Barry M Coldrey
The Martyrs of Uganda
* Barry M Coldrey, 1939 -
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First edition 2001
Bibliography
1 875258 97
1. Catholic Church - Uganda - Church history
2. Priests - Brothers - church workers
3. sexual abuse - children
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Foreword
On 3 June 1999, the writer attended Mass at St Francis Church in downtown Melbourne, Australia. It was the feast of the Martyrs of Uganda not a prominent event in the Australian liturgical calendar and at the homily the celebrant struggled visibly whether to tell the congregation, mainly middle-aged, old and weather-beaten, the reasons and context of the martyrs sacrifice.The tensions in the pastor eddied and flowed, but eventually the priest lost the internal struggle to place the reality before the congregation. He limited himself to pious generalities. It was a brief homily.
Father's reticence was understandable. The church in Australia indeed the church in the English-speaking world is ravaged by clerical and fraternal infidelity to the celibacy vow. At the tip of this iceberg, sexual molestation of minors has been a constant undercurrent in the church for many years. By the end of the year 2000, in Australia some eighty Brothers and priests have been convicted of sexual offenses against children and more cases are pending. There have been the highly-publicised suicides of some offenders. Sexual infidelity has been revealed.
Vast sums have been paid in legal fees, 'hush money' and mediated compensation payments; some priests have been laicised for their offenses; others confronted and disciplined in more determined ways than was once done. The proverbial chickens finally came home to roost with a vengeance.
Our reputation has declined seriously, and and it may sink further before things improve. Catholics ache with a sense of innocence lost or destroyed, of the dangerous allure of evil: criminal behaviour, vows ignored, the squalid efforts to cover-up.
In this atmosphere, the heroic sacrifice of the young, mainly teenage, recently baptised martyrs of Uganda is embarrassing to recall. In the main they were young members of the elite in their own country. In a traditional, highly-authoritarian, pagan society they defied the King's demand for sexual favours and he, both a natural homosexual and a predatory paedophile, for whom tradition allowed every whim and fancy to be satisfied, destroyed them for their resistance.
However, the Catholic church with an eye to penance for the errors of the past could well make more of this 3 June feast day. In addition, the feast has an ecumenical dimension since around half of the martyrs were Anglican whose missionaries had preceded the White Fathers in Uganda by some two years. It happens, too, that many Catholic religious congregations and lay missionaries are concentrating their efforts on ministry in Africa, including east Africa and a stress on this first African canonised saints of the modern era strikes an appropriate chord.
Barry M Coldrey
The Uganda Martyrs
Introduction
Charles Lwanga and Companions
In the nineteenth century, Buganda, which was to become one of the four provinces which comprised the Uganda protectorate within the British empire, was an independent kingdom. with a highly organised system of government. With a population of around three million people, Buganda was at the heart of Africa; on the equator; some 800 miles from the East Coast, on the northern side of Lake Victoria Nyanza. Buganda was a hereditary monarch; the ruler being known as the kabaka.
The early European explorers, Speke and Grant, and later, Lord Stanley, after experiencing the chaos and confusion prevailing elsewhere, were so impressed by the appearance of law and order they found in Buganda that their written accounts tended to glamorise the country and overlook the darker side of life in the kingdom.
The kabaka was an absolute monarch in the sense that Pharoah is described in Genesis 41.44: 'The King said to Joseph: I am Pharoah: Without my command no man shall move hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.' The kabaka had uncontested rights over all his subjects, was a law unto himself and master of life and death. The only limitations to his power lay in the sacrosanct customs established by his ancestors and handed down to him. The kabaka claimed absolute and complete authority, not only over their bodies, but their minds and hearts also. The royal court was centred on Rubaga near Lake Victoria.
Some three thousand people lived within the extensive royal kraal. They included servants, guards, courtiers. Of these there were some 400 pages in the kabaka's palace charged with different tasks. Some of these were to become the martyrs, of whom the largest group were burnt at Namugongo on 3 June 1886. Whenever the kabaka went fishing or hunting, a group would follow him and when he got bored, they would wrestle for him.
These pages were generally selected for service from the most intelligent and handsome boys in the villages around the kingdom. The local chiefs would pick them out at the age of twelve, and they would be elevated to the rank of the kabaka's guards at the age of twenty. Charles Lwanga was the chief of the pages. Over time the next generation of the Buganda elite were selected from among these young apprentices at the royal kraal.
The European missionaries arrived between 1877 (Anglican) and 1879 (Catholic) and were treated as guests and housed within a short distance of the royal kraal. The Catholic missionaries were French priests and brothers from the recently founded Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) and within a short time made some two hundred converts often among the young men and women serving within the royal kraal. Within ten years of their first knowledge of the Catholic faith, twenty-two teenagers and young men were to lay down their lives for their faith. The story of their conversion from paganism, of their battle for Christian virtue and of their sacrifice of life itself.is retold in these pages.
In a traditional, isolated pagan kingdom, the arrival of the Christian missionaries, precipitated new unsettling developments, and marked a turning point in the religious life of the people of Buganda; as well as the political structure of society at large. The history of Buganda from this point on took a radically different turn. Social upheaval, persecution and civil war were to transform all aspects of people's lives over the next few years.
Kabaka Mutesa I had balanced the tensions in the kingdom but died in 1884 just a few years after the arrival of the missionaries, leaving the kingdom in the hands of Mwanga II, a youth whose ruling style fell far short of the charisma and political astuteness his late father had demonstrated in dealing with the foreigners.
Mwanga was young, inexperienced, threatened by the tensions around him. Violence and lust permeated court life and the kabaka who was gay and a paedophile forced himself on the young boys and men who served him as pages and attendants. The Christians at Mwanga's court, led by Joseph Mukasa, the Chief Steward, and Charles Lwanga tried to protect the pages from the kabaka's lustful demands.
Within a year of the new kabaka's reign a crisis loomed. When Mwanga ordered the murder of the Anglican Bishop, James Hannigan, and his companions, who were approaching Buganda from the north, Joseph Mukasa confronted Mwanga and condemned his action. The kabaka had always admired Joseph but when his Steward dared to criticise and clearly despised his lifestyle, the kabaka's mood changed. He forgot their long friendship. After striking Joseph with a spear, Mwanga ordered him killed. Joseph was beheaded and the body burned on 15 November 1885. This was to set the scene for the next two years: spasms of violence against the Christian converts, spaced with periods of calm.
Although they felt at risk, the missionaries were not attacked by the kabaka. They were guests and Europeans. The British consul at Zanzibar had taken a very dim view of the murder of Bishop Hannigan. Charles Lwanga took over the instruction and leadership of the Christian community at court and the charge of keeping the teenagers and young men out of Mwanga's hands. The persecution died down for six months.
However, the tensions remained and hung like a dark cloud over the royal kraal, The kabaka's traditional authority was being challenged by new loyalties, in the case of the Christian minority to their faith and the missionaries who instructed them. On 25 May 1886 the storm burst. Mwanga and many of the court spent the day hunting hippopotamus on the lake, but had a fruitless expedition. The kabaka returned to court in a mean mood and sent for his favourite sexual partner, the Chancellor's son, Mwafu. The lad was not around the court and it became clear that he had been receiving religious instruction 'reading' with Denis Sebuggwawo, one of the Catholic pages. Mwanga's temper boiled over. All day hunting and no hippopotamus; now no sex. He had Denis brought to him and bashed him senseless with a spear after which the executioners hacked the boy to pieces outside the audience chamber.
Mwanga then ordered that the royal compound be sealed and guarded so that no one could escape and summoned the country's executioners. Knowing what was coming, Charles Lwanga baptized four catechumens that night, including a thirteen-year-old named Kizito. The next morning Mwanga brought his whole court before him and separated the Christians from the rest by saying, "Those who do not pray stand by me, those who do pray stand over there." He demanded of the fifteen boys and young men (all under 25) if they were Christians and intended to remain Christians. When they answered that they were with strength and courage Mwanga condemned them to death.
The young men were stripped naked, bound and marched slowly on the thirty kilometre trip to the place of execution at Namugongo. The chief executioner begged one of the boys, his own son, Mabaga, to escape and hide but Mbaga refused. The cruelly-bound prisoners passed the White Fathers compound on their way to execution. Father Lourdel who had been at the royal kraal by dawn, but was refused entry; gave absolution to the boys as they were dragged past.
Under cover of the kabaka's condemnation of the Christian pages, some other Christian leaders were also murdered on the orders of Mwanga's chief minister. One was Andrew Kagwa, a Kigowa chief, who had converted his wife and several others, and Matthias Kalemba, an assistant judge. The chief counselor was so furious with Andrew that he proclaimed he wouldn't eat until he knew Andrew was dead. Andrew Kagwa and Matthias Kalemba were killed on the road before they reached Namugongo.
