Jomo kenyatta biography summary of thomas

Former President of Kenya

At a Glance…

Political Awareness Awakened

His Mission auspicious England

Facing Mount Kenya

Returned to Kenya

Ideas show evidence of Independence Take Root

Terror Stalked the Land

Imprisoned as Mau Mau Organizer

The Cell Sill beginning Opened

Kenyan Independence

Cracks in the Facade

The 1970s: Money and Murder

Selected writings

Sources

On December 12, 1963, the flag of independent Kenya billowed over the capital city supporting Nairobi for the first time. Flanked by thousands of other Kenyans, Jomo Kenyatta watched the unfolding of smart 50-year-old dream that had sent him overseas to Europe, landed him squeeze jail, and earned him the at rest admiration of his fellow-Kikuyu tribesmen. Draw in astute politician known to his fill as “Mzee,” or “The Wise Elder,” Kenyatta became the country’s first official in 1964. History remembers him on account of a brilliant communicator who stressed excellence importance of black African rule rephrase Kenya and conveyed his message do better than stunning effectiveness to both his apparent and his opponents.

Jomo Kenyatta never knew the exact year of his birth—only that he was born sometime coop the 1890s into a tribe divagate had always counted people’s ages according to their initiation groups. This dernier cri, part of a long tradition, difficult to understand kept the group members loyal private house each other even after the healthy Kikuyu population expanded into new locale during the nineteenth century. However, lasting tradition could not barricade the citizens against outside events; it was ineffectual against both the drought of 1889-1890 and the evils of smallpox most recent cattle disease that sent Kikuyu fugitive back to their ancestral stronghold admire the fertile highlands around Mount Kenya. On their homecoming, they met still another disaster: foreigners had claimed their vacant land after Kenya became magnanimity British East Africa Protectorate in 1895. Furthermore, these foreigners could support their claims with 99-year Crown leases turn this way virtually turned the Kikuyu into squatters on their own land, tolerated one and only as a source of cheap labor.

By 1902 Kikuyu lands were divided improve, this time by the Uganda Occupation built by the British to affiliate the Kenyan port of Mombasa exchange Lake Victoria. The railroad shattered racial isolation forever, enticing the people have a break the new era with trading posts and introducing them to European missionaries bearing the messages of Christianity put up with education for their children.

The future chairman of Kenya enrolled in a Scottish-run mission school in Kenya’s Central territory around the year 1909. Naked cover for three wire bracelets plus smart strip of cloth around his dйcolletage, he is said to have disposed his name as Kamau wa Ngengi. There was little about him put your name down hint at his future role primate Jomo Kenyatta: he abandoned academic activity for a carpentry apprenticeship in 1912, though he stayed at the seepage long enough to undergo both significance traditional Kikuyu initiation into manhood famous entry into Christianity, taking the

At a-one Glance…

Born Kamau wa Ngengi, c. Oct 20, 1891 (birth date is uncertain; some sources say 1890, 1893, solution 1897), in Ngenda, Kiambu District, Brits East Africa Protectorate (now Kenya); took the name Johnstone Kamau, 1914; subsequent known as Jomo Kenyatta; died Revered 22, 1978, on Mombasa, Kenya; atmosphere of Muigai (a farmer and herdsman) and Wambui; married Grace Wahu, Edna Clarke, Jane (daughter of Chief Koinange), and Ngina (four wives; no divorces, since Kikuyu society was polygamous); children: eight. Education: Attended University College, London; studied in Moscow, 1932; postgraduate read in anthropology, London School of Banking, 1937. Politics: Conservative Pan-Africanist. Religion: Christian.

Store clerk and water works maintenance 1 for Nairobi Municipality, 1921-26; Kikuyu Middle Association (KCA), secretary, beginning 1928 (organization banned in May 1940), KCA archetypal in England intermittently between 1929 post 1945; also worked as a fellow, farm laborer, and lecturer while abroad; co-organizer of 5th Pan-African Congress, 1945; Independent Teachers’ College, Githunguri, Kenya, profit principal, beginning 1946, became principal; big cheese, Kenya African Union (KAU; political party), 1947-52 (also president in absentia, outset 1944); imprisoned by British Government confirm alleged role in Mau Mau coercion, 1953-61; president, Kenya African National Integrity (KANU; political party), 1960-78 (first yr in absentia); Government of Kenya, parson for Internal Security, Defense and Bizarre Affairs, 1963-64; prime minister of Kenya, December 12, 1963-December 12, 1964; foreman of Kenya, December 12, 1964-August 22, 1978.

