The Kingdom of Buganda has seen turbulent times — not least during the 26 years when it was “abolished” by then president Dr Milton Obote — but, perhaps, none as tumultuous as the 13-year period between 1884 and 1897, the reign of Ssekabaka Daniel Basamula-Ekkere Mwanga II.

In this period, the Scramble for Africa by imperialist states was at its height. The emasculation of “native states” was the order of the day; colonialists like Carl Peters, Capt Frederick Lugard, Gerald Portal and Sir Harry Johnston, working with religious missionaries like Alexander MacKay and Fr. Simeon Lourdel spearheaded the “civilising mission” whose real objective wasn’t entirely to engender trade or spiritual emancipation of the African, but to dismantle traditional African institutions and exploit the country’s resources.

Religious bigotry, internal wars, outbreaks of disease like smallpox and severe drought combined with the colonial infiltration and co-option of Buganda’s luminaries like Sir Apolo Kaggwa and Semei Kakungulu all combined to make Mwanga II’s tenure troublesome. Indeed, because of these difficulties, Mwanga was forced off his throne three times but battled to reclaim it each time.

Few historians have examined this period in general, and Mwanga’s personality and reign in particular, without coming under the influence of writings by missionaries and colonial administrators such as MacKay and Capt Lugard, plus their protégé Apolo Kaggwa, all of whom were not only leading actors in this era but also Mwanga’s key nemeses.

These actors were central to the deposition of Mwanga and, ultimately, to the end of Buganda’s independence. Western accounts portray Mwanga as an “oafish looking young man” who was “self indulgent and erratic.” Lugard wrote that Mwanga’s face showed “irresolution” and a good deal of “sensuality.”

Mwanga has also been chastised as a marijuana smoker with homosexual tendencies. On the whole, missionary-based literature depicts Mwanga as a foolish, fickle, fitful and barbaric tyrant — whose murder of Bishop Hannington in 1885 and killing of young Christian Pages in 1886 horrified Europe.

In Mwanga II: Resistance to Imposition of Colonial Rule in Buganda 1884-1899, history professor Samwiri Lwanga Lunyiigo offers a refreshing perspective on Mwanga and his reign.

Lunyiigo argues that for all his failings, Mwanga was a fighter and a nationalist, who, unlike self-seeking agents like Kaggwa, Stanlus Mugwanya and Zacharia Kisingiri, resisted British imperialism and died in the struggle for Buganda’s sovereignty.

Lunyiigo shines a new light on Mwanga who comes off in this analysis more as Buganda’s hero and less as the villain that we have continuously been taught he was. He also recounts the roles of individuals such as Gabriel Kintu and Lui Kibanyi who are Buganda’s unsung heroes of the same era.

By questioning and contradicting Euro-centric notions and perspectives on Mwanga, Lunyiigo’s work is liberating. Indeed, in a commentary on the book, Prof Mohamood Mamdani states that Lunyiigo’s narrative ends the “long run of the victors” and tells Mwanga’s story “from the vantage point of the losers.”

The book has eight chapters covering Buganda in the 19th century: Mwanga’s betrayal by his chiefs, notably Kaggwa; the triple alliance between Muslims, Catholics and Protestants that fought and overthrew Mwanga in 1888 and the 1897 war of Buganda’s Independence that Mwanga lost. Lunyiigo makes a moving and compelling case. Let’s look at some key themes of his book below:

Has history judged Mwanga fairly?

Lunyiigo belongs to the camp that considers that historians have generally treated Mwanga unfairly. As an 18-year old monarch in 19th century Africa, Mwanga was caught up in an intractable struggle for power and control over Buganda involving the powerful imperial forces of the Germans, the French and the British as they scrambled for the continent: the Berlin Conference had taken place a mere four years earlier.

This struggle was complicated by new religious zealots in the Protestant, Muslim and Catholic camps that were selfishly bent on undermining Mwanga’s Court. These forces ultimately overthrew Mwanga in 1888 and replaced him with his elder brother Kiweewa.

