agents in order to get large government grants and then had these men and women donate part of their salaries to the mission. 45 In this fashion, missions were able to increase their expenditures on outschools and the evangelicaleducational work they valued so much. Because of the grant in aid formulas, the state became a major source of funding for higher primary schools (standard xv to vi) and junior secondary education, leaving the missionaries to fund elemen­ tary and subelementary schools. The state gave the missions money for permanent school buildings, inevitably the higher schools. It also paid most of the salaries of qualified African and European teachers, almost all of whom were located at the central schools, while its capitation and boarding grants were reserved to students undergoing vocational training in the central schools. The Education Department sought to ascertain the breakdown of school financing in its 1932 and 1933 re­ ports, and although the director admitted that the figures were far from definitive, he felt that they gave a representative picture. Almost 90 per cent of the funds for subelementary schools (below standard 1) came from the missions, not surprisingly, because these "schools" « Kenya, Report of the Committee on Grants in 1925, Oldham Papers, Box 227, London. 43 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1930, 44 Dougall to Oldham, December 8, 1932, Oldham Aid, London. 45 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1932,

Aid for Education in Kenya, p. 9 and 1933, p. 24. Papers, Box 243, f. Grants in p. 10.

Education and the Kikuyu in the ig20s—215

tended to be evangelical centers where students learned the Bible rather than full-fledged schools. The missions supplied nearly 75 per cent of the money for elementary schools (standard 1 to HI) while the state and the missions shared the financial burden of primary schools (standards iv to vi). In contrast the state provided nearly twice as many funds for secondary schools as the missions.46 In testimony to the Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in 1931, Archdeacon Owen of the CMS argued that state policy had forced the missions into placing a strong emphasis on technical training in their central schools and was one of the reasons that by 1931 Africans had become disenchanted with mission schools.47 Although Owen's ques­ tioners tried to rebut his views, there was much truth in them. In 1911 the state had first provided grants of £2 for technical apprentices in mission schools; in 1919 the education commission recommended capi­ tation grants for students learning a vocation. The 1926 arrangement maintained this policy and was not altered until 1934. These criticisms were not apparent in 1926, however. Orr was ecstatic over the new arrangements hammered out between 1924 and 1926, although he had originally suggested that the government should take over the entire expense of the central schools and administer them as government schools under the control of officials, missionaries, set­ tlers, and even Africans.48 The effect of the grants in aid report, he affirmed, was electric.49 He was sure that all the missions would hasten to place their resources at the disposal of the state. Despite Orr's optimism not all of the missions hastened to accept government grants. The Catholic societies were suspicious of the gov­ ernment and unwilling to accept spheres of influence arrangements for their work. The AIM vacillated. In October, 1924, their executive com­ mittee voted to accept grants in aid. AIM missionary agent, Rhoad, joined the advisory committee on African education. Yet in 1926, with Hurlburt and Rhoad having left the mission, the Home Council changed its mind. Explaining the mission's stand, Home Secretary Campbell stated that the mission was a faith mission. It could only say to the government when agreements were under consideration involv­ ing the allocation of funds, "if the Lord will."50 The AIM continued to reject grants in aid before 1939 on the grounds that it could make no MIbid,., 1932, p. 10 and 1933, pp. 22-23. «Testimony of W. E. Owen, March 3, 1931, Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, HCSP, Vol. 7, 1930-1931, 11, 85SF. « Orr to Vischer, November ig, 1925, Oldham Papers, Box 227, London. Department of Education, Annual Report, 1985, p. 5. so H. D. Campbell to Kenya Field Council, August 6, 1926, AIM Archives.

216—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s promises regarding the staffing of its schools. 51 Thus the CSM and CMS were the major recipients of the vastly increased government expenditures. Three important new schools emerged from the controversy of 1924 and 1925, and each one represented the aspirations of one of the par­ ticipants in this dispute. These were the Native Industrial Training Depot (NITD) at Kabete, the Jeanes School, also at Kabete, and the Alliance High School at Kikuyu. The NITD was the result of settler pressure for the more efficient training of African artisans to be em­ ployed in the cities and on European farms. The school was begun modestly in 1924 under Orr's guidance. Students put up the first rudi­ mentary buildings, and Orr hoped that they would carry back into the reserves the techniques they learned at the school. 52 But in 1925 when the state allocated £12,000 in loan funds to construct more elaborate buildings, the school's orientation was shifted to the training of men able to serve in the European sectors of the economy. 53 By 1928 the school was offering instruction in carpentry, joinery, masonry, brick­ laying, blacksmithing, painting, and tailoring. The course was five years, with entering students taking a general course for two years and then specializing in a vocation. The technical departments of mission schools were also linked with the NITD. As a direct response to the settler criticism of the technical training given by the missions, an ar­ rangement was made that the best pupils from the mission technical schools would study two additional years at the NITD after complet­ ing their three year mission course. The settlers hoped that a special­ ized technical training institution linked with mission schools would produce the well-trained African artisans the settlers were so anxious to employ or to have the government use in place of Indian skilled labor. 54 The students at the NITD and the mission technical schools con­ tinued to be indentured by signing master and servants contracts be­ fore the administration, but the principal reason for indenturing by the 1920s was to make sure that students did not leave school for lucra­ tive jobs before they had completed their training. Clerical and artisan jobs were in demand in the 1920s, and Africans could be lured away from school. Also as the Legislative Council debates made clear the major defect of technically trained Africans was their low level of training. Consequently, the indenture system was intended to keep 51 H. D. Campbell to Lee Downing, March 19, 1935, ibid. 52 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1926, p. 14. 53 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, February 18, 1925, pp. 23ft. 54 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1928, pp. 6-7.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s—217 these students in school to learn their trades and to acquire a standard of competence which would make them employable by the state and settlers. In 1936 the government estimated that 1,050 students had completed their apprenticeship at the NITD, 501 as carpenters, 424 as masons, 72 as smiths, 38 as painters, and 15 as tailors. While admitting that the masons had difficulty finding work, the Education Department claimed that 70 per cent of the ex-apprentices were in employment and that nearly every blacksmith and painter trained at the department was working at his trade.55 Yet, even the staunchest apologists of the NITD admitted that five years was too short a time adequately to train most artisans and that Africans were employable only in subordinate positions under European surveillance. Although the Jeanes School was an outgrowth of the Phelps-Stokes Commission and was financed by a grant from the Carnegie Founda­ tion in the United States, the school not only epitomized Orr's philos­ ophy of education but realized the scheme that he had first proposed to the Education Commission in 1919, albeit in a modified form, for a government-run teacher training center sending out teachers into the reserves to improve the quality of life there. Opened in 1926, Orr called it "the most important institution of African education in the whole of Kenya," and he and his successor, H. S. Scott, featured its activities prominently in the education department's annual reports.56 Its curriculum was adapted to the rural environment; Orr praised its first director, J.W.C. Dougall, for using "the best elements of the . . . people's life, its stories and songs, its arts and crafts."57 The purpose of the school was to train students to oversee a group of bush schools upon graduation. It was hoped that Jeanes School graduates could transform these schools, which the Phelps-Stokes Commission had cas­ tigated as "little nothings," and make them modernizing centers for rural Kenya.58 The Jeanes School was a culmination of Orr's vision of a school exempt from European settler influence, bringing better sani­ tary, health, educational, and agricultural techniques to rural Kenya. The Alliance High School was primarily the creation of the Prot­ estant missions in Kenya, although the original ideas were much modi­ fied under pressures from Orr and others. In 1919 Protestant mission leaders had proposed a missionary college to give advanced training to Africans under Christian auspices and to produce Christian leaders for the African church. Four courses were suggested: theological, edu55 Ibid., 1934, p. 61 and 1936, p. 56. 18. 57 Ibid., 1925, p. 14 and King, Pan-Africanism and Education, pp. 160-176. 58 Jones, Education in East Africa, p. 59.

se Ibid., 1925, p.

218—Education and the Kikuyu in the

1920s

cational, medical, and industrial. But the government was not enthusi­ astic about the scheme.59 Orr cautioned the missions on too much literary education and told them that the government favored a severe limitation on access to higher education.60 In response the missions modified their plans and opened Alliance as a junior secondary school in 1926. Pupils were admitted possessing a School Certificate of Edu­ cation and studied for the Higher Certificate. The course of study at first ran for three years.61 The first two were spent in general educa­ tion, and in the remaining year a student prepared for a vocation in agriculture, teaching, or commerce. Reflecting the new spirit of com­ promise among the different European groups in Kenya, the school was administered by a board of governors composed of government officials, missionaries, and settlers.62 Orr had brought the Education Department through the crises of the mid 1920s with enhanced powers. Although most of his schemes for state-run schools had been rejected, he had increased the depart­ ment's regulatory powers, obtained mounting revenues, and sharply expanded the amount of money spent on the education of Africans. Before World War I the Education Department was embryonic and primarily attentive to European needs. By 1925 African education had become important. Yet in 1927 Orr was once again under sharp attack, so severe, in fact, that he was forced out of his position at the end of the year. Orr had never won the confidence of the settler population. With his schemes of developing education in the reserves and for the reserves and his preference for "industrial" rather than "technical" education he had incurred the enmity of many settlers. Yet the settlers had ac­ cepted the compromises of 1924 and 1925, often with bad grace, on the understanding that the education of their own children would proceed apace. In 1926 the state enacted an increased nonnative poll tax and a liquor consumption tax to raise revenue for European and Indian ed­ ucation, over the protests of many Asian and European leaders. By 1927 there were obvious flaws in the education of European children. A higher proportion than anyone felt acceptable was not even in school. A 1926 census indicated that many European children did not start school until 8 years of age and ceased going to school at age 14. Also even between the ages of 8 and 14 more than 10 per cent of the 59 Minutes of the Representative Council of the Alliance of Missionary Societies in British East Africa, October 4-10, 1919, CCK, File No. 3. 60 Executive Minutes of the Kenya Missionary Council, May 21, 1925, CCK, File No. 4. si Arthur to Oldham, August 6, 1925, Oldham Papers, Box 242, f. Alliance High School, London. 02 Alliance High School, Grieve Papers, Gen. 766/4 Edinburgh University Library.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s —219 children were not in any school. 63 Other children started school late. The examination results of European children were not impressive. Only 14 European children sat for the Cambridge Junior local exami­ nations for 14 year olds and only 6 were able to pass. 64 Settlers expressed their dissatisfaction with European education in 1927 in the Legislative Council's debate on the estimates. T. J. O'Shea called the Education Department "a public scandal," and in a committee report on the budget the organization of the Education Department was cen­ sured. 65 This Committee also repudiated a critical report made by one of the department's inspectors about the European School at Nairobi. In the Legislative Council debate of November 29, 1927, a weary Orr called upon the Council to withdraw these strictures, but when Co­ lonial Secretary Denham supported the Committee, Orr felt he had no alternative but to resign. 66 Thus was ended the public career of an un­ usual and outspoken practitioner of colonial education. In 1928 a suc­ cessor, H. S. Scott, was named, and a new era of educational change was begun.

Many of the educational changes in the 1920s were focused in the central highlands and proved of benefit to the Kikuyu. The three new schools founded between 1924 and 1926—Alliance High School, the Native Industrial Training Depot, and the Jeanes School—were on the fringe of the Kiambu reserve. Although they were open to all students, they tended to have a high proportion of Kikuyu. Out of a total of 110 students at Alliance in 1933, for example, 71 were Kikuyus, 15 were Kamba, and 7 Luo. Only one Maasai was enrolled. 67 Half of the gov­ ernment grants in aid in 1928 went to 4 Kikuyu mission schools: the CMS schools at Kabete and Kahuhia and the CSM at Thogoto and Tumu Tumu. Moreover, these grants were £5,000 more than the gov­ ernment assistance afforded to mission schools in the other educa­ tionally favored area, Nyanza Province. By 1928 the Education Depart­ ment estimated that nearly 12,000 Kikuyu children were in schools and 5,000 had already gone through them. 68 In that same year the Educa­ tion Department's annual report gave a figure of 4,319 students attend­ ing schools in Kiambu district, compared with 749 Kamba in school in β3 Kenya, Census of non-Native Population, 1926, p. 81. Department of Education, Annual Report, 1926, p. 9. 65 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, October 31, 1927, p. 505. 66 Ibid., November 29, 1927 and Telegram, Grigg to Amery, November 25, 1927, PRO CO 533/368/10257. «7 Alliance High School, Annual Report, 1933, PCEA f. Alliance High School. ο8 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1928, p. 48.

220—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s

Machakos district and 115 among the Maasai.69 Since the population of the Machakos district was larger than Kiambu while the Maasai population was about one-third that of Kiambu, these figures indicated a wide Kikuyu educational lead over their nearest neighbors. All the other evidence confirmed this picture of extraordinary Kikuyu recep­ tivity to education in comparison with the Kamba and Maasai. At a time when the Kikuyu were clamoring for more schools and even banding together to organize rudimentary schools of their own, the Kamba and Maasai were still resisting education and deserting their schools. By the end of the 1920s the movement to embrace education was in evidence in all three Kikuyu districts. It had spread outward from the mission centers, and once under way the missions had not been able to keep pace with the demand for schools. One of the first stations to experience what could be called an educational take-off was the CSM station at Tumu Tumu in Nyeri district. Marion Stevenson's influence as a missionary educator was decisive in stimulating this enthusiasm.70 Also Tumu Tumu had a compact set of outschools located around the station under effective supervision from the mission center. The out­ schools were not permitted to be any further than five miles from Tumu Tumu so that teachers could return to the central station for further training.71 As Table 9-1 shows, a remarkable expansion in pupil attendance occurred in 1919 and 1920. By 1925 mission leaders were pressing untrained teachers into service, but admitted that they TABLE 9-1

Attendiince at Thogoto and Tumu Tumu Year

Thogoto

Tumu Tumu

1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929

604 716 792 853 827 908 1,147 1,332 1,631 2,013 2,553 3,301

418 1,207 2,139 2,219 2,292 2,840 3,456 3,182 3,243 2,258 2,854 4,434

Source: Compiled from Kikuyu News. 69 Ibid., passim. το Kikuyu News, No. 73, July, "i Ibid., No. 7 7 , July, 1921.

1920,

p.

20.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s—221 could not provide enough teachers for the heavy demand. At Thogoto the educational surge was delayed until the mid 1920s, but by the end of the decade all of the mission schools had experienced rapid educa­ tional growth. The mechanism and pressure for expansion were increasingly in the hands of Kikuyu, with the missions eager to respond to these initiatives provided they had the necessary teachers and evangelists. Originally mission education had been confined to the central stations which the missions had founded as they entered the highlands. The first outstations, equipped with a church building which was used as a school room during the week, were established on a few European estates or in locations ruled by chiefs sympathetic to mission activity. The first outstations established by the CSM before World War I were on a Eu­ ropean estate at Limuru worked by squatter labor and in locations and sublocations administered by headmen Kioi, Muturi, and Kangau. 72 By the 1920s, however, the people themselves were petitioning the mis­ sions. Mbaris provided the land and erected buildings while the mis­ sion supplied the teacher-evangelists. As more bush schools came into existence, the missions elevated some outstations into intermediate schools and concentrated advanced and specialized training in their central stations. Examinations became an increasingly important part of advancement, and fees were introduced. Elementary schools were divided into three grades. Elementary A or bush schools covered the preliminary grades or the substandards. Entrance to them was free although these schools could not accommodate all those who sought admission. Elementary B schools were from standard χ to standard in or iv, and they were the intermediate schools, while elementary C schools (standard iv to vi or VII) were located in the central mission stations. 73 Thus by 1929 the mission school system in Kikuyuland was com­ posed of a vast array of central and feeder schools. The CSM at Thogoto had 12 intermediate schools attached to it and 44 outschools. Tumu Tumu had 5 intermediate schools and 48 outschools, and Kahuhia had an intermediate school at Weithaga and over 60 outschools. 74 Partly as a result of spheres of influence agreements and partly because of historical accident, the influence of specific missions tended to pre­ dominate in certain areas. Thogoto drew its advanced pupils from the southern part of Kiambu district, but also from Chogoria, a CSM sta­ tion among the Embu, and the 2 GMS stations of Ngenda and Kambui 72 Ibid.., No. 83, March, 1923, p. 8. 73 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1925, p. 6 and Kikuyu Vocation School Calendar for 1924, Oldham Papers, Box 242, London. 74 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1928, p. 60.

222—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s in Kiambu district. Tumu Tumu took most of its pupils from southern Nyeri locations and northern Fort Hall. Kahuhia served Fort Hall and the two Nyeri divisions not served by Tumu Tumu. Kabete was strong in the southern Kiambu district, Kijabe in the escarpment area and Fort Hall where the AIM had numerous intermediate and bush schools. The Consolata Fathers with their center at Nyeri drew stu­ dents from 6 stations in southern Nyeri, 8 in Fort Hall, and 1 in Kiambu. The 3 schools of the Holy Ghost Fathers sent their students for further training as teachers to their advanced school at Kabaa in Machakos district.75 Despite the government's efforts to regulate and inspect schools, the quality of education varied greatly. Particularly distressing to the state were the bush schools which were in the hands of teacher-evangelists trained at the central mission stations. The district commissioner of Nyeri, A. M. Champion, made an avocation of evaluating the bush schools in his district. He found that attendance records were not kept properly. The equipment was "dreadfully inadequate." There were few desks; slates and writing materials were absent. The teachers were poorly prepared both in the bush and intermediate schools. They con­ fined their teaching to the three R's and the progress of pupils was slowed by the presence of too many elderly pupils. In 1926 Champion made 78 visits to bush schools in Nyeri district, and on 23 occasions found no one present during school hours. On the other hand, he re­ ported favorably on the equipment, teaching, and supervising of the central schools.76 Before World War I political factors had predominated in the im­ plantation of education among the Kikuyu. Children had gone to school under some form of direct or indirect coercion; schools had been established where chiefs were friendly. The political dimensions of educational receptivity remained important in the 1920s. Christian factions championed their own representatives as chiefs and members of the LNCs and native tribunals. Indeed, Christians were increasingly well represented on these colonial councils and in the office of chief, especially as a consequence of energetic mission sponsorship. More­ over, family groups were aware that an educated person was often more successful in dealing with the instruments of local administration —the chiefs, LNCs, native tribunals, and British officials—and in pro­ tecting and enhancing the material interests of a family group than un­ educated individuals. Factions vied with one another in obtaining edui s l b i d . , 1928, p. 53.

Nyeri District, Annual Report, 1934, pp. 15-20, A. M. Champion, KNA DC/ NYI/i. 7β

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s —223 cation for their children. Indeed this was one of the vehicles of

the

extraordinarily powerful demand for education, and as a later chapter shows a force for the creation of independent schools. By the 1920s, however, the Kikuyu receptivity had become firmly rooted in economic causes. The first

generation of school graduates

had demonstrated the economic rewards of education; by the second generation, people were striving to enter the new occupations open to mission trained pupils. Lacking the economic self-sufficiency of

the

Kamba or the Maasai, Kikuyu families looked to education as an im­ portant economic alternative to farming—indeed as a superior eco­ nomic alternative. The Kikuyu took advantage of a steadily growing demand for African artisans and clerks in the 1920s. The missions needed evangelists to open new stations as well as teachers for their bush schools. The first

African pastors were ordained in the CSM and

CMS Kikuyu churches in the mid 1920s. European farmers were eager to employ skilled African labor. The Kikuyu interest in education was certainly sparked by expand­ ing employment opportunities for African artisans, clerks, and teach­ ers in the 1920s. The demand for educated Africans rose dramatically after World War I partly because of the general expansion of the Kenya economy and partly because of a conscious government and set­ tler policy to recruit Africans rather than Asians for subordinate posi­ tions in the European controlled sectors of the economy. As the largest single employer of skilled labor and as a branch of the government sympathetic to settler concerns, the Railway Administration led the way in this respect. Under the direction of C.L.N. Felling, who was General Manager from 1922 to 1927 the Railway sought to train African artisans and to use as many African employees as it could. In the 1923 report Felling mentioned that the Railway had trained 71 African sig­ nallers of whom 60 were still in employment, 73 railway goods clerks, 8 African guards, 32 African engineers, and 165 firemen. 77 of

skilled Africans employed by

The number

the Railway Administration rose

quickly in the early 1920s from 1,093 i n !9 2 2

t o 2>224

in 1925 and con­

tinued to rise until 1930 when the Railway employed 2,323 skilled Afri­ cans. The depression brought a retrenchment, and the number of Africans was severely cut back, not returning to the 1930 figure

until

1936. Although one of Felling's goals was to replace Asians with Afri­ cans, in fact the Asian employees of the Railway Administration also rose during the 1920s, although at a less rapid rate than the African figure.

Although there are no statistics on the ethnic background of

Kenya and Uganda Railways and Harbours, Administration Report, 1923,

pp. 20—22.

224—Education and the Kikuyu in the igaos these African employees, there can be little doubt that educationally advanced peoples, like the Kikuyu, assumed a disproportionate num­ ber of these skilled positions. Another important area of job expansion in the 1920s, which also sparked the Kikuyu desire for education, was an increase in the num­ ber of African teachers. The spread of mission and government schools in the African reserves depended upon a large number of African teachers. Although figures on this subject are far from complete, they demonstrate again a rapid expansion. In 1923 the Education Depart­ ment reported that there were only 55 Africans teaching in its schools and an estimated 987 in all schools. By 1930 there were 145 African teachers employed in government schools and 2,075 in nongovernment schools. This latter figure rose to nearly 3,000 in 1932, but then de­ clined as a result of the depression.78 The Kikuyu were quick to take advantage of these opportunities in the 1920s. Not only did they flock into the missions as teachers and clerks and into the Railway Adminis­ tration as artisans and clerks, they entered other government employ­ ing departments like the Public Works Department as well as private firms. Although often poorly educated and scorned by their better trained Kikuyu peers, the teacher-evangelists, working in village communities, were a strikingly visible symbol of the fruits of education. Their life­ style was materially much more elevated than that of the ordinary Kikuyu family, not only because of their salary but also because of their technical training at the mission station. W. P. Knapp of the GMS left a description of the material circumstances of one such CSM teacher. He found this teacher living in a "30 foot by 30 foot square roofed house with woven work walls all partitioned off into 4 tidy little rooms, with rudely constructed furniture, bed, table, chairs, and etc. . . . This house . . . had windows and three doors and was not filled with sheep, goats, and smoke; his yard and gardens were well laid out."79 By 1930 many Kikuyu families looked upon education as the most important economic alternative to agriculture. The depression, with its consequent slow-down in the Kenya economy and its reduced de­ mand for educated Africans, hit the Kikuyu population hard. Thus, Kikuyu receptivity to education in the 1920s and 1930s sprang from many of the same impulses as Kikuyu receptivity to wage laboring. Heavy population densities and shortage of land compelled people to look for other economic alternatives. Easily, the most attractive of ' 8 Compiled from Department of Education, Annual Reports. 79 W. P. Knapp to M. S. Anderson, April 17, 1915, Gospel Message, Vol. 17, July-August, 1915, p. 5.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1920s—225 these alternatives was the new occupations available to Western edu­ cated artisans and clerks. But while it would appear that families sought unskilled wage laboring only because they were poor, almost all aspired to education and the lucrative jobs available to the well trained. The wealthy and politically powerful were usually successful in obtaining the much sought after schooling for their children. The European groups in Kenya established an educational frame­ work in the 1920s, to which the Kikuyu reacted strongly. These groups had divergent ideas about the directions African education should take. Administrators, like Orr, wanted government-run schools estab­ lished in the African reserves and adapted to the rural, agricultural conditions there. Settlers, like Delamere, felt that since the economic well being of Kenya depended on a prosperous European agriculture, Africans should be trained to work in the European controlled sectors of the economy. Missions looked to education as an instrument for ef­ fecting conversions and training African church leaders who could assist the missionaries in spreading Christianity far and wide. While these views were indeed divergent and often generated bitter clashes between their advocates, still European educators shared many as­ sumptions about African education. They all had intensely pragmatic and utilitarian views of education. Far from justifying education for its own sake, they extolled its contribution to other, more desirable ends, like Christian conversions, economic progress, and loyalty to the colonial

system.

Moreover,

all

three

groups,

in

their

own

ways,

adapted education to colonial rule. Africans were educated for sub­ ordinate roles, be they teacher-evangelists in the European-dominated mission organizations, clerks and artisans in the settler-dominated sec­ tors of the economy, or even progressive farmers at work in the re­ serves where Orr and Ainsworth hoped that they would develop Afri­ ca's rich economic resources, many of which could be exported to the mother country. Among the central highland peoples, the Kikuyu were the most deeply involved in education. They moved into these subordinate posi­ tions while at the same time calling for more schools and higher stan­ dards of education. Their demands eventually resulted in a break with mission education and the creation of independent Kikuyu schools. But in order to understand these events, it is necessary to interrupt the narrative of Kikuyu education and to sketch the development of Kikuyu anticolonialism which was so instrumental in spawning antimission sentiments and demands for the creation of independent educa­ tional and religious structures.

CHAPTER X

Kikuyu Nationalism

Kikuyu anticolonial sentiments were borne of the turbulent conditions at the conclusion of World War I. They were fueled by two crises, one revolving around Harry Thuku between 1921 and 1922, and the sec­ ond, the female circumcision controversy of 1929. Using a puristic defi­ nition of nationalism, these events were not mainly nationalistic phe­ nomena. They did not strive to create an independent nation-state nor end colonial rule. But they did disseminate anticolonial sentiments and extolled precolonial Kikuyu traditions in the face of mission and state assaults. These were important developments in the growth of anti­ colonial nationalism and the later appearance of programs calling for open resistance to British rule and the establishment of an indepen­ dent African state. These two events have been the most studied chap­ ters in Kenya's twentieth-century history. But particularly in the case of Harry Thuku, not enough attention has been given to the Kikuyu roots, clan rivalries, and personality disputes, out of which this protest sprang and which propelled Thuku into ever more radical directions.1 There has been a natural and even proper tendency to place the events of his career in the perspective of modern, "forward-looking" national­ ism and to stress the pan-tribal and even pan-colored emphases in his movement.2 While these themes have merit, it is also clear that Thuku's movement was rooted in local politics—the politics of colonial chiefs and the increasing mission involvement in Kikuyu politics to the dis­ advantage of many ambitious men like Harry Thuku or even another famed Kenyan nationalist, Jomo Kenyatta, who did not stand well with the missions, either because they refused to abide by the strict rules laid down by the missionaries, as was the case with Jomo Kenyatta, or because they elected to seek a secular career and detached themselves from the missionaries.3 The Kikuyu were clearly ripe for political protest in the early 1920s; the creation of political parties and the rivalries for power must be 1 See especially Rosberg and Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Mau. As a result I have tried only to highlight certain themes rather than to give a full account of events. 2 Kenneth King, Pan-Africanism and Education, pp. 65ft. 3Jeremy Murray-Brown, Kenyatta (London, 1972), pp. 90ft.

Kikuyu Nationalism—227 understood as taking place against a backdrop of considerable aliena­ tion from the colonial government. The war had exacted heavy losses of life and personal suffering from the Kenya African population. But they were given no respite after the war. The Kikuyu were placed under renewed and heavy labor demands to supply the new farms be­ ing brought into being as a result of the soldier settlement scheme. A hated new kipande system was introduced, taxes were raised, and wages reduced. Thus, it was hardly surprising that the Kikuyu began to organize political parties in the early 1920s, especially since they had the example of the Europeans, Indians, and even Bagandans living in Kenya to draw from. Sometime in mid-1920 leading conservative Christian Kikuyus or­ ganized a party called the Kikuyu Association (KA) to articulate the grievances they felt. The idea for such a political association sprang from the success that a number of Kikuyu Christians had in presenting a petition to the Kenya government to prevent the British from alienat­ ing land in the Kabete area.4 The KA also reflected increasing mission­ ary involvement in local Kikuyu politics. The missions were drawn into politics partly in an effort to neutralize certain chiefs who opposed missionary activity and persecuted the Christian community and part­ ly in order to see that the customary laws which were administered by native tribunals did not violate the tenets of Christianity. They were eager to have their converts made members of the native tribunals and local councils. At the conclusion of the war the missionaries succeeded in getting some of their followers elevated to chieftainships, and four of these mission-sponsored chiefs became the founders and leading members of the Kikuyu Association. They were Mbiu Koinange, Josiah Njonjo, Philip Karanja, and Waruhiu wa Kungu.5 The leading Euro­ pean patron of the KA was Harry Leakey who headed the CMS station at Kabete and was a sponsor of two of the new chiefs, Koinange and Njonjo. Leakey remained intimately involved with the KA and was especially close to its leading figure, Koinange. The third leader of the KA, Philip Karanja, was a CSM graduate from Thogoto. He was the least effective of the four, although he remained chief over Dagoretti location from 1921 until 1950. Finally, Waruhiu wa Kungu was the leading Christian of the Gospel Missionary Society, and because of the GMS's close ties with the AIM, he was a representative, so to speak, of the American Protestant interests in Kiambu district. Waruhiu and Thuku were both early converts of the small American GMS mission, and although the information is scanty, the personal * Rosberg and Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Man, pp. 41-42. 5 See p. 51.

228—Kikuyu Nationalism rivalry of these two men appears to have been a factor in the develop­ ment of Thuku's opposition to the British and the Kikuyu chiefs. Thuku came from a prosperous, large landowning family in north cen­ tral Kiambu district. It was his clan—Gathirimu—which provided the land on which the Knapps built their mission station at Kambui.6 Harry Thuku went to school over the protest of his mother, and on one occasion his mother forcibly took him from school as a protest against some of their teachings.7 Later he returned to the mission. He struck the Knapps favorably, and they recounted that on his baptismal day when asked what he would do if persecution occurred, he said that he would do as the boys of Uganda had done, singing Christian hymns as they burned to death.8 Although Thuku learned some of his Christian lessons well and was to use Christian imagery in his anticolonial at­ tacks, he did not remain in close contact with the Knapps. Following his education, he left the mission in search of a career in Nairobi and was actually imprisoned before World War I for having forged one of W. Knapp's checks.9 In contrast, the two leading Christians of the GMS were Wanyoike and Waruhiu, both of whom spoke out against Thuku during the troubles of 1922. Wanyoike, a member of Thuku's clan, was one of the Knapps' first converts, and after teaching at Kambui for a while, he opened an outstation for the GMS at Kamassai.10 Waruhiu came from a family without land but became the most stal­ wart Christian in the GMS church. He espoused its fundamentalist view of Christianity, making a reputation for himself as an evangelist. Richard Starr, a GMS missionary, described one occasion when Waruhiu went into a village where a witch-doctor was prophesying, called to the people to stop, and then preached to them.11 Unlike Thuku and other converts, Waruhiu turned down high paying clerical jobs elsewhere in order to stay with the mission. He married a Chris­ tian woman, and when their first baby was born, much to the pleasure of the Knapps, he raised the child without going through the tradi­ tional Kikuyu rites associated with the birth of a child. As a reward for his faith, the Knapps made him one of their trusted teachers and elders and then supported his political aspirations. After working effectively as a clerk to Chief Waweru, the district commissioner selected him to 6 M. I. Knapp to Babcock, March 28, 1922, Herald of Lift, May 18, 1922, Vol. 59, pp. 11-12. 7 M. I. Knapp to Anderson, Gospel Message, Vol. 9, June, 1907, p. 5. s M. I. Knapp to Anderson, August 24, 1907, ibid., Vol. 9, November, 1907. 9Thuku, An Autobiography, p. 12. 10 M. I. Knapp to Anderson, November 1, 1913, Gospel Message, Vol. 16, January, 1914, p. 7. n Richard Starr to Anderson, October 5, 1910, Gospel Message, Vol. 12, Sep­ tember, 1910, pp. 5-6.

Kikuyu Nationalism—229 become chief over Ruiru location, a position he held until his assassina­ tion in 1952. According to Thuku in his autobiography, Waruhiu's ele­ vation to the office of chief in 1922 was bitterly resented and contested by the entire Gathirimu clan.12 Using the wealth he acquired from his early career and then certainly exploiting the office he held, Waruhiu was able to become an important landowner himself.13 Somewhat after the KA had been formed, Harry Thuku and a group of Nairobi based Africans formed another political association called the Young Kikuyu Association. According to Thuku this organization was established on June 7, 1921, and among its founding members were Abdullah Tairaro, Waiganjo wa Ndotono, George Mugekenyi, Job Muchuchu, and Ismael Mungai.14 One of the first events that was to cause these two, hitherto loosely structured and small associations to be crystallized as distinct and opposed political parties was the formu­ lation of grievances against the state at a meeting held at Dagoretti on June 24, 1921. This meeting was called by the KA and attended by leading Kikuyu chiefs and elders from Kiambu as well as by the Chief Native Commissioner, Watkins, and the Provincial Commissioner. It was presided over by paramount chief Kinyanj ui, and Harry Thuku was selected as temporary secretary, proof that relations between the two quasi-political organizations were still on amicable terms. The pe­ tition they drafted enumerated a number of grievances. They com­ plained that taxes were high and objected to the new kipande system. They wanted a relaxation of restrictions on the use of forest lands and demanded that the laws applied to the African population should first be discussed with the people before implementation. They asked for more attention to education. In a demand that was to become central to the KA they asked the government to distribute title deeds to Kikuyu landowners, thus securing their land against the threat of further alienation. The KA no doubt represented the interests of the landown­ ing class, rather than tenant farmers, and expressed their insecurity over further land alienations. For many years Chief Koinange was a prime mover in seeking recognition of the Kikuyu landholding system. In a petition he wrote on behalf of the KA and presented to the Ormsby-Gore Commission in November, 1924, he provided more detail on the KA attitude on land. He wanted the government to present the Kikuyu people with a title deed for the whole Kikuyu reserve, and he also wanted the reserve to be clearly and finally delimited so that the 12 Thuku, An Autobiography, pp. 38-29. is M. I. Knapp to Babcock, February 12, 1922, Herald of Life, Vol. 59, March 30, 1922, p. 12 where Mrs. Knapp reported that Waruhiu who previously had no land was buying some. 14 Thuku, An Autobiography, p. 20.

230—Kikuyu Nationalism

githaka system of landowning could be recognized and so that any changes in the land, such as subdividing, could be left to the tribe it­ self.15 Koinange had lost lands to Europeans in the first decade of land alienations and was also a possessor of large landholdings within the reserve. The first and most detailed grievance set out in this petition was an extremely interesting and significant one. The KA complained against Waiganjo wa Ndotono, one of the founders of Harry Thuku's Young Kikuyu Association. Waiganjo was accused of overstepping his powers as a tribal retainer, usurping the powers of the chiefs, forcibly recruit­ ing women and girls for work on plantations, allowing his followers to take advantage of the women recruited for work, taking kiama fees, and even physically assaulting the chiefs. Although the British de­ fended Waiganjo on the grounds that he had simply been an efficient retainer and hence had incurred enmity, the rivalry between the KA leaders and Waiganjo and Harry Thuku was to prove significant in the development of Harry Thuku's anticolonialism.16 Realizing that the Kikuyu Association would send its petition to the colonial administration in Kenya before having it sent to London and that the document would acquire critical comments as it passed from one colonial official to another and hence have little impact once it reached London, Thuku decided on bolder tactics.17 In early July he renamed his organization the East African Association (EAA) to sug­ gest its pan-tribal identity. Then on July 10, 1921, he held a large meet­ ing in Nairobi to discuss these and other issues. As a result of this meeting Thuku sent a telegram to the Colonial Office on July 13, 1921, outlining African grievances.18 This direct and dramatic approach to the Colonial Office differentiated the East African Association from the more accommodating KA. Thuku's document also contained other sig­ nificant differences from the KA petition. No doubt reflecting the growing alliance between Thuku and segments of the Indian popula­ tion, it stated that next to the missionaries the Indians were the Afri­ cans' best friends. It condemned the chiefs, rather than Waiganjo, for forcing girls and women to work on European plantations. Thuku also called upon the British to provide the franchise to all educated British subjects, African as well as European, and this placed him in advance of the KA who even later in 1924, presented a memorandum to the 15 Memorandum Presented by the Kikuyu Association to the Ormsby-Gore Com­ mission, November, 1924, Central Province Political Record Book, KNA PC/CP 1/1/1. ie See p. 48. The petition is contained in H. Harris to E.L.F. Wood at the Colo­ nial Office, August 26, 1921, PRO CO 533/272. i? Thuku, An Autobiography, p. 22. is Telegram, Harry Thuku to the Colonial Office, July 13, 1921, PRO CO 533/272.

Kikuyu Nationalism—231

Ormsby-Gore Commission which merely looked forward to a time when there would be "direct representation in the Legislative Council" and asked the government that "that door may yet be kept open."19 On the issue of representation the radical groups remained far in advance of the KA; in 1929 Kenyatta called for 3 African delegates and 2 Euro­ peans to represent African interests in the Kenya Legislative Council.20 Thus, Thuku's nationalism clearly had forward-looking elements in it, and following the despatch of this telegram these became more pro­ nounced as he sought to broaden the base of his party. Although his attempt to entice the Kamba yielded few concrete results, he did suc­ ceed in sparking interest among some educated Luo. He also put him­ self in touch with Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Associ­ ation. Yet these tendencies should not be exaggerated, especially when comparing the EAA and its chief political rival, the KA. It would be wrong to argue that the EAA was a party of the urban educated elite while the KA represented the conservative, rural Kikuyu. Thuku's early experiences and education exactly paralleled those of Waruhiu and other leaders in the KA. One of Thuku's colleagues working on the Leader, a newspaper in Nairobi, was Josiah Njonjo. No doubt it may be argued that there were important psychological differences between Thuku and men like Waruhiu and Njonjo which made it difficult for the former to work as a subordinate to Europeans. Nonetheless one cannot help but feel that the Thuku movement also expressed the dis­ content of those who had not attained office and power in the colonial system despite their many qualifications. For the Kikuyu, 1921 and 1922 were important years not simply because African oppression reached an apex, but also because men like Waruhiu, Koinange, Njonjo, and Karanja were being elevated to office and others were not. There can be little question that while pan-tribal and pan-colored overtures were harbingers of the future, the real cutting edge of Thuku's anticolonialism emerged within the context of turbulent Kikuyu reserve politics. Many of the original supporters of the EAA were young mission edu­ cated Kikuyu, who, like Thuku himself, had worked for a period in Nairobi. But if Thuku was to enlarge his following and speak with creditability, he needed to carry his ideas back into the Kikuyu reserve and rally the support of other groups. Here he came immediately into conflict with that fundamental reality of local Kikuyu politics—the co­ lonial chiefs whose influence in Kikuyuland was being enhanced by the 19 Memorandum Presented by the Kikuyu Association to the Ormsby-Gore Com­ mission, November, 1924, Central Province Political Record Book, KNA PC/CP 1/1/1. 20 Petition from KCA to Colonial Office, February 14, 1929, PRO CO 533/384/

15540·

232—Kikuyu Nationalism appointment of these new Christian chiefs. A conflict emerged as Thuku sought to build a following and inevitably called into question the powers of the chiefs. As this struggle developed, involving personal rivalries as well as ideological differences, Thuku felt compelled to make his appeal more radical—more antichief, antiadministration, and even antimissionary. By March, 1922, Thuku's ideas constituted a clear challenge to British colonial rule. An incident which sparked off bitter differences in Kikuyuland was a letter written by Thuku on December 23, 1921, to Matthew Njoroge, a mission educated Christian with ties to both the KA and the EAA. Thuku sought to unite mission students and graduates behind his movement and called on them not to trust their district commissioners or headmen.21 Why Thuku sent this letter is difficult to discern, al­ though the sources of antagonism already existed in the form of the KA attack on Waiganjo and the EAA critique of forcible recruitment through chiefs. Thuku's letter prompted a powerful response from the Kiambu chiefs. At a meeting held on January 26 and 27, 1922, at Karia and attended by the chiefs, the Chief Native Commissioner, and over 1,000 persons, Josiah Njonjo and Wanyoike, the GMS teacher and rela­ tive of Thuku, read the letter to the people. In retaliation the chiefs called upon the Kikuyu people to have nothing to do with Thuku and threatened to banish anyone who brought Thuku into the district. Kinyanjui, people were reminded, was paramount chief, not Harry Thuku. Chief Gathingo pointed out that Thuku was trying to involve non-Kikuyu in his activities while the chiefs were concerned only with the well-being of the Kikuyu.22 This condemnation and attempted exclusion of Thuku from Kiambu district led to bitter confrontations between the chiefs and Thuku. Wherever Thuku went, he was usually accompanied by conservative Kikuyu leaders, especially the four leading members of the KA, who denounced his ideas. In response Thuku began to mount a campaign against the chiefs, the British government, and the missionaries, whom Thuku had praised in his original telegram to the Colonial Office as the Africans' best friend but whom Thuku now attacked for their hostility to him and his movement. As Thuku sought to spread his ideas in the Kikuyu reserve and to swell his following, he exploited local connec­ tions and rivalries, especially using his ties with missionary converts to provide him with access to areas. The most strident confrontation between the chiefs and Thuku occurred at Ngenda on February 13, siDeposition of Waruhiu in No. 174, Northcote to Churchill, Tuly 21, 1022, PRO co

533/280.

2^East African Standard, February 11, 1922 and deposition of Richard Dent, March 7, 1922, in No. 174, Northcote to Churchill, July 21, 1922, PRO CO 533/280.

Kikuyu Nationalism—233

1922. A more natural place for such a conflict could hardly have been found. Ngenda was in the north central part of Kiambu district where Thuku's clan was well known and respected as one of the most power­ ful groups in the area. It was a leading GMS station, founded just after the Knapps had opened their original station at Kambui. As a result Thuku was known to the GMS converts in the area. Because of its loca­ tion in the northern part of Kiambu district and its orientation toward Fort Hall district, it was that part of Kiambu district least under the influence of the KA. Most importantly, however, the location was in the throes of a bitterly divisive political dispute between the regularly constituted chief, Kibathi and Waiganjo wa Ndotono, the tribal re­ tainer who despite having been retired by the state still exercised au­ thority and challenged the power of Kibathi. The meeting at Ngenda quickly degenerated into a vociferous argument between Waiganjo, supported by Thuku, and influential Kikuyu chiefs, who attended the meeting in order to denounce Thuku's ideas. Waiganjo stood up and stated that he was the true headman of the area across the Mararo River and that should chief Kibathi dare cross the river he and his sup­ porters would be assaulted. Thuku supported Waiganjo's claims, thereby demonstrating a willingness to enter the local political fray and to use his influence in favor of those individuals who favored his party. Thuku told the people that "no one may refuse the order of Waiganjo wa Ndotono. I myself do not seek for the office of a headman—a head­ man is nothing. A DC is also nothing. He comes on safari and talks with you. I remain in Nairobi in conference with the heads of the Eu­ ropeans." 23 Thuku added: "I have come so that both old and young may see me. The DC when on safari with Kinyanjui and the kiama said I would be hung. I am still alive. I stand up for the Kikuyu against the government, and I write to the Big Master in London." 24 These statements must be viewed with caution because they were quoted by his opponents and used as the basis on which Thuku was deported. Yet there are so many of these accounts, and they agree in so many respects that they appear to be true. If so, they reveal a great deal about the developing nationalism of Harry Thuku. Although will­ ing to attack the chiefs as corrupt and oppressive, he made common cause with a man who also had a large number of armed followers and who according to his critics forced women and children onto Euro­ pean plantations and allowed his supporters to mistreat these women. Moreover, in this gathering Thuku pitted his strength not only against the Kikuyu headmen but against the colonial government and insisted that he was a power to be reckoned with. 23

Deposition of Waweru wa Mahoi, ibid. 24 Deposition of Waruhiu, ibid.

