page_title: Kikuyu people
section_title: 1945–1963
hierarchical_section_title: Kikuyu people / History / 1945–1963
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Jomo Kenyatta, Präsident von Kenia.
context_page_description: The Kikuyu are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting Central Kenya. At a population of 8,148,668 as of 2019, they account for 17.13% of the total population of
  Kenya making them the largest ethnic group in Kenya.
  The term Kikuyu is derived from the Swahili form of the word Gĩkũyũ. Gĩkũyũ means "large sycamore tree". Hence Agĩkũyũ in the Kikuyu language translates to "children of the huge sycamore". The alternative name Nyũmba ya Mũmbi translates to House of the Potter or Creator. Agĩkũyũ can also be a shortened form of Mũũgĩ kũrĩ ũyũ, hence "one who is wise to others".
context_section_description: In 1946 KASU became the Kenya African Union (KAU). It was a nationalist organisation that demanded access to white-owned land. KAU acted as a constituency association for the first black member of Kenya's legislative council, Eliud Mathu, who had been nominated in 1944 by the governor after consulting with the local Bantu/Nilotic elite. The KAU remained dominated by the Kikuyu ethnic group. In 1947 Jomo Kenyatta, the former president of the moderate Kikuyu Central Association, became president of the more aggressive KAU to demand a greater political voice for the native inhabitants. The failure of the KAU to attain any significant reforms or redress of grievances from the colonial authorities shifted the political initiative to younger and more militant figures within the African trade union movement, among the squatters on the settler estates in the Rift Valley and in KAU branches in Nairobi and the Kikuyu districts of central province
  By 1952, under Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau) launched a full military conflict on the British military, settlers and their native allies. By this time the Mau Mau was fighting for total independence of Kenya. The war is considered by some the gravest crisis of Britain's African colonies The capture of rebel leader Dedan Kimathi on 21 October 1956 signalled the ultimate defeat of the Mau Mau Uprising, and essentially ended the British military campaign although the state of emergency would last until 1959. The conflict arguably set the stage for Kenyan independence in December 1963.
caption: First President of Kenya Jomo Kenyatta
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