After a painfully slow trip, the original caravan reached Namugongo and the survivors were kept imprisoned for seven days. On 3 June, they were brought out, wrapped in reed mats, and placed on the pyre. Mbaga was killed first by order of his father, the chief executioner, who had tried one last time to change his son's mind. The rest were burned to death. Thirteen Catholics and eleven Anglicans died. They died calling on the name of Jesus and proclaiming, "You can burn our bodies, but you cannot harm our souls."
In the aftermath of the execution of the pages and the murder of some other Catholic leaders, White Fathers withdrew from Buganda to their mission station on the southern side of the lake. However, the new Christians carried on their work, translating and printing the catechism into the Ganda language and giving secret instruction on the faith. Without priests, liturgy, and sacraments their faith, intelligence, courage, and wisdom kept the Catholic Church alive and growing in Uganda. When the White Fathers returned after the savage spasms of persecution ended they found a growing Christian community.
Almost immediately, the White Fathers, commenced collecting testimony and preparing the brief for the eventual canonisation of those who died in the persecution.The Uganda Martyrs were beatified by Pope Benedict XV in 1920 and canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1964.
To honor these modern saints, Paul VI became the first reigning pope to visit sub-saharan Africa when he visited Uganda in July 1969; a visit which included a pilgrimage to the site of the martyrdom at Namugongo. He also dedicated a site for the building of a shrine church in honor of the martyrs, at the spot where Charles Lwanga was killed. The shrine church itself was dedicated in 1975 and it was subsequently named a basilica church, a high honor in Catholicism. Archbishop Robert Runcie of Canterbury, and head of the worldwide Anglican
Communion, also came on pilgrimage in January 1984. Pope John Paul II in turn honored the martyrs with his own pilgrimage in February 1993. Every year, June 3rd, when most of the martyrs were killed, is marked as a national holiday in Uganda. It is also marked worldwide on the church calender as a day to honor the Uganda Martyrs.
Chapters
Foreword
Introduction
Time-Line
Martyrdom
1 Society and Politics in Baganda
2 Tradition Religion in Baganda
3 The Arrival of Islam
4 The Christian Missions
5 The Roots of the Conflict
6 The Martyrdom of Joseph Mukesa
7 Christian Leadership
8 'No Hippopotamus; no Sex'
9 The Executions at Namugongo
10 The Aftermath
Illustrations and Maps
Appendices
Bibliography
Uganda martyrs - Time Line
2 February 1869 The first men to become 'White Fathers' took the habit of the new congregation in Algiers.
15 November 1875 The English explorer, Henry M. Stanley spent some months at the Kabaka's court and his appeal for a Christian mission to Buganda was published in the Daily Telegraph, London.
23 November 1875 The Church Missionary Society agreed to undertake the mission and the Scottish engineer/clergyman, Alexander Mackay was accepted as the leader.
30 June 1877 Rev. C.T. Wilson arrived at Kabaka Mutesa's court north of Lake Victoria; Mackay delayed by ill-health at Zanzibar where there was a British consul.
24 February 1878 Pope Leo XIII signed a brief entrusting the Lake Districts of central Africa to the White Fathers, requesting that they move immediately to initiate the mission.
1879 A vigorous Protestant mission was established in Buganda, seemingly with the blessing of the Kabaka. The mission was limited to operating in the vicinity of the court. In this year, French missionaries arrived in Buganda, White Fathers, founded by Bishop (later Cardinal) Lavigerie in Algiers in 1868. The Christian missions challenged many of the young men serving at the Kabaka's court. The Kabaka showed some interest but was reported as saying: 'The true religion is that which is taught by these men from France...but our wealth in women kills us' (i.e. places an insuperable obstacle)
27 March 1880 The first Catholic baptisms.
1 June 1880 Bishop Lavigerie issued detailed instructions about the reception of converts - four years preparation required since the gulf between paganism and Christianity so great.
8 November 1882 In view of the tensions at court occasioned by the conversion of many prominent young men, and after receiving instructions from Bishop Lavigerie not to remain where there was extreme risk to their safety, the White Fathers withdrew to Laganeda on the southern side of Lake Victoria. The White Fathers had been losing many members to disease and murder in Africa.
19 October 1884 Kabaka Mutesa died, succeeded by one of his sons, Mwanga I, an intelligent but somewhat unstable young man (21) known for his excesses in matters of drink, drugs (hemp-smoking) and sex.
early February 1885 Some servants of the Protestant mission were executed. Alexander Mackay wrote: 'It was a burst of (pagan) fury against the Englishmen and any who consorted with them.'
22 February 1885 There was an abortive coup against the new Kabaka, Mwanga by militant pagan leaders who felt he was too friendly with the missionaries.
13 July 1885 After strenuous representations from the Catholic community the White Fathers, Fathers Lourdel, Giraud and Brothers Amans, returned to Buganda. They were warmly welcomed. The Catholic community under lay leadership had flourished in their absence.
25 September 1885 Alexander Mackay advised the Kabaka that a prominent English missionary, Bishop Hannigan, was approaching Buganda by the northern route via Busoga, a traditional enemy of the Buganda. Mackay (and Hannigan) unaware of the threat this seemed to pose to the Kabaka and pagan chiefs.
25 October 1885. The Kabaka decided on Hannigan's death...Joseph Mukasa, the most prominent Christian at court warned the missionaries, and advised the Kabaka not to proceed with such a plan.
30 October 1885. Alexander Mackay's diary recorded the advice of Bishop Hannigan's death with almost his whole party - some 50 - 60 persons. Hannigan, in fact, had been speared to death the previous day.
11 November 1885 Alexander Mackay faced a tumultuous audience at the Kabaka's kraal on the lines of : 'Who told you regarding the Bishop's death ?' Mackay would not tell who had given him the information. However, the Kabaka guessed it must be Joseph Mukasa.
15 November 1885 . Joseph Mukasa executed. He had reproved the Kabaka telling him he had done wrong killing the Englishman; he had shown disapproval of his master's vices and had constantly encouraged the young Christians at court to refuse the Kabaka's demands for sex.
16-23 November 1885 In the tense situation following Joseph Mukasa's execution some one hundred young men at court came by night in groups to the Catholic mission requesting baptism since they feared their deaths were imminent. Charles Lwanga baptised (25) and became the leader of the Catholics at the kraal.
22 February 1886. The volatile situation was intensified when a massive fire destroyed much of the Kabaka's palace and wealth.
22 May 1886 Princess Nalsumansi, one of the Kabaka's sisters was received into the Catholic church and in a public display threw out and destroyed many pagan symbols thereby outraging pagan opinion at court, in the sense of all this independence from a mere woman !
25 May 1886. The crisis, long in the making, came to a head. The Kabaka was at Munyongo, a hunting lodge adjacent to the lake. The Kabaka and friends spent the afternoon hippopotamus hunting without success and on return to the lodge Mwanga asked for his favourite sexual partner, the Chancellor's teenage son, Mwafu. The lad was nowhere to be found and it became clear he had been receiving instruction from one of the young Catholics at the kraal, Denis Ssebuggwano. This was the last straw to the Kabaka; first, no hippopotamus; then, no sex. On being questioned, the young Christian admitted he had been instructing his colleague and was beaten insensible with a spear and handed over to the executioners who hacked him to pieces outside the kraal.
26 May 1886. In the morning the Kabaka assembled the young men at court and demanded those who were Christians to separate to one side - and ordered them to be executed. They were stripped naked, and dragged away and taken by stages to the principal execution site at Namugongo some thirty kilometres away to be burnt at the stake.
26 May - 3 June 1886. Many Christians at court and around the country were killed while the main body of prisoners waited in prison at Namugongo. Meanwhile both Alexander Mackay and the White Fathers in interviews at the kraal begged the Kabaka to halt the persecution of the Christian converts.
3 June 1886 (Ascension Thursday) The surviving young courtiers were each wrapped in reed maps and then were burned alive on one large bonfire at Namugongo.
1887. There were many survivors of the martyrdoms which were directed at the Christian pages who refused the kabaka's sexual advances and certain Christian lay leaders. During this year some eye-witness statements were committed to paper by the White Fathers and Alexander Mackay's reports were published in London.
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Martyrs of Uganda, pray for the faith where it is danger and for Christians who must suffer because of their faith. Give them the same courage, zeal, and joy you showed. And help those of us who live in places where Christianity is accepted to remain aware of the persecution in other parts of the world.
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* Martyrdom
Martyrdom is not an easy road to Heaven, but a grace granted by Almighty God and then only to those who have rendered themselves worthy to receive the gift by fidelity to his Service; and a warning that constant rejection of the graces offered by God can lead to such hardness of heart as almost nothing can soften.
The word 'martyr' means witness, a person who has given up his or her life for the Christian faith. Many martyrs died in the persecutions before Constantine's Edict of Toleration, 313 A.D. The shedding of one's blood in the face of persecution was seen as a kind of second baptism in which one's sins were forgiven and salvation assured. The custom of the celebration of the martyr's 'birthday' - usually on the date of death p began in the second century. Later theologians established three criteria for proclaiming a person a martyr.
