Agĩkũyũ: 1890-1965

Waiyaki, Kenyatta, Kĩmaathi

by Maina wa Kĩnyattĩ

A Gĩkũyũ-language textbook of the Agĩkũyũ from primary resistance to independence.

KES 2,500

Published: 2016
Pages: 288
Language: Gĩkũyũ
Publisher: The Mau Mau Research Center, Kenya

About the book

Written in Gĩkũyũ, this book is intended as a textbook for students of history interested in the history and culture of the Agĩkũyũ people and their part in the struggle for national independence. The material is arranged chronologically in four sections, from the colonial period to 1965.

The years from 1920 to 1940 brought the peasant-worker alliance against colonial occupation and the first African political organisations: the Young Kikuyu Association, East African Association, Kavirondo Young Association, Kikuyu Central Association, North Kavirondo Young Association, Ukamba Members Association, and Taita Hills Association. The trade union movement formed and anti-imperialist cultural resistance intensified.

From 1940 to 1952, efforts turned to overthrowing the colonial system through electoral politics and a non-racial democracy, and divergent class and individual interests began to show within the African population. The final section follows the Mau Mau movement and its armed wing, the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, led by Field Marshal Kĩmathi, which sought to end the colonial system altogether.

Through the book

1884-1920
Primary resistance to the establishment and consolidation of colonial rule
1920-1940
Independence forces work within colonial "democracy"; the first African political associations
1940-1952
Electoral politics for a non-racial democracy; the Kenya African Union forms in 1944 under Jomo Kenyatta
1952-1963
The armed movement: Mau Mau and the Kenya Land and Freedom Army under Field Marshal Kĩmathi

About the author

Maina wa Kĩnyattĩ is a Kenyan Marxist historian, widely considered the foremost researcher on the Mau Mau. He was abducted from Kenyatta University in 1982, interrogated and tortured by state agents, tried on trumped-up charges, and held in Kamiti and Naivasha prisons until his release on 17 October 1988, mostly in solitary confinement. Fearing re-arrest under Moi, he left for Tanzania and then sought asylum in the United States. He received the PEN Freedom to Write Award in 1988.