Powerful Agents of Change: Kikuyu Women in the Mau Mau Rebellion
By Kirthi Jayakumar
Source: Standard Media
From 1952 to 1960, the Mau Mau uprising or revolt, a war in the British Kenyan Colony between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities, unfolded. The KLFA was dominated by the Kikuyu, Meru, and Embu fighters, alongside units of Kamba and Maasai. The Kikuyu women played a significant role in the Mau Mau uprising.
Colonial History: A Snapshot
Conquered by the British between 1888 and 1895, the Kikuyu, Kamba, and Masai communities in Kenya faced significant harm, including major casualties. During the “scramble for Africa,” such conquests were commonplace, replete with “aggressive violence, brutalities, economic exploitation, and the impoverishment of colonial people” (Kombo, 2012). Any attempt at resistance was almost immediately met with brutal violence and destruction until the point of subjugation (Presley, 1992).
Following their conquest, the British government began to bring in white farmers to occupy the lands in Kenya, between 1903 and 1911, allotting them the most fertile lands. Of the three ethnic groups, the Kikuyu was the largest, and lost the largest proportion of lands. As a result of this appropriation and occupation, they were forced into areas that were inhospitable and infertile for cultivation (Kombo, 2012). Kenyans were permitted to reside on now-white farmer’s lands in exchange for labour for little to no wages (Tignor, 1976). Over time, the colonial government conscripted Kenyan people to join their armies and fight in World War 1, and left them with little to no representation in the governance mechanisms they set up to run the colony. Through laws, the British ensured that they had a steady supply of cheap African labour, forcing whole families to be at the beck-and-call whenever labour was demanded.
Between 1921 and 1944, a small group of urban Kikuyu, who had attained western education, began to organize to assert and demand the enforcement of the political rights of Africans (Kombo, 2012). They advocated for their rights over their lands, demanded greater access to educational and other opportunities, and asserted their political rights. In 1921, Harry Thuku, a Kenyan man, set up the East African Association (EAA; Presley, 1992). A more radical organization, this group campaigned actively against forced labour, taxes, and the molestation of women who worked on European farms (Presley, 1992). The association was banned in 1922, and Thuku was deported to Kismayu, that year. In 1925, the Kikuyu Central Association was formed, and advocated for the release of Harry Thuku, among other things (Presley, 1992).
Kikuyu Women in the Mau Mau Rebellion
The largest number of the colonized peasantry in Kikuyuland were women. The Kikuyu women were particularly instrumental in implementing the “Harry Thuku Disturbances” (Wipper, 1982), a phenomenon that also carried forward in the Mau Mau Rebellion. Most Mau Mau freedom fighters operated from the forests and mountainous regions, and when the colonial government began to crackdown on them, access to their villages became difficult, and as a result, supplies and provisions to sustain themselves became challenging. Each locality had woman leaders, covering several villages. They worked alongside the men who served as commanders in their areas. Their homes were the base from which Mau Mau operations in the reserves were organized.
The Kikuyu women featured prominently in the organizational network between the fighters in the forests and the reserves (Gachihi, 1986). They formed a core part of the Mau Mau, particularly in holding and maintaining supply lines. Their identities as women helped them avoid suspicion and they moved about through colonial spaces, between the Mau Mau hideouts and strongholds, and delivered vital supplies and services to guerrilla fighters including food, ammunition, medical care, and of course, information (Presley, 1992). This link was vital for the rebellion's sustenance, as it flew in the face of the colonial government's strategy of herding people into the Mau Mau villages in 1954 to break this support system. The women countered this through their ingenious methods to support the fighters (Gachihi, 1986).
The women also mobilized to run an active courier service, which was crucial as it was the only reliable means of communication for the freedom fighters (Presley, 1992). Women mobilized to organize food supplies, recruit more women to support the freedom fighters, and transport the food supplies. Most often, young girls were at the forefront in delivering the supplies into the freedom fighters' quarters (Gachihi, 1986).
However, these journeys of resistance meant that there was a price to be paid, especially seeing as the power dynamics that came into play in repressing the movement. The women were met with brutal repression and various forms of sexual assault and violence, cruelty, and torture as part of the colonial empire’s many war crimes. Unfortunately, though, there are also accounts of women and girls being abducted to work in the forests to support the freedom fighters - in the form of providing "sexual relief" and perform care work (The Nairobian, 2016) - any rendition of the women's history and engagement in this dynamic would be incomplete without acknowledging the many ways in which they faced violence.
Lessons for Feminist Foreign Policy
The most significant lesson that stands out is the women’s endeavour of resisting colonialism through community. During the Mau Mau rebellion, the colonial government worked to break the unity among the freedom fighters by herding them into the Mau Mau village in droves. The Kikuyu women found ways to build community and networks – oftentimes without being easily noticed while doing so – to sustain the entire movement. They were also actively involved in protecting their identities and cultural systems in the face of potential erasure at the hands of the colonial government. The Kikuyu consider the land their "mother," and despite being a male-dominated society, women played a unique role owing to their position in agriculture (Strobel, 1982). In effect, these women also practiced food sovereignty, by exercising their rights to determine their own food systems.
References
Gachihi, M. (1986). The role of Kikuyu women in the Mau Mau (Doctoral dissertation, University of Nairobi,).
Kombo, E. E. (2012). Women in national liberation wars in the settler colonies of Kenya and Zimbabwe: Pathways to political empowerment (Doctoral dissertation, University of York).
Presley, C. (1992). Kikuyu Women, the Mau Mau Rebellion and Social Change in Kenya. Boulder: Westview Press.
Strobel, Margaret. 1982. “African Women”. Signs 8 (1). The University of Chicago Press: 111. http://www.jstor.org.proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/stable/3173484
Tignor, R. (1976). The Colonial Transformation of Kenya. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wipper, A. (1982). "Riot and Rebellion among African Women: Three Examples of Women's Political Clout."
The Nairobian (2016). Mau Mau girls offered ‘sexual relief’ in forest https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/entertainment/county-nairobi/article/2000203688/mau-mau-girls-offered-sexual-relief-in-forest
