On the 9th day of this month, Uganda will be celebrating her 49th independence anniversary, with this; I will bring you a Special Exclusive of This week in History, covering Uganda’s encounter with alien rule and the run up to independence.
Uganda and Imperialism.
The crafty Europeans after the loss of colonies in the Americas needed alternative colonies to supply their finished produce, get raw materials and settle their unemployed population, which had threatened a revolution. Steads, a British journalist quoted his friend Cecil Rhodes, a
banker and Billionaire; and architect of the second Anglo-Boer war,
banker and Billionaire; and architect of the second Anglo-Boer war,
“I was in the east of London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry of ‘bread’, ‘bread’, ‘bread’ and on my way home, I pondered over the scene and I became more convinced of the importance of imperialism… my cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the UK from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced by them in the factories and mines. The Empire as I have always said is the bread and butter question. If you want to avoid a civil war, you must become imperialists. ”
A clearly executed plan was undertaken, explorers, missionaries, cartographers, anthropologists, administrators and traders were recruited to study the African populations and lay a foundation of what would come to be British Imperialism in Africa and Uganda in particular.
Using locals, imperialism was hegemonised; these were to be the 1000 families to receive land, as a reward for their collaboration with the British to spread colonialism, notable is Semei Kakungulu.
Imperialism was so lucrative on the side of the colonizers as the locals had to shift from their agro-based lifestyle to a capitalist one. Imperialism was a colonialists scheme to plunder the locals resources; and indeed they did so, including picking from their pockets! For example, an estimated 30.8 million pounds intended for the farmers under marketing boards was siphoned by the colonial regime and retained in the Bank of England.
Colonial Resistance.
Colonial invasion of Uganda did come with organized militant Resistance. The natives were not ready to adopt an alien rule based on imported principles. Any form of power will give rise to resistance. Prophecies by some medicine men about colonial invasion came to pass. Among them was Nyakairima Ka Muzoora, from Kigezi. He prophesied;
People with skins of lepers would invade the land and these people would come in granaries running on threads…they would rule the world.
These medicine men had won themselves a point of trust from locals. Different forms of resistance sprung up in for of uprisings; some led by kings. However, these forces did not spring up because of prophesies alone, other factors also dictated. Among them was lack of unity and collaboration, technological differences, lack of organized platforms, lack of reason for resistance among others.
Watch out for Part Two of these series. Please subscribe by Email to receive updates.
