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Abstract
In response to the Mau Mau rebellion that gripped Kenya in the 1950s, the British colonial government created a network of detention camps across the country that imprisoned a significant proportion of the native population. To justify and legitimise such widespread incarceration, the Nairobi government introduced a much-publicised rehabilitation programme in an attempt to transform Kikuyu inmates into loyal and productive citizens upon release. However, the conditions in the camps were not conducive to a programme that sought to educate and transform its participants into supporters of British rule. Using a range of primary sources, including previously unseen archival evidence, this paper contributes to the relatively sparse historiography on Kenya's detention camps. In particular, it explores the divergence between the intended rehabilitation programme and the conservatism and brutality of its implementation. Whilst the colonial government lauded its achievements and impressive release rates, this paper argues that rehabilitation transformed into a programme that repressed the Kikuyu population that it was meant to be reforming and only served to speed the process towards independence.
Acknowledgements
This paper was originally written as an undergraduate dissertation in History for the University of Edinburgh, under the supervision of Dr Francesca Locatelli. The dissertation was awarded the Royal Historical Society History Today Prize for 2010, being judged as the best undergraduate dissertation of the year presented by a final-year undergraduate at a British university. The dissertation is reproduced here with only minor editorial changes.
Notes
1. The policy of “rehabilitation” was developed by Tom Askwith, Commissioner for Community Development and Rehabilitation. “Rehabilitation” is, at first, placed in quotation marks to denote the term's contested nature, as the policy's implementation fell short of the typical definition of the word.
2. “British” here refers to the contemporary portrayal by both the Kenyan and metropolitan government.
3. 80,000 is the official figure. Caroline Elkins estimates that the number passed through detention camps during the Emergency was between 160,000 and 320,000 and David Anderson estimates 150,000. (Elkins, Britain's Gulag, xi; Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 5.)
4. Tom Askwith, “Rehabilitation,” January 6, 1954, The National Archives, Kew [TNA] Colonial Office [CO] 822/794/1.
5. Rosberg and Nottingham, The Myth of “Mau Mau”. For a summary of the historiography on the British myth of Mau Mau, see Clough, Mau Mau Memoirs, 33–42. For the official British portrayal, see Corfield, Historical Survey.
6. Elkins, Britain's Gulag; Anderson, Histories of the Hanged; Branch, Defeating Mau Mau.
7. Anderson focuses on the court cases of the Emergency Assize Courts while Branch principally examines the role of loyalists.
8. The “pipeline” was the official term used for the system of detention camps during the Emergency. Each Mau Mau detainee started in “holding camps” (also known as “reception camps”) and, if cooperative, they would move down the pipeline through various stages, including “works camps,” before eventual release. Recalcitrant detainees, or the “hard-core,” were kept in “special detention camps” until they cooperated.
9. Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 and was labelled by Marshall Clough “the definitive work on Britain's colonial gulag.” See Clough, “Review: Imperial Reckoning,” 886.
10. Elkins addressed rehabilitation in two similar articles: “The Struggle for Mau Mau Rehabilitation,” 25–57 and “Detention, Rehabilitation & the Destruction of Kikuyu Society,” 191–226.
11. Clough, “Review: Imperial Reckoning,” 886.
12. Elkins also used the Rhodes House Library in Oxford and the Kenya National Archives in Nairobi. However, she did not use Foreign Office files at the National Archives in Kew, London, which this study does.
13. The term “prison staff” is used because they belonged to the Prisons Department, not because they worked explicitly in prisons.
14. Formerly known as the British Public Records Office.
15. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, x.
16. For instance, a petition from detainees at Takwa camp is missing a page that clearly outlined the alleged instances of abuse by prison officers. See “Petition by Takwa Detainees,” October 15, 1956, TNA CO/822/113/E2.
17. A.R. Kapila also served on the defence counsel team for the trial of the “Kapenguria Six.”
18. Clough, Mau Mau Memoirs, 1–25.
19. Confino, “Collective Memory and Cultural History,” 1395. See also Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 46–52.
20. By July 1953, over 1550 Mau Mau suspects had been detained under Government Detention Orders. See Elkins and Lonsdale, “Memories of Mau Mau in Kenya,” 7.
21. R.G. Turnbull to Alan Lennox-Boyd, May 11, 1954, TNA CO/822/794/36.
22. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 131.
23. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 152.
24. Branch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya, c.1930–1952,” 242–4, 262–4.
25. Branch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya, c.1930–1952,” 263.
26. Branch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya, c.1930–1952,” 243–5.
27. In August 1952, the European Elected Members had unsuccessfully requested the introduction of Emergency powers, citing the inability of non-Emergency measures to deal with the uprising. See Corfield, Historical Survey, 144.
