1/35 #HistoryKeThread: The Murder Of Koitalel Arap Samoei
2/35 This is the scene from the peace discussions between the Nandi and the British after the October 1905 killing of Koitalel arap Samoei, the Orkoiyot of the Nandi. The Nandi escarpment can be seen in the background. 
3/35 "A tall spare man of about 40, who had bloodshot and weary eyes in a long intelligent face, and pierced earlobes that brushed his shoulders".
4/35 This was how Koitalel was described by Richard Meinertzhagen (pictured) when the two met in 1905.
5/35 In the late 19th century, the Nandi had divided their country into six or seven counties (emotinwek) of between 2,000 and 5,000 people under a council of elders (kokwotinwek). Any man who was married could speak at the councils meetings.
6/35 In times of crisis, special councils consisting of the most influential of elders, military experts and ritual experts (orkoiik) made key decisions. This is a pic, taken by Meinerzhagen himself, of a Nandi warrior formation.
7/35 The Nandi often found themselves in crises. If it wasn't the marauding Maasai, it was the Luo from the lakeside. Soon, it would be the white man, perhaps at a degree the community never imagined.
8/35 One interesting fact that I've learnt about the Nandi is that their original name was Chemwal. Swahili ivory merchants, who were often raided by members of this Kalenjin community, called them Mnandi, the Swahili name for a coastal bird, Cormorant, which is known...
9/35 ...for its predatory greed.
10/35 Some historians postulate that the top Orkoiik (ritual experts) of the Nandi were actually Maasai refugees who were subsequently assimilated. These ritual experts would take charge of agricultural and initiation rituals after finding refuge with a Nandi clan.
11/35 These practices were then absorbed by the Nandi.
12/35 The Orkoiyot Kimnyole arap Turukat, who was Kimnyole's father, organized Nandi warriors into powerful military regiments that raided the Maasai and made away with cattle. Women, too, perhaps.
13/35 The British were all too aware of the threat posed by the Nandi. That's why they sent Richard Meinertzhagen, the military representative of the East Africa Protectorate, which itself was the successor of the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC).
14/35 The IBEAC's small army couldn't cope with the Nandi and other powerful native forces. Under Kimnyole and his son Koitalel, the Nandi raided numerous caravans carrying telegraph and copper wire meant for the Uganda railway.
15/35 Through the EAP, which came into being in 1895, the British sent numerous pacification teams to the Nandi, who cleverly avoided their maxim guns and other western firearms.
16/35 Fed up with the Nandi stubbornness, the British demanded that Koitalel pay a fine of 300 head of cattle or suffer the consequences of a combat assault. The Nandi didn't budge.
17/35 Backed by eighty British military officers, 1,500 African troops, 3,500 armed and unarmed porters,100 Somali 'levies', several hundred Maasai auxiliaries, 10 machine guns and an armoured train, EAP through Meinertzhagen confronted the Nandi to force a truce...
18/35 ...sometime in 1905.
19/35 His was the so-called Nandi Field Force (NFF).
20/35 The plan was for the NFF to provoke the Nandi by seizing their cattle. A section of Nandi elders protested, saying they had little say over Koitalel and his army of young warriors. The British justified their mission with the argument that the 'backwardness' of...
21/35 ...the Nandi could only be countered by 'civilized force'.
22/35 The Nandi's alleged transgressions included murdering Europeans, outright theft and, significantly, inspiring other African communities to defy Britain. Not too long back, a European trader had been speared to death for torturing two Nandi cattle thieves to death.
23/35 Reports say that ahead of meeting Koitalel in October, 1905, Meinertzhagen (pictured) had warned his fellow British officers against cockiness. They sought fame and rapid promotion by their brutality in the African battlefields. Meinertzhagen wanted them to temper..
24/35 ..their...
25/35 ...lofty ambitions with grounded caution.
26/35 But what was meant to be a truce meeting that 19th day of October 1905 would be etched in history as one of the worst encounters between British and native leaders on African soil.
27/35 Koitalel didn't make the mistake of underestimating the British firepower that met him, but he blundered a great deal in assuming that Meinertzhagen sought to meet him honourably.
28/35 Against the backdrop of the Nandi escarpment, two armies that were no doubt the most powerful of what is now Kenya met to make peace.
29/35 With hordes of warriors watching, Koitalel emerged, holding a bundle of grass to betoken peace. He then extended a hand of greeting to Meinertzhagen. Some accounts say that in that tense atmosphere, Meinertzhagen hesitated, fearing that an ambush was in the offing.
30/35 In the circumstances, he brazenly shot the Nandi leader dead.
31/35 The British officer's men then opened fire, killing 23 members of Koitalel's entourage.
32/35 In the weeks that followed, the Nandi Field Force killed over 600 Nandi warriors and seized 10,000 head of cattle, which largely went to the herds of the Maasai. A follow up punitive expedition seized more livestock and burnt more than 150 acres of crop.
33/35 Faced with starvation, the Nandi capitulated. Under the terms of the ensuing peace agreement, they surrendered large sections of territory to the Uganda railway, and to British settlement.
34/35 Meinertzhagen, seen here (right) months before his death in 1967, would later face three army tribunals to answer for his actions. But there is no denying that his killing of Koitalel sounded the death knell on the Nandi resistance.
35/35 Writing his memoirs later, Meinertzhagen confessed that he had a liking for the Nandi, claiming that he saved them from further destruction by taking out a tyrant.
