maiming squatter stock, and strikes were some of the ways in which the squatters made their presence felt in the White Highlands and in which they refused to succumb to coercion. The kifagio assault, however, which drastically reduced squatter wealth, represented a highpoint in the settlers’ campaign against the squatters and cast doubts on the viability of any long-term squatter settlement in the White Highlands.
The squatters endeavoured to make their stay in the White Highlands as comfortable as they possibly could, given the settlers’ attempts to eliminate independent squatter production and to proletarianise the squatter labour force. Chapter Three looks at the social organisation of the squatter community. It examines how disputes and social issues were mediated through the elders’ councils (ciama), how circumcision rites were continued as a basis of social acceptance and, most important, how squatter self-help organisations provided schools for their children. The chapter also highlights the blatant subordination of labour to capital by illustrating how the education of squatter children was seen to interfere with the settlers’ demands for child labour and how the settlers therefore ensured that the squatters’ educational programmes were adjusted to accommodate what they considered their (the settlers’) prior claim to the children’s time.
The colonial government also placed unreasonable obstacles in the path of the squatters’ educational endeavours. Permission to run schools was denied on the grounds that the required standards were not being met, or because they were suspicious of the organisers’ political affiliations. And yet, until the late 1930s, the government made no provisions for the education of squatter children. In their educational endeavours the squatters had to contend with opposition of different kinds from both the settlers and the colonial government.
The settlers constantly pushed the colonial government into enacting more and more legislation to control labour, with a consequent progressive infringement of the squatters’ freedom. But each measure, including the RNLOs of 1918, 1924 and 1925, failed in one form or another to satisfy the settlers who continued to clamour for ever more stringent measures.
The enactment of the 1937 RNLO,10 however, surpassed all other labour legislation and dealt a deathblow to squatter and settler communities alike by virtually transferring responsibility for squatter labourers from the government to settler-controlled District Councils. It gave settlers extensive powers over squatters and their welfare. As Chapter Three illustrates, this Ordinance had far-reaching effects and its enactment was a clear indication of the government’s abdication of its responsibilities towards the squatters. The Ordinance allowed settlers to restrict or eliminate the number of squatter livestock, the acreage of squatter cultivation and the number of squatters per farm. In effect, it empowered settlers to enforce draconian measures against their squatter labour. The chapter records the subsequent disruption of the squatter economy, with the resultant anger and frustration which led to massive squatter resistance and politicisation.
Squatter politicisation was greatly enhanced by the Olenguruone crisis.11 A direct product of the 1937 RNLO, the Olenguruone scheme accommodated some of the squatters evicted under the provisions of the Ordinance. Olenguruone became a hotbed of Kikuyu squatter opposition to government measures and a rallying point for Kikuyu political mobilisation. Chapter Four tries to evaluate the significance of Olenguruone amidst growing squatter agitation and dissent. It was at Olenguruone that the use of the oath as a tool for massive mobilisation was initiated as squatters and Olenguruone residents accelerated their struggle against ‘the slavery of the White Highlands’. This laid the foundations for the Mau Mau rebellion.
It is a firm conviction of this study that Kikuyu squatters played a crucial role in the initial build-up of the events that led to the outbreak of the Mau Mau war. Pushed to the wall, squatters became easy targets for political mobilisation and by 1950 most Kikuyu squatters in Nakuru District had taken both the Olenguruone oath of unity and the Kikuyu Central Association oath of loyalty. Both oaths demanded a commitment to opposing the government. On settler farms and estates, acts of sabotage, including maiming settler stock, intimidation and killing squatters opposed to anti-settler and anti-government activities, were on the increase prior to the declaration of the state of emergency. Chapter Five, which explains the socio-economic basis of Mau Mau amongst the squatters, argues that there was a strong correlation between a squatter’s socio-economic status (within the farm labour hierarchy) and his or her response to the Mau Mau movement. It also reveals the expansionist aspect of the struggle in that squatter freedom fighters had anticipated appropriating the White Highlands from the European settlers. The squatters were not, however, the only people with a claim to the area, but their prowess, as evidenced in the struggle for the White Highlands, can partly be explained by their custodial attitude towards other groups with a stake in the region.
In the final chapter, a bird’s-eye view of the decolonisation process provides the context in which the squatters experienced their ultimate disinheritance. The terms of the independence settlement were decided at the Lancaster House talks,12 where it was agreed that land in the White Highlands would be released on a ‘willing seller, willing buyer’ basis. The question of a free distribution of land was covered by the talks only in so far as it could be used as a stop-gap measure to forestall the illegal occupation of settler land. Post Mau Mau political mobilisation among the squatters under the Kenya Land Freedom Army (KLFA) is of special interest because, although decolonisation was orchestrated in London away from the forest battlegrounds, KLFA members were committed to resuming the armed struggle should decolonisation fail to give them free land. Although some may view their stand as evidence of political naivety, it does at least indicate the determination of these people to attain the means with which to acquire a decent livelihood. Their sense of betrayal is well documented by the former freedom fighters.
By and large, this book is about squatters and labour. Oral data collected from former squatters were used extensively in reconstructing the history of the period and were particularly useful in revealing the aspirations, expectations, attitudes, motives and responses of squatters under settler domination. Such insights are obviously lacking in official documents, but these were nevertheless invaluable for establishing government and settler positions on various issues. They were also useful for substantiating some of the squatters’ own accounts and provided sources of quantitative data, which is impossible to retrieve with any precision from oral interviews. Although it was difficult to locate people who had been among the pioneer squatters, once they were located these informants proved invaluable in describing early squatter-settler relations. Former squatters who moved to the White Highlands during and after the First World War were easier to locate and interview. Together, these informants were crucial in the writing of this book – a study of squatter experiences as recounted by the squatters themselves.
Notes
1. KNA, PC RVP 6A/16/4, Minutes of the meeting in the Ministry of Local Government, Health and Housing on 16 November 1955, between Representatives of the Government and Representatives of the Nakuru County Council.
2. For the nature and extent of land alienation see Sorrenson, M.P.K., The Origins of European Settlement in Kenya, London, OUP, 1968.
3. See, for example, Mwangi-Wa-Githumo, Land and Nationalism: The Impact of Land Appropriation and Land Grievances upon the Rise and Development of Nationalist Movements in Kenya, 1885–1939, Washington, D.C., University Press of America, 1981.
4. In general, the establishment of colonial rule in Africa necessitated the generation of labour both for the administration of the colony and for the maintenance of the economy therein. See Sandbrook, R. and Cohen, R. (eds), The Development of an African Working Class, London, Longman, 1975, p. 15.