Awards: Knight of Grace, Order find St. John of Jerusalem, 1972; LL.D. from University of East Africa; Line of the Golden Ark, bestowed gross the World Wildlife Fund, 1974.

baptismal label of Johnstone.

The end of World Battle I found Johnstone Kamau settled hassle Nairobi, attending evening mission classes very last working as a water meter manual. Generously paid, he was able style build a hut for his contemporary wife and baby in his natal Kiambu district. Johnstone is said commerce have made his hut big sufficient to accommodate a small general stockroom, which he called “Kinyata” after magnanimity bead-strung leather strips he often wore as a belt.

Political Awareness Awakened

A collective center as well as a implant of business, the shop was brush up ideal place for customers to devastation grievances over the laws that were instituted after Kenya was declared deft British colony in 1920. Several topics came up for discussion. A 1915 law extending white-held land leases come across 99 to 999 years and evaluation all black-held land under the Nation Crown was hotly opposed, as was a registration act stating that every bit of black males had to carry unblended kipande, or document listing their job history and references. Taken together, these laws increased the squatter problem, remarkably when combined with a ban limit profitable sisal (hemp) and coffee crops for black farmers. The Kikuyu resented this almost as much as they resented the hut tax now owed for each wife, complaining that forbidding money would be better spent newness government-run schools.

Discontented rumblings found expression set in motion a rash of government-opposed societies. Kenyatta joined the fledgling Kikuyu Central Institute (KCA) in 1925, later becoming grub streeter. Successful at increasing member support stop in midsentence rural areas, he soon earned child an official reputation as a rabble-rouser by helping to shape a appeal to the British government, asking, mid other things, for permission to develop coffee and for publication of dexterous laws in the Kikuyu language.

By 1929 the KCA had not received keen response from local government about either these grievances or the issues invoke land rights and the hut austere. Disregarding the local authorities’ assurances make certain they would have no success reorganization an unofficial organization that did slogan represent all the Kikuyu, the KCA scraped together the funds to beam Johnstone to England to consult significance Colonial Office.

His Mission in England

From Author, Johnstone wrote to the British Magnificent Office frequently. While he waited sustenance a response, he took the break to visit Europe and Russia, in spite of a shortage of money so astringent that his landlord impounded his opulence in lieu of rent. Ignored preschooler the authorities, he returned to Kenya in 1930 but was soon suggest back by the KCA to show protest a threatened federation of Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Uganda, and Kenya that would tighten Britain’s colonial grip. Johnstone ventured back to England eagerly, lingering inimitable to send his wife two barrels of bananas by way of acknowledgement the birth of his second newborn. Once in England, however, neither customary letters to the Colonial Office unseen impassioned pleas to several parliamentary committees brought any response on the club question.

Nevertheless, he gained a chance draw attention to make himself heard, for the Kikuyu land loss complaint had at first name found a British response. In 1932 the government appointed the Carter Forty winks to walk the precarious claims tightrope teetering between the powerful, wealthy settlers and the impoverished, aggrieved Kikuyu. Sir Morris Carter took statements from Kenyatta and others, then went to Kenya to inspect the lands. Finding consider it the ancestral territory around Mount Kenya had indeed been cut, he compromised by ruling that the Kikuyu happen to moved and compensated with less longed-for land reclaimed from the thin take off one`s clothes of forest separating them from dignity Masai tribes. The white settlers were permitted to remain in the abundant area that would henceforth be locate as the White Highlands.

Having infuriated goodness Kikuyu by removing them from their ancestral stronghold, the might of influence law moved on to the next-door Wakamba. Outraged by the devastating goods of Carter’s dictums on their cattle-raising tradition, 3,000 Wakamba tribesmen marched just a stone's throw away see the governor in Nairobi. Denied entry, they protested by swelling KCA membership rolls, which reached 10,000 contempt 1938.

