Local responses to the ethnic geography of colonialism in the Gusii Highlands of British-Ruled Kenya

Ethnohistory

Volumn 58, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 491-523

  Parsons, Timothy ^a  

^a WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 80051660605     PISSN: 00141801     EISSN: 15275477     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-1263866     Document Type: Article

References (122)

1. Kikuyu Responses to Absorption Questions, 2 November 1948, Kenya National Archives (hereafter KNA), OPE 1/460/204/3. Colonial-era records refer to both the Gusii people and the highland region in which they lived as "Kisii."
2. Aidan Southall, "The Illusion of Tribe," Journal of Asian and African Studies 5 (1970): 28
3. Richard Hingley, Roman Officers and English Gentlemen (London, 2000), 4, 9
4. John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (New York, 1979), 324
5. Leroy Vail, "Introduction: Ethnicity in Southern African History," in The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, ed. Leroy Vail (Berkeley, CA, 1989), 11.
6. Jonathan Friedman, "The Past in the Future: History and the Politics of Identity," American Anthropologist 94 (1992): 846
7. G. Carter Bentley, "Ethnicity and Practice," Comparative Studies in Society and History 29 (1987): 26.
8. Bill Bravmann, Making Ethnic Ways: Communities and Their Transformation in Taita, Kenya, 1800-1950 (Portsmouth, NH, 1998), 9-12
9. Jonathan Glassman, "Sorting Out the Tribes: The Creation of Racial Identities in Colonial Zanzibar's Newspaper War," Journal of African History 41 (2000): 401-2
10. Thomas Spear, "Neo-traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa," Journal of African History 44 (2003): 18
11. Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, "Beyond 'Identity,'" Theory and Society 29 (2000): 9
12. Peter Ekeh, "Social Anthropology and Two Contrasting Uses of Tribalism in Africa," Comparative Study of Society and History 32 (1990): 683
13. John Lonsdale, "Moral and Political Argument in Kenya," in Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa, ed. Bruce Berman, Dickson Eyoh, and Will Kymlicka (Oxford, UK, 2004), 77-78.
14. Kenya Colony and Protectorate, "Areas," 31 December 1931, Great Britain National Archives, Public Records Office (hereafter PRO), CO 533/424/8
15. Provincial Commissioner's Meeting, 2 April 1941, KNA, OPE 1/470/7
16. Chief Native Commissioner (hereafter CNC) to Kenyan Chief Secretary, 29 April 1941, KNA, OPE 1/470/7
17. DC Narok to the African Land Use Settlement Board, 22 May 1952, KNA, PC NGO 1/1/20/120
18. For the authoritative account of Kikuyu "interpenetration" in the Maasai reserve, see Richard Waller, "Acceptees and Aliens: Kikuyu Settlement in Maasailand," in Being Maasai, ed. Richard Waller and Thomas Spear (Oxford, UK, 1993), 226-57.
19. William Malcolm Hailey, An African Survey: A Study of Problems Arising in Africa South of the Sahara (London, 1938), 748
20. Marshall Clough, Fighting Two Sides: Kenyan Chiefs and Politicians, 1918-1940 (Niwot, CO, 1990), 71
21. Kenya Colony and Protectorate, "The Problem of the Squatter," 19 March 1946, PRO CO 1018/28
22. Native Lands Trust Ordinance (hereafter NLTO), 1930, PRO, CO 533/395/5/53
23. Kenya Governor Grigg to Colonial Secretary, 5 July 1928, PRO, CO 533/375/2/64
24. Priscilla Shilaro, A Failed Eldorado: Colonial Capitalism, Rural Industrialization, African Land Rights in Kenya, and the Kakamega Gold Rush, 1930-1952 (Lanham, MD, 2008), 14
25. Great Britain, Kenya Land Commission Report: Summary of Conclusions Reached by His Majesty's Government (London, 1934), 3-4
26. See Rita Mary Breen, "The Politics of Land: The Kenya Land Commission (1932-33) and Its Effects on Land Policy in Kenya," PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1976.
27. Great Britain, Report of the Kenya Land Commission, 1933 (Nairobi, 1934), 374
28. Kenya Attorney General Minute to Chief Secretary, 11 May 1945, KNA, OPE 1/354/9
29. Carl Rosberg and John Nottingham, The Myth of "Mau Mau": Nationalism and Colonialism in Kenya (Nairobi, 1985), 159
30. Kenya Governor Grigg to Colonial Secretary, 5 July 1928, PRO, CO 533/375/2/64; Ormsby-Gore to Kenya Governor Brooke-Popham, ca. 1937, Rhodes House Library, Mss. Afr. s. 1120/Brooke-Popham.
