Background

"A Far Cry from Africa" discusses the events of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya in the early 1950s. In the mid-twentieth century, British colonialism was a fading but still potent force in the world. In the African nation of Kenya, British colonists had settled and introduced European concepts to the local people: money, taxation, and ownership of land. When the British asked, "Who owns this land?" tribal people responded, "We do," and the British assumed that "we" referred to the tribal government, although the land was actually owned by individual families. Because the British were replacing the tribal government with their own, they then claimed all the land in the name of the new British government. Naturally, the Kenyan people were outraged. Now, instead of owning and farming their own land, they were reduced to being laborers for the British owners. As employees, they were further...