The British colonial presence in Kenya formally began in 1895, when white settlers were given vast tracts of rich agricultural land. Kenya became a British colony in 1920.
Settlers arrived in increasing numbers as tales of Kenya’s ‘Happy Valley’ cocktail hour lifestyle reached British shores. It was a time of dispossession and violence for the Kenyan people. Calls for Kenyan independence grew – led by the anti-colonial party Mau Mau, which means ‘go away, go away’.
In 1952, the British declared a state of emergency after a wave of strikes and violent attacks.
In one month alone, up to 80,000 Mau Mau supporters were arrested and an estimated 25,000 people were killed as Kenyan militants rose up against the British Empire in their quest for self-rule.
The United Nations has said that more than half a million Kenyans from the Kericho area suffered gross human rights violations, including unlawful killings and displacement during British colonial rule, which ended in 1963.
Mau Mau chief Kaleba is arrested in 1953 while Mau Mau was fighting British colonial rule in Kenya
During the uprising, detention camps were set up by the British authorities. They have been described by some historians as ‘Kenya’s Gulag’.
At the height of the uprising, an estimated 71,000 Kenyans were held in prison camps. The vast majority have never been convicted in court.
Kenyans were beaten and sexually abused by officers acting on behalf of the British government and attempting to suppress the ‘Mau Mau’ uprising.
In 2013, Britain agreed a multi-million dollar compensation settlement for Kenyans tortured by colonial forces during the uprising.
Many Kenyans continue to suffer economic consequences from the theft of their land, the United Nations says, even as that same land has become profitable for multinational companies.
On December 12, 1963, the African country of Kenya became independent from the British.
According to Britannica, African demands for greater involvement in political processes were rejected until 1944, when an African was included in the legislature.
Despite this, disputes over land and cultural traditions continued, the movement against colonial rule grew, and the uprising of the militant nationalist group Mau Mau in the 1950s resulted in the country being forced into a state of emergency.
British police officers hold men from the village of Kariobangi at gunpoint as their huts are searched for evidence that they took part in the 1952 Mau Mau uprising
However, this increased African political participation in the early 1960s and Kenya became independent in 1963. A year after the first Jamhuri Day, Kenya was admitted to the Commonwealth as a republic in 1964 with Jomo Kenyatta as president.
In 2013, the British government announced it would pay £14 million in compensation to around 5,000 elderly Kenyans tortured by British colonial forces – after a legal battle that lasted four years.
The admission came at the end of a test case brought by law firm Leigh Day, in which British courts had jurisdiction to hear historical claims brought by those held in military camps.
The negotiations began after a court in London ruled that three elderly Kenyans, who were victims of castration, rape and abuse in detention in the 1950s during the crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies, could sue Britain.
Including legal costs, the total bill for the brutal treatment of thousands of prisoners tortured and raped under colonial rule came to around £20 million.
But then-Secretary of State William Haag stopped short of apologizing. Mr Haag told MPS that the British government continued to deny responsibility for what happened during the uprising, admitting only that “we understand the pain and grief felt by those who were involved.”
The torture took place during the so-called Kenyan ‘Emergency’ of 1952-60, when fighters from the Mau Mau movement attacked British targets, causing panic among white settlers and alarming the government in London.
The then Secretary of State William Haag said at the time: ‘The British Government recognizes that Kenyans have been victims of torture and other ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial government.
‘The UK Government sincerely regrets that these abuses have occurred and that they have hampered Kenya’s progress towards independence.
“Torture and ill-treatment are abhorrent violations of human dignity that we unreservedly condemn.”