Monthly Archives: November 2011

Written and researched by Robert Asketill For the moment we shall leave Kabaka Mwanga in Tanganyika knowing he has to return to Buganda. He was fully aware that his kingdom was being divided if not ruined by the foreigners, many of whom saw this Pearl of Africa as a future colony. Mwanga had made it clear over the years that this would never happen. He was well aware from his intelligence scouts that secret treaties were being signed between chiefs elsewhere in Africa and that he would not allow this in his kingdom. However far greater plots were being made in Europe so we shall leave our great king in … Continue reading →

Written and researched by Robert Asketill In the last Part we mentioned the journey that was to take Kabaka Mwanga into the front line to prevent Buganda becoming a European colony. This journey on which we are going to take our readers will be long. Mwanga, no fool, had the courage to stand firm against the great European manipulations of the time, a little of which we show you here: “At the end of 1892 their new certainty of Russian support was nerving the French to bring this question back to the boil by working on the Khedive in Cairo and by advancing towards the Upper Nile. This was the … Continue reading →

Written and researched by Robert Asketill We have seen that after the removal of Kabaka Mwanga, disagreements between Christians and Moslems became inevitable and the situation was made worse because each group wanted to dominate the other and that it was further complicated by the political ambitions of individual chiefs like Apollo Kaggwa.  The Moslems, who were numerous and militarily more powerful, used their domination by expelling the Christians in 1888. This was repeated in 1892 when the Protestants expelled the Catholics. This is our story. It has been documented, as we have seen, that the Moslems would not consider talks. They replied that they could not go to the … Continue reading →

By Robert Asketill Today we continue with the real historical events in the nation of Buganda from war diaries concerning the king and his position in politics. But behind it all, is the power of the European missionaries and a little quote from one of the Protestants. In his letter home, he shows how the kingdom was being led into hostile divisions. “The cause of this unfortunate division of two professedly Christian parties is not far to seek. Picture a small body of men at work in the centre of gross heathenism, seeking to lead the people to knowledge of the true God and his Son Jesus Christ. Just as … Continue reading →

Written and researched by Robert Asketill In Part 31 we ended with; ‘if the king could not trust his chief of the Abatamanyangamba who else could he trust?’ We now look at how a great people, proud to be a nation recognised world- wide, decided to remove a ruler no one trusted. The young chiefs therefore decided to precipitate the revolt. As a matter of military and psychological strategy they argued that it was better for them to provoke the king to fight while he was still weak. If he executed any of the leaders such as Nyonyintono, Kaggwa or Kapalaga, or if any one of them defected, they argued, … Continue reading →

Written and researched by Robert Asketill   The more we read and study the period of Kabaka Mwanga and having in the past travelled to that spot in Lango where he put up fighting resistance to British troops before being taken prisoner and later deported whilst still wounded into exile on the Seychelles to die there, ever a Muganda, the more we believe that here we had one of Africa’s great freedom fighters in the same league as Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. So it is with care that we go over his historical record in politics, much of which has been buried in foreign archives. The elderly, … Continue reading →

Written and researched by Robert Asketill When the young Kabaka Mwanga ascended the throne in October 1884, he had every opportunity to make a good ruler. He was supported by the vast majority of the chiefs and his brothers had accepted his succession. The foreigners in Buganda, such as the Protestant missionaries and the Zanzibaris showed no marked opposition to his elevation. Yet Mwanga’s behaviour almost at once became so oppressive that the increasing disapproval finally broke irrevocably the power of the monarchy. Within these four years, the Baganda had learnt that they could depose a bad ruler as they used to do in the past, but also that they … Continue reading →

By Robert Asketill After the death of Mutesa we come to Kabaka Mwanga and his bungling policies which were endless. Perhaps the most serious, which brought him into conflict with every social group in the country, was the decree that the people, both high and low, were to dig a lake for him. The supervisors of work were not senior chiefs but favourite pages, bossy and anxious to lord it over those who had the misfortune to oppose their authority, and who are remembered in history for their notoriety and powers of life and death. Kabaka Mwanga had given them a royal drum whose sound in the early hours of … Continue reading →