31. Report E. A. Sweatman, 3 November 1947, CO, 1018/27/1.
32. Waller, "Acceptees and Aliens," 237
33. Kenya Secretariat Minute, 12 November 1940, KNA, OPE 1/460/4
34. Waller, "Acceptees and Aliens," 240
35. Officer-in-Charge Masai Extraprovincial district (EPD) to PC Central Province, 29 October 1936, KNA, DC NGONG 1/1/22; DC Kiambu, "Landless Kikuyu," memorandum, October 1936, KNA, DC NGONG 1/1/22
36. Colonial Secretary telegram to Kenya Governor, 21 November 1938, PRO, CO 533/488/5/26
37. Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, NLTO Section 49, Power to Order Removal, Ordinance No. 28, 1938, Ordinances, 1939.
38. Minute by Kenya Governor Sir Henry Moore to CNC, 17 September 1941, KNA, OPE 1/470/10; Officer-in-Charge Masai EPD to Chief Secretary, 22 August 1945, KNA, OPE 1/354/23; Eliud Mathu MLC (member, legislative council) to Chief Secretary, 3 March 1945, KNA, PC NGO 1/1/13
39. Confidential Minute of 27 November 1945, quoted in J. Pinney to OiC Masai EPD, 30 September 1951, KNA, PC NGO 1/1/15/88.
40. Memorandum by H. E. Lambert on Draft Rules Under the NLTO, 10 January 1946, KNA, OPE 1/354/32; Kenya Secretariat Circular, Interpenetration and Infiltration in Native Land Units, 3 May 1946, KNA, OPE 1/354/47.
41. District Commissioner (DC) Central Nyanza to Provincial Commissioner (PC) Nyanza, 7 June 1946, KNA, OPE 1/354/49c; OiC Masai EPD to Chief Secretary, 13 October 1946, KNA, OPE 1/354/56; PC CP to Chief Secretary, 30 January 1947, KNA, OPE 1/354/57
42. Kenya Secretariat Circular, Statement of Government Interim Policy with Regard to Interpenetration and Infiltration in Native Land Units, 13 August 1947, KNA, OPE 1/354/71; Kenya Secretariat Circular, Interpenetration and Infiltration on Native Land Units, 8 July 1948, KNA, OPE 1/354/107
43. P. Wyn Harris CNC to OiC Masai EPD, 6 August 1948, KNA, OPE 1/354/117.
44. For examples, see H. E. Lambert, Kikuyu Social and Political Institutions (London, 1956).
45. D. J. Penwill, Kamba Customary Law (Nairobi, 1986).
46. G. S. Snell, Nandi Customary Law (Nairobi, 1986).
47. Tabitha Kanogo, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 1905-63 (London, 1988), 109
48. David Throup, Economic and Social Origins of Mau Mau (London, 1988), 122
49. Frank Furedi, The Mau Mau War in Perspective (London, 1989), 80
50. John Lonsdale, "Wealth, Poverty, and Civil Virtue in Kikuyu Political Thought," in Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa, ed. John Lonsdale and Bruce Berman (London, 1992), 336.
51. In 1948, it became South Nyanza District. In 1961, the government carved out the Gusii highlands to create a separate Kisii District.
52. Brett Shadle, "Girl Cases": Marriage Disputes and Colonialism in Gusiiland, Kenya, 1890-1970 (Portsmouth, NH, 2006), 5-6
53. Great Britain, Kenya Land Commission, Evidence and Memoranda, vol. 3 (London, 1934), 2352.
54. Robert Maxon, "The Absence of Political Associations among the Gusii prior to 1940," Transafrican Journal of History 10 (1981): 113-15
55. Robert Maxon, Going Their Separate Ways: Agrarian Transformation in Kenya, 1930-1950 (Cranbury, NJ, 2003), 42
56. Great Britain, Kenya Land Commission, Evidence and Memoranda, 2406
57. Carolyn Barnes, "An Experiment with Coffee Production by Kenyans, 1933-1948," African Economic History 8 (1979): 204
58. Maxon, Going Their Separate Ways, 53, 62, 71
59. Quoted in Thomas Hankansson, Bridewealth, Women, and Land: Social Change among the Gusii of Kenya (Stockholm, 1988) 80
60. Native Intelligence Safari Report, September 1940, KNA, OPE 1/460/1; W. J. H. George to PC Nyanza, 3 October 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/15/1.
