# The Forty Group: the militants who lit the Mau Mau fuse Anake wa 40: the 1940 age-set of war veterans who came home landless and radicalized, the urban militant core that turned protest into the armed movement that became Mau Mau. *This story led to: Mau Mau: the uprising, the camps, and the reckoning* *This story part of: Freedom movements: how the colonized won their independence* *This story parallel: The loyalists won: who inherited Kenya's independence* *This story parallel: Jomo Kenyatta: from Johnstone Kamau to the verdict on independence* *This story part of: Infrastructure and logistics* *The Mau Mau oath: how a sacred rite bound a movement parallel this story* ## c. 1940 — The 1940 age-set and wartime conscription The name Anake a 40, the Young Men of 40, points to the year 1940. Among the Kikuyu, men initiated in the same period shared an age-set identity, and many of this cohort were drafted into the British colonial forces from 1940 as the Second World War spread. The shared year of service and initiation gave the group its name and a strong sense of common generation. ## c. 1945 — King's African Rifles veterans return to Kenya Kikuyu men who had served in the King's African Rifles in Burma, India, Ethiopia and the Horn came home after the war. Many returned with military training but no land, no steady work and little of the reward they had been promised. Demobilised into a crowded Nairobi, this pool of ex-soldiers became the backbone of the Forty Group. ## c. 1947 — The Forty Group is founded in Nairobi The Forty Group, Anake wa 40, took shape in Nairobi around 1947, with Mwangi Macharia named in several accounts as a founder. Its members were ex-soldiers, petty traders, taxi men and the unemployed of the city's African locations. Colonial officials and the settler press described it as a criminal gang, while nationalist accounts and later historians such as David Anderson and Frank Furedi describe it as an early organised militant wing of Kikuyu politics. *Source: Nairobi County: History* *Source: Nairobi: National Capital and Regional Hub* *Source: Kenya Railways: History* *Source: The Nairobi General Strike 1950: From Protest to Insurgency* *Source: Harry Thuku* *Source: Transitional Justice* ## c. 1947 — The Forty Group turns to physical intimidation From the late 1940s the Forty Group began using force to press its aims, targeting African informers, rival leaders and those seen as collaborators with the colonial state. Beatings, threats and the enforcement of boycotts were part of its method. These acts of intimidation are documented rather than in dispute; what remains contested is whether they are best read as gangsterism or as early resistance. ## c. 1948 — Landlessness and the crowded African locations Many Forty Group men had lost access to land in the White Highlands or the reserves and drifted into Nairobi looking for work. The city's African locations, such as Pumwani and later Bahati, were overcrowded, poorly served and policed as a problem to be managed. This mix of landlessness, joblessness and daily grievance fed the group's turn toward direct action. ## c. 1949 — Links to trade unions and the Nairobi underground The Forty Group sat at the meeting point of two Nairobi worlds: the growing African trade unions and the city's gang and criminal networks. Ex-servicemen and union men supplied organisation and discipline, while street networks offered muscle, money and cover. Historians of the period describe this blend of labour militancy and the urban underground as what gave the group its reach. ## May 1950 — The Nairobi general strike of 1950 In May 1950 the East African Trade Union Congress called a general strike in Nairobi that halted much of the city for days before the colonial authorities broke it. The strike followed the arrest of union leaders, including Fred Kubai and Makhan Singh, and marked a sharp rise in African labour militancy. It showed the organising power of the Nairobi networks the Forty Group drew on. > "During its brief life, the EATUC was by far the most important ‘militant vehicle for championing African aspirations’ in Nairobi, a role epitomized in the drama of the general strike of May 1950." > — Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire *Source: Nairobi County: History* *Source: Nairobi: National Capital and Regional Hub* *Source: Kenya Railways: History* *Source: The Nairobi General Strike 1950: From Protest to Insurgency* *Source: Harry Thuku* *Source: Transitional Justice* ## c. 1950 — Fred Kubai and militant trade unionism in Nairobi Fred Kubai, a Kikuyu leader of the transport workers and a figure in the East African Trade Union Congress, brought organised labour into the militant camp. He and allies like Makhan Singh built a union movement willing to confront the colonial state directly. Kubai's standing among Nairobi workers made him a bridge between the unions and the Forty Group's ex-soldiers. ## c. 1951 — Militants