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SUMMARY:The Osinoni War: A new history of the Kedong Massacre (1895)
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260526T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260526T173000
DTSTAMP:20260522T181801Z
UID:8a3ab00b-d855-f111-bec7-6045bdcfe41f
CREATED:20260522T121624Z
DESCRIPTION:For much of the twentieth century\, the Kedong Massacre (1895)
  was seen as a defining moment\, perhaps the defining moment\, of early co
 lonial rule in British East Africa. In November of that year\, Maasai warr
 iors attacked a British government caravan in the Kedong Valley\, not far 
 from Nairobi\, killing hundreds of Kikuyu and Swahili porters and armed gu
 ards. In retaliation\, a private trader named Andrew Dick\, joined by Fren
 ch travellers and their guards\, killed around a hundred Maasai before bei
 ng killed himself. Historians have generally treated the violence itself a
 s less significant than what followed: a reshaping of Maasai-British relat
 ions that helped pave the way for the expansion of imperial rule across wh
 at would become Kenya. Although historians such as Richard Waller question
 ed the importance of the British-Maasai alliance as far back as 1976\, the
  broader cultural weight of the Kedong Massacre has gone largely unchallen
 ged\, especially in Kenyan school textbooks\, where it still figures as a 
 key episode of ‘Maasai collaboration’. Yet the story has been pieced t
 ogether almost entirely from colonial archives\, with Maasai and Kikuyu vo
 ices erased and left out of the account altogether. Drawing on several yea
 rs of fieldwork\, this paper offers a fresh reading of the Osinoni War\, a
 s the Maasai call it\, built on sixty oral interviews conducted in Maasai 
 and Kikuyu communities and on previously overlooked evidence. It argues th
 at\, contrary to earlier claims\, the Osinoni War was in fact central to s
 haping relations between the British and parts of Maasai society in the ea
 rly colonial period. At the same time\, the event lives on in the rich mem
 ory and storytelling traditions of the Ilpurko and Ilkeekonyokie Maasai. \
 n\nDr Norman Aselmeyer is Pat Thompson DAAD Fellow and Tutor in Modern His
 tory at Wadham College. He is a historian of European colonialism and mode
 rn Africa\, with a particular focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centur
 ies. His research engages with urban and social history\, the history of i
 nfrastructure\, and the dynamics of popular protest.\n\nSaitabau Lulunken 
 is a Kenyan Maasai scholar based in Cologne\, Germany. As a social science
  researcher\, his work is grounded in the conviction that Indigenous knowl
 edge systems\, rooted in the interdependence of people\, animals\, and lan
 d\, are essential to the future of pastoral livelihoods.
LAST-MODIFIED:20260522T122158Z
LOCATION:African Studies Centre - Seminar Room\, Seminar Room African Stud
 ies Centre 13 Bevington Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 6NB United Kingdom
SPEAKER:Norman Aselmeyer (Oxford)\, Saitabau Lulunken (Cologne)
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