To note:
1.The Best recorded African Military strategist of all times, only defeated because of Chemical Weapons and biological war fare used by British forces )
2.Kabalega is rumored in Uganda and Kenya to be the son of Jomo Kenyatta the 1st President of Kenya. Uhuru Kenyatta’s mother refused to comment.
3.In the 1960s, Milton Obote the President of Uganda took Jomo Kenyatta to Bunyoro and attempted to crown him the Omukama Of Bunyoro but a Polite Kenyatta declined, stating that such a Move would disunite Africans at a time when they needed continental unity as aspirations. Moreso, for Kenyans to imagine that their new leader was actually Not a Kenyan would not sound well Politically at home. So the incident was classified and declassified only 3 decades later when none of the actors was alive.
Note: Uganda was never colonized like Kenya but the delays by Kabalega Necessitated a PROTECTORATE as a neighboring enemy Vassal state, Buganda Kingdom was utilized by an absent BRITISH direct government unlike it was in Kenya, to attempt to colonize Bunyoro Kingdom and others Nations. Buganda chiefs were installed in all Villages to impart hard labour and collect tax, but this was unsuccessful which ended with the #Nyangire Rebellion where the BRITISH forced all the Baganda (Buganda Kingdom), the Colonizers of Bunyoro and other parts of today’s Uganda was to withdraw from BUNYORO KITARA KINGDOM .
BUGANDA Kingdom chose to COLLABORATE with the British invaders in exchange for Dominion and Power over all the Hundreds of other Local Tribes and Kingdoms. In return, Ugandan Land was shared 50:50 between the Queen of England and Buganda Kingdom in what is referred to as the 1900 Buganda Agreement. Mailo Land was given to the Buganda Lords, chiefs and Collaborators while CROWN Land was given to the Queen of England as Private Property in an Agreement between 1 kingdom representing all the rest who had not even consented to be ruled by Buganda. Till today, the Baganda Landlords Own these lands legally and the other that belonged to the Queen was handed over to the Central Government of Uganda on on 9th October 1962.
That is Why the Landlocked country is called UGANDA……because it is a former colony of BUGANDA Kingdom in a BUSINESS Partnership between the United Kingdom and the CLEVER, cunning and Money-Minded King of Buganda called MUTESA I.
In a way, Bunyoro Kitara, which was the largest Empire in the Great lakes for a millennia was Never successfully Colonized and fully subdued like other British Colonies litered all-over the planet including America, thanks to Kabalega’s firm resistance.
Compared to Omukama Kabalega’s War of Resistance, the Nyangire rebellion in Bunyoro was a low-key affair. The rebellion was at its heart, a peaceful rebellion against British authority, exercised through hated Baganda chiefs who were collaborating with the colonial officials.
The revolt arose from the arrogance of the Baganda chiefs, many of whom were more interested in private accumulation of wealth, the mistreatment of Banyoro as an inferior people, and the giving away of its territory, including the ‘Lost Counties’ to Buganda in the 1900 Buganda Agreement.
The Christian missionaries, whose division of the people of Buganda along religious lines had accelerated the destruction of the ancient monarchy, also played a role in Bunyoro.
Not only were the missionaries unwilling to translate the Bible into Runyoro – thus perpetuating the assimilative ambitions of the Luganda speakers – but also began dividing up the people of Bunyoro as Catholics and Protestants.
Bunyoro was not the only part of the country in which Baganda chiefs had been appointed – for instance Semei Kakungulu had been promised his own kingdom as a reward for helping bring British authority over Busoga and Bukedi.
Discrimination
However, the British had a particularly nasty attitude towards Bunyoro which had influenced their war against Kabalega and which would continue to influence colonial policy towards Bunyoro almost until independence.
Banyoro chiefs, officials and locals had complained about the character and conduct of the Baganda chiefs to the British. They were, in particular, concerned about the potential loss of more land through the new policy of granting freehold ownership of land.