(1) physical death occurred;
(2) the death was the result of malice towards the Christian life and truth;
(3) it was undergone voluntarily in defense of Christian life and truth.
In the Book of Revelation, (ca 95) the word 'martyr' is used of those who shed their blood for Jesus...The veneration of the martyrs often included the celebration of the Eucharist at the martyr's tomb on his or her 'birthday'.
Martyrs were inspired by the story in 2 Macc (6: 18 - 7:41) of Eleazar and the woman with seven sons, whose heroic refusal to comply with anti-Jewish laws resulted in torture and death. The martyrs regarded their passion as a share in the Passion of Christ, who suffered with the martyr and enabled him or her as an 'athlete of Christ' to endure and triumph in combat with the devil. Those confessing the faith in defiance of the authorities were regarded as Spirit-filled and thus as able to forgive sins in the name of Christ, both in their life on earth and subsequently in heaven. Unbaptised persons who died for the faith were regarded as baptised by the shedding of their blood. The refusal of the martyrs to change in the face of physical death continued to be regarded as the witness to the faith par excellence.
Martyrdom is a living fresco of suffering, of faith in Christ throughout history. The ecumenism of the saints and martyrs is stronger than division...the cross witnesses: the victory over death, the strength in resurrection and the love of the Father
The Jubilee will represent a unique opportunity for the Churches and the Christian confessions to converge together, making a memory of their sons who died and lived for the Gospel in the most difficult situations in the history of this century...to give thanks for what the Spirit was able to accomplish within his church.
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Uganda Martyrs: The key executions:
1. 15 November 1885 - Joseph Mukasa - for encouraging the courtiers to remain chaste and protesting the murder of the Anglican bishop, James Hannigan.
2. 25 May 1886. Denis Ssebuggwano - for instructing the Kabaka's favourite teenage sexual partner in the Catholic faith.
3. 3 June 1886. Charles Lwanga and 12 others - burned at the stake at Namugongo.
4. 27 January 1887. Jean-Marie Muzeyi, a former young courtier, beheaded.
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Buganda: Country, Climate, People
Buganda was a beautiful country. In spite of the proximity of the equator, the climate is pleasant. In the day time the tropical sun shines brightly, but owing to the altitude four thousand feet above sea level and to the light breeze which sweeps across the country from the vast surface of the lake, the heat is bearable. At night the temperate falls fairly low. Buganda was a land of great natural beauty, of brilliant sunshine, green and lush all the year around. The hills and valleys succeed one another, the slopes covered with banana plantations and palm-trees, the valleys with dark forests or dense masses of papyrus. Around the lake the land was swampy, the pools overhung with papyrus. Lake Victoria was around 400 kilometres long and 200 kilometres wide, at over 1000 metres above sea level.
The inhabitants of the area are descended from two widely differing races. Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro and Ankole were formerly inhabited by Bantu negroes. There were waves of invasion from the north and the Bantu were completely subdued by a Hamitic people from the northeast, known as Bahima. The Bahima, pastoralists rather than agriculturalists are easily recognised by their height and colour which is much lighter than that of the Bantu. In some parts of central Africa they formed an aristocracy; in Buganda they were entirely merged with the Bantu.
The big powers in the area of the Great Lakes were Buganda, Bunyoro, Rwanda and Burundi, but there were around 200 states in the area, some very small. There were 68 states in Busoga alone. Buganda had a history of continuous tribal warfare, as with most native kingdoms in central Africa.
There was a flourishing network of regional trade based on the complementarity of resources. The best salt came from near Lakes Edward and George; Buganda lacked good iron ore, but it was abundant in Bunyoro. Rwanda exported hides; Buganda bark cloth and dried bananas, often seized as tribute or plunder in Busoga, together with ivory, slaves and wives. The Baganda dress usually in white from head to foot. They are clean, well-behaved people, and impressed the early Europeans as intelligent ...
Political and Social Life of the Ganda People
The story of the Christian martyrs must commence with a brief account of Ganda society in the late nineteenth century, and, in particular of the man whose rule over this society was absolute, the Kabaka.
When Mwanga at the age of eighteen succeeded his father, Mutesa I, to the throne, he became head of a complex kingdom in which various layers of chiefly hierarchies gave absolute power to the man appointed as leaders. The Kabaka had unquestioned rights over the life and property of his subjects and a mere nod or frown could lead to great favours ? or instant execution. Every one in the land held his life at the pleasure of the Kabaka. It was a small, intense and complex face-to-face world. Mutesa's praise names included 'Cause of Tears' and a Ganda proverb runs: 'A prince is like a hippopotamus which one does not wait for in the deep.'
The Kabaka was an absolute monarch in the sense that Pharoah is described in Genesis 41.44: 'The King said to Joseph: I am Pharoah: Without my command no man shall move hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.' The Kabaka had uncontested rights over all his subjects, was a law unto himself and master of life and death. The only limitations to his power lay in the sacrosanct customs established by his ancestors and handed down to him ... the Kabaka claimed absolute and complete authority, not only over their bodies, but their minds and hearts also.
The absolute power of the Kabaka had its origins in the history of the kingdom over three to four hundred years. The king's authority was not always absolute. Before the eighteenth century, the power of the Kabaka was relatively weaker and the king was to a great extent controlled by another institution, the clans.
Clan elders power moderated the absolute power of the Kabaka and influenced court policy. The elders were hereditary leaders, guardians of custom and tradition which appeared immemorial. The state was governed to a large extent by tradition and hereditary practice, and the Kabaka who ignored clan leaders risked rebellion and overthrow.
Over time the Kabaka's power was to increase at the expense of hereditary clan structures. Territorial expansion was critical in this process. After victory in local wars, the Kabaka began to nominate chiefs to newly acquired areas, displacing some of the hereditary leaders among the conquered. The process was gradual. The new kind of chief was a direct nominee and owed his title and property to the king who thus extended his personal power with the expansion of the state and came less and less under the control of clan leaders. By the time the Europeans arrived, the Kabaka was a despot.
Under the Kabaka, the two most serious chiefs through which the monarch exercised his power were the Katikkiro and the Kimbugwe, the former's role being administration and the latter, ritual duties and traditional ceremonies. The Kimbugwe was keeper of the king;s umbilical cord.They each maintained a court, similar to the Kabaka's but smaller, and they enjoyed direct access to the ruler.
Two other persons bore the royal title: the Queen Mother, Namasole, and the Lubuga, one of the Kabaka's sisters. The Kabaka had an official mother and official sister. Society was polygamous; if a hostess was required the duty was always undertaken by the Lubuga, usually a favourite sister of the Kabaka. Custom allowed the Queen Mother and the Princess Royal to hold courts of their own. The officials at the royal kraal were assisted by a number of chiefs appointed and removed by the Kabaka. There were ten counties and within each were chiefs, district chiefs and sub?chiefs. Each chief acted as a local magistrate. Country chiefs maintained an establishment near the palace and were in attendance at certain times of the year.
The chiefs were rewarded with estates, slaves and women. Overall the population of Buganda was some three millions by the middle of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, as a consequence of the increasing power of the Kabaka and the decline of hereditary leadership in the provinces there was a profound change in politics at the court. Men of ability could rise to high positions. Positions of power and authority depended on patronage and competition for office commenced among the young men sent as pages to the royal court.
Within the court, the Kabaka maintained a large household with its own ranks and hierarchies. The area of the court enclosure ranged from two to three square miles and contained some 600 structures, both living places and audience halls. providing accommodation for the 3000 wives, courtiers, pages and servants.
Within the Kabaka's court some 400 of the residents were pages: teenagers and young men who were recruited between the ages of ten and seventeen from among the most intelligent and handsome youngsters in the villages. In the royal kraal, they served an apprenticeship in leadership. and eventually graduated through the court to become a new generation of chiefs In the interim, they served in two groups according to their functions: the gate-keepers served at the main entrances and came under the authority of one officer, and the second group served in the inner courts and the audience hall under the control of an official similar to a majordomo.1
The corps of pages at various courts both in the royal kraal and around the country, enabled people of non-Ganda origin to join the ranks of the chiefly elite. This became possible because the Kabaka, as well as the chiefs, claimed slaves captured during wars with neighboring states and sometimes added the captives to their corps of pages. Since the pages formed the pool of talented youth from which new chiefs were recruited, even men of non-Ganda origin had a chance to be included, if during their period at court they had either managed to catch the eye of the Kabaka or come to the attention of some other influential person.
Whenever the King went fishing or hunting, a group would follow him and when he got bored, they would wrestle for him. These pages were generally the most handsome boys, carefully chosen from the kingdom. The king would pick them out at the age of twelve, and they would be elevated to the rank of his guards at the age of twenty.
The fact that there were these teenagers and young adults at the Kabaka's court, receiving an education in the affairs of the court and the administration of the kingdom, had significant consequences in the events of the late nineteenth century. When the first emissaries from other civilisations, Arabs followed by Europeans, arrived at the royal kraal at Rubaga bringing gifts and new technology the pages were the first to receive instruction in European education and religion.
