Monthly Archives: December 2011

By Robert Asketill We have been writing of events on Bulingugwe and in our research have come across the translation of agreements concluded there on Feb 3rd 1890 by the Catholic and Protestant groups swearing on oath to no longer kill each other. It is truly astonishing to find that when two missionary groups arrive in an African kingdom boasting that they are people of peace, they then set about eliminating each other and even when Kabaka Mwanga was on Bulingugwe Island planning to remove Muslim rule, the missionaries were signing pledges to cease killing. AGREEMENT OF THE CHRISTIANS (1)  We who follow the Catholic religion of Jesus Christ, we … Continue reading →

By Robert Asketill Here we begin to look into those early days of empire building which certainly had Africa locked into the hands of the grasping industrialists of the west, one of them being in Great Britain in the name of William Mackinnon, Chairman of the British India Steamship Company. Ten years earlier, in 1876, the Sultan of Zanzibar had offered to lease the greater part of his mainland possessions of the East Africa coast to the Company, but the project had fallen down owing to the British Government’s refusal to support it. Now, however, Mackinnon saw his opportunity. In 1886 he organized the British East Africa Company to explore … Continue reading →

By Robert Asketill We have found Kabaka Mwanga now victorious, thanks to a consignment of guns and powder which he had connived to receive whilst on Bulingugwe as a ransom for some captured Arabs, and the Muslim army again beaten back to Bunyoro. However, it was seen by the few Europeans, Catholic and Protestant, that there was great danger of another civil war and a need of a treaty of friendship of some kind either with the Catholics or the Protestants; and not to be outdone, the I.B.E.A. Company staked its claim to fly the company’s flag close to the palace. When Mwanga heard the Company’s terms “he lifted up … Continue reading →

By Robert Asketill In our previous writings we have left Kabaka Mwanga on Bulingugwe Island in command of an intelligence service well established on the mainland and in contact with the Protestants and Catholics who had fled from the Muslims and we have seen how Mwanga’s earlier hatred of the missionaries grew alongside the jealousy of the pagan chiefs who saw their authority undermined by the Christian faith. We have also seen how in 1888 Mwanga hatched a plot to rid himself not only of the adherents of the two missions but also of all the supporters of Islam and that the news of the plan reached the intended victims … Continue reading →

By Robert Asketill As we have mentioned in a previous part, Bulingugwe Island is well known to us, no doubt having spent as much time on the island as Mwanga himself spent there in exile. However, over time a feeling grew that the island held a ghostly mystery and the feeling became a certainty, against all Western rationality, that spirits were there and that they were trying to communicate with whoever visited; many have told us that it is the spirit of Mukasa, the lake god.  Listening to many people, who have kept their history alive by traditionally passing it orally down the generations, we learnt enough to discover that … Continue reading →

By Robert Asketill We now go back to Bulingugwe Island, an island we know well and in the Idi Amin period, with Luzira convicts’ labour, was being converted into the Mwanga Park, so important in Buganda’s history. For those interested, it is situated in the Murchison Gulf close to Munyonyo on the western shore of that inlet. In most places, the channel which separates this island from the mainland is little more than three hundred yards wide. The island itself might be described as oval-shaped except for the fact that its northern end is somewhat blunted. Its extreme width is about 1000 yards and its length about 1200 yards. The … Continue reading →