61. Robert Maxon, Conflict and Accommodation in Western Kenya: The Gusii and the British, 1907-1963 (Rutherford, NJ, 1989), 98-99
62. Maxon, Going Their Separate Ways, 200-203
63. DC South Kavirondo to PC Nyanza, 4 April 1945, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/79
64. Furedi, Mau Mau War in Perspective, 48
65. B. O. B. Nyarango, "Biography of Chief Musa Nyandusi," unpublished student seminar paper no. 4, History Department, University of Nairobi, 6 December 1977, 15.
66. Shadle, "Girl Cases," 17
67. PC Nyanza to Chief Secretary, 18 October 1940, KNA, OPE 1/460/2
68. Masese Rosana Eric, "Traditional Land Tenure," in Ethnography of the Gusii of Western Kenya: A Vanishing Cultural Heritage, ed. John Akama and Robert Maxon (Lewiston, NY, 2006), 254-55.
69. DC Kericho to DC South Kavirondo, 9 March 1944, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/9; DC South Kavirondo to DC Kericho, 14 March 1944, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/10; DC South Kavirondo to PC Nyanza, 8 December 1944, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/37
70. DC South Kavirondo W. A. Perreau to PC Nyanza, 3 October 1944, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/12; PC Nyanza to Kinuthia wa Ngata et al., 24 October 1944, KNA, OPE 1/460/26; DC South Kavirondo to PC Nyanza, 8 December 1944, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/37.
71. DC South Kavirondo to PC Nyanza, 15 January 1945, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/48
72. Kinuthia wa Ngata et al. to PC Nyanza, October 1944, KNA, OPE 1/460/25.
73. PC Nyanza to R. Black Malcomson, Advocate and Solicitor, 17 January 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/48a; PC Nyanza to Hayes Sadler, Kenya Secretariat, 8 February 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/71; PC Nyanza to CNC, February 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460.
74. Quoted in Kanogo, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau, 109
75. Letter to the Editor of Baraza, by President of Kisii Union, 10 June 1946, KNA, OPE 1/460/150a
76. J. K. Kebaso to Habari (newspaper), cited by Director of Internal Security to DC South Kavirondo, 18 April 1947, KNA, PC NZA 3/24/1273/274.
77. Kenya Colony and Protectorate, "The Problem of the Squatter," 19 March 1946, PRO CO 1018/28
78. DC South Kavirondo to PC Nyanza, 19 August 1948, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/240
79. Maxon, Going Their Separate Ways, 220, 251
80. Note for CNC by PC Nyanza, March 1946, KNA, OPE 1/460/140; PC Nyanza to Native Courts Officer, 25 August 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/11a
81. Furedi, Mau Mau War in Perspective, 48
82. Leonard Beecher to Kenya Governor, 27 January 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/54a
83. Eliud Mathu MLC to Kenya Governor, 31 January 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/59
84. CNC Minute to Chief Secretary Kenya, 2 February 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/59; Eviction Order Under Section 12, Native Authority Ordinance 2/37, KNA, PC NZA 3/1/491/62; Chief Secretary to PC NZA, 24 February 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/80
85. Leonard Beecher to Kenya Governor, 27 January 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/54a; DC South Kavirondo, W. A. Perreau, to PC Nyanza, 20 April 1945, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/491/88.