The political symbols of Equatorial Africa leopard, fish, eagle and python were all carnivores, supreme in their respective realms, solitary predators. It is a chilling commentary on the exercise of political power ... the early history of the kingdoms around the lake kingdoms, both large and small, must be seen through the mists of a rich and complex mythology. Buganda the dominant power in the area of north of Lake Victoria Nyanza. In the region, abundant rainfall and fertile soil supported a dense population which produced a surplus which sustained courts and kings and early European visitors wrote accounts of a land of plenty which attracted potential colonisers.
Traditional Religion in Buganda
The ancient religion of the Baganda was monotheistic. The people worshipped the Creator of all things under various titles: Katonda, the Creator; Mukama, the Master, and Seggulu, the Lord of Heaven. Every morning, his blessing was invoked by the master of the house on all members of the family, especially on those who were absent. There was also a firm belief in the immortality of the soul and the Baganda venerated the spirits of their ancestors.established in the
When the missionaries began their work in the kingdom and found that the people believed in a Supreme Being, whom they called 'Katonda' they presented their message as new and striking knowledge of the God of Whom the people were already aware.
Over the centuries, the worship of Katonda the Creator had become distant and formalised. His influence over their lives was very slight; he was good-natured and therefore might be disregarded. Far more powerful were the lubali, a host of lesser spirits, who were supposed to have evil powers, and were therefore propitiated with offerings and sacrifices.
Probably about the sixteenth century the worship of God the Creator was largely superseded by the cult of the Lubale, the gods of the Sesse islands in Lake Victoria. The Kabakas entrusted them to the clans of the realm and turned them into an instrument of government. The 'Guardians of the Lubale' which at first meant a tribal god, gradually widened its significance to include also relics or fetishes to which the gods spirits were believed to be attached. Over time, new gods joined the pantheon and the mediums of these gods, e.g. Walumbe, the god of death could, with the permission of the Kabaka, even demand human sacrifice.
Thus, although belief in the Creator was never entirely extinguished and a shrine to him still existed in Kyaggwe country in the 1870s, his worship was almost entirely superseded by the cult of the Lubale.
The Arrival of Islam
The isolation of the African tribal kingdoms secure for hundreds of years was not going to last. In Europe and the Americas, extraordinary industrial and technological development and the incessant push for raw materials and wider markets was soon to bring them within the orbit of powerful industrialised nations. The Ganda seer, Kaswa, wrote:
He said: 'There are monstrous strangers coming,
Bringing war, striking you unawares relentlessly
O you people, you're going to be robbed of your country
Everything will have its price, grass and the very earth itself.
It was Arab merchants who were the first foreigners to arrive in Buganda led by Sheik Ahmed-bin-Ibrahim from Zanzibar in 1844 in the reign of Kabaka Suna. With trade, the Arab merchants brought the Koran and Islam. It is on record that Ahmed-bin-Ibrahim, in the name of Allah the Compassionate, rebuked Kabaka Suna for his casual attitude to the lives of his subjects. In spite of the rebuke, Kabaka and some others in the royal kraal were given elementary lessons in Islam and instruction from the Koran. However, the Kabaka was not converted.
The Arab merchants brought weapons, ammunition, cotton cloth, trinkets and bartered with the Kabaka and his chiefs for ivory and slaves. Trade flourished but differences arose between the Kabaka and the Arabs and Suna dismissed them from his kingdom. When he died there were no Arabs in the country and the ban on their entry remained in force.
Mutesa succeeded his father in 1856 after a contested succession and threats of civil war. It was probably because of this insecurity that the Arabs were not given permission to enter the country again before the late 1860s, when trading resumed vigorously. In this new influx of goods from the coast, there was one commodity which was prized above all others ? modern weapons. The introduction of rifles and ammunition to Buganda not only strengthened her power but, since all control of these weapons was in the hands of the Kabaka, further strengthened the ruler as the ultimate authority in the land.
At the time of a strong Arab presence in Buganda, the first Europeans reached the country. They were the explorers Speke and Grant, who arrived at Rubaga, 16 January 1862. and they remained at Mutesa's court until 7 July 1862. The Kabaka at first flattered, then concerned by the sense that foreigners were operating close to the border of Buganda. Turkey ruled Egypt; Egyptian military posts were close to the frontier.in Sudan.
In July-August 1874, Colonel Chaille Long, an American, visited Buganda as an envoy of Colonel Gordon, Governor of Equatorial Province. Then, in April 1875, Henry M Stanley arrived at the court, to be followed a few days later by M. Linant de Bellefonds, a Frenchman in the service of Colonel Gordon. The two astonished Europeans met at the court unaware the other was in the vicinity.
During these years of Arab ascendancy, the merchants introduced Islam to Buganda. Mutesa was a willing listener. He embraced the new religion and encouraged his people to become converts. He declared him a Moslem and observed the Islamic feasts including Ramadan for several years. He gave orders for the widespread building of mosques. In time, the Kabaka adopted Moslem dress and the Islamic salute, as well as leading prayers every evening in the mosque within the royal kraal at Rubaga. A number of the future Christian converts who were young pages at this time adopted Islam, the religion of their master. A recent historian has explained the stunning impact of Islam, and later Christianity on a traditional African kingdom in this way:2
A stranger's religion often appeared more powerful and efficacious than the home-grown variety .The repeated scourges of new and unfamiliar diseases cried out for an explanation. In Buganda, Islam and later Christianity made many converts among the elite. The contacts which sprang from trade led to the spread of new diseases. Smallpox and cholera had a catastrophic impact on inland communities where they were previously unknown. Smallpox was a storm of death over the land. Syphilis was brought by coastal traders. Royals were among the affected; they had many sexual partners.
Islam as taught by religious leaders and merchants from Zanzibar was flexible and ill-defined. It tolerated the continuation of traditional beliefs and practice along with its own. It did not insist upon the introduction of the Sharia, the strict body of Islamic law.
However, the tensions created by the new religion, against a background of intrusion by Europeans and Arabs in the east African region, provoked an explosion at the Kabaka's court in the 1870s, before either the Anglican or Catholic missionaries knew of the country.
The practice of Islam at Mutesa court fell short of Islamic law in a number of important ways. The kabaka abhorred any mutilation of his body; he refused to be circumcised and yet he demanded an important role in leading prayers. The mosque within the royal kraal had been constructed facing in the wrong direction, not towards Mecca. Over time, traders from both the Sudan and the east African coast included Islamic scholars who were shocked by these basic departures from Moslem practice.
They began to criticise the management of Islam by Kabaka Mutesa, a criticism to which he was not accustomed. Among the pages around the court some opted for the strict Islamic observance; others placed loyalty to the Kabaka as first priority. Mutesa could have ignored any criticism of his conduct, but some of the courtiers who had already accepted the Moslem faith came to accept the strict code of Islamic law and learned to criticise the conduct of the Kabaka. The issue was fundamental: Mutesa could not lead Moslem prayers; there was a distinction between the secular and spiritual authority.
The crisis came in 1876 when many young converts to the Moslem faith refused to participate in prayers conducted by the Kabaka or eat sacrifices slain on his orders. There was a bloodbath. Those who defied Mutesa's orders were seized and led to the same fate which would befall the Christian martyrs at the hands of his son, Mwanga. About seventy young men were burned to death at the Namugongo execution site some twenty kilometres from the royal kraal. Many others escaped with Arab caravans to the coast, but Islam suffered a serious setback in Buganda. Mutesa had punished insolence and disloyalty and rejected the Moslem faith as unsuitable for his purposes.
The Arrival of the Christian Missionaries
It was in this context that the first Christian missionaries arrived in Buganda. With political pressures from the north Egyptian and Sudanese forces and from the east coast where German and British interests were active, Mutesa was anxious to balance the political and religious interests at his court. The eddies and currents of his policies reflected the unstable and threatening world in which he lived.
When the famous explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, arrived in Buganda, Mutesa quickly recognised him as a representative of a new power which might help to solve some of Buganda's international problems. When Stanley proposed a Christian mission for Buganda, Mutesa agreed, in part because of the threat from militant Islam and in part because he wanted the goodwill and assistance of this new foreign player in the east African region.
The result was a letter drafted by the explorer in the London Daily Telegraph, asking for European missionaries to go to Buganda. In response money was volunteered and a number of individuals offered their services for the new mission around Lake Victoria. The Church Missionary Society received numerous donations for the mission, including two of £5000 each. Within a week, the executive of the Society had decided to undertake the mission.
Almost as readily as gifts came offers to serve in the new mission, of whom the most most famous was Alexander Mackay, a Scot, lecturing at the Edinburgh Free Church Teacher Training College, Edinburgh. He offered his services to the Church Missionary Society and was accepted for the Buganda mission in early 1876.
Mackay was one of a well-equipped party of eight, under the leadership of Lieutenant Shergold-Smith, that sailed for Zanzibar later in the same year. Mackay was seriously injured on the extremely arduous caravan journey inland from the coast and was nursed back to health at the Catholic mission at Bagamoyo. Meanwhile, after appalling hardships, two of the survivors, Shergold-Smith and the Rev C T Wilson, arrived at Rubaga on 30 June 1877.
