The Closer Union plan was meant to unite Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika colonies into a single British East African federation.
In the spring of 1931, East African delegates were invited to London to ‘represent the Native Races’ and tell the Joint Committee on Closer Union what they thought about the government of East Africa.
The ones from Kenya were Rev. Ezekiel Apindi, president of the Kavirondo Taxpayers Welfare Association, from the west, up near Lake Victoria; the Kamba sub headman James Mutua, from the country east of Nairobi; and Chief Koinange wa Mbiyu, the president of the Kikuyu Association.
This experience of immersion into the imperial capital of London was also meant to dazzle them enough to tell of England’s modernity upon returning back to the colonies.
A direct result of Senior Chief Koinange’s impassioned speech infront of the Joint Committee was the establishment of the Morris Carter Commission in 1932. Kikuyus celebrated this move and filled in their land-claims on printed forms with optimism.
They would finally have an opportunity to contest for their land in court and have it returned to them; or so they thought. Their confidence in this process was first shaken by the composition of the commission.
The personnel appointed by the Conservative colonial secretary were all men with a stake in Kenya.
As Johnstone Kenyatta pointed out, they were neither disinterested nor independent and, significantly, none were black Africans.
The chairman, Morris Carter, was an eminent judge and administrator who had chaired the Southern Rhodesia Land Commission in 1925 which found that the indigenous inhabitants had no inalienable right to land and called racial segregation not only ‘inescapable’ but ‘inherently desirable’.
Captain Frank O’ Brien Wilson was a well-known settler, associated with Lord Delamere, who farmed a disputed land block in Machakos District. Rupert W. Hemsted was a former provincial commissioner of Kenya’s western Nyanza Province who had retired to live in the colony, a practice formerly banned.
After a colonial administrator had served his time abroad, he was supposed to retire on his pension back home to somewhere like Cheltenham or Tunbridge Wells.
In 1929 the Colonial Service regulations changed, permitting an officer to retire in the colony where he had worked. This involved a risk to impartiality. A man on active service might become motivated by long-term self-interest and a desire to please future settler neighbours.
Further, the commission would refer to European texts, travellers logs, Early administration record and British Law without considering Kikuyu land ownership customs. This would prove to be an impediment to justice as we shall soon see.
A young Kenyatta testified to the Commission stating that the Southern Kikuyu (Agikuyu a Kiambu) had bought land south of the Chania River from the forest dwelling Dorobo people before European contact. The commission was skeptial of these transactions. They consulted old Dorobo people who in turn claimed that most times the payment was not fully concluded and the inferiority of their numbers in comparison to the Kikuyu also played a part. They were ‘strong armed’ out of their property.
Not all claims were just based on ancient transactions however. Senior Chief Koinange pleaded for the return of the 2500 acres alienated from the Njunu clan and to prove his claim he had some very compelling evidence. He explained how his ancestor Njunu wa Maigua bought the land from a Dorobo for 900 goats with an extra 2000 goats being paid by his son Gikonyo, to Dorobo inheritors whose names he mentioned. The deal was sealed with the marrying off of Gikonyo’s daughter. Lastly, he asked for permission to have the remains of his ancestors exhumed from the land he was claiming and sure enough, they were there.
The Last Straw
There was plenty of tangible evidence cementing Koinange’s claims to that land but it did not help him. Rather than disturb the white man whose coffee trees sat on that farm, they upheld the white ownership. This is where Koinange’s trust in British justice waned completely. Koinange’s loyalty, hospitality and readiness to collaborate curdled into a bitter, vindictive desire to expel the white man from that land by any means. This was effectively the turning point of moderate Africans from pursuing constitutional reforms to militance.
A grievous (or perhaps deliberate) error had been made in reference to the Devonshire White Paper of 1923. One of the responsibilities of this commission supposedly quoted this paper stating it was meant to ‘‘to define the area, generally known as the Highlands, within which persons of European descent are to have a privileged position in accordance with the White Paper of 1923’. The main purpose of this paper was to confirm that land in the ‘White Highlands’ would not be conferred to Asians.
The colonial secretary, Philip Cunliffe-Lister, authorised the Governor of Kenya to instruct the commission chairman that the phrase ‘privileged position’ in his terms of reference meant that ‘no person other than a European shall be entitled to acquire … agricultural land in such areas or to occupy land therein’. Twenty years later, a different Royal Commission would diverge with this commission noting that the term ‘privileged position’ never appeared on the Devonshire White Paper. That inference was erroneous from the start. By then it was too late. Africans were completely disposed of their land as a result of the commission’s report.
This ruling held very drastic real-life consequences for the likes of Koinange and the majority of Southern Kikuyu of Kiambu. They had laid claim to about 80,000 acres of land but the commission report stated only 21,000 acres were in-fact owed to them. Bits of forests reserves and unoccupied land were surveyed to be given to them as compensation as per the report. These lands were not their original ithaka and they were far inferior in terms of fertility and drainage. Not to mention the plots were significantly small.
Thanks to the commission, widespread land shortage persisted amongst the Kikuyu which would later morph into the Olenguruone Crisis and later, the Maumau War.
