Thread by @MichaelMburu_

In 1800 one of the biggest atrocities took place in the present Laikipia plains.

THREAD
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The Agikuyu needed land to expand & the Gumba people were unwilling to intermarry or trade it. What did the Kikuyu chief's do?

They negotiated a contract with the Maasai

A bit about the Gumba. They claimed ancestral rights to the Mt Kenya plains stretching from Laikipia, Nyandarua to the opposite of the Aberdare Ranges present day Nyeri.

As the Kikuyu grew in population they needed territorial expansion to spread out from Mukurue wa Gathanga

This territorial expansion was achieved primarily through.

1. Land Purchases
2. Blood Brotherhood
OR
3. Intermarriage

The Kikuyu chief's avoided intermarriage as they viewed the Gumba as PIGMIES with peculiar hunter gatherer livelihoods thus assimilation was a NO!

Thus the only option the Kikuyu had was to acquire the land through purchases.

As a hunter-gatherer community the Gumba couldn't fathom parting away with their source of live hood.

The Kikuyu needed land to expand thus they found themselves in a Kobayashi Maru (🖖🏾).

Note that during this time the Kikuyu are migrating in wave after wave driven by the new found Northern Nyeri land & Laikipia plains that was rich & fertile suitable for agriculture.

The Gumba refused to adopt to this AGRARIAN culture and sort to drive away these new immigrants.

How do the Maasai come into this?

Well let's go to the first encounter the Kikuyus had with the Maasai in the Laikipia Plains in the early 1700's

It could've have gone worse but TRADE replaced war which then led to inter marriage, in fact even Jomo Kenyatta is half Maasai.

It's this intermarriage that made it easy for the Kikuyu to rope in the Maasai.

Remember that though Kikuyu were formidable fighting force, their agricultural lives meant that violence was generally used for DEFENCE as they lacked the mobility of the Maasai and Samburu.

The Kikuyu warriors knew they lacked offensive capacity to completely and permanently defeat the GUMBA.

As an AGRARIAN society they knew manpower cannot be wasted, they couldn't afford to lose young men in war.

Thus they approached the Maasai & proceeded to combine armies.

Why were the Maasai compelled to this fight?

Well when you MARRY someone you essentially marry their PROBLEMS and that's how they found themselves in this situation.

The GUMBA faced not only a superior army in numbers but a highly experienced OFFENSIVE & DEFENSIVE army.

That's how in 1800 AD one of the worst GENOCIDES took place in Kenya.

The GUMBA community was annihilated and massacred. A community that was here before the Kikuyu.

It was so devastating & gruesome that they never talked about it thus very few know about this.

THE END....