There were further calamities which delayed the serious commencement of the ministry. Shergold-Smith was murdered on a trip to the south of the lake to retrieve supplies and until Alexander Mackay arrived in November 1878 the mission was in abeyance.
Nevertheless, Mackay's engineering qualifications placed him in good stead with the Kabaka and he had learned passable Swahili during his enforced convalescence. He conducted Sunday services and resumed Bible-reading classes. Mutesa and the courtiers listened to Mackay's teaching and he felt that he had the confidence of the Kabaka and the interest of many at the royal kraal. On 14 February 1879, three more missionaries from the Church Missionary Society arrived, after a successful journey by way of the Nile basin via Egypt and the Sudan assisted by Colonel Gordon whose forces were near to the Buganda border. Mackay was elated.
A fortnight later he was less enthusiastic when he learned that two French missionaries from the White Fathers congregation had entered the country. These were not ecumenical times; Mackay was a strict Calvinist not enamored of Catholicism. His lengthy convalescence at a Catholic mission had not tempered his views.
The White Fathers
The White Fathers, at the time known as the 'Society of Missionaries of Our Lady of the African missions' was founded by Bishop Lavigerie at Algiers in 1868?69 to establish missions in the Sudan, which in those days stood vaguely for all Black Africa. When Lavigerie found his work in the strict Moslem areas of north Africa thwarted, he began to look for more promising fields of activity for the young society.3 Ten missionaries were selected to be the pioneers: Fathers Livinhac, Lourdel, Girault, Barbot, Pascal, Deniaud, Dromaux, Delaunay and Augier and Brother Amantius.
The Journey to Buganda
At Easter, 21 April 1878, the expedition sailed from Marseilles on the 'Yangtse' and arrived in Zanzibar, welcomed by the Holy Ghost Fathers. It was fortunate that the White Fathers had established missionaries on the island to handle the complicated business of getting through the customs; and assist with the still more complicated business of preparing the caravan. The word 'caravan' has a touch of magic, but the reality was far from romantic. No proper roads, only a rough path, along which the convoy passed in single file, over a distance of several kilometres, and this gave scared, bored or lazy porters every chance to vanish into the bush.
There were no camels or pack horses; everything required for the journey had to be carried by porters in loads of fifty-two pounds each. There was no accepted currency; therefore it was necessary to take goods for barter such as cloth, trinkets and beads by the kilo. There was no guarantee of food on the way, so provisions had to be included in the stores. The caravan faced hostile tribes on the way and a strong escort of 'askaris' was indispensable, in spite of the fact that they were cowardly, unreliable and quarrelsome. 'Hongo', dues for safe passage, had to be paid to every chief through whose land the convoy moved.
The 'White Fathers' required some three hundred porters and decided that it was impossible to make a start from Zanzibar. They moved to Bagamoyo, a town on the African coast, where the Holy Ghost Fathers had a flourishing mission, where Alexander Mackay. Several caravans arrived unexpectedly from the interior and released numerous porters and askaris, who were immediately available for re-engagement.4
On 16 June, all preparations were completed. The missionaries held a solemn service in the Holy Ghost Fathers chapel to commend the whole undertaking to God and implore divine assistance for every member of the caravan. When they set out the following day a banner of the Sacred Heart waved at the head of the long procession.
As the coast receded the heat grew more intense; steam in great clouds rose from the hot earth. Some porters became uneasy; some lagged behind; others threw down their loads and turned back for the familiar coast. Nightfall brought other disturbances. Thieves broke into the camp; fires got out of control and destroyed equipment; porters and askaris quarreled. Altogether an unruly rabble. One by one the priests fell victim to fever. The British missionary, David Livingstone had described its ravages:5
The whole head is on fire; the temples throb incessantly. It seems that fiery pincers are tearing one to pieces. One is consumed with thirst. The hot air seems filled with horrors; swarms of reptiles, strange and familiar, multiply around one, assuming new and terrible shapes ... I have laid for hours in the grip of this ghastly delirium, which is an agony of mind and body that nothing can alleviate. The most careful nursing, the most devoted attentions only infuriate the patient and tend to drive him out of his mind.
On 19 August 1879, Father Pascal died. At Tabora, most of the Father had a complete breakdown: their bodies ravaged by fever, dysentery and eye infections; their house resembled a field hospital. Here the remaining nine priests were to divide into two parties, five being bound for Victoria Nyanza and four for Tanzania. The going was a little easier. On 30 December, the shining surface of Lake Victoria was seen in the distance. Soon afterwards the caravan reached Kageye on the south shore of the lake .It had taken 50 days after leaving Tabora; months since leaving Zanzibar.
Mutesa controlled traffic on the lake; a deputation was sent to Rubaga (near modern Kampala), his capital, to offer the king gifts and ask for the use of some boats. After the Kabaka gave them safe passage, Father Lourdel and Brother Amantius journeyed ahead of the main party on a 'piroga' or native craft. In spite of the veiled hostility of Alexander Mackay and the Protestant mission, the White Fathers were welcomed by the Kabaka who was not unpleased at the tension between his European guests. He hoped to play one party off against the other.
At their mission station, the first official action performed by Father Livinhac and his companions was the dedication of the Uganda mission to the Blessed Virgin. As a special service held in the little temporary mission chapel, they implored her patronage and placed the future of the mission in her hands; to her they solemnly consecrated themselves, their lives and their works.
Afterwards, the first step of the missionaries was to gain the confidence and respect of the people. They prepared the ground by caring for the sick and for the children, but political intrigues hampered the work: Mutesa did not trust the missionaries, any of them. There was the hostility of the Arabs and tension with the Protestants.
However, in spite of everything, the dedication, sincerity and moral grandeur of the Fathers impressed many of the young men around the court. A number entered the catechumenate and quality of the converts was excellent. In March 1880, four pages were baptised. The special psychological and political climate of Buganda helped. The White Fathers were close to the capital, with access to the highly motivated youths serving the kabaka as pages and apprentices for high office. The friendly contact between the missionaries and the youths and among the youths themselves created a hot-house environment in which fierce allegiances grew rapidly.
However, while the Christian communities grew, hostility to the priests and their converts festered among some important figures, especially among some influential pagan chiefs led by the Katakiri. There was obstruction, occasional threats and an air of insecurity. In late 1882, fearing for their lives and aware that their superior in Algiers, Cardinal Lavigerie, had ordered his White Fathers not to place their lives in jeopardy, the father withdrew from Buganda to their base on the southern side of the lake.
The Centres of Opposition to Christianity
(1) The Kabaka's hostility to the young Christian courtiers who refused to be his sexual playmates;
(2) The hostility of the pagan chiefs, led by the Katakiri to Christianity which posed in time a threat to their positions and the overthrow of the traditional way of doing things.
The missionairies feared their lives were in danger. They hoped to return to continue the mission in happier times. Father explained the decision to the Kabaka tactfully; Mutesa readily gave permission for the journey and a farewell present of a huge tusk of ivory. He was pleased to see them go. The mission arrived at Kageye on the eve of the Epiphany, 6 January, 1883. Their departure was devastating news to the small Catholic community, but in the young community fervour increased rather than diminished during the eighteen months the missionaries were away from Buganda.
In 1884 Mutesa died. Before he passed away, the Kabaka expressed a wish that his son, Mwanga, who had a striking resemblance to his father should be the next kabaka. It was a custom of the Baganda to have no fixed heir to the throne, a custom designed to lesson the risk of plots against the life of the reigning monarch. The choice of a successor was made by the Katikiro and other senior chiefs, but the choice was restricted to one of the sons of the deceased Kabaka.
Kiwewa, the eldest son of the late monarch, was traditionally ineligible. Mutesa's body lay in state for five days before it was buried. It was Alexander Mackay, the Anglican missionary, who made the coffin.
The chiefs followed the deceased Kabaka's wishes and selected his eighteen year old, son, Mwanga, as ruler. The new kabaka was enthroned with all the traditional ceremonies; the new Sacred Fuse was lit and from it the new Sacred Fire, which was entrusted to the new Guardian. Alexander Mackay described Mwanga's personality this way:6
It would be very hard to describe Mwanga's character. I have perhaps had more opportunity of knowing him than my brethren have had. He knows how to behave with dignity and reserve when the occasion requires that; but he soon throws off that assumed air and chats familiarly...However, none can fail to see that he is fitful and fickle, and I fear, revengeful. One vice to which he is addicted is the smoking of hemp. This being so one cannot place much confidence in Mwanga's stability...Under the influence of the narcotic he is capable of the wildest unpremeditated actions. But generally the young fellow is amiable. (Faupel, p. 67. Alexander Mackay making the assessment.
