“Blackshirts” and “Blacklists”: The Politics of Late-Colonial Central Kenya, 1958–1963

Abstract This article suggests that the ‘self-destruct’ phase of the late-colonial state was marked by rival projects to construct a durable political settlement in the face of the divisions wrought by development initiatives and security policy. A triangular contest between outgoing colonial administrators, a new generation of educated moderate nationalists, and those the colonial state pejoratively called ‘bush politicians,’ marked the twilight years of colonial rule. As the case of Nyeri District in Central Kenya, still reeling from the Mau Mau Uprising, indicates, these conflicts regularly concerned the meaning of post-conflict justice and the terms on which a community could be reconciled. The work of the Nyeri Democratic Party is illustrative, resisting disempowerment in the transition to independence and demanding that much more be done to heal the breaches wrought by colonial violence. This period laid the groundwork for a competitive post-colonial political arena, albeit underpinned by the sometimes dangerous rhetoric of ethnic unity. Using official documents from Kenyan and British archives, especially those in the previously closed Migrated Archive, this article illustrates the mutual bargaining that formed the political settlement in post-colonial Central Kenya.