28. Branch, “Imprisonment and Colonialism in Kenya,” 264.
29. Kenya's rate of 145 prisoners per 100,000 of the population was the highest of all Britain's African colonies in 1938. See Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 356.
30. Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible, 181.
31. Lonsdale argues that four distinct categories emerged: liberal, conservative, Christian fundamentalist and military. See Lonsdale, “Mau Maus of the Mind,” 421.
32. Leakey, Defeating Mau Mau, 77–94.
33. John Gunther's Inside Africa and Robert Ruark's Something of Value became “the best known account of Mau Mau.” See Lonsdale, “Mau Maus of the Mind,” 407.
34. This “working group” included Tom Askwith, Louis Leakey and J.C. Carothers amongst others. For oathing ceremonies, see Green, “Mau Mau Oathing Rituals and Political Ideology,” 69–87 and Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 25–34.
35. Carothers, The Psychology of Mau Mau, 6–20. Ethnopsychiatry is the study of the psychology and behaviour of non-Western people. Ostensibly, it was a colonial science and its popularity faded in the 1960s.
36. Askwith, “Rehabilitation,” January 6, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/1.
37. Alastair Mathieson, “Re-educating Mau Mau Detainees; Progress of Rehabilitation Work in Kenya,” October 23, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/12.
38. Elkins, “Detention, Rehabilitation & the Destruction of Kikuyu Society,” 199.
39. It should be noted that while Kikuyu were by far the dominant tribe involved in Mau Mau, there were a number of Meru and Embu in detention camps during the Emergency.
40. “Progress Report on Rehabilitation,” December 1954, TNA CO 822/794/25.
41. Screening was effectively interrogations and was based on the precedent set at Bahati and Subukia, Nakuru District. Classification, derived from the Malayan model, was divided into “white,” “grey” and “black” categories, each representing increased commitment to Mau Mau.
42. Askwith, “Rehabilitation,” January 6, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/1.
43. Elkins, “Detention, Rehabilitation & the Destruction of Kikuyu Society,” 199.
44. The Makronisos Experiment was the Greek government's attempt to rehabilitate and re-educate communist citizens in camps from 1947 to 1950. See Hamilakis, The Nation and its Ruins, 208–11.
45. Work camps were typically situated next to rural development or re-settlement schemes, such as the forest redevelopment scheme, the Mwea and Lower Tana irrigation schemes.
46. Askwith, “Rehabilitation,” January 6, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/1, 9.
47. A. Mathieson, “Re-educating,” October 23, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/12.
48. In September 1955 there were 1400 women and 2000 juveniles detained. See Askwith, “Rehabilitation,” January 6, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/1.
49. Elkins, “The Struggle for Mau Mau Rehabilitation,” 27.
50. Askwith, “Rehabilitation,” January 6, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/1.
51. “Press Handout: Progress Report – Rehabilitation,” December 30, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/27.
52. Cooper, “Review: Mau Mau and the Discourses of Decolonialization,” 317.
53. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 131.
54. “Press Handout: Progress Report – Rehabilitation,” December 30, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/27.
55. “Press Handout: Progress Report – Rehabilitation,” September 29, 1955, TNA CO 822/794/18.
56. A. Mathieson, “Re-educating,” October 23, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/12. Emergency villages were specially constructed villages in the Kikuyu reserves, as part of the policy of “villigisation” started in 1954.
57. Baring to Lennox-Boyd, December 21, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/20.
58. Detention without trial contravened the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) and the Third Geneva Convention.
59. Cleary, “The Myth of Mau Mau in Its International Context,” 227–45.
60. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 138.
61. “Three-And-A-Half-Year Development Plan, 1954–57,” TNA CO 822/970/25.
62. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 148.
63. “Three-And-A-Half-Year Development Plan, 1954–57,” TNA CO 822/970/25.
64. “Press Handout: Progress Report – Rehabilitation,” September 29, 1955, TNA CO 822/794/18.
65. “The Christian Council of Kenya: Emergency Projects and Future Policy,” January 4, 1957, TNA CO 822/1250/E1.
66. Rehabilitation assistants were provided by the churches present in Kenya.
67. “Press Handout: Progress Report – Rehabilitation,” December 30, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/27.
68. James Breckenridge, “Report of Capt. P.R. Meldon,” December 31, 1956, TNA CO/822/1234/E4.
69. Philip Meldon to Lennox-Boyd, c. January 1957, TNA CO 822/1237/12.
70. Eileen Fletcher, “Report on My Period of Employment in the Community Development Department of the Kenya Government,” July 1956, TNA CO 822/1239, 12.
71. It is worth noting that Meldon heavily criticises the competency of Askwith and demanded that he be tried for concealing the criminal activity of his staff. See Meldon to Lennox-Boyd, February 4, 1957, TNA CO 822/1237/30.