Joseph Mukasa was retained as the Kabaka's personal attendant, a duty he had performed to the satisfaction of the late Kabaka for four years. Andrew Kaggwa was appointed the Bandmaster-General in charge of the entire militia from which the royal bandsmen were drawn. The Christians and catechumens were delighted at these marks of royal favour shown to their two leaders. In Andrew's enclosure at Natete they had practised their religion more or less in secret; now the secrecy was at an end.
The missionaries had high hopes for the new reign. They believed that Mwanga was well-intentioned and would allow the missionaries freedom to teach and his subjects freedom of conscience; but these hopes were to be shattered. Mwanga and other chiefs could not understand altruism. While they did not want the missionaries to be involved in politics; they did want the Europeans to teach some Western skills, e.g. to make guns, to sew, to build better ships.
At first, Mwanga appeared to favour the missionaries and feeling confident of their welcome at court, on 14 July 1884, Fathers Lourdel, Girault and Brother Amans reentered Rubaga Buganda. The loyal Catholics had increased in number and fervour. The missionaries were welcomed warmly by an enlarged Catholic community: 'We scarcely know where to turn; we are besieged from morning until night,' Father Lourdel commented to Cardinal Lavigerie.
Why did Christianity, both of the Catholic and Protestant traditions, make many converts in Buganda, especially around the royal kraal? What were its attractions and what spiritual and other needs did it meet ? Christianity profited in some senses from the previous introduction of Islam because Islam recognised a supreme God. Islam had further undermined faith in the traditional religion which was already weak. Thus among the elite there was a questioning of old ideas and values and a searching for something new and more spiritually satisfying.
When the kabaka encouraged his subjects to learn from visiting foreigners and from the resident missions they did not have the political problems which the kabaka faced. Whereas the kabaka showed interest in one sect or another for political reasons, the young men at the kraal could embrace these new faiths with a genuine desire for a spiritual answer to life's problems not yet at their disposal.
In addition, the mission stations possessed a number of attractions which drew some of the pages towards them. There was the attraction of the printed word: the Baganda craved reading material to satisfy their curiosity about a whole range of topics from science to religion. The medical skill of the missionaries was a practical demonstration of the usefulness of the new knowledge. With these attractions the missionaries built a clientage around the mission compounds which was not very different from the clientele of the traditional Ganda chiefs, and irritating to them.
While the climate and circumstances of the court in Buganda was right for the introduction of Christianity, the teachings of Christ played a powerful role among the young pages. They were at an age when, the world over, idealism was a powerful motivation. The Christian teaching of a personal Saviour, of equality, the dignity of man, and the compelling personality of Christ Himself were all in striking contrast to the cynicism and uncertainty of life or dignity in the royal court. The missionaries faith inspired a quite unusual devotion.
The Christian religion was received with much excitement by the converts but it came with its own requirements. It denounced all the native religious behavior and practices as heathen and satanic. Therefore joining it meant a commitment to break away from the old life style, make and adopt new alliances, and adjust to new moral and religious standards, adherence and allegiance. The new flock of believers (abasomi, or readers, as they were called) therefore, were seemingly regarded as 'rebels' who had transferred their loyalty to new religious systems thus abandoning the old tribal traditions.
Meanwhile, at his accession numerous factions surrounded the new kabaka, vying for his favours. Many of the senior chiefs, deeply conservative and led by the Katikkiro, had a smattering of knowledge of Islam and Christianity but remained champions of the old order. They detested the young Christians at court because they were rivals and candidates for chiefships. The older chiefs saw them as rivals to be eliminated at the first opportunity.
The Roots of Conflict
Although Mwanga had shown some love for the missionaries as a young prince, his attitude changed when he became king. The once lively and enthusiastic prince in support of the missionaries turned into an intolerant and vicious persecutor of Christians and all foreigners. He felt, with good cause, that the powers and authority his predecessors had enjoyed were dwindling, and had disintegrated under the influence of the missionaries and their converts. The converts had diverted their loyalty to some other authority and their allegiance at all costs could no longer be counted on.
An African scholar in a study of the Christian missions in nineteenth-century Nigeria has made the following observations about these conflicting views which were as applicable to the court of Buganda as to Nigeria:7
Some people see religion as a limited set of personal beliefs about God and worship which can be isolated from a person's general culture and can be changed without necessarily upsetting that person's culture or his world view. Others see it as an affair of the community so intimately bound up with its ways of life that a change of religion necessarily involves a change of culture and the development of a new conscience.
In his case, for Mwanga, the ultimate humiliation was the insolence he received from the pages when they, the least subservient of servants, resisted his homosexual advances. According to old tradition the king was the center of power and authority, and he could dispense with any life as he felt, hence the old saying Namunswa alya kunswaze (the queen ant feeds on her subjects). Although homosexuality was abhorred among the Baganda, it was unheard of for mere pages to reject the wishes of the kabaka. The issue simmered for two years; but a crisis was not going to be delayed for ever.
The White Fathers Rubaga Diary shows that the missionaries were aware of the problem. Under the date, 25 October 1882, there is a reference: 'The king not being satisfied with his wives and with his favourite pages with whom he has sodomy wants each Muganda to practice sodomy. That vice also seems to be prevalent in the villages.'
A number of the senior chiefs also practised the vice and their views clashed with Christian concepts of chastity and met with resistance from the Christian pages around the kraal. The converts consistently refused to co-operate in these practice must to be annoyance of the Kabaka. The sexual issue was crucial in the conflict between the Christians and the majority at the royal kraal.
The sexual issue was crucial, but it was not the only area of conflict. Okusenga clientage was important too. A chief or head of a clan could attract clients and provide them with land to cultivate. In return the peasants offered their services such as building the chief's huts, repairing his enclosure, tilling his land or sending occasional gifts. The way the chief treated his peasant clients determined the number of clients he possessed, since they had the right to transfer their services to another if they wished.
Every chief tried to attract as many clients as possible because it increased his reputation and standing and gave him better chances of promotion. However, such is human nature that popularity brought with it the malice and hatred of rival chiefs. The mission centres found themselves involved because they attracted a large number of young followers. Moreover, the missionaries appeared to increase the number of their clients by buying and freeing slaves from the Arabs and permitting them to settle on mission land. The Kabaka complained that the missionaries were behaving like chiefs in attracting their young people in large numbers.
It was not long before this antipathy erupted into a violent outburst and caused the first Christian martyrdom of three teenagers from the Anglican mission at Natete. One of the Protestant missionaries admitted that the policy of allowing teenagers and young men to stay at the mission gave the chiefs the impression that the missionaries wished to gain positions of power and influence in Buganda by attracting a number of followers to themselves.
One of the young men martyred was Lugalama, a native of Karagwe, one of the tributary states of Buganda, who had been captured in tribal fighting. After an eventful journey, Lugalama found himself as a servant to an important chief, Ssebwato, who gave him to the Anglican mission. The Katikkiro Mukasa appeared jealous that Ssebwato had given Lugalama to the foreigners instead of sending him to the Katikkiro's court. The Anglican missionary, Thomas Ashe, reported:
On one occasion when (Alexander) Mackay and I visited the Katikkiro, Lugalama came with us, and the Chancellor's eye immediately fell upon the handsome Muhuma boy, and he asked us who he was, and how we got him; and when we said he had been given to us by Ssebwato, the Katikkiro seemed displeased and vexed, but he let the matter drop.
In the background were political questions. The Anglican missionaries had been introduced to the Kabaka by a letter from the British Foreign Office; this appeared to give them the status of an official embassy from a major foreign power. Their political position seemed ambiguous. The court expected material benefits to flow from the presence of the foreigners and were disillusioned with what the mission had to offer.
The first crisis occurred in late January 1885. The Anglican leader, Alexander Mackay, requested permission to take a boat to the south of the lake to visit his confreres and despatch some letters. The Kabaka offered a messenger which Mackay foolishly but understandably refused. This created suspicion about the nature of Mackay's visit: was he trying to take away young men, the Kabaka's subjects, out of the kingdom without permission ? However, Mackay and his three assistant commenced their journey.
In Rubaga, the chiefs conferred and the Katikkiro issued orders for the arrest of any Baganda found in the company of the foreigners. The lads with Mackay were detained and he was forced to abandon his journey and return to his mission. Mackay demanded the release of his converts in a stormy interview with the Katikkiro, but Mukasa refused. He did, however, release Mackay's personal servant. The other young men were executed after hideous torture and their bodies burned at Mpiima Erebera.
Crisis succeeded crisis. Mwanga himself had angered many of the traditional chiefs and there were plots to replace him as Kabaka. Mwanga's predatory sexual habits were not an issue with these malcontents. These men feared the Kabaka's ambiguous relations with the Christians missions, his conciliation of the young Christian pages who flatly refused his sexual advances and who, over time, threatened their positions. The kabaka's lack of enthusiasm for the traditional Lubale cult was another reason for the step they planned to take: to assassinate Mwanga and replaced him with Kalema, a rival Moslem candidate.
