¹ Apter, David E., The Political Kingdom in Uganda. A Study in Bureaucratic Nationalism (Princeton, 1961), p. 195 sqq.Google Scholar

² Sessional Paper on the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances in Certain Areas of the Bukedi and Bugisu Districts of the Eastern Province during the month of January, 1960, Uganda Protectorate (— Sessional Paper No. 3 of 1960).

³ Professor Pratt has called them, specifically, “political malcontents”, Pratt, R.C., “Nationalism in Buganda”, Political Studies, IX (1961), p. 162.Google Scholar

⁴ I was lecturing in History at Makerere College, the University College of East Africa, Kampala, Uganda, between 1951 and 1958, and between 1952 and 1958 was Kampala Correspondent of The Times.

⁵ Ingham, K., The Making of Modern Uganda, London, 1958Google Scholar, and Wrigley, C.C., “Buganda: An Outline Economic History”, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., X (1957), pp. 60–80Google Scholar, may be consulted.

⁶ There is a substantial literature. See Fallers, M.C., The Eastern Lacustrine Bantu (London, 1960)Google Scholar, pp. 74 sqq. I owe the use of the word “pattern” to the Reverend F. B. Welboura.

⁷ It is admirably surveyed in Martin Southwold, Bureaucracy and Chief ship in Buganda (= East African Studies No. 14) (Kampala, 1961). I have to thank Dr. Southwold for his most helpful comments upon the draft of the present paper. He must not be held responsible, however, for such errors as it may still contain.

⁸ Professor Fallers has a valuable discussion of this in his chapter on “Social Stratification in Traditional Buganda” in Fallers, L.A., ed., The King's Men. Leadership and Status in Buganda on the Eve of Independence (London, 1964).Google Scholar

⁹ Mair, Lucy P., “Clientship in East Africa”, Cahiers d'études Africaines, II (1961), p. 318.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Kagwa, Apolo, Basekabaka be Buganda, 2nd ed. Kampala 1927Google Scholar, Chs. XII–XVI gives the most comprehensive account of 19th century Buganda. See also Roscoe, J., The Baganda (London, 1911)Google Scholar, esp. Chs. V–X.

¹¹ Mair, “Clientship in East Africa”, pp. 318–9, 322–4. I am aware that Chiefs were also in some sense clients of the Kabaka, but I suggest that it might be misleading to emphasize this. For whereas there were many Chiefs from whom a peasant could choose his lord, and whereas these Chiefs had only a limited security of tenure, the Chiefs had only one Kabaka to look to, and by the 19th century his security of tenure had become considerable. The relation between Chiefs and People had, I suggest, in Buganda at this time a greater element of choice in it for the subordinate party than the relation between Chiefs and the Kabaka. In focusing my account on these relationships I have tried to bear these differences in mind throughout.

¹² For this whole notion see Mannoni, O., Prospero and Caliban, English translation, London, 1956.Google Scholar

¹³ Between 1888 and 1889 a Muslim oligarchy was in supreme power in Buganda. Analytically its role was identical with that of the Christian oligarchy that succeeded it, which is the centre of interest in this paper. After 1893 a rump of the Muslim oligarchy attached itself to the Christian oligarchy.

¹⁴ Gray, J.M., “The Year of the Three Kings of Buganda”, Uganda Journal, XIV (1949), pp. 15–52Google Scholar; Wrigley, C.C., “The Christian Revolution in Buganda”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, II (10, 1959), pp. 33–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Low, D.A., Religion and Society in Buganda 1875–1900 (= East African Studies, No. 8) (Kampala, 1957); Southwold, pp. 15–77.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Gordon to Lang, 7 November 1888, G3 A5/O5, Church Missionary Society Archives, Salisbury Square, London.

¹⁶ Gordon to Mackay 3–21 October 1889, G3 A5/O5, C.M.S. Archives.

¹⁷ Walker to I.W., 1 Nov. 1889, Walker Papers, C.M.S. Archives.

¹⁸ In the original the context makes it plain that this is not meant to refer to “the People” in the sense employed in this article.

¹⁹ Walker to W. C. Walker, 2 December 1889, Walker Papers. See also Walker to B. W. Walker, 10 October 1889, ibid.; and Gordon to Lang, 7 November 1888; Walker to Lang, 19 October and 19 December 1889; Gordon to Mackay, 3 October 1889