Mau Mau

Mau Mau, militant African nationalist movement that originated by the 1950s, primarily among the Kikuyu people of Kenya. The movement emerged in response to grievances over land dispossession, economic inequality, and political exclusion under British colonial rule and advocated armed resistance to British domination in Kenya. Their uprising was one of the most significant anti-colonial revolts in Britain’s African territories.

The Mau Mau’s uprising, which began in 1952, was part of a broader wave of anti-colonial movements across Africa and Asia in the mid-20th century. Although it was suppressed militarily, some scholars have noted that the Mau Mau’s uprising increased pressure on British authorities and contributed to Kenya’s eventual independence in 1963.

This article provides an overview of the Mau Mau movement; for more detail on the uprising, see Mau Mau Rebellion.

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Origin and meaning of the name

There is no agreement about how the name Mau Mau originated, or what it means, though there are multiple theories. One common theory holds that Mau Mau is an anagram of the Kikuyu words uma uma (“out out”), and the group became known by that name after someone yelled it during a police raid on a gathering of the group. Another theory holds that the Kikuyu word for oath, muma, was mispronounced as mumau by someone being questioned by the police, who then misspelled it as “Maumau” or “Mau Mau.”

Movement

The Mau Mau movement was started by a faction from the Kenya African Union (KAU), a political party that advocated on behalf of Indigenous Kenyans. From 1947 the KAU was led by Jomo Kenyatta, a proponent of peaceful transition to African majority rule. Some KAU members did not think Kenyatta’s tactics were producing meaningful reforms and endorsed taking a more militant approach, which they did as the Mau Mau. The group’s membership was mostly Kikuyu, with some other groups represented, such as the Embu and Meru. The Mau Mau’s numbers quickly multiplied, and British authorities, alarmed by reports of the group, banned it in 1950. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of people had taken an oath of unity to join the Mau Mau by 1952. Oath taking was a traditional practice of the Kikuyu and other ethnic groups that was used to bind the oath takers together as they worked toward a common goal. It should be noted that not all Kikuyu or other Indigenous Kenyans supported the Mau Mau’s actions, and some were even loyal to the British colonial government.

In 1952 the Mau Mau began attacking in earnest in a campaign of sabotage and assassination that the British authorities characterized as terrorism. In October the British Kenya government declared a state of emergency and began four years of military operations against the rebels.

Though the British military response against the Mau Mau Rebellion was largely over by the end of 1956, the state of emergency would not be lifted until 1960. British counterinsurgency measures during 1952–60 included mass detention—more than 20,000 Kenyans were put into detention camps—forced resettlement, and coercive efforts to suppress nationalist activity.

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Estimates of the rebellion’s death toll vary wildly. The British colonial administration’s official figures at the time indicated that more than 11,000 Mau Mau rebels had been killed in the fighting, along with about 100 Europeans and 2,000 African loyalists, but some scholars argue that the number of Mau Mau rebels killed in combat is more than 20,000.

Although the uprising had been suppressed, Mau Mau resistance still played a role in the Kenya independence movement. The colonial administration’s reaction to the rebellion included some measures, such as incremental political reforms, to address the widespread grievances of Kenya’s people. The uprising also demonstrated that a continued colonial presence in Kenya would come at too high a cost to Britain, which led the colonial authorities to hasten decolonization efforts. Kenya became fully independent on December 12, 1963.

In 2003 the ban on the Mau Mau was lifted by the Kenyan government.