86. PC Nyanza to CNC, 18 June 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/102
87. Njoroge Kagunda, for Kikuyu in Kisii, to CNC, 28 July 1945, KNA, OPE 1/460/111e; Njoroge Kagunda to Education Director, 16 May 1946, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/163; Njoroge Kagunda to Kenya Governor, 30 April 1948, KNA, OPE 1/460/188/2; Director of Intelligence and Security to DC South Kavirondo, 29 June 1948, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/229
88. Shadle, "Girl Cases," 6, 86
89. Njoroge Kagunda to Kenya Governor, 6 February 1947, KNA, OPE 1/460/162
90. Frank Furedi, personal communication, October 2005
91. Furedi, Mau Mau War in Perspective, 48
92. Kenya Secretariat Minute by CNC, 15 October 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/17
93. DC Kisii to PC Nyanza, 19 August 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/12/1; Director of Intelligence and Security to CNC, 6 November 1947, KNA, MAA 8/111/2/1; Director of Intelligence and Security to CNC, 4 February 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/2
94. DC Kisii to PC Nyanza, 19 August 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/12/1; Kenya Attorney General to CNC, 27 August 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/14
95. DC South Nyanza to Kenya Attorney General, 7 October 1948, KNA, OPE 1/460/196/1; Testimony of Kikonge Osara, Kisii Tribunal Elder, KNA, MAA 8/111/12/1; DC South Nyanza to PC Nyanza, 1 October 1948, KNA, MAA 8/111/16/1; DC South Nyanza to PC Nyanza, 15 January 1949, KNA, OPE 1/460/213/1
96. Eviction Notice for Kargese by PC Nyanza, 28 February 1946, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/143
97. Native Courts Officer to CNC, 13 October 1948, KNA, OPE 1/460/195
98. Kikuyu Responses to Absorption Questions, 2 November 1948, KNA, OPE 1/460/204/3
99. DC South Nyanza to PC Nyanza, 18 May 1949, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/317
100. Kikuyu Petition to DC South Nyanza, 16 May 1949, KNA, OPE 1/460/224; Nahashon Mwaura for Wakikuyu in Kisii to Kiambu LNC, 1 October 1949, KNA, PC CP 9/21/1/192a
101. Washington Ondicho, Kisii Union Secretary to PC NZA, 25 October 1946, KNA, PC NZA, 3/24/1273/274; DC South Nyanza to PC Nyanza, 18 May 1949, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/317; DC South Nyanza to PC Nyanza, 14 March 1950, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/355
102. I am grateful to Richard Waller for this point
103. Kenya Colony and Protectorate, Legislative Council Debates Official Report, vol. 35, 4th Session, Native Land Units, 953-986, 18-19 January 1950.
104. Legislative Council Clerk to Chief Secretary, 23 January 1950, KNA, OPE 1/354/136
105. DC South Kavirondo to PC Nyanza, 25 May 1948, KNA, OPE 1/460/188/1
106. Nyarango, "Biography of Chief Musa Nyandusi," 13-14
107. DC South Kavirondo to PC Nyanza, 16 July 1947, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/209; Special Monthly Intelligence Report, no. 37, Kikuyu in Kisii, 1 October 1948, KNA, PC Nyanza 3/1/492/248; Karanja, son of Kagoso to DC Kisii, 14 October 1949, KNA, DP 1/65/41.
108. CNC to Officer-in-Charge Masai EPD, 3 January 1952, KNA, OPE 1/357/146; Sotik Settlers Association Secretary to Chief Secretary, 19 January 1953, KNA, OPE 1/460/255; Kenyan Legislative Council Debates, Hansard, 25 November 1953, excerpted in KNA, OPE 1/354/177
109. John Mbugwa et al. to DC South Nyanza, 2 August 1951, KNA, OPE 1/460/245.
110. It is unclear whether this was the same Nashon Kamau who stood with Njoroge Kagunda in 1947 or a different person entirely. It is certainly difficult see how the earlier Nashon Kamau would have escaped deportation in 1950. Nashon Kamau for Kikuyu of Kisii to PC Nyanza, 30 June 1953, KNA, DP 1/111/39.
111. F. D. Corfield, Historical Survey of the Origins and Growth of Mau Mau (London, 1960), 211.
112. East African Standard, 26 November 1953
113. DC South Nyanza to DC Kiambu, 30 March 1954, KNA, DP 1/111/143; DC South Nyanza to DC Kiambu, 14 May 1954, KNA, DP 1/111/215
114. DC Kisii to DO Kisii, 10 June 1954, KNA, DP 1/111/262
115. Joseph Gathaku Mbugua to DC Kisii, 5 November 1960, KNA, DP 1/69/26
116. Spear, "Neo-traditionalism," 18
117. Great Britain, Report of the Kenya Land Commission, 1933, 380
118. Although the Gusii also identified themselves as migrants through their origin myths, they claimed precedence over the Gusii Kikuyu on the grounds that they had arrived in the highlands first. This distinction took on even greater meaning as land pressure increased in the postcolonial era.
119. Gabrielle Lynch, "Negotiating Ethnicity: Identity Politics in Contemporary Kenya," Review of African Political Economy 33 (2006): 56
120. Peter Geschiere, The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe (Chicago, 2009), 23
121. Sara Berry, No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Madison, WI, 1993), 110-11
122. I am grateful to John Lonsdale for this observation