Country: Kenya

Group: Kikuyu

Date Finalized: 4/5/2020

Team: Johanna McCombs (lead), Leilani Alva, Giselle Chavez Lopez

Kikuya are Kenya’s largest ethnic tribe and have traditionally resided and worked in agriculture in volcanic highlands. Beginning in the 1910s, British colonizers forcibly removed the Kikuyu from their land which was a fertile highland region to the inferior land to produce export crops and into the urban market (Stockton, 2019). The colonizers forcibly removed the Kikuyu from their land which was a fertile highland region to the inferior land to produce export crops and into the urban market (Minorities at Risk, n.d.). In 1950 a group called Mau Mau made of Kikuyu people attempted to fight back against the British rulers. The official number of the indigenous people killed in the Mau Mau uprising was around 11,000 (BBC, 2011). However, the Kenya Human Rights Commission said that an estimated 90,000 Kenyans were killed and another 160,000 were detained in awful conditions (BBC, 2011).  From 1963-1978 President Kenyatta was a part of the Kikuyu so members of this group got disproportionate access to good land and economic opportunities (Minorities at Risk, n.d.). After Kenyatta’s presidency Daniel Arap Moi worked with the Maasai and Kalenjin to fight against the Kikuyu for their land (Minorities at Risk, n.d.). In this fighting there were more than 1,500 deaths and 300,000 people of different ethnic groups, including the Kikuyu, were driven out of the highlands. Now there are sporadic acts of ethnic violence coming between ethnicities (Minorities at Risk, n.d.).

Sources

  1. Mau Mau | Kenyan political movement. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved February 29, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mau-Mau
  2. BBC (2011). Mau Mau uprising: Bloody history of Kenya conflict. (2011, April 7). Retrieved from    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12997138
  3. Minorities at Risk (n.d.) Assessment for Kikuyu in Kenya. (n.d.). Retrieved February 29, 2020, from http://www.mar.umd.edu/assessment.asp?groupId=50103
  4.  Stockton, R. (2019, September 12). Inside Britain’s Forgotten 20th Century Holocaust In East Africa. Retrieved from https://allthatsinteresting.com/kenya-genocide