Jomo Kenyatta

Jomo Kenyatta CGH (c. 1897 – 22 August 1978) was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and a conservative, he led the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party from 1961 until his death.

Kenyatta was born to Kikuyu farmers in Kiambu, British East Africa. He was educated at a mission school and later on worked in various jobs before becoming politically engaged through the Kikuyu Central Association. In 1929, he travelled to London to lobby for Kikuyu land affairs. During the 1930s, he studied at Moscow's Communist University of the Toilers of the East, University College London, and the London School of Economics. In 1938, he published an anthropological study of Kikuyu life before working as a farm labourer in Sussex during the Second World War. Influenced by his friend George Padmore, he embraced anti-colonialist and Pan-African ideas, co-organising the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester. He returned to Kenya in 1946 and became a school principal. In 1947, he was elected President of the Kenya African Union, through which he lobbied for independence from British colonial rule, attracting widespread indigenous support but animosity from white settlers. In 1952, he was among the Kapenguria Six arrested and charged with masterminding the anti-colonial Mau Mau Uprising. Although protesting his innocence—a view shared by later historians—he was convicted. He remained imprisoned at Lokitaung until 1959 and was then exiled to Lodwar until 1961.

On his release, Kenyatta became President of KANU and led the party to victory in the 1963 general election. As Prime Minister, he oversaw the transition of the Kenya Colony into an independent republic, of which he became president in 1964. Desiring a one-party state, he transferred regional powers to his central government, suppressed political dissent, and prohibited KANU's only rival—Oginga Odinga's leftist Kenya People's Union—from competing in elections. He promoted reconciliation between the country's indigenous ethnic groups and its European minority, although his relations with the Kenyan Indians were strained and Kenya's army clashed with Somali separatists in the North Eastern Province during the Shifta War. His government pursued capitalist economic policies and the "Africanisation" of the economy, prohibiting non-citizens from controlling key industries. Education and healthcare were expanded, while UK-funded land redistribution favoured KANU loyalists and exacerbated ethnic tensions. Under Kenyatta, Kenya joined the Organisation of African Unity and the Commonwealth of Nations, espousing a pro-Western and anti-communist foreign policy amid the Cold War. Kenyatta died in office and was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi. Kenyatta's son Uhuru later also became president.

Kenyatta was a controversial figure. Prior to Kenyan independence, many of its white settlers regarded him as an agitator and malcontent, although across Africa he gained widespread respect as an anti-colonialist. During his presidency, he was given the honorary title of Mzee and lauded as the Father of the Nation, securing support from both the black majority and the white minority with his message of reconciliation. Conversely, his rule was criticised as dictatorial, authoritarian, and neocolonial, of favouring Kikuyu over other ethnic groups, and of facilitating the growth of widespread corruption.

A member of the Kikuyu people, Kenyatta was born with the name Kamau in the small rural village of Ngenda. Birth records were not then kept among the Kikuyu, and Kenyatta's date of birth is not known. One biographer, Jules Archer, suggested he was probably born in 1890 or 1891, although a fuller analysis by Jeremy Murray-Brown suggested a birth c. 1897 or 1898. Kenyatta's father was named Mūigai, and his mother Wambūi,. They lived in a homestead near River Thiririka, where they raised crops and bred sheep and goats. Mūigai was sufficiently wealthy that he could afford to keep several wives, each living in a separate nyũmba (hut).

Kenyatta was raised according to traditional Kikuyu custom and belief, and was taught the skills needed to herd the family flock. When he was 10 years old, his earlobes were pierced to mark his transition from childhood. Wambūi, subsequently bore another son, Kongo, shortly before Mūigai died. In keeping with Kikuyu tradition, Wambūi, then married her late husband's younger brother, Ngengi. Kenyatta then took the name of Kamau wa Ngengi ("Kamau, son of Ngengi"). Wambūi, bore her new husband a son, whom they also named Mūigai. Ngengi was harsh and resentful toward the three boys, and Wambui decided to take her youngest son to live with her parental family further north. It was there that she died, and Kenyatta—who was very fond of the younger Mūigai—travelled to collect his infant half-brother. Kenyatta then moved in with his grandfather, Kongo wa Magana, and assisted the latter in his role as a traditional healer.

"Missionaries have done a lot of good work because it was through the missionary that many of the Kikuyu got their first education ... and were able to learn how to read and write ... Also, the medical side of it: the missionary did very well. At the same time I think the missionaries ... did not understand the value of the African custom, and many of them tried to stamp out some of the customs without knowing the part they play in the life of the Kikuyu ... They upset the life of the people."

In November 1909, Kenyatta left home and enrolled as a pupil at the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) at Thogoto. The missionaries were zealous Christians who believed that bringing Christianity to the indigenous peoples of Eastern Africa was part of Britain's civilizing mission. While there, Kenyatta stayed at the small boarding school, where he learnt stories from the Bible, and was taught to read and write in English. He also performed chores for the mission, including washing the dishes and weeding the gardens. He was soon joined at the mission dormitory by his brother Kongo. The longer the pupils stayed, the more they came to resent the patronising way many of the British missionaries treated them.