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Thuku continued to emphasize his increasing political power, even in the face of the European overlords, as he carried his ideas into the more receptive environment of Fort Hall district. Kiambu was under the influence of the KA chiefs, but Fort Hall district was not. Indeed, it was a politically troubled district, beset by political rivalries and unable to establish a ruling clique similar to that which had emerged under Kinyanjui in Kiambu. Moreover, Thuku was provided with an entree into Fort Hall by CMS converts, and he was able to hold big meetings at Weithaga and other places. There his speeches were more openly antichief and antigovernment. He also began to condemn the missionaries, claiming that while they purported to be in Kenya to teach Africans, they were really thieves stealing their land.25 Although Thuku later denied espousing seditious and subversive ideas and claimed that he simply wanted to obtain better conditions for the Afri­ can people, to get education, and to protest against ill-treatment,26 it does appear from the depositions taken by the government that he was counselling his people to disobedience. In a night meeting in Fort HaII district on February 26 he told his followers to pay only 3s. in tax and to throw away their kipandes.27 The next day at a meeting estimated by the government to have been attended by 25,000 at Weithaga, he again boasted that he was more powerful than the Europeans and the chiefs, and he forbade his people to "work at camps or road making or work in the station of any kind or for the public works department or to provide porters, food, or firewood."28 On March 11, just a few days before his arrest, he told a crowd that the "government officers were nobody. . . . The chiefs are nobody. If I send a letter to the Governor a chief would be dismissed at once."29 These boasts demonstrate that Thuku had actively entered into local politics and boasted of having an alternate structure of power in Kikuyuland, which colonial authori­ ties would have to take account of. While it is probably true that Thuku's original intention was to organize a peaceable and constitu­ tional protest, the opposition he met, most notably from the chiefs, when he tried to whip up support for his EAA, forced him to take more radical stances and eventually to espouse what by British co­ lonial standards were subversive ideas. In his appeals Thuku and his followers used religious symbolism. Many symbols were taken from Christianity and had a compelling ap­ peal to the mission-trained followers and to a wider population feeling 25 Deposition of Munene wa Kagwanjo, ibid. 2β East African Standard, May 2, 1922. 27 Deposition of Richard Dent in No. 174, Northcote to Churchill, July si, 1922, PRO CO 533/280. 28 Deposition of Jakob wa Makeri, ibid. 29 Deposition of Munene wa Kagwanja, ibid.

Kikuyu Nationalism—235

the impact of Christianity. In the bitter Ngenda confrontation between the four KA chiefs and Thuku, Thuku's followers referred to these four men as Judas Iscariots. A Christian prayer was written extolling Thuku. But his followers also drew support from traditional Kikuyu beliefs. George Mugekenyi, one of the early founders of the EAA, raised money exploiting the people's fear of witchcraft. Men paid money to him rather than have him break a sapling stick, called a gitugi, in front of them, which signified that they would have bad luck and that their women would not bear children. These gitugi sticks had been used traditionally in witchcraft.30 Under pressure from missionaries and Kikuyu chiefs and alarmed at Thuku's growing radicalism, the government arrested Thuku on March 15. He was deported to Kismayu and Waiganjo and Mugekenyi to Lamu, but not before there was a violent confrontation in front of the Nairobi jail on March 16, 1922.31

A second crisis followed rapidly on the heels of the Harry Thuku disturbances and resulted in an even greater spread of anticolonial nationalism. While the exiling of Harry Thuku caused the dissolution of the East African Association, the 1929 controversy over female cir­ cumcision enhanced the following and reputation of the leading party among the Kikuyu, the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) and pro­ duced a break with established Protestant missions, resulting in the creation of independent Kikuyu churches and schools. The events of 1929, in short, firmly implanted anticolonial sentiments among the Ki­ kuyu and endowed these people with institutions free from European domination. The Kikuyu became the cutting edge of Kenya national­ ism. The Kamba remained unaffected by Kikuyu opposition until 1938; a few educated Maasai were drawn into the circumcision dispute. A series of powerful forces conspired to produce the female circum­ cision controversy of 1929. There can be little question that the pri­ mary moving force was the missionaries themselves, particularly the socially conservative, Bible centered CSM, AIM, and GMS. They were opposed to circumcision on hygienic, religious, and moral grounds and wanted to use the powers of the church and even the state to eradicate this practice. The more liberal and tolerant CMS was opposed to the practice, but divided on the question of how best to alter it. H. Hooper at Kahuhia and Harry Leakey at Kabete tended to follow the lead of the CSM, but at other stations CMS leaders believed that such a deepseated and important Kikuyu custom could only be altered by means 30 Confidential, Northey to Churchill, April 11, 1922, PRO CO 533/276. 31 See Rosberg and Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Mau.

236—Kikuyu Nationalism of gradual education. The Catholic missions were the least concerned with the custom, and their stations were not greatly affected by the events of 1929. The CSM first began teaching against the practice at Thogoto in 1906, and the AIM commenced their campaign at Kijabe in 1914. In their opposition medical and hygienic concerns loomed large. Accord­ ing to a CSM report prepared in 1931 to present the mission side of the dispute, the operation of female circumcision involved the removal of the clitoris, the labia minora, and half the labia majora. This severe operation, the medical missionaries claimed, impaired the natural functions of urination, menstruation, and child bearing; hence they gave it the name "sexual mutilation."32 The leading figure in the cam­ paign to suppress the operation, the Reverend Dr. J. W. Arthur, was a medical man and had many opportunities to view the medical conse­ quences of the operation at the CSM hospital at Thogoto. Significantly, one of the early forcible statements against female circumcision was a resolution sponsored by a united conference of Kenya missionary societies, which met at Thogoto on July 8, 1918. The statement was drawn up by a special committee composed exclusively of medical mis­ sionaries and included Henderson (AIM), Philp (CSM), Jones, Bond, and Shepherd. It condemned clitoridectomy as "in all instances pur­ poseless and useless, while in some districts it is highly dangerous and barbarous and . . . ought to be abolished."33 Opposition also arose on moral and religious grounds. The public nature of the ceremonies and the displays of sexuality offended the puritan conscience of many missionaries. According to the Church of Scotland memorandum, there were two types of circumcision prac­ ticed among the Kikuyu—one called the Kikuyu type and the other the Maasai. The Kikuyu kind was more "extreme and immoral" and often involved making circumcised boys and girls witness "crude exhibitions of marital relationships during the post-circumcision ceremonies."34 Many missionaries believed that the operation and subsequent cere­ monies dulled the vitality of young women and drew them back to their tribal traditions, thus making them more difficult to educate and Christianize. This complaint was sounded by Hulda J. Stumpf, an AIM agent who taught girls at the Kijabe station. She claimed that her work was "cruelly broken" by the ceremonies.35 The CSM also argued that 32 Church of Scotland, Memorandum Prepared by the Kikuyu Mission Council on Female Circumcision, December, 1931, pp. 1-3. as United Conference of Missionary Societies Meeting at Kikuyu, July 8, 1918, in Tate to the Secretariat, September 13, 1918, KNA DC/EBU/32. 34 Church of Scotland, Memorandum Prepared . . . , p. 3. 35 Hulda J. Stumpf to Sister Martha, May 11, 1916, AIM Archives.

Kikuyu Nationalism—237

the "emotionalism" of the ceremony constituted "a full preparation for sexual life." But this preparation had dangerous psychological effects, in the view of the missionaries. By placing "undue emphasis on sexual life," it caused a decline in the "rapidity of comprehension and vivacity of expression."36 The CSM, AIM, and GMS used the powers of the church to attack clitoridectomy. On July 16, 1916 the CSM forbade female circumcision within the church. The AIM took a similar step on May 29, 1921, while the GMS passed a ruling that anyone who circumcised his daughter should be expelled from the church. In 1922 the Church of Scotland Mission ruled that if members circumcised their daughters, they would be suspended.37 Realizing, however, that the church had only limited powers to eradicate the practice, mission leaders looked to the state for assist­ ance. Government officials were hesitant to interfere with such an inti­ mate and central aspect of Kikuyu life and counselled the missions to be patient and to allow education to have its impact. Administrators were rightly worried lest coercive legislation provoke opposition and accelerate nationalist sentiment. As early as 1920 Chief Native Com­ missioner Ainsworth had decided that it would be wrong to legislate against the practice.38 Yet around 1925 the administrative attitude be­ gan to bend a little, no doubt partly under pressure from Arthur and other missionaries, but also as a result of changed attitudes among Kikuyu administrators themselves. The appendix to the Fort Hall dis­ trict annual report of 1925 contained a graphic and disturbing descrip­ tion of the effects of female circumcision as witnessed by the assistant district commissioner, C.E.V. Buxton. Happening upon a group of girls who were "whimpering and groaning" and bleeding profusely from the just performed operation, Buxton wrote that "an old woman kneel­ ing between the legs [of one of the girls] spat into the wound several times and swobbed out the wound with chewed banana leaves. The girl suffered intensely, and the cries which she emitted as her wound was treated in this way denoted an agony which shatters her self con­ trol. . . . I do not think that any thinking European who had witnessed this scene would hesitate to condemn the practice." Buxton concluded this report by observing that originally he had regarded clitoridec­ tomy "in the same light as other native customs and considered that natives should be left to change their customs when and how they 36 Church of Scotland, Memorandum Prepared . . . , p. 3. 37 Ibid., p. 9. 38 Ainsworth to Acting Provincial Commissioner, Nyeri, June 7, 1920, KNA PC/CP 7/1/2.

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liked. .. . However, I now feel very strongly after seeing the immediate results in human suffering of this custom that the government should prevent it."39 The district commissioner, R. G. Stone, shared Buxton's views and also appended to this annual report a statement by B.A.W. Proctor, medical officer in Fort Hall district. Proctor, who treated the girl ob­ served by Buxton, said that the operation was indeed a severe one, causing "permanent mutilation and . . . leaving a raw wound into which half a golf ball could easily be inserted."40 As a result of these pressures the state began to alter its traditional hands-off attitude. Cir­ cular No. 36 of September 21, 1925, issued by the Chief Native Com­ missioner to all provincial commissioners, stated that while legislation was still premature, local political officers should condemn the practice and explain its dangers to LNCs.41 The state moved in the next year to enact legislation against certain aspects of the practice. Circular No. 28 of August 23, 1926, called on provincial commissioners to encourage LNCs to legislate in favor of milder forms of clitoridectomy.42 The first such legislation was passed by the Embu LNC and stipulated that the operation of female circumcision could be performed only by stateauthorized operators, that no operator could remove more than the clitoris, and that no girl could be circumcised against her will. The Kitui, Kiambu, and Fort Hall LNCs passed similar resolutions, and only the Nyeri LNC failed to enact any legislation, refusing to discuss such a private matter.43 Although the state had not gone as far as Ar­ thur and many others wanted, it was involved in trying to establish new standards in this important arena of Kikuyu life. The crisis of 1929 would not have taken the shape it did were it not for the existence of a new Kikuyu political association. The Kikuyu Central Association, founded in 1924, drew its early strength from the Fort Hall district, especially around the CMS stations of Weithaga and Kahuhia where Harry Thuku had struck such a responsive chord. Its members at first called their organization the Central Kikuyu Associa­ tion, to stress its geographical location in central Kikuyuland. But as the association began to gain a following in Nyeri and Kiambu dis­ tricts, they altered the name to KCA.44 It was far from a radical organ39 Appendix, Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1 9 2 5 , R. G. Stone, KNA DC/ FH/5. 4 0 Ibid. 41 Circular No. 3 6 , Chief Native Commissioner to Provincial Commissioners, Sep­ tember 2 1 , 1 9 2 5 , KNA DC/MKS 1 0 B / 1 2 / 1 . 42 Circular No. 2 8 in Confidential, Grigg to Passfield, October 1 2 , 1 9 2 9 , PRO CO

533/392/15921· 43

Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1 9 2 6 , p. 1 0 . and Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Mau, pp. g6ff.

44 Rosberg

Kikuyu Nationalism—239

ization. It was suspicious of constituted authority, especially the co­ lonial chiefs, and apprehensive of European designs on Kikuyuland. One of its principal demands was the release of Harry Thuku, George Mugekenyi, and Waiganjo wa Ndotono. In 1926, the District Commis­ sioner of Fort Hall estimated that the KCA had approximately 200 or 300 young and partly educated members.45 Its Secretary at the time was Joseph Kangethe, who had been an elected member of the Fort Hall LNC but was dismissed by the government. Jomo Kenyatta joined the association in 1927 and became Secretary of the Party and Editor of the newspaper, Muigwithania. The state's attitude toward the KCA was ambivalent. While it did not recognize the organization, it was not proscribed, and indeed in 1926 three of its members belonged to the Fort Hall LNC.46 Exploiting diverse local issues and grievances, the KCA extended its influence throughout the Kikuyu land unit. Its members went into Nyeri district and tore up mission gardens and plants on CSM outstations because they were suspicious of the settlers being in league with the missionaries to gain control over these lands.47 The KCA was sensi­ tive to land issues and articulated resentment against the threatened expulsion of Kikuyu families from a piece of land in Fort Hall district which had been alienated to a European settler before World War I, but had lain unused for years. In the politically troubled Fort Hall area, the KCA became enmeshed in local political rivalries, the most bitter and protracted of its disputes involving Chief Njiri, a well estab­ lished colonial chief, and the Mathanjini clan whose leader belonged to the KCA.48 The organization also gained a large following in north Kiambu district, not only because this region was the home area of Harry Thuku but also because the AIM and GMS were influential there and through their rigid religious and social policies had alien­ ated a number of mission converts. According to District Commissioner Gray, KCA supporters in the Mukinyi division of Kiambu district were young men who had either broken away from the mission or were no longer required by the mission.49 The KCA was far from a unified or disciplined political party. It was a loosely structured grouping, mainly of younger mission men, who in varying degrees were suspicious of European overrule. As diffuse as the KCA was, it was natural that it embraced a wide range of political views and contained within it a group which some Europeans inap45 DC, Fort Hall, to PC, January 2, 1926, KNA PC/CP 8/5/2. is Handing Over Report, Fort Hall, 1926, pp. 24-25, R. G. Stone, KNA DC/FH/6. *1 Nyeri District, Annual Report, 1925, p. g, A. M. Champion, KNA DC/NYI/i. is Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1927, KNA DC/FH/7. 49 Handing Over Report, Gray to Vidal, 1927, KNA DC/KBU/20.

240—Kikuyu Nationalism propriately called a "left-wing." This term referred to those men with­ in the KCA, who refused to accept the government and mission assault on precolonial Kikuyu traditions and asserted the integrity and the vir­ tue of these ways. In Fort Hall, the leading figures were Joseph Kangethe, Henry Mwangi, and Job Muchuchu. Not only did they stress such standard Kikuyu grievances as the creation of secondary schools and government schools, free of mission supervision, but they also vowed to engage in female circumcision, beer drinking, and polygamy, in defiance of missionary opposition. Indeed, in 1929, when the Fort Hall LNC considered registering circumcisers and giving them instruction in antiseptics and hygiene, the KCA members on the council vehemently denounced such action. 50 Northern Kiambu dis­ trict also possessed a center of cultural nationalist sentiment. Many young men there were alienated from their elders and disturbed over their accommodationist attitudes. They refused to take the age-grade name given them by the elders (Kinyotoku) and chose one of their own instead ( Njame). Other rikas (age-grades) were admitted to this group, which soon began to be called Miti ya Kenya. These men vowed to have more than one wife and to practice female circumcision. 51 In the 1928 elections of the Nyeri LNC the practice of female cir­ cumcision was interjected as an issue. The KCA contested seats against the Progressive Kikuyu Party, and ran its own candidates. As a pre­ lude to the much larger dispute that swept through Kiambu district in 1929, the CSM church at Tumu Tumu suspended all those members who would not agree to the church law forbidding circumcision. About 400 left, and the Mahiga and Mihuti locations became KCA strongholds. 52 A final and equally important factor that caused the crisis to erupt when it did was the fact that many of the daughters of the first genera­ tion of Christian converts were coming of age in the late 1920s. The question of whether to circumcise or not was no longer a distant and rather academic matter of church law and morality. It was a clear and pressing problem facing Christian parents, for female circumcision was the counterpart of male circumcision. That is to say, it marked off adult life from childhood and initiated young women into full tribal membership. Only after being circumcised could a Kikuyu woman marry. It would appear from the rather scanty information available that up to 1929 few Kikuyu women had not been circumcised. In a mem­ orandum prepared by Arthur on August 27, 1929, he indicated that there were several uncircumcised married women at the GMS station so DC, Fort Hall, to PC, October 5, 1929, KNA PC/CP 8/1/1. 51 Church of Scotland, Memorandum Prepared . . . , p. 22. 52 Kikuyu Neuis, No. 113, September, 1930, p. 9.

Kikuyu Nationalism—241

at Kambui, one at Tumu Tumu, and two at Thogoto. But at the board­ ing schools at Thogoto, Kabete, Kijabe, Kambui, and Tumu Tumu there were a number of marriageable girls, determined, according to Arthur, not to be circumcised.53 It must be remembered that girls' edu­ cation had been much slower than boys' education, and except for the education of a few orphan and pauper girls in the early decades, girls' schools had not prospered until the 1920s. Thus, the late 1920s posed a crise de conscience for Kikuyu Chris­ tians, perhaps nowhere more expertly described than by the District Commissioner of Embu where the CSM station of Chogoria was deep­ ly troubled over this issue. An already fragmenting society, with deep and bitter fissures resulting from the fast pace of social change and the erosion of old values, was now to be jolted by this powerful dilemma. According to District Commissioner, Η. E. Lambert, the failure to cir­ cumcise was equivalent to detribalization and would further divide the Embu people into mutually antagonistic groups—the circumcised versus the uncircumcised. It would differentiate the Christians even further from the non-Christians and make intermarriage, so to speak, exceedingly difficult. The fragile bonds of cultural unity which had helped to cement these politically decentralized and loosely structured communities in the past, were being broken. Many dissidents felt this an unforgivable breach of faith on the part of the missions. Africans had given land to the missions and sent their children to school; now their trust in the missions was rewarded by impossible demands.54 These factors were all necessary causes of the conflagration of 1929, but they were not sufficient in themselves to account for the bitter dis­ putes and breakaways that occurred in that year. The decisions taken by J. W. Arthur, head of the CSM mission and probably the most in­ fluential missionary in the colony, proved altogether decisive. They were inflammatory and expanded difficulties into crises proportions. In March, 1929, the CSM sought to strengthen the position of the Prot­ estant churches against circumcision assembling a conference of Prot­ estant churches at the CSM station at Tumu Tumu. Christian elders from all over Kikuyuland met with Lee Downing of the AIM, Marion Stevenson, H.A.R. Philp, and A. R. Barlow of the CSM, W. F. Rampley of the CMS, and others. They adopted a resolution, with only one dissenting vote, that the custom of female circumcision was evil and should be abandoned by all Christians. A majority agreed that all those submitting to the rite or requiring their daughters to submit should be suspended from the church. Among those who refused to 53 Memorandum by J. W. Arthur, August 27, 1929, in Pease, DC, Nyeri to PC, October 5, 1929, KNA PC/CP 8/1/1. 54 Lambert, DC, Embu, to PC, October 15, 1929, ibid.

242—Kikuyu Nationalism

accept this resolution, the majority argued that the time was still not ripe for complete eradication. 55 A few months after these resolutions were passed the notorious Kihumbuini case occurred. This involved the forcible seizure and cir­ cumcising of a fourteen-year-old girl, taken from the GMS dormitory at Kihumbuini. In the district commissioner's court, M.R.R. Vidal ruled that since the girl finally consented to the operation, albeit under enormous pressure, the only penalty the state could exact was a fine against the two circumcisers for having performed the "major" instead of the "minor" operation. This judgment was upheld in the Kenya High Court, and Arthur, who followed the case closely, was incensed by the minimal penalties and what he regarded as frivolous remarks made by one of the presiding judges in the High Court. 56 He wrote an embit­ tered letter to the East African Standard on August 10, 1929. This let­ ter produced an immediate KCA response. Joseph Kangethe circular­ ized the Kikuyu chiefs on August 17 against this "new law" of Arthur's and called on them to allow the KCA to hold meetings in their loca­ tions. He also wrote a personal note to Arthur stating that the Euro­ peans had no business interfering with Kikuyu customs. 57 On August 29 Kangethe wrote a letter to the East African Standard saying that "the missionaries have tried on many occasions to interfere with tribal cus­ toms and the question is asked whether circumcision being the custom of the Kikuyu Christians he is to be a heathen simply because he is a Kikuyu." 58 Arthur took the matter to his leading Kikuyu Christians, and they wrote a statement giving a short history of the troubles and appealing to the government to protect the individual consciences of girls and parents. He also called together representatives of three other societies at Kabete where Harry Leakey was trying to revive the Kikuyu Association as a counter to the KCA. Although this meeting was attended by the four leading Christian chiefs of the KA, few peo­ ple were willing to sign the statement. At a Sunday service at Thogoto on September 15 the statement was read and signatures invited. A young man rose, and acting as spokesman for the young he attacked the elders. His speech was applauded as was the speech of an elder condemning the accommodationist attitudes of the leading Kikuyu Christians. While much the same took place at the AIM stations, many GMS loyal members were willing to subscribe to the statement. The Gospel 55 Minutes of the Conference of Kikuyu Church Elders held at Tumu Tumu, March 8-12, 1929, CCK, file No. 57. 56 Arthur to Oldham, November 10, 1929, Oldham Papers, Box 247, London. 57 Arthur to Oldham, November 17, 1929, ibid. 58 Church of Scotland, Memorandum Prepared . . . , p. 42.

Kikuyu Nationalism—243

Missionary Society had had earlier problems with its converts, and by 1929 it had expelled most of its KCA members. Nevertheless at the GMS station at Kihumbuini hostile demonstrations occurred during the service on September 15 and W. Knapp refused communion to those members not willing to sign a paper abjuring circumcision.59 This was apparently the first attempt to force converts to sign a paper against circumcision. Despite difficulties in the GMS and AIM stations, a number of persons at Kambui and Githumu, both of which had had difficulties in the past and had purged their membership, stood loyally with the church. This proved enormously persuasive to Arthur. In­ creasingly, he became convinced that the church had grown slack and was harboring irreligious and disobedient elements, attracted to the missions only because of the educational and economic advantages they offered. In his view the Kikuyu churches needed revival and purging, an effort that of course appealed to the strong revivalist tendencies already existing in the AIM and GMS sects. On September 24, 1929, Arthur took what was probably the most decisive step in this escalating crisis. He embarked on a veritable re­ vivalist crusade through the Kikuyu and Embu reserves. Taking with him Samsoni, a hospital worker of twenty years, Samuel Gitau, a lead­ ing CSM elder and one of the first converts, a young married evan­ gelist named Ernest, and a Christian widow mother, named Priscilla, he held large and long meetings in the fashion of Christian evangelical crusades, speaking himself against the evils of female circumcision and having his four African followers also serve as witnesses to a Chris­ tianity purified of its "heathenish" African traditions. This tour politi­ cized the dispute and caused the KCA and others to intensify their opposition to the unyielding and combative stance of Arthur. At Kahuhia Arthur wrote that there "was a pretty hot time, and I realized what some of these association people could be like, the very evil of the thing showing in their faces."60 At Comely's CMS station in Embu dis­ trict, Arthur was not permitted "to speak as witness on this thing to his people," but he was pleased to record that Comely would not allow any KCA members on his staff. The ultimate destination of Arthur's evangelical safari was Chogoria, a CSM station in Embu district. Its young director, Dr. Clive Irvine complained that hospital dressers trained at Tumu Tumu were spread­ ing KCA ideas among his people.61 He wanted Arthur to advise him on the situation. While Arthur was at Chogoria, he devised the mo­ mentous vow or "promise paper," as it was described in the CSM 59 No. 45, Grigg to Passfield, March 21, 1930, PRO CO 533/398. β» Arthur to Oldham, November 17, 1929, Oldham Papers, Box 247, London. 6i Interview with Dr. Clive Irvine.

244—Kikuyu Nationalism Kikuyu News, which so divided the church. The vow read: "I promise to have done with everything connected with the circumcision of women because it is not in agreement with the Things of God and to have done with the KCA because it aims at destroying the Church of God." The first opposition to this vow appeared immediately. Meeting on a football field, the Chogoria deacons decided not to sign.62 Arthur took his "promise paper" back to Thogoto, requiring the paid agents of the mission to sign both the vow against circumcision and that against the KCA. The deacons and elders were asked only to take the vow against circumcision. These men and women were given until the end of October to consider the matter. Much the same procedure was followed by the AIM and the GMS. The AIM was emboldened to take such action because the church elders and teachers at Githumu had already signed a petition against circumcision without being sub­ ject to heavy pressure.63 The CMS took no unified stand. Although Leakey at Kabete followed Arthur's lead, the other stations did not. On October 31 Arthur's agents came back to give their decision. They were deeply split; the division ran mainly along the lines of old versus young and well established agents versus less well established persons. All the ministers, senior evangelists, and "reliable" old men signed the pledges required of them and remained members of the church in good standing. Only one senior teacher refused, and he was a relative of one of the KCA agitators. But the younger teachers refused. Three advanced mission teachers at first refused, but later signed, explaining their original opposition on the grounds that this "would be a betrayal of the nation if they took a vow, not against circumcision, but against the KCA."64 Three younger technical instructors left the mission as did some masons. The heaviest losses occurred in the outstations, however, where Kikuyu families had already been demanding more education under government rather than mission auspices. Every single CSM outstation below Dagoretti and up to Limuru was closed. The people refused to accept any teacher who had signed the oath while the mis­ sion leaders were unwilling to despatch agents who had not. Finally, when the church demanded a vow against circumcision from its elders and deacons, twelve elders refused as did the majority of the deacons. They were promptly suspended, causing further losses in the Kikuyu church. The circumcision vow had produced the very result that the Kikuyu Christians had feared, namely a further fragmenting of the Kikuyu 62 Kikuyu News, No. no, December, 1929, p. 14. 63 Lee Downing to H. D. Campbell, November 7 and December 17, 1929, AIM Archives. ei Arthur to Oldham, November 17, 1929, Oldham Papers, Box 247, London.

Kikuyu Nationalism—245 into antagonistic groups. While it is true that at first the churches lost as much as nine-tenths of their membership, the central stations of the CSM, AIM, and GMS were quickly restored to vitality. The outstations were most affected, and it took three or four years before they re­ turned to the numerical strength of 1929. In the meantime the Kikuyu founded independent churches and schools to rival the missions. Al­ though it is difficult to characterize the split within the church and al­ though some people left the church for intensely personal reasons, the older Christians, who had close personal relations with the church and enjoyed the confidence of the missionaries, tended to remain, while the younger persons, perhaps unhappy with European dominance and slow career prospects, led the break. The crisis proved a boon to the KCA. Its subscriptions increased, and it made substantial inroads into southern Riambu district where the conservative KA had previously reigned supreme. According to Musa Gitau, an early convert to the CSM, Dagoretti and the region around the AIM headquarters at Kijabe became centers of disaffec­ tion. The KCA was able to obtain the tacit help of some chiefs,65 and its influence was so pronounced even among Kikuyu squatters in the Rift Valley that schools were closed there and a large number of squat­ ters refused to renew their contracts, thus threatening the settler econ­ omy. The squatter boycott assumed such large proportions that five prominent Kikuyu headmen, including Koinange, were despatched to Nakuru in an effort to neutralize RCA influence and to persuade labor­ ers to sign their contracts.66 As was the case with the Thuku agitation, the KCA used its mounting influence to bring chiefs under its influence or to undermine their sway over the people. According to one political officer, S. H. Fazan, the KCA had lists of persons whom it hoped to succeed the present chiefs and who would listen to the KCA leaders. Fazan called the KCA agitation "primarily and consciously nationalist" seeking "local independence." Chiefs were boycotted and verses of a nationalist song, called muthirigo, pictured Kenyatta replacing the chiefs and even the Governor.67 Although the crisis enhanced the following and the power of the KCA, it did not produce unity within this loosely structured organiza­ tion. Renyatta had an interview with the Foreign Mission Council of the Church of Scotland at Edinburgh on May 30, 1930, and his re­ marks suggested how divided the KCA leaders were over the question of circumcision and the attitude Kikuyu patriots should adopt toward 65 Native

Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1929, pp. iiff. 66 Rift Valley Province, Annual Report, 1929, p. 3, E. C. Crewe-Read, KNA PC/ RVP 2/3/1. r~l No. 45, Grigg to Passfield, March 21, 1930, PRO CO 533/398.

246—Kikuyu Nationalism this practice. While condemning the mission leaders for trying to force change on a people not yet ready for it, Kenyatta made no effort to defend the practice as he later did in his book Facing Mt. Kenya. He claimed that the KCA had not argued in favor of female circumcision but merely wanted people to be free to decide whether to circumcise or not. The Scottish church leaders questioned Kenyatta closely on Kangethe's statement that "we view with much fear such propaganda since it is an attempt on the part of a church to demolish an ancient Kikuyu custom." Kenyatta excused the letter on the grounds that the CSM was trying to compel its agents to take a vow against the KCA, and this had provoked an angry response. Yet Kenyatta confessed he had been sufficiently troubled by Kangethe's letter to write reminding the KCA president that the association was a political organization and should not become involved in questions of this kind. Also when pressed by the Foreign Mission Council, Kenyatta admitted that the church had a right to ask its members to repudiate this rite, but at the same time he reminded the Scottish leaders to move slowly because many Kikuyu Christians did not understand the missionaries' concern. Kenyatta's patently skilled presentation of a moderate nationalist and KCA position powerfully affected the church leaders who considered him to be a leader of substance and not a man likely to resort to violent measures. His statements also revealed divergent attitudes within the KCA.68 The murder of an AIM agent, Hulda J. Stumpf, in early January, 1930 marked in a symbolic fashion the beginning of government countermeasures to restore order in Kenya and to bring the KCA under control. There was much irony in this event. Hulda Stumpf was one of the most outspoken AIM agents against female circumcision. One of her attacks on the practice was published posthumously in the AIM journal, Inland Africa, under the title, "The African and his Custom."69 Yet while she was opposed to this practice, she was also a moderating influence in a mission often unbending in its attitudes toward African traditions. She had criticized Kenneth Allen's harsh administration of Githumu and fought for more liberal and tolerant policies.70 Her mur­ der was thought to be related to the mounting antimission and antiEuropean feeling in the Kikuyu reserve. Medical evidence was ad­ duced at the trial suggesting that she had been circumcised by her assaulter. Whether the murder was connected to the turbulent crisis β» Jomo Kenyatta interview with members of the Foreign Mission Council of the Church of Scotland at Edinburgh, May 30, 1930, PCEA G/a. 69 Inland Africa, April, 1930, pp. 1-2. το See p. 257.

Kikuyu Nationalism—247

or unrelated could not be determined with finality, however, but, com­ ing as it did when British nerves were taut, it galvanized the British administration into action.71 Kenya at the time was being administered by Edward Grigg, a con­ servative administrator who had close ties with Kenya settlers and conservatives in British politics. He was the moving force behind two abortive schemes that had much settler support, but had not aroused such enthusiasm at the Colonial Office—a proposal to link the three East African dependencies and a closer settlement of the European population in Kenya. In 1930, the Colonial Office was in the hands of the Labour Party. The Secretary of State for Colonies was Lord Pass­ field, and his Under Secretary was T. Drummond Shiels. Both men were eager to bring new orientations to colonial policy by associating the governed more closely with the governing and by being sensitive to African grievances. Much to the dismay of Grigg and the settlers in Kenya Shiels agreed to an interview with Jomo Kenyatta. The colonial administration in Kenya was certain that this unprecedented action would only inflate Kenyatta and the nationalists and make them more difficult to deal with. Although Shiels spent most of the interview lec­ turing Kenyatta, he came away with a favorable impression of this African leader.72 He sympathized with certain African grievances and was anxious to establish a modus vivendi with Kenyatta. Thus, rela­ tions between the Colonial Office and the Kenya government were strained at a time when the administration in Kenya began to take steps to control anticolonial activities. Many of Grigg's proposals met with suspicion and resistance at the Colonial Office; yet, by arguing firmly for his policies and exaggerating the breakdown in political order, Grigg was able to enact most of the repressive measures he proposed. In an effort to control and even hamstring the activities of the KCA the Kenya government turned to its customary first line of defense— local administration—and strengthened the powers of the chiefs and the native tribunals. In July, 1930, it enacted legislation giving the na­ tive tribunals jurisdiction over all Africans in their geographical areas, not just members of the home tribe as had been the procedure in the past. Appeals from the native tribunals now went to the district com­ missioner, then the provincial commissioner, and finally the Governor rather than to the Supreme Court, and advocates were not allowed to practice before the native tribunals. These changes had the effect of East African Standard, October 4, 1930 and No. 45, Grigg to Passfield, March si, 1930, PRO CO 533/398. 72 Ross to Shiels, July 30, 1930, PRO CO 533/395.

248—Kikuyu Nationalism enhancing the power of the native tribunals on which chiefs and loyal elders sat, and it made these courts responsive to British political offi­ cers who reviewed their sentences and heard appeals.78 Of greater significance and far more controversial were the state's efforts to enable chiefs to exercise far-reaching powers. The Native Au­ thority Ordinance was a purposely vague decree, and the state now sought to invoke some of its general coercive provisions. Chiefs were encouraged to prohibit meetings of the KCA as tending to subvert peace and order. Joseph Kangethe, for example, was imprisoned for two months for attending such a proscribed meeting,74 and twenty per­ sons in the Fort Hall district were convicted for singing the muthirigo, also on the grounds of disturbing the peace.75 Moreover, the govern­ ment authorized chiefs to issue orders regulating the collection or re­ ceipt of money or property and required persons making collections to obtain a permit from the district commissioner—an arrangement also designed to obstruct the KCA.76 Shiels at the Colonial Office was worried about these repressive measures. His interview with Kenyatta heightened his sensitivity to Kikuyu grievances, and letters from CMS agent Rampley questioning the legitimacy of many chiefs and the corruptibility of the LNCs and native tribunals made him apprehensive about local African adminis­ tration. Following his interview with Kenyatta Shiels wrote Governor Grigg that Kenyatta would soon be returning to Kenya. He advised Grigg to have the Chief Native Commissioner see Kenyatta with a view to persuading Kenyatta to work in harmony with the govern­ ment. Shiels felt that the KCA could be guided along "constitutional lines, by hearing its representatives and showing no open hostility to it, so long as it is so guided, rather than to attempt to crush or ignore it. . . . Something of the nature of the Central Association is springing up in most colonies and must be regarded as a permanent feature which government have to reckon with."77 Shiels feared that Grigg's repressive measures would be counter productive. He cautioned the Kenya Governor that local authorities should be supported but not at all costs. Although he agreed to the law requiring permits for the collection of money, he insisted that the Kenya administration should issue orders that normally it did not intend to refuse permits or to prevent collections. Only if the District "3No. 157, Grigg to Passfield, March 15, 1930, PRO CO 533/397/16092 and Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, July 18, 1930, pp. 555-562. 74 Telegram, Grigg to Colonial Office, February 7, 1930, PRO CO 533/396/16028. 75 Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1930, pp. 1-2, M.R.R. Vidal, KNA DC/ FH/10. 78 Confidential, Grigg to Passfield, March 10, 1930, PRO CO 533/398/16127. 77 Shiels to Grigg, February 6, 1930, PRO CO 533/394/16004.

Kikuyu Nationalism—249

Commissioner was doubtful about the propriety of granting a permit could a permit be refused, and then only after the District Commis­ sioner had made a full report to the Governor who in turn corre­ sponded with the Colonial Office. Nonetheless the government circular sent to District Commissioners on September 19, 1930 diverged from these guidelines, for it stated that permits should not be refused except for purposes which were "unlawful or patently seditious and sub­ versive of ordered government." This directive enraged the Colonial Office which deplored the fact that at the very time it was trying to obtain cooperation between the KCA and the state, Grigg "invaded the Kikuyu reserve and made his announcement of repressive measures against societies he did not like." In exasperation Shiels added that Grigg "will never carry out our policy," which he undermined by "pre­ mature declarations of policy with which he knows we will not agree." 78 In fact the Kenya government did use its powers to obstruct the KCA. In addition to Kangethe's conviction and those of the muthirigo singers, the Kiambu district commissioner in 1930 made it difficult for the KCA to collect money for its paper, Muigwithania, and to hold po­ litical meetings. 79 The Kikuyu were the first among the central highland people to articulate powerful anticolonialist and nationalist ideas, in part be­ cause they had experienced such profound social change. Theirs was a fragmenting society, and the nationalism of Harry Thuku and the KCA must be seen as an effort, albeit largely unsuccessful, to establish a new integrating focus. The nationalists expressed Kikuyu grievances against the European colonial system—labor levies, loss of land, taxa­ tion, low wages, and so forth—while extolling Kikuyu cultural themes. But that which distinguished the Kikuyu from their Kamba and Maasai neighbors and was such an essential ingredient in colonial change and colonial oppression—namely the colonial chiefs—inevita­ bly preoccupied the attention of Thuku and the KCA. The chiefs were not just a symbol of colonial rule. They were the agents of local admin­ istration, the recruiters of labor, and the destroyers of much that had held precolonial society together, like the councils of elders and the age-grading structures. Yet the nationalists maintained an ambivalent attitude toward rule by chiefs. While openly condemning and ridicul­ ing the collaborationists, especially the four KA chiefs, Thuku and the KCA did not completely repudiate the office or call for a return to pre­ colonial institutions. Thuku tried to assist Waiganjo in his struggle with Chief Kibathi, and in the imagery of his movement, Thuku was pictured as even more powerful than the chiefs and British officials. 78 Colonial Office to Grigg, May 1, 1930, ibid. 79 DC, Kiambu, to PC, September 8, 1930, KNA PC/CP 8/5/3.

250—Kikuyu Nationalism Much the same developed in the KCA movement. The KCA were anxious to obtain cooperation from chiefs. Indeed, although Kinyanjui was the very symbol of oppressive, collaborative rule, the KCA peti­ tioned the Colonial Office for a paramount chief in 1929, demanding, however, that he be an educated person. It would appear, then, that the nationalists accepted this new colonial institution, but were eager to capture its power for themselves. By 1929 some fissure between missionaries and Kikuyu converts was clearly in the offing, and in fact small breakaways had already oc­ curred. The Kikuyu were suspicious of the large landed estates of the missions; nationalists resented mission involvement in local politics in favor of their clients. There was great dissatisfaction over education. Kikuyu critics resented the mission onslaught on their cultural tradi­ tions and wanted more and better quality schools. An expansion of independency in church and schools was likely in the 1930s. Yet the truly extraordinary dimensions of the Kikuyu break with the missions stemmed principally from a confrontation between zealous evangelical Protestants and the KCA over the issue of female circumcision. The practice itself was clearly important, for few Kikuyu girls had not been circumcised before 1929. The intransigence of the CSM, AIM, and GMS provoked a natural counterreaction among the Kikuyu. Yet the opposition generated by this issue was not so widespread or spon­ taneous as Kamba opposition to the government when the state tried to destock the reserve in 1938. This policy affected the entire society and occasioned general opposition. The 1929 dispute was largely con­ fined to the church, rather than the wider Kikuyu society. Moreover, the issues were manipulated skillfully by the KCA to its advantage. As Lee Downing of the AIM indicated, nonbelievers were still eager to have teachers sent to the outstations and were willing to have their children instructed by those who had taken the vow.80 These families were not caught up in the controversy; they were not yet fully en­ meshed in the moral dilemma of whether to circumcise their daughters or not. They were simply anxious to catch up educationally with some of their neighbors and not a little displeased at the closing of schools. The crisis of 1929 was within the Christian community and involved a clash of two powerful wills—European missionaries and Kikuyu Christian critics. THE MAASAI AND FEMALE CIRCUMCISION

While the Kamba remained untouched by the dispute over female circumcision and the main thrust of Maasai opposition continued to be so Lee Downing to H. D. Campbell, December 17, 1929, AIM Archives.

Kikuyu Nationalism—251 provided by the warrior class, a small group of Christianized and edu­ cated Maasai living at the AIM station at Siyiapei were drawn into this explosive controversy. They produced a miniature crisis there. The Maasai converts at Siyiapei had close ties with the Kikuyu. Some of them had spent their early years living among the Kikuyu. Because of their connection with the AIM, converts, like Oimeru and Matanta, sons of Chief Masikonte, had studied at Kij abe. The mission put pres­ sure on its converts to marry Christian girls, and since there were few Maasai Christian women, some of the young Maasai married Kikuyus. Molonket ole Sempele, for example, married a Kikuyu girl from Kijabe, whose family lived on the mission station and who were involved with the KCA in the 1929 dispute. 81 Moreover, Siyiapei was a virtual outstation of Kijabe. It took its orders from the AIM headquarters and tended to implement the policies decided at Kijabe. Hence, it is not surprising that the dispute which erupted in Kikuyuland reverberated on the Siyiapei station. The small Maasai Christian community was fast approaching a diffi­ cult situation over female circumcision in any case. The Maasai at­ tached the same importance to the circumcision of males and females as did the Kikuyu, and thus there were natural apprehensions in 1929 as a number of Maasai girls at Siyiapei came of age. There were three standard iv girls in Florence Stauffacher's school, and in June, 1929, one indicated her desire to be circumcised. Florence Stauffacher coun­ seled the girls to wait and to pray intently during the next month. 82 Nonetheless, shortly after Arthur published his letter in the East Afri­ can Standard on August 10, 1929, the Stauffachers discovered that the children had been withdrawn from school and the church elders and a few younger men had gathered to discuss the question of circum­ cision. As the Kikuyu situation worsened, so it worsened at Siyiapei. The Stauffachers held prayer meetings throughout January, 1930. While admitting that the custom was brutal and ought to be abolished, John Stauffacher feared that if the Kijabe line was followed "as matters now stand we will have no church at all." He was worried that men and women who had been staunch churchmen for many years would now be told that they must change a long established custom or leave the church. "I can not quite make up my mind as to whether that is right or not. I feel it's a bit premature," Stauffacher added. 83 Kikuyu political consciousness was paralleled by the formation of a Maasai political association with its headquarters at the mission staSi Florence Stauffacher to Dear Ones, September 19, 1930, ibid. 82 Florence Stauffacher to Margaret Moody, October 9, 1929, ibid. 83 John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, November ig, 1929, f. AIM History,

ibid.

252—Kikuyu Nationalism tion. A small group, it included two of Masikonte's sons, Oimeru and Matanta, as well as leading mission students and government teachers from the Narok school. Although Masikonte was called in and coun­ seled the young men to dissolve their organization, they vowed to keep it in existence.84 Perhaps spurred on by the appearance of this political body, anti-Christian in the narrow definition of the Stauffachers, they took a step that exacerbated the problem. At an AIM field meeting the church leaders decided that all African church members and catechu­ mens who would not publicly declare their opposition to female cir­ cumcision should be automatically suspended from the church and its cathechumen classes. When this policy was revealed to the small Siyiapei community in early February, all but two members withdrew and threatened to take possession of the church.85 The Maasai church elders affirmed to the Stauffachers their intention of upholding tribal tradition, and they demanded a church of their own, claiming, as the Kikuyu dissidents did, that the mission church truly belonged to the African community. Shortly after the Maasai Christians withdrew, two church elders spoke with John Stauffacher and told him that the con­ troversy involved much more than tribal customs. It also related to politics, land losses, and oppressive colonial rule in general. While the Stauffachers carried on a school and church with only two regular members, the dissident community proceeded to establish their own church, having fitted up an old building. They held services within hearing and at the same time as the Stauffachers had their serv­ ices. Although they also sought to establish an independent school, the government officers prohibited their educational work. The breakaway leaders told the Stauffachers that they would come back only if the church allowed them all their old rights and ceased to interfere with their customs. As an expression of their cultural traditions and their opposition to mission teaching, mission girls were circumcised and boys had their teeth withdrawn and their earlobes pierced.86 A further crisis loomed in late 1930, when one Maasai girl, Nolmisheni, whose father had been a trusted evangelist, decided to take the AIM vow against circumcision, and having completed the catechumen's class, asked to be baptized. These intentions occasioned a strong reaction from the dissident Maasai Christians who said that "they would never allow a Maasai woman to keep that vow, no matter whether it meant prison or a fine or even war with the government." Until this time Molonket had played a moderating role, at least ac­ cording to the Stauffachers' account, siding with the rebels in order to si Florence Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, undated, i b i d . 85 John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, February 11, 1930, £. AIM History, i b i d . se John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, April 23, 1930, i b i d .

