By John Oywa
It was a daredevil war, pitting spear-wielding Nandi warriors against well trained British military veterans armed with sophisticated weaponry and backed by loyalists recruited from India, Sudan and Uganda.
By the time the frustrated British army ended the eleven-year Nandi rebellion after killing the community’s leader Koitalel arap Samoei in 1905, thousands of lives had been lost and property destroyed.
In a provocative new book, The Volcano Erupts: Nandi Resistance Against British Rule, historian AT Matson captures some of the untold stories about the Nandi rebellion.
It captures the war of words that erupted in London among senior British officials at the height of the Nandi rebellion over the actual cause of the costly hostilities and whether the officials in charge were using the right strategies to end the uprising.
The book also reveals that the spear-wielding Nandi warriors may have killed many more Britons, Indian coolies working on the Railway line and the Sudanese and Arab porters.
Nandi resistance
The book, published by the Transafrica Press, reveals that even the Luo, Luhya, Maasai and Kipsigis were later sucked into the Nandi resistance.
The author says the British at some stages enlisted some members from these communities to help fight the Nandi.
It also documents how the Luo from Seme, Uyoma, Gem and Sakwa raided British camps and killed several Railway workers while resisting forceful recruitment as labourers.
It started in mid 1890 when the first caravan of the Imperial British East Africa Company that was building the railway crossed the northern fringes of the Nandi escarpment on its way to Uganda.
The first violent clash with the British occurred in 1895 when a British trader, Andrew Dick, killed two Nandi men for allegedly straying into his camp. Nandi warriors retaliated by killing Dick’s partner, Peter West.
Then followed the conflict that was to last 11 years.
By 1900, the Nandi warriors had destroyed a key telegraph communication centre at Kitoto, in the Nandi valley, cutting off communication between Downing Street in London, the soldiers and the Railway workers in Kenya and Uganda. They made life miserable for the Indian coolies and work grounded to a halt.
The British soldiers mounted a massive attack and sent sharp shooters to capture Koitalel in the Nyando valley over-looking Nandi escarpment but the plan flopped after he was tipped and fled. A peace meeting was convened but the Nandi leaders declined to sign a peace agreement. A second peace meeting held in Muhoroni on the Nandi/Nyando border also collapsed.
In one such attack, an army and 43 police officers were pursued and killed near Baringo by the warriors. The Britons hit back, killing 45 Nandi warriors during an assault at a cave on the Nandi valley. As the attacks continued, an exasperated British army captain identified as Jackson ordered massive counter-attack on the Nandi. Another British official overseeing the Nandi invasion described the whole operation as "tiresome and inopportune episode."
At one time, he was quoted as telling his staff they had two options: "Either to smash up the Nandi nation such that it will not be able to send out parties of raiders near the Nandi and Nyando valleys or force them to have peace."
Disease outbreaks
The trouble in Nandi was worsened by an outbreak of dysentery and small pox that killed many porters and locals.
Matson writes the Maasai were seen by the Nandi as collaborators in the assault against them. He cites an incident where chief Lenana of the Maasai was rewarded with 30 cows and 5 bulls — some of the animals forcefully taken from the Uyoma people by British raiders —for restraining the Maassai from taking part in raids on the foreigners.
Bishop Tucker of the Church Missionary Society is quoted: "The hostility of the Nandi is due to actions of the European and their followers such as Andrew Dick and his agents who by cruel treatment stirred up the people to hostility and revenge."