Kiweewa lasted one month. He was removed, hacked to death and replaced by his brother Kalema who lasted one year on the throne before Mwanga — who with help from the British who forced him to sign some phony treaties — regained it.

Mwanga’s grandson, Sir Edward F L Mutesa II, who was also deposed by the British (and later by Milton Obote) argues that “Mwanga fought to free himself and his country of the intruders for all of his reign. He did not like or want them; he was impressed by their power, but not interested in their ideas. He could not recover the old way of life nor adapt himself to the new, and in his perplexed and unhappy groping in the gap between, he seems to me to deserve some sympathy. His cruelty cannot be denied but it was accepted by his people in a way we find hard to understand.”

Mwanga’s popularity with common Baganda was never in doubt. For example, when Mwanga and the Omukama of Bunyoro, Kabalega, were captured by a force led by Semei Kakungulu, Andrea Luwandagga and Kaggwa, they were shackled and paraded from Lango through Kiteezi all the way to Busabala from where he was deported to Kismayu in Somalia.

But, far from mocking him, the Baganda begged Mwanga’s captors for his release and forgiveness. It is for this reason, and the fear of a backlash, that his captors changed their plan to take him to his former Court at Mengo — occupied by his young son Daudi Chwa for the ultimate humiliation — and instead marched the two former kings to Busabala.

When the prisoners reached Busabala, Rev A. B. Fisher of the Church Missionary Society was waiting by the lakeside. And, before their boat could set sail on to their final exile, he baptized them in full public view. With a dash of holy water Mwanga thus became Daniel, while Kabalega became John. No doubt for the Protestants, this was a major coup.

For Mwanga, who generally preferred the Catholics, it must have been a harrowing experience. It is in this context that Mwanga ought to be judged. In any case, I consider that Mwanga’s record pales in comparison to that of his forefathers Mutesa I aka Mukabya and Suuna. According to Martin Luther King, the ultimate test of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

The pot calling the kettle black?

While the main historical accounts about Mwanga amplify the killing of Bishop Hannington in 1885 and the young Christian Pages in 1886, the atrocities committed by Lugard and his assistant Capt William and others, particularly during and after the Battle of Mengo in January 1892 have been played down.

Prof Lunyiigo documents the atrocities committed by the British in Buganda during this period. He relies on the work of Msgr Hirth to show how Lugard and William led the Protestant faithful in the burning of both Mwanga’s palace at Mengo and the newly built Catholic Church at Lubaga.

Using the Maxim gun, Lugard and William were also responsible for the massacre of over 700 people at Bulingugwe Island where they followed Mwanga days after they had chased him from Mengo. Many drowned in an attempt to run away and others were captured to become slaves to the Protestant leaders.

It is interesting that, following protest by the French, the British government admitted guilt and paid compensation of £10,000 to the Catholic Church but none to Mwanga or the families whose members died, drowned or were injured.

A right to self-defence?

Mwanga believed that the white visitors were up to no good and all they wanted was to “eat” his country. He refused to take sides with any of their camps in spite of all the beads and trinkets extended as “gifts.” Mwanga hoped to play them off one against the other.

He understood the politics of the missionaries who converted his youthful and trusted lieutenants and turned them against him. This explains why he evaded baptism while a free man. He was caught up in profound changes that whittled away both his power base and authority. This is why he conceived a plan to lure all the leaders of the three religions onto an island on Lake Victoria and maroon them there to starve.

This plan leaked with disastrous consequences to Mwanga, who was promptly overthrown by a group led by his own man, Kaggwa. On Mwanga’s difficult situation, Mutesa II asks, is it surprising that he “…wished to expel all the complicating foreigners, to return to the certainties of the old life?”