Kikuyu Nationalism—253 retain influence with them and eventually to heal the breach. He inter­ vened in this dispute, however, and subjected Nolmisheni's parents to intense pressure to have the girl circumcised. Eventually she yielded, a decision celebrated with much dancing and singing, including "vile Kikuyu songs."87 These were almost certainly Kikuyu muthirigo songs and provide further evidence of how close the Maasai Christians were to the Kikuyu dissidents. The crisis among the Maasai was never so sharp or divisive that the breakaway group ceased to communicate with the Stauffachers or to feel a compromise to be impossible. The dissidents sometimes attended Stauffacher's services, and on one occasion, when he preached a ser­ mon stressing faith in the blood of Jesus, they met with the AIM agent afterwards arguing that faith in Jesus, rather than the circumcision vow, was what mattered in being a Christian. According to John Stauffacher, "they wanted to know why female circumcision was such a deadly sin that it had to be separated from all other sins enumerated in the baptismal vow and that this should have a special vow."88 Throughout the crisis the Staufiachers retained a profound am­ biguity and sense of confusion, in marked contrast to Arthur and other mission leaders in Kikuyuland. Ever since the two Maasai moves the Stauffachers had sympathized with Maasai grievances. Florence Stauffacher admitted that the dissident Christians had "a real cause to fight for as they are being crowded more or less into a corner with so many Europeans around them." Soon after the break, with its shattering im­ pact on the small Maasai church which the Stauffachers had worked so assiduously to establish, John Stauffacher was willing to concede his policies had been a "huge mistake."89 But the Stauffachers were essen­ tially apolitical missionaries, concerned only with the spiritual dimen­ sion and uncomfortable with political issues. Thus Florence Stauf­ facher's solution to the dilemma was to limit herself to preaching, for "politics and education only lead us deeper and deeper into hopeless trouble."90 John Stauffacher adopted the same attitude, spurred on by his belief that these troubled events were a signal that the Second Coming was indeed near and that nothing was so important as preach­ ing the Gospel.91 The rebel Christians at Siyiapei were never large enough or wealthy enough to create any long-lasting independent educational and reli­ gious institutions as the Kikuyu did. Nor was their opposition to the S' John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, September 17, 1930, ibid. 88 Florence Stauffacher to Dear Ones, September 18, 1930, ibid. 89 John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, September 17, 1930, f. AIM History, ibid. so Florence Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, undated, ibid. 91 Florence Stauffacher to Dear Ones, September 18, 1930, ibid.

254—Kikuyu Nationalism ambivalent Stauffachers as vehement as the Kikuyu rebels' attitude to­ ward Arthur and other missionaries. With the passing of time, many drifted back into the mission. In 1937, for example, Molonket attended a general AIM conference at Kijabe and made a considerable impres­ sion when "he publicly took a filthy heathen charm off his neck and threw it on the ground," thus signifying his return to the AIM church.92 There was in fact a small recrudescence of the female circumcision controversy at a new AIM station at Lasit where the Shaffers sus­ pended ten church members for seeking to pressure a Maasai girl to be circumcised. The results were not so divisive as the dispute of 19291930, but did lead to the withdrawing of girls from the mission school.93 The female circumcision controversy among the Maasai was in real­ ity an extension of the Kikuyu problem. Maasai Christians were close to Kikuyu Christians through the AIM, marriage, and overlapping careers. Hence difficulties in Kikuyuland had immediate resonance among this small group. But their impact on wider Maasai society was minimal. The Christian community was small, poor, and lacking in prestige. Geographically confined to a small part of Narok district, its existence hardly affected the traditional Maasai, who were largely un­ aware of the troubles taking place in their midst. 92

Margaret Moody to H. D. Campbell, January 21, 1937, i b i d . 83 John W. StaufEacher to Field Council, September 30, 1936 and H. S. Nixon to H . D . Campbell, May 18, 1938, i b i d .

CHAPTER XI

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s

In the 1920s the state sought to erect an educational framework within which African education would develop. Orr was not sanguine that his efforts to compromise the divergent ideas of settlers, missionaries, and administrators would be long lived. Yet neither he nor most others were prepared for the powerful educational challenge of the Kikuyu peoples that followed the female circumcision controversy of 1929. Africans became a force to be reckoned with in formulating policy. Although they did not wrest decision-making powers from their over­ lords, they forced Europeans to take their actions and interests into account. In the educational challenge of the 1930s the Kikuyu led the way. Already in the 1920s Kikuyu leaders had revealed their desire for more education, for higher schools, and for freedom from missionary control over education. During Harry Thuku's brief flurry of political activity there had been frequent demands for more and better schools. But interest in education was not confined to radical elements. When the Ormsby-Gore Commission visited Kenya in 1924, the Kikuyu As­ sociation petitioned for a central high school.1 In Nyeri district the Kikuyu chiefs presented an address to the Commission calling for "a really big school in our midst to which we could send our children to receive a thorough education, both literary and technical."2 The Kikuyu were also anxious to be free from missionary dominance of schooling. Relations between the missions and the Kikuyu had grown embittered in the 1920s, well before the circumcision contro­ versy, and the school was seen as a focal point of conflict. Missions sought to use the Kikuyu thirst for education as a lever for promoting religious, social, and political ideas they considered desirable. They threatened their students with the closing of schools if they did not conform to the mission point of view. They no doubt gave admission, especially in the bush schools where there were no entrance examina­ tions for qualifying and no fees, to those families who were most loyal to mission ideals. But by the same token, students and critics realized 1 Memorandum of the Kikuyu Association to the Ormsby-Gore Commission, Novem b e r , 1 9 2 4 , P o l i t i c a l R e c o r d B o o k , K e n y a P r o v i n c e , 1 9 0 1 - 2 6 , K N A P C / C P 1 / 1 / 1 . 2 Central Province Political Record Book, i b i d .

256—Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s

that it was through the schools that missions made their most power­ ful impact, and they used boycotts, and strikes, to express their opposi­ tion to hated missionary policies. Nearly all the mission stations expe­ rienced these confrontations in the 1920s. In 1921 sixty to seventy apprentices at Thogoto went on strike in protest against disciplinary measures enacted by Barlow. 3 In 1922, with nationalist sentiment pul­ sating through the missions, the Thogoto mission discharged some of its students for participating in illegal "anti-European meetings," and twenty apprentice contracts were canceled at Tumu Tumu for the same reason. 4 At Kahuhia in 1926 the mission closed down its central school for a short while when students refused to participate in a Med­ ical Department study of Kikuyu dietetics. 5 Before 1929 the station that had the most acute and frequent tension was Tumu Tumu which according to mission accounts was a target for the KCA. In 1925 the mission closed fourteen of its outschools because they were subject to KCA propaganda. In 1926 there were difficulties at various outstations where Kikuyu opponents of the mission circu­ lated rumors that the mission was preparing to turn over its landholdings to European settlers. At several outstations the Kikuyu refused to allow the land to be used for school gardens, and at two schools people tore up school gardens and destroyed crops. 6 In 1928, however, the major issue was female circumcision, which according to Barlow, head of the station, the KCA used as a vehicle for undermining a pro-mission party, called the Progressive Kikuyu Party, in order to enable KCA members to win elections to the Local Native Council. As a result of this dispute the church at Tumu Tumu called on its members to de­ clare whether they accepted the church laws. Many refused to do so and were suspended. Yet a large proportion drifted back to the church, and in 1930 the Tumu Tumu church was forced to remove only 200 names from its rolls—approximately 7 per cent—-because they had remained in suspension for two years. 7 Although most Kikuyu independent schools came into existence after 1929, a few appeared before that year. According to Philp, the desire for education was so strong in the Nyeri area that people would band together and start their own rudimentary school if the mission was unable to supply them with a teacher. 8 The Education Department 3 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1921, p. 42, W.F.G. Campbell, KNA DC/ KBU/14. 4 Arthur to Orr, June 14, 1922, PCEA f. on education and History of Nyeri Dis­ trict, KNA DC/NYI/19. 5 Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1927, p. 28, KNA DC/FH/7. β Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1926, p. 20, KNA DC/KBU/ig. 7 Church of Scotland, Memorandum Prepared . . . , p. 32. 8 Philp to Orr, April 4, 1924, PCEA f. on education.

Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s —257

annual report for 1928 revealed that there were 114 schools in the re­ serve and 63 on European estates not registered.9 Not surprisingly, however, early disputes leading to independent schools occurred in the two American missions in Kikuyuland: the African Inland Mission and the Gospel Missionary Society. Strongly evangelical, these mis­ sions were not deeply committed to education, and thus in the view of many Kikuyu they did not have the same advantages as the CSM or CMS. Moreover, both missions tended to espouse, in an inflexible fash­ ion, conservative religious and social norms. In 1923 an independent school was established near Githunguri as a breakaway from the GMS.10 The other breakaway occurred at the AIM Githumu station in Fort Hall under circumstances that forecast 1929. Founded in 1914 Githumu was a leading AIM station, second in influence only to the headquarters at Kij abe. In addition to a central station and numerous outstations, Githumu had an important hospital. The breakaway was undoubtedly fostered by the policies of the station head, Dr. Kenneth Allen. A strict disciplinarian, he was committed to stamping out Kikuyu practices which he regarded as incompatible with Christianity. Like many other medical missionaries, he was strongly opposed to fe­ male circumcision. Difficulties began at the end of 1922. Following the Harry Thuku disturbances, Allen sought to stamp out any antimission sentiment that Thuku's movement might have produced, and he asked Africans when they returned to the church or baptism class to promise to obey the laws of the church. Some no doubt saw this as a bid to keep Africans subordinate, and they resisted.11 But they came back to the church after a short while. In the next year, however, Allen prohibited a number of the outschool teachers from teaching and excommuni­ cated them because they had not abided by church law. One such per­ son excommunicated was Joshua Mucai, considered by an AIM critic of Allen's policies as "one of the best, most stalwart Christians in the mission."12 His chief offense was that he allowed his daughters to be cir­ cumcised. A breakaway occurred as outschool teachers refused to con­ duct their schools on the lines laid down by the mission. Between 1927 and 1929 the government supplied teachers to these schools and in­ spected them, but in 1929 it discontinued this experiment on the 9 Department

of Education, Annual Report, 1928, p. 46. Anderson, Struggle for the School: The Interaction of Missionary, Gov­ ernment, and Nationalist Enterprise in the Development of Formal Education in Kenya (London, 1970) and J. B. Ndungu, "Gituamba and Kikuyu Independency in Church and School," Ngano, Nairobi Historical Studies, 1969, 1, 132-138. 11 Letter from Jesse Raynor, January 1, 1923, Inland Africa, May, 1923, p. 13. 12 Hulda J. Stumpf to H. D. Campbell, March 14, 1927, May 3, 1927, March 11, 1927, and May 12, 1927, AIM Archives. 10 John

258—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s grounds that the schools were inefficient and were used to spread na­ tionalist propaganda.13 Allen's administration of Githumu was criticized by other AIM agents who rejected his idea that there was a "spirit of sedition among the people" and charged Allen with "unjust and cruel treatment" of the people.14 Although Allen eventually wrote letters of apology to those with whom he dealt harshly, missionary-Kikuyu relations were never completely repaired at Githumu.15 After World War II African leaders again led a break from the mission, protesting its lack of educational commitment. They set up independent schools and churches.16 The Kikuyu revealed their opposition to mission dominance over education most clearly by refusing to turn LNC funds over to mission schools. In 1925 when the government created Local Native Councils, it gave them power to levy small taxes and to use revenue for pro­ grams of local betterment. In the Kikuyu and Nyanza districts, the LNCs quickly took advantage of this opportunity to raise revenue and drew up proposals for educational expansion. The government sug­ gested that the LNCs should turn their funds over to the missions and let the missions expand schooling. But the LNCs refused. In Kiambu the LNC passed a resolution in 1926 to raise £10,000 for the building of a high school at Githunguri.17 The leading personality on the Kiambu LNC was Chief Koinange, who was one of the most enthusiastic proponents of western education. To a headman who was opposing the educational work of the AIM in 1935, Koinange cautioned that "the districts which I rule will not advance without teachers of schools and preachers of the Gospel. If you do not want your sons to read, neither will ever succeed you as headman."18 One of Koinange's ambitions was the development of higher schooling. He stressed the importance of a high school as early as 1924 in the Kikuyu Association petition to the Ormsby-Gore Commission. By 1931 in testimony to the Joint Select Committee Koinange and the two other African representatives pro­ posed the establishment of junior secondary schools in each of the provinces and the elevation of Alliance High School to a college.19 In the 1929 LNC deliberations Koinange favored putting the suggested school at Githunguri on a higher level than Alliance High School 13 Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1927, KNA DC/FH/7 and Fort Hall Dis­ trict, Annual Report, 1929· p. 23, S. H. LaFontaine, DC/FH/9. ItHulda J. Stumpf to H. D. Campbell, May 12, 1927, AIM Archives. is Lee Downing to H. D. Campbell, March 4, 1927, ibid. is Interview with Elijah Mbatia and Paul Gitau, leaders of the independent church at Githumu. 17 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1927, p. 26. is Lee Downing to Roy Shaffer, n.d. (1935?), ibid. if Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, HCSP, Vol. 7, 193031, 11, 401.

Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s —259

which was only a junior secondary school. According to S. H. Fazan, District Commissioner, Kiambu, the Kikuyu leaders "wanted a school which would provide as advanced an education as any European school in the colony."20 By 1929 the LNCs in the Kikuyu and Nyanza districts had raised over £50,000 in special educational cesses, but refused to follow the state's advice to expend the money on mission schools. In an effort to break this impasse the government arranged to hold 4 meetings with the LNCs in which leading missionaries would be invited to present their case for using these funds. These were held at Central Kavirondo, North Kavirondo, Kiambu, and Fort Hall.21 No missionary attended the Fort Hall meeting. At the Kiambu meeting, held on Feb­ ruary 20 and 21, 1929, Barlow and Arthur represented the missionary point of view and argued that the government only wanted technical education while the missions would provide the kind of training that the people desired. The missionaries were then asked to withdraw, and the LNC, with director of education, H. S. Scott, present, again debated how best to expend its funds. Reaffirming its unwillingness to turn money over to the missionaries, the LNC favored the establish­ ment of a school at Githunguri under government control, giving higher education and technical training.22 The government was deeply concerned by this incipient African educational revolt. Yet it could not afford to alienate the missionaries who ran the vast majority of African schools. A general principle had arisen over the years that the government would establish schools only in areas where the missions were unwilling or unable, and the state was reluctant to alter this arrangement. In 1928 H. S. Scott was selected as Orr's successor at the Education Department. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Scott had served for many years in the Transvaal Education Department where he rose to be di­ rector of that department in 1924.23 Like his predecessor, he regarded himself as an educational philosopher, and he was anxious to introduce his theories into Kenya. He too tended to hold racialist ideas about education, believing that the schools in Kenya must be adapted not only to the rural, village environment of the country, but to the educable capacity of Africans. In 1932, for example, members of the Kenya Education Department presented a series of pseudoscientific papers to the Kenya branch of the British Medical Association. Dr. F. W. Vint 20 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1929, p. 13, S. H. Fazan, KNA DC/KBU/22. 21 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1929, p. 29. 22 Minutes of the Kiambu Local Native Council Meeting, February 20-21, 1929, PCEA f. on Local Native Council Minutes. 23 See Who's Who, 1930.

260—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s read a paper, entitled, "A Preliminary Note on the Cell Content of the Prefrontal Cortex of the East African Native," which purported to show that the brain capacity of the African was noticeably lower than that of the European. R.A.C. Oliver who was sent to Kenya by the Carnegie Corporation and attached to the Jeanes School, presented a paper comparing the abilities of races to embrace education. Scott's paper was entitled "The Educable Capacity of the African."24 Shortly after he took charge of the Education Department, Scott began to formulate new policies which he hoped would avert a colli­ sion between the missionaries and the African population and would improve the quality of African education. Early in ig2g—that is, be­ fore the female circumcision controversy occurred—he began to sound out representative bodies about his proposals. Scott felt that a critical weakness in African education was its neglect of teacher training. As a consequence bush schools were poorly run and were evangelical cen­ ters rather than elementary schools. Also, education in the central schools was expensive since many of the teachers were Europeans whose salaries were high in comparison with African teachers. Scott wanted to reorganize elementary education. The bush or "A" schools as they were known in educational terminology were to continue under mission auspices. Through increased grants in aid and im­ proved teaching they could become more than an extension of the church. "B" schools (standard 1 to standard m or iv) were also to be run by the missions. Scott wanted Swahili to be the language of in­ struction, with English gradually being introduced provided that ca­ pable instructors could be obtained. "B" schools were to be staffed al­ most entirely by African teachers, and Scott hoped that there would be one "B" school for every 10,000 or 15,000 people. Scott's most radi­ cal proposal came for the "C" or primary schools from standard iv to standard vi or vii. These were the schools that the LNCs were eager to develop under government auspices, and Scott proposed that while some of these schools would be run by the missions, most would be state administered, with students boarded in hostels, run by the mis­ sion denominations to which the students belonged. There were to be twenty or thirty of these schools, under a well trained European staff, at least until their places could be taken by Africans. These "C" schools would provide vocational courses, with emphasis on teacher training, as well as access to secondary schools.25 24 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1932, p. 3. 20 Scott's proposals may be found in many places: Memorandum in Regard to the Education of Africans, 1929, Oldham Papers, Box 227 and No. 248, Barth to Amery, April 26, 1929, enclosing Memorandum by H. S. Scott, PRO CO 533/388/ 15690.

Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s—261

Scott's proposals encountered predictable opposition. The Kenya missionary societies were critical. They feared that they would not re­ ceive enough government financial help with the "A" schools, and they objected to the government's running of the "C" schools.26 Like other education measures the proposal was referred to the Colonial Office Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies. A special subcom­ mittee was created to study Scott's proposals. Its opposition to certain reforms could have been expected. Many of the members of the Ad­ visory Committee, most notably Lugard and Oldham, had always fa­ vored religious training in the schools and an important missionary role. While the subcommittee agreed that there was a need for more teacher training and that "B" schools should be in the hands of African teachers, it objected to Scott's "C" schools proposal. The subcommittee favored continued mission primacy in these schools. Government "C" schools were to be established only where efficient mission schools were not maintained, and LNC funds were to be expended on the "A" and "B" schools. The subcommittee felt that the LNCs could be per­ suaded to accept their scheme, stating that "we believe that support will be forthcoming [for the scheme] if councils are given a definite assurance that an efficient government C school will be maintained in any area where the need for a C school has been established and where it has been made clear that a missionary institution cannot be efficiently maintained or that the rival claims of 2 or more missions cannot be reconciled."27 Thus, the subcommittee rejected Scott's idea that most "C" schools should be run by the state and reaffirmed the principle that the government should create schools only when mis­ sionaries were unwilling or unable to do so. Governor Grigg wrote back objecting that although "C" schools should be under missionary or government management, it should be provided that when a LNC asked for a "C" school and were prepared to vote money for its erec­ tion and maintenance such a school should be established as a govern­ ment school.28 Although Scott did not gain approval for his scheme of setting up a large number of government controlled "C" schools, he was finally able to persuade the Colonial Office to accept a few govern­ ment "C" schools when vigorously demanded by the LNCs.29 Much of this debate was outstripped by events, however. Scott had 26 Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Kenya Missionary Council, February 26, 1929, CCK, file No. 5 and Minutes of the Kenya Missionary Council, April 3, 1929, CCK, file No. 4. 27 Report of the subcommittee appointed by the Advisory Council on Education in the Colonies at its meeting of September 29, 1929 to consider the Kenya native education proposals, Oldham Papers, Box 227, London. 28 No. 312, Grigg to Passfield, May 20, 1930, Oldham Papers, Box 227, London. 29 See p. 263.

262—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s tried to forestall African opposition, but even as the Colonial Office considered his proposals, the female circumcision controversy was under way. Even while Scott and the Colonial Office were debating the details of his "C" scheme, African leaders were seeking to estab­ lish their own schools. The female circumcision controversy which burst upon the scene toward the end of 1929 affected the schools of AIM, CSM, and GMS, which had taken a strong stand against this rite. Many of these schools had to be closed for lack of attendance since the dissident communities would not allow their children to be taught by mission teachers who had taken a vow against the practice of female circumcision. At first the three missions were disrupted in their en­ tirety. At Thogoto central station nine-tenths of the communicants de­ parted in the first month, but gradually the central stations regained their followers and the outstations came to constitute the major source of disaffection. Tumu Tumu, having had its division in 1928, was not so greatly affected, but the CSM outstations in Kiambu and the AIM and GMS outstations were virtually without students in 1930. The breakaway leaders looked to the state for help. Three southern Kiambu leaders met with Scott in January, 1930 requesting the state to supply teachers for their schools. 30 In Fort Hall district the District Commissioner received deputations from AIM outstations to start in­ dependent schools. 31 Although the administration was anxious to bring about a compromise between the missions and the African dissidents, many officials were not sanguine. They felt that the state should take bolder action by creating government schools in order to avert the emergence of schools under neither mission nor government auspices. The boycotting of mission schools and the unwillingness of the LNCs to turn funds over to the missions prompted Scott to issue the most outspoken of his annual reports. Customarily departmental annual re­ ports recounted the major events of the year and reproduced useful statistical information. But Scott employed the report of 1929 to de­ lineate African discontent with mission education. In the report he wrote of the awakening of the African to the fact that what the mis­ sionary gave him in schooling was "inadequate and his demand for something more, something different—he knows not what." 32 The Afri­ can demanded for himself "the provision of educational facilities through other than missionary agencies," and Scott feared that if this challenge was not taken seriously independent schools would be cre30 Arthur to Scott, January 16, 1930 and Scott to Colonial Secretary, January 19, 1930, KNA PC/CP 8/1/1. si M.R.R. Vidal, DC, Fort Hall, to Principal, AIM, Githumu, November 10, 1931, KNA PC/CP 8/1/2. 32 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1929, p. 7.

Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s—263

ated. 33 Much to the chagrin of the missionaries the same themes were sounded in the Native Affairs Department annual report for 1929, and here again the administration raised the ominous prediction that the African "may in desperation resolve to build schools of his own, uncon­ trolled either by the government or the missions which may easily become

hotbeds

of

ill

informed

political

and

anti-government

propaganda." 34 If Scott intended the report to spur missions to reform their stand on female circumcision and to prepare the way for the founding of government schools, he was sadly mistaken. Missions reacted with ap­ prehension to Scott's criticisms and tried to refute the government charges. Perhaps the most telling response came from the Catholic missions who questioned whether the African opposition was to the missions per se or to European domination in general. 35 The only con­ cession the state wrung from the missions was a promise not to teach about female circumcision in their schools. 36 Although Scott's report seemed to forecast important new departures in education, the govern­ ment continued to refuse to supply teachers to the dissident groups in the process of establishing independent schools. The dissidents also tried to claim that the schools and churches in the outstations belonged to them since they had provided the land and in many cases had con­ structed the buildings. Those matters were taken into the courts where it was ruled that the schools were not the property of the dissi­ dent groups but belonged to those Africans who had remained in the original church. 37 One concrete result of Scott's desire to establish government-run "C" schools and the LNCs desire to sponsor secular education was a cen­ tral school at Kagumo in Nyeri district. Located at 5,600 feet in the foothills of the Aberdares and near Mt. Kenya, the Kagumo school was to symbolize for the Kikuyu the methods by which the state was able to channel and deflect African educational aspirations into government approved programs. By 1930 the LNCs of Kiambu, Fort Hall, and Nyeri had raised but not appropriated £20,000. 38 In 1931 the adminis­ tration finally

agreed to create a "C" school at Kagumo to serve the

Nyeri district. The government and the Nyeri LNC shared expenses, 33 Ibid., p. 8. 34 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1929, p. 44. 35 Catholic Position in Regard to Memorandum Concerning Education of the African, Oldham Papers, Box 227. Also See Oldham Papers, Box 242, f. Scott, London. 36 Kikuyu Province, Annual Report, 1930, p. 46, Ε. B. Home, KNA PC/CP 4/1/2. 37 Ibid., p. 10 and Kikuyu News, No. 122, December, 1932, p. 16 and Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1932, p. 3, J. D. McKeon, KNA DC/KBU/24(a). 38 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1930, p. 43.

264—Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s

and the school was opened at the beginning of 1933 with go pupils. 39 Because of its combined African and government financing, it was called a government African school. It had a strong technical orienta­ tion. Of the original 90 students, 15 were apprenticed as carpenters and 15 as masons while the remaining 60 took a general education leading to Alliance High School and careers as teachers and clerks. 40 The Kagumo school was created for Nyeri district, but the Kiambu LNC, under Koinange's leadership, was insistent on having its own school and had appropriated £8,000 to that end. 41 In 1932 the Kenya government obtained Colonial Office approval for the creation of a pri­ mary school in Kiambu district, reluctantly given because the Kenya government could not provide its share of the financing

and the Co­

lonial Office feared a loss of control over the school. 42 Before these plans materialized, however, the state persuaded the Fort Hall and Kiambu LNCs to allocate their money to Kagumo so that Kagumo could be turned into a larger school for all three districts. The school would be expanded from 180 to 360 pupils at a cost of £15,000. This arrangement had the advantage of enabling the government to provide some financing

and thus to exercise control. It also removed the need

for the Kiambu LNC to exact a compulsory levy from its population. 43 The missions were satisfied with this proposal, no doubt much relieved that there was to be only one such government school instead of three. Plans for the expanded school were readied in 1934. When members of the Kiambu LNC learned that Kagumo was to remain a primary school, however, rather than become a high school as they had wanted, they were shocked. Scott had to attend tense LNC meetings in August and September, 1934. At the August meeting the LNC voted its share of maintenance and boarding expenses at Kagumo only under protest and said it did not wish any pupils from Kiambu to attend the school

in 1935·44 Although the Education Department claimed that with the passing of years Kagumo's popularity increased, the school did not realize the ambitions that the Kiambu leaders had had for it. To be sure, Kiambu families sent their children there. But it was not the high school, su­ perior to Alliance, which Kikuyu leaders had demanded. Its curricu­ lum reflected the ideas of the British rather than the Kikuyu. Begin39 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1932, p. 14. •to Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, April, 1934, enclosing visit of supervisor of technical education to the government African school, Nyeri, August, 1933, Oldham Papers, Box 227, London. -11 Native AfEairs Department, Annual Report, 1931, p. 29. 42 No. 181, Cunliffe-Lister to Byrne, March 4, 1932, PRO CO 533/408/17110/A. 43 No. 106, Byrne to Cunliffe-Lister, March 2, 1934, Oldham Papers, Box 227. 4 I Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1934, p. 23, A. A. Seldon, KNA DC/KBU/26.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s—265 ning in 1936, the school was divided into two sections. A small group of students took a general course preparing them for secondary educa­ tion and clerical and teaching careers. The majority of the students, however, spent most of their time in school workshops and on the school farm, as befit the educational ideas of the 1930s which tried to ensure that primary education did not alienate students from their vil­ lage communities, but equipped them with better techniques for de­ veloping these communities.45 At the same time the state was establishing Kagumo, it was carrying out other educational changes, partly designed to implement Scott's educational philosophy and partly to cope with rising African educa­ tional aspirations. Most of the reforms were enacted at the end of Scott's administration in 1934 and under his successor, E. G. Morris. The direction of these changes was signalled in a report on the grantsin-aid system. This study called for a revision of the grants pointing out that of the £29,000 allocated for grants in 1933 £21,000 went to nine central schools, mainly for expensive technical training. The re­ port wanted more money spent on general elementary education and teacher training and suggested that the LNCs should put more of their money and energy into elementary education. Elementary schools, the report affirmed, should enable "boys and girls to live happily under village conditions and to improve these conditions."46 Scott agreed with these recommendations. He was anxious to ex­ pand and improve elementary education and to put well-trained teachers into these schools. He felt that the higher educational facili­ ties provided in the central mission schools, the secondary schools, and Makerere College in Uganda, to which Kenya students were able to go, were "disproportionate to the needs of the African community as a whole."47 These proposals were similar to many of Orr's ideas from the 1920s; Orr had stressed training for life in the reserves and empha­ sis on agriculture rather than preparation for entrance into the Euro­ pean dominated sectors of the economy. In the 1920s these proposals aroused settler antagonism, but they did not a decade later. The de­ pression diminished settler demands for skilled and unskilled labor. The administration was reducing the number of artisans and clerks it employed in an effort to pare its expenditures.48 Nor was there the same frantic desire to replace Indian artisans and clerks with Africans as there had been in the early 1920s when Indians were challenging 45 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1936, p. 71. *e Report of a Sub-Committee of the Advisory Council on African Education Ap­ pointed to Consider Grants-in-Aid, 1933, Oldham Papers, Box 227, London. *7 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1933, p. 26. 48 See p. 223.

266—Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s

land and political privileges of European settlers. 49 Moreover, the emphasis on rural, agricultural, and community training was well ac­ cepted in educational circles by the 1930s. It was crystallized in a 1935 report on African elementary education published by the Colonial Office Advisory Committee on Education in the British Colonies. 50 Grants were revised in the fashion recommended. The formula for paying grants to mission schools was made even more complex than it had been before. Many more types of education qualified for assis­ tance. More government funds were allocated to elementary education, and the old system of allocating capitation grants only to students ap­ prenticed to a vocation was terminated. There were to be no grants for industrial training, but primary schools still had to provide training for teachers, an instructor in manual training, and a staff for teaching agri­ culture to qualify for government assistance. 51 In keeping with these recommendations, the state made the NITD the primary technical training institution. 52 The technical schools attached to the missions were closed, and these students were trans­ ferred to the NITD which offered a five-year

course and where possi­

ble, took students after they had completed a full elementary educa­ tion. 53 Aware of the mounting African interest in education, the state sought to associate a few government-selected

Africans with

its

advisory committees on education. In 1934 the state passed a district education bill, the purpose of which was to bring the LNCs into closer touch with the administration in matters affecting education, which was the major interest of many LNCs. In African districts education boards were formed, composed of six African members nominated by the local LNC, four persons nominated by heads of schools in the dis­ trict, and government officials. These boards had the power to allocate revenue to elementary and subelementary (bush) schools from funds placed at their disposal by the director of education and the Local Na­ tive Council. This arrangement was designed to involve the LNC in elementary education and prevent LNCs from accumulating large sums of money while refusing to allocate these funds as they had in 1929 and 1930. 54 In 1937 the government appointed the first

two Afri­

cans to the central advisory committee on African education; Paulo Mboya, a Nyanza chief and Eliud Mathu, a teacher at the Alliance 4'J See p. 208. so Colonial Office, Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, Education in African Communities, Colonial Office Reports, No. 103, 1935. si Kenya, African Education in Kenya, 1949, pp. 4(!. 52 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, December 7, 1933, pp. 858-871. 53 Annual Report, 1933, Kikuyu News, No. 128, June, 1934, p. 19. 54 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, July 31, 1934, pp. 431-436·

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s—267 High School. 55 Ever since the LNCs had been given power to raise money for local projects, the state had been anxious to channel African enthusiasm for education into what the state considered acceptable avenues. Seeking to curb the African desire for higher schools, the state in 1936 enunciated the principle that LNC money should be ex­ pended on subelementary and elementary schools

(to standard iv)

while the state would finance and control primary and secondary schooling. 56 Director of Education, Morris, justified this arrangement on the grounds that the people wanted elementary education while the state had a duty to control secondary and higher education and to adapt these facilities "to the capacity of the country to absorb the products of secondary schools and colleges." 57 Unlike his predecessor, however, Morris recognized the need to ex­ pand postprimary education. By 1938 Kenya had only four African secondary schools, run by missions and aided by the state. Two gave three-year courses: the Alliance High School and the Roman Catholic school at Kabaa in Machakos district. The other two schools—Maseno and Yala—provided only two-year courses. The NITD was also consid­ ered a secondary school, but of course it was for the training of arti­ sans. In addition, there were fifty-five Kenyan students at Makerere College, gaining a full-fledged secondary education and being trained as school masters, medical, veterinary, agriculture, and public works auxiliaries. 58 All in all, Kenya had made extraordinarily little provision for postprimary education—a fact underscored by the Beecher Com­ mission in its study of African education in 1948.

KIKUYU INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS The independent schools created by the Kikuyu in the 1930s were a manifestation of outstation discontent, organized mainly by young individuals who had been alienated from the missions. In the interwar period Kikuyu educational demands existed at two levels and pro­ jected the interests of two often divergent groups. The LNCs called for the creation of government African schools. These bodies tended to represent the interests of the already well-to-do and powerful and re­ flected

their desire for more advanced schooling which would enable

their children already gaining education to get more sophisticated training leading to better clerical jobs and even to professional posi­ tions. But the Kikuyu independent schools, at least when they were 55 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1937, p. 77. 56 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1936, p. 13. 57 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, November 19, 1937, p. 500. 58 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1938, p. io.

268—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s originally established, drew their support from a rather different ele­ ment—namely the less well-to-do, and especially those who had gained a little exposure to Christianity and education, and were now demand­ ing more accessible and widespread elementary schooling. Although the central stations recovered rapidly from the first setback in 1929, the outstations remained the center of disaffection and the source of the independent movement. There are some suggestive parallels in this movement with more recent African political developments where na­ tionalist and opposition movements have been generated by the frus­ trations of the less advantaged educational strata, especially primary school leavers, whose high career aspirations were difficult to realize. The outstation students and outstation teachers and evangelists were the 1920s and 1930s equivalent of the later primary school leavers. Within the mission organizations a critical division existed between the main stations and outstations. This distinction should not be exag­ gerated. Most mission centers had bush and elementary schools, like those in the outstations, and some of the larger outstations carried edu­ cation to standard iv or v. Nevertheless, the central station was un­ doubtedly the heart of mission enterprise. It was there that the Euro­ pean missionaries lived. The mission estate had the major church, the big hospital, and, most importantly, the advanced schools which led to lucrative occupations. Thus much prestige was attached to serving the main station and gaining admittance to its schools. The most trusted and loyal African Christians were often located there, and the most able African teachers taught there in advanced schools. Only a very small proportion of the outschool pupils were able to enter the advanced schools at the mission center since government and missions alike tried to limit the amount of higher training. This was a great source of outstation frustration. The outschools themselves did not have the prestige of the central schools. The teachers were poorly trained, and the equipment in the schools was inadequate.59 The bush schools, as the Phelps-Stokes Commission indicated, were the blind leading the blind.60 While the Kikuyu independent school movement expressed in a gen­ eral fashion the educational aspirations and discontent of families in­ volved in outstation education, it was organized and carried to fruition by young educated men who had been alienated from the missions. There was, in fact, a vast reservoir of individuals who had grown disil­ lusioned with the missions by 1929-1930 and were eager to establish independent schools and churches where they hoped to be able to de­ velop their talents free of missionary restraints. Many Kikuyu had 59 60

See p. 222. Jones, Education in East Africa, p. 156.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s—269

been forced to withdraw from the church or had withdrawn of their own accord because of the strictness of church law. There were many, of course, who were members of the KCA and felt that they could no longer remain in mission churches because of attacks on the KCA. Moreover, although the mission was an institution which employed many educated Kikuyu as teachers, clerks, and evangelists, progress into positions of authority and high prestige was agonizingly slow. For example, the first African pastors were not ordained in the CSM and CMS until the mid 1920s although these men had served and studied in the church for nearly a quarter of a century. The prevailing tech­ nique by which an African was elevated to the clergy at that time was guaranteed to make progress slow because aspirants had to intersperse their education with long periods of evangelical work in the field.61 No doubt many young ambitious Africans looked for more rapid advance­ ment within their own school system and church organization. Addi­ tionally, it was probably no coincidence that the outschool revolt oc­ curred during the depression when administrators were reporting for the first time the existence of young Kikuyus with a smattering of edu­ cation unable to find steady employment.62 Among the CSM outstations in Kiambu district opposition was stirred up by three men who had earlier difficulties with the mission leaders. Zacharia Wambura had broken Chief Kioi's arm in a fight and beat his wife so severely that he had been dismissed from the elder­ ship of the church. Barnaba Regiru had kicked a teacher at Rithimutu, a CSM outstation, while Zefania Wainaina was an ex-dormitory head. These men went throughout southern Kiambu area, exhorting CSM families not to accept the teachers being sent to their village schools by the mission leaders.63 They found a responsive audience among people who felt that the outschools had not provided the economic gains they had expected from them. Independent schools were created in the 3 Kikuyu districts and Embu in the 1930s. Having lost their battle over land and buildings, Kikuyu dissidents built their own schools and churches near the mis­ sion stations. By 1932 the Native Affairs Department reported 7 "fairly large private schools of the village type" in Fort Hall, 9 in Kiambu, and 4 in Nyeri with 8 smaller bush schools attached.64 Additional schools were founded in each subsequent year, and by 1937 there were an esti­ mated 59 schools with 7,223 students.65 At first the government tried 6i Kikuyu News, No. 71, January, 1920 and ibid., No. 96, June, 1926, p. 22. β 2 Central Province, Annual Report, 1934, p. 50, M.R.R. Vidal, KNS PC/CP 4/3/1. β3 Arthur to Scott, January 16, 1930, KNA PC/CP 8/1/1. 04 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1932, p. 66. 65 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1937, p. 61.

270—Education and the Kikuyu in the

1930s

to undercut the effectiveness and popularity of the schools by refusing them grants in aid and not permitting them to sit for exams to gain admission to the primary schools. 66 As more schools formed, the independent schools were grouped into two organizations in the mid 1930s: the Kikuyu Independent Schools Association and the Kikuyu Karinga. The KISA was a loose organiza­ tion, most of its schools being run by individual school committees. Its schools were located mainly in Fort Hall and Nyeri. 67 The Kikuyu Karinga schools were chiefly formed by those who broke away from the CSM in Kiambu. All but 2 of its schools were concentrated in the southern Kiambu area bordered on the west by the road running from Nairobi to Thogoto and the Escarpment and on the east by the road from Nairobi to Kiambu and Limuru. The Kikuyu Karinga schools were more radical and anti-European. They stressed traditional Kikuyu customs like female circumcision and shunned government con­ tact. 68 Both groups were also divided religiously. When the Kikuyu dissidents broke away, they also established independent churches. In order to train their clergy, the leaders invited Archbishop William Alexander of the African Orthodox Church of South Africa to come to Kenya. Alexander established a religious training center at Gituamba, baptized Africans into the new church, and ordained African pastors. Nevertheless, his presence intensified divisions between the KISA and Kikuyu Karinga. Although invited originally by KISA leaders, he was well received by the Kikuyu Karinga, and his church, known as the African Orthodox Church, was attached to their organization while the KISA established its own church, the African Independent Pentecostal Church. 69 The independent sciiools began as a revolt of the outstations. They expressed what people living away from the centers and not having easy access to central and higher schools wanted in education. They revealed especially the overwhelming desire of Kikuyu families for widespread elementary education, for early training in English, and for enhanced opportunities to gain access to the higher schools. In 1937, of the 54 registered schools, only 6 gave instruction above stan­ dard iv while 62 per cent of the estimated 7,200 pupils were in the subelementary standards. 70 Catering to the eagerness of Kikuyu families to have their children learn English and thereby qualify for clerical 66 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1935, p. 80 and Central Province, Annual Report, 1935, p. 35, M.R.R. Vidal, KNA PC/CP 4/3/1. 67 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1936, p. 53. 68 Ibid., 1937, p. 61. 69 See Anderson, Struggle for the School, pp. 118-122, and F. B. Welbourn, East African Rebels: A Study of Some Independent Churches (London, 1961), passim. 70 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1937, pp. 56-68.

Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s—271 positions and advanced education, most schools introduced English as early as standard 1 in violation of government regulations. Students were hurried along from one class to another, often, according to a government inspector, being passed into a higher grade before they were ready. There was a tendency to believe that schooling did not be­ gin until a person entered standard 1. Many of the students were older persons who were an obstacle to the rapid progress of the younger pupils. The schools had a strong anti-European bias and looked upon government supervision as an "intrusion." They welcomed the appoint­ ment of itinerant Kikuyu teachers, but not Europeans for fear of the Europeans' getting control of the schools. The government inspector of 1937 believed that while the school buildings were of a good stan­ dard and the school gardens were run in a creditable fashion, educa­ tionally they were a failure. The quality of teaching was not high, per­ haps because the teachers received only a small compensation, and many were not even paid regularly. Only 24 of the 54 schools were run by

qualified

teachers;

the government

inspector

regarded

only

3

schools as efficiently staffed. In 1936 a large number of students from independent schools presented themselves for the entrance examina­ tion to Kagumo. Seventy were eliminated as a result of a preliminary test, and of the remainder only 3 reached the required standard to gain admittance to Kagumo. Yet the quality improved. In 1937 139 in­ dependent school students took the examination for Kagumo and 13 gained entrance. In 1938 199 sat for the exam, and 27 were successful, giving the independent schools no less than one-third of the Kagumo places for that year. 71 Certainly in this respect the schools were realiz­ ing one of

their primary goals—getting their children into higher

schools and the more lucrative occupations that such an education opened to them. The government attitude toward the schools remained ambiguous. Although the administration strengthened its powers to close the schools and worried about the poor quality of the education and the dissemination of anticolonial propaganda, the still fresh memories of the 1929 discord restrained it from opposing the schools directly. In­ stead the government tried to establish a working relationship with the schools after its first

efforts to ignore them had failed. It tried to per­

suade them to conform to government educational standards. In Au­ gust, 1936, the director of education, the chief native commissioner, the provincial commissioner of central province, and the district com­ missioners met with committee members of the KISA at the Jeanes school. Agreement was reached that the KISA would follow the gov­ ernment syllabus and not introduce the teaching of Ibid., 1938, p . 62.

English until

272—Education and the Kikuyu in the 1930s standard 111. Also the LNCs agreed to pass a ruling that no new schools would be opened until the old ones had been certified as efficient by the Education Department. 72 The KISA sought to abide by the "concordat of 1936" although it was not always successful. 73 The government ap­ pointed inspectors for the independent schools, and the district educa­ tion boards hired itinerant teachers to improve the standard of teach­ ing in these schools. KISA teachers attended a refresher course at Kagumo, and Kikuyu Karinga teachers were given a special course at the Jeanes school. As a result of their cooperative attitude the Vice President of the KISA, Hezekiah Gacui, was appointed a member of the Fort Hall district education board. 74 The Kikuyu Karinga remained obdurate, however. Its leaders did not reach an agreement with the government, often refused to allow government inspectors into its schools, and were unwilling to abide by the government syllabus. The state closed several of their schools. A center of opposition was a school at Mukui in Kiambu district which opened without government permission and stayed open even after the government ordered it closed. 75 The Kikuyu Karinga had close ties with the KCA. 76 Despite the depression and the decreased demand for educated clerks and artisans, the Kikuyu continued to clamor for more and bet­ ter education in the 1930s. By this decade education was an essential aspect of the Kikuyu economic life—a source of career opportunities outside agriculture. In the 1930s the Kikuyu educational revolt ac­ celerated the spread of elementary education over the entire reserve. With education, albeit of a rudimentary nature becoming common among the Kikuyu, many of the poorly educated young persons found it difficult to gain employment during the depression years. A consid­ erable number eked out their existence as petty traders, trying to capi­ talize on their smattering of English and serving as intermediaries be­ tween African cultivators and Indian or European merchants. What was clearly lacking in African education was secondary and college training, but there was no sense of urgency in the European com­ munity about providing this more advanced training. 72 Ibid,., 1936, p. 47. 73 Fort Hall District, Annual Report, 1937, p. 25, D. O. Brumage, KNA DC/FH/17. "!Department of Education, Annual Report, 1937, p. 67 and Native Affairs De­ partment, Annual Report, 1937, p. 48. 75 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1938, p. 19. 76 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1938, p. 19, E.L.B. Anderson, KNA DC/ KBU/29.

CHAPTER XII

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period

The Kamba and Maasai educational experiences serve as an instructive contrast with the Kikuyu developments and suggest further reasons for the Kikuyu receptivity to education as well as Kamba and Maasai re­ sistance. In both Kamba and Maasai societies education grew slowly although the administration and missions alike were involved in creat­ ing schools and trying to arouse enthusiasm. The demand for schools was muffled among the Maasai and only began to appear among the Kamba at the end of the 1930s. To be sure, part of the educational apathy was due to the type of education provided. The Africa Inland Mission dominated missionary work, and their orientation was evan­ gelical rather than educational. Most of the government schools, started in the 1920s in the Kamba and Maasai reserves, were a fulfill­ ment of Orr's philosophy of schooling adapted to the needs of the re­ serves. They were not intended to prepare Africans for service in the Europeanized sectors of the economy. For these reasons these schools did not have the same impact as the schools among the Kikuyu which gave students the training which enabled them to embark upon careers as clerks, teachers, and artisans. Yet there can be no question that the Kamba and Maasai opposition to education was strong and more per­ sistent than was the case among the Kikuyu.