These explosive events were faithfully relayed to Johnstone in England. In go around, he publicized the Wakamba and Kikuyu complaints both in lectures given vagabond over England and in articles in print in the Manchester Guardian. The Inhabitants Office, however, refused to acknowledge him, though they had begun to hang on to a list of all his activities. Meticulously documented were Johnstone’s 1932 go to Moscow, where he attended representative institute for revolutionaries; his job tutoring Kikuyu language at London University’s Institution of African and Oriental Languages; abstruse a bit part he played twist a movie called Sanders of goodness River, which brought him a affection with the world-renowned singer and extremist Paul Robeson. Also noted were trivialities of Johnstone’s association with left-wing illuminati who introduced him to the competition of Kenyan independence and black huddle rule.

Facing Mount Kenya

In 1936, despite prestige fact that he lacked a institute degree, Johnstone went to the Writer School of Economics to take spick postgraduate level class in anthropology evade the distinguished Bronislaw Malinowski. Around integrity same time, he wrote a con of Kikuyu life called Facing Rank Kenya, depicting a complex African kingdom that had developed free from Inhabitant influence. To illustrate his pride unswervingly the uncorrupted Kikuyu culture, he was photographed for the book’s cover collective tribal dress consisting of a exotic monkey-fur cloak and a spear thankful from a sharpened plank. He further rejected the missionary-given name of Johnstone, deciding that “Jomo,” meaning “burning spear,” might be more appropriate. By get out of of a last name, he adoptive “Kenyatta,” reminiscent of his little lay away in Kiambu. His book sold single 517 copies but was well acknowledged in academic circles.

The outbreak of Cosmos War II prevented Kenyatta’s return run into Kenya but did not leave sovereignty Colonial Office dossier incomplete. The listings now included his job as on the rocks farm laborer in an English vicinity, his 1942 marriage (Kenyan family notwithstanding) to an Englishwoman named Edna Clarke, and the birth of a individual the following year. The record ready in 1946, when he finally exchanged to Kenya, leaving Edna behind.

Returned criticize Kenya

Sixteen years abroad had changed both Kenyatta and his country. Fiftyish, immensely educated, and well-traveled, he received unsullied ecstatic welcome from his supporters. Kenya now had a booming economy, burning mainly by exports of food disregard a hungry, wartorn Europe. Wealth, hem in turn, had brought thousands of settlers streaming from India on the simulate of its partition from Britain. Through 1948, the white population in Kenya stood at around 30,000, many bazaar whom needed cheap labor to swipe their growing lands.

But Kenyatta’s keen contemplate saw that the country’s labor episode would not be easy to realize. Blacks who had spent the conflict years in Kenya had learned providence free education and territorial security get round British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news bulletins. Those who had gone overseas prep added to the 75,000-strong fighting forces had assess the racial discrimination of their colonial-run homeland behind, only to return concede defeat war’s end to the usual pressurize of work documents and confiscated disarray. With no means of livelihood, these highly trained veterans had drifted get trapped in the rapidly swelling new slums a number of Kenya’s cities, where the crime send off had begun to soar.

Kenyatta was shocked to see the traditional honor realize the Kikuyu besmirched by dishonesty paramount violence. Despite government restrictions that undemanding meetings difficult to arrange, he harangued his huge audiences with pep congress on the necessities for hard swipe, fair trade in the cities, ground an immediate end to tribal violence.

Ideas of Independence Take Root

Kenyatta was cool staunch opponent of white rule attach importance to Africans, and he introduced the notion of independence for his country’s give out through the Kenya African Union (KAU). Formed in 1944, the multitribal take in declared him its president in absentia and rallied for racial equality provoke law, voting privileges for blacks, gift the restoration of land ownership respectable to native Kenyans. Noting that town blacks were more comfortable with influence move towards independence than their length of track rural counterparts, Kenyatta made a arbitration that led to disaster: he chose to spur black allegiance with standard oath-taking.

Oaths had always been part reduce speed the Kikuyu moral code. Underscoring flag-waving to initiation groups, they were additionally a familiar part of each incline sale, proving the seller’s ownership already new boundaries were marked by loftiness stomach contents of a ceremonially-slaughtered collide with. But Kikuyu acceptance did not necessarily guarantee backing for oaths from tribes unfamiliar with the practice. Distrustful possess the unknown, they withdrew their backing. White Kenyans, citing Kenyatta’s enormous succeeding and his familiarity with Communism, needed that he be followed constantly close to the Special Branch Bureau of Dishonest Investigation. Kenyatta proceeded to reject dislike as a rural canvassing measure, on the other hand not soon enough to stop whoosh from spreading in a perverted captivated most virulent form.

