How Kikuyu People were forced into Wage Economy
4 colonial government regulations that forced Kikuyu people (And other natives) into the exploitive wage economy.
1. Establishment of the African/Kikuyu Reserves.
These were defined areas meant to confine people in the same place.
“With insufficient land in their reserves, many Africans had little choice but to migrate to the European farms in search of work and survival”
2. Hut tax
The hut tax and the poll tax were equivalent of “almost of two months of African wages at the going local rate”.
To be able to pay the introduced tax forced Kikuyu people to migrate in search of work.
3. Introduction of Kipande
Due to the increased number of people migrating in search of work, the colonial government introduced Kipande (A kind of pass). This was meant to keep a record of “a person’s name, fingerprint, ethnic group, past employment history, and current employer’s signature”.
“The Kikuyu put the Pass in a small metal container, the size of a cigarette box, and wore it around their neck”. ~ Mbugi
4. Limiting the African agricultural production to the Marketplace
On seeing that the Kikuyu people were advancing in agricultural production and hence selling their produce at lower prices, the settlers put pressure on the colonial government to intervene.
“The natives were forbidden to grow the most profitable cash crops such as tea, coffee and sisal and limited only to grains.”
This worsened even more after the second world war when the colonial government introduced Agricultural Boards which required that the natives sell their grains at a fixed price.
Other excerpts
In conclusion to “With a prehistoric people” book, Routledge observes that “The Akikuyu are an industrious people….”
The couple also talks about how the British government was looking for ways to induce “Native Labor”.
“There is yet a third and attractive method of solving the problems connected to labor. The black man is neither compelled to work nor to be allowed to remain idle. He is to be stimulated to acquire new wants and to be impelled to labor on his own free will in order to satisfy them. That he is encouraged to abandon the simple life for the complex ways of civilization”
Sources
- Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story OF Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
- With a prehistoric people, the Kikuyu of British East Africa by William Scoresby Routledge (1910: P330-333)
Cover Image: Kipande holder “Mbugi” by Nura Qureshi
More Kikuyu good reads
– > Kikuyu Resources
-> Follow Kikuyuland on Twitter
-> Check out Kikuyu Stories
Elephant and Man: A Story of the Agikuyu and the Europeans
Thithia Part 2: Thithia na Múndú Wa Gīcúgúma
Thithia Part 4: Ūrīa Thithia Oragire Mútunyani Ūmwe
About The Author
Modern Kikuyu
Learning and Sharing Agikuyu People's History, Culture, Traditions, and Way of Life. Past & Present. #Kikuyu #KikuyuLand | Learn & Share your Knowledge of #Kikuyuculture
I think this Colonial narrative of Gikuyu land belonged to Dorobo and Gumba who are natural nomads being hunter gatherers is really unfortunate. It shows how much the Gikuyu dont know their own narrative of origins they are fine to follow an irrational Imperialistic narrative. The Dorobo and Gumba are PYGMY peoples and the PYGMIES all come from the Central-SOuthern Africa in COngor-DRC originally and Southern Africa. They belong to other Pygmies like Batwa, Mbuti, hutu,Khoi and the San and many other PYGMY groups, so anyone Gikuyu who believes the ANTHROPOLOGIST and ETHNOGRAPHIC NARRATIVES they are going to use it to DIENFRANCHISE the Gukuyu of their eternal homeland by selling us a FALSE NARRATIVE that we bought land from the PYGMIES who MOVED INTO OUR TERRITORY and we were just being COURTEOUS to buy them OFF so they can go away and RETURN WHERE THEY CAME FROM. If you look at them they have NO LINGUISTIC or CULTURAL relationship to ANY North-Central-Eastern African peoples, thats why they either adopted our cultures or they simply left and went back where they came from, thats why people “don’t know” where they disappeared to? They went back where they came from because they realised that they couldn’t hunt on Gikuyu territory forever. So please, stop repeating this FALSE ETHNOGRAPHIC-ANTHROPOLOGIST COLONIAL Narrative. Mugikuyu ti guka okire, nigukoruo akoriruo CENTRAL PROVINCE where he inherited from eternity till HUNTER-GATHERER INVADERS came to INVADE us the Gikuyu. So please stop telling our posterity that Gikuyu land was PYGMY land, IT NEVER WAS!, it was ALWAYS Gikuyu land, and it is from Mukurue that Gikuyus children moved outwards.
One last thing,this SOCIALIST narrative is ALSO soo very erroneous. The Gikuyu land was based on OWNERSHIP of LAND and PROPERTY. Land was demarcated, and passed on from Father to sons, and they gave to their grandchildren, and continued to clear more land as they needed as long as there was no one else who had demarcated it for themselves, hence KUHANDA ITHIGI originally came from the notion of DEMARCATING LAND in order to show the BORDERS of OWNERSHIP. If the boundary is set by someone else before another, then they could buy it off that other person as long as the other person was willing to sell it. Land did not belong to the CLAN in the SOCIALIST SENSE but it belonged in terms of INHERITANCE from an ORIGINAL MUHIRIGA—Anjiru started somewhere and continued to expand their INHERITANCE from their Father to sons, and sons sons, so the LNAD was always OWNED by SOMEONE, not by a CLAN ONLY. The people who were given “farming rights” were people who came from somewhere else and had NO INHERITANCE in the Gikuyu land because obviously they did not inherit if they came from elsewhere. As an example, a young man arrived in a village, he had been thrown away by his own community for whatever reason maybe he fell sick and was left behind eg among Maasai who left children who were too young or weak behind when they went away herding, this child would be given land to farm so he can prove himnself and then he would be given his own land with time after he has been “born a gikuyu” but only after he has been proven. Such people were called AHOI because they might also choose to leave and go back where they came from. These were the only ones who cultivated for a time on CLAN designated land belonging to someone who is not farming on that particular area for whatever reason and who has agreed to allow the MUHOI to farm for the time agreed. So there was NO TIME when Gikuyu did not OWN LAND, and bought and sold what they needed. The so-called “communal” was LAND inherited from a father to his sons, and if any son died for whatever reason, his land could be leased out to a MUHOI and if the MUHOI proved to be a good son, he would be allowed to marry into that family and thereby take that land as his own inheritance. The SOCIALISTS are trying to sell us this colonialist-imperialistic “settler” narrative, that is FALSE to JUSTIFY SETTLER COLONIALISM in Africa, by saying that there is no people who did not come from somewhere else since anitquity and therefore Africans should allow COLONIALSITS to settle on their land since everyone comes from somewhere else anyway!! But NO AFRICANS EVER get allowed SETTLER COLONIALIST LAND in Euro-AMerica, Africans can barely OWN A HOUSE let alone land. So lets not accept these “settler” from somewhere else narrative! AFRICANS we were ALWAYS IN AFRICA we have expanded and intermarried between ourselves but we have never been SETTLERS COLONIALISTS we have always been IN AFRICA and many Africans STILL LIVE WHERE THEIR ANCESTORS ALWAYS LIVED they have never even gone far out since “far out” also always belonged to ANOTHER TRIBE by INHERITANCE from their forefathers. Africa is NOT Euro-America which is the land of CATALAN MONGOL peoples and Red Indians, STOLEN from them by SETTLER Indo-Europeans.