KAMBA

The major government school among the Kamba was the govern­ ment industrial school at Machakos, established in 1915. It remained attentive to European settler needs, much to Orr's chagrin. It gave spe­ cialized artisan courses in carpentry, bricklaying, mechanical drawing, and teacher training; its administrators prided themselves in training students to pursue vocations outside the Kamba reserve. Not surpris­ ingly, in 1922 when European settlers and the government were eager to supplant Asian bureaucrats with African clerks, the Machakos school introduced a course for training African civil servants.1 During 1 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1922, p. 53.

274—Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period the 1920s and early 1930s the Machakos school took pupils from gov­ ernment and mission elementary schools in Machakos and Kitui dis­ tricts, after two years of training, and gave them a five-year course. The first two years were devoted to a general education in reading and arithmetic followed by three years of vocational training. Standards ν and Vi gave technical training in various artisan crafts while stan­ dard vii was devoted to the training of teachers.2 When the Native In­ dustrial Training Depot (NITD) obtained a monopoly for training artisans in the mid 1930s, Machakos, like other government and mis­ sion schools, ceased to give these specialized vocational courses and became a full-fledged primary school. Its last technical apprentices were transferred to the NITD in 1938 although the school retained a strong agricultural and handicraft bias, reflecting its earlier traditions.3 While the Machakos school represented settler views of education, the government outschools attached to it were created in response to Orr's vision of education. These were begun after World War I to pro­ vide more education for the mass of the Kamba people and to feed the central government school at Machakos. The first outschool was started at Kithangaini;4 considerable expansion took place in 1922 and 1923 when 10 new schools were opened—7 in Machakos district and 3 in Kitui.5 Orr took a keen interest and went around the Kamba re­ serve opening these schools. They consisted of a single low mud and wattle hut with thatched roof and another small hut nearby for the African teacher, commonly a graduate of the teacher training course at Machakos. For a considerable number of years these schools gave only two years of education, teaching "whatever man does in an Afri­ can village," Orr contended. He added that "the policy of the depart­ ment in dealing with savage races is rather to educate the masses on practical lines so as to improve their physique, their food supply, and their standard of living rather than to hurry the civilization of a se­ lected few who become detribalized and divorced from their people."6 The schools taught in Kikamba and Swahili, and students spent a great deal of time in the school gardens learning new techniques of agriculture. Although schools were supposed to be adapted to the rural Kamba environment, the first students had to be obtained by coercion, as the district commissioner, W.F.G. Campbell, admitted in his annual report z i b i d . , 1927, p. 48. 3 Ibid., 1938, p. 52. 4 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1919-20, enclosing report from the Ukamba Industrial School, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/10. 5 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1923, p. 39. β Ibid., 1924, p. 31.

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period—275 for 1923.7 Orr was aware that force was used, but justified it on the grounds that a "real desire" for education would appear only after schools had been in existence for a while and had proved their worth to the people through improved hygienic standards and higher crop yields. "When the tribe knows little about education and sees little ad­ vantage therein," he wrote, "it is only the power of the government as represented by the district commissioner that can make a beginning."8 Among the missions the Kamba districts remained .principally the sphere of the AIM. A Roman Catholic mission had outstations in Machakos district and even developed its central school at Kabaa into a junior secondary school, giving three years of secondary instruction there. This school served the Catholic missions in the colony, and hence only one-fourth of its pupils were Kamba. Moreover, the quality of its education was not on a par with Alliance High School, and its graduates tended to be absorbed into the Catholic missions as teachers.9 Perhaps because the Kamba area had been the first region occupied by the AIM, the missionaries in the Machakos and Kitui districts re­ tained a certain amount of independence from the AIM Kenya head­ quarters at Kijabe in Kiambu district. Although the AIM field director had his office at Kijabe and exercised control over all AIM agents and policies in Kenya, Kamba missionaries were remarkably successful in forging their own policies. An independent missionary position was championed among the Kamba by C. F. Johnston, who had been one of the first missionaries in the field after the early disasters in the 1890s.10 A leading figure among the Kamba missionaries until his death in 1935, his influence was enhanced when another respected AIM agent among the Kamba, G. F. Rhoad, quit the mission in 1926.11 John­ ston's policies and leadership decisively shaped the educational plans developed by the AIM for the Kamba reserve. In the 1920s the AIM had five main mission stations in Machakos and Kitui, with outstations and schools attached to each of them. These were Kangundo, Machakos, Mbooni, Mukaa, and Mulango. They pro­ vided only an elementary education which did not go beyond standard iv in the 1920s.12 In their morning sessions, for beginning pupils, in­ struction was given in Swahili, Kikamba, reading, writing, and arith­ metic. Although the afternoon sessions were meant for advanced pu7 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1923, p. 9, W.F.G. Campbell, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/15· 8 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1924, p. 30. 9 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1932, p. 69. 10 C. F. Johnston to O. R. Palmer, November 4, igig, AIM Archives. 11 Lee Downing to H. D. Campbell, March 4, 1927, ibid. 12 Inland Africa, June, 1923, pp. 27-28.

276—Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period pils, including the teachers who taught in the morning classes, the standard of training was not very advanced. The afternoon pupils took classes in Swahili, the Old Testament, grammar, geography, history, and drawing and began a study of English.13 Thus, in the early 1920s AIM mission endeavor among the Kamba was not strongly educational, not even as educationally committed as the mission at Kijabe. A number of decisions and events which oc­ curred in the years 1928 to 1930 tended to strengthen this orientation among the AIM missionaries in Kambaland. In 1928 African converts in Machakos district drew up a scheme for educational and church expansion—a scheme which entailed a considerable expenditure of foreign mission funds. Led by Johnston, the missionaries reformulated the scheme insisting that except for missionary salaries the financing of the program should come from the African congregations.14 These were the first steps to put the Kamba church on a self-supporting and self-propagating basis, and this was to be one of the distinguishing characteristics of mission work there. Johnston, like many other AIM agents, was fearful that what he considered the ancillary social ser­ vices of the AIM, like education and medical work, were consuming too much of the AIM's limited funds. He felt that schools and hospitals, if paid for from foreign funds, kept the AIM from bringing out more missionaries and spreading Christianity far and wide. This was of course a perennial dilemma for the AIM: how much money to allocate for evangelism and how much to education and medical work. John­ ston's solution was to demand that local communities be hurried along toward having self-supporting schools and churches and that foreign funds go mainly to support the missionaries. The depression only in­ tensified these efforts since it became more difficult to raise money in the United States and Great Britain, and thus renewed demands were made that African congregations contribute more to their own support. Although the AIM in general sought a self-supporting church, this goal was carried farthest among the Kamba.15 Johnston, as the chief exponent of this view, boasted that different methods prevailed in his sphere from those employed at Kijabe. One important principle was the complete separation of church and school financing. No church money was to be used for school purposes nor were school funds to be used to support the church.16 The goal was a church paying for its African clergy and its own activities through locally raised funds and i s I b i d . , October, 1923, pp. 3-4. 11

C. F. Johnston to H. D. Campbell, January 30, 1930, AIM Archives.

is Ruth Shaffer to H. D. Campbell, February 27, 1931, i b i d . 1B

Rose Horton to H. D. Campbell, September 23, 1932, i b i d .

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period—277

schools raising funds through fees and from grants provided by the Local Native Council. Money from the home organization was to be used exclusively for the missionaries and not for local schools and churches. A consequence of this arrangement was that the funds to be ex­ pended on schools were severely limited. They were raised entirely from fees paid by school children and LNC contributions and were not supplemented from overseas contributions or from the central govern­ ment since the AIM was not willing to accept grants in aid from the Education Department. Fortunately the Machakos LNC made a contri­ bution of 2,000s. in 1933.17 Moreover, the Kamba mission tended to at­ tract agents who were mistrustful of education. The mission there had a strong evangelical emphasis. It gave a high priority to the Kangundo Bible School as its central training institution where evangelists were trained and then sent throughout the reserve.18 Johnston opposed a strong involvement in educational work and grants in aid because these efforts deflected the mission from its primary task of establish­ ing "a self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating church."59 Most outspoken of the AIM Kamba missionaries on education was Rose Horton who wrote in 1931 that "I cannot believe that God brought us out here to educate these people in worldly wisdom so that they can get big salaries as clerks, etc. God called us to give them the Gospel and there our duty begins and ends."20 Although Rose Horton put the position more starkly than others in the mission to the Kamba would have done, her views represented the ethos of that group. Partly because of the limited Kamba interest in schools and partly because of the nature of the AIM and government educational pro­ grams there, the Kamba structure of schools was undeveloped in com­ parison with the Kikuyu. The Kamba did not enjoy an elaborate, inter­ locking set of schools ranging from bush schools through intermediate schools to advanced primary and secondary schools, providing literary and artisan training. Most students in the Kamba schools gained only a rudimentary elementary education. In 1927 while there were 1,000 students in the government village schools, which provided a meager two years of schooling, there were only 176 pupils at the government central school at Machakos.21 This situation had not changed much by 1936 when the government reported that 60 per cent of all the Kamba children attending school in Machakos district and 84 per cent at 17 C. F. Johnston to H. D. Campbell, September 21, 1933, ibid. ι 8 Rose Horton to H. D. Campbell, September 23, 1932, ibid. 19 C. F. Johnston to H. D. Campbell, September 21, 1933, ibid. 20 Rose Horton to H. D. Campbell, March 23, 1931, ibid. 21 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1927, p. 48.

278—Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period school in Kitui district were in classes below standard i.22 Also, in con­ trast to the Kikuyu, those who gained an education tended not to go into new occupations but returned to their stock-rearing activities. It would be understandable if those who had obtained only two years of education returned to their traditional pursuits since their education hardly prepared them for any other occupation and was not intended by Orr to cause them to leave the reserves. But the government noted the same tendency among those who graduated from the Machakos Industrial School.23 At a time when the Kikuyu were agitating for more and better schools, most Kamba still displayed little interest in education. Chil­ dren had to be forced into the outschools when they were opened in 1922 and 1923, and desertions were a problem throughout the 1920s.24 In 1927 the Machakos Local Native Council passed a ruling that par­ ents must keep their children in school until the school year was over.25 Even as late as 1929 the government reported a large-scale falling off in attendance in its schools, suggesting that, without government pres­ sure, the Kamba preferred to keep their children at home.26 In con­ trast, by the 1920s Kikuyu desertions had ceased, the state was no longer compelling Kikuyu children to attend school, and school atten­ dance showed a steady rise until the circumcision difficulties of 1929. Although the majority of the Kamba population were not anxious for education, nevertheless the beginnings of criticism against mission education and demands for more and better schools appeared in the interwar years. Agitation was led by a few individuals, mainly persons educated by the AIM and critical of their training. In 1928 Kamba Christians attacked C. F. Johnston for failing to provide them with churches and schools similar to those that existed among the Kikuyu.27 To this attack Home Secretary H. D. Campbell reassured Johnston that "we have a responsibility to our native converts that has to do with building them up in faith and giving them a Bible education. In­ cidentally some service, so-called social, will result, but it will not be the main part of our program."28 In the mid 1930s educated Kamba leaders were demanding a primary school in the district,29 and again in 1940 they openly criticized the AIM at a Machakos district educa22 Ibid., 1936, p. 72. 23 Ukamba Province, Annual Report, 1929, pp. 77-82, W.F.G. Campbell, KNA PC/CP 4 / 2 / 3 · 24 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1923, p. 39. 25 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1927, H.E.L. Burns, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/15. 2β Department of Education, Annual Report, 1929, p. 20. 27 C. F. Johnston to H. D. Campbell, March 5, ig28, AIM Archives. 28 H. D. Campbell to C. F. Johnston, May 14, 1928, ibid. 29 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1936, p. 72.

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period—279 tion board meeting. At this meeting they called on the leader of the AIM in Machakos, H. S. Nixon, to explain why the AIM had done so little, and ordered the AIM to leave the reserve, thus opening the dis­ trict to other missions.30 These were isolated protests at this stage—not to be compared with the ground-swell of complaints against Kikuyu missions in the 1920s and 1930s. The full force of Kamba criticism of the AIM was not heard until after World War II. MAASAI

The educational drought which followed the Maasai move from Laikipia and the departure of the AIM from the reserve was broken in 1918 with the return of the Stauffachers from the Congo. They es­ tablished their headquarters at Siyiapei, a short distance from the gov­ ernment station at Narok township and the closest cultivable area to the west of the AIM headquarters at Kij abe. Perhaps chastened by his earlier experiences, Stauffacher was restrained on this occasion about future prospects, remarking that the Maasai were "so scattered and move so often, staying only a few weeks in one place at a time that un­ less they take to cultivation all the missionary can hope to do is to form a little colony about the mission station or follow them up wherever they go."31 He was not sanguine about getting the Maasai to settle. He knew of their commitment to stock-rearing. He also believed that they were fearful that their settling on certain lands and leaving others va­ cant would entice the government to alienate the vacant lands.32 Nev­ ertheless, he was able to reassemble his old Christian community of Molonket, Kindi, Enoch, and others, and he decided to make Siyiapei the center of his mission work hoping that its influence would radiate throughout the reserve and arouse interest in other Maasai. He opened a church and started a school. Educationally the school at Siyiapei had an exceedingly small im­ pact. It was in session only sporadically being closed down in 1926. It provided no industrial training and concentrated mainly on religious instruction through reading and writing. In the 1920s the average at­ tendance was twenty-five to thirty.33 It was further disrupted by a dis­ pute over female circumcision in the early 1930s and was virtually closed for a few years by a boycott and lack of attendance.34 The qual­ ity of education was low despite the fact that Florence Stauffacher in30

H. S. Nixon to Ralph T. Davis, February W. Stauffacher, July 6, 1918, Inland 32 John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, AIM Archives. 33 Masai Annual Report, 1925, KNA PC/SP si Interview with John Mpaayie. 31 John

13, 1940, AIM Archives. Africa, December, 1918, p. 14. November 19, 1929, f. AIM History, 1/2/1.

280—Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period troduced the study of English in 1923.35 The small number of individ­ uals who were able to gain a modest amount of education at the school were mainly absorbed into the mission as teachers and evangelists. A few went on to advanced training at the Kijabe Bible Institute while some went to the government school at Narok. Although the Stauffachers hoped that the Siyiapei community might be a Christianizing influence in the reserve, in fact it had little impact on others, in much the same fashion as the Stauffachers' earlier group at Rumuruti, of which many members were to be found at Siyiapei. According to government officials and other AIM missionaries many of the members were not true Maasai.36 A large proportion had not been through the essential Maasai age-grading ceremonies.37 Many had left Maasailand during the hard times in the 1890s to seek refuge among the Kikuyu and had married Kikuyu women, often at the prompting of missionaries who were anxious that their converts marry Christian women. Most of the children at the school hardly knew the Maasai language. Additionally the people were poor. In the 1920s an estimated 100 in the community cultivated 50 irrigated acres and pos­ sessed about 250 head of cattle.38 Such a small number of cattle per person clearly marked this group as exceedingly poor by Maasai standards—a fact admitted by the Stauffachers who wrote that the converts were from "the poorer class of Maasai."39 The converts' lack of influence was revealed when the Stauffachers sought to create outstations around Siyiapei and encountered such stiff resistance from Maasai elders that they were forced to abandon this plan. The AIM Christian community was also rent by factionalism, especially after the death of Kindi, who, according to the Stauffachers, was the major sta­ bilizing influence. There was competition for leadership among the Maasai Christians. Chief Masikonte was forced to intervene at one stage when the disputes became particularly intense, much to his dis­ gust. He designated Molonket as the African leader in the church and Enoch as its head teacher.40 In the mid 1920s the Stauffachers were joined by another energetic American couple destined to play a large role in the Maasai reserve. Ray Shaffer from East Liverpool, Ohio and his wife, Ruth, were trained at the Moody Bible Institute and posted to Siyiapei in 1923.41 35 Masai Annual Report, 1926, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1. 3β John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, November 19, 1929, f. AIM History, AIM Archives. 3t John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, February 7, 1928, ibid. 38 Narok District, Annual Report, 1925, KNA DC/NRK 1/1/2. 39 See p. 143. 40 Florence Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, April, 1923, AIM Archives. 41 Roy Shaffer to Ο. M. Fletcher, February 23, 1922, ibid.

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period—281 They took an instant disliking to the Christian community there, re­ marking on its divisiveness and its failure to support mission work. According to the Shaffers, the Maasai at Siyiapei paid only 14s. in 1931 in support of the church and the school. Taking a leaf from the Stauffachers' old book, the Shaffers opted at this stage to itinerate among the Maasai. They purchased a small truck and traveled around the re­ serve, preaching in the kraals.42 The Stauffachers were by now pes­ simistic about itinerating and believed that the Maasai could be pro­ selytized only by establishing a few permanent establishments where Maasai evangelists would be trained. In 1929 John Stauffacher wrote that the man to follow the Maasai around "without giving it up does not yet exist as they move such long distances and through impossible country and could a motor car follow them the missionary should have at least 5,000s. per year to buy gas."43 This gloomy forecast proved accurate. Although the Shaffers con­ tinued to travel and preach, in 1932 at the request of a Maasai chief, Kulale, they established a forty-acre mission station at Lasit, approxi­ mately six miles from the government station and school at Loitokitok.44 The Shaffers surveyed the area and found it full of potential especially because its rainfall enabled the Maasai population to live in permanent settlements there. They posted two Maasai evangelists who had been trained by the AIM at their Kijabe Bible Institute—Ndelai and his wife Naiolang. Ndelai gave religious instruction at the nearby government school and established a catechumen class in the Lasit church. Still, the Shaffers were forced to admit that the Maasai viewed the station with suspicion, generated, they believed, by a fear of losing more land to their foreign rulers.45 In 1938 and 1939, as a result of small successes at Lasit and Siyiapei and the spread of government schools, the AIM was invited to open chapels at Kilgoris and Nairage Ngare. Nonetheless, the AIM had little to show for its many years of work among the Maasai. In keeping with the government's general arrangement that it would operate government schools only in areas where mission endeavors were lacking, the state undertook to establish schools in what it con­ sidered to be the educationally deprived Maasai reserve. The first such school was opened, under inauspicious circumstances, in 1919 in Narok township and was known as the Narok government school.46 It was at 42 Ruth Shaffer to H. D. Campbell, February 27, 1931, i b i d . 43 John W. Stauffacher to H. D. Campbell, November 19, 1929, f. AIM History, ibid.

41 Shaffers to H. D. Campbell, July 8, 1932 and Elwood Davis to H. D. Campbell, August 22, 1932, f. AIM History, i b i d . 45 Roy Shaffer to H. D. Campbell, January 18, 1932, i b i d . 46 See p. 78.

282 — Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period first financed by fines imposed by the state on the Maasai as punish­ ment for their illegal raiding activities. The school came under the headmastership of Captain Brereton, who shared Orr's philosophy of African schools set in the heart of the reserves, adapted to the African environment, and catering to African needs. Trained in the navy, then an officer in the King's African Rifles, and a Kenya farmer, Brereton believed that the Narok school should develop "along lines that will tend to make the [Maasai] useful to themselves in their own reserves" rather than creating "professors and students of higher grades of edu­ cation who might not deign to help themselves or their tribes by any efforts connected with hard work."47 The school had a four and onehalf acre farm where wheat and maize were grown despite the an­ tipathy of the Maasai to cultivation and the aridity of the climate which often caused crops to fail. It also had a workshop and a tan­ nery.48 In the 1920s it gave instruction only in Maasai and Swahili, not in English, and its students did not sit for regular government exams because of this lack of general educational courses. By the 1930s the school was giving a regular elementary course, and students were sit­ ting for government exams and graduating into higher schools in other parts of the colony.49 Partly in response to pressure from a few Maasai students, eager for more education, the government elevated the Narok school to a primary school with six standards. It encouraged those students who had gone through the elementary training to re­ turn for three additional years of schooling. Standard ν was added in 1936 and standard vi in 1937.50 Nonetheless, the contrast of this, the leading school in the Maasai reserve, with the schools among the Kikuyu and even among the Kamba was extraordinary. At a time when the Kikuyu and Kamba had secondary schools in their reserves, the most advanced training available in the Maasai reserve was an institu­ tion which did not commence giving standard vi schooling until 1937. No doubt because of the difficulties associated with the opening of the Narok school and the well-known Maasai antipathy to education, a second government establishment was not opened until 1926 at Kajiado. This school started with 96 pupils and a Local Native Coun­ cil contribution of £500.51 The LNC contribution did not reflect a changed Maasai attitude toward schools, however, for the first stu­ dents had to be forced to attend. The school was run by L. E. White47 Masai

Annual Report, 1923, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1. Department of Education, Annual Report, 1924, p. 49 and Jones, East African Education, p. 120. 49 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1932, p. 71. 5 0 Ibid., 1935, p. 85 and Department of Education, Annual Report, 1936, p. 50 and 1937, p. 51. 51 Masai Annual Report, 1926, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1. 4S

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period—283

house who through his dedication to Maasai education, customs, and language was to become the leading Maasai educator in the years be­ fore the outbreak of World War II. He too shared the prevailing ideas that schools should have a strong practical and pastoral bent at the expense of book learning. In an ordinary school week he had the Kajiado school devote 240 minutes to mathematics, 200 minutes to reading in Maasai and Swahili, 145 to writing, 600 to handicrafts, 225 to physical exercise, and 100 to drawing. The most successful of Whitehouse's ideas was the establishment of a central dairy at Kajiado and 12 outdairies throughout the reserve where students and former stu­ dents made and sold ghee.52 In 1929 this school was moved to Loitokitok where it undoubtedly enjoyed a much greater popularity and had a larger and more positive impact on the Maasai. The school was located on the northern slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro at 6,000 feet in a well wooded and watered area.53 Whitehouse sought to adapt its education to the pastoral pro­ clivities of the Maasai. Although students engaged in agriculture, dis­ playing embarrassment at first at being seen by their peers in the fields digging and planting, Whitehouse taught his students to raise crops which would enable them to keep their stock in a more prosperous condition. Since the founding of the school followed two years of se­ vere drought conditions and much loss of livestock, the population in the locality was more receptive to agricultural innovation than it had previously been. Indeed, some individuals had already started to culti­ vate before the school was established.54 Shortly after opening the Loitokitok school, the government estab­ lished an African Veterinary Center at Ngong. Although meant main­ ly for the Maasai, this school at first had few Maasai students.55 The Center provided two courses, one emphasizing literary and the other practical work, focused on cultivating gardens, learning to prepare hides, inoculations, dipping, and making ghee.56 In the mid-1930s the school began to take students from Narok and Loitokitok, but its train­ ing was criticized by the government officer in charge of the Maasai reserve as not well adapted to the Maasai stock-rearing conditions be­ cause its equipment was more lavish than existed in the reserve.57 Just before the outbreak of World War II the government com­ menced to open rudimentary bush schools throughout the reserve. They were organized in the Loita hills, at Kajiado, Namanga, Lasit, 52 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1927, p. 53. 53 Kajiado District, Annual Report, 1929, KNA DC/KAJ 2/1/1. 54 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1929, p. 14. 55 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1930, p. 78. 56 Ibid., 1932, p. 221. 57 Masai Annual Report, 1937, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1.

284—Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period Oljoro L'Aiser, and in the Trans Mara. Education throughout the re­ serve was put under the direction of Whitehouse who was by far the most successful government educator among the Maasai.58 Still, the state admitted that "a great deal of pressure was needed to fill these outschools."59 Nonetheless, in the interwar period the state had be­ come a far more active educational agent than the AIM, whose lead­ ing figures—the Stauffachers and the Shaffers—were strongly disposed toward evangelical work rather than education and did not create ef­ fective schools. By the mid-iggos only a few tiny educational islands existed in a wide sea of apathy in the Maasai reserve. A few factors had conspired to produce this slight display of educational interest. Schools tended to exist in places where, because of rainfall or streams, permanent set­ tlement as well as cultivation were possible. This was the case at Siyiapei, Loitokitok, Ngong, and the Trans Mara. Schools were also located near government stations and were literally forced into being through the exertions of the government. Finally, schools catered to those Maasai who through more extended contacts with non-Maasai groups had a greater knowledge of the changing conditions outside the reserve. Many of the Christians at Siyiapei had lived for a time outside the reserve and were married to Kikuyu women. The Ngong commu­ nity, from its first encounters with the British, had been in frequent contact with the British and Kikuyu inhabitants of Nairobi and south­ ern Kiambu. The Trans Mara became a focus of agricultural and edu­ cational activity after being occupied by the Uasin Kishu peoples in the 1930s. These people had lived outside the reserve until the govern­ ment moved them into the Maasai reserve, had intermarried with other groups, and learned agriculture. When they occupied the rela­ tively well watered Trans Mara area, they were eager to continue cul­ tivation, and some were alive to the importance of education.60 But aside from these relatively small and dispersed communities, the Maasai in general remained educationally apathetic, if not hostile, dur­ ing these years. Some of the reasons for their opposition were particu­ lar to them; others they shared with the Kamba. An important reason was that attachment to traditional ways of life remained powerful among the Maasai and Kamba and served as a barrier to mission and state education. Circumcision ceremonies played an extremely impor­ tant role in instilling loyalty to tribal traditions among young persons of school-going age, and hence they interfered with receptivity to edu­ cation. Hulda J. Stumpf of the AIM, writing about Kikuyu education, 58 Ibid. 59 Masai Annual Report, 1939, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1. 00 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1933, p. 48.

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period—285 contended that when young Kikuyu returned from circumcision rituals their interest in education waned. For this reason she was anxious to see the importance of the ceremonies diminished.61 Not surprisingly, circumcision and attainment of warrior status had an even more pow­ erful impact on educational work among the Maasai—a fact com­ mented upon by numerous educators and further proof that the Maasai warrior class with its sense of esprit and commitment to tradi­ tional values was a principal obstacle to social change. The most com­ prehensive statement of this problem was set forth by H. S. Scott in his Education Department annual report for 1930. Scott claimed that young Maasai students became restless in their studies and began to lose interest in school work as the period when they were to be circum­ cised approached. To enable students to participate in the ceremonies those who were to be circumcised were given a two or three month leave. When they returned to school, Scott noted that "a marked change had taken place." There was a "diminution in the willingness to do work, particularly the work of the kind assigned by the Maasai to women or natives of 'inferior' tribes, such as digging, building, etc." The pupils were "duller," lacked concentration, and were largely dis­ interested in the work of the school. Scott also added that the presence of other moran in the district leading lives of "ease and pleasure cou­ pled with the strong masonic feeling which exists amongst moran can­ not but have a disturbing effect on moran in the school."62 Among the Kikuyu, although circumcision ceremonies did tend to disrupt educational activities and reaffirm the tribal traditions, their impact was clearly less decisive. Indeed, as we have seen, many of the first Kikuyu school-goers were young men of warrior age. Also the tra­ ditional age-grading structures of the Kikuyu gave way under the on­ slaught of powerful chiefs and rapid social change. But among the Maasai this warrior mentality was so pervasive and so antithetical to educational receptivity that the state in the 1930s began to shy away from educating adolescent Maasai because the onset of warrior status caused students to lose interest in schooling and to forsake the careers for which education had prepared them. Instead government edu­ cators began to recruit very young children hoping that these young­ sters could be "more readily parted from their parents since they are too young to herd full grown cattle. They are quick to learn, less likely to desert, and can complete an elementary course before the circumci­ sion age is reached."63 Another factor causing disinterest, even antipathy, to education, si See p. 246. |i2 Department of Education, Annual Report, 1930, p. 57. 03 Masai Annual Report, 1933, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1.

286—Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period equally important for the Kamba, was the increase in the size of herds. Although this did not mean more wealth in colonial terms since the Maasai and Kamba had only limited opportunities to dispose of their stock for money outside the reserves, livestock still constituted wealth and prestige in traditional terms. The larger flocks also kept the precircumcision boys busy with herding and made the parents reluctant to send them to schools. Because the herds prospered during these years, many Maasai and Kamba saw no fundamental challenge to their traditional way of life, in striking contrast to Kikuyu economic condi­ tions where land was becoming scarce and education afforded indis­ pensable new career alternatives. The District Commissioner from Kajiado stressed this theme in 1931 writing that the Maasai "have in fact reached the height of their ambitions and have no real desire for anything more. All they want is to be left alone." He added that while chiefs and members of LNCs professed willingness to cooperate in schooling and dutifully voted funds for schools, they were not willing to send their own children to school.64 As a consequence, force re­ mained an important component in the recruitment of school children, and desertion was a serious problem, especially just before and after the circumcision ceremonies. These problems persisted in Maasai so­ ciety even in the 1930s. The government officer in charge of the Maasai reserve admitted in 1933 that it took from April to the end of the year to obtain 26 children for the school at Loitokitok and that out of 63 on the roll at Narok only 3 were "volunteers."65 Among the Kamba and Maasai the educational system was not near­ ly so elaborate and so advanced as it was among the Kikuyu. The pre­ dominant educational influence was exercised by the government and the AIM, and neither was committed to giving advanced training in preparation for careers in Europeanized sectors of the economy. The government schools in both reserves tended to reflect Orr's belief in training the young in agriculture and rural industries. Hence school programs did not channel students out of the reserve and into new careers. A salient feature of government and mission schools alike was the emphasis on learning vernacular languages—Swahili, Kikamba, and Maasai—rather than English which was the sine qua non of cleri­ cal jobs in Nairobi and elsewhere. Schools were of a low standard, and pupils had difficulty gaining access to the colony's advanced schools, although there were a few Maasai and Kamba students at the Alliance High School, for instance. Yet, even after all this has been admitted, there can be no question that the primary responsibility for the educational lag cannot be laid 64 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1931, p. 17. es Masai Annual Report, 1933, KNA PC/SP ι/ί/ι.

Kamba and Maasai Education in the Interwar Period—287 at the feet of the colonial rulers. The Maasai and Kamba were educa­ tionally less receptive than the Kikuyu. The government and the mis­ sions tried to restrict the content of education and the level of school­ ing in the Kikuyu districts but encountered strong Kikuyu opposition which led to the creation of independent schools and a realization on the part of European educators that they must cater to some of these demands. Had the Maasai and Kamba been more interested in school­ ing and made more demands for a curriculum grounded in English, their European rulers would have had to make concessions to them as well. The traditional economy was still too attractive. Opposition to schooling persisted and had not been so fundamentally undercut by coercion through chiefs and by the process of social change itself as it was among the Kikuyu. New careers had not been implanted with the result that few thought seriously about leaving their reserves and seek­ ing work as clerks and teachers. They still regarded stock-rearing as the only valid occupation.

CHAPTER XIII

Kikuyu Agriculture

Little attention has been devoted to Kikuyu agriculture in the colonial period. Since the Kikuyu engaged in wage laboring in large numbers and were precluded from growing the cash crop most suited to their area, namely coffee, it would be easy to assume that there was little Kikuyu agricultural development. Indeed, it might be thought that the agricultural economy, if anything, was impoverished by the heavy de­ mands for Kikuyu labor outside the reserve. This portrait, however, is not accurate. There was considerably more change than would ap­ pear to be the case at first glance; the Kikuyu developed cash crop­ ping, albeit within narrow limits. Even before the colonial era the Kikuyu had already evolved a di­ versified agriculture. Because of the varied geographic, climate, and soil conditions Kikuyu farmers grew many different crops, certain re­ gions specializing in particular commodities and exchanging their goods with other areas at large, periodical markets. In most of KikuyuIand a person cultivated two crops each year, one following the long rains and the other the short rains. The major staples of Kikuyu agri­ culture and diet were millet and beans, but large quantities of bananas, yams, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, and other crops were grown. Di­ vided into a series of ridges and valleys, Kikuyuland was naturally en­ dowed with varied agricultural zones, the result of the different alti­ tudes and amounts of rainfall. In the high zones yams and cassava were not grown and there was little sugar, but maize was important. In the middle zone millet and beans were dominant, but most products could be grown, while in the lower zones sorghum, millet, peas, beans, and lentils flourished.1 Kikuyu agricultural technology was rudimentary. In preparation for planting, the ground was broken through the use of a long pole sharp­ ened to a point at one end. This implement was traditionally wielded by men. Men and women alike used a short stick, two feet long and one and one-half inches in diameter sharpened to a point, to break up the clods of earth in further preparation for planting and to dig up ι J. M. Fisher, Report on the Kikuyu, 1952, p. 185, KNA DC/FH 3/1 and Agri­ cultural Report No. 6 on Kenya District, Andrew Linton, June 12, 1904, HCSP, Vol. 56, 1905, cd. 2331.

Kikuyu Agriculture—289 yams and sweet potatoes at harvest time. Finally, farmers had various knives, pangas, axes, and hoes.2 Traditionally economic chores were divided between men and women. In general one could say that herding and the more physically demanding agrarian tasks were men's work while the lighter agricul­ tural labor fell to the lot of the women. The cycle of agrarian work commenced when the family started to cultivate previously fallow land, which might have lain idle for as long as ten years. As a conse­ quence a considerable growth of trees and grasses first needed to be cut down, and this work was the responsibility of the men. After the trees, shrubs, and grasses had been cut, women cleared the land and men hoed the ground into clods which were then beaten with a panga to remove grasses and weeds. Then the soil was sown, seeds having been set aside from the last harvest or having been bought in the mar­ ket. Women planted cereals and legumes while sugar cane, yams, and tobacco were men's crops. Men, women, and children did the periodi­ cal weeding. At harvest time, women harvested the cereals and men the root crops.3 Arable family land was demarcated into a number of gardens. Each wife had a garden of her own from which she helped to supply the family with food. She parcelled out portions of her land to her sons, increasing their portions when they married and had wives and fami­ lies to support. The man's garden was under his control, and there he planted man's crops. But women often planted and harvested crops on the man's land if they were asked to do so. The harvested crops were stored by women in small granaries. Because such a variety of crops were grown, the Kikuyu had a num­ ber of thriving markets held periodically, often every four days. One such market was described by a colonial officer in 1910. This was a four-day market held at Kakindu in Fort Hall district and was at­ tended by thousands of people from all over the region. The objects traded included woodplanks, doors for huts made of woven grass, colobus skin anklets, spears, feather headdresses, charcoal firewood, foodstuffs, and livestock.4 The Kikuyu also conducted a profitable trade with their neighbors, especially the Maasai. Kikuyu and Maasai women were given safe conduct to travel back and forth between these two societies exchanging goods. Also, enterprising Kikuyu merchants organized caravans to exchange their agricultural surpluses for the pastoral products of the Maasai. In 1904 John W. StaufEacher de2J.

M. Fisher, Report on the Kikuyu, p. 206, KNA DG/FH 3/1. p. 241; Kenyatta, Facing Mt. Kenya, pp. 548; and Cagnolo, T h e Akikuyu, pp. 298. * Political Record Book, Kenya Province, 1901-26, KNA PC/CP 1/1/1. sIbid.,

290—Kikuyu Agriculture

scribed one such Kikuyu caravan, carrying heavy loads of food to Maasai kraals where they were to be exchanged for sheep, goats, and skins. This caravan numbered about 50 persons and came from Karuri's location.5 Another important Kikuyu trader was Wangombe, father of Nderi, a leading colonial chief in Nyeri district.6 There were other larger bands, numbering as many as 100 persons. Indeed, set­ tlers regarded these Kikuyu caravans as competitors to their commer­ cial interests in the Maasai reserve and demanded that these traders be required to take out trading licenses.7 Soon after the British took over the East Africa Protectorate, they created a Department of Agriculture. Until after World War I nearly all of its activities were directed toward promoting settler agriculture. It had no full-time agriculture inspectors in the African reserves and obtained no detailed information about African agriculture except that provided by political officers or garnered by agricultural officials dur­ ing their infrequent tours of the reserves. The first activities of the Ag­ riculture Department included setting up experimental agricultural and stock-rearing farms to promote European farming and carrying out surveys of the European alienated lands to ascertain what crops would be suitable in these areas.8 Before 1919 the government ran stock farms at Naivasha, Mazeras, and Kibos and an experimental agricultural estate at Kabete, working to improve the cultivation of flax, maize, and wheat. It also had a coffee adviser. The Kibos farms had some interest for African agriculture since department officials there carried out ex­ periments on the cultivation of beans, bananas, cotton, groundnuts, maize, rice, sim sim, sugar cane, tobacco, and coffee, many of which were already being grown by Africans. Yet the Kibos experimental farm, located as it was, in one of the few Indian farming areas, was also intended to help these immigrant farmers.9 In spite of Ainsworth's notion that the development of reserves would make Africans more receptive to economic incentives in general and responsive to wage laboring opportunities, many administrators were inclined to accept the view that the economic well-being of Kenya depended on settler agriculture and that little attention need be devoted to developing agriculture in the reserves. One of the most influential Kiambu District Commissioners, G.A.S. Northcote, enunci­ ated this view in his annual report for 1915-1916. He wrote that "no particular effort is made in this district to stimulate native production 5 John W. Stauffacher, letter, n.d., Hearing and Doing, June-July, 1904. sKLC, p. si, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-34, cmd. 4556. 1 East African Standard, May 10, 1913. s Report on the East Africa Protectorate, 1903-1904, p. 17, Stewart, HCSP, Vol. 56, 1905, cd. 2331. 9 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1919-20, p. 15.

Kikuyu Agriculture—291

nor is the writer in favor of such a policy, at any rate on a large scale." Northcote's economic goals entailed inculcating in Africans the virtue of hard work, increasing the material welfare of the African popula­ tion, and encouraging trade. All of these goals, Northcote felt, could best be realized by encouraging Africans to work on European farms where they would learn self-discipline. "A sudden influx of wealth re­ sulting from a great pressure to produce crops of high value is liable to upset native standards, with too much violence," he concluded.10 The most important decision affecting Kikuyu agricultural develop­ ment was the determination to prohibit Africans from cultivating cof­ fee. Coffee was begun on an Italian mission farm just outside Nairobi and taken over with alacrity by settlers as a promising cash crop. In­ evitably, it also came to the attention of Kikuyu farmers, many of whom worked on European coffee estates and learned to cultivate the plant. Even the CSM in 1912 had three acres planted in coffee and twelve more about to be and employed African labor to grow the crop.11 Not surprisingly, enterprising Kikuyu began to experiment with its cultivation on their own land, either in the reserves or on squatter estates. Koinange was one of the first to grow coffee, but ac­ cording to his CMS patron, Canon Harry Leakey, "he very sportingly pulled it all up . . . upon hearing that it was distasteful to the [settlers] that natives should grow coffee."12 Under pressure from the settlers the government in 1916 decided to prohibit Africans from cultivating coffee. In his despatch to the Colonial Office, Governor Belfield argued that "a neglected or ill managed plantation is by reason of the disease which will inevitably appear not only unprofitable to the owner but a potential menace to its neighbors." As a result the director of agricul­ ture issued an order that the government "was not prepared to encour­ age the cultivation of coffee by natives."13 No doubt the settlers were much concerned about the fragile Arabica coffee plant which was becoming a basis of their agricultural export economy in the highlands. Unlike Robusta coffee, Arabica was vulnerable to an array of diseases, including mealy bug, coffee berry, and attacks by caterpillars and other pests. In defending the ban, set­ tlers and state were quick to argue that diseases, once introduced into poorly run African farms, would quickly spread onto European plan­ tations and that as a consequence Kenya's export crop would lose the reputation it was rapidly acquiring of being of high quality. The state 10 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1915-16, G.A.S. Northcote, KNA DC/KBU/8. 11 Circular from ADC, April 12, 1912, PCEA A/10. 12 Appendix No. 6, Memorandum from Canon Harry Leakey, Joint Select Com­ mittee on Closer Union in East Africa, HCSP, Vol. η, 1930-1931, ii, 20-25. 13

No. 329, Belfield to Bonar Law, June i, 1916, PRO CO 533/168.

292—Kikuyu Agriculture

was fearful that African cultivators would jeopardize this fledgling in­ dustry, depress world prices for Kenya coffee, and undermine hopes of building the modernized sectors of the economy around immigrant farmers. State and settlers were equally aware of the fact, however, that if Africans were allowed to grow coffee, they would become com­ petitors to the European farmers and more importantly that Kikuyu labor would be concentrated in the reserves on African cultivation rather than available for work on European estates. The settler view of economic development as usual was a European population grow­ ing cash crops through the use of African labor. The decision to prohibit Africans from cultivating coffee was reaf­ firmed periodically in the 1920s. The Ormsby-Gore Commission con­ cluded that since Arabica was "a delicate and difficult plant, an easy prey to disease of all kinds requiring continual watchfulness, careful pruning, and skilled cultivation," African cultivators would jeopardize the quality and high price of Kenya coffee. It favored prolonging the ban, at least until more information could be gathered on the efforts being made by Africans in the Kilimanjaro and Bugishu areas to culti­ vate this crop. 14 Evidence of a changing attitude appeared in an investigation of Kenya agriculture by Daniel Hall in 1929. While reemphasizing the fragility of the Kenya coffee industry, the Hall Com­ mittee confessed its uneasiness over the racial discrimination involved in the total exclusion of Africans from coffee raising. Instead the Com­ mission recommended the imposition of a considerable licensing fee in order to make sure that coffee would be grown only on large, well run African estates.15 The Kenya government proceeded along these lines, but with con­ siderable caution and many delays. Overriding settler opposition, the government in 1932 announced its intention to do away with the pro­ hibition against coffee cultivation and to draw up strict rules under which Africans would be permitted to raise coffee.16 The government agreed to confine African cultivation to certain designated areas. Culti­ vators were to be licensed, and the Director was to inquire as to fi­ nancing and the precautionary measures designed to prevent the out­ break and spread of disease. The license was 20 cents per 100 trees, a minimum of is. and a maximum of 30s. Seedlings were supplied by the Agriculture Department, and seeds were disposed of to the Agricul­ ture Department. 17 The Kikuyu districts were not permitted to grow 14 Report of the East Africa Commission, HCSP, Vol. 9, 1924-1925, cmd. 2387,

PP· 35-3615

Kenya, Report of the Agriculture Commission, 1929, p. 34. is Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, December 20, 1932, pp. 497-509. i" Confidential, Byrne to Cunliffe-Lister, January 13, 1933, PRO CO 533/431/3040.

Kikuyu Agriculture—293 coffee at this stage. In addition to being closest to settler coffee farms and therefore feared as spreaders of disease, they were also the chief suppliers of labor. The experiment was undertaken in the Meru area, far from European coffee estates. Following a conference at the Co­ lonial Office with important settlers, Lord Francis Scott and S. G. Gare, the Colonial Office expressed its concern over the problems of disease, thievery, and deterioration of coffee quality and warned the Kenya Governor that changes should be introduced "with the greatest possi­ ble circumspection."18 Governmental disinterest in African agriculture began to alter after the conclusion of World War I. There were a number of factors that caused such a change, including the impact of the war and its after­ math. The trustee principle was being evolved for the new League of Nations mandated territories, and this idea implied that European states held colonies as a trust and had responsibilities for uplifting and developing their colonized populations. The war left in Britain a keen­ er appreciation of imperial self-sufficiency and a desire to develop the raw material resources of its colonies, including its agricultural poten­ tial. The European-Indian disputes raging in Kenya in the early 1920s had caused British officials at home to rediscover the African popula­ tion. The paramountcy doctrine, enunciated in the 1923 White Paper on Indians in Kenya, brought more sharply into focus the need to edu­ cate and to promote the economic development of the African popula­ tion. Last, but far from least, the economic recession in the early 1920s motivated government officials to consider ways in which Kenya's re­ sources might be more fully exploited. It was clear that the African population was playing only a small role in Kenya's export economy. Although settlers were primarily concerned about their own economic dilemma, articulate spokesmen like Delamere favored stimulating African agricultural productivity. In a Legislative Council debate in 1923, Delamere hoped that a larger African production of maize would result in more exports and a lowering of the railway rate for all.19 Many settlers had been won to Ainsworth's notion that there was no inherent incompatibility between promoting economic development in the reserves and continuing to have large labor supplies available on European estates. Indeed, the Nyanza experiment had shown that agricultural development there had increased the African desire for money and consumer goods and had not diminished the numbers of­ fering themselves for wage labor. The new directions in agriculture were heralded in annual reports of the Native Affairs Department and the Agriculture Department be18 Colonial Office to Byrne, October 18, 1933, ibid. 19 Record of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, October 30, 1923, p. 35.