The assassination was planned to take place when the Kabaka and his retainers expected to be attending funeral rites at Mutesa's tomb at Nabulagala. Through information passed on by leading Christians to the queen mother, Mwanga was warned and cancelled the trip. A few days later reprisals followed and a number of chiefs were arrested and disgraced. If the Katikkiro was involved he either played the game so smartly that he escaped notice or Mwanga, not yet stable on the throne dared not challenge the man who was not only entrenched in his position but had been instrumental in the Kabaka's election and was a blood-father through the pact he had made with Mutesa.
The proven loyalty of the young Christians during the assassination plot would seem to make their position more secure than before. However, events throughout east Africa began to have an adverse effect upon the Christian cause in Buganda. The scramble for east Africa by the great powers in Europe has begun in earnest and the independence of the African peoples was threatened from all directions. Thomas Ashe, the Anglican missionary summed up the situation:8
Rumours of troubles in which the Bazungu (white men) played a prominent part reached Buganda from all quarters. In the north there was news of fighting in the Sudan in which the English were implicated; news of German annexations in the east ... and the advent of English missionaries and German traders in the region south of the great lakes made the outlook in all directions stormy and threatening.
In these circumstances it was only natural that the Christian converts within the country were seen as a powerful subversive force threatening the independence of Buganda. Thus the expulsion of the white men and the suppression of the Christian converts seemed an attractive policy to some at the royal kraal.
It was under these circumstances in October 1885 that the Anglican Bishop James Hannigan recently dispatched to head the Eastern Equatorial African mission, attempted to enter the country. Hannigan was ignoring a decree by Kabaka Suna, the grandfather of Mwanga, that every stranger coming to Buganda should come from the south via Tabora and Lake Victoria. All attempts to warn Hannigan of the danger arrived to late to make him revise his route.
The council called to decide the fate of the approaching Englishman was divided, but the majority decided to kill Hannigan and his party of sixty servants and bearers. The bishop's party was arrested on the Buganda border where they were held for some time in huts by a local chief after which they were all dragged from the prison and speared.
After the assassination of Bishop Hannigan, a chain reaction led to the intensification of the conflict between Mwanga and the Christians. Mwanga was haunted by fear of revenge for the death of the bishop. He became aware almost at once that secret decisions taken by the chiefs in council were being passed to the Christian missions, who knew of the plans to kill Hannigan soon after they were laid. Mwanga guessed naturally and correctly that the Christian pages had warned the missionaries.
The conversion of many of the palace guards to Islam or Christianity was a particular worry, since it gave them an allegiance to foreigners and filled their heads with subversive ideas. The martyrdoms of Muslims in 1876 and of Christians in 1886 were clearly precautionary measures; Conversion had started among the young men who have formed the next generation of the governing elite. The religions promised life after death. They satisfied.the hunger of many Ganda for a transcendental faith and a moral ethic more in tune with common humanity.9
Mwanga was furious and summoned the missionaries to find the sources of their information. In a stormy interview between the Kabaka and the missionaries, the kabaka asked: 'Who told you about your brother ?' The missionaries attempted to be discreet: 'Does not all Buganda know ? The Kabaka snapped: 'Oh, does all Buganda come to your compound ?'
The leaking of state secrets by the Christian pages was regarded as treachery. Mwanga began to refer to the Christians as 'snakes' and placed a total ban on their visits to the mission. Among those Christians suspected of passing secrets to the missionaries was the zealous Catholic leader, Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe. Joseph Mukasa had been in service at the royal kraal since 1874. Loyal, obedient and efficient he had been a favourite of the Kabaka, Mutesa, serving in the audience hall and the ruler's private apartments.
In 1880, after the arrival of the White Fathers, Joseph was one of the first group of young men to attend religious instruction and was baptised two years later by Father Lourdel together with his close friend, Andrew Kaggwa. From the time of his baptism Balikuddembe became devoted to his faith and showed strong leadership, especially when the French missionaries withdrew between 1882?4.
Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, a senior advisor to the king and a Catholic convert, condemned Mwanga for ordering Hannigan's death without giving him (Hannigan) a chance to defend himself as was customary. Mwanga was annoyed that Mukasa would question his actions, and he had him arrested and killed, 15 November 1885.
After the death of Joseph Mukasa, the leadership of the Christian at the royal kraal passed to Charles Lwanga, who had been his deputy. The tensions around the kraal and the wild mood changes in the Kabaka increased, rather than diminished, the loyalty of the Christians. They visited the missions after dark for instruction, encouragement and baptism. Mwanga insisted that the converts should pray only at the court and accused those who visited the foreign missionaries of disloyalty.
In the tension-ridden court, a sequence of strangely coincidental disasters could easily be interpreted as divine retribution. On the evening of 22 February 1886, a fire broke out in the palace, exploded the gunpowder store and destroyed much of the royal treasure collected by Kabaka Mutesa. In the confusion of the explosions Mwanga believed that he was facing an armed rebellion. Only two days later, lightning struck a store in the Katikkiro's palace and fire raged among many of the grass and timber dwellings destroying much royal property.
Within the court each group or clique interpreted these multiple disasters according to where they stood in the struggles. There were those who said that the God of the Christians was avenging the assassination of Bishop Hannigan and Joseph Mukasa. There were others who argued that the national gods were offended because the Kabaka was not only tolerating alien faiths, but permitting the Christians to profane the rituals of the national gods.
This was a reference to the actions of Princess Clara Nalumansi, one of the kabaka's sisters, who was a Christian and was a keeper of the tombs of Jjunju, a royal ancestor. In her Christian zeal the princess had collected all the royal relics and burnt them and dismissed the Lubaale priest in attendance at the shrine, outraging pagan devotees of traditional Ganda religion. These disasters preyed on the kabaka's mind and gave the pagan leaders around the royal kraal strong arguments for immediate and drastic action against the Christian menace.
'We are Christians'
The actual crisis occurred after a hunting trip on 25 May 1885. Mwanga was at a lodge near the lake and decided to go hunting hippopotamus. He sent Kizito, one of the youngest Christian pages at the court, to order the canoes. The hunt was not a success; the kabaka's party failed to sight any hippo, and so the hunters returned empty-handed to the lodge. The place was unusually empty.
Mwanga called for Muwafu, a close relative of the Katikkiro, and one of his regular sexual partners. The young man was nowhere to be found. Mwanga was irritated that the lad was absent, and furious when he realised that Muwafu was at the Catholic mission with a Christian page, Dennis Ssebugwawo learning about Christianity. Both were summoned.
When Ssebugwawo appeared before Mwanga he admitted that he had been teaching Christianity to the kabaka's favourite, and urging him to resist Mwanga's sexual advances. In a fury the kabaka seized a spear and bashed the lad with its flat side, knocking him to the ground. The dazed lad was seized by the executioners, dragged outside the building and hacked to death with machetes.
Mwanga stormed around the enclosure looking for more Christians. Many of the Christian pages having heard the kabaka's rage had scattered. Mwanga encountered Apolo Kaggwa, the assistant store keeper, who suffered spear cuts in the encounter.10 Others were ordered imprisoned and the unfortunate Nnyonyintono was despatched to the executioners to be castrated. Mwanga ordered the gates of the compound closed and the fires kept burning to illumine the entrances to ensure that all the remaining Christian pages were prevented from escaping.
The next day, 26 May, Mwanga convened a council of his senior chiefs, to secure their support for his decision to execute the Christian pages. He stressed the disobedience of the Christians who continued to visit the missions and defy his orders. Their allegiance was to the foreign missionaries rather than with their kabaka. Since many of the chiefs agreed that the confrontation was long overdue they did not hesitate. One captured the general mood when he said:
Master, when we gave you our children, they were good. If now they have become bad, that is not our fault, but the effect of the spell which has been cast on them. Kill them, and we will give you better ones.
After the Council, Mwanga ordered that all the pages should assemble in the main audience hall. The executioners were hovering in the background, armed with cords and nets around their shoulders, dressed in skins and wearing grotesque masks. Charles Lwanga collected the pages and marched them towards the audience hall, jeered and taunted by the milling crowd of executioners and other courtiers. On the dais behind Mwanga were the Katikkiro and other senior chiefs.
Charles Lwanga greeted the kabaka in the usual way by prostrating himself, which Mwanga acknowledged indifferently. When all the pages had assembled, Mwanga ordered the palace gates closed. He pointed to the reed fence on the left and ordered all the Christians to move to that side, About twenty did so, led by Charles Lwanga. The Kabaka turned to the Christians and offered to spare them if they would renounce their faith and return to the traditional Ganda gods. All the pages replied that the kabaka had power over their lives but they would not give up Christianity.
Courageously, the neophytes had chosen their faith. Mwanga handed them over to the milling crowd of executioners hovering at the rear of the audience hall. The lads were stripped naked and bound and commenced their long slow journey to the execution site at Namugongo, about thirty kilometres away. En route they passed the missionaries compound where Father Lourdel gave the young men absolution. With the shrieking mobs around, the missionaries feared for their own lives, but the Kabaka's vengeance was directed only at the native converts.
