Draft:Olenguruone

Olenguruone
Town
Location of Kuresoi South Constituency, of which Olenguruone is the main town, within Nakuru County
Olenguruone Location within Kenya
Coordinates: 0°35′15″S 35°41′8″E
Country	Kenya
County	Nakuru County
Sub-county	Kuresoi South
Ward	Amalo
Elevation	2,548 m (8,360 ft)
Time zone	UTC+3 (EAT)

Olenguruone is a town in Nakuru County, Kenya, lying on the south-western slopes of the Mau Escarpment near the border with Narok County. It is the main urban centre of Olenguruone Division in Kuresoi South Sub-county and falls within Amalo ward. At about 2,548 metres (8,360 ft) above sea level, it is one of the highest settlements in the county and has a cool, wet highland climate.

The town is best known for the Olenguruone Scheme, a colonial-era settlement established in 1941 for Kikuyu squatters displaced from European farms in the White Highlands. The residents' refusal to accept the scheme's land-tenure conditions, their adoption of a unity oath, and their mass eviction in 1949–50 are widely regarded by historians as a formative episode in the origins of the Mau Mau movement.

History

Colonial settlement scheme

From the early 1900s, large numbers of Kikuyu families displaced by European settlement in Kiambu (including Limuru and Tigoni) moved to the Rift Valley to work as resident labourers, or "squatters", on settler farms. By the 1930s an estimated 150,000 such squatters were living on Rift Valley farms. The Resident Native Labourers Ordinance of 1937 gave settler-controlled district councils power to restrict the livestock and cultivation of squatters, and many families were pushed off the farms.

In 1939 the colonial government purchased land at Olenguruone, in what had been the Maasai reserve, to resettle some of these families, and the first settlers moved in around 1941. About fifty Dorobo (Ogiek) families from the neighbouring Tinet forest were also included in the scheme. Each settler household was allocated eight acres, but under agricultural rules introduced in 1942 only about 2.5 acres could be cultivated at any one time, land had to be left fallow after four years, and livestock was limited to roughly five head per family.

The settlers had understood that they were being given land on customary githaka (clan-based freehold) terms in compensation for land lost in Kiambu. When the settlement rules were translated into Kikuyu, however, it became clear that the government regarded them as ahoi (tenants) on Crown land, subject to strict regulation and with insufficient space for large or polygamous households. At a meeting with the Chief Native Commissioner in June 1943 the residents refused to sign the tenancy agreements, and household incomes fell sharply as the restrictions took effect—by one estimate from about 1,400 shillings a family in 1942 to 300 shillings in 1946.

The oath and the evictions

To cement their resistance, the Olenguruone residents in the mid-1940s administered a Kikuyu Central Association-style oath of unity to men, women and children alike—a departure from Kikuyu custom, in which oathing had been confined to adult men. Historians including Tabitha Kanogo identify this Olenguruone oath as the direct precursor of the oath later used by the Mau Mau movement. Olenguruone also became a rallying cry for squatter grievances more broadly; it was the central issue at a large squatter meeting in Naivasha in 1946.

The government responded in 1946 by confiscating livestock and harvests and arresting the scheme's leaders, several of whom were deported to Yatta in Ukambani. Detainees held at the Nairobi Remand Home came into contact with the clandestine "Forty Group", an early militant Kikuyu organisation. On 1 February 1947 some 250 residents, including women and children, marched to Government House in Nairobi to protest, and on 22 March 1947 the government issued a two-week eviction notice. Through 1947 the authorities destroyed residents' crops, produce and shelters, but most families stayed on. A test case on the residents' claim to hold the land on Kikuyu customary terms was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 20 February 1949, and between 28 September and 3 October 1949 the administration carried out a mass eviction, burning huts, destroying crops and seizing livestock. Many of those evicted were removed to Yatta, and the story of Olenguruone spread through the Rift Valley and central Kenya as a symbol of colonial betrayal, feeding directly into the radicalisation that preceded the declaration of the Kenya Emergency in 1952.

Geography and climate

Smallholder tea at the edge of the Mau Forest, the landscape typical of the Olenguruone area

Olenguruone sits at roughly 2,550 metres on the western Mau, at the head of the road that runs from Molo through Olenguruone to Kiptagich, approximately 120 km from Nakuru town. The surrounding area forms part of the catchment of the Mau Forest complex, Kenya's largest water tower.

Economy

The local economy is dominated by smallholder agriculture suited to the cool, high-altitude conditions, including tea, pyrethrum, potatoes and dairy farming. The Kenya Tea Development Agency's Olenguruone Tea Factory at Kiptagich, a subsidiary of Kapkoros Tea Factory, began test runs in May 2013, went into full production in October 2013 and was officially opened in April 2018; it processes black CTC tea from more than 8,000 smallholder growers cultivating about 2,700 hectares.

Public services

Olenguruone Sub-County Hospital (also referred to as Olenguruone Level IV Hospital) is the main public health facility for Kuresoi South, and in the 2020s the county government undertook an expansion of the hospital including a new surgical ward.

See also

• Mau Mau rebellion
• Kuresoi South Constituency
• Mau Forest

References

Category:Populated places in Nakuru County Category:Populated places in Rift Valley Province Category:Mau Mau rebellion