294—Kikuyu Agriculture

tween 1920 and 1922. The Native Affairs Department report of 19201921, for example, recorded that "it is to be regretted that hitherto so little has been done to develop [African agriculture] potentialities. An analysis of the estimates of the Department of Agriculture would ap­ pear to show that the heavy expenditure of that Department is mainly devoted to helping the European farmer and to research work from which no doubt the native will, in some distant future, benefit."20 By 1922 preliminary plans had been formulated. The Department of Agri­ culture proposed to establish a nucleus of European supervisors in the African reserves and to train a larger contingent of African instructors to assist the European staff. At first the Department undertook to re­ cruit six European officers and fifteen African assistants whose respon­ sibility was to encourage the cultivation of such exportable crops as cotton, rice, sim sim, groundnuts, maize, and beans. Attention was focused on the two most progressive African reserves—the Kikuyu dis­ tricts and Nyanza province.21 In 1923 agricultural instructors entered the African reserves for the first time on a regular basis. The annual reports of the Agriculture De­ partment began to carry rough estimates of African agricultural pro­ ductivity. The experimental farms at Kabete and Mazeras together with the Naivasha stock farm were closed as an economy measure while the Kibos farm was retained as essential for African agriculture. A Colonial Office minute written in 1922 even suggested that "it had been decided to let European agriculture fend for itself and to concen­ trate on developing native production."22 In the Kikuyu reserve an agricultural supervisor was stationed at the Scott Agricultural Labora­ tory at Kabete in 1923, and he toured Kiambu district, distributing large quantities of flat white maize seed, white Congo seed, and Ca­ nadian wonder beans, all of which were crops which the state was in­ terested in developing for export purposes.23 In 1924 the Agriculture Department distributed 38,000 pounds of flat white maize seed in Kiambu and 69,000 in Nyeri, and by 1925 Kiambu district had 28 dem­ onstration farms from which the Department distributed these high quality seeds and sought to inculcate new farming techniques.24 Nev­ ertheless, agricultural inspectors were forced to admit that their activi­ ties in the Kikuyu reserves aroused suspicion. The government actions were rarely accepted "as clear and free from ulterior motives. They [the Kikuyu] fear their land being taken from them, and it has often 20 Native

Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1920-21, p. 25. 21 Confidential, Northey to Churchill, July 10, 1922, PRO CO 533/279. 22 Bowring to Devonshire, November 23, 1922, PRO CO 533/284. 23 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1923, W.A.F. Platts, KNA DC/KBU/16. 21 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1924, p. 18 and 1925, p. 170.

Kikuyu Agriculture—295 been evident that our shamba to shamba visits have been looked upon as land-prospecting." 25 These were of course quite simple and rudimentary efforts. In fact many Kikuyu farmers had already begun to exploit cash crop oppor­ tunities long before the Agriculture Department displayed an interest in African agriculture. The three Kikuyu districts had relatively well developed road and railroad connections linking them with other parts of the highlands, especially areas where there was a burgeoning de­ mand for agricultural products. The main Uganda railway passed along the southwestern section of the reserve. The railway stations of Kabete, Kikuyu, Magugu, Limuru, Uplands, and Escarpment, were on the edge of the Kikuyu reserve. 26 In 1910-1911 a railway extension was built to Thika, then extended to Fort Hall in 1926. Although the rail­ way ran through the European settlement areas, it was not far from the Kikuyu reserve. In 1926 this line was extended from Fort Hall to Nyeri entering the Kikuyu reserve ten miles south of the Maragua river and running through the heart of the reserve. The railway sta­ tions of Saba Saba, Maragua, Sagana, Makangu, Karatina, and Nyeri tapped the agricultural resources of the population in Nyeri district as early railway surveys had forecast. 2T The Kikuyu also benefited from a rapidly evolving road structure, which, like the railways, was usually related to settler economic inter­ ests, but of use to the Kikuyu. The first primitive colonial roads in the highlands radiated out from the new capital city of Nairobi into south­ ern Kiambu district, linking Nairobi with Kiambu, Dagoretti, and Fort Hall. 28 By 1904 a road stretched from Fort Hall to Nyeri and one from Nyeri to Naivasha, useful no doubt for the recruitment of Kikuyu labor to settler farms in the Rift Valley, but equally important as a commercial artery linking Kikuyu farmers with the burgeoning market for foodstuffs in the Rift Valley. 29 Within the districts smaller paths were being traced, usually from major administrative and commercial centers to the locations of powerful and enterprising chiefs. By 1908 there were routes from Fort Hall to Kabarabara's location, from Fort Hall to Karuri's, and Nyeri to Karuri's. 30 Even before the government started to encourage the substitution 25 Ibid., 1927, p. 265. 26 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1931, p. 5, S. H. Fazan, KNA DC/KBU/24. 27 KLC, p. 76, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556 and No. 1340, Northey to Churchill, September 23, 1921, enclosing economic survey of the area covered by the proposed Thika-Nyeri Railway, PRO CO 533/263. 28 Report by His Majesty's Commissioner on the East Africa Protectorate, 1903, p. 6, HCSP, Vol. 45, 1903, cd. 1626. 29 Report on the East Africa Protectorate, 1903-1904, p. 48, Stewart, HCSP, Vol. 56, 1905, cd. 2331. S 0 Kiambu District, Annual Report, 1907-1908, KNA DC/KBU/i.

296—Kikuyu Agriculture of higher quality crops for traditional products Kikuyu farmers had begun to make these changes. Maize was being substituted for the tra­ ditionally much more common millet, and flat white maize was sup­ planting traditional African maize. Better bean crops were being culti­ vated. A few plows were introduced by the wealthy large landowners, and some flour mills were erected for grinding maize into meal. Since all these changes were under way before 1920, there can be little doubt that Kikuyu agriculture was in the process of embracing new commercial opportunities. The government simply accelerated this development. A crop that the Kikuyu developed extensively for its commercial possibilities was wattle. The cultivation of wattle trees was introduced into Kenya in 1903 with a view to producing fuel for the railway. Al­ though the tree was found unsatisfactory for this purpose because the wood burned too quickly, the bark made a light colored extract and was used in tanning leather. At first European cultivators took up wat­ tle, and the first export of ten tons was made in 1910. But the most suit­ able wattle growing areas were the Kikuyu highlands, and beginning in the 1920s Kikuyu farmers began to grow this tree and to sell large quantities of its bark (see Table 13-1). There were four types of wattle TABLE 13-1

Acreage of Wattle Planted in Kenya Year

European

African

1925 1930 1933 1936

8,830 11,250 14,613 16,681

6,000 20,859 60,000 100,000

trees which grew in the Kenya highlands. The most favored for export purposes was called black wattle and grew around Limuru at elevations over 7,000 feet, with 60 inches of rainfall, and deep soils. Other types were grown in the Kikuyu reserve at elevations of 5,000 to 7,000 feet. The procedure for preparing the bark for sale was that after six to eight years a tree was ready to be stripped. Bark was taken from the bottom of the tree after which the tree was felled. After stripping, the bark was sold directly to an extract factory if one was close by. There were two in Thika which served the central parts of the Kikuyu re­ serve, but elsewhere farmers had to dry the bark themselves. If done improperly, the bark was worthless. The strips taken from the tree were placed in single layers, bark side up, on poles on the ground. In this way rain was shed, and the inside of the bark retained its all im-

Kikuyu Agriculture—297

portant light color. The bark was left in this position from eight to twenty days until thoroughly air dried.31 While wattle bark was the major Kikuyu overseas export, their prin­ cipal commercial crop was maize. The Kikuyu exported small amounts of maize in the 1920s, largely along the East African coast, and only began to enter the European market in the late 1930s, but they sold in­ creasing quantities all over the colony.32 Maize meal was the standard food staple supplied to African laborers by the government and set­ tlers. The Kikuyu and Nyanza peoples were the chief African suppliers of this product. Responding to widening market opportunities, Kikuyu farmers substituted maize for the millets and sorghums which had con­ stituted not only the core of traditional Kikuyu agriculture but also the basic Kikuyu diet. Another important development was the increased cultivation of Canadian wonder beans, also favored by the Agriculture Department. These replaced other traditional types of beans as well as peas and were sold not only throughout the colony but in overseas markets to a small extent. The degree to which Kikuyu agriculture had become commercial­ ized and responsive to new markets outside the reserve is difficult to ascertain. A detailed and informative investigation was conducted by S. H. Fazan, a British administrative officer, who prepared data on this subject in 1932 for the Kenya Land Commission (see Table 13-2). Fazan estimated that Kikuyu farmers exported commodities valued at nearly £200,000, of which slightly more than half derived from the sale of maize. Most of these commodities were exported into European setTABLE 13-2

Agricultural Exports from the Three Kikuyu Districts, 1932 Crop

Value

(Quantity

Maize Beans European Potatoes Sweet Potatoes Millet Yams Sugar Cane

£101,489 25,267 21,940 9,398 4,510 2,666 3,763

36,905 tons 6,563 9,973 5,080

Wattle Bananas

15,780 13,700

820 1,441 4,181 9,017 548,000 bunches

Source: S. H. Fazan, "Economic Survey of Kikuyu Proper," KLC Evidence, I, 979. 31 See especially the Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 5 of 1933, W. G. Leckie, "The Growing of Wattle and Production of Wattle Bark in Kenya," East Africa Agricultural Journal, July, 1938, Vol. 4, pp. 51-62. 32 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1929, p. ig.

298—Kikuyu Agriculture tlement areas and consumed by the African populations resident there. Produce valued at only £27,593 was sold abroad. Although it would appear that Kikuyu farmers exported large quantities, and indeed they did in relation to many other African communities in Kenya, Fazan estimated that an average family did not earn much from the sale of its surpluses. An average Kiambu family, Fazan thought, produced and consumed foodstuffs worth 121s. and sold produce worth 107s. in a year. Fort Hall farmers earned only 52s. per year per family, and Nyeri farmers 28s. from the sale of their agricultural surpluses.33 There were of course significant disparities in the amount of land a family owned and the quantity of foodstuffs it could sell. There were well-to-do farmers able to earn much more than this average, but most farmers, as Fazan's statistics suggested, did not realize large returns from the sale of maize and other commodities. Agricultural diversity had been the benchmark of the traditional Kikuyu economy and became even more pronounced in the colonial period. While maize and beans were grown on many farms, especially in those areas close to markets and railroad and road connections, mil­ let, sorghum, and peas were still being cultivated in more distant and less commercialized regions. English potatoes were grown in large quantities at elevations over 5,000 feet, especially around Limuru, the Escarpment, and Karatina in Nyeri district and sold all over Kenya.34 Wattle was another high elevation crop. While flat white maize was cultivated during the long rains, the quicker growing white Congo maize was planted for the short rainy seasons.35 Near Dagoretti, Kikuyu farmers raised a vast array of vegetables, including beets, onions, and carrots, and sold them in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Uganda. The great diversity of Kikuyu agriculture led to brisk exchanges with­ in the reserve as commodities grown in abundance in one area were exchanged for commodities from other locations.

An essential element in the commercialization of Kikuyu agriculture was the elaboration of an increasingly more developed and efficient system of marketing. The Kikuyu continued to hold their own markets and to exchange local and imported commodities there, sometimes by barter, more often using the new money introduced by their colonial 33 S. H. Fazan, "Economic Survey of Kikuyu Proper," KLC, Evidence, 1, 10001003. 34 Dagoretti Division, Annual Report, 1916-17, p. 33, G.A.G. Lane, KNA DC/ KBU/10. 35 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1927, p. 301.

Kikuyu Agriculture—299 rulers. They were quick to embrace the new colonial money, much more so than their neighbors, the Kamba and the Maasai. The tradi­ tional Kikuyu markets, as observed by the colonial officials, were using money before World War I. But the Indian population played an even more decisive role in stimulating marketing and the spread of the monetary economy. They facilitated long distance trade in Kikuyu agricultural products. Indian merchants erected shops where Kikuyu farmers sold surplus agricultural products, and from whence these products were shipped throughout the colony. In these shops they offered cloth, tea, cigarettes, and so forth which Kikuyu were increas­ ingly anxious to purchase. In 1915-1916 in southern Kiambu district there were already 22 Indian shops at Thogoto, 7 at Kij abe, and 20 at Limuru.36 Equally important Indian trading centers were being estab­ lished in Fort Hall and Nyeri districts. As commercial agriculture became more important to Kikuyu farmers, they began to consider ways in which they could organize their own marketing and thus secure higher prices for themselves. Spurred on by the declining prices of the depression, Kikuyu pro­ ducers at first sought to establish cooperative societies modeled after European farming cooperatives which sold the produce of their mem­ bers, distributing profits to each, and even purchased needed imported commodities in large bulk and at reduced prices. In 1931 approxi­ mately 100 Kiambu farmers organized a Kikuyu Native Producers Co­ operative Society to sell their agricultural produce. A similar organ was established in Fort Hall district. At Karatina, the leading market in Nyeri district, producers did not establish a cooperative society, but commissioned buying agents.37 The Local Native Councils sought to assist this effort by erecting 11 central buying stations in the Kikuyu reserve where producers could bring their crops and enjoy the benefit of merchants bidding against one another. This experiment faltered from the outset. The prices in 1932 were generally so low that the cooperative societies were able to deal only with wattle.38 The state was not an enthusiastic supporter of the scheme, and the cooperative societies were disbanded in 1932-1933 in part because of their inability to meet the expenses of a registered so­ ciety. But associations of producers remained in being and hired a buying agent, Messrs. Gibson and Company based in Nairobi, to pur­ chase major export commodities at the buying stations established by the Local Native Councils. If these societies had no other effect, they se Dagoretti Division, Annual Report, 1915-16, C. H. Adams, KNA DC/KBU/g. 37 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1931, p. 69. 38 Kikuyu Province, Annual Report, 1932, p. 28, Ε. B. Home, KNA PC/CP 4/1/2.

300—Kikuyu Agriculture did stimulate a general rise in prices on the part of Indian traders. In response to the challenge Indian traders sent trucks into African mar­ kets and offered salt free to those Africans willing to sell to them.39 The government was cognizant of the need for the better marketing of African produce. The Secretary of State for Colonies, CunliffeLister, emphasized this need during his visit to Kenya in 1933. The state was particularly worried about the growth of a petty African trading class, many of whom had little capital and in the view of the state were parasitic on the productive farming members of the so­ ciety.40 The Kikuyu had indeed begun to emerge as petty traders in increasing numbers in the 1920s. By 1927 there were 144 Kikuyu trad­ ing shops in Fort Hall district, 85 in Nyeri, and 20 in Kiambu.41 These shops were usually temporary structures, erected for the sale of only a few commodities, such as tea, porridge, blankets, cigarettes, and matches. In the 1930s more petty traders appeared, many of whom were apparently young men with a smattering of education unable to find any better paying jobs. The government was alarmed especially at the large number of small Indian and African traders who plied the roads and footpaths of the Kikuyu reserve, buying and selling in small amounts in the villages. They believed that these men dunned farmers out of legitimate and fair returns on their produce, that they were often guilty of fraudulent practices, and that, being unaware of crop quality, they failed to pay higher prices to farmers who grew superior crops and thus did not provide incentives to producers to cultivate quality crops. The government first turned its attention to the wattle crop, which sold for considerably less than bark from Natal in South Africa, the major exporting country in the world. In response the state introduced rules calling for the inspection of bark before its purchase at the regu­ lar trading centers. A rapid improvement in quality took place.42 On the heels of this development the Kenya government in 1935 in­ troduced what proved to be an exceedingly controversial piece of leg­ islation—an ordinance to regulate the marketing of African produce. On the surface the bill appeared innocent enough and to be of great benefit to the African producing population. The ordinance stipulated that in designated districts certain commodities could be purchased only by traders who had obtained trading licenses from the govern­ ment. The Governor also had the power to confer an exclusive license 39 Ukamba Province, Annual Report, 1933, p. 54, Ε. B. Home, ibid. 10 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1934, I, 76. 41 Short History of Kikuyu Province, 1911-27, p. 45, KNA PC/CP 1/1/2. 12 W. G. Leckie, "The Growing of Wattle and Production of Wattle Bark in Kenya," East Africa Agricultural Journal, July, 1938, Vol. 4, p. 52.

Kikuyu Agriculture—301 on a single buyer and to declare that certain products could only be sold at centra] marketplaces.43 This legislation had been developed in unison with the governments of Tanganyika and Uganda. Its major goal was to centralize the buying of important African produce at a few large stations under government regulation and inspection. In Kenya this law was coupled with another piece of legislation—the Crop and Livestock Ordinance of 1926 and enabled the government to enforce compulsory inspection of many agricultural products at cen­ tral buying stations. The five Indian members of the Kenya Legislative Council were bit­ terly opposed to this legislation, fearing that it would destroy the petty Indian trading class who would be unable to compete with larger, bet­ ter capitalized, mainly European commercial companies at the new central markets. The government of India despatched a special dele­ gate, Menon, to report on the implications of this bill for the Indian community of East Africa. In the Legislative Council Shams ud Deen complained that the ordinance would "revolutionize the whole system existing in the colony for forty years."44 Indians were alarmed at the powers given the Governor to confer exclusive licenses on a single buy­ er and feared that this power would be used at the expense of Indian merchants. Four of the five Indian members of the Legislative Council walked out of the debate in protest. The remaining delegate, J. B. Pandya, following the advice of the Federated Indian Chambers of Com­ merce, stayed behind to oppose the bill, but he too withdrew before the bill was finally accepted. The government held its ground, justify­ ing the bill with arguments that it would give higher and fairer prices to African producers, would eliminate a widespread practice of trad­ ers using illegal weights, and would reward producers for higher qual­ ity crops. Like other pieces of enabling legislation the ordinance was applied immediately to Central Province and covered such important African export commodities as wattle, maize, beans, and potatoes.45 To be sure, local exchanges of these products were permitted outside the buying stations. But all other produce had to be brought to inspection sheds where it was cleaned, sorted, and graded. After having his produce inspected, a seller was given a pass and was free to sell all of the pro­ duce passed through inspection to any merchant buying at the central station.48 In an effort to make the system more effective and to keep petty traders from purchasing commodities, at least in the vicinity of 43 Kenya, Official Gazette, 1935, p. 666. a Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, July 3, 1935, p. 183. 45 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1935, 1, 100. 46 Ibid., 1935, ii, 77-78.

302—Kikuyu Agriculture

the central buying stations, many Local Native Councils passed rules disallowing any buying within three miles of established markets. In the years just before the outbreak of the war the state increased the number of officially designated markets, by recognizing traditional trading centers and African markets, and creating additional buying centers, with the hope that no African farmer would have to walk far to dispose of his crop.47 In Nyeri district, for instance, Karatina was recognized as the main trading center, but 7 main and permanent mar­ kets were established in addition to some 30 subsidiary markets.48 Ac­ cording to the Native Affairs Department there was a considerable increase in the prices paid to the farmers of Central Province as a re­ sult of this legislation.49 Considerable quantities were dealt with at these stations (see Table 13-3). These changes made it easier for AfriTABLE 13-3

Quantities Passed through Inspection Stations for Export from Central Province, 1937 Commodity Wattle - dry bark Wattle, green Maize Legumes Potatoes Cotton Vegetables Tobacco Hides - shade dried Hides - sun dried Skins Beeswax Ghee

ζQuantity 16,025 tons 5,202 193,250 bags 40,896 bags 42,731 bags 1,540 bales -

4,551 frasilas 1,120 frasilas 7,051 scores 1,972 frasilas 3,838 tins

Value £56,658 65,083 22,492 10,683 15,400 6,000 50 4,323 560 5,349 2,958 5.580 £195,136

can farmers to dispose of their produce in buying stations, but they limited the field of operations of petty traders, Indian and African. It is difficult to evaluate the impact of this new legislation on African farmers since it was not introduced until 1936 and was in effect such a short time before the outbreak of the war. In 1936 African maize was exported overseas for the first time since the late 1920s, and on this occasion the African exports were of high quality in contrast with the lower grades which had constituted the bulk of African maize exports Ibid., 1936, I, 5-6. is Handing Over Report, Nyeri District, Storrs-Fox to Jennings, p. DC/NYI/19. 49Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1935, p. 58.

19,

KNA

Kikuyu Agriculture—303 in the 1920s.50 But the marketing arrangements clearly benefited effi­ cient African farmers, those who already grew high quality produce or who were able to change over to cultivating such produce after the ordinance was passed. The smaller, poorer, and less "modern" farmers were less likely to have their produce pass inspection, and thus the market outside the province was closed to them and they were left with a restricted internal market. The Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) joined the Indian community in protesting the bill, realizing that the ordinance opened the door for European marketing firms to enter the reserve and thus limited the activities of African traders, many of whom were members of the KCA.51 A moving force behind this legislation and one of the chief benefi­ ciaries was the European settler community, particularly the Kenya Farmers Association (KFA), a major European cooperative society. Founded in the Nakuru area as the British East Africa Maize Growers Association just after the outbreak of World War I, it took the name Kenya Farmers Association in 1923 and joined with the Plateau Maize Growers Association in 1927. Its members constituted approximately 80 per cent of the European wheat growers and 90 per cent of its maize producers.52 The KFA, like other cooperatives, was a marketing agency for its members. Not only did it market maize and wheat, but during the depression it became a marketer for pyrethrum and en­ tered gold mining in order to offset losses on its staple agricultural products.53 As a maize marketer the KFA paid its members a uniform price, which was scaled according to quality of the maize, but not according to where it was sold, whether in Europe or Kenya. This arrangement favored the producers of high quality, exportable maize since all mem­ bers were compelled to bear the transportation costs of exports, whether their maize was sold overseas or not. It stimulated the cultiva­ tion of higher quality maizes and was a policy easily justified on the grounds that European farmers had to have an overseas export market in order to be able to dispose of the large quantities of maize they grew. At the onset of the depression, however, the overseas price of maize dipped below that in Kenya where African-grown maize com­ manded the market. Settler representatives boasted to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament investigating closer union in East Africa that the export of European maize enabled Africans to dispose of a million so Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1936, 1, 5-6. siCentral Province, Annual Report, 1936, p. 64, S. H. JLaFontaine, KNA PC/CP 4/3/1·

S2Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1932, p. 11. 53 Huxley, No Easy Way, p. 26.

304—Kikuyu Agriculture

bags of maize in Kenya at slightly higher prices.54 But in fact the growth of commercialized maize growing in Nyanza and Central prov­ inces was a matter of great concern to European farmers even though Europeans were diversifying their agriculture and growing less maize.55 The KFA sought to retain its dominance over maize marketing and was anxious that African cultivators share the vagaries of overseas trade. The marketing ordinance accomplished these goals. By doing away with petty traders for the purchasing of many commercial com­ modities, it opened the door wide to the KFA to enter African reserves as a major buying agent. By 1936 the Kenya Farmers Association had become a buying agent for the Local Native Councils of Nyeri, Fort Hall, Embu, and Kiambu and was exporting African maize overseas for the first time since the 1920s.56 Thus, European farmers drew con­ siderable advantage from this controversial ordinance.

The commercialization of Kikuyu agriculture brought some farreaching changes in Kikuyu society and created a legacy of problems still unresolved at the outbreak of World War II. One area that re­ mained relatively unchanged, however, was Kikuyu agricultural tech­ nology. Although some enterprising farmers introduced plows and used fertilizers, the vast majority of the peasant population, lacking capital and still farming small plots of land, used the agricultural im­ plements which had been common at the beginning of the twentieth century. But there were significant changes in work routines. Largely because so many adult Kikuyu males left the reserve to engage in wage laboring, greater responsibilities devolved upon the women. Whereas before the coming of the Europeans, men had done the heavier agri­ cultural chores and had cultivated the so-called men's crops, by 1939 many women were to be seen clearing the bush, hoeing, and planting and harvesting traditional men's crops like yams. Moreover, Kikuyu families selected crops of high monetary value and those requiring lit­ tle labor, essential in communities where so many males were absent for long periods. Cassava and yams were grown less extensively be­ cause they did not grow quickly, and yams required a great deal of labor during the harvest season. Maize was valued over millet, not only because of its export value, but also because millet required a 54 Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, HCSP, Vol. 7, 19301931, 11, 659. 55 Huxley, No Easy Way, pp. 115-16. 56 Central Province, Annual Report, 1936, p. 64, S. H. LaFontaine, KNA PC/CP

4/3/1·

Kikuyu Agriculture—305 great deal of attention since much energy was spent weeding and keeping birds away during the growing season.57 Another major development was increasing soil exhaustion and ero­ sion. This came about through a combination of factors: population growth; agricultural expansion; and the deleterious effects of some of the new crops being grown. Population statistics are not sufficiently precise to indicate at what date and at what rates the Kikuyu popula­ tion began to expand rapidly. Most commentators were in accord, however, that the population was on the rise in the 1930s and was pressing heavily on land resources in many areas. As we have seen, in the 1930s squatting and wage laboring ceased to expand as rapidly as they had in the previous decade, and thus more Kikuyu families were forced back on their own agricultural resources. Parts of the Kikuyu reserve were known to have the highest population densities in the colony. The population tended to concentrate in agriculturally rich areas as well as regions possessing favorable marketing arrangements, no doubt the result of considerable internal population migrations. But the population was not simply confined to the favorable agricultural and marketing regions of southern Kiambu district and the Karatina area. The Kikuyu occupied previously sparsely populated regions and used for food farms land once devoted mainly to grazing. Kikuyu farmers moved into higher altitudes in large numbers. In 1934 the gov­ ernment drained 11,000 acres of swampland in Fort Hall and Nyeri districts; these lands were swiftly taken up.58 The Ndeiya region of Kiambu district which had once been reserved for grazing was speedi­ ly occupied in the 1930s, and its agricultural portions cultivated.59 Everywhere the fallow periods were reduced. Whereas farmers had once allowed the land to lie uncultivated from eight to ten years, the fallow period had become only two years.60 Since farmers sought to grow cash and subsistence crops, each family was eager to expand its holdings and to cultivate more land than had been common before the growth of commercialized agriculture. Some of the new crops were exceedingly demanding on the soil. While flat white maize had the virtue of being hardy and growing quickly, it exhausted the soil more rapidly than millet. Wattle was one of the worst offenders, an ironical fact. Before the government had learned of its soil eroding propensities, it favored its cultivation as a soil restorer. Wattle returned nitrogen to the soil, and for this reason 57 J. M. Fisher, Report on the Kikuyu, p. 186, KNA DC/FH 3/1. 58 Native Affairs Department, A n n u a l R e p o r t , 1934, p. 99. ^ I b i d . , 1937, p. 17. β» J. M. Fisher, Report on the Kikuyu, p. 2 2 3 , KNA DC/FH 3/1.

306—Kikuyu Agriculture the Agriculture Department recommended its use on worn out soils in the early 1930s.61 Later the Department discovered that wattle was a voracious surface feeder, and if a tree was to prosper, the land around it had to be cleared of all ground cover—a process which naturally accelerated soil erosion. Moreover, after the felling of wattle trees, more erosion set in unless brushwood and trash were placed in con­ tour lines around the groves in order to break up the path of rushing rain water. Because wattle did so well in high altitudes, it was often planted on hillsides. By the late 1930s the government had learned that wattle trees growing on steeply sloped hills caused a great deal of soil erosion.62 The state took its first halting steps to cope with soil exhaustion in the Kikuyu reserve in the 1930s. In 1931 the Agriculture Department established a few experimental small holdings of 4 acres where food crops, cash crops, and livestock were all grouped together. The opera­ tion was deemed a success, and the state sought to encourage mixed farming on small plots, with a strict rotation of arable and pastoral fields and the use of compost and manure as fertilizer.63 Although this idea of mixed farming was technically feasible, it was not practicable given prevailing Kikuyu social and economic conditions. As late as 1937 only 2,000 such mixed farms were in existence throughout Cen­ tral Province.64 The problems were legion. Because of the limited amount of arable land, many farmers grazed their livestock on less de­ sirable, more arid communal lands at a considerable distance from their agricultural lots which were used exclusively for cultivation. Thus, the livestock could not be used to provide fertilizer for the crops. Another problem was land fragmentation. Although a few indi­ viduals were able to accumulate estates of 100 acres, large by Kikuyu standards, in general the tendency was toward increased fragmenta­ tion. As the population expanded, the land became more fragmented. Family land was always in the process of being divided. A husband set aside land for each of his wives who in turn allocated parts of their lands to their sons. Thus, at any given moment a piece of family land would have a number of small farm plots on it, and on such divided estates unified schemes of mixed farming were not likely to develop. Just prior to the outbreak of the war the state began to enact more stringent antierosion measures. The Local Native Councils of Central Province, except for those of Fort Hall and Kiambu, passed resolutions el Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1933, p. 93. 62 Leckie, "The Growing of Wattle and Production of Wattle Bark in Kenya," East African Agricultural Journal, 1938, Vol. 4, p. 54. 63 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1931, p. 72. 64 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1937, p. 142.

Kikuyu Agriculture—307

on soil conservation. These resolutions prevented individuals from cut­ ting down trees, bushes or vegetation on steeply sloping land or depas­ turing cattle, sheep, or goats there without first obtaining the permis­ sion of the headman. Headmen were given the power to require people to terrace, to strip crop, and to contour plow in eroded areas.65 These measures, however, aroused the antagonism of nationalist groups like the KCA who continued to fear government and settler designs on Kikuyu lands and looked on these proposals as interference with Kikuyu ownership of the land.66 A result of commercialized agriculture was a slow, but nevertheless marked growth of individual land ownership, with the right to dispose of land freely and for sale. This tendency was most marked in Kiambu district, perhaps because of its deeper involvement in the money and market nexus of Nairobi. This is not the place to enter into a discus­ sion of Kikuyu land tenure except to say that traditionally land was conceived as family land, and in most circumstances no individual per­ son had the right to dispose of it without consultation with other mem­ bers of his family. All accounts agree that in the more commercially developed regions of the Kikuyu reserve individual farmers began to regard the land as their own and to sell it for money. This develop­ ment enabled some persons to accumulate large estates on which they practiced extensive cash crop farming, although in general the Kikuyu reserve was characterized by small plot farming.67 A closely related development was the emergence of increasingly tense relations between the landowning families and tenant farmers. Whether it was traditionally permissible to remove a tenant farmer once he had been granted land is a question not clearly answered in the standard studies of Kikuyu land tenure. Kenyatta contended that tenant farmers could be evicted, but A. R. Barlow and J. Ainsworth, whose knowledge of early Kikuyu society was exceptional, stated that at least in the northern part of the reserve ahoi could not be evicted.68 Nevertheless, there can be little question that in the colonial period it had become a common though much resented practice for individuals to remove their tenant farmers. In his 1945 study of Kikuyu land prob­ lems H. Humphrey argued that the position of tenant farmers had be­ come increasingly tenuous. 69 In seeking to avoid possible eviction ahoi sometimes claimed permanent rights in the land. Yet at the same time they hesitated to improve the land they tilled, for fear that they would be removed the moment the land became truly valuable. Traditionally 65 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1938, I, 66. ββ Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1938, p. 14. 6 8 KLC, Evidence, 1, 491-501. 67 Ibid., 1937, p. 131. 60 Kenya, The Kikuyu Lands (Nairobi, 1945), p. 23.

308—Kikuyu Agriculture the practice of an individual begging land from another and thereby becoming an ahoi was commonplace. By 1940, however, the beginnings of a landless Kikuyu class could be observed, and individuals, like squatters forced off European estates or members of families no longer able to eke out an existence on their small family plots, found it diffi­ cult to obtain land from neighbors and friends. A poignant letter from one such landless Kikuyu pointed out that many in Kiambu district were without any land and that the owners of farms were not allowing them to cultivate. 70 By the same token the landowning class was in­ tensifying its demand to have their land rights registered by the state. This had been a long standing demand among Kikuyu landholders, heard even before 1914. In the 1930s Kikuyu Local Native Councils passed recommendations for the registration of land titles. The co­ lonial government resisted these pressures although it did create a spe­ cial committee to investigate the problem. The state was fearful that title registration would violate Kikuyu traditions of communal owner­ ship and would lead to "excessive acquisition of land by individuals." 71

Superficial appearances notwithstanding, there was a considerable amount of agricultural development occurring within the Kikuyu re­ serve during the colonial period. Kenya farmers became important commercial producers of maize, beans, and wattle, and they made sub­ stantial progress raising these crops for sale even before the adminis­ tration began to take an interest in African agriculture and even be­ fore settler antagonisms toward the expenditure of government funds on African reserves had begun to soften. Nonetheless, changing atti­ tudes of the administrators and the settlers certainly facilitated the further development of African agriculture in the interwar period. The administration helped African farmers by opening demonstration farms and distributing seed. Although settlers were never eager ex­ ponents of African agricultural progress and indeed continued to agi­ tate in favor of the ban against Africans' cultivating coffee, at least the more astute settler leaders realized that the agricultural moderniza­ tion of African reserves could go hand in hand with the expansion of their own farming economy and could contribute much needed reve­ nue to the state. The new marketing rules of 1935 permitted a settler cooperative buying organization, called the Kenya Farmers Associa­ tion, to enter the economically more progressive African reserves and become a buying agent for their commercial crops. Nevertheless, pop70 Philip Mbogoro to DC, Kiambu, September 25, 1939, KNA DC/KBU/53. 71 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1938, pp. 7-8.

Kikuyu Agriculture—309

ulation increase coupled with the steady increase of the amount of land put under crops created serious problems of overcropping and soil erosion—problems which the state was just beginning to tackle before 1939.

CHAPTER XIV

The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba: Problems of Overstocking

During the European colonial period a considerable amount of science and technology developed in Europe was transferred into colonial Africa. One of the least studied, yet most fascinating aspects of this technological diffusion, was the spread of European veterinary ideas and methods into African stock-rearing economies. Just as the British felt a commitment to educate Africans and to modernize their farming practices, so British officials were also anxious to improve the quality of African herds through the control and, if possible, the eradication of traditional livestock diseases, and to make African pastoralists more economically efficient. These seemingly beneficial impulses did not always generate enthusiastic African responses, not only because European officials encountered difficulties in adapting their veterinary techniques to the African environment but also because some tech­ niques and the attitudes that underlay them clashed with traditional African views on herding. African stock-rearers did not look upon their livestock simply as commercial commodities. To some peoples, although not the Maasai and Kamba, cattle had religious and symbolic significance, and thus, they were reluctant to slaughter livestock or to derive the maximum commercial profit from their herds. Moreover, livestock played a number of economic roles which Europeans at first were not familiar with and had difficulty appreciating. They were the mark of a man's wealth and prestige. They were a form of currency, and consequently owners were reluctant to part with their animals and were inclined to accumulate larger and larger herds even to the detri­ ment of the quality of the animals. The European effort to introduce veterinary science into Africa produced a number of significant conse­ quences, but probably the most important was an unintended one. By reducing the incidence of disease, colonial governments enabled the stock population to increase. Rapidly multiplying herds consumed vast amounts of vegetation and caused deterioration in the quality of pas­ tures, soil exhaustion, and soil erosion. The government's effort to deal with one such heavily overstocked area—the Machakos reserve—led to an upsurge of anticolonial nationalism in 1938.

Problems of Overstocking—311 In the central highlands the Kamba and Maasai were important cat­ tle keepers. Although the Kikuyu valued livestock, using it as a cur­ rency and measuring a person's wealth and often his social standing by the size of his herds, the Kikuyu, because of population density, did not have such large flocks as the Maasai and Kamba. The Maasai at­ tached great virtue to stock-rearing. In addition to disparaging agri­ culture, the Maasai tried to make themselves as independent of agricultural products as possible. Maasai warriors were enjoined to subsist entirely on the meat, milk, and blood of their animals, and while members of the society were permitted to supplement their pre­ dominantly pastoral diet with agricultural products obtained in ex­ changes with neighboring agricultural peoples, the Maasai did not consume a great deal of these commodities. In their comparative study of Kikuyu and Maasai diets, Orr and Gilk discovered that Maasai con­ sumed larger quantities of proteins than the Kikuyu, but less carbo­ hydrates and that a Maasai adult male was on average five inches tall­ er and twenty-three pounds heavier than a full-grown male Kikuyu.1 Alan Jacobs, an anthropologist, later estimated that only about 15 per cent of the entire Maasai diet was composed of agricultural items.2 The Kamba had no such injunctions against cultivating although those living in Kitui, for climatic reasons, were primarily stockkeepers. In Machakos and Kitui alike cattle were a mark of wealth and prestige, and herding was the favored economic domain of men. Unlike some East African cattle keepers, like the Nuer, however, the Maasai and Kamba did not attach extreme symbolic, even religious significance to their animals. They were not opposed to killing cattle per se. Yet be­ cause their livestock performed many essential functions, owners were loath to part with them and eager to increase the size of their herds. The blood and milk of the cattle were a source of food, especially in times of drought when crops were not prospering. Sheep, goats, and cattle were a source of currency, not only within tribes, but also be­ tween them. They were used to pay debts and fees. As payment of fees and bride-price, livestock formed a web of unity binding people to­ gether. Because so many livestock were held in trust, they could not be sold or killed without the consent of many people. Veterinary work in Kenya was carried out by the Department of Ag­ riculture. Many veterinary activities revolved, around the control and eradication of four leading cattle diseases: east coast fever, pleuro­ pneumonia, rinderpest, and trypanosomiasis. East coast fever is caused 1 J. B. Orr and J. L. Gilk, Studies of Nutrition: The Physique and Health of two African Tribes (London, 1931), pp. 29 and 62. 2 Alan Jacobs, "The Pastoral Masai of Kenya," p. 25.

312—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba

by a tiny blood parasite, theileria parva, which is transmitted by a brown tick and spends part of its life in cattle and part in ticks.3 It was not until 1931 that the life history of this microscopic blood parasite was fully investigated by research workers at the Kabete laboratories in Kenya.4 East coast fever thrives in wet areas where heavy vegeta­ tion supports abundant tick life. Ticks feeding from infected cattle take the parasite into their systems and once it develops there, they can then infect cattle on which they feed. The cycle, thus, requires ticks and infected cattle and can be interrupted if the tick population is unable to survive the year around because of the aridity of a region or if cattle can be kept free from disease and thus unable to transmit the disease to ticks. Trypanosomiasis is transmitted by the tsetse fly and affects game as well as livestock. The chief trypanosomes of stock in Kenya were T. Congolense and T. Vivax, and the principally affected areas were Nyanza, Turkana, Njemps, and parts of the Machakos, Kitui, and Maasai reserves.5 Pleuropneumonia is caused by a minute micro­ organism first identified in Europe in 1896. It is transmitted from beast to beast through contact, while rinderpest, a viral disease well known in Europe, was introduced into the African continent only in 1889. It spread across the central highlands in 1890. Although Kenya livestock suffered from many other diseases, these four were regarded as the most dangerous, since they could assume epizootic proportions and cause rapid and widespread cattle losses. The techniques that veterinarians had developed for combating live­ stock diseases in Europe required substantial modification in Africa. East coast fever and trypanosomiasis were not European cattle di­ seases. Although rinderpest and pleuropneumonia had been wide­ spread in Europe in the past, they had been brought under effective control by the end of the nineteenth century, largely by means of quar­ antine and slaughtering methods. In Europe veterinarians sought to ensure that these diseases did not reappear and did so by carefully regulating the movement of cattle and identifying promptly outbreaks and destroying all those animals which were infected and which came in contact with the diseased ones. In Kenya, on the other hand, veteri­ narians quickly discovered that these diseases were enzootic and that speedy eradication was impossible. They quickly came to realize that their task in Kenya was not to eradicate disease but to reduce its inci­ dence. While they used quarantining and slaughtering in selected 3 W. C. Miller and G. P. West, Encyclopedia of Animal Care (Baltimore, 1965), pp. 287-288. 4 Huxley, White Man's Country, 1, 145. 5 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1927, p. 82 and 1933, p. 253.

Problems of Overstocking—313 areas, they were even more concerned to develop serums and vaccines for conferring immunity, thus protecting at least part of the livestock from disease. At the government's important laboratories at Kabete, Kenya became one of the centers of African animal disease research. Its work on serums gained for it an international reputation. Veterinary policy, like all of Kenya's policies, was decisively shaped by the presence of a European settler population. Realizing that the grasslands of Kenya would support vast European herds, the Depart­ ment of Agriculture quickly took steps to establish European ranching. In 1908 it imported pure bred herds of shorthorn, Ayrshire, Hereford, and Friesland type and created cattle and sheep farms for demonstra­ tion and research work.6 It also began to cope with the problem of stock diseases and to develop veterinary regulations to secure the good health of European herds. These regulations had far-reaching implica­ tions for African stock-rearers. Although the Kenya highlands had been devastated by rinderpest around 1890, the state first sought to cope with stock disease in the late 1890s when outbreaks of pleuropneumonia and rinderpest were estimated to have caused the death of approximately 50,000 African cattle in the Machakos area.7 Holding what may have been the first colonial veterinary conference in Kenya, High Commissioner Hardinge met with a noted veterinary scientist, Professor Koch, as well as the Principal Medical Officer of the Protectorate, MacDonald, and the Chief Veterinary Officer, Captain Haslam, to devise measures to deal with the outbreak. These officials rejected a suggestion of carrying out inoculations on the infected herds, fearing that if there were deaths, the state would be blamed and gain an unfavorable reputation with the people.8 Instead, J. Ainsworth, the officer in charge of Machakos, sought to persuade the Kamba to burn the hides of dead animals and to bury their carcasses. He was largely unsuccessful, for the Kamba cut up the dead cattle for food. Ainsworth did inoculate the govern­ ment herd at Machakos station, and the success he attained there prompted him to give inoculations against pleuropneumonia to African stock owners in 1900 and to set up isolation camps separating infected herds from those that were healthy.9 It was in trying to deal with east coast fever that the state began to devise a generalized veterinary policy toward African and European e

Ibid.,

1913-14. P- 5·

τ No. 12, Hardinge to Salisbury, February 22, 1899, PRO FO 403/281.

s Report by Sir A. Hardinge on the British East Africa Protectorate, 1897-98, HCSP, Vol. 63, 1899, c. 9125. 9 Report on Veterinary Work in the British East Africa and Uganda Protectorates for the Years 1898-1900, p. 1, Mr. R. J. Stordy, HCSP, Vol. 80, 1901, cd. 430-436.

pp. 8-g,

314—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba livestock. East coast fever was not identified in Kenya until 1904, al­ though it certainly had been widespread there for many years. In seek­ ing to stamp out the 1904 outbreak, the state employed techniques de­ veloped in South Africa. The Veterinary Department erected fences around the infected cattle, allowing the movement of healthy cattle out of cordoned areas only through a small number of gates around the perimeter.10 Not fully realizing how widespread the disease was, the Veterinary Department at first drew up plans for dealing with east coast fever wherever they found it, in African as well as European areas. Believing that it could eradicate the disease by destocking in­ fected African areas for approximately twelve months, the state put forward a scheme to move Kamba cattle into the Yatta plateau in 1909 as a way of stamping out the disease.11 By 1910, however, veterinarian officers had come to realize how widespread east coast fever actually was and that the South African system of cordoning off small areas where localized outbreaks could be confined and treated would not work in Kenya. Moreover, its investigations revealed that Kenya was divided roughly into two east coast fever zones. One was a "clean" re­ gion where the disease was not prevalent and the other—a "dirty" area —where the disease was enzootic. Forming a "V" or wedge between the dirty zones, the "clean" region was largely the pasture lands into which European stock farmers were moving and included such dis­ tricts as Laikipia, Naivasha, Nakuru, Uasin, Gishu, and Limuru. The dirty area included most of the African reserves with the exception of the arid Northern Frontier Province.12 With this information in hand, the Veterinary Department moved swiftly to prohibit the movement of cattle between clean and dirty areas except under the most carefully controlled circumstances. Although the regulations drawn up by the Veterinary Department were exceedingly complex, the major rule was that cattle from infected areas were permitted to enter clean areas only if they passed through temperature bomas run by the Veterinary Department where they could be observed by veterinary officials for three days to determine if they were infected.13 In fact, three-day ob­ servations were not sufficient, for later research revealed that infected animals showed no symptoms of the disease for the first ten days and did not develop high temperatures until the sixteenth or seventeenth 10

Vol.

Annual Report of the Veterinary Department, κρβ-ι^οη, R. J. Stordy, HCSP, 70, 1908, cd. 3917, and Department of Agriculture, Annual P.eport, 1907-1908,

P- 34· 11 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1909-10, p. 4, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/MKS 1Λ/212 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1910-11, pp. 32-35. 1 zlbid., 1911-12, p. 23.