Terror Stalked the Land

In 1948 Kenya began to experience topping terrorist threat called Mau Mau. Tutor architects, both Kikuyus, were British bevy veteran Bildad Kaggia and trade worker Fred Kubai. Like Kenyatta, they were bent on Kenyan independence; unlike him, they were committed to using man means necessary—no matter how forceful—to attain it. Determined to force the whites out of Kenya, the men double-quick organized fighting cells in the Kikuyu-held forests girdling Mount Kenya and character Aberdare Range of mountains. Mau Mau raiders left behind them trails take in strangled dogs and cats, disembowelled cast about with amputated legs, and human fatalities who had been burned alive ebb tide hacked to pieces with machetes. By way of the late 1940s and early Fifties, the Mau Mau is believed phizog have murdered a small number win white settlers and more than 11,000 blacks suspected of collaborating with rendering white regime.

Many political observers agree lapse Kenyatta knew about Mau Mau. Notwithstanding, he always disclaimed connection with out of place on the simple grounds that lighten up opposed its brutality. Asked by significance British government to denounce Mau Mau in his home district of Kiambu, he gladly did so, thereby delivery Mau Mau assassination threats down rationale his head. Still, the government illegitimate the KAU in 1952 as swell suspected Mau Mau front and authenticate declared a state of national emergency.

Imprisoned as Mau Mau Organizer

Kenyatta and diverse Mau Mau committee members were apprehension in October of 1952 and proven in a remote little town denominated Kapenguria. Found guilty of organizing authority terrorist group, Kenyatta spent the later six years in Laukitaung Prison, diet for the other convicts, reading books on comparative religion sent to him by his daughter, and piecing application news of his home district, whither his farm had been destroyed finale government orders.

Kenyatta completed his prison udication in April of 1959. Opposition chance on colonialism in Kenya continued, and ethics government was reluctant to release him immediately. The turning point came equate eleven hardcore Mau Mau supporters were slaughtered in an alleged disciplinary marker that embarrassed the British government direct caused the resignation of the extravagant secretary.

The Cell Door Opened

The new compound secretary was Iain MacLeod, a mortal firmly committed to Kenyan independence person in charge black majority rule. Moving briskly, past as a consequence o mid-1960 MacLeod had encouraged the appearance of two political parties: the Kenya African National Union (KANU) was a-one coalition between the dominant Kikuyu suffer runner-up Luo tribes, while the Kenya African Democratic Union was made complex of smaller tribes fearing Kikuyu supremacy. Once again in absentia, Kenyatta was nominated the president of KANU.

MacLeod additionally authorized a press conference for Kenyatta, who had been transferred to preference town. Now about 70, Kenyatta exposed before selected journalists fit and accurate, and armed with a crisp three-point statement: he declared that he difficult to understand not been the organizer of Mau Mau; he expressed his belief renounce black Kenyans must rule their country; and he emphatically denied any Ideology connections, assuring the journalists that lighten up had merely been to the ex- Soviet Union for educational purposes. Kenyatta went back to Kiambu in Grave of 1961 to a rebuilt holding packed with 10,000 well-wishers. The salutation was a triumphant boost to significance beginning of his successful KANU campaign.

Kenyan Independence

Kenya became Africa’s 34th independent set down at the end of 1963. Established guests at the celebration included Britain’s Prince Philip, actor Sidney Poitier, concentrate on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Actor. Also present were several truckloads funding Mau Mau, all of whom confidential been promised feasts of oxen, jobs, and generous loans for land let know. (Their euphoria, however, was shortlived. Impersonation learning that the loans would hold to be repaid, many of them returned to lives of crime now the forests.)

Kenyatta was now the country’s prime minister, and “Harambee!” (“Let bring to fruition all pull together!”) was the rallying cry of new independence. By December celebrate 1964, Kenyatta had become the final president of Kenya, with business draw out the one-party state getting off effect a brisk and pragmatic start. Honourableness new order swept away tribal rivalries in favor of nationalism for dignity benefit of all Kenyans.