72. Colonel Young, commissioner of the police, resigned partly due to the lack of discipline and retaliatory actions of the police force in 1957. See Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 276–83.
73. Elkins argues that the perceived increased savagery of Mau Mau from 1952 re-directed many moderates away from liberal reform and towards increasingly radical conservative views, which advocated coercive and violent counterinsurgency. See Elkins, “Detention, Rehabilitation & the Destruction of Kikuyu Society,” 201.
74. Meldon to Lennox-Boyd, c. January 1957, TNA CO 822/1237/12.
75. “Possible Sources of Allegation against Prisons Department and Community Development,” c. February 1957, TNA CO 822/1237.
76. “Petition by Takwa Detainees,” October 15, 1956, TNA CO/822/113/E2.
77. Lieutenant-Colonel Hope, “Report on Lamu Detention Camps,” October 8, 1955, TNA WO 276/428/108.
78. “Report by International Committee of the Red Cross, June–July 1959,” TNA CO/797/62, 6.
79. Ian Buist, Minutes to File, c. January 1959, TNA CO 822/1271.
80. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 132; Kaggia, Roots of Freedom, 142–3; Itote, “Mau Mau” General, 212.
81. In March 1959, 11 “hard-core” detainees were killed, having been beaten in an attempt to make them work. For a more detailed account of events, see Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 326–7.
82. “Report on the Committee on Emergency Detention Camps,” c. August 1959, TNA CO 822/1271/E5.
83. See Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 326–31.
84. Without judicial power, detainees had no right to legal representation or access to documents concerning their detention.
85. There are no instances of the Governor rejecting the recommendations of the Advisory Committee.
86. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 219. In the archival file at TNA she cites for this figure (“Enquiries by Dingle Foot,” April 25, 1957, TNA CO 822/1234/9) she does not take into account cumulative figures and ignores the DDO Advisory Committee figures.
87. “Advisory Committee on Detainees,” September 30, 1959, TNA CO 822/1234/74.
88. “Advisory Committee set up to deal with appeals by persons detained under Emergency Regulations,” TNA CO 822/1234.
89. Baring to Mathieson, May 29, 1956, TNA CO 822/1239/78.
90. In 1958, Lokitaung prisoners claimed there had never been a Visiting Committee to their camp. See Lokitaung Detainees to Fenner Brockway, April 27, 1958, TNA CO 822/1271/13.
91. “Report on the Committee on Emergency Detention Camps,” c. August 1959, TNA CO 822/1271/E5, 6.
92. Mathieson to Buist, March 11, 1957, TNA CO 822/1787/14.
93. Baring to Lennox-Boyd, June 25, 1957, TNA CO 822/1251/1.
94. Meldon to Lennox-Boyd, February 4, 1957, TNA CO 822/1237/30.
95. Baring to Lennox-Boyd, July 11, 1959, TNA CO 822/1251/3.
96. Meldon to Lennox-Boyd, c. January 1957, TNA CO 822/1237/12.
97. “Mariira Detention Camp,” c. July 1958, TNA CO 822/1705/7.
98. Baring to Lennox-Boyd, July 10, 1958, TNA CO 822/1705/11.
99. Hull, minutes to file, c. February 1957, TNA CO 822/1236. The report of CPA delegation in 1957 was the first to be published for public consumption. This occurred after direct requests from Lennox-Boyd.
100. Detainees documented conditions in camps to the finest detail, recording information on all aspects of camp life. In March 1956, 5786 letters were censored at Kamiti detention camp. See Peterson, “The Intellectual Lives of Mau Mau Detainees,” 7–9.
101. Lokitaung detainees to A.R. Kapila, September 10, 1958, Kapila Family Archive.
102. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 67–9; Wanjau, Mau Mau Author, 121.
103. Both acts also pardoned action by Mau Mau rebels who voluntarily surrendered. However, instead of being prosecuted, they were typically detained.
104. One report claimed: “food is adequate – even in some cases liberal.” CO 822/794/8, “Rehabilitation,” January 6, 1954.
105. Kaggia, Roots of Freedom, 140; Itote, “Mau Mau” General, 197; Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 70.
106. “Disturbance at Mageta Island,” November 23, 1956, TNA CO 822/802/137.
107. Kaggia, Roots of Freedom, 140.
108. “Report by International Committee of the Red Cross, June–July 1959,” TNA CO/797/62.
109. In September 1954, the three holding camps, Manyani, Langata, and Mackinnon Road, were respectively 6000, 3000 and 1000 over their original capacity. See “War Council Brief: Numbers of Detainees,” September 29, 1954, TNA CO 822/801/35.
110. “Brief for C-in-C on Detainees,” c. September 1955, TNA WO 276/428/103.
