Jomo Kenyatta he returned to Kenya and became a school principal. In 1947, he was elected President of the Kenya African Union, through which he lobbied for independence from British colonial rule, attracting widespread indigenous support yet animosity from white settlers. In 1952, he was among the Kapenguria Six arrested and charged with masterminding the anti-colonial Mau Mau Uprising. Although protesting his innocence—a view shared by later historians—he was convicted. He remained imprisoned at Lokitaung until 1959 and then exiled in Lodwar until 1961. On his release, Kenyatta became President of KANU and led the party to victory in the 1963 general
Mau Mau Uprising night of 25–26 March 1953, in which they herded men, women and children into huts and set fire to them, hacking down with machetes anyone who attempted escape, before throwing them back into the burning huts. The attack at Lari was so extreme that "African policemen who saw the bodies of the victims were physically sick and said 'These people are animals. If I see one now I shall shoot with the greatest eagerness, and it "even shocked many Mau Mau supporters, some of whom would subsequently try to excuse the attack as 'a mistake. A retaliatory massacre was immediately