page_title: Dedan Kimathi
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Dedan Kimathi / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Dedan Kimathi Waciuri (31 October 1920 – 18 February 1957) was a Kenyan rebel leader who fought against British colonization in Kenya in the 1950s. He was convicted and executed by the British colonial government. The British colonial government that ruled Kenya at the time considered him a terrorist, as did "loyalist" Kenyans who supported the British occupation and seizure of Kikuyu lands and opposed the Mau Mau Uprising. According to some sources, under his leadership, the Mau Mau killed at least two thousand Kenyan civilians. The Mau Mau rebels killed only 32 European settlers, and fewer than 200 British soldiers in the eight year uprising. The British in turn killed 20,000 Mau Mau rebels in combat, hung over 1000 suspected Mau Mau supporters, and interned more than 70,000 Kikuyu civilians for years in brutal detention camps on suspicion of providing material support for the Uprising. In her Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya", the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins argued that during the uprising the British detained over one million Kikuyu in what essentially were concentration camps, exposing them to untold suffering, torture and death. Non-loyalist Kenyans, particularly of the Kikuyu tribe, viewed Kimathi as a freedom fighter. His reputation as the leading fighter for Kenyan freedom remains today, and a bronze statue of "Freedom Fighter Dedan Kimathi" on a graphite plinth has been erected in central Nairobi [Wikipedia.org]
context_page_description: Dedan Kimathi Waciuri, born Kimathi wa Waciuri, was the senior military and spiritual leader of the Mau Mau Uprising. Widely regarded as a revolutionary leader, he led the armed military struggle against the British colonial regime in Kenya in the 1950s until his execution in 1957.
  Kimathi is credited with leading efforts to create formal military structures within the Mau Mau, and convening a war council in 1953. He along with Musa Mwariama and Muthoni Kirima was one of three Field Marshals. His capture in 1956 and execution the next year led to the decline of the uprising against the British colonial government. Before his execution, he wrote that he was "...so busy and so happy preparing for heaven tomorrow."
  Kenyan nationalists view him as the heroic figurehead of the Kenyan freedom struggle against British colonial rule, while the British government saw him as a terrorist. Despite being viewed with disdain by the Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi governments, Kimathi and his fellow Mau Mau rebels have been officially recognised as heroes in the struggle for Kenyan independence since the Mwai Kibaki administration, culminating in the unveiling of a Kimathi statue in 2007.
caption: Statue
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