In fact, Father Lourdel had been at the royal kraal since dawn, unsuccessfully seeking entrance to plead for the Christians. After their condemnation he returned to the mission as the lads were dragged past. Since they were bound they could only smile at the White Father who was leaning on the mission palisade overcome with grief.
The chief executioner drew aside Mbaga Tuzinde, a young man about seventeen years old, and one of his relatives and pleaded with him to renounce his faith, assuring him that he could easily be hidden and saved from execution if he did. Mbaga refused. The chief executioner then asked his deputy to hide the boy anyway, but Mbaga, defied his uncle and declared that he was a Christian; his only allegiance was to God.
Meanwhile, a number of other young Christian converts were rounded up and condemned to execution. Many were Anglicans, but Bruno Sserunkuma was a Catholic. Before his conversion, Bruno had given his sister to Lutaya, a Muslim chief as a wife. She later left him, and Bruno refused to send her back. Lutaya asked the Kabaka to hand Bruno over, and the lad was brutally flogged before being despatched for execution.
The Katikkiro was not really interested in pursuing the small fry, but he wanted the Christian leader, Andrew Kaggwa killed. At one point, Mwanga wanted to spare his bandmaster, but Mukasa was insistent and the kabaka ordered Andrew's execution. The Katikkiro ordered the executioners to kill Kaggwa at once; he feared that Mwanga would change his mind. Mukasa demanded the executioners bring him Andrew's arm immediately.
The executioners seized him and dragged him outside and behind the royal kraal at Munyonyo; threw him on the ground, cut off his arm and delivered it to Mukasa. They then hacked the young man's body to pieces.
Meanwhile the ragged, disorderly progress to the execution site continued. At one point Pontian Ngondwe was speared and his body hacked to pieces because he was reluctant to continue the march to Namugongo and preferred to meet death instantly. After martyr, Athanasius Bazzekuketta, irritated the executioners and was killed at Mengo near the place where Joseph Mukasa had been executed six months earlier.
After the night at Mengo, the journey towards Namugongo was described by one of the condemned who was later pardoned and provided evidence at the apostolic process for canonisation of the martyrs:
We took the road which shirts the front of the enclosure of the chief of Kyaddondo county. We crossed Kampala Hill, and went down the valley until we came to the main road separating Makerere Hill from Mulago Hill, where we caught up with Mukajanja (the senior executioner) who was waiting for us ... We crossed Mulago Hill and took the road to Kiwatule, on the hill on which Andrew Kaggwa had built his home.
Another martyr, Gonzaga Gonza, died before the party reached Namugongo. He collapsed at the crossroads on Lubaawo hill from the wounds inflicted on his legs by the heavy chains. As he collapsed he was speared to death by the executioners. Afterwards the remaining condemned young men were led to the execution place at Namugongo where they were separated into various huts for seven days while the executioners prepared the site.
Meanwhile a general, if haphazard hunt for Christians was made to villages outside the royal kraal. Armed war parties scattered to round up Christian converts. A number were killed when found which makes it impossible to estimate the total number of Christians who died. One of the well-known centres of Christian worship was at Mityana in Ssingo where under the leadership of Luke Kalemba and Noah Mawaggali, a sizeable Christian community had developed. Kalemba and Banabakintu were away when an armed party arrived on 30 May to seize them. However, Noah was actually teaching the gospel to a small band of Christians. He was murdered on the spot. His sister and mother were taken back to Mengo where Father Lourdel later secured their release.
By the eve of the main martyrdom at Namugongo, thirty-nine Christians, the majority Anglican converts, were left naked, chained in stocks in small huts around Namugongo hill. The group included Catholic leaders, Charles Lwanga and Luke Banabakintu. The executioners slowly went about their task of preparing a great bonfire. On the eve of the holocaust, pandemonium reigned at the camp as the executioners danced around their victims brandishing spears and machetes, beating drums and chanting to terrify the prisoners into denying their faith.
When the hour for the execution approached Mukajanga marched the Christians to the prepared site. Three were to be reprieved at the last minute. Suddenly Mukajanga could not bear to see his nephew, Mbaga Tuzinde, lying bound on the bonfire. He ordered the teenager to be untied. Then while the boy knelt, Mukajanga made a last plea that he should save his life by renouncing his Christianity. Mbaga refused and called on his uncle to do the job the Kabaka had given him.
After finding that he could not prevail on the lad, Mukajanga ordered that his nephew be clubbed to death by a single blow on the neck. This was done and Mbaga's corpse was laid on the bonfire with the other boys.
The rest were already bound hands and legs, wrapped and tied in mats of reeds, and placed horizontally on the pyre which was set alight burning their bodies from the feet upwards. They continued to reassure each other and awaited death singing the hymns of the religion for which they were being executed. More wood was piled on top of them and they gradually passed from this life.
The Last of the Martyrs
After the executions at Namugongo, a number of Christian leaders who had survived Mwanga's initial outburst remained in hiding and efforts to find them failed. Jean-Marie Muzeeyi was the most prominent. He was persuaded to come from hiding and return to the royal kraal as the kabaka's anger had cooled. In interviews with both Mwanga and other senior chiefs, Muzeeyi was suspicious of their extraordinary friendliness, as they advised him to encourage other Christians to emerge from hiding. On Father Lourdel's advice, Muzeeyi did little although persuaded of the Kabaka's sincerity.
However, on his third visit to the Katikkiro, with few Christians emerging from hiding, Muzeeyi did not return. He was beheaded near the Katikkiro's kraal and his body was thrown into the swamp between Mengo and Namirembe Hill on 27 January 1887. He was the last of the known Christian martyrs of the persecution.
The execution of twenty six Christians at Namugongo on 3 June 1886; was the climax of the campaign against the converts. The last person killed in this anti-Christian crusade, was Jean-Marie Muzeyi, who was beheaded at Mengo on 27 January 1887. The complete list of the known martyrs is given below in Appendix 1. The list of forty five known Catholic and Protestant martyrs includes only those who could be formally accounted for; many more murders went unreported and without a record.
The Results of the Martyrdom
The Namugongo martyrdoms produced a result entirely different to Mwanga's intentions. The examples of these impressive young men, who walked to their deaths singing hymns and praying for their enemies, inspired many of the bystanders to receive instruction from the remaining Christians. The martyrs left the indelible impression that Christianity was truly African, not simply a white man's enthusiasm. Most of the missionary work was carried out by Africans rather than by white missionaries, and Christianity spread rapidly.
In his efforts to curb the Christian influence and try to regain the traditional and customary powers and authorities over his subjects, Mwanga was adding more chaos to an already difficult situation. In the north Kabarega the king of Bunyoro Kitara a traditional arch enemy of Buganda was fighting off the pending invasion from the Khedive of Egypt and he never lost his aggressive intentions towards Buganda. Further south it was reported that the Germans were annexing territories in the regions of the present Tanzania. Mwanga was caught in a threatening position.11
His suspicion of the missionaries was therefore real. Buganda was experiencing internal strife, the Moslems were plotting to overthrow him and replace him with a Moslem prince. The political upheavals combined with religious instability strained the country's moral stamina. The kingdom was thrown into turmoil; Moslems fighting Christians, traditionalists plotting against all creeds, untimely alliances concocted to survive against a common foe and later unceremoniously discarded. The kingdom broke into civil strife during which Mwanga was briefly deposed, although he was able to regain his throne later but eventually the British packed him off to permanent exile in Zanzibar.
Rather than deter the growth of Christianity, the martyrdom of these early believers seems to have sparked its growth. As has been observed in many other instances, the blood of the martyrs proved to be the seed of faith. Christianity in its many variants became the dominant faith in Buganda and Uganda as a whole.
The 22 known Catholic martyrs were declared 'Blessed' by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. This was one of the key steps in the catholic tradition that eventually led to their canonization. They were canonized by Pope Paul VI on 18 October 1964, during the second Vatican Council. Thus the martyrs were now recognised by the universal church as being worthy of being honored as saints. This was a first for modern Africa and a source of pride for Christians throughout the continent.
1 Many of the terms used, 'pages', 'king', 'Princess Royal', 'majordomo' and others are European or British terminology for Buganda official positions. Since the societies were vastly different, the terms have only approximate equivalence.
2 Isichei, E, A history of African societies to 1870, Cambridge University Press, 1997 p. 451
3 Bouniol, J, The White Fathers and their Missions, Sands & Co., London, 1929
4 Askaris were native militia
5 Bouniol, op cit, p 176
6 Faupel, J F, African Holocaust: The Story of the Uganda Martyrs, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1962, p 67
7 Ajayi, J, Christian Missions in Nigeria, Longmans, London, 1965, p 2
8 Ashe, op cit, p 121
9 Low, D.A. 'Converts and martyrs in Buganda', in Buganda in Modern History, Berkeley, 1971, pp. 13 - 74
10 Apolo Kaggwa lived to become Prime Minister of Uganda in due course for many years.
11 Captain Lugard and a British detachment were soon to end the independence of the kingdom.