111. “Detention, Works and Transit Camp Statistics,” July 25, 1955, TNA CO 822/801/17.
112. “Typhoid Cases,” October 16, 1954, TNA CO 822/801/29. Phillip Macharia, a former detainee, estimates that around 400 detainees died in the outbreak. See Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 141.
113. “Press Office Handout: Colonial Secretary Visits Manyani Camp,” October 16, 1954, TNA CO 822/801/25.
114. “Visit to Manyani and Mackinnon Road,” January 17, 1955, TNA WO/276/428/65.
115. Frederick Crawford to Lennox-Boyd, October 17, 1956, TNA CO 822/802/110.
116. Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 319.
117. Baring to Mathieson, May 1, 1956, TNA CO 822/795/32.
118. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 131.
119. Wanjau, Mau Mau Author, 195.
120. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 85.
121. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee 127; White, “Separating the Men from the Boys,” 20.
122. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 59–60.
123. Wanjau, Mau Mau Author, 190–2.
124. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 60.
125. Compound committees and ad hoc courts for detainees were also established in many camps. See Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 66–8.
126. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 87.
127. “Mau Mau Activities in Prisons and Detention Camps,” c. November 1955, TNA CO 822/801/41.
128. Villigisation, which started in June 1954, created specially constructed villages that were run by the provincial administration and were typically guarded by Kikuyu Home Guard. They were built to control Mau Mau influence in the reserves and, allegedly, advance agrarian reform by advancing a village-based rural economy. For a more detailed analysis of villigization, see Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, 107–22 and Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 293–311.
129. For malnutrition, see Clayton and Savage, Government and Labour, 356. For poor sanitation, see Fletcher, “Report on My Period of Employment,” July 1956, NA CO 822/1239.
130. See Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 244–8.
131. Askwith, From Mau Mau to Harambee, 120.
132. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 145.
133. Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible, 176.
134. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 129–30.
135. “Report on the Committee on Emergency Detention Camps,” c. August 1959, TNA CO 822/1271/E5; “Record of a meeting with the International Committee of the Red Cross,” c. October 1959, TNA CO 822/797/56.
136. Elkins and Lonsdale, “Memories of Mau Mau in Kenya,” 9.
137. Wanjau, Mau Mau Author, 183.
138. “Press Handout: Progress Report – Rehabilitation,” December 30, 1954, TNA CO 822/794/27.
139. Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 275–7, 312–14.
140. “Factors Affecting the Release of Detainees,” c. April 1956, TNA CO 822/795/86.
141. “Factors Affecting the Release of Detainees,” c. April 1956, TNA CO 822/795/86.
142. The Resettlement Committee, formed in late 1954, was responsible for finding space and employment for released detainees and repatriated Kikuyu.
143. “Long Term Absorption of Displaced Kikuyu,” March 16, 1955, TNA CO 822/797/8.
144. “Scheme for Reabsorption of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru Displaced as a Result of the Emergency,” December 8, 1954, TNA CO 822/797/6.
145. “Progress Report on the Rehabilitation of Mau Mau in Detention Camps,” April 13, 1955, TNA CO 822/794/37. “Special detention camps” was the name given to camps for “hard-core” detainees.
146. Forced labour contravened the International Labour Organisation's Forced Labour Convention (1930), the European Human Rights Convention (1950) and the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Forced Labour. In an attempt to circumvent this, the government linked work to ending the Emergency and paid detainees market rate wages.
147. E.R. Warner, “Detention Camps in Kenya,” February 13, 1954, TNA Foreign Office 371/112515.
148. J.C. Moreton to Baring, March 15, 1954, TNA CO 822/796/2.
149. Kariuki, “Mau Mau” Detainee, 100; Clough, Mau Mau Memoirs, 188.
150. Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible, 188.
151. White, “Separating the Men from the Boys,” 22.
152. Baring to Lennox-Boyd, June 10, 1959, TNA CO 822/1261/218.
153. Julian Amery to Harold Macmillan, June 5, 1959, TNA CO 822/1261/206A.
154. Baring to Lennox-Boyd, February 16, 1957, TNA CO 822/1249/3.
155. Eric Griffith-Jones, ““Dilution” Detention Camps,” June 25, 1957, TNA CO 822/1251/E1.
156. 155. Eric Griffith-Jones, ““Dilution” Detention Camps,” June 25, 1957, TNA CO 822/1251/E1.
157. Hope, “Report on Lamu Detention Camps,” October 8, 1955, TNA WO 276/428/108.
158. Elkins, “Detention, Rehabilitation & the Destruction of Kikuyu Society,” 214.
159. Hope, “Mau Mau Convicts and Detainees,” September 27, 1955, TNA WO 276/428/105.