The Mau Mau Rebellion: Terror in British Kenya

The Mau Mau rebellion (1952-60), led by the Kikuyu people of Kenya, was a guerrilla warconducted against British colonial rule, motivated by anger at land confiscations and the threat to indigenous belief systems and cultural practices. Called by the British the 'Kenyan Emergency,' the response of the authorities to the wave of violent attacks by the Mau Mau on African civilians and White settlers involved mass arrests in detention camps, reprisals against villages, and the forced resettlement of civilians suspected of involvement, and such abuses as torture and executions without trial.