The Mau Mau movement was a nationalist armed peasant revolt against the British colonial state in Kenya, its policies and supporters. The exact origins of the movement, as with most secret societies, are uncertain, as it was only ever loosely organised and most of their actions were opportunistic in nature. In any event, properly organised military resistance would have been impossible given the extent of British control over Kikuyu territory and the reserves.
In 1946, impatient with the pace of change proposed by the Kenya African Union (KAU) and angered by the shooting of unarmed demonstrators in Nairobi, a group of former World War11 Kikuyu veterans formed the “Forty Group” and started organising violent opposition against white settlers. The group and other like-minded people adopted a modus-operandi of robbing shops, stealing firearms, imposing oaths and eventually executing, as traitors, those that were not ready to follow their chosen path to freedom.
