The post mortem examination of the French regime in North Africa has tried to establish what went wrong, and when. It has described in detail the adverse effects of the regime upon the indigène, especially in Algeria. Rather less attention has been paid to the minority of those who, under the circumstances, prospered in various ways. The fortunes of the 25,000 Muslim Algerian landowners, for example, each with anything from 50 to 500 or more hectares, deserve to be studied. They are relevant to the current concern with the origins and growth of nationalist movements for independence. Explanations of a conflict arising inevitably out of the inequality and incompatibility of the two communities have difficulty in explaining the connexion between the nationalist leaders and the population at large. A satisfactory account should be able to identify the support for these leaders and their activities at any given time. The problem has attracted most attention in Morocco, where the success of the monarchy at the expense of the Istiqlal has called for an explanation. The well-known connexion of the Istiqlal with the Fassi community has been the starting-point of attempts to describe a political society in relation to the social and economic background of the groups and interests which it comprises. The historical investigation of this background throughout the Maghrib should provide a firm context for descriptions of political activity before and after independence.

This article attempts to trace the origins of Mau Mau movement in Nakuru, the capital of the White Highlands, and to follow its development through the turbulent post-war years. Mau Mau here is seen as a distinct militant movement which advocated the use of violence in the anti-colonial struggle. It developed within the ranks of the Kikuyu Central Association whose moderate political strategy it rejected. It had a distinct social basis, both its leadership and its mass support coming from the ranks of the dispossessed urban Kikuyu lumpenproletariat. Mau Mau emerged, by 1952, as the dominant African political force at the cost of alienating most non-Kikuyu tribes, and intensifying divisions and hatreds within Kikuyu society. Although Mau Mau did not have definite plans for a large-scale guerrilla war when the State of Emergency was declared in October 1952, nor was it prepared for such a war, it was certainly developing along these lines. There was a large measure of continuity between pre-Emergency Mau Mau and the forces which were later engaged in the forest fighting. The forest fighting was primarily a response, not of the bewildered Kikuyu masses, but of an organized militant and violent movement. It is not suggested that Nakuru's model applies to other Kikuyu areas. On the contrary, it is suggested that the full story of Mau Mau in Kenya will be revealed only after a series of intensive local studies have been undertaken.

The Nandi protest of 1923 is examined in its Kenya-wide context and is seen to be the result of the increased pressures brought to bear on Kenya Africans in this period—pressures for African land, labour and taxes, which greatly affected the Nandi as well as other peoples. The Nandi political protest to colonial policies in this period, in contrast to that of the Kikuyu, however, focused on the traditional leadership of the Nandi orkolyot, or ritual expert, and, as such, mirrors the relative lack of socio-cultural change in Nandi before 1923, and the continuing viability of the traditional Nandi economy and political structure. Squatting, which began in this period, is seen as a key factor contributing to this viability, at the same time as it presented new threats to Nandi economic independence, which the political protest centred on orkoiyot Barserion attempted to counter. An examination of the Nandi protest of 1923, therefore, also contributes to an understanding of the political expression of that sector of the African population which has often been ignored in studies of the origin of political protest in Kenya.

This study is offered as a contribution to the literature on African protest movements during the era of colonial rule. Existing studies of migration emphasize the socio-economic aspects of motivation and have tended to gloss over or even omit migrations in which the dominant factor was disapproval of colonial policy. Existing studies of African protest movements focus on armed confrontations, perhaps because of their greater dramatic appeal.

The case of the Ivory Coast and Upper Volta illustrates a phenomenon found in various parts of French West Africa and, indeed, in other colonies, particularly the Belgian and Portuguese territories. The causes of protest migrations were usually related to the same resentments which provoked revolt in localities where armed confrontation was the only option. These compelling factors included forced labour, burdensome taxation, conscription, requisitions and an attack on indigenous political institutions, notably chieftaincy. The use of repressive police measures, as manifested in the Native Penal and Indigénat Codes, exacerbated African discontent. Judging from the French reaction to the exodus from the Ivory Coast and Upper Volta, it is clear that migrations, as protests, proved far less costly to Africans and had much the same effect on the colonial authorities as did other more militant forms of protest and rebellion.