This policy drew its inspiration from the 1900 Buganda Agreement and although the Banyoro revolted largely out of fear that the imposed chiefs would grab and own their land, the policy would lead to even wider revolts in Buganda itself when the reality of what had happened occurred to the hundreds of thousands of peasants.
Although the British had removed Baganda chiefs in other areas where local populations complained, they refused to do so in Bunyoro. “The absolute refusal of the British to remove the Baganda chiefs signalled that Bunyoro’s humiliation and low constitutional status would be a long-term feature of colonial rule,” notes Shane Doyle, a historian who has researched the issue extensively.
The rebellion started slowly as a boycott of Baganda officials before degenerating into the burning of huts and destruction of crops, forcing the Baganda chiefs and officials to flee to Hoima for their safety.
The rebellion, however, was mostly peaceful defiance and eloquent arguments for political and constitutional reforms. The Banyoro proposed to have representatives from Toro, Ankole, Buganda and Busoga form a council to debate and settle the Bunyoro Question.
“What is so impressive about the Nyangire,” Doyle writes, “is that Bunyoro’s chiefs advanced such reasoned, convincing arguments for political reform, while ensuring that the protest remained non-violent, and organising pan-ethnic support for a general campaign against Ganda sub-imperialism.”
However, George Wilson, the British official in-charge at the time, had a very dim view of African natives generally and Banyoro in particular. “Natives under a wise restraint can be like good and even clever children,” he had once noted. “Natives in their wild impulses and with passions aflame can be very devils incarnate.”
Wilson could not believe, therefore, that native Africans were capable of such sophisticated political thought and action. He believed, instead, that the Catholic missionaries were behind the rebellion in an attempt to short-change their Protestant rivals.
Rather than resolve the matter politically, Wilson ordered for a militant solution. Some 54 Banyoro chiefs and opinion leaders were arrested and exiled from the kingdom. Of these, 49 were Catholics. They were replaced with another set of Baganda chiefs of whom 51 were Protestant.
According to Doyle, “Wilson’s ultimate solution to the Nyangire crisis, as in his earlier investigation into the murder of a colonial officer in Ankole district, was to create a limited number of scapegoats and then re-emphasise the colonial state’s alliance with favoured local allies.”
Chiefs who had supported the rebellion had their land taken away and given to the pro-British puppet Omukama Duhaga. Non-protestant chiefs were deposed and one prominent chief, Byabacwezi, was fined the princely sum of £500.
Why didn’t the Banyoro resist the reinstatement of the hated Baganda chiefs? Doyle had argued that a smallpox epidemic and famine following almost a decade of war and instability meant that ordinary Banyoro peasants were not in a position to actively resist or fight.
There was also the small matter of the reinstated chiefs being escorted by 50 armed soldiers – evidence, if any was needed, that they were an occupying force.
Although Nyangire did not succeed, it meant that the first two decades of colonial rule were, in Bunyoro, informed primarily by the need to maintain the authority of the Baganda chiefs, for good or for worse.
It also led to administrative instability in Bunyoro, which came to have the highest rate of turnover of officials. For instance, in the five years up to 1907, there had been 17 different colonial officers in charge of Bunyoro, with five in 1906 alone. By comparison, a territory in German East Africa, which had 10 administrators in eight years, was considered unstable.
The ineffectiveness of colonial administration in Bunyoro would, as this series, will later show, hold back the economic development of the region and lead to widespread socio-demographic problems, some of which persist today.
It would also inspire revolts and resistance to Ganda sub-imperialism in other parts of the colony and shape the alliances that would, in future, come to influence the politics of Uganda.
Kabalega Cwa the Conqueror!
“He is very lively, he laughs a lot, often shaking with mirth. He is very talkative and appears to submit to ceremonial with a certain measure of constraint.”
