mau mau rebellion presentation

Mau Mau Rebellion

Causes

#1 – Economic Deprivation

•1.25 million (Black) Kikuyu lived on 2,000 square miles

- 625 Kikuyu per sq. mile30,000 settlers (White) lived on 12,000 square miles

- 2.5 settlers per sq. mile

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#2 – Kikuyu Central Association

•Formed in the 1920s to present Kikuyu concerns to the British colonial governmentBanned in 1940Regrouped in the late 1940s to organize a campaign of civil disobedience

#3 – EATUC and “Forty Group”

•East African Trade Union Congress (EATUC)

•Organized strikes that shut down Nairobi and Mombasa

•Worked with the “Forty Group” and Jomo Kenyatta, leader of the Kenya African Union

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#4 – Legislative Council Closeout

•30,000 White settlers had reps

•100,000 South Asians had reps

•24,000 Arabs had rep

•5,000,000 Africans had reps

Effects

#1: Mass Arrests

•100 Mau Mau leaders were arrested

–Including Jomo Kenyatta•8,000 people were arrested in the first 25 days of the “Kenya Emergency”

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#2: High Casualties• British government claims 11,000 Kenyan were killed Scholars place the estimate at anywhere between 20,000 and 100,000 Over 1,000 hangings for murder or illegal possession of a weapon

#3: Atrocities“I stuck my revolver right in his grinning mouth and I said something, I don’t remember what, and I pulled the trigger. His brains went all over the side of the police station. The other two Mickeys [Mau Mau] were standing there looking blank. I said to them that if they didn’t tell me where to find the rest of the gang I’d kill them too. They didn’t say a word so I shot them both. One wasn’t dead so I shot him in the ear. When the sub-inspector drove up, I told him that the Mickeys tried to escape. He didn’t believe me but all he said was 'bury them and see the wall is cleared up.‘”

Effects