Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963. Tabitha Kanogo
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if to clinch the point, Ngari recollected the Biblical story in which Noah sent a dove to survey the possibility of locating dry land. On spotting the land, the dove remained on the dry land (to eat of it) and did not relay the message to Noah. See Genesis 8: 6–12.
102. Interview, Arphaxad Kiiru Kuria, 21 September 1976, Elburgon.
103. As early as 1910, however, the ahoi’s traditional rights to cultivate and occupy land were already decreasing, largely because of land shortage. See Muriuki, History of Kikuyu, p. 174.
104. ibid., p. 78.
105. Interview, James Mumbu Muya, alias Kinuthia Muya, 14 October 1976, Elburgon. Muya summed up the White Highlands as offering ‘satisfaction of the stomach and livestock’.
106. Mbithi and Barnes, Spontaneous Settlement, p. 147.
107. Interviews, Kihiko Mwega, 25 October 1976, Karanja Kamau, 21 October 1976, Nakuru, Njuguna Kiorogo, 12 October 1976, Nakuru, and Bethuel Kamau, 8 October 1976, Subukia.
108. Kitching, Class and Economic Change, p. 294.
109. Interview, Kimondo Muchemi, 8 October 1976, Subukia.
110. Van Zwanenberg, R. M. A. Colonial Capitalism and Labour in Kenya, p. 231. A 25 per cent drop in wages had reduced their salaries to this low level.
111. ibid, p. 230.
112. KNA, DC NDI 5/2, ‘Returning Squatter Stock from Uasin Ngishu’, Notes from Nandi Political Record Book.
113. KNA, Nandi District Annual Report, year ending 31 March 1914, p. 1.
114. KNA, Nandi Political Record Book, 1916, p. 35.
115. KNA, Nandi Political Record Book, 1916, p. 36.
116. KNA, DC 3/2. Nandi Political Record Book, ‘Cattle Diseases, Veterinary Department Activity among the Nandi Cattle, 1908–1942’.
117. For a discussion of land alienation among the Kipsigis, see Korir, K.M., ‘The Tea Plantation Economy in Kericho District and Related Phenomena to Circa 1976’, BA dissertation, Department of History, Nairobi University, 1976.
118. See Kenya Land Commission: Evidence and Memoranda, pp. 3438, 3441 and the Memorandum from C.M. Dobbs, paragraph 1152.
119. Van Zwanenberg, Colonial Capitalism, p. 234.
120. Interview, Ngugi Kuri Kamore, 10 October 1976, Turi. This should not be taken to mean that all Kikuyu squatters severed all ties with Central Province. The parallel is only a relative one.
Two
Settlers and Squatters: Conflict of Interests 1918–37
No native should be allowed to settle on land held by Europeans, unless bona fide employed by the owner. . . . No renting of land in European occupation should be allowed.1
The European settlers who have invested their fortunes in the country at the invitation of the British government cannot be blamed for demanding native labour. Put in the same situation, the twelve apostles would not have acted otherwise.2
The previous chapter looked at how the European settler demand for labour was to a large extent satisfied through squatterdom rather than wage labour. The evolution of this squatter community was shown to be only marginally related to the labour problem, with the Kikuyu influx to the Settled Areas being mainly in search of sufficient land for grazing and cultivation. As time passed, it became increasingly obvious that the settlers were tolerating squatter cultivation and grazing only as a convenient arrangement while tropical agriculture was in its pioneering stage. But unlike settler agriculture, squatter production was not dependent on capital and therefore thrived while settler agriculture foundered.
In the inter-war period, however, the settlers emerged as a much stronger community determined to consolidate their hold on squatter labour and the productive machinery in the White Highlands. The period marked the beginning of a protracted and overt conflict between settlers and squatters. The settlers believed that, if their economy was to develop, then the government and the squatters must rally behind them. Their priority was to ensure that they had at their disposal a cheap, adequate and controllable supply of labour and this called for the introduction of various labour regulations. In this chapter an attempt will be made to examine how, with the help of the colonial government, the settlers tried to ‘regulate’ squatter labour and how the squatters reacted.
Inherent in the settler programme was the determination to curtail the extensive squatter cultivation and grazing to the immediate needs of squatter households. As well as limiting squatter usage of land in the White Highlands, this would release the squatter for his labour obligations. The measures applied threatened both the economic and the social viability of the squatter community. By overlooking the fact that they only paid minimal wages to squatters, who therefore supplemented their income by cultivation, grazing and trading, settlers dismantled an earlier mutually beneficial relationship and sought to replace it with a set-up which the squatters felt undermined their very raison d’être. Their response was both adamant and tenacious. It comprised outright resistance by way of strikes and illegal squatting, refusal to sign on again, and withdrawal of labour to Central Province and elsewhere.
As early as 1918, in an address to the Acting Chief Secretary on the subject of native cattle on European farms, the Acting Provincial Commissioner for Ukamba doubted ‘if the labour which settlers hope to acquire by means of this inducement, will prove satisfactory’.3 He also feared that Kaffir farming would be practised at every opportunity and that while the sole object of the measure was to provide labour for farms, in his opinion the price was too high. As he put it, ‘There may be some temporary relief but I cannot bring myself sincerely to believe that the policy is one which will prove of ultimate benefit to the country’.4
As well as facing insecurity of tenure and lack of land in the reserves, he viewed the squatters as a great danger. He held that for the 16 years that ‘promiscuous uncontrolled squatting’5 had existed it had been a bad thing but that any attempts to control it by amending legislation would be ‘another sop to Cerberus’. The most permanent solution to the problem would be to pack up the squatters with their families and livestock and send them away from the farms. But since it was unlikely that anybody in the field of practical politics would agree to sponsor such an alternative, he made two other recommendations. The first was that the supervision of squatters and their stock by the then inadequate supply of police and veterinary officials be increased without any need to amend legislation, and the second that a laissez-faire policy be adopted whereby each farmer controlled his squatters as he pleased. The local option would allow the District Council to decide on the number of squatters per farm, whether or not any stock be allowed on the farms, and if so, what kind. Records of these could be kept and provisions made for the branding of squatter stock. The above powers would be enforced by the criminal code, and squatter and occupier could enter a civil contract agreeable to both and attested by the District Commissioner if equitable. The result would be that any breach of contract could be dealt with.6 Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s settlers grappled with the problem of squatter stock, applying variations of Mr Traill’s recommendations in varying proportions, depending on the local conditions and the individual settler occupier. The first regulation provided a legal context for the squatter community.
The 1918 Resident Native Labourers Ordinance (RNLO)
To create a stable and malleable supply of labour for the White Highlands, it was thought necessary to introduce a publicly supervised contract of agricultural labour. This was embodied in the RNLO of 1918, the preamble of which declared that: ‘It is desirable to encourage resident native labour on farms and to take measures for the regulation of squatting or living of natives in places other than those appointed for them by the government of the protectorate’.7 The Ordinance did not create the institution of squatterdom, but rather sought to legitimise it and to provide a legal framework for its social control.
The