capture the KAU Nairobi branch In 1951 a hardened group around Fred Kubai and Bildad Kaggia took control of the Nairobi branch of the Kenya African Union, the main African political party. They pushed aside the branch's moderate line and steered it toward confrontation. This capture turned the KAU's urban base into a vehicle for the militant strategy the Forty Group favoured. ## c. 1951 — Oathing and arms procurement in Nairobi Under the Muhimu committee, mass oathing spread through Nairobi's African locations to bind people to the movement and enforce secrecy. Forty Group men helped run the oath ceremonies and worked to gather guns and money for the coming fight. The city became the organising centre for what colonial records would soon call Mau Mau. *Source: Nairobi County: History* *Source: Nairobi: National Capital and Regional Hub* *Source: Kenya Railways: History* *Source: The Nairobi General Strike 1950: From Protest to Insurgency* *Source: Harry Thuku* *Source: Transitional Justice* ## c. 1951 — The Muhimu central committee is formed The militant wing set up a secret central committee in Nairobi known as Muhimu, Swahili for important, a name chosen to blend in with ordinary party business. Accounts name Eliud Mutonyi as chairman and Isaac Gathanju as secretary, with Bildad Kaggia, Fred Kubai and Paul Ngei among its members. Muhimu planned and coordinated oathing and the shift to armed methods. *Source: Kenyatta and KAU* *Source: The cat with nine lives: Paul Ngei and the making of modern Kenya* *Source: Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, 1940-93* *Source: Kenya Railways: History* ## 7 October 1952 — Assassination of Senior Chief Waruhiu Senior Chief Waruhiu wa Kung'u, a prominent Kikuyu loyalist and supporter of the colonial administration, was shot dead in his car in daylight. His killing alarmed the settler community and the government, which read it as proof that Mau Mau was escalating to open assassination of its African opponents. The murder was the immediate trigger the colonial government cited for declaring a State of Emergency two weeks later. > "IN THE LATE AFTERNOON OF OCTOBER 9, 1952, SENIOR CHIEF WARUHIU stepped into the backseat of his spotless Hudson sedan for what would become a most fateful journey." > — Imperial reckoning - the untold story of Britains Gulag in > "On that bright, clear morning of 7 October 1952 Waruhiu had left his home early to attend a Native Tribunal hearing close to Nairobi." > — Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire ## 20 October 1952 — State of Emergency and Operation Jock Scott On 20 October 1952 the colonial government declared a State of Emergency and launched Operation Jock Scott, arresting nationalist leaders across the country overnight. Fred Kubai, Bildad Kaggia and Paul Ngei were seized alongside Jomo Kenyatta and others later tried at Kapenguria. The arrests removed much of the militant leadership from Nairobi in a single sweep. > "With Operation Jock Scott, Kenya’s State of Emergency was officially launched. This code-named assault was directed at Kenyatta and 180 other identified leaders of Mau Mau." > — Imperial reckoning - the untold story of Britains Gulag in > "plans were laid for a mass round-up, code-named Operation Jock Scott, to take place from midnight on 20 October 1952." > — Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire *Source: Kapenguria Museum* *Source: Nairobi County: History* *Source: Nairobi: National Capital and Regional Hub* *Source: Kenya Railways: History* *Source: The Nairobi General Strike 1950: From Protest to Insurgency* *Source: Harry Thuku* *Source: Transitional Justice* *Source: Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, 1940-93* ## c. 1952 — Oathing spreads to the Central Province reserves The oathing that began in Nairobi's slums moved out into the Kikuyu districts of Kiambu, Fort Hall and Nyeri. This carried the militant network from the city into the rural reserves, where land grievances ran deep. The link between the urban Forty Group and the countryside laid the ground for a wider rising. ## June 1953 — The Kenya African Union is banned In June 1953 the colonial government banned the Kenya African Union, the party the militants had captured in Nairobi. With open politics closed off, the struggle passed fully to the armed movement and its underground support. The ban marked the end of the phase in which the Forty Group worked through legal political channels. ## c. 1953 — Forty Group men feed the forest armies and passive wing After the Emergency, veterans and organisers linked to the Forty Group moved into the two arms of the revolt: fighters who took to the Aberdare and Mount Kenya forests, and the urban passive wing that supplied them with food, money, guns and intelligence from Nairobi. The military training and networks built in the 1940s fed directly into the war. In this way the 1940 age-set supplied many of the shock troops of Mau Mau.