A house divided against itself cannot stand

Mwanga and Buganda suffered the politics of divide and rule. Prof Lunyiigo correctly argues, “…if Buganda had stood as one united country against the British invasion there was not much with which the British could have resisted Buganda. But Buganda was already a disintegrating polity” and, “Baganda chiefs went to war with their own levies who did not know that they were helping the British to establish their rule in Buganda. To encourage the Baganda to fight among themselves on the basis of religious factions was a diversionary tactic by the British to make their entry into Buganda while Baganda fought themselves to exhaustion.” It is interesting to note that contemporary Buganda continues to suffer similar polarisation.

Greed and betrayal

Why did Buganda fail to defend its sovereignty? Prof Lunyiigo argues that Africans like Omukama Kabalega and Mwanga “…valiantly contested the imposition of alien rule and lost largely because some of their own subjects did not appreciate what their betrayal did to their integrity as a people. For the collaborators, the main motivation was greed, greed for wealth, greed for power.”

Yet the “…power they had sought during the colonial period was exercised within the boundaries of those who actually had it — the colonialists.” The fact that Buganda’s leading elite, in this period and beyond, was compromised by white rule at the expense of king and country, is one that needs deeper interrogation.

I consider that Prof Lunyiigo’s coverage only touches the tip of an iceberg. Yet for many years Buganda’s traitors have been held in high regard when history is replete with evidence that they sold their country. For example, Semei Kagungulu and Andereya Luwandaga received 1,000 rupees each plus several cows and goats from the British for handing over Mwanga and Kabalega.

Also, save for venal reasons, it is unimaginable how Buganda’s Regents “negotiated” the wholly dubious 1900 agreement with Sir Harry Johnston, with Mwanga deposed and his infant son Daudi Chwa installed on the throne. Surprisingly, some of these actors, like Kaggwa and Kakungulu have roads and schools named after them to this day.

Indeed, but for Sir Daudi Chwa’s vehement objection, a monument to Kaggwa sponsored by the British, was to be erected at Budo — very close to Buganda’s coronation shrine. Semei Kakungulu is held in some regard, in other parts of Uganda. No major public buildings, facilities or roads have been named after Mwanga. No one talks about Gabriel Kintu, who stood by and fought for Mwanga and Buganda to his final hour.

To resist or to collaborate with the enemy?

In my view, however, this is a zero-sum debate because, resistance or no resistance, the end result was the same. In the end, Africa was conquered by imperialism because of the sheer force of the Maxim gun. Africa has never recovered.

The only difference perhaps is that today, the resistors are beginning to be hailed as heroes and many of the collaborators are frowned upon as traitors. Be that as it may, Prof Lunyiigo ponders a valid question — had Buganda resisted imperialism in a more united and purposeful way, would it have retained its territory and Independence in the same way that Ethiopia did? Or, would it have retained its territory and become independent in the same way Rwanda, Swaziland and Lesotho did in the post-colonial epoch? This question needs answers.

Only free men can negotiate. Prof Lunyiigo’s work canvasses the various treaties of “friendship” and “protection” that Mwanga signed first with the Germans and later with the British.

In these agreements the colonialists promised “protection” in return for the surrender of suzerainty; the inability to make treaties with other countries; the inability to raise an army and hold arms without British approval; the inability to declare war without British authority; the annexation of large chunks of land to the British Crown; the control of state finances and the monopoly of trade by the British. One such agreement with Lugard was made in perpetuity!

Unlike some of his Protestant chiefs, Mwanga was most reluctant to acquiesce to these bogus agreements and in one case he was literally forced to do so in fear of Lugard’s Maxim gun. Mwanga knew that signing these treaties meant the loss of sovereignty.

This is why it was necessary to arrest and exile him to a distant land, before the British negotiated the one-sided 1900 Buganda agreement with a kingdom headed by an infant king, represented by the very chiefs who had helped in deposing his father.

I commend Prof Lunyiigo’s book for challenging the stereotype of Mwanga and for helping the reader to understand the beleaguered king and his kingdom at the end of the 19th century in a new light.

Although the book covers a period some 130 years ago, it is extremely relevant to the situation in the country today as the Buganda kingdom rediscovers itself.