Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905–1963. Tabitha Kanogo
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Both the Kikuyu who had lost access to land in their Central Province homeland (the ahoi) and wealthy Kikuyu herders visualised the White Highlands with its vast expanses of unutilised virgin territory as a land of opportunity where the enterprising could make their fortunes and establish permanent residence (utuuro).6 There was unlimited land for both cultivation and grazing.7 On a more mundane level, the White Highlands offered the squatters an escape from the extortionate authority of the village chief and the opportunity to earn enough to meet tax demands, and their accumulation of wealth, in the form of livestock, was quick. This study looks at how the Kikuyu squatters reacted to the various socio-economic and political pressures that were imposed on them and how their opportunities were frustrated and thwarted by the settlers and colonial government alike.
To a large extent the aspirations of pioneer Kikuyu squatters were similar to those of the early colonial settlers. Both wanted a fresh start in life and both anticipated that their productive ventures would bring them quick returns. But this was where the similarities ended, for the settlers and squatters were locked in an unequal political and economic relationship. As the exclusive owners of the land, the settlers expected, with political backing from the government, to be able to limit the squatters’ role solely to that of providing the necessary labour. The squatters, however, were determined to maintain independent and extensive cultivation and grazing, which put tremendous strains on their relations with the settlers.
Because it was important for the colony to become financially self-sufficient, the colonial government threw all its weight behind settler agriculture providing it with vital services and financial subsidies. More significantly, the government enacted a series of legislative measures intended to create and maintain a constant supply of labour. These included the Hut and Poll Taxes, the Masters and Servants Ordinance and the kipande system, to mention but a few. However, in Kenya, and particularly in the White Highlands, the shortage of labour and the dissatisfaction with what labour was available, became endemic. The labourers and the employers did not always see eye to eye.
While the settlers were wrestling with the novelty of farming in the tropics and trying to cope with unfamiliar crops, animal diseases, insufficient capital and unstable market conditions,8 squatter production thrived. The first chapter examines the various factors that pushed Kikuyu squatters from Central Province, as well as those that pulled them to the White Highlands. Perhaps the most important, however, was that during the pioneering stage of settler agriculture, demands imposed on squatter labourers were minimal and, until 1918, squatters were allowed to engage in extensive and unregulated cultivation and grazing which, together with a lucrative trade in livestock and farm produce, enabled them to amass ‘wealth’ through accumulating large herds of goats, sheep and cattle.
By 1918 the golden age had arrived in which squatters were realising their economic aspirations. Unlike the settler economy, theirs was well capitalised, had plenty of labour and land and required no financial outlay. During this period of laissez-faire, the squatters evolved a rewarding socio-economic system, which they sought to protect after 1918. But their independence was short-lived, for the settlers were beginning to emphasise the need to regularise the squatter presence in the White Highlands. After all, they were labourers, not co-owners of the land.
Like that of the squatters, the presence of settlers in the White Highlands was both precipitated and motivated by financial aspirations, the realisation of which largely depended on exploiting the available land and labour. With the wartime boom and profitable commodity prices in the mid 1920s, the settlers sought to diversify from their monocultural maize production into the stock and dairy industries, but were fearful that squatter livestock would spread disease among their expensive grade stock. Hence the call for reducing and/or eliminating squatter stock.
On a more basic level, after World War One, the settlers sought to alter the initial pattern of mutual interdependence with their squatter labour by holding that independent and extensive squatter production in the White Highlands was incompatible with the interests of the settler economy. Chapter Two examines the development of this conflict of interests in the inter-war period. Among other things, the conflict was heralded by the introduction of the 1918 Resident Native Labourers Ordinance (RNLO), which sought to define both the legal status and the labour obligations of the squatter.9 Henceforth obliged to give more labour hours in exchange for less cultivation and grazing, the squatter was now envisaged as a resident labourer basically dependent on a wage, but with limited cultivation and grazing providing a small wage supplement. By this time it was becoming clear that the settlers had only tolerated independent squatter production because of the labour it provided. But for the squatters, signing a labour contract was the only way of gaining access to land in the White Highlands.
The chapter also analyses the subtle and sometimes unsubtle strategies that the squatters adopted to resist oppressive labour laws and settler attempts to transform them from independent producers-cum-labourers into proletarians. Tactics such as withdrawal of labour, returning to Central Province, illegal squatting, illegal cultivation and grazing, 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