That’s how African explorer Emin Pasha described Ugandan king Omukama John Chwa II Kabalega. Despite being warm and jovial, Kabalega, who ruled the Bunyoro kingdom from 1870 to 1899, was a pain in the neck of colonialists. He was the most hated king in Uganda by colonialists because of his lack of trust for them.
The Berlin Conference of 1884 that regulated European trade in Africa led to the thirst for absolute control over Africa. By 1914, Liberia and Ethiopia were the only African counties that were not ruled by any European state. Among all the European countries, the British had the most African states under their rule. They fought several African kingdoms, killing their rulers and weakening their armies in order to take control.
But some African states gave them a hard time. These African states were ruled by strong and courageous kings who protected their kingdoms for as long as they could. Kabalega was one of them. With his wealth and power, he was able to fight off the British for five years until he was captured and exiled for 24 years. Even though the British painted him black, today, many in Bunyoro regard him as one of their greatest kings who united and expanded their kingdom, bringing their once powerful empire back to its former glory after it almost declined.
Bunyoro , a kingdom in Western Uganda, was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Central and East Africa from the 13th century to the 19th century. Long before the arrival of the European missionary doctors, the kingdom performed a highly developed surgical procedure; a cesarean section that saved mother and child in pre-hospital days. And that was during the reign of Kabalega, who led several reforms that transformed Bunyoro.
Born to Omukama Kyebambe 1V Kamurasi Mirundi on June 18, 1853, Kabalega grew up in Mwenge in present-day Tooro, where his father had been exiled following a rebellion and where his maternal uncle had been appointed chief. One of 38 children, Kabalega was “proud and assertive” and loved hunting but was also a trained soldier who had no mercy for rebellious royals and their supporters.
Described as one who was about 5ft 10” tall, muscular with a small head and a light complexion, he ascended the throne in 1870 when he was 16 after the death of his father in 1869. But before becoming king, he had to fight off his adversaries. Most of the local chiefs did not want him to be made king as they preferred his elder brother Kabigumire but with the support of the royal guards of his late father as well as that of the common people (mainly agriculturalists), he defeated his enemies after a war that lasted six months and ascended the throne after burying his father.
At the time he became king, the kingdom was declining as many princes had seceded during his father’s rule. And so to regain lost territories and consolidate his rule, he first killed and exiled members of the royal family and chiefs who had opposed him and had supported his rival brother Kabigumire. He also created a “150,000-strong professional army, equipped with guns”, to expand his kingdom and defend it against invasion from Buganda and foreigners.
Besides raiding breakaway areas, Kabalega maintained trade and diplomatic relations with his neighbors, including Buganda, Karagwe, Busoga, Ankole, Lango and West Nile. He exported salt to Buganda, and his kingdom’s ivory, which was reported to be the whitest, heaviest and largest in East Africa, attracted many traders including Swahili Arabs from the coast. Essentially, Kabalega developed the trading sector which brought in more wealth to better his kingdom. Bunyoro was also ahead of time in various scientific practices and discoveries including its caesarian section. Kabalega was not ready to give up his empire to colonialists after rebuilding it and so for many years, he resisted colonization, westernization and the attempts of the British to take over his kingdom.
His kingdom would have expanded further if the British had not invaded it later and worked with Bunyoro’s enemies in the late 1890s. The British declared war on Bunyoro in 1894 which made Kabalega go into hiding in order to plan several attacks on the British. Known as the Nyangire Rebellion, Kabalega successfully defeated the British for five years, securing help and protection from Somalia and Nubia.
In 1899, Kabalega was found and shot by the British and was captured and exiled to Seychelles where he stayed for 24 years until in 1923 that he was granted freedom to return to his kingdom. Unfortunately, he died just before reaching the borders of his kingdom on his return from Seychelles.
His grandson Solomon Gafabusa Iguru , who became king of Bunyoro, would sue the UK in 2004 for “alleged atrocities committed by its soldiers during the colonial period,” demanding £3trillion (then $5,500bn) from the British monarchy. He was on a mission to bankrupt Britain over war crimes but he lost the case
