During the colonial period in Kenya, Africans were treated as third class humans & at times, dogs came higher than them in the rank.
The story of Peter Poole the first & the last white man to be hanged in Kenya on 18th Aug 1960.
During the colonial period, the white men killing of Africans was some sort of a favourite sport. There were some many cases but some of the notorious ones included the shooting of 21 unarmed Africans outside the Norfolk Hotel in 1922.
Before and after the mass killing, it was a common feature for a white settler having an evening drink at the terraces of the Norfolk or the Stanley Hotel to draw his rifle and aim at an African passing by in the distance.
Such a settler would be wildly cheered and offered a drink by colleagues, especially if his shot was so “perfect” that it killed the African at the first aim!. One would have mistaken Africans to be some sort of animals to be hunted for fun.
A former British information officer in Central Kenya, Alastair Matheson, once said that one night he visited a white colleague in Embu, who took him behind a hotel building to show him the corpse of an African he had just shot dead.
When Matheson inquired why he shot the Kenyan African guy, his host responded by saying “I just saw him passing from the window of my room and felt like testing how accurate I can be with a gun. And bang, I got him down with the first shot!”
In another famous case, a white settler in Nakuru murdered an African by suffocating him after locking up the victim in a cupboard for a whole night. The settler was later taken to court and gave an absurd statement.
Asked by the magistrate why he did it, he said that while flogging the servant, he’d kept shouting in Kiswahili: “Nataka kufa” which he took to mean “I want to die”, instead of “I am about to die”, which was the servant’s way of asking for mercy.
The settler told the court that since the servant had “expressed” a wish to die and flogging couldn’t kill him, he decided to lock him in the cupboard for the night and let him die there. I mean, what else could he have done apart from granting his servant his wish?
The case was heard and determined. Was the settler sent to prison for killing? the court set free the unremorseful killer with only a warning never to repeat it again. Furthermore, it is not like he had killed a human worth a serious sentence.
Away from settler homes, at the colonial detention camps, Africans were dying like flies. One of such incidence happened at Hola detention camp on 3rd March 1959 where 11 prisoners were beaten to death in what came through be know as the "The Hola Massacre”.
Hola was a high-level detention facility where hardcore Mau Mau detainees who had refused to recant the dreaded oath of allegiance were taken and forced to do hard labour in a bid to break them.
On that fateful day in 1959, the detainees refused to work and the guards, acting on the instructions of the Camp Commandant Michael Sullivan and his assistant A.C. Coutts, beat them so severely that 11 of them died.
Back to our main story, one of the white settlers who loved killing Africans for fun, was one Peter Harold Poole. Poole was a discharged British army officer who made fun and great excitement in killing Africans during the Mau Mau freedom war.
To him, the only good African was a dead one, and he needed little provocation to pull the trigger and lengthen the list of the black men in Kenya he had put six foot under.
So arrogant was Mr Poole that he once had shot an African police officer over a small argument, and boasted that his only regret was the black policeman survived the bullet wounds. He never regretted shooting the African police, he regretted that the African didn't die.
Another time, he drew a pistol and threatened to shoot dead an Asian dukawalla who had refused to give him discount on a torch he wanted to purchase. Poole was a god by himself and was to be worshipped by other races.
Poole had reason to want to kill many Africans as his murderous appetite allowed. He knew he could always get away with it since the judicial system in colonial Kenya gave them advantage in presence of an all white jury,which had never found a white guilty,for killing an African.
In April of 1959, Peter Poole, employed a cook known as Kamawe Musunge. He liked the new cook’s skills and he was bound to work for him for long. But one thing Peter Poole didn’t know, was that his cook. Kamawe never liked dogs.
And one thing Kamawe Musunge didn't know, was that Peter Poole was a man who loved killing Africans for fun, and a man who valued his dogs more than an African. This misunderstanding was to turn fatal within no time.
One early morning as Kamawe Musunge was going about his duties and cycling toward the home, Mr Poole dogs came running towards him.He stopped them by throwing stones at them. Unfortunately, his boss saw the whole scene.
Angered by an African who threw a stone toward his dogs, Mr Poole came out of his house, reached for his Luger pistol and shot Kamawe Musunge killing him instantly. His dogs were superior than any black man alive or dead.
Mr Poole was arrested and he was found guilty by a white jury and sentenced to death. The verdict caused an uproar among white settlers in Kenya since they never expected a white jury can find a fellow white man guilty of killing a black man.
The story made world headlines and aroused anger among the whites and the racists in Britain. For the first time in Kenya, a white man could be sentenced to death for the simple indiscretion of killing a black man. Why on earth hang a white “merely” for killing an African! How?
Poole’s lawyers appealed against the sentence, but the colonial Supreme Court in Nairobi upheld judgment by the lower court on December 10, 1959. Peter Poole would have to die for his crime.
Unbelieving, his parents and settlers in Kenya collected 25,000 signatures and petitioned the colonial Governor of Kenya to pardon their son for his crime was less. The petition failed to move the governor who was under pressure from London.
Africans were forced to sign the petition in a move to show even Africans in Kenya were willing to forgive Peter Poole. The signing of petition by Africans was condemned by the late Tom Mboya.
Tom Mboya was the one who confirmed that Africans were being forced by their white employers to sign the petition, in order to safeguard their jobs. And for sure, most signatures were of Africans working for the white settlers.
The governor-rejected petition was forwarded to the Queen of England. Her Majesty, too, was in no mood to forgive the crime. August 18, 1960, was set as the date for Poole with the hangman, Poole had to die by hanging.
And on August 18th 1960, Peter Poole was hanged by the rope. Prison Superintendent J. A. Mkinney and Nairobi Medical Officer, Dr D.H. Mackay confirmed him dead on examining his body past the trapdoor.
His death was reported all over the world as any world media outlets narrated the story. A British newspaper reckoned that at last “all men have been proved equal at the end of the rope.”
Time magazine of August 29, 1960, wrote: “Precisely at 8 o’clock one week last night, the slight, heavily shackled 28-year-old English Engineer Peter Poole dropped through the hangman’s trapdoor in Nairobi Prison”.
And with Peter Poole dead and justice served in a way nobody expected, Poole became the first and the last white man to be hanged in Kenyan prisons by a court order.
A video of Mrs Gwyneth Poole, wife to Peter Poole leaving Kamiti prisons after her husband was hanged and confirmed dead. Africans had come all the way to Kamiti and camped at the gate to receive the confirmation of the death.
Mrs Gwyneth Poole together with her two children ,David 5 months and Richard 2yrs, leaving Kenya to go settle in Britain after the execution of her husband at Kamiti for killing an African houseboy Kamawe Musunge.