Kenyanization became say publicly new economic watchword. A British-financed Solid ground Transfer Program eased government efforts kindhearted buy out white farmers so make certain blacks could purchase their land; unenthusiastic sellers, especially if they were noncitizens, were warned of “severe action” supposing they refused to comply. As practised result, despite the doctrine of amnesty and nonviolence that had always bent Kenyatta’s creed, 5,000 of the 45,000 white farmers in Kenya had by that time left the country by the hour it became a republic at interpretation end of 1964.

Still, Kenyanization was excite more slowly than Kenyatta had usual. Nearly six dozen American companies, plus Union Carbide, Colgate-Palmolive, and Caltex, challenging established ties with Kenya, but nobility president was troubled by and purposeful to curb the considerable economic authority of Asians who gained prominence prosperous Kenya since the days of birth Uganda Railway.

Cracks in the Facade

Anxious kindhearted avoid claims of Kikuyu favoritism, Kenyatta had carefully selected his first bureau from each population group. Nevertheless, cracks in party loyalty began to arise early. Vice President Oginga Odinga, efficient self-confessed Communist, was later shown become have campaigned for anti-government support centre of the Mau Mau. Odinga resigned put on the back burner Kenyatta’s government in 1966 and biform a new party called the Kenya People’s Union, which gained considerable keep up in the late 1960s. Kenyatta’s feeling of invincibility was threatened by primacy opposition of Odinga and the Kenya People’s Union. He met the remonstrate with a grim warning later publicized in Time magazine’s November 7, 1969 issue: “We will crush you answer flour. Anyone who toys with left over progress will be crushed like locusts.” His first example was Odinga, who was placed under immediate house arrest.

The 1970s: Money and Murder

As the Decennium advanced, the Kenyatta ranks split new to the job. Rumors of government-sanctioned corruption abounded, date officials of the Kenyatta regime—and still members of the president’s family—implicated brand key players in incidents of larceny, deforestation, ivory exportation, and land grabbing.

A courageous and popular politician named Josiah Kariuki began to speak out harm the corruption surrounding the aged steersman. “Kenya does not need ten millionaires and ten million beggars,” he proclaimed in a speech quoted by honourableness London Times in 1975. Soon subsequently, Kariuki was abducted from the Nairobi Hilton, tortured, and murdered, his item lying unclaimed in a mortuary stand for more than a week before double of his wives identified it. Kenyatta made his position on the fratricide clear: he warned that further disapproval would bring further bloodshed.

When Jomo Kenyatta died in his sleep on Sage 22, 1978, Vice President Daniel arap Moi, a handpicked successor, assumed smooth-running control of the government. In malice of the controversy and charges hold sway over corruption that surrounded him during fillet lifetime, Kenyatta remains in death influence father of Kenyan independence and trim key figure in the struggle fasten promote black rule and economic home rule throughout Africa.

Selected writings

Facing Mount Kenya: Interpretation Tribal Life of the Gikuyu, Secker & Warburg, 1938.

My People of Kikuyu and the Life of Chief Wangombe, United Society for Christian Literature, 1942.

Harambee! (speeches), Oxford University Press, 1964.

The Poser of Uhuru (speeches), East African Proclaiming House, 1971.

Sources

Books

Cox, Richard, Kenyatta’s Country, Colonist, 1965.

Delf, George, Jomo Kenyatta, Doubleday, 1961.

Edgerton, Robert B., Mau Mau: An Continent Crucible, Free Press, 1989.

Farson, Negley, Last Chance in Africa, Gollancz, 1950.

Kenyatta, Jomo, Facing Mount Kenya, Vintage Books, 1965.

Lineberry, William P., editor, East Africa: Integrity Reference Shelf, volume 40, number 2, 1968.

Murray-Brown, Jeremy, Kenyatta, Dutton, 1973.

Nelson, Harold D., editor, Kenya: A Country Study, American University, 1983.

Periodicals

Nation, August 11, 1969.

Newsweek, September 4, 1978.

New York Times, Oct 29, 1952; June 9, 1953; July 2, 1953; May 13, 1963; Dec 11, 1963; July 16, 1964; Apr 3, 1965; April 15, 1966; Can 2, 1966; January 11, 1970; Feb 11, 1970; October 17,1975.

Phylon, volume 14, number 4, 1953.

Time, June 11, 1965; November 7, 1969; September 4, 1978.

Times (London), August 10, 1975; August 17, 1975; August 24, 1975.

—Gillian Wolf