Uganda was never a colony in name. It was a "protectorate", ruled largely through the old kingdom of Buganda and its chiefs. That alliance gave Buganda power and land, left the rest of the country behind, and created the rivalry that tore Uganda apart within four years of independence.
When the first Europeans reached the north-west shore of Lake Victoria in the 1860s, they found Buganda, a highly organised kingdom ruled by a Kabaka with ministers, chiefs, a navy of war canoes on the lake and a capital of thousands of people. Its neighbours included the kingdoms of Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole and Busoga. In the north and east lived peoples such as the Acholi, Lango, Iteso and Karamojong, without kings.
Kabaka Mutesa I welcomed traders from the coast and then European visitors. Through them, Islam and later Christianity came to his court.
The Anglican Church Missionary Society arrived in 1877, and the French Catholic White Fathers soon after. Young pages at the royal court became Christians, Protestant and Catholic, alongside Muslim converts. Each faction looked to a different outside power for support.
Mutesa's son Mwanga II saw the converts' loyalty to foreign religions as a threat. In October 1885 he had the incoming Anglican bishop James Hannington killed on the eastern border. Then, between 25 May and 3 June 1886, he ordered a wider purge. On 3 June 1886 a large group of young men were burned alive on a pyre at Namugongo. In all, 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican converts are remembered as the Uganda Martyrs. The Catholic martyrs were canonised as saints in 1964, and 3 June is a public holiday in Uganda, when millions make the pilgrimage to Namugongo.
The killings did not stop the spread of Christianity; they sped it up. In 1888 Mwanga was overthrown, the Christians and Muslims fought each other, and the Christians restored him. By 1890 Buganda's politics were divided into Protestant, Catholic and Muslim parties, and Britain stepped into that division.
Under an 1890 agreement with Germany, Uganda fell into Britain's sphere. The Imperial British East Africa Company sent Captain Frederick Lugard, who reached Mwanga's capital at Mengo on 18 December 1890 and made him sign a treaty accepting the company's protection.
Lugard sided with the Protestant party, the "English" faction. In January 1892 fighting broke out at Mengo between Protestants and Catholics. Lugard's forces backed the Protestants, and Mwanga and the Catholic chiefs fled to an island in the lake. Lugard then restored Mwanga on his own terms, and the Protestants took most of the chiefships.
The company could not afford to stay. Missionary supporters in Britain campaigned against abandoning Uganda, and the government agreed. On 18 June 1894 Britain declared a protectorate over Buganda. Mwanga rebelled in 1897, was defeated, and was exiled to the Seychelles, where he became an Anglican and died in 1903.
In 1900 the special commissioner, Sir Harry Johnston, was sent to set up an efficient government and raise taxes quickly. On 10 March 1900 at Mengo he signed an agreement with the regents of the infant Kabaka Daudi Chwa: the Protestant Katikiro (chief minister) Apolo Kagwa, the Catholic Stanislaus Mugwanya and Zakaria Kisingiri.
The Agreement made Buganda a province of the protectorate, recognised the Kabaka and the Lukiiko (council of chiefs), and set Buganda's borders. It brought in a tax on huts and guns, with the chiefs as tax collectors. Most importantly, it divided Buganda's land. About half became "mailo" land, from the English word "mile", given as freehold to the Kabaka, his family, ministers and chiefs. The other half became Crown land.
Similar agreements followed with Toro and Ankole, and Bunyoro was conquered by force. Its king, Kabarega, who had resisted for years, was exiled to the Seychelles too. British officials then used Baganda agents to set up administration in the east and north, which spread resentment of Buganda across the country.
Unlike Kenya, Uganda never became a settler colony. The railway from Mombasa reached Lake Victoria in 1901, and the line was later extended into Uganda itself. Cotton, and later coffee, were grown by African smallholders. Asian traders, many of them descendants of the Indian railway workers, ran much of the commerce. The north was treated as a reservoir of labour and soldiers for the King's African Rifles.
The colonial capital was Entebbe, on the lake; Kampala, next to the Kabaka's capital at Mengo, grew into the commercial centre.
In 1953 the British Colonial Secretary spoke of a possible East African federation, and Buganda feared being swallowed up in a settler-dominated union with Kenya. The Lukiiko demanded that Buganda be separated from the rest of Uganda, with a timetable for its own independence. Kabaka Mutesa II, known to the British as "King Freddie", refused to back down.
On 30 November 1953 the governor, Sir Andrew Cohen, withdrew recognition from the Kabaka at Government House in Entebbe. Mutesa was put on a plane and flown into exile in Britain. The Baganda were outraged, and two years of protest and obstruction followed.
Cohen had to give in. Mutesa returned to Kampala on 17 October 1955 to huge crowds, and the next day the Namirembe Agreement was signed. It made him a constitutional monarch, but his popularity was greater than ever.
Politics in the late 1950s split along the old lines. The Democratic Party, led by Benedicto Kiwanuka, drew strongly on Catholics. Milton Obote's Uganda People's Congress was strongest outside Buganda. In Buganda, the royalist movement Kabaka Yekka ("the King alone") put the kingdom first. In a marriage of convenience, Obote's UPC and Kabaka Yekka joined forces to win the 1962 elections.
Uganda gained self-government on 1 March 1962, and under the Uganda Independence Act 1962 became independent on 9 October 1962, with Obote as Prime Minister and Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole and Busoga as federal kingdoms. On 9 October 1963 the link with the British Crown was cut, and Mutesa II became President.
Our partner site has a dedicated portal on Uganda's history, independence and travel:
The Colonial Office files on Uganda, including the Kabaka crisis, are at The National Archives in Kew. The Church Missionary Society's archives, with early letters from Buganda, are held at the Cadbury Research Library in Birmingham.
Fly into Entebbe International Airport, close to the old colonial capital. In Kampala, visit the Kasubi Tombs, the burial place of the Kabakas and a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Kabaka's palace at Mengo (the Lubiri); the Uganda Museum; and the two cathedrals on Namirembe and Rubaga hills. The Catholic and Anglican martyrs' shrines at Namugongo are about 15 kilometres from the city. At Jinja you can see where the Nile leaves Lake Victoria.
Entrance fees are included in the tour price; tips are not included but are always welcome.
In London:
The railway built to reach Uganda, and the settler colony it created.
German East Africa, Zanzibar and the union of 1964.
The explorer who visited Mutesa I and called for missionaries.
All of Britain's African territories, country by country.
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