KENYA, MAU-MAU VS UK
YEARS: 1952-1956 | DEATHS: 13000
The Mau Mau Uprising was an insurgency by Kenyan rebels against the British colonial administration from 1952 to 1960. While the Uprising failed, it created a rift between the white settler community in Kenya and Home Office in London that set the stage for Kenyan independence a dozen years later. It is sometimes referred to as the Mau Mau Rebellion or the Mau Mau Revolt
Mau Mau is a word of uncertain provenance. There is disagreement among sources as to whether it is an actual word, while some claim that it is the name of a range of hills and others claim that it was created by British settlers to demean the rebels and simplify the complicated organizational structure of the insurgents. Members of the Kikuyu tribe formed the core of the resistance along with smaller numbers of Embu and Meru, but the Kikuyu did not call the rebel movement Mau Mau. It was known to them variously as "Muingi/The Movement", "Muigwithania/The Unifier", "Muma wa Uiguano/The Oath of Unity" or simply "The KCA", after the Kikuyu Central Association that created the impetus for the insurgency. The fact that these names have been largely forgotten and the Revolt is still referred to by the name most probably given to it by the British is a tribute to the power of colonial propaganda . Commentators sympathetic to anti-colonialism have adopted the convention of writing "Mau Mau" Uprising to show their awareness that Mau Mau is a title imposed on the rebels, though this article will maintain the more common usage without quotation marks.
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Source: excerpt from article in the open dictionary Wikipedia. Read Article