Kenia independance

Sandra Estrada.
War of Independence of Kenya.
Roots of the Kenyan struggle for Independence.
Conflict and resentment defined the colonial experience between the white settlers and native Africans. With Nairobi evolving from a shantytown in the early 1900s into a major urban center for East Africa, white settlers slowly migrated to the country lured by the prospect of land. They settled in thefertile highlands outside Nairobi, an area later dubbed the "White Highlands." Both the Maasai and the Kikuyu tribes lost large amounts of land to these European settlers. Their resentment grew deeper with each acre lost and the inevitable conflicts would not fully be resolved until independence.
Successful large-scale farming depended to a great degree upon an adequate labor force, namelyAfricans. They, however, did not see any advantage or gain in working for the European encroachers. In response, the colonial authorities introduced hut taxes and other laws that forced the Africans into low-paying wage employment. This marked the introduction of a cash economy into a land dominated by the barter system.
World War I provided a hiatus in white settlement but after the war Britaingained possession of this region under the Treaty of Versailles and began a policy of inequitable land distribution that further fueled growing African resentment. The government offered land in the Kenyan highlands to war veterans at inexpensive prices but only white veterans, not African veterans, could take advantage of this offer. White settlers streamed in and increasing numbers of Kenyans, ledby the bitter Kikuyu, formed political groups whose primary focus was the return of their land.
Kenyan nationalist movements and the Emergence of Jomo Kenyatta
The first pan-Kenyan nationalist movement was led by Harry Thuku to protest against the white-settler dominance in the government. His party, the East African Association, traced its roots to the early Kikuyu political groups and wassupported by several influential and militant Asians. Thuku was arrested by the colonial authorities in 1922 and was exiled for seven years. His arrest resulted in the massacre of twenty-three Africans outside Nairobi's Central police station. He was released only after agreeing to cooperate with the colonials, a decision that cost him the leadership of the Kikuyus. This incident united Kenya'sAfrican communities and set the stage for the entry of Jomo Kenyatta, a former water meter inspector with the Nairobi Municipal Council, who stepped in and filled the leadership vacuum after Thuku. There he became involved in early African protest movements, joining the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) in 1924.
In 1928 he became editor of the movement's newspaper. In 1929 and 1931 Kenyatta visitedEngland to present KCA demands for the return of African land lost to European settlers and for increased political and economic opportunity for Africans in Kenya, which had become a colony within British East Africa in 1920.
Kenyatta remained in Europe for almost 15 years, during which he attended various schools and universities, traveled extensively, and published numerous articles andpamphlets on Kenya and the plight of Kenyans under colonial rule. While attending the London School of Economics, Kenyatta studied under noted British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and published his seminal work, Facing Mount Kenya (1938).
In September 1946 Kenyatta returned to Kenya, and in June 1947 he became president of the first colony-wide African political organization, the Kenya AfricanUnion (KAU), which had been formed more than two years earlier. KAU's efforts to win self-government under African leadership were unsuccessful, however, and African resistance to colonial policies and the supremacy of European settlers in Kenya became more militant.
African and Asian African Resistance to the British
The Mau Mau Movement began among the Gikuyu who shared the same grievances...