Britain concealed 1,500 boxes of colonial documents for fifty years

Evidence

The 2013 British government settlement with surviving Mau Mau detainees — £19.9 million paid to 5,228 elderly Kenyan claimants, accompanied by a formal statement from Foreign Secretary William Hague acknowledging that “Kenyans were subject to torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration” — established the contemporary official British government position. The judicial proceedings that produced that settlement (Mutua and Others v. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, High Court, 2011) drew on the documentary evidence recovered from the so-called “Hanslope disclosure” — 1,500 boxes of colonial-era documents that the British government had concealed from public view for fifty years, finally released in 2011–2013. — , The Rod and the Child, 4452

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to the parallel story of Britain’s Windrush-era document destruction and the wider archival-concealment scholarship. — connects to: Colonial archives deliberately destroyed documents deemed too sensitive or lowly to preserve; Colonial archives simultaneously conceal and reveal state investments; Many Dutch colonial classified documents were not actual secrets.

Broader Connections

• Colonial archives simultaneously conceal and reveal state investments #corroborates (0.65)
• Colonial archives deliberately destroyed documents deemed too sensitive or lowly to preserve #qualifies (0.60)
• Many Dutch colonial classified documents were not actual secrets. #qualifies (0.50)