Problems of Overstocking—315 day.14 In essence, since the clean and dirty areas divided roughly be­ tween European and African settlement regions, these rules placed most African reserves in quarantine vis-a-vis the European areas and also limited movement between different African districts if such movement entailed traversing European areas or clean African zones or in some other way was likely to risk the spread of east coast fever. Thus, regulations designed to safeguard the new animal husbandry in­ dustry of European ranchers limited the free movement of African cattle and placed obstacles against Africans' exploiting a rising de­ mand in European areas for meat and trade stock. African cattle were permitted to leave quarantined zones only through veterinary stations. The clean regions were not totally clean, however, and in fact after the war, as European ranchers began to fill up the lands set aside for them and came into closer contact with each other and with African populations in the reserves, east coast fever gained a firmer footing in the European areas.15 In 1913 the settlers borrowed from South Africa a technique of dipping cattle to rid them of the ticks which caused disease. By washing or dipping livestock every three days in an arseni­ cal solution, herds could be kept reasonably free of tick-borne diseases. The government established a model dipping tank at Nakuru in 1914 while wealthier settler ranchers built their own dips.16 In contrast the African population coped with east coast fever by means of long-standing techniques, one of the most common being con­ trolled endemicity. Veterinary officers discovered that while the mor­ tality of adult cattle from east coast fever was 80 per cent and even higher, the mortality among calves not yet weaned from their mother's milk was only 40 to 50 per cent and that calves which survived an at­ tack acquired virtually a life-time immunity.17 Thus, African stockherders in enzootic east coast fever areas made every effort to expose calves to the disease, and not surprisingly looked with suspicion upon government efforts to reduce its incidence. For them the worst situa­ tion was one in which east coast fever was not so widespread as to at­ tack calves, but periodically flared up and carried away large numbers of adult cattle. As Η. E. Hornby, head of veterinary services in Tanganyika pointed out, another, quite different African method for coping with tick-borne disease was through what Europeans regarded as overstocking, with 14 Miller and West, Encyclopedia of Animal Care, p. 288. is Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, May 18, 1928, pp. 243-255. 16 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1912-13, p. 25; 1913-14, p. 130; and East Africa Protectorate, Report for 1913-14, C. C. Bowring, p. 25, HCSP, Vol. 43, 1914-1916, cd. 7622-31. 17 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1919-20, p. 24.

316—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba consequent soil erosion and aridity. Many European veterinary officers were alarmed at the considerable number of livestock African herders grazed in any given location. Yet a dense livestock population de­ stroyed the vegetation which supported the tick population and cre­ ated conditions of aridity where ticks could not easily survive. Accord­ ing to Hornby African herders preferred the predictable losses from famine during dry seasons to the large-scale and uncontrolled devasta­ tion of tick-borne disease which once set in motion could wipe out entire herds.18 The particular technique African herders used de­ pended on the environment in which they pastured their herds. If ticks were widespread, then they bunched herds together and ensured that calves were attacked by east coast fever. If ticks were not so wide­ spread, probably because conditions were already dry and verging on aridity, then herders sought to keep large numbers of stock and to limit the growth of vegetation, thus preventing the emergence of a large tick population. In both cases African herders pastured large herds, too large by European standards, in limited regions. Inevitably European stock officers grew concerned about overstocking; yet few understood the lessened incidence of disease that bunching of herds and overstocking conferred. Rather they attributed large flocks exclu­ sively to the African penchant for accumulating livestock, no matter what the quality of the animals. In addition to coping with east coast fever, the state also sought to deal with rinderpest and pleuropneumonia. These diseases were widespread in Kenya, in European as well as African areas. Not sur­ prisingly, the Veterinary Department directed its attention first to pro­ viding help for European herds. In 1912 a veterinary officer, R. E. Montgomery, developed a procedure for conferring immunity against rinderpest. Called the double inoculation method, this technique en­ tailed the simultaneous inoculation of virulent rinderpest blood and antirinderpest serum into an animal. There were risks involved, since the beast was inoculated with an active disease. A small proportion of those inoculated were expected to die and before an animal acquired immunity it could spread the disease to others. Indeed, before the technique was refined, there were on occasion high incidences of death following inoculation, causing severe settler criticism of the Veterinary Department. Later when the technique was introduced into African reserves large numbers of stock sometimes died, and these experiences may have been an important reason that many African stockkeepers hesitated to submit their stock for inoculation. Pleuropneumonia was 18 Η. E. Hornby, "Overstocking in Tanganyika Territory," East Africa Agricul­ tural Journal, March, 1936, 1, No. 5, pp. 355-66.

Problems of Overstocking—317 treated by isolating infected herds, slaughtering all visibly infected animals, and vaccinating all those others in contact with the infected ones. Until after World War I the inoculation programs were confined to European ranches. By and large most African reserves were in quaran­ tine, not only because of east coast fever, but beginning in 1917 for rinderpest and pleuropneumonia. There was no veterinary work in the reserves and no facilities. The only export of African cattle into Euro­ pean regions was through quarantine stations or to the slaughter houses of Nairobi and Mombasa. Until 1920 there were only three quarantine stations. The Rumuruti station handled livestock from the northern part of the colony; in 1919-1920 15,440 cattle and 15,950 sheep passed through this station. In the same year, Kibigori, located in southwest Kenya and handling livestock of the Maasai, dealt with 12,126 cattle while the Machakos quarantine station for the Kamba districts also handled 12,000 cattle. The Maasai and Kamba were the principal African suppliers of slaughter stock to the meat markets of Nairobi and Mombasa. In 1919-1920 the Nairobi meat market pur­ chased over 7,000 cattle, 23,442 sheep and goats, and 93 pigs for slaughter, while Mombasa butchers took 3,232 cattle and 8,335 sheep.19 The most committed exponent of rigid quarantining was the Depart­ ment of Agriculture itself. It feared the prospect of animal diseases raging out of control, and consequently it sought to keep at least the European areas free from disease. Departmental policy was supported by European ranchers because it kept their herds free of disease and enabled them to take advantage of city meat markets not so accessible to African herders because of quarantine restrictions. But not all set­ tlers were in sympathy with veterinary policy, as a Legislative Council debate in 1923 demonstrated. Colonel J. Griffiths, representing the farming community of Trans Nzoia and the Plateau, brought in a mo­ tion to do away with restrictions on the free movement of livestock. He complained that European farmers were not able to procure critically needed trade stock for plowing their farms and for transportation. Other members of the Legislative Council supported his point of view and called upon the state to remove quarantine restrictions, thus en­ abling the farming population to purchase oxen for plowing and trans­ portation and to attract squatter laborers, with their livestock, onto their farms. They suggested that the state deal with outbreaks of di­ sease at the places where they occurred. In the 1920s settler cultivators favored free movement of livestock, but their attitudes changed in the mid- and late 1930s when they began to embrace mixed farming and ie Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1919-20, p. 24.

318—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba grew concerned about the spread of livestock disease into their herds. In the 1923 Legislative Council debate, the Director of Agriculture, A. Holm, defended the government policy contending that the free movement of livestock would lead to "extensive outbreaks and an ex­ tensive spread of rinderpest and pleuro-pneumonia." It would also re­ sult, he added, in the spread of these diseases into those few African areas which had been kept relatively free of disease.20 Although the administration was unwilling to modify its system of quarantining in response to pressures from European farmers, it began to devote attention to African livestock in the 1920s. This effort was part of the general 1920s policy of facilitating African development, educational and agricultural as well as veterinarian. In the early 1920s the government developed plans for moving veterinary facilities into the center of the reserves. Previously the stations had been located on the reserve perimeters in order to enable veterinary officers to oversee quarantining and the movement of stock out of African areas. The Vet­ erinary Department contemplated establishing inoculating, quarantin­ ing, and educational stations among the main stock-keeping African peoples. It was also eager to create veterinary schools where Africans could be educated and sent into the reserves as veterinary assistants.21 Justifying the policy in the Legislative Council, the Chief Veterinary Officer, A. G. Doherty, said that the goal of moving veterinary centers into the reserves was to provide better and more healthy stock which would give more meat and milk, release Africans from the fear of live­ stock disease, and enable stockkeepers to sell their animals more read­ ily and easily. Veterinary stations would also give Africans help in the preparation of hides and skins and dairy products; they would dis­ patch into distant areas of the reserves mobile units composed of vet­ erinary officers, inspectors, and African inoculators to immunize Afri­ can livestock against disease.22 The Veterinary Department began to enter the reserves in 1924, set­ ting up a series of veterinary stations where inoculations were carried out and gradually founding a number of veterinary schools. In Machakos district the Department operated small stations at Machakos, Kilungu, Mbooni, Mbitini, Muani, and Waterfalls by 1927, and only a few years later it founded a veterinary training school at Machakos.23 The state also increased the number of stations on the perimeters of the reserves through which trade stock and cattle for 20 Kenya, Record of the Proceedings of the Legislative Council, November 9, 1923. PP- 7ff. 21 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1924, p. 50. 22 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, April 16, 1925, p. 203. 23 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1927, p. 20, H.E.L. Brailsford, enclosing Machakos veterinary department annual report, KNA DC/MKS 1 /1/15.

Problems of Overstocking—319 slaughter could pass into the European areas. By 1921 nine stations were in existence, including Machakos, Waterfalls, Thika, Athi River, and Kibigori serving the Maasai and Kamba peoples.24 A considerable attention was devoted to inoculating African herds against rinderpest and pleuropneumonia (see Table 14-1). TABLE 14-1

Inoculations against Rinderpest and Pleuropneumonia Rinderpest Year 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932

Pleuropneumonia

All African Areas

Machakos District

All African Areas

59,149 185,888 121,398

86,153 51,227 27,709

44,102

-

-

36,206

59,296 65,330 58,626 61,863 58,105

-

—

-

-

5,294

-

-

—

-

-

-

Note: This table was compiled from many reports. Where there are no figures, this means only that I was unable to find statistics.

Between 1928 and 1932 the Veterinary Department carried out over 300,000 inoculations against rinderpest within the reserves.25 This fig­ ure should not be exaggerated since the government estimated that Africans possessed 6 million cattle in the 1930s. Nonetheless, 300,000 inoculations over a five-year period in areas where rinderpest was a severe problem must have had an impact in reducing the incidence of this disease. As Table 14-1 indicated, the Kamba were major benefi­ ciaries of this governmental campaign. Indeed, between 1925 and 1929 the Kamba submitted 171,185 of their cattle to the state for inocula­ tion, paying 261,783s. in fees.26 Only the more populous province of Nyanza received more attention. A very considerable problem in protecting African herds against stock disease was the payment of fees. The Veterinary Department charged a fee of 2s. 5od. for double inoculations of adult cattle and 5od. for a calf.27 A large Maasai herder, who might own as many as 500 to 1,000 head of cattle, would thus be unable to afford to have his en­ tire herd inoculated. During certain bleak years of the depression the 2* Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1 9 2 1 , p. 1 7 . 25 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1 9 3 2 , p. 1 8 9 . wlbid., 1 9 2 9 , p. 5 4 . 27 W. Campbell, Machakos Diary Book April 1 2 , 1 9 2 6 , KNA DC/MKS

6 / 4 /1.

320—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba

Veterinary Department virtually ceased to treat Kamba and Maasai cattle because families could not raise the money. The Maasai reserve also received veterinary assistance. In fact, the Maasai had been provided with a few facilities before the Veterinary Department embarked on its new policy. In 1914 some Maasai herders asked for a dipping tank for the control of east coast fever.28 The state established three tanks at Mbagathi, Ngong, and Mara by 1919, but for reasons not indicated in the documents Maasai herders grew disen­ chanted, and in 1920 many took an oath not to use the dips.29 Perhaps their opposition stemmed from bad experiences. Dips had to be care­ fully surveilled, and the arsenical solution had to be kept up to strength if successful results were to be obtained. Because of the near­ ness of certain Maasai herds to European ranches, the state entered the reserve in 1917 and again in 1922 to inoculate large numbers of cat­ tle because of serious outbreaks of pleuropneumonia.30 In 1926 the government established its first veterinary school, at Ngong, where students were instructed in animal husbandry, hygiene, inoculation, dipping, the preparing of hides, and ghee making.31 The goal of this school and the other veterinary schools established elsewhere was to train veterinary officers and also to implant in the African reserves well trained African herders, who through the use of efficient stockrearing techniques would serve as model pastoralists. Nonetheless, the Hall Agriculture Commission of 1929 reported unfavorably on the Ngong center, criticizing it for being run "on European lines with a lavish expenditure of labor." The Commission favored establishing a model farm at Ngong which would demonstrate to the Maasai the vir­ tues of sedentary ranching.32 Although the Veterinary Department entered the African reserves in the 1920s in an effort to control stock disease, the techniques it em­ ployed in the reserves were again different from those which it was evolving for European sectors. These differences reflected the fact that European ranches were relatively free of disease, Europeans had more money to combat disease, and the Agriculture Department was willing to commit more staff to European areas. Indeed, by the 1930s the state had nearly eradicated pleuropneumonia from European herds and was bringing east coast fever and rinderpest under control. Its tech2s East Africa Protectorate, Report for 1913-14, Bowring, p. 25, HCSP, Vol. 43, «9J4-i9»5. cd· 7622-7631. 29 Masai Annual Reports, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1 and Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1919-20 p. 46. so Telegram, Bowring to Long, August 7, 1917, PRO CO 533/183. si Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1927, p. 83. 32 Kenya, Report of the Agriculture Commission, 1929, p. 32.

Problems of Overstocking—321

nique for handling pleuropneumonia on European farms was similar to that employed in Great Britain and was known in Kenya as the "stamping out" method. It entailed slaughtering all infected animals and all those who came in contact with the infected beasts.33 But, once again this technique was judged unsuitable for African reserves be­ cause pleuropneumonia was so widespread and because Africans were likely to resent the slaughtering of so many of their animals, especially those which had recovered from disease and which African herders valued because of their immunity from pleuropneumonia. In fact, al­ though these cattle usually were immune, as once infected beasts, they could also be carriers of disease. Moreover, the "stamping out" method required large amounts of well-watered land so that infected herds could be completely segregated from healthy ones. European ranchers had large estates, but most African reserves were heavily stocked and lacked adequate water resources. In the African regions, accordingly, the state merely sought to control pleuropneumonia, rather than to eradicate it; its method was to slaughter only those animals visibly suf­ fering from the disease and to quarantine and inoculate in contact beasts.34 Although this technique did not permit the state to rid an area completely of the disease, it did enable the government to reduce its incidence once outbreaks had been detected. In the African reserves the state continued to do almost nothing to combat east coast fever and trypanosomiasis. European ranchers dealt with east coast fever by a complex arrangement of dipping, fencing, and paddocking.35 Stock owners moved herds from one fenced pasture to another, dipping cattle every three to seven days to kill the ticks on them. European dairy herds generated enough income to pay for such expensive operations, but dipping and fencing were beyond the re­ sources of the African peoples who were thus compelled to deal with east coast fever as they always had, by means of endimicity and over­ stocking. In 1930 the Veterinary Department brought two specialists to Kenya, E. A. Lewis and Ε. V. Cowdry, and Lewis's researches charted the alarming spread of the tsetse fly in many African reserves, most not­ ably the Maasai province where the fly was reported to be on the in­ crease near the Kedong river, on both sides of the Mara river, and in Sotik.86 But lacking resources, the government was limited to clearing a few areas of fly and opening them for pasturage. 33 Department of Agriculture, "Pleuro-pneumonia and the Preventive Method of Inoculation," Bulletin No. 1, iggi, J. Walker. 34 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1936, 1, 138. 35 Ibid., 1925, p. 52. 3o Ibid., 1930, p. 212.

322—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba In the handling of rinderpest, the government introduced the dou­ ble inoculation method into the African reserves. When the method was originally developed, the Veterinary Department observed that many inoculated animals came down with other diseases, most notably two tick-borne diseases, redwater and gall sickness. Subsequent re­ searches demonstrated that the virulent rinderpest blood used to inoc­ ulate infected cattle often contained these diseases and spread them to the vaccinated animals.37 As a consequence, the Department under­ took to breed and rear its own cattle under hygienic conditions and to use them to produce disease-free virulent blood. The Department brought calves to its main laboratories at Kabete and housed them in a tick-free building. When rinderpest viral blood was needed, these beasts were infected and then they were bled for the virulent blood to be employed in double inoculations.38 While this improvement in technique ensured that viral blood used for inoculations was free of other diseases, the double inoculation method still suffered from its original defects, namely that a certain proportion of the inoculated cat­ tle died from the virulent blood injected into them and that inoculated animals spread disease until they acquired immunity. Because of the Veterinary Department's reservations about the dou­ ble inoculation method, it began to experiment with new methods, treating European herds by means of an attenuated vaccine and a serum. Because the vaccine was attenuated and inactivated, it was much safer to employ. It did not cause dairy cattle to abort and did not spread disease to in-contact animals. But its disadvantage was that it conferred immunity for only twelve months, and thus herds had to be revaccinated at regular intervals.39 After World War II the Veteri­ nary Department produced an extremely effective vaccine, an attenu­ ated virus, weakened by being passed through more than 100 goats be­ fore being injected into cattle. Known as the Kabete attenuated goat virus or K.A.G., it served as an impressive example of technology being modified and adapted to African conditions.40 The first attenuated rinderpest vaccines were developed in the late 1920s. In the early 1930s the state began to formulate plans for em­ ploying this vaccine-serum technique in African reserves, hoping thereby to eradicate, rather than simply control, rinderpest there and for the first time to be able to open reserves freely to trade with Euro37 Ibid., 1926, p. 50. 38 A year later the Veterinary Department was using treated virulent spleen pulp in place of nasal secretions which could transmit redwater disease. Ibid., 1928, p. 42. 39 Ibid., 1930, p. 66. 40 Miller and West, Encyclopedia of Animal Care, p. 177.

Problems of Overstocking—323

pean areas.41 The pilot project was begun in 1931 in Kajiado district of the Maasai reserve. The campaign entailed identifying outbreaks of rinderpest and enclosing areas of infection inside a ring of cattle inoc­ ulated with inactivated vaccine and serum rather than virulent rinder­ pest blood. Because the animals were treated with an inactivated vac­ cine, they would not spread the disease to other, healthy livestock. In this way the state hoped to eradicate the disease whenever outbreaks occurred. Starting at Loitokitok in the southern part of Kajiado dis­ trict, the Veterinary Department brought all of Kajiado district south of the Magadi railway under control. Infected herds were isolated and treated in twenty-three temporary veterinary bomas. The state used a staff of twenty-eight African scouts to identify outbreaks of disease and to deal with them using this new method.42 But this experiment encountered opposition, not from the Maasai, who eagerly supplied livestock to the Veterinary Department for the production of the serum, but from an impecunious state. The Animal Industry Standing Committee of the Board of Agriculture, reflecting settler sentiments, pointed out that this procedure required heavy state expenditures, particularly because of necessary periodic revaccinations and the large staff required to notify the department of out­ breaks of disease.43 Although the Veterinary Department continued to employ this method in Kajiado district, it reduced its program and ceased to aim at the total eradication of the disease among the Maasai. In a memorandum presented to the Kenya Land Commission F. J. McCall, head of the Tanganyika veterinary services, offered per­ ceptive criticisms of the Kenya veterinary services and its operations within African regions. Pointing out that in Kenya the bulk of veteri­ nary expenditure still went into expensive research facilities and to European animal husbandry, McCall said that the Kenya Department did not have a large enough staff in African reserves to bring notice of disease outbreaks immediately to the attention of the central govern­ ment and to enable the state to deal with disease before it had already spread far and wide. Comparing Kenya and Tanganyika, he claimed that in Tanganyika two-thirds of the territory had been cleared of rinderpest which was still endemic in most of Kenya's African re­ serves.44 McCall's strictures had merit, although he did not give Kenya's department enough credit for its research achievements, « No. 64, Byrne to Cunliffe-Lister, February 9, 1932, enclosing report by R. A. Hammond, veterinary officer on rinderpest eradication, Kajiado District, January 6, 1932, PRO CO 533/423/18085. Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1931, pp. 26iff. 43 No. 453, Byrne to Cunliffe-Lister, September 16, 1932, PRO CO 533/423/18085. 44 KLC, Evidence, HI, 3167-74.

324—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba

which were of benefit throughout East Africa. The African reserves in Kenya, as late as 1939, had not been cleared of disease. Although the state boasted in 1932 that it had eradicated rinderpest from Machakos and Kitui districts, in the very next year both districts suffered severe outbreaks and had to be quarantined.45

It is exceedingly difficult to estimate the impact of these veterinary measures within African reserves. The techniques were far from fool proof, and the number of livestock treated was only a fraction, albeit a rapidly rising fraction, of the total African livestock population. Al­ though no definitive statement can be made, it seems reasonable to conclude, however, that these veterinary measures did reduce the inci­ dence of disease and hence contributed to the emergence of serious problems of overstocking in many African reserves. Other factors were probably of more significance, however. As we have already noted, African herders preferred to keep a large amount of livestock on the land either to induce conditions of overstocking and aridity as a means of reducing the tick population or to make certain that stock diseases remained endemic and attacked calves. The state often claimed that the ending of cattle raiding and inter-tribal warfare increased the size of the livestock population, and there was truth in this claim. It also believed that because of the prestige attached to owning livestock Afri­ can herders refused to sell and slaughter their animals and gained pleasure simply from the possession of large herds.46 African cattlekeepers, on the other hand, argued with equal justification that severe overcrowding arose because of the state's effort to confine African pop­ ulations within limited territories. Most of the reports that dealt with land in Kenya revealed a consistent bias against pastoralists, contend­ ing that the provision of additional land to African peoples only en­ couraged them to keep larger herds and to plant fewer crops. The state was usually unsympathetic to the pleas of cattle keeping people for more land. British officials grew mindful of overstocking and consequent soil erosion and exhaustion as a serious economic problem after World War I. The large and increasing stock population received attention in three major reports on East Africa: the Ormsby-Gore Commission of 1924-1925; the Hall Commission Report of 1929; and the Kenya Land Commission Report of 1933-1934. With one member dissenting the Ormsby-Gore Commission felt that African peoples should not be allowed to increase their livestock indefinitely and called upon the 45 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1933, p. 337. «Masai Annual Reports, 1931, KNA PC/SP 1/2/1.

Problems of Overstocking—525 Kenya government to substitute agriculture for stock-raising.47 The one dissenter, Mr. F. C. Linfield of the Liberal Party, however, con­ tended that African stock owners had been "grouped into reserves which are in many cases quite inadequate for pastoral pursuits." Stock owners were not inherently conservative, he added, but would em­ brace new, more efficient methods if given sufficient land, instructed in stock breeding, and encouraged to trade meat and hides.48 The Hall Agriculture Commission of 1929 also came to the conclusion that Afri­ can reserves were overstocked, primarily, it felt, because cattle were "kept from birth to death less as a source of milk and meat than as money wherewith wives can be purchased and the owner may support his dignity."49 This Commission found Machakos district in the worst condition, gradually being turned into a desert because of the everincreasing herds. The Commission felt that the Maasai reserve did not carry larger herds than the land could support, although it believed that the Maasai should be encouraged to sell more of their livestock and their livestock produce. Finally, the Kenya Land Commission con­ tended that a "preposterous state of affairs" existed whereby 3 million people had 6 million cattle and many more sheep and goats, but de­ rived little material advantage from their herds in the form of milk consumed during the dry months and meat consumption.50 Virtually all reports identified Machakos reserve as the most seriously over­ stocked and eroded and as requiring immediate and forceful attention. Indeed, as early as 1925 the government estimated that excluding the fly-infested location of Makueni Machakos district carried 160,000 cat­ tle in an area that the state felt could only support 40,000.51 The gov­ ernment's effort to deal with the problem of overstocking there by means of radical measures led to a major political confrontation be­ tween the Kamba and the colonial government in 1938.

Although British officials frequently condemned Maasai and Kamba pastoralists for their unwillingness to exploit their livestock as eco­ nomic assets, in fact both peoples commercialized their stock-rearing economies successfully and rapidly. Unlike other stock-rearing re­ gions, the Maasai reserve and Machakos district had the advantage of proximity to Nairobi and the European highlands, and they were en­ dowed with reasonably good communication facilities. The main 47 Report of the East Africa Commission, p. 32, HCSP, Vol. 9, 1924-1925, cmd. 2387. 48 Ibid., p. 188. is Kenya, Report of the Agricultural Commission, 1929, p. 28. so KLC, p. 495, HCSP, Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. 51 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1925, p. 30.

326—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba branch of the Uganda railway ran along the southern edge of the Kamba reserve; its stations transported Kamba commodities. The western portion of Machakos district had good roads connecting it with Nairobi, Kiambu, and Thika. The Maasai reserve had a branch railway line running through Kajiado district to the Magadi soda com­ pany. It also had a more highly developed set of roads than one would ordinarily have found in a sparsely settled pastoral region, the result of the reserve's location on the border of Nairobi and European farms in the Rift Valley and between Nairobi and the British trust territory of Tanganyika. Thus by the 1920s there were major roads from Kijabe to Sotik by way of Narok and Mara, from Ngong to Kedong, from Nairobi to Longido by way of Kajiado, and from Ngong to Namanga.52 The Kamba reserve also had an energetic group of Indian merchants to facilitate commerce. Before the coming of the British the Kamba had played an important role in organizing highland trade with the coast. According to the account of Hildebrandt written in 1878 leading Kamba individuals organized caravans of as many as 100 persons to transport cattle, ivory and slaves to the coast in exchange for jewelry and clothing.53 Kamba commerce began to decline by the late nine­ teenth century, although Lugard witnessed a Kamba caravan in 1890.54 The Kamba trading class was dealt a further blow at the opening of the colonial period by the influx of Indian merchants into the highlands. These immigrant traders soon had most of the trade in their own hands, exchanging beads, copper wire, copper bracelets, blankets, and sheets for hides and skins.55 Although a great deal of this early trade was in barter, by the 1920s money was freely used and the Kamba were purchasing clothes, shoes, and umbrellas in exchange not only for hides and skins but also maize, millet, ghee, butter, and livestock. A major item of trade was sugar and jogree from which the Kamba made a highly intoxicating liquor. Although probably an exaggeration, a British officer in 1910-1911 stated that the whole of the trade in Machakos district was in the hands of Indians who had established 44 trading shops inside the reserve, 36 along the railway, and 30 in Machakos township itself.56 Like the Kikuyu, however, only to a much lesser extent, the Kamba reestablished themselves as petty traders, sometimes as agents of Indian traders, other times as independent 52 Masai Annual Reports, KNA PC/SP 1/2/2. J. M. Hildebrandt, "Ethnographische Notizen t)ber Wakamba und ihre Nachbaren," Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, Vol. 10, 1878, pp. 356 and 384. 54 Reports by Captain F. D. Lugard on the Expedition to Uganda, December 24, 1890, HCSP, Vol. 56, 1892, p. 89. 55 Interview with Gulam Husain. 56Machakos District Political Record Book, Vol. I, p. 40, KNA DC/MKS 4/1. 53

Problems of Overstocking—327 merchants. By 1932 Machakos district had 8 African markets, 120 Afri­ can owned trading shops, 35 eating houses, and 10 butcher shops.57 Sixty-two men paying 12s. each as membership dues organized the first Kamba cooperative at Kangundo in 1932.58 Yet the Kamba were not as deeply involved in trading as the Kikuyu. Hence, they did not protest the 1935 marketing ordinance which enabled large European coopera­ tives like the KFA to enter the reserves as buying and selling agencies. The Maasai reserve was not so well provided with traders. Because of the sparseness of the Maasai population and their limited wants, not many Indian merchants set up shops. There were a few shops in town­ ships like Kajiado and Narok, and Somali stock traders continued to enter the reserve to trade livestock and livestock products, but as the government readily admitted, the Maasai lacked an effective market­ ing system. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War the Vet­ erinary Department tried to deal with this deficiency by inviting large meat buyers to attend cattle auctions held within the Maasai reserve.59 Despite a commonly held view that pastoral peoples were reluctant to part with their livestock, Maasai and Kamba pastoralists exploited the new commercial opportunities which the colonial period afforded them. A major obstacle to the sale of livestock was the quarantining system which placed restrictions on the free movement of cattle for trade and slaughter. Many British officers complained about these reg­ ulations, no one quite so pointedly as C.E.V. Buxton, a Maasai officer who wrote in 1931 that "there can be little doubt that the Maasai have been excluded from the local meat market because the European ven­ dors of stock have feared the lowering of the price of cattle."60 Reaffirm­ ing this argument, R. Daubney, Deputy Director of Animal Husband­ ry, claimed that the eradication of stock disease in African reserves could be achieved quickly and inexpensively but was opposed by Eu­ ropean ranchers who feared a large influx of African livestock into city meat markets.61 Although there is some validity in these arguments, they must not be exaggerated. In the first place, African livestock was not totally excluded from city meat markets, for Africans could get their stock out of reserves through quarantine stations. As Table 14-2 indicates, Africans were the principal suppliers of meat to the major 57 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1932, p. 56. 58 Ukamba Province, Annual Report, 1932, p. 20, S. H. LaFontaine, KNA PC/CP 4/2/3· 59 L. J. Radford to Chief Native Commissioner, October 13, 1937, KNA PC/Ngong 1/345· so Statement regarding the situation in Kajiado district, Buxton, May, 1931, PRO CO 533/4ΐ2/ΐ7·95· 61 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, November 13, 1936, p. 584.

828—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba TABLE 14-2

Stock Slaughtered in 1935 Sheep and Goats Nairobi Mombsisa Nakuru Eldoret Kitale Naivasha Kakamega Lumbwa Kisumu Total

Cattle

European

African

10,668 2,225

4,806 973

-

23,417 16,075 2,993 2,015 883 347 926

-

-

-

-

2,043 48,650

—

-

12,893

European

-

5,779

Pigs African 9,544 5,234 1,722 1,429 1,163 325 1,837 780 1,068 23,102

2,226 -

179 402 214 8 88 -

67 3,184

Source: Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1935,1, p. 95.

cities of Kenya. Moreover, except for a short period during the late 1920s, the demand for meat did not exceed supplies offered.62 In the early 1920s the Veterinary Department refused to accept livestock as payment for inoculations because they feared that they would be un­ able to find a market for the animals.63 Had the meat markets been opened up to African herders through the complete removal of quar­ antine restrictions, it is not clear that significantly larger amounts of meat would have been sold. To be sure, prices would have slumped, as a result of the increased number of livestock that were offered for sale. This price decline would have injured African as well as Euro­ pean suppliers, and unless the lowering of prices was offset by consid­ erably increased demands for meat from African peoples, which was unlikely, African herders in general would have realized less, rather than greater profits, although individual herders and certain favorably placed tribes, like the Maasai, would probably have gained. The gov­ ernment quarantine regulations were administered in such a way as to enable Africans to sell stock outside the reserves. In 1927, for exam­ ple, the Veterinary Department estimated that counting livestock traded for slaughtering purposes inside and outside African reserves, African pastoralists disposed of at least 80,000 cattle and 100,000 sheep and goats. Of this total 15,000 cattle and 50,000 sheep and goats passed through government veterinary stations, while many more livestock which had been inoculated within the reserves and thus were per­ mitted free movement throughout the colony were also sold outside African regions.64 β2 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1928, p. 23. β3 Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1922, p. 25. β* Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1932, p. 56.

Problems of Overstocking—329

The Maasai participation in this trade was quite extensive. As early as 1914 government officers were claiming that the Maasai were the largest meat suppliers in the protectorate.65 During the ig20s Maasai herders supplied Nairobi butchers with approximately 10,000 to 12,000 head of cattle per year; yet the only livestock outlet for the entire re­ serve was at Mbagathi, near Nairobi, a considerable distance from the far reaches of the reserve and an east coast fever area where Maasai herds suffered high mortality if they were not sold quickly. Had more outlets existed and quarantine restrictions been relaxed, the Maasai could have disposed of their stock in the meat markets of Nakuru, Njoro, and Naivasha as well as to the Chagga in Tanganyika and Afri­ cans living in Nyanza province. Nonetheless, the Maasai did sell close to 2,000 cattle to the Kikuyu in the markets of Dagoretti and made large shipments of sheep and goats to the Kikuyu through Kijabe, dis­ posing of nearly 50,000 sheep and goats there in 1932.66 The growing wealth of the Kikuyu served the pastoralists well, for the Kikuyu were importers of African livestock from the Northern Frontier Province and the Kamba reserve as well as from the Maasai. In evidence to the Kenya Land Commission Canon Harry Leakey contended that 80 per cent of Kikuyu women still wore goat skins in the 1930s and that a dress, which lasted for a year, required 3 to 5 skins. Moreover bride price involved 40 to 90 or even 120 sheep and goats, and to obtain these supplies, the Kikuyu purchased livestock from their pastoral neighbors.67 In perhaps the most commercially prosperous year of the interwar period the government estimated that the Maasai sold nearly £100,000 of surplus produce outside the reserve or nearly £2 per per­ son. This total was composed of 525 tons of hides and skins, valued at £52,425, 10,000 slaughter cattle, worth £25,000, 28,000 sheep (£16,734) and 546 tins of ghee worth £1,638.68 But partly because there was so little trade within the reserve and partly because the Maasai tax was so high for many years, the Maasai economy was less fully monetized than the Kikuyu or Kamba economies. During the depression, in fact, the Maasai sold only their slaughter stock for money, most of which went to pay tax, and bartered their hides and skins and other produce for food. The sale of livestock and livestock produce did afford some relief from the pressures of overstocking, and neither the Maasai nor the Kamba can be blamed as severely as government officers were inclined to do for failing to dispose of livestock. es Masai Annual Reports, KNA PC/SP 1/2/2. 66 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1933, pp. 20-21. 67 KLC, Evidence, 1, 666. 68 Masai Annual Reports, KNA PC/SP 1/2/2.

330—The Stock-Rearing Economies of the Maasai and Kamba In Machakos district the expansion of agriculture was an equally important factor in the district's soil exhaustion and overstocking. Re­ sponding to increased demand for maize, the Kamba farmers brought more land under cultivation, thus reducing the amount of land on which livestock could be grazed.69 The introduction of European ploughs, of which 600 were in use in Machakos district in the mid-ig30s expanded the area a farmer could cultivate.70 Moreover the practice of working a piece of land for a few years and then abandoning it without replanting grasses further accelerated erosion processes and left livestock with progressively smaller areas to graze. In the 1930s the Machakos district was commanding the attention of agricultural and veterinarian officers and radical plans were being discussed for coping with its severe problem of overstocking and soil erosion. ββ Machakos District, Annual Report, 1930, Appendix No. 10, Veterinary Report on Machakos District, D. F. MacPherson, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/22. 'ο Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1934, p. 102.

CHAPTER XV

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

The problem of overstocking and British efforts to deal with it by means of a radical program of destocking caused an eruption of anticolonial sentiment and the founding of a political party among the Kamba in 1938. Previously, the British had regarded the Kamba, with justification, as a politically quiescent people, not given much to change, yet willing to accommodate themselves to the colonial system. Although the Kamba were neighbors of the Kikuyu and had many sim­ ilar institutions, they rejected the blandishments of Harry Thuku and the KCA to join with them in protest. The Kamba enlisted in dispro­ portionate numbers in the Kenya African Rifles and the Kenya police and hence constituted an important element in the coercive apparatus maintaining the colonial system. But all this was altered when the Brit­ ish in 1938 interfered with a vital Kamba institution—their stock-rear­ ing economy. Political protest was galvanized into action, and within the span of a single year Kamba protesters created a political party and linked their opposition with Kikuyu nationalists. There was, however, some tradition of colonial protest among the Kamba before 1938, much of which was bound up with Kamba reli­ gious life. Like other Bantu peoples Kamba religion was powerful and pervasive. The Kamba believed in a supreme creator, a distant God, which was not worshipped, however. Far more meaningful were the ancestral spirits which were believed to take an active interest and play a role in the day to day events of the living. When people died, the Kamba believed that while their bodies were destroyed, their spir­ its departed to live in a nether region, from whence they could over­ see events in the world of the living. As a means of appeasing these beings, the living sacrificed to them frequently, sacrifice taking the form of gifts of food. Yet people felt uneasy lest they might be found doing too little for the departed and feared that the ancestors might rain down misfortune upon them. Besides ancestral forces, the Kamba believed in the spirits of neighboring peoples, such as the Maasai, the Kikuyu, and the Europeans, whose influence was always baleful. An important feature of the traditional religion and one that loomed large in colonial protest was the belief that persons could be possessed by spirits, either ancestral or foreign; while in a state of possession they

332—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

were thought to be under the influence of a spirit. Women were gen­ erally possessed, and it was only women who were seized by the evil foreign spirits. Another important ingredient of the traditional religion which was critical in protest movements was the medicine man. These individuals, mainly but not exclusively men, were thought to be in close communion with the supernatural, and through their communi­ cation with ancestors, they were believed able to divine and heal. They also had the power to exorcise evil influences and to protect people against witchcraft. They were guardians of ancestral worship, inform­ ing family elders when sacrifices should be undertaken. Medicine men were not a hereditary caste. Certain individuals emerged as medicine men as a result of childhood experiences, such as not mixing with other children and having dreams. Finally, dancing was an integral part of the Kamba religious system. It induced ecstatic states and was be­ lieved to bring people closer to the supernatural. Through dancing the hold of an evil spirit over a person could be broken.1 British officials noted a number of outbursts of spirit possession among the Kamba in their early contacts. Between 1906 and 1908 a movement called Kijesu became widespread. At the sight of a hat, cap, or helmet a person was seized by a fit of trembling, especially in the upper parts of the body, and rendered semi-conscious, during which time the Kamba believed the individual to be possessed by a foreign spirit. A British official described one such incident in 1908 in eastern Kambaland. Upon seeing a British officer wearing a pith helmet, a woman threw a hysterical fit, which lasted over three and one-half hours and was terminated only when the European officer sent a piece of paper and match to the woman, who lit the paper and swallowed the burning paper, thus exorcising the spirit.2 Elsewhere Kamba were seen to wrap themselves in blankets when they saw a European at a distance and to stay covered until the European had passed so as not to catch sight of his hat. What Kijesu meant was not known to out­ siders, although the most careful ethnographer of the period, Lind­ blom, believed it had to do with missionary influence and the spread of teachings about Jesus.3 A much more widespread outburst occurred in 1911, however, and although the information on it is scanty, it seems to have been partly a reaction against certain aspects of colonial oppression. The Kamba of the western part of the district had resented the loss of lands along 1 See Lindblom, The Akamba, pp. 209-300 and Hobley, The Ethnology of the Kamba, pp. 86ff. 2 C. W. Neligan, "Description of Kijesu Ceremony among the Akamba; Tiva River, East Africa," Man, Vol. xi, No. 34, 1911, p. 49. 3 Lindblom, The Akamba, p. 238.

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—333

their border. This resentment was intensified by the presence of a par­ ticularly cruel European employer of labor on a farm in the Mua Hills. Although the settler, Langridge, claimed to run a mission station, in fact he was a fruit farmer who had adopted the practice of Hogging his labor just before the end of their work and pay periods, thus causing many to desert and relieving him of their labor expenses.4 In 1910 the state introduced a poll tax on unmarried African males as a means of taxing them and driving them into labor markets. This new tax caused alarm among the Kamba. In Kitui district elders, women, and warriors (anake) complained to the District Commissioner, and women per­ formed a frenzied dance in front of his boma as a means of protesting.5 It was under these strained circumstances that a movement of pro­ test, blending old and new ideas, appeared in Machakos district in 1911. In Maputi location, a short distance from Machakos township, a widow by the name of Siotune claimed to be possessed of a spirit which inhabited a spring from whence she drew water. She claimed that her possession endowed her with powers to exorcise spirits and to rid people of evil influences. Other leaders of this cult arose, the most influential being a warrior by the name of Kiamba who lived in the same location, not far from Siotune. According to government ac­ counts Kiamba was "a budding medicine man of great promise."6 He surrounded himself with a veritable army of women, modelled after the colonial police. British officers were inclined to regard the emer­ gence of cult leaders like Siotune and Kiamba as but another expres­ sion of spirit possession which they had seen on a much smaller scale in previous years. The Provincial Commissioner, Humphrey, con­ tended that the outburst was "an epidemic of hysterical mania of a neurohysterical psychic nature," which he felt swept through KambaIand periodically.7 Yet, the activity also took on markedly anticolonial overtones. When women were dancing in a state of possession, which was a common feature of the movement, they often uttered antigovernment and anti-European statements. During the height of the movement, Kamba herders drove their cattle across the reserve boun­ dary onto the Mua Hills which they had always claimed as their own. Moreover, the administration lost control over the area where protest was occurring. It could not recruit porters for government transport work, and as the movement spread outward from Maputi location to 4 Machakos

District Political Record Book, 1911, KNA DC/MKS 4/1. 5 Kitui District, Quarterly Report, September, 1910, G. H. Osborne, KNA DC/MKS

!/!/3β K. R. Dundas to Provincial Commissioner, December 24, iqn, KNA DC/MKS 10B/8/1. 7 No. 656, Girouard to Harcourt, November 24, 1911, PRO CO 533/92.

334—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism Mwala and other western Machakos locations people ceased to pay tax.8 These developments persuaded the state to intervene. A contingent of troops was sent through the affected areas, encountering no resis­ tance. The government arrested the four persons it regarded as ring­ leaders, deporting Kiamba, Siotune, Mukeke wa Ngwili, a Mwala chief who had intrigued against the government, and Muthani Ndani, a medicine man from Mwala. Eleven other cult leaders were brought to the government station at Machakos and had to live under the surveil­ lance of the British District Commissioner for twelve months.9 Not until 1922 did the Kamba again manifest strong opposition to British rule. As we know from the discussion of Kikuyu nationalism, 1922 was a tense year in African-European relations. Rising taxes, low­ ered wages, increased labor demands, currency manipulations, and the hated new registration system drove Harry Thuku to revolt. KambaIand was also affected by these developments, although less decisively because the Kamba were less deeply involved in wage laboring and hence did not feel the effects of lower wages, increased labor demands, and the kipande system to the same extent as the Kikuyu. Nevertheless, these pressures did have an impact on the Kamba and led to protest. Because the Kamba did not have an urban intelligentsia and an edu­ cated elite to articulate protest, as the Kikuyu did, their opposition emerged from a rural setting and was strongly shaped by religious ideas, traditional and Christian. The leader of this protest was a young man, Ndonye wa Kauti, from Kilungu location, who blended the characteristics of a traditional med­ icine man and the new Christian evangelist-teacher. Whether he had been educated at a mission school we do not know. In keeping with the prerogatives of a medicine man he called on his followers to build him a house where he proposed to keep his books and clothes and where peoples of the tribe would congregate to eat food together. At this cen­ tral place all the peoples would also hear the word of God. People would not die, he claimed, nor would they have to pay taxes any longer.10 Reflecting the increased influence of Christianity among the Kamba, no doubt the result of AIM work, Ndonye preached that there were three Gods: God the King; God Jesu, the son of God the King; and God Lord, "Simiti." The people should not recognize God the King, Ndonye argued, but should worship the other two deities. He 8 No.

3, Ainsworth to Harcourt, January 3, 1912, PRO CO 533/101. 9 Machakos District Political Record Book, Report by G. H. Osborne, March 23, 1912, pp. 25 a and b, KNA DC/MKS 4/1. 10 Machakos District Political Record Book, 1921-25, pp. 96-98, KNA DC/MKS 4/4.

