Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963. Tabitha Kanogo
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the stock industry could prosper only if squatter stock were eliminated. Squatter stock were carriers of such tick-borne diseases as redwater, blackwater and East Coast fevers – which might infect settler stock.22 They also suffered from rinderpest and bovine pleuro-pneumonia. It was argued too, that the presence of squatter stock would encourage stock theft from settler herds.23 The constant movement of African stock between the White Highlands, Central Province, Maasai Reserve and other African areas only compounded the problem.
But it is important to remember that the squatters regarded their stock as their main form of saving and investment. By the 1920s, the number of squatters and their cattle had increased tremendously. Squatters had concentrated all their energies into accumulating stock, which, until then, had provided the settlers with milk and manure. Some settlers had even built their herds from squatter livestock. In some ways, this arrangement was mutually beneficial to the settler and the squatter. The rapid increase of squatters and their herds was to a large extent an index of squatter autonomy in the White Highlands. Settler attempts to alter the relationship by demanding that the squatters de-stock overlooked the economic and social significance of livestock to squatters’ livelihoods. They were, in fact, far more dependent on their crop yields and livestock than they were on wages, and any money from the sale of surplus crops was almost invariably used to purchase more livestock. The settlers had, so to speak, hit the squatters below the belt.
Despite this, in many areas there was no corresponding rise in squatter wages, which remained static from the mid-1920s to the early 1940s. This was mainly because the ticket system of squatter contracts which was in operation at the time limited how much a squatter could earn. The average wage was eight shillings for a 30-day ticket, but it took an average of 45 days, much longer in some cases, to complete a ticket. Again, on average, a squatter completed only seven tickets per year, even though he might well have worked for the greater part of the year. When an individual squatter’s tax burdens are taken into account, not to mention the various cash fines for ‘crimes’ committed on the job, such as negligence of duty or petty theft, then it becomes clear that even at the best of times a squatter’s income from wages was irregular and minimal. Evidence of these constraints can be found in the labour records of individual squatters, of which three, those of Waweru Wa Munge, his wife (bibi)24 and Kachego Wa Chege,25 are reproduced in tables 2.2 and 2.3.
Kachego Wa Chege’s ticket in the Nakuru area portrays less contingency expenditure but is indicative of how long it took to complete a 30 day ticket. His income between 1926 and 1929 is shown in table 2.3.
There were two major reasons for the tickets taking so long to complete. In the first place, settler labour demands were staggered throughout the year so that a thirty-day contract did not run consecutively, but straggled over a much longer period. In the above case, the six tickets between 28 January and 21 December 1927 covered a period of 322 days, whereas six tickets (the squatter’s minimum obligation to the settler) were only really supposed to comprise 180 working days per year. Second, the squatter might fail to complete what the settler had stipulated as a day’s task within the day. In such cases, the day would not be recorded, thus increasing the days it took to complete a ticket. Njoroge Gakuha illustrated this point twice over. His father was employed at a settler’s farm in Elmenteita. He was required to prepare 60 fencing poles a day. The task, according to Njoroge, required the joint effort of the informant, his father and his mother, if it was to be completed in one day. Failure to complete one’s daily quota of work often meant no wages were recorded for that day.
TABLE 2.2
The second example was drawn from the informant’s own experience. Between 1929 and 1950 he worked as a field hand at Kampi Ya Moto. On a certain Bwana Kamundu’s farm, each labourer was required to weed eight rows of maize plants per day. The task seems to have been an arduous one since it proved impossible to complete in a day, even with somebody else’s help. In Njoroge’s words: ‘If you did not finish [cultivating] the lines, you got the day’s posho but the day was not recorded [for payment]’.26 On completion of some tickets, the squatter would have to go home with a completely empty pay packet, the settler having withheld the money for Hut Tax, fines for petty thefts or crimes, or other expenses.
TABLE 2.3
It was widely acknowledged that squatters were a cheap source of labour and that, by cultivating and grazing on settler land, they were rightfully receiving payment in kind as a supplement for their low wages. Technically, this was contrary to the provisions of the 1926 Employment of Natives Ordinance, which forbade any payments in kind, but the legislation was flagrantly violated. On a Mrs Irvine’s farm in Songhor Valley, for example, the labourers received no pay whatsoever, the only remuneration for their work being ‘the liability accepted by the employer to pay their tax’.27 Because Mrs Irvine grew coffee and needed as much manure as she could get, she allowed her squatters to engage in extensive grazing and refused to be bound in any way by the opinions of her neighbours. Squatters on her farm agreed to sign on at the rate of three shillings per ticket. The District Commissioner was hoping that the introduction of a new RNLO would correct the situation, but in the meantime, he could do nothing and squatters working six tickets earned ‘merely 18 shillings of which 12 shillings (at least) goes to Hut Tax. If 1932 or 1931 taxes were not paid or the man has 2 huts, he has to work for more months without obtaining anything other than tax receipts’.28 In a similar case, a Mr J. Wallace of Ol Arabel in Rumuruti signed squatters on at five shillings without posho. He asked the District Commissioner to sign on more squatters for him, but the District Commissioner refused to do so under Section 4 (5) Ordinance V of the 1925 RNLO until he had heard from the Provincial Commissioner ‘as to whether you consider this a fair remuneration’.29 The Provincial Commissioner responded that it was not, unless there were special circumstances like ‘ploughing of squatter shamba and supply of seed by the employer’,30 which would still require the payment of a minimum of eight shillings minus the posho ration. The Provincial Commissioner was of the opinion that, if there were major disagreements over the minimum rate, the District Commissioner should discuss the issue with the District Committee.
The depression further affected squatter wages, which were then reduced to six shillings per ticket. Immediately before the depression, casual labourers earned between 12 and 16 shillings, as against the squatter’s 8 shillings. In 1932, the earnings of casual labourers dropped to a new low of 8 shillings per month, which was complemented by a posho ration.31
It would be possible to enumerate many more cases to illustrate that squatter wage incomes were both minimal and inconsistent.32 There is no doubt that, by playing the destocking card, the settlers were reducing the squatters’ main source of income, and therefore threatening to dismantle the squatter community as it stood in the 1920s.
Settler differences over squatter stock
Settlers in different ecological and economic brackets held different opinions about keeping squatter stock. In general, settlers in the drier dairy and stock-keeping areas advocated the complete eradication of squatter cattle. This category of settlers functioned independently of squatter labour and could therefore afford to enforce stringent measures against squatter stock. Settlers in mixed-farming areas, where maize and wheat were grown, as well as those engaged in the plantation production of tea, coffee and pyrethrum, were heavily dependent on seasonal workers, especially during planting and harvesting periods, so could ill afford to antagonise their labour. Although willing to reduce squatter cultivation and stock-keeping, they were totally opposed to the complete eradication of the squatter and his stock.
A third category of settlers, undercapitalised and occupying marginal land for stock and dairy cattle and occasionally limited