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—335 also called upon his followers to repudiate the old sacrifices and the traditional religion and destroy the old religious places. Like

the

1911

disturbance,

to

which

British

officials

likened

Ndonye's appearance, this movement enunciated strong anticolonial sentiments. Ndonye encouraged his followers to refuse to pay their taxes and not to engage in communal road work. His influence was en­ hanced when the government brought him into its district office for the purpose of pronouncing him insane and then was forced to release him when the doctor could not make such a report. After his release he boasted that he was more powerful than the state and that when he took charge "everything will revert to the old state." 11 Ndonye's protest was more openly anticolonial, more Christianized, and had a wider geographical impact than the 1911 outburst. Ndonye made a conscious effort to gain widespread Kamba and perhaps other tribal support. After his followers built his house, they also constructed three roads which were to link Ndonye with distant areas. One road went to the railway while the other roads went to Nzaui and Kitui so that "every tribe will be able to reach me." Certainly one finds

here a desire to

unite the Kamba-speaking peoples and to treat the Kamba, rather than a small region within Kambaland, as the foundation stone of political and religious unity. Ndonye did in fact receive deputations from Nzaui, Kilungu, and Kaumoni and had his followers wear small gourds around their wrists and ankles for identification. Yet the contrast with Kikuyu developments taking place at the same time is striking. Thuku's movement drew its following largely from mission educated products, many of whom had lived in Nairobi. It was largely a secular move­ ment, influenced by Kikuyu observations of

European politics in

Kenya. The Young Kikuyu Association drafted petitions to the Gover­ nor and Colonial Office seeking redress for their grievances. Ndonye's appeal was religious and almost messianic. He foresaw a future state when European influence would be expunged and the African people returned to some ideal precolonial situation where no tax and road work would be exacted from them. Just how this Utopia was to be ob­ tained was not clear, save by people congregating around Ndonye, as a prophetic figure,

and awaiting God's communications to him.

Ndonye did not draw up petitions of grievances, nor did he found a political association. His activities bespoke the rural, more traditional, and less educated environment of the Machakos Kamba people. Ndonye's growing influence was of concern to the British, and in late 1922 the government drew up a deportation order and had it signed by headmen from Iveti, Kiteta, Kibauni, Maputi, Mukaa, Kalama, Kan11E. D. Emley to ADC, Machakos, August 22, 1922, KNA PC/CP 8/2/4.

336—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

gundo, Matungulu, Kilungu, Nzaui, Kaumoni, Kisau, Manyala, Kithangaini, and Mbooni, further evidence of Ndonye's widespread impact and the beginnings of Machakos-wide cultural and political coopera­ tion.12 Nevertheless, Ndonye's deportation to Lamu brought an abrupt end to the protest—another striking contrast with the Kikuyu phe­ nomenon where the deportation of Thuku did not succeed in eradi­ cating outspoken opposition. These two incidents were sporadic outbursts that revealed an un-. dercurrent of opposition to colonial rule, but they were quickly dealt with through the removal of the leaders. Otherwise the district re­ mained politically quiescent as evidenced by its remarkably unrespon­ sive attitude toward Kikuyu agitation. In 1922 Harry Thuku visited Machakos township and tried to get Kambas to sign a petition to be sent to the Colonial Office.13 Although Thuku had a few Kamba follow­ ers, mentioning James Mwanthi, Ali Kilonzo, and Mohammed Sheikh in his autobiography, his movement generated no resonance among the Kamba.14 Nor did the female circumcision controversy of 1929, despite the fact that the Kamba also circumcised girls. It is difficult to give a definitive answer to the question of why female circumcision did not become a major source of antagonism between the Kamba and Euro­ peans, especially in light of the fact that the Kikuyu controversy had repercussions among the Maasai. There are, however, a few hints why this was so. In the first place, the physical operation of circumcision was not such an important event among the Kamba. Although all young men and women were expected to be circumcised before they became adults, boys and girls were circumcised at different ages, often in private and in small groups. According to Lindblom, there were no less than three festivals connected with circumcision, the least impor­ tant of which was the one connected with the physical operation itself. The second festival was more important, as it was a ceremony of initia­ tion into adulthood, but by the time young people had reached this age, most of them had already been circumcised.15 Moreover, mission­ ary influence was not so pronounced among the Kamba as it was among the Kikuyu. The AIM was the one strong mission in Machakos and Kitui districts, but educationally it shared these two districts with the state. Thus, one of the leading Kikuyu grievances, namely the mission­ ary monopoly over education, did not apply to the Kamba districts. 12 Deportation

Request, November 2 9 , 1 9 2 2 , ibid. Ulu District Council Minutes, March 2 2 , 1 9 2 2 , KNA DC/MKS 5 / 1 / 2 . 14 Thuku, An Autobiography, p. 2 9 . 15 Lindblom, The Akamba, pp. 4 2 f t and J. Horman, Birth, Marriage, and Death among the Wakamba, Machakos District Political Record Book, 1910, KNA DC/ MKS 4/3· 13

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—337 Although the AIM in Kikuyuland was strongly committed to eradicat­ ing female circumcision, the AIM missionaries among the Kamba exer­ cised considerable autonomy from the mission headquarters at Kijabe.16 They did not feel under obligation, as Stauffacher apparently did, to implement the hard-line stand on female circumcision being laid down by the Kijabe leaders. Finally British government officials in Machakos district were not agitated over this issue as they were in the Kikuyu districts. The operation was discussed in a 1927 LNC meet­ ing, but since the British believed that what they called the major operation was not practiced, the district commissioner did not call upon the councillors to enact legislation.17 In short female circumcision was not already a simmering issue among the Kamba, as it was for the Kikuyu when the controversy broke in 1929. Kikuyu nationalists, however, sought to curry favor with the Kamba in 1929. The KCA visited Machakos township on November 24, 1929, and again on December 31, for the purpose of collecting money from the Kamba.18 A Kamba Jeanes school teacher, Kibuba, spread KCA ideas.19 The KCA made some effort to exploit Kamba grievances, stir­ ring people up over land losses. But this effort to link Kamba and Kikuyu opposition produced few tangible results. The colonial govern­ ment reacted firmly to the Kikuyu overtures. Provincial commissioner, W.F.G. Campbell, held a baraza in January, 1930 at Machakos town­ ship with thirty-eight headmen, LNC members, and elders and told these leaders to have nothing to do with the KCA, threatening to pun­ ish any headman who allowed political meetings to take place within his location.20 Moreover, the state expelled from their trading plots those African merchants who had welcomed the KCA to Machakos township. Thus, the district commissioner could write with satisfac­ tion in his annual report for 1930 that "in spite of the efforts of Kikuyu propagandists in the early part of the year no success attended the at­ tempts to work up feeling among the Akamba on the subject of female circumcision."21 While the Kamba demonstrated little interest in Kikuyu politics, they began to grow apprehensive as the state focused attention on the problem of Kamba overstocking. The Kamba valued livestock for all !β See p. 275. 17 Machakos District, Annual MKS 1/1/22. isMachakos District Political Machakos District, Annual 1/1/22. 20 Idem. 21 Machakos District, Annual 1/1/22.

Report, 1929, Appendix, J. M. Silvester, KNA DC/ Record Book, 1925-30, p. 117, KNA DC/MKS 4/8. Report, 1929, p. 4, J. M. Silvester, KNA DC/MKS

Report, 1930, p. 15, J. M. Silvester, KNA DC/MKS

338—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism the traditional reasons—as currency, a mark of wealth and prestige, and links binding families together. The British hoped that colonial reforms would cause the Kamba to have a lesser attachment to their cattle. They hoped that the introduction of money would eliminate the need to use livestock as currency and that new markets for trade and slaughter stock would lead Kamba herders to dispose of their sur­ pluses. In fact the colonial impact, if anything, only heightened the importance of livestock to the Kamba and made them even more eager to keep large herds. In the first place quarantine restrictions coupled with the veterinary control of livestock diseases resulted in a consid­ erable increase in the size of herds. Moreover, because money did not circulate widely and freely in the sluggish Kamba economy, it had not supplanted livestock as currency by 1939. What money was available was used mainly to pay tax and school fees. Commonly when the Kamba brought agricultural and pastoral products to Indian trading shops, they exchanged these items for needed consumer goods, like tea, cigarettes, and clothing, retaining only enough currency for those state and mission financial obligations that had to be discharged with money. Local transactions, such as the payment of circumcisers' fees and bride-price, were consummated through livestock. When the state recommended to the Machakos LNC that the people be made to pay bride-price in money, they were told that families still did not possess enough money to make this reform possible. A common bride-price in the 1930s of 2 heifers, 1 bullock, and 35 goats necessitated the keeping of herds.22 Perhaps the most compelling reason that the Kamba were reluctant to reduce the size of flocks, however, was that they regarded livestock as protection against colonial exploitation. Viewing the Kikuyu and their exodus into European labor markets, the Kamba believed that their possession of cattle, sheep, and goats safeguarded them from such a distasteful fate. Their livestock conferred a modicum of eco­ nomic and political autonomy on each family. Through the sale of a cow or some sheep and goats an individual could acquire the money with which to pay his tax and hence escape the obligation to work for wages. As one Kamba observed in a meeting at Machakos in June, 1931: "Cows were indispensable in every way. They provided money for tax, butter, and food in time of famine."23 The state had begun to identify Machakos as an economically worri­ some area even before World War I. In 1912 as livestock began to press heavily on land resources in parts of the reserve, requests were made by Kamba herders to graze their flocks on the Yatta plateau. In 22 Machakos District LNC Minutes, March 19 and 20, 1934, KNA DC/MKS 5/1/2. 23 Machakos District Political Record Book, 1930-38, p. 5, KNA DC/MKS 4/9.

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—339 1913 some Mwale Kamba were given permission to do so, and in the next year herders from other locations were allowed to take surplus stock onto Yatta for the payment of 1,700 rupees.24 This payment and later payments were a source of bitterness among the Kamba, who argued that they had once grazed on Yatta freely and also that these payments should at least have constituted a right to its continued use. But the state was reluctant to confer such a right, partly because Eu­ ropean settlers had cast their eyes on these empty lands and partly because the government did not regard the Kamba use of the Yatta as a fundamental solution to the more pressing problem of limiting live­ stock within Machakos district. In 1924 the Kamba were not permitted to graze herds there, but because their herds suffered so grievously in the Machakos reserve and because the Kamba held a series of "in­ dignation meetings" the state withdrew its prohibition.25 Increasing Kamba herds also spilled over onto other unoccupied or sparsely occu­ pied areas. In 1914 the government allowed herders from Kalama and Maputi to pasture stock on unoccupied farms between Kilma Kiu and Bondo outside the southwestern border to the reserve. It also per­ mitted the people of Mukaa to extend their grazing areas southward onto unoccupied lands. By the late 1920s and 1930s Kamba herdsmen were driving their livestock into the Mwea region of Embu district because of inadequate grazing in their own reserve. The Ormsby-Gore Commission of 1924 brought overstocking forci­ bly to the attention of the state and cautioned Kenya officials against giving pastoralists more land, which, without new attitudes and tech­ niques of livestock control, would quickly be worn out. Spurred on by these strictures, the state began to take its first measures to cope with this problem. In 1926 it passed a Crop Production and Livestock Ordi­ nance which among other things conferred upon the government the power to control livestock through culling.26 Directing attention to the Machakos reserve, clearly identified as the most severely eroded, the government posted a veterinary officer to the district in 1924 for the pur­ pose of compiling livestock statistics and making recommendations. The LNC was alerted to the enormity of the problem, and the coun­ cillors were enjoined to go among the people and propagandize in favor of culling. They were to encourage the people to get rid of old, blind, and maimed animals, and then other economically worthless stock.27 Some early efforts at what the state termed "reconditioning" 24 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1914-15, p. 3, J. L. Lightbody, KNA DC/ MKS 1/1/2. 25 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1924, p. 2, W. F. Campbell, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/15 and No. 481, Denham to Amery, April 23, 1925, PRO CO 533/330. 26 Kenya, Official Gazette, 1926, p. 556. 27 Machakos District LNC Minutes, June 12 and 13, 1928, KNA DC/MKS 5/1/2.

340—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

were also begun. Trees were planted on hillsides to reduce soil ero­ sion, and a few small dams were constructed to provide irrigation water in arid areas.28 Perhaps, the activity that had the greatest impact was the first detailed statistical account of overstocking in the reserve. In 1928 a government officer found that Matungulu location which should support approximately 5,000 cattle had 13,500 and Kangundo had 15,500 where 8,000 should have been pastured.29 Nonetheless so little was accomplished that the Agricultural Com­ mission of 1929 felt constrained again to call attention to overstocking. The Commission felt that the issue was so serious that even compul­ sory destocking should be used, if, as some witnesses suggested, Afri­ cans would not cooperate in schemes to reduce their livestock. Its most important pastoral recommendation was that the Kenya government establish a meat factory where surplus African livestock could be made into meat extract, fertilizer, and hides. The Commission deemed it essential that the factory be run by the state because at first it could not be made a paying proposition and compulsory culling would prob­ ably be necessary.80 Responding to this recommendation, Governor Grigg put forward a proposal to establish a meat factory. Grigg's pro­ posal was for a factory run by a private company, Meat Rations Ltd., paid by the state on a commission basis, but the Colonial Office insisted that the factory be run by the state.31 The Colonial Office took the project to a newly created Colonial Development Fund, but this body refused to provide full financing on the grounds that the scheme was designed to arrest decay, not facilitate development.32 With the de­ pression just beginning to take its toll on the Kenya economy, the pro­ posal was put in abeyance. As had happened so often in the past, a new comprehensive report on economic conditions in Kenya spurred the government into further action. In connection with its inquiries into land and land utilization questions, the Kenya Land Commission reiterated the urgency to deal with overstocking, especially in Machakos district. Linked with the ef­ fort to provide a final, definitive solution to land issues, the Commis­ sion recommended turning part of the Yatta plateau over to the Kamba, but only on the condition that the Kamba carry out a vigorous program of destocking and reconditioning in the Machakos reserve. Naturally this proposal elicited strong opposition from Kamba leaders who claimed that the entire Yatta belonged to them and who were fur28

Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1929, p. 30. Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1928, p. 108. 30 Kenya, Report of the Agriculture Commission, 1929, pp. 28-30. 31No. 363, Grigg to Passfield, May 30, 1930, PRO CO 533/397/16076. 32 No. 630, Colonial Office to Grigg, August 13, 1930, ibid. 29

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—341

ther discontented that their use of part of these lands was made con­ ditional on reforms in Machakos district. The Kenya Land Commission also put forward a detailed set of sug­ gestions and criticisms regarding quarantining policy, the implementa­ tion of the Crop Production and Livestock Ordinance of 1926, and the need to establish a meat and fertilizer factory in order to facilitate destocking.33 These recommendations had their anticipated result in renewed government activity. Threatening the Kamba leaders with such dire consequences as compulsory culling, the loss of Yatta, and the erection of a meat factory, political and veterinary officers tried to wring cooperation from LNC members. In general the state enjoyed little success. In 1934 the government tried to persuade the Machakos LNC to pass a resolution to remove livestock from severely eroded areas, but the LNC refused. James Mutua summed up the dilemma for the ordinarily pliable councillors when he said that the members "were between two fires—the government and the people in the reserves. They could not pass this resolution without there being grave unrest as a result in the reserve."34 The only important resolution passed by the LNC was that the Kamba would carry out voluntary destocking and reconditioning measures in the locations of Mbooni, Masii, and Kiteta. The headmen of these two latter locations were also empow­ ered to set a limit on the number of stock held by a family. But as headmen, in general, were not sympathetic with these policies, these resolutions went unenforced. In 1936 a special reconditioning committee reported on the Machakos reserve and recommended that the Kamba demarcate indi­ vidual holdings by means of sisal or hedges. The government hoped that by promoting individual land tenure in the reserve a landowning class could be created and would take responsibility for the economic betterment of the reserve. The reconditioning program also entailed having communal labor trench severely eroded areas and plant them in grass.35 It is probable that state policies would have continued along these lines of trying to persuade Kamba farmers and LNC members to re­ condition and dispose of surpluses, had it not been for the emergence of three new forces in the late 1930s. In the first place, there was a growing recognition that the problem of overstocking, with conse­ quent soil deterioration, far from being ameliorated, was becoming more serious. Two agricultural officers estimated in 1937 that it would 33 K L C , pp. 495ff, H C S P , Vol. 10, 1933-1934, cmd. 4556. a* Machakos District LNC Minutes, August 15, 16, and 17, 1934, KNA DC/MKS

5/1/2· 35 Maehakos District LNC Minutes, April 15 and 16, 1936, KNA DC/MKS 5/1/3.

342—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

cost anywhere from £120,000 to £250,000 to save Machakos reserve. 36 In 1938 an agricultural expert from South Africa, I. B. Pole Evans vis­ ited Kenya and painted a gloomy picture of its cattle-keeping regions. 37 The second factor was the appearance of forceful conservationist ideas in the Department of Agriculture in the late 1930s. Their strong­ est exponent was Colin Mahir. In his writings on agricultural and pas­ toral development he frequently enunciated ideas borrowed from American Department of Agriculture publications and waxed eloquent about ecology and soil renewal. In an article written in the East Afri­ can Agricultural Journal in 1936 he criticized the pioneer farmer and pastoralist as "a greedy self-seeker who regardless of the claims of fu­ ture generations destroys nature's accumulated treasures with a non­ chalant hand and starts a country on a progressive deterioration which will take her children and their children all their ingenuity and de­ voted labor to check." Such developments must be resisted at all costs, and Mahir believed that the state had an "imperative duty" to prevent "the dissipation of a country's wealth and the impoverishment of its people's children by misuse or ill considered development of the nat­ ural resources of that country." 38 These deeply held convictions persuaded men like Mahir to contemplate the use of force with equanimity. But these two factors by themselves would not have been enough to alter the fundamentally noncoercive, voluntaristic thrust of govern­ ment policy. Mahir's views were offset by many political officers and some agricultural and pastoral experts who feared the consequences of radical destocking and instead favored gradual change achieved largely by means of education and propaganda. The third factor proved decisive and as usual was bound up with settler interests. In order to understand the settler concern with de­ stocking it is necessary to look briefly at the development of settler political and economic goals in the 1930s. The early 1930s hit the Euro­ pean farming population hard and caused bitter feelings to develop between settlers and the Kenya government culminating in the with­ drawal of four settlers from the Legislative Council in 1935 and the creation of Vigilance Committees. The upswing of the Kenya economy in 1936 provided the state with opportunities to mollify settler feelings. The state set up a committee to investigate agricultural indebtedness, 36 Machakos District, Annual Report, 1937, p. 4, A. N. Bailward, KNA DC/MKS 1/1/27. 37 Native Affairs Department, Annual Report, 1938, p. 5. 3 S East African Agricultural Journal, Vol. 11, September, 1936, p. 130.

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—343 and it increased the capital of the Kenya Land Bank. One of the major changes underway in European farming was a changeover from maize cultivation to a mixed farming economy stressing dairy products and a possible export of meat. Maize had been the major export of many settlers in the 1920s, and its price decline in the depression had under­ mined the economic well-being of these farmers. By the mid-1930s many of these men were transforming their farms into maize and live­ stock undertakings, and they were eager to develop a livestock indus­ try. They saw possibilities for dairying and also for the export of meat. In 1936, for example, Kenya shipped a trial consignment of beef to Palestine.39 Here settler interests impinged on African interests, for if a meat factory were successfully established in Kenya for the purpose of culling surplus African stock, it could eventually be used to export frozen and tinned meat from settler ranches. To investigate these possibilities the Kenya government appointed a Meat and Livestock Committee in 1935. Its report, published in 1937, had profound implications for African and European livestock econ­ omies. The major conclusion of this report was summed up in the fol­ lowing sentence. "Not only is an export trade in meat essential if the agricultural industry of the colony is to continue to evolve in a satis­ factory manner, but the development of such an export trade is vital to the survival of the industry in settled [European] areas."40 The Committee believed that additional markets had to be found first for African livestock because of the problem of overstocking and the gen­ eral decline of African economic resources, but also for European live­ stock since the Committee believed that ranching and meat export would prove more profitable for European farmers than dairying. The general well-being of the mixed farming experiment depended, the Committee affirmed, on developing an export trade in chilled and frozen beef. While the Committee was working on its report, the Kenya government had entered into negotiations with a Southern Rho­ desia meat packing and canning firm, Liebigs, with a view to having this firm open a meat canning factory in Kenya. The Committee emphatically endorsed these negotiations, called upon the government to "do all in its power to ensure that cattle will be forthcoming" to the factory, and hoped that a successful meat canning plant, established at first to handle surplus African livestock, would soon enlarge its operations and begin to export chilled and frozen meat from European ranches.41 In this fashion, the newly conceived mixed farming experi39 Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, October 28, 1936, p. 244. *0 Kenya, Report of the Meat and Livestock Committee, 1937, p. 7. a Ibid., p. 10.

344—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

ment of many European farmers was intimately bound up with Afri­ can destocking. The state, anxious to win settler support, was firmly committed to making this program a success. In 1937 Liebigs moved into Kenya and constructed a factory at Athi River in proximity to the Kamba and Maasai reserves capable of han­ dling at least 30,000 to 45,000 head of cattle and converting them to corned beef, meat extract, cooking fat, tallow, and hides. In anticipation of an eventual large outpouring of livestock from African reserves, the factory was capable of being expanded to handle 120,000 head of cattle.42 Liebigs could hardly have picked a worse occasion to commence operations in Kenya, and the administration, a people less likely to dis­ pose of its livestock freely than the Machakos Kamba. To be sure, the Machakos reserve suffered severe problems of erosion. But Kenyan pastoralists in general were just emerging from severe drought condi­ tions between 1932 and 1935. They were in a period of building back their herd strength. Few stock were being offered for sale, and as a consequence, stock prices were abnormally high—much higher than Liebigs was prepared to pay. Moreover as J.F.G. Troughton, an admin­ istrative officer, pointed out in testimony to the Kenya Land Commis­ sion, there were two pastoral situations in Kenya. Areas like the Suk, Maasai, and Njemps not only were overstocked, but families also had more livestock than they required. The Machakos, Kitui, and Kamasia areas, on the other hand, were overstocked but families did not own sufficient livestock for their meat and milk requirements.43 In short the destocking of the Kamba reserve would constitute a serious attack on the material well-being of this people, as it would deprive families of their already small milk and meat resources. The state sought to create favorable conditions for Liebigs. In July, 1937, Governor Brooke-Popham made a speech in Machakos stressing the government's intention to enforce a general reduction in livestock. "Government will be prepared to meet resistance," he warned.44 Auctions were scheduled to be held at Kajiado, Ngong, Narok, and Mashuru among the Maasai. At a combined meeting of the Kajiado and Narok LNCs, the British official, Buxton, indicated to each group how many stock it was expected to sell to Liebigs. Narok district was responsible for 750 head of cattle each month and Kajiado 250.45 Yet in spite of these pressures Liebigs was doing poorly. It needed to ob42 43

East African Agricultural Journal, Vol. KLC, Evidence, in, 3140.

44 Machakos

HI,

July, 1937, pp. 1-3.

District Political Record Book, 1930-38, p. 87, KNA DC/MKS 4/9. Minutes of the Combined LNC of Narok and Kajiado at Ngong, October 8, 1937, KNA DC/KAJ 5/1/4. 45

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—345 tain approximately 3,000 head of cattle per month to make a profit, and it was hardly able to purchase more than 1,000. In fact, Liebigs was doing so poorly that it threatened to close down its Kenya plant and open a meat factory in Tanganyika. This prospect alarmed the administration, and the Kenya Governor, Brooke-Popham, sent out a directive in January, 1938 stating that Liebigs must be given a steady supply of stock and that a program of branding and destocking should be carried out with vigor in Machakos district and then be extended to Kitui, Embu, and Meru.46 Until this directive, destocking was still in low gear. Stock surveys had been car­ ried out only in Kangundo and Matungulu locations. The original goal had been to carry out these stock surveys, compiling a kind of dooms­ day book for the district by which the carrying capacity of each area could be ascertained and the excess stock culled.47 As a result of the Governor's order, a program of radical destocking was put into hasty operation. The plan called for quick stock surveys sublocation by sublocation carried out by government officials, fixing the stock-carrying capacity of each area, and then meetings held by Kamba elders to determine how much stock each owner was to retain. Stock, to be re­ tained was to be branded. All others had to be sold, either to private dealers or to Liebigs; if not, they were to be confiscated by the state.48 Despite rumblings of discontent and some early telegrams and peti­ tions of protest to the Governor and the Secretary of State for Colonies in London, the campaign started in Matungulu and Kangundo without major incident. By July more than 20,000 cattle had been sold. Govern­ ment officers reported resentment but predicted that the Kamba would accept their fate with resignation. Some officials were shocked, however, when they learned how severe the destocking was. In Matungulu and Kangundo the quotas were fixed at one-fourth and one-fifth of the total stock population. Officials thought that the Kamba might accept a reduction of one-third but never two-thirds or more.49 In­ deed, the Kangundo and Matungulu people were utterly stunned when they discovered that their herds were being reduced by 60 to 90 per cent. One man from Kangundo mentioned that of the ten cows he owned only two were branded.50 Moreover, the prices being offered ie There is a detailed and informative study of the destocking problem written in 1950 by H. A. Fosbrooke, "The Kamba Problem: A Brief History of Destocking in Machakos," based on an investigation of the Nyeri provincial files. Much of the information, including the Governor's directive, is taken from this study found in KNA, PC/Ngong 1/108. « Note of a Meeting held at the Secretariat, November 15, 1938, KNA PC/Ngong 1/108. is Brooke-Popham to the Colonial Office, February 19, 1938, PRO CO 533/492. Bailward to Provincial Commissioner, October 3, 1938, KNA PC/Ngong 1/108. so Interview with William Kitonga, July 10, 1970.

346—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

by Liebigs were often one-quarter of market value. The average price paid for full-grown cattle was about 15s. Many small calves sold at prices of is. or 2s. as did sheep and goats. To the Kamba this was vir­ tual confiscation, especially since the livestock that was allowed to enter the open market obtained much higher prices.51 There seems lit­ tle doubt that Liebigs sought to take advantage of their powerful sup­ port in the colony by offering noncompetitive prices. The news of these draconian measures spread throughout the reserve. When the government came to the Iveti location, the biggest, wealthiest, and most populous location in the district, it encountered resistance. At the sublocation of Ngelani in July people refused to co­ operate in having their cattle branded. The government made a raid of the area, taking 2,500 cattle away and grazing them on land nearby but outside the reserve. The British did not feel that they had the legal power to dispose of the stock and hoped that the confiscation would bring about a change of heart in Ngelani and a willingness to cooperate with their program. But the Ngelani people remained adamant, re­ fused to reclaim their stock in order to have them branded, and in­ stead demanded to see the Governor.52 It was not surprising that opposition occurred at Ngelani. Its people often boasted of their advance over other Kamba locations, and indeed Ngelani had undergone more social change than other Kamba areas. It had heavy population densities and an emergent landless class which was forced to graze its livestock on common land and was threatened by the state's policies of strengthening the influence of pri­ vate landholders. The Ngelani people were better educated than their Kamba neighbors and had bitter memories of lost lands before World War I. Like so many other Kamba, they did not see the need for radi­ cal destocking especially when they could look across their reserve boundary and see relatively little used European and unalienated crown lands. Ngelani's opposition leaders were a new type of man among the Kamba. They had been in Nairobi in the 1920s during the Harry Thuku crisis and the development of Kikuyu political consciousness, and no doubt their suspicion of the colonial government had been heightened by these experiences. They knew something of the KCA and Nairobi politics. Samuel Muindi, sometimes known as Muindi Mbingu, Elijah Kavulu, Isaac Mwalonzi, and Simon Kioko had gone to Nairobi after having completed a rudimentary education in the less advanced schools available to Kamba in the Machakos reserve. 51 Fosbrooke, "The Kamba Problem." 52No. 417, Wade to MacDonald, enclosing Report on Machakos Destocking by A. N. Bailward, July, 1938, PRO CO 533/492.

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—347

Muindi, Kavulu, and Mwalonzi went to the Nairobi CMS school for standards ν and vi, while Simon Kioko continued his education through high school with the Salvation Army, becoming one of its offi­ cers. Muindi went into the police, Kavulu was a clerk for the Railway, and Mwalonzi a teacher in the CMS school in Nairobi. But by the late 1930s these men, with the exception of Kioko, had resettled in Machakos district as wealthy stock-owners and were not active in Kenya nationalist politics.53 Although some claim to have been members of the KCA from the early days, the only Kamba that old Association leaders could recall being involved with them before the destocking was Samuel Muindi.54 With the possible exception of Muindi, they were not trying to politicize the Kamba people or to create branches of the KCA there. They were in fact wealthy stock-owners in their late thirties or early forties who through education and early experiences were suspicious of the government and familiar with techniques for opposing unpopular government programs. Opposition had been building even before the cattle raid in July. At first it took the form of spontaneous secret meetings to rally support against government policy. The leaders were in touch with the KCA in Nairobi, sending reports and telegrams to Association leaders, the Governor, the Provincial Commissioner, and the Colonial Office, and writing in the Kikuyu nationalist paper, Muigwithania. In London, Jomo Kenyatta took up their cause, writing letters to the Manchester Guardian and other publications.55 They found an advocate in Isher Dass who presented their case in the Kenya Legislative Council. After the government raid, the movement gained such widespread support among the Ngelani people that the leaders created a political organiza­ tion modelled after the KCA and with ties to it called the Ukamba Members Association. Its president was Muindi Mbingu. An oath was taken—and in some cases force seems to have been used—that they would not take back their cattle for branding.56 Ngelani opposition remained more intense, bitterly antigovernment, and generalized than in other areas into which the movement of dis­ content later spread. This was in part a function of the better educated leaders, but it also reflected the greater suspicion of the Ngelani peo53 This information has been compiled from numerous archival and interview sources, but especially from the Machakos District Political Record Book, 1930-38, pp. 86-87, KNA DC/MKS 4/9 and a group interview with Isaac Mwalonzi1 Elijah Kavulu, and Simon Kioko, July 2, 1970. 54 Interview with Charles Wambaa, July 14, 1970 and Marius Nganga Karatu, July 1, 1970. 55 Kenyatta's letter to the New Statesman and Nation, June 25, 1938. 56 Interview with Mwalonzi, Kavulu, and Kioko, July 2, 1970. They play down the oathing and deny the use of force, but other interviews suggested strongly that forcible oathing did occur in certain localities.

348—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

pie over the Liebigs factory. The Ngelani people learned about the agreement between Liebigs and the government and realized that the government was trying to save Liebigs at the expense of the Kamba people.57 Since many of them knew about the Kikuyu experience, they were fearful of being stripped of their cattle and forced to work on European farms.58 Many of their leaders thought that the govern­ ment's intention in taking cattle from them was to make them a labor reservoir for the settlers. Elsewhere the argumentation was neither so sophisticated nor so suspicious. Other Kamba were opposed not be­ cause of Liebigs or anticipated labor recruitment pressures, but be­ cause they were being deprived of stock and wealth.59 Unable to realize their demand to see the Governor, the leaders of the Ukamba Members Association organized a march on Nairobi to force the Governor to see them. About 2,000 men, women, and chil­ dren, almost entirely drawn from Ngelani, made the trek to the capital and remained there for six weeks until the Governor promised to see them in Machakos. When he came to Machakos on August 25, he made some notable concessions, promising to stop the compulsory sale of stock and to reintroduce voluntary sales. Still the primary conflict re­ mained. The Governor continued to insist on destocking and the ac­ ceptance of quotas by each location, albeit in a new framework of vol­ untary sales; behind the concessions lay the specter of compulsion.60 Dramatized by the march to Nairobi, Ngelani resistance spread to other areas. In nearby Kangundo, the people who had been bench ter­ racing stopped abruptly while at Kathwanie a large group who had asked for help in reestablishing grass lands withdrew their request.61 In Kangundo, William Kitonga, who had been counting cattle for the government stock survey, became an official of the local Ukamba Members Association and severed his ties with the government.62 Branches of the Ukamba Association sprang up everywhere. These branches met with the leaders in Ngelani to give overall direction to the opposition, but there were quite significant local variations. Most obvious was the fact that outside Ngelani people were less politicized 57 Interview with Reuben Mutuma, July 2, 1970. Mutuma was a clerk in the gov­ ernment office in Machakos and kept his Ngelani friends well supplied with informa­ tion of the government's destocking plans and its ties with Liebigs. 5S This point was powerfully made in the Mwalonzi, Kavulu, and Kioko interview. 59 This was the prevailing feeling in nearby Kangundo location. Interview with Josiah Manyaka Kivanguli, June 20, 1970 and William Kitonga, July 10, 1970. so The Governor's speech and the petition presented to him by the Ngelani pro­ testers can be found in the Machakos District Political Record Book, 1930-38, KNA DC/MKS 4/9. 61 No. 42, Robert Barnes, Soil Engineer, to Bailward, September 6, 1938, KNA PC/Ngong 1/76. 62 Interview with William Kitonga, July 10, 1970.

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—349

and less bitter against the government. Generally speaking, the leaders did not have as much education as the Ngelani leaders, although they almost all had received some education in missionary schools. Each area had its own special grievances in addition to the culling of cattle, although all were connected with the program of reconditioning. In one area it was bench terracing, in another the planting of napier grass, and in a third the planting of sisal trees and the demarcation of individual holdings. The local branches of the central Ukamba Associ­ ation differed in many details. Despite bearing the same name and having the same formal set of offices, some collected dues and gave membership cards while others did not. In some an elaborate oath was taken. In a few areas, those who stood outside the movement were forced to take the oath, while in other localities the oath was adminis­ tered only to the innermost and most committed resisters. Some locali­ ties took no oath at all. Wherever an oath was taken, it was for the purpose of promoting unity against the government's destocking policies. There was one significant similarity about the protest movement from one locality to another; that was the age of the protesters. Almost everywhere, they were the young elders, married and with children, and beginning their stock-owning careers. Destocking hurt them more than it did any other group. The older members of society with the largest herds could probably recoup their losses, but the younger elders, with their smaller herds, could not afford to accept large reduc­ tions. The young man who lost four of his five or eight of his ten cows was in jeopardy of seeing his whole herd disappear, and so it was these men, often educated, who constituted the core of the leadership. Older persons did not oppose their policies, for they hated the government's program, but they did not take the lead.63 An especially bitter dispute occurred in Matungulu, another large stock-raising area where the population harbored bitter recollections of their expulsion from the Mua Hills. In most locations the Kamba headmen and subheadmen were only lukewarm, if not secretly op­ posed, to the government scheme. In Matungulu, however, headman Nzioka strove to enforce destocking in the face of opposition because, according to some critics, the government had promised to make him paramount chief over the Machakos Kamba. His speeches aroused peo­ ple against him; on one occasion, after some of the leaders of the oppo­ sition had been arrested by the government, the people became so incensed that they would have killed him except for the timely inter­ vention of the government. Their wrath was not assuaged, and they 63 Interview with Josiah Manyaka Kivanguli, June 20, 1970 and Mwalonzi, Kavulu, and Kioko.

350—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

finally cursed him and surrounded his house with bushes and sticks, symbolizing his ostracism from the community. A few other collabora­ tionist Kamba government officials were also cursed and ostracized, and like Nzioka their power then diminished so rapidly that the govern­ ment had to replace them.64 Although the Governor's coming to Machakos in August represented a triumph for Kamba leaders, the controversy was still at full pitch then and was to remain so until early December.65 The government had a great deal at stake, mainly the Liebigs factory and the desire to have its program extended to other areas. Settler interest was also run­ ning high; settler representatives in the Legislative Council were call­ ing for a vigorous enactment of the program. In the Legislative Coun­ cil debate of November 15, 1938, Acting Chief Native Commissioner, LaFontaine, reaffirmed the government's intentions to destock and to use force, if necessary. He stated: There is not the slightest change in the determination of the gov­ ernment to reduce the stock in the eroded areas of the colony where reduction is of a vital necessity, whatever are the difficul­ ties which may arise. I think no more binding assurance can be given. For the last three months, in accordance with the pledge which Your Excellency gave to the Akamba in August, the selling of stock by private sales in the market has been given full and pa­ tient trial. It was also encouraged at the request of the people themselves. This method has not been successful and unless there is a change of heart and intention between now and the end of the month the government will have no option but to revert to those direct methods of culling which were instituted in the early part of this year and which resulted in the removal from the reserve of some 20,000 head of cattle.66 Proof of the government's resolve was its arrest and deportation of Muindi Mbingu to Lamu on October 4. Still the boycott remained. The Kamba showed no inclination to accept voluntary sales, and in late No­ vember the government began to devise a plan for breaking Ngelani resistance, which they regarded as the key to Kamba opposition. The Attorney General had informed the Governor and the Acting Chief Native Commissioner that their seizure of the 2,500 cattle was illegal and any attempt to confiscate the cattle could be challenged in the colony's courts. New legislation, however, would enable the govern­ ment to return the cattle to Ngelani and if within a week they were not 64

Interview with John Mwea Makola, July 23, 1970. Rosberg and Nottingham, The Myth of Mau Mau, p. 172. ee Kenya Legislative Council, Debates, 1938, pp. 311-312.

65

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—351

claimed and branded, the government would be within its rights in confiscating the cattle and disposing of them.67 Up until December i, 1938, this was the government's plan of action. What would have hap­ pened had the British implemented this proposal is difficult to contem­ plate, although much evidence suggests that the conflict, so far non­ violent, might have turned violent. The Nairobi and London archives fail to record why the government did not pursue this program. In a letter from the Acting Chief Native Commissioner to the Provincial Commissioner of December 2, 1938, LaFontaine conveyed the govern­ ment's decisions to postpone destocking for an indefinite time and to return the 2,500 head of cattle to the people of Ngelani uncondi­ tionally. He then added the cryptic remark, "I have not detailed the grave reasons which have impelled the government to modify the pol­ icy to which expression was so recently given by myself in the Legisla­ tive Council. I will, however, communicate them to you verbally when we next meet."68 Unfortunately, so much of the government corre­ spondence has been lost or destroyed that the reasons for the volteface cannot be ascertained with precision. There is a considerable amount of indirect evidence to suggest that the government was beginning to fear Kamba violence and that it re­ versed its policy to avoid a confrontation. Especially interesting are the police and Criminal Intelligence Division reports, which reveal that Kamba in the police and army were becoming involved in the dis­ pute. The government learned that money collections were made and meetings held in the Kenya African Rifles and the police in Nairobi in August over the destocking controversy. In December similar meetings took place in Mombasa, and these meetings involved not only Kamba but also other tribes as well. One of the ringleaders of early Ngelani opposition was Nduba, a Sergeant Major in the Kenya police.69 No doubt the colonial government did not want conflict with a people who constituted such a large part of the military arm of the state. Quite possibly, although the evidence is silent on this point, there were fears of army and police mutinies. Further investigations also showed a strengthening alliance between the Kamba opposition and the Kikuyu Central Association, another development which alarmed the state.70 βτ Minute from W. Harragin, Attorney General, November 19, 1938, KNA PC/ Ngong 1/108. β8 LaFontaine, Acting Chief Native Commissioner, to PC, December 2, 1938, KNA PC/Ngong 1/108. β» Machakos District Political Record Book, 1930-38, pp. 86-87, KNA DC/MKS 4/970 Neil Steward, Superintendent of the Criminal Intelligence Division, to the Act­ ing Commissioner of Police, September 19, 1938, KNA DC/MKS 10B/15/1.

352—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

My impression is that the British assessed the situation as potentially violent, one which posed long-range threats to continued British au­ thority as a result of discontent in the army and police and a link between the Kamba and the government's chief critic, the Kikuyu Cen­ tral Association. Whatever the reason, the government called off its destocking campaign and decided to try reconditioning the reserve by promoting individual landholdings and encouraging trenching and the planting of napier grass and sisal trees. These were the same methods which the British had been pursuing before Liebigs arrived on the scene. The government also hoped that through education and an al­ liance with a group of self-interested landowners the area could even­ tually be destocked voluntarily. Much of the Kamba resistance can hardly be called nationalism, for the grievances and opposition were specific to the loss of stock. Throughout the crisis the Kamba political party, although modelled after the KCA, was concerned only with this basic issue. It did not dis­ cuss such traditionally nationalistic questions as educational griev­ ances, the lack of political representation, and economic exploitation, which had been standard complaints of the KCA for many years. Most of the Kamba complaints, such as the loss of land and the removal of unpopular chiefs, stemmed from this one dominating question—destocking. Thus, when the issue was resolved in favor of the Kamba, many Ukamba Members Association branches ceased to function and many people went back to life as before. Yet the crisis did have enormous nationalistic implications, espe­ cially for the Kamba of the most disrupted area, Ngelani. Here the bit­ terness could not be removed by simple government capitulation. Muindi was still in exile and grievances so long felt but repressed were now on the surface. The leaders felt strongly about the emergence of collaborationist chiefs, growing labor recruitment pressures, the lack of educational facilities, and European settlement in the Mua Hills. Their success in creating a political organization and resisting the gov­ ernment encouraged them to continue. Ties with the Kikuyu Central Association were maintained. The Ukamba Members Association re­ mained strong in Ngelani under the leadership of Kavulu, Mwalonzi, and Kioko, who continued to use the petition and telegram, so success­ ful in 1938, to dramatize their grievances. Dissatisfied Kamba from other areas now gravitated to the men of Ngelani and gave more sub­ stance to their political organization. When World War II began, the British detained those leaders whom they feared the most. Many KCA leaders were put in detention, and most of the Ngelani leadership was also detained, thus adding martyrdom to their claim to nationalist leadership. A rudimentary political party with nationalist aspirations

Destocking and Kamba Nationalism—353

had been planted and had already created linkages with the Kikuyu— important developments for the future of Kenya. No doubt political protest and nationalism would have appeared in colonial Kamba society and a political party would have developed. Many of the critical factors were already in place, for the Kamba were experiencing much more rapid social change in the 1930s than they had before. More Kamba were going out in search of wage labor. A landless element was emerging, and education was becoming more widespread. But the conditions had not yet produced a demand for a political party nor was the reserve deeply politicized. The Ngelani leaders were not budding politicians; they were aspiring cattle farmers who had turned their backs on active politics when they left Nairobi. Rather, it was the government's adamant policy striking at the most fundamental institution of Kamba life—its cattle-rearing economy and polity—which galvanized people everywhere into action. Everywhere there was bitterness and antagonism; nowhere did the Kamba gen­ uinely believe that they were overstocked or that erosion was turning their area into a wasteland. Leadership and organizing skill were important in bringing the crisis to fruition, but the leaders and their party arose almost spon­ taneously. They had not been preparing for the day when the govern­ ment would introduce distasteful policies; indeed, they were leaders not because of their political skills, but because they were young men on the rise economically who could express well the grievances felt by all. Once the Ngelani people demonstrated their opposition, resistance spread throughout the reserve spontaneously. No agents and propa­ gandists were needed; as soon as the news reached other communities, they too embraced open resistance. The government's policy was flawed because it was influenced by factors external to the Machakos reserve, namely the desire to appease settlers and to make Liebigs a profitable operation. To be sure the gov­ ernment was becoming impatient with the inability of the people to curtail stock increase, and it was alarmed at the steady economic de­ terioration of the reserve. But little effort had been made to educate the people. Only the Local Native Councillors had been reached, and because of their cowardice, they had not carried the government's thinking down. Clearly a widespread campaign of propaganda based on increasing voluntary sales and obtaining popular acceptance of the government's ideas was called for before compulsory destocking was employed. When and if compulsion was deemed necessary, it should have been introduced by stages, a small percentage of stock taken at a time, so that the people could see that reductions in cattle led to more productive herds. The Kamba also had long-standing land griev-

354—Destocking and Kamba Nationalism

ances, which they wanted resolved before they were prepared to co­ operate on destocking and reconditioning. The Department of Agri­ culture did have a program for clearing tsetse fly from the Makueni location and opening it up to stock, but because of the pressure for hasty destocking, the work on this important concession had not been carried far. Moreover, the state was convinced of general Kamba obstinacy and felt that the Kamba would oppose even the smallest changes. It concluded that if it was going to incur unpopularity, it might as well solve the problem once and for all. What the govern­ ment authorities did not anticipate was the depth of opposition and its manner of expression. They assumed that the people would continue to be as quiescent and apolitical as they had been throughout the co­ lonial period and that they would accept the government's program, albeit grudgingly. As in their other calculations, the government was wrong. Resistance in the central highlands assumed many shapes and had different consequences. The Kikuyu, better educated and faster chang­ ing, spawned a political party, led by an educated elite. Issues of pro­ test were inevitably channeled through this party and exploited by it. Thus, the Kikuyu flare-up over female circumcision was not the same as the Kamba destocking controversy. Although the institution of cir­ cumcision was deeply cherished in Kikuyu society, the issue was clear­ ly manipulated and exploited by the KCA in a way impossible for the Kamba since they did not have a preexisting party and established po­ litical leaders. Maasai resistance, on the other hand, took the form of sporadic and small-scale warrior uprisings in 1918, 1922, and 1935. These were in defense of traditional values. Unlike Kamba and Kikuyu protest, they were the work of one subgroup—the warriors—and they failed to generate a climate of generalized protest in which a political party could be established and nationalist ideas spread among the peo­ ple. Maasai who wanted to engage in continuous opposition to the British were forced to look to the KCA. By tampering with this most vital Kamba possession—their livestock—the colonial administration produced the political unity and cooperation, at least for one brief moment, which the early outbursts of 1911 and 1922 had already pointed toward.

CHAPTER XVI

Conclusion: Three Societies in 1939

The British first occupied Kenya because of their need to supply the strategically valuable Uganda. Once in occupation, they were under relentless pressure to develop the resources of the colony if only to make it self-supporting. An expensive railway stretching from Mom­ basa to Lake Victoria heightened this financial anxiety. Because the country was sparsely inhabited and without obvious mineral resources, a succession of British governors encouraged immigrant European families to settle in the highlands and hoped that these people would be the engine of economic development. Although the settler popula­ tion never became large, it exercised influence in all avenues of Kenyan life. Kenya's colonial history was never shaped by any vision or grand design. Whereas Egypt was valued primarily because of its strategic importance lying astride the Suez Canal and Northern Nigeria became the model colony for the elaboration of a system of indirect rule, no overarching imperial program or philosophy shaped the economic and political development of Kenya. To be sure, a number of administra­ tors, even some powerful governors, and the settler population itself envisaged Kenya as a white settler colony and wanted it to follow the developmental patterns laid out in South Africa, if not Canada, Aus­ tralia, and New Zealand. But this vision of Kenya as a white man's country, moving inexorably toward autonomy under settler leadership, never emerged triumphant as the bitterly contested events of the 1920s and 1930s made clear. During these decades the Colonial Office re­ pudiated numerous settler initiatives to gain overriding powers in the Kenya Legislative Council. Thus, Kenya's colonial history was char­ acterized by frequent, intense conflicts between different colonial agencies—settlers, missionaries, and administrators—as each sought to exalt its own powers at the expense of the others. While it is clear that no unified colonial policy emerged in Kenya, it would be a mistake to exaggerate the disorder and divisiveness with­ in the European power elites, be they administrators, settlers, or mis­ sionaries. Despite their struggles for predominance and their often varying views of the shape Kenya should take, they shared wide areas of accord. Without exception the power elites agreed on the benevo-

356—Conclusion

lence and righteousness of British imperialism. Even when the mis­ sionaries made their most severe attacks upon the settlers and the administration for their harsh labor recruiting practices, there were few individuals ready to question the right and even the necessity for the British to rule Kenya. There was even wide consensus among all British groups on the beneficence of the settlers. The voluminous testi­ mony of Britishers before the Joint Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament revealed that almost all Europeans living in Kenya be­ lieved that the settlers made major contributions to Kenya's economic development and were essential to the well-being of the African popu­ lation. The testimony of the European witnesses, even those regarded as most sympathetic to the African population, contrasted markedly with that given by the one Kenyan African delegation featuring Mbiu Koinange in which the value of the settlers was much more fundamen­ tally challenged. Finally, the British power elites were inclined to con­ cur that at this early stage of colonial rule the African peoples were best suited for subordinate economic, political, and social roles. Emphasizing the primitiveness of precolonial African life, British lead­ ers felt justified in preparing Africans to be unskilled laborers, minor clerks, artisans, and lower-level bureaucrats in government, business, and church organizations. Indeed, many British officials talked about the destabilizing consequences of too rapid African entry into the modern world. During these four decades of colonial control the Kenya economy and polity reflected the interests and vision of these European power elites. Economically Kenya relied on an agricultural export economy dominated by the European farming community. The state provided much needed assistance in the form of a railway rating policy favoring settler exports, extensive research carried out to facilitate settler agri­ culture and stock-rearing, tariff supports, and the provision of consid­ erable subsidies, especially during the depression. In the 1920s the set­ tler agrarian economy prospered, under the influence of favorable world prices for primary products. But as certain critics had warned, this economic prosperity was delicately balanced, depending, as it did, on far-reaching state assistance and ample supplies of cheap African labor. Moreover, the settlers sought to reap profits sufficient to enable them to enjoy high standards of living when in fact they were often growing crops, like coffee, which the African population could have cultivated had it not been for government injunctions. Hence as the world prices dropped in the 1930s, so declined settler agriculture, and a decade of harsh economic times plagued the European farming community. In the political sphere the settler population was unable to realize

Three Societies in

1939 —357

their cherished ambition to dominate the Kenya Legislative Council. Although they gained elected representatives after World War I, their delegates could always be outvoted by government officials, and all legislation passed by the Legislative Council had to receive the ap­ proval of the Colonial Office. Nevertheless, settler representation far outweighed

that accorded

the other two racial communities—the

Asian and African populations. The Asians had a few seats in the Leg­ islative Council, although often their leaders boycotted elections and Council meetings in protest against racial discrimination. The African population was without any representation of its own people until Eliud Mathu was appointed in 1944. Various reasons were offered for excluding African delegates. The African population was held to be too uneducated and child-like to know their own best self-interest or it was felt that no single individual or small group of leaders could ever adequately represent the ethnically diverse African peoples. In order to provide for a protection of African interests, a missionary was selected in the 1920s to attend the Legislative Council and present the African point of view. J. W. Arthur served in this capacity for a num­ ber of years although he clearly did not distinguish himself for defend­ ing and presenting African points of view. Indeed, until the outbreak of World War II, the only European who vigorously watched over African interests in the Legislative Council was Archdeacon Burns who through his outspoken charges about corruption of chiefs exposed clear abuses in local administration. For this work Burns was attacked and made uncomfortable in the Legislative Council. Most other socalled representatives of African interests in the Legislative Council did little to apprise themselves of African views and were disinclined to disrupt the activities of the Legislative Council by pressing African issues energetically. Socially Kenya was a three-tiered racial society. Europeans, Asians, and Africans lived in separate parts of the same cities. They rarely in­ teracted socially, and perhaps more significantly, their children at­ tended separate schools. In almost all of the decisive spheres of the political economy the Eu­ ropean settler population appropriated the lion's share of the wealth and power leaving the remainder to be squabbled over by the Asian and African peoples. Europeans had huge amounts of excellent land, indeed so much that a great deal went unused. The Asians were effec­ tively precluded from owning land, while the African peoples, al­ though they continued to possess some excellent lands, could expand their tribal reserves only with difficulties. Many people, especially the Kikuyu, felt the pressure of limited resources for their expanding pop­ ulations. Although Europeans leveled stinging criticisms at Orr's De-

358—Conclusion

partment of Education, the amount of money expended per head on European children was many times that allotted for Asian and African school-goers. The Europeans, of course, took this disproportion for granted, believing that European schools had the task of preparing the future rulers of Kenya. As a number of investigations demonstrated, the European population was remarkably lightly taxed while the Afri­ cans bore heavy burdens in the hut and poll taxes; yet a large propor­ tion of state revenues was expended for programs of interest to the European community. In short, while the Colonial Office was unwill­ ing to turn the reins of government over to the settlers or to prepare a timetable of decolonization into the hands of the white population, it did allow the implementation of a whole host of educational, eco­ nomic, and fiscal policies which decisively favored the Europeans at the expense of others. The central highlands inhabited by the Kamba, Kikuyu, and Maasai were the geographical heartland of the colonial system. Elevated, cool, and agriculturally productive, this region attracted the bulk of the Eu­ ropean settler farmers. It was here that substantial land alienations occurred. Kenya's leading agricultural exports of coffee and sisal were grown in substantial quantities in this region. Moreover, the mission­ aries, recognizing the economic and political importance of this area, moved into it quickly and in large numbers. Although all three highland communities were caught up in the vor­ tex of the colonial system, they did not have the same colonial experi­ ences. To oversimplify, the Kikuyu proved faster changing than the Kamba and the Maasai. By the outbreak of World War II, the Kikuyu were a major force in Kenya wage laboring; Kikuyu laborers traveled all over the colony in search of work. The Kamba had only begun to enter the labor market in the 1930s while the Maasai remained disin­ terested. The Kikuyu were eager advocates of education and had opened their own schools in protest over government and missionary unresponsiveness. The Kamba and Maasai were much less education­ ally active. As a result of their educational achievements, the Kikuyu entered new bureaucratic and artisan positions open to those trained in the industrial and literary schools run by state and missions. Finally, the Kikuyu spearheaded the nationalist movement to which the Kamba responded only in 1938 and only as a result of a government attempt to destock their reserve. Except for scattered educated Maasai, this community evinced little interest in modern nationalist politics. How then does one account for these wide disparities in the colonial experience of communities living so closely to one another and so closely to all the agencies of colonial influence? To a small extent vari­ ations in the colonial exposure were a factor in these differential pat-

Three Societies in 1939—359 terns. The Kikuyu and Maasai land losses were significantly different. Although the Maasai lost more land than the Kikuyu, they were per­ mitted to move as a tribe, with their institutions still intact, into their new reserve. Moreover, this land, although not nearly as suitable as their old territory, did not force them to abandon their traditional stock-rearing activities and embark upon new economic forms in order to stay alive. Ensconced in their new reserve, the Maasai were also in­ sulated from European influences through a conscious government policy. The Kikuyu, on the other hand, had the very land on which they lived expropriated by European settlers, and many were brusque­ ly turned into an agricultural proletariat on these estates. Although the Kikuyu were given a reserve, their holdings interpenetrated those of the European settlers and brought these two communities into con­ tinuous contact. Another element of difference was the missionary presence which was far more substantial among the Kikuyu than the Maasai and Kamba where the AIM was allowed to reign supreme. But this concentration on the Kikuyu was much more a rational missionary calculation that the Kikuyu were more responsive than a chance occur­ rence which favored the Kikuyu. A more telling reason for the different patterns was the indigenous response to colonial pressures. The institutions and values that these people brought with them into the colonial period shaped their reac­ tion to colonial rule. Everywhere there was widespread resistance to such new colonial activities as wage laboring and Western education, but resistance was undercut in Kikuyu society. Kikuyu colonial chiefs played a major role in compelling people to work for colonial masters, be they the administration or settlers, and many sent children to school. Extraordinary leaders arose, men like Kinyanj ui, Karuri, and Wambugu, to mention only a few. With British backing, they built rough-hewn local organizations, recruiting young men as their agents and rewarding their support with political and economic favors. A number of young Kamba leaders aspired to play the same role, but they failed to create efficient local administrative organs and were not able to remain in power long. Most Maasai leaders spurned collabora­ tion. They found the colonial system and what it asked of them repul­ sive, and they were unwilling to impose its obligations on the people. Moreover, those Maasai leaders willing to lend active cooperation to the British ran amuck with the rest of Maasai society, particularly the warriors who rose in sporadic outbursts of violence in 1918, 1922, and 1935 to register their hostility to reforms sponsored by the British. The early colonial system in Kenya relied so heavily on overt coer­ cion that eventually it generated protest from humanitarian and reli­ gious bodies in Great Britain. Much of this criticism came to a head

360— Conclusion

over labor problems because coercive methods were used to recruit not only labor for government projects but for private employers as well. The Labor Circular No. ι of 1919 became the center of contro­ versy. While it mainly articulated what had been prevailing practice in Kenya, its detailed provisions left little to the imagination. More­ over, coming as it did in 1919 when attitudes toward Africa and Afri­ cans were undergoing change in Great Britain, it aroused a furor of protest which eventually produced some amelioration in labor recruit­ ing practices. Nevertheless by this time other more subtle pressures had come to the fore compelling the Kikuyu in particular to continue to engage in wage laboring and to send their children to school. These were onerous taxes, which by the interwar period had been increased and were carefully collected, an expanding population, and limited land and agricultural possibilities. In the 1920s and 1930s Kikuyu fami­ lies turned to wage employment and education as means whereby they could obtain money for taxes and gain freedom from rural poverty. The colonial system was a set of unequal relationships. Africans served as underpaid unskilled laborers and as subordinate clerks, teachers, and evangelists. The Kikuyu were colonized into these un­ equal relationships more rapidly than their neighbors mainly because various forms of compulsion were brought to bear on their society. Perhaps the inequalities already existing within Kikuyu society before the coming of the British provided the British with a lever by which they could impose their control. Yet there was also a strong movement of opposition to these arrangements which culminated outside the time period of this study in demands for the end of colonialism and the cre­ ation of an independent African state in Kenya. Although much of this early anticolonial sentiment was triggered by personal rivalries and factions borne of colonial rule, its long-term result was a serious chal­ lenge to the colonial system itself.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVES AND MANUSCRIPTS

Government Archives in Kenya and London

These have been a prime source of information for this topic. In London the Public Record Office contained files of the Foreign Office and Colonial Office pertaining to Kenya. The Colonial Office files gave an indispensable overview of colonial administration, and for contro­ versial, specific issues often contained full correspondence collected from diverse sources. The Colonial Office records included corre­ spondence passing between the Governors of Kenya and the Colonial Office. The Kenya archives were much more valuable for obtaining infor­ mation of a local nature, which the Governors did not pass on to Lon­ don. Not all of the correspondence from the early colonial decades has been preserved, but of considerable importance were letters and reports prepared by district and provincial officers. Missionary Archives

Missionary organizations preserved their correspondence, and this material was especially helpful for providing information on educa­ tion. The Papers of J. H. Oldham were of great interest because Old­ ham as the General Secretary of the International Missionary Council was deeply concerned about political, education, economic, and social developments in Africa and had many contacts with government and missionary officials. The letters relating to Kenya were most valuable. The archive of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa, although not yet fully organized, was full of insights into the goals and problems of missionaries in Kenya. The Africa Inland Mission has not organized its historical material and is not open to scholars. But through the kind­ ness of Reverend John Gration, Associate Home Director of the Mis­ sion, I was permitted to see some materials, which Rev. Gration was himself working on. These dealt largely with the AIM activity in Maasailand. a. CMS archives, London b. CSM archives at Edinburgh National Library c. Papers of J. H. Oldham

362—Bibliography

d. Presbyterian Church of East Africa archives, Nairobi e. CMS archives, Nairobi f. Christian Council of Kenya Papers, Nairobi Private Archives and Papers

a. Colonial Research Project, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, England. This is an extensive collection of documents turned over to the li­ brary mainly by British colonial officials, some of them having held high ranking positions, and some of them not. The materials are quite diverse and of different standards. There are diaries, letters, reports, and manuscripts of books. I looked at papers deposited by the follow­ ing persons and organizations: John Ainsworth; Anti-Slavery Society; T.H.R. Cashmore; Robert Coryndon; Francis Hall; Sydney Henn; Elspeth Huxley; R. T. Lambert; Arthur Phillips; and the Turbo-Kipkarren Association. b. Others (x) J. W. Arthur Papers, Edinburgh University Library (2) A. R. Barlow Papers, Edinburgh University Library (3) G. A. Grieve Papers, Edinburgh University Library (4) Η. E. Lambert Papers, University College Library, Nairobi (5) Letters of John Stauffacher to Florence Minch, Nairobi GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS

Annual Reports of the Kenya Colonial Government

These reports, written by the Governors, contain a general overview of economic, social, and political developments for the years, illus­ trated with statistics. Many of them are to be found in the House of Commons Sessional Papers. House of Commons Sessional Papers

These are the reports and correspondence laid before the House of Commons in order to facilitate its debates on colonial matters. In addi­ tion to the Governors' annual reports, these included the reports of royal commissions delegated to examine specific problems and corre­ spondence relating to controversial colonial questions being debated in Parliament. Annual Reports of Kenyan Government Departments

These include reports of the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Native Affairs, Public Health, Public Works, Police, Customs, and so

Bibliography—363

forth as well as the annual report of the Railway Administration. Gov­ ernment departments were required to produce annual reports, detail­ ing the achievements for the year, and these reports, although intended to give a favorable impression, contain a lot of statistical information and insights into government policies and attitudes. INTERVIEWS

An important source of information was the interviews which I car­ ried out in Britain and Kenya. I talked to numerous British and Afri­ can people seeking to fill in gaps in my information and to gain an appreciation of the African perspective on events. I am especially grate­ ful to the many people who were willing to talk with me about the experiences of the past and to share their insight into these events. They outdid themselves in graciousness and warmth, and I take this opportunity to record my appreciation. Rev. E. S. Barnett; Canon T.F.C. Bewes; William Harvey Cantrell; Rev. Linell Davis; J.W.C. Dougall; Mututua ole Gisa; Ole Gilai ole Gisa; Rev. Musa Gitau; Jan Muhammad Gulamhusain; C. S. Hemsted; Mrs. M. C. Hooper; Cyril Hooper; Dr. Clive Irvine; Rev. and Mrs. Norman Johnson; Gkanga Kageche; Kamithi wa Kahui; Thuu Kamau; Rev. Wanyioke Kamawe; Ben ole Kantai; Marius Nganga Karatu; Rev. Obadiah Kariuki; Elijah Kavulu; Chief Moipe ole Kdonyo; David Kimilu; Ntagusa ole Kiok; Simon Kioko; Samuel Kitana; William Kitonga; Josiah Manyaka Kivanguli; Munke ole Koina; Chief Makimei Kuria; Matanya ole Lange; Dr. L.S.B. Leakey; Rev. Paul Lehrer; Chief Kipopo ole Loisa; Rev. Paul Milia ole Magiroi; John Mwea Makola; Eliud Mathu; Canon Paulo Mbatia; Ezekiah Mbuvi; Rev. John Mpaayie; Wanganga Mucai; Zakayo Muigai; Gatundu Muiru; Chief Uku Mukima; Joseph Musila; Reuben Mutuma; Isaac Mwalonzi; Jo­ seph Munyao Mwilu; Daniel Muthengi; Morar Natha; Samuel Ngambi; Senjaura ole Nchoe; Mutankei ole Nchoonka; Dr. K. Ndeti; Kiilu Nginya; James Nzibo Nginya; Kabuch Njiri; Chief Josiah Njonjo; Ole Nkinor; Stephan Sitoya ole Sankan; Ole Sekeyian; Kinyanjui ole Teeka; Kamau wa Thuu; Tiras Waiyaki; Nyarigi Wanioke; Magugu wa Waweru; Rumpeni ole Yiankere. BOOKS CITED IN THE FOOTNOTES

Anderson, John. The Struggle for the School: The Interaction of Mis­ sionary, Colonial Government, and Nationalist Enterprise in the De­ velopment of Formal Education in Kenya. London, 1970. Cagnolo, C. The Akikuyu. Turin, 1933.

364—Bibliography

Eliot, Sir Charles. The East African Protectorate. London, 1905. Ghai, Y. P., and McAuslan, J.P.W.B. Public Law and Political Change in Kenya: A Study of the Legal Framework of Government from Colonial Times to the Present. London, 1970. Gregory, Robert G. India and East Africa, A History of Race Rela­ tions within the British Empire, 1890-1939. Oxford, 1971. Hill, M. F. The Permanent Way: The Story o,f the Kenya and Uganda Railway. Nairobi, 1949. Hobley, C. W. Ethnology of Akamba and Other East African Tribes. Cambridge, 1910. Huntingford, G.W.B. The Nandi of Kenya: Tribal Control in a Pas­ toral Society. London, 1953. . The Southern Nilo-Hamites: Ethnographic Survey of Africa. Ed. Daryll Forde. London, 1953. Huxley, Elspeth. No Easy Way: A History of the Kenya Farmers' As­ sociation and Unga Limited. Nairobi, 1957. . White Man's Country: Lord Delamere and the Making of Kenya. 2 vols. London, 1935. Jones, Thomas Jesse. Education in East Africa: A Study of East, Cen­ tral, and South Africa by the Second African Education Commission under the Auspices of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, in Cooperation with the International Education Board. New York, 1924. Kenya Empire Exhibition Council, Kenya, its Industries, Trade, Sports, and Climate. Nairobi, 1924. Kenyatta, Jomo. FacingMt. Kenya. New York, 1963. King, Kenneth James. Pan-Africanism and Education: A Study of Race Philanthropy and Education in the Southern States of America and East Africa. Oxford, 1971. Leys, Norman. Kenya. London, 1924. Lindblom, Gerhard. The Akamba: An Ethnological Monograph, Archives d'Etudes Orientales. Vol. 17. Paris, 1920. Lugard, Captain F. D. The Rise of Our East African Empire. 2 vols. London, 1893. MacDonald, Major J.R.L. Soldiering and Surveying in British East Africa. London, 1897. Mangat, J. S. A History of the Asians in East Africa c. 1886 to 1945. Oxford, 1969. Meinertzhagen, Colonel R. Kenya Diary, 1902-1906. London, 1957. Merker, M. Die Masai: Ethnographische Monographie einer ostafrikanischen Semiten-volkes. Berlin, 1910. Mungeam, Gordon. British Rule in Kenya 1895-1912: The Establish­ ment of Administration in the East Africa Protectorate. Oxford, 1966. Murray-Brown, Jeremy. Kenyatta. London, 1972.

Bibliography—365

Orr, J. B., and Gilks, J. L. Studies of Nutrition: The Physique and Health of Two African Tribes. London, 1931. Phillips, Arthur. Report on Native Tribunals. Nairobi, 1944. Rosberg, Carl, and Nottingham, John. The Myth of "Mau Mau"; Na­ tionalism in Kenya. New York, 1966. Ross, W. McGregor. Kenya from Within: A Short Political History. London, 1927. Sandford, Sir G. An Administrative and Political History of the Masai Reserve. London, 1919. Sorrenson, M.P.K. Land Reform in the Kikuyu Country. London, 1967. . The Origins of European Settlement in Kenya. Nairobi, 1968. Thomson, Joseph. Through Masailand: A Journey of Exploration among the Snowclad Volcanic Mountains and Strange Tribes. New York, 1885. Thuku, Harry. An Autobiography. Nairobi, 1970. Welbourn, F. B. East African Rebels: A Study of Some Independent Churches. London, 1961.

THE FOLLOWING NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS WERE USED EXTENSIVELY

Africa Inland Mission, Inland Africa. Africa Inland Mission, Hearing and Doing. African Studies. American Anthropologist. Annales de la Propagation de la Foi. Church of Scotland Mission, Kikuyu News. East African Standard. Gospel Message. Herald of Life. Journal of African History. Journal of the African Society. Les Missions Catholiques. Man. Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie.

INDEX

Advisory Committee on Education in the Colonies, 212 Africa Inland Mission, 5, 58; and chiefs, 227; and female circumcision, 235-254, 336-337; education, 215, 262; Kamba

Barlow, A. R., 241, 256, 259, 307 Barth, J. W., 161 Beech, M.W.H., 27, 49, 54 Belfield, Henry, 23, 291; and labor, 154, 157-158, 160, 164

education, 135-136, 273-287; Kikuyu

Bell, H. R., 79, 82

education, 132-135, 222, 257-258;

Bishops Memorandum, 167-168

landholdings, 128-129; Maasai educa­

Biss, E. E., 213

tion, 137-144; organization of, 116-

Bowring, C. C., 63, 109, 160, 206

124, 126

Bowring Committee, 146, 148

African Independent Pentecostal Church, 270

Boyes, John, 46-47, 130 Brandsma, Father, 109

African Orthodox Church, 270

Brereton, Captain, 282

African Veterinary Center, 283

British East Africa Maize Association,

age grades, 11-14, 5 8 ~59. 73~75. 88-89,

303 Brooke-Popham, R., 344-345

95 Agricultural Advances Ordinance, 187

Burns, G., 48, 54-55

agriculture, 8-9, 25-26, 97-99, 145-15 1 .

Buxton, Clarence, 84, 91, 237, 327, 344 Byrne, J. W., 174, 188

186-189, 288-309

ahoi,

29, 49, 65-66, 307-308

Ainsworth, J. B., 137 Ainsworth, John, 19, 46, 138, 203, 290, 307, 313; and Christianity, 207; and female circumcision, 237; and reserves,

Cagnolo, C., 116 Campbell, H. D., 123-124, 215, 278 Campbell, W.F.G., 61, 274, 337 Carnegie Foundation, 217

32, 39; and settler landholding, 30;

Cavendish-Bentinck, F. W., 188

Labor Circular No. 1 of 1919, 154-158,

Cavendish-Bentinck, H., 168-169

167, 169-170, 172-173 Alexander, William, 270

Chamier, A. E., 207

Allen, B. G., 109

Champion, A. M., 162, 220

Allen, Kenneth, 246, 257-258 Allgeyer, Monsignor, 115

chiefs, 3, 7, 11-12; and corruption, 53-

Chamberlain, Robert, 23, 33

Alliance of Protestant Missions, 168

56; and education, 51-53, 130-131; and the Kikuyu Association, 227-235; and the Kikuyu Central Association,

Amery, L. S., 168-169

245, 249-250; and labor recruitment,

Anderson, E.L.B., 54 Anderson, M. S., 125-126

47, 100-105, 108-110, 153, 164-175, 181-182; and political rivalry, 56-58;

Apindi, Samuel, 53

and traditional institutions, 58-59;

Alliance High School, 216-218, 258, 267

Arthur, J. W., 31, 109, 142, 163; and

and tribal retainers, 48; Kamba

education, 211, 213, 259; and female

chiefs, 59-63, 66, 71-72; Kikuyu chiefs,

circumcision, 236, 241-244; and Labor

11-12, 45-59, 65-71, 104-110, 130-

Circular No. 1 of 1919, 167-168, 172

131, 164-175, 181-182, 227-235, 245, 247-250; landholdings, 49; Maasai

athamaki,

45, 58

chiefs, 63-65, 67; powers of, 42-45 Bagge, S., 33-34, 37 Baillie, A., 101

Church, A. F., 109

Baker, A. G., 28

Church Missionary Society, 5, 347; and

Bangert, W. G., 136

Churchill, Winston, 44, 173 chiefs, 51; and female circumcision,

368—Index Church Missionary Society (cont.) 235-250; and Harry Thuku, 234; and Kikuyu education, 113, 131, 216, 219225, 269; and landholding, 129 Church of Scotland Mission, 5; and chiefs, 51; and education, 203, 208, an, 216; and female circumcision, 235-250; and Kikuyu education, 113, 126-130, 134, 219-225, 262, 269; and Maasai education, 142 circumcision, 10, 74, 83, 235-254 coffee, 26, 98, 147, 186-187, 291-293 Cole, B., 34 Collective Punishment Ordinance, 75-76 Consolata Fathers, 115-116, 126, 128, 131, 222

Convention of Associations, 108, 154, Cooke, S. V., 182 cooperatives, 299-300 corruption, 53-56, 60 Coryndon, R. T., 145, 163 councils of elders, 11-14 Cowdry, Ε. V., 321 Crewe-Read, E. C., 108 Crop and Livestock Ordinance, 301, Crown Lands Ordinance, 30 Cunliffe-Lister, Phillip, 300

188

and Kikuyu, 9, and

Maasai, 9, 78-80, 137-144, 279-287; missionary attitudes toward, 209-211, 215; recruitment of school children, 128-135; settler attitudes toward, 209-211, 218-219

elders, 11 -14,

44. 58-59-

6

3> 74-75'

81-82

Eliot, Charles, 22, 33 Employment of Juveniles Ordinance, '94-195 Employment of Servants Ordinance, 194-195 Enoch, 139-141, 279, 280 Eulele, 65 E-Unoto ceremony, 35, 74-75, 80, 83, 87

European and African Traders Orga­ nization, 210 Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Leipzig, 124-125, 136-137 famine, 11, 16 Fazan, S. H., 178, 339

Damat, 33 Dass, Isher, 347 Daubney, R., 327 Deck, S. F., 38 Delamere, Lord, 101, 109, 142, 154, 293; and African education, 209-211, 225; and European agriculture, 98, 148; and land, 23-24, 33-34; and the Maasai, 82 Denham, E. B., 219 Department of Agriculture, 147, 290, 294. 3'!-327 Department of Education, 111, 133, 204-225, 255-287

Dick, Andrew, 20 Doherty, A. G., 318 Dokolani, 33 Dougall, J.W.C., 217 Downing, Lee, 132, 138, Dundas, C. C., 27

137, 206, 273-279;

128-135, 219-225, 229, 255-272;

241, 250

East African Association, 230-235 East African Carrier Corps, 61, 165 East African Syndicate, 33, 37 east coast fever, 36, 311-317, 320-324, 329 education, 5, 9; administrators' attitudes toward, 213-216; African attitudes toward, 127-128; and Kamba, 9, 135-

191, 195, 197,

245,

259. 297

Felling, C.L.N., 148, 209-210, 223 female circumcision, 10, 235-254 Field Jones, A., 166 Flemmer, A. S., 23, 33 Fraser, J. Nelson, 134 Gacui, Hezekiah, 272 gallsickness, 322 Gare, S. G., 293 Gathecha, 105 Gathingo, 232 Gilk, J. L., 311 Girouard, Percy, 33 Gitau, Musa, 135, 142, 245 Gitau l Samuel, 243 Goldfinch, G. H., 131 Gospel Missionary Society, 5, 121; and chiefs, 51; and female circumcision, 235-250; and Harry Thuku, 227-228, 233; and Kikuyu education, 257, 262," and landholding, 129-130; organi­ zation of, 125-126 Grannum, R. C., 209 Gray, H. W., 175 Griffiths, J., 317 Grigg, Edward, 188, 340; and education, 261; and Kikuyu Central Association, 247-249; and labor, 174-175; and settlers, 24-25 Guru Guru, 19

Index—369 Hall, Daniel, 292 Hall, Francis, 16, 19, 21 Hall Agricultural Commission, 292, 320, 325. 340 Hammond, F. D., 147-148 Hardinge, A., 313 Harrison, E. J., 136 Hemsted, R. W „ 36, 78-81, 91 Henderson, John, 126, 236 Hobley, C. W., 75 Hollis, A. C., 34, 100, 104 Holm, A., 318 Holy Ghost Fathers, 113-115, 128, 222 Hooper, H. D., 172, 235 Hornby, H. E., 315-316 Home, E. B., 54 Horton, Rose, 277 Horton, T . C„ 118 Hurlburt, C. E., 129, 215; and African education, 122-124, 133; organization of the Africa Inland Mission, 117119, 121-122 Iloikop, 13 Imperial British East Africa Company, 16, 18-19, 22, 46, 60, 154 Indians; and commerce, 298-304, 326-327; and labor, 96-97, 208-210, 223-224 Irvine, Clive, 243 ithaka, 27-28 Jackson, F., 28, 33, 37 Jeanes Schools, 216-217 Johnston, C. F., 40, 275-279 Johnston, Harry, 22 kaffir farming, 106-110, 160-164, 192 Kagumo school, 262-265, 271, 272 Kakonyukie, 33, 139 Kala, Jonathon, 62 Kamba, 17; agriculture, 330;' chiefs, 59-63; destocking, 9-10, 331-354; education, 9, 135-137, 206, 273-279; female circumcision, 336-337; labor, 108, 174, 178, 196; land losses, 39-41; nationalism, 331-354; resistance, 19-20, 331-354! stockrearing, 9, 310-354; traditional institutions, 12-13 Kangau, 220 Kangethe, Joseph, 239-240, 246, 248-249 Kaputiei, 16, 21, 33, 63-64, 142 Karanja, Philip, 51, 54, 227, 231 Karuri, 22, 46, 113, 115, 130-131 Kavirondo, 77 Kavulu, Elijah, 346-347 Kenya Farmers Association, 303

Kenya Land Commission, 30, 32, 53, 188, 323, 329, 344; and Kamba, 325, 340; and Kikuyu, 106, 195, 297; and Maasai, 16, 37-38, 90-91 Kenya Sisal Company, 190 Kenyatta, Jomo, 231, 239, 245-247, 307, 347 kiama, 45, 58-59, 132 Kiamba, 333-334 Kibarabara, 46-47 Kibathi, 233 Kijabe, 132, 133, 219, 236, 240 Kikuyu, 10; agriculture, 8-9, 12, 288309; chiefs, 11-12, 45-59, 104-110, 130-131, 164-175, 181-182, 227-235, 245, 247-250; education, 9, 128-135, 219-225, 229, 255-272; female circumcision, 235-250; labor, 103-107, 164-166, 175-177. 181-185, 190-196; land, 12, 26-32, 128-130, 229-230, 239, 307-309; livestock, 12; nationalism, 10, 226-250; resistance, 18-19; squatters, 29-32, 103-110, 160-164, 176177, 191-194, 245; traditional institutions, 7, 11-12, 58-59 Kikuyu Association, 227-235, 242, 245, 255 Kikuyu Central Association, 57-58, 177, 303, 307, 331; and education, 256; and female circumcision, 235-250; and Kamba, 337, 346-347 . 351-352 Kikuyu Independent Schools Association, 58, 270-272 Kikuyu Karinga, 270-272 Kilonzi, Ali, 336 Kimurai, 79, 85 Kindi, Tagi Olobosiokiole, 141, 279, 280 Kinyanjui, 19; and corruption, 53-54; and Kikuyu Association, 229, 232; and labor recruitment, 105; control of Kiambu district, 57; landholdings, 49; rise of, 21-22, 45-46 Kioi, 22, 46, 49, 105, 130, 220 Kioko, Simon, 346-347 kipande, 159-160, 229 Kitonga, William, 348 Kivoi, 13 Knapp, W. P. and Mrs., 125-126, 224, 228, 243 Koinange, 48, 245; and coffee cultivation, 291; and education, 258, 264; and Kikuyu Association, 227; and labor recruitment, 182; and land, 177; rise of, g 1-54, 231 Koitalei, 21 Krapf, J., 13 Krieger, F. W., 129-130

370—Index Kungu, 58 Kuntai ole Sangale, 81 labor, 7, 43-44; and Kamba, 108, 174, 178, 196; and Kikuyu, 103-107, 164166, 175-177, 181-185, 190-196; and laboring conditions, 179-181, 189-190, 198-202; and Maasai, 84, 108, 177-178, 196-197; and settler agriculture, 9899, 145-151, 186-189; and the railway, 95-98, 151-152; and taxation, 182-185; labor policy, 99-103, 108-110, 1 5 2 - 1 75> >92-195: squatting, 29-32, 99, 103-110, 160-164, 176-177, 191194; strikes, 198-202 Labor Circular No. 1 of 1919, 8, 164-175 Labor Commission, 109-110, 157, 159, 160, 164 LaFontaine, S. H., 350-351 laibon, 13-14, 21, 79, 85 laigwenani, 63, 85 Lambert, H. E., 66, 241 land, 22-25, 128-130; Kamba losses of, 33-39; Kikuyu losses of, 26-32; losses of, 4, 15, 41-42; Maasai losses of, 26-32 Land and Agricultural Bank, 187-188 Land Committee of 1905, 99 Lane, G.A.G., 106 Langridge, 333 Lawford, 165-166 layok, 87 Leakey, Harry, 28, 104-106, 227, 235, 242, 291, 329 Legemojik ole Nakorodo, 64-65 Legislative Council, 18, 101, 147, 158159, 160, 162, 163, 187, 192, 209, 212, 219. 273, 301. S ^ 1 8 - 35° Lekimani, Paul, 142 Lewis, E. A., 38, 321 Leys, Norman, 152, 156, 172, 180-181 Liebermann, Francois, 113 Liebigs, 343-347 Lightbody, L. J., 49 Lindblom, Gerald, 332, 336 Linfield, F. C „ 325 local native councils, 44-45, 59, 61, 65, 132, 258-267 Loita, 33, 63 Los Angeles Bible School, 118, 120 Low, H. H., 63 Lugard, Lord, 18-19, 22, 261 Lumbwa, 77 Luo, 181-185 Maasai, 16-17, 73-93; chiefs, 63-65; edu-

cation, 8-9, 78-80, 137-144, 279-287; female circumcision, 250-254; labor, 84, 108, 177-178, 196-197; land losses, 33-39; stockrearing, 9, 310-327; traditional institutions, 13-14, 72-75; warriors, 35, 63, 74-93, 196-197, 285-287 MacDonald, A., 204 MacGregor, A. W., 113, 131 Machakos Industrial School, 206, 273-275 Macharia wa Kinungi, 28 Mackinnon, William, 18 Magadi Soda Company, 108, 178 Magugu, 54 Mahir, Colin, 342 maize, 26, 98, 146-149, 151, 186-189, 294-297. 301-306, 330 Makerere College, 265, 267 manyatta, 74, 80-81, 85, 87 Mararo, 46 marketing, 299-309 Masikonte, 33-39, 64-65, 81-82, 142, 251-252, 280 Masters and Servants Ordinance, 102103, 152-153, 160-164, 166-167 Matanta, 251-252 Matapatu, 16, 33 Mathanjini family, 57-58, 239 Mathu, Eliud, 266 Maxwell, G. V., 162-163, 210 mbari, 65-66 Mbatia, Paulo, 131 Mbatian, 13 Mboya, Paulo, 266 McCall, F. J., 323 McClure, H. R., 34, 132 McKenrick, F., 48, 132, 172 Meat and Livestock Committee, 343 Menon, 301 Mimi, 105 missionaries, 5, 51, 111-144, 203-225, 233-254, 255-287 Mombasa strike of 1939, 199-202 Monson, W. J., 96^-97 Moody, Dwight, 116 Moody Bible Institute, 119, 280 Morris, E. G., 265-267 Mucai, Joshua, 257 Muchuchu, Job, 229, 240 Mugekenyi, George, 229, 235 Muigwithania, 239, 249, 347 Muindi, Samuel, 346-347, 350 Mukeke wa Ngwili, 334 Mukoma, 46, 54, 106 Mukuna, Kamisi, 40 Mungai, Ismail, 229

Index—371 muthirigo, 245, 248-249 Mutua, James, 40, 53, 62, 341 Muturi, 53, 220 Mwalonxi, Isaac, 346-347 Mwangi, Henry, 240 Mwanthi, James, 62, 336 Naiolang, 281 Nandi, 21, 88, 90 nationalism, 10--11, 226-254, 331-354 Native Authority Ordinance, 43-44, 152-153. l 6 4 . )7°-'74- 248, 274 Native Industrial Training Depot, 31, 206, 2io, 216-217, 266 Native Registration Ordinance, 159-160 native tribunals, 44-45, 59, 65, 132, 247 Ndelai, 281 Nderi, 47 Ndonye wa Kauti, 334-336 Nduba, 351 Nduini, 47 Ngaroya, 63 Nixon, H. S., 279 Njiri, 57-58, 105, 239 Njonjo, Josiah, 51, 54, 227, 231, 232 Njoroge, Matthew, 232 Njunu family, 31-32 Nolmisheni, 252-253 Northcote, G.A.S., 52, 105, 290 Northey, Edward, 145, 147, 154, 158, 168-169, 208 Northwestern College, 120, 137 Nthiwa, 60 Oimeru ole Masikonte, 84, 251-252 Oldfield, H. G., 181-182 Oldham, T . H., 171-173 Ole Gelishu, 33-39, 63-65, 77, 8i, 83, 89 Oliver, R.A.C., 260 ol-Ngesherr, 74 Olonana, 13, 16, 21, 33-39. 6 3. 75. 138 Ormsby-Gore Commission, 23, 255, 292, 3 2 4-3 2 5. 339 Orr, J. R „ 133, 204-225, 255, 273-274, 3" Osborne, G. H., 60-61 O'Shea, T . J., 219 Owen, W. E., 215 pacification, 6, 15-22 Palmer, O. R., 123 Pandya, J. B., 301 Passfield, Lord, 247 Pennsylvania Bible Institute, 117, 119 People's Church of Christ, New Britain, Connecticut, 125-126 Perlo, R. P., 115

Phelps-Stokes Commission, 212, 217 Philadelphia Missionary Council, 117, 121 Philp, H.A.R., 236, 241, 256 Plateau Maize Growers Association, 303 pleuropneumonia, 311, 315-317, 320-324 Pokot, 93 Pole Evans, I. B., 342 population growth, 8, 305 Proctor, B.A.W., 238 Progressive Kikuyu Party, 240, 256 Purko, 16, 21, 33-39, 63-65, 74, 77-87 pyrethrum, 26, 189 Qumata, 19-20, 41 railway, 22, 94-96, 103, 146-148, 150, 174, 178, 208, 223, 295 Rampley, W. F., 241, 248 red water sickness, 322 Regiru, Barnaba, 269 Resident Native Laborers Ordinance, 160-164, 177, 192-194 resistance, 4, 10-11, 15-22, 226-254, 33 1 -354 Rhoad, G. W., 40, 122, 215, 275 rinderpest, 11, 15-16, 75, 311-313, 315, 3 l 7 . 3!9-324 Ross, W. McGregor, iog Rutherford, C. D., 98 Sadler, Hayes, 100-101 Sandford, G., 92 Scott, Francis, 293 Scott, H. S., 217, 219, 259-267, 285 Scott, Henry, 31, 134, 208 Scott, Peter Cameron, 116-117, 121, 135-136 Scott, Ruffele, 31 Seggi, 63, 142 Sempele, Molonket ole, 139-141, 251-254, 279, 280 Senteu, 13, 75, 138 settlers; and agriculture, 25-26, 97-99, 145-151, 186-189, 3 1 3~3 1 5. 342-344; and education, 208-212, 218-219; and labor, 94, 97-103, 107, 108-110, 153, 160-170, 193-194; and land, 15, 22-28 Shaffer, Roy, 254, 280-281 Shaffer, Ruth, 254, 280-281 Shams ud Deen, 209, 301 Shanga, Josiah, 139-141 Sheti, Arthur, 137 Shiels, T . Drummond, 247-249 Sigarai, 33 Simpson, Bertha, 141 Siotune, 333-334

372—Index Siria, 36, 63 sisal, 26, g8, 147, 151, 186-189 slavery, 96 smallpox, 16 Smith, Roland, 123 soil erosion, 305-307 soldier settlement scheme, 23-24 Somalis, 96 squatters, 29-32, 99, 103-110, 160-164, 176-177, 191-194 Starr, Richard, 228 Stauffacher, Florence Minch, 137-144, 250-254 Stauffacher, John, 33, 122, 129, 137-144, 250-254. 279-281. 289-290 Stevenson, Marian, 172, 203, 220, 241 Stock and Theft Ordinance, 75-76 stockrearing, 310-354 Stone, R. G., 238 strikes, 198-202 Stumpf, Hulda J., 236-237, 246, 284-285 Swift, T . R., 98 Tairaro, Abdullah, 229 tariffs, 146, 148-149 Tate, H. R., 165, 175, 203 taxation, 8, 43, 84, 90, 94-95, 182-185, ^ 9 . 333 tea, 26, 151 Thathi wa Mbathe vs. Rex, 161 Thika Farmers Association, 166 Thogoto, 31, 113, 130, 134, 211, 219-221, 227, 236, 240, 244, 256, 262 Thomson, Joseph, 73 Thuku, Harry, 46, 125, 159, 226-235, 255. 257. 331. 336 tribal retainers, 48, 53-56, 60-62 Troughton, J.F.G., 344 trypanosomiasis, 311-312, 320-324 tsetse fly, 312, 321-322

Library

of Congress

Cataloging

Tumu Tumu, 113, 131, 203, 219-221, 240, 243, 256, 262 Ukamba Members Association, 347-349 utui, 66 Vidal, M.R.R., 203, 242 Vint, F. W., 260 Wade, A. de V., 30 Waechter, A. F„ 136-137 wage laboring, 5, 8, 95, 98-110, 145-202 wages, 152 Waiganjo wa Ndotono, 48-49, 229-230, 233- 235 Wainaina, Zefania, 269 Wakibati, Kitia, 40 Wambugu, 22, 28, 47, 50 Wambura, Zacharia, 269 Wanduli, Dunda, 40 Wangombe, 290 Wanyoike, 228, 232 warriors, 11-14, 35, 63, 74-93. 1 96-197, 285-287 Waruhiu wa Kungu, 51, 125, 227, 231 Watt, Stuart, 40 wattle, 296-297, 305-306 Watts, G. K., 34 Waweru, 105, 130, 228 Wayaki, 12, 18-19, 46 Wedgewood, J. C., 169 Weithaga, 113, 131, 219, 234, 238 Wessels, M. H., 109 wheat, 26, 98, 147, 151, 186-187 Whitehouse, G., 96 Whitehouse, L. E., 282-283 Willan, H. C„ 192 William, Godfrey, 109 Young Kikuyu Association, 229

in Publication

Data

Tignor, Robert L T h e colonial transformation of Kenya. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Kenya—History. tribe.

4. Masai.

DT433.575.T53 ISBN 0-691-03103-7

2. Kamba tribe.

3. Kikuyu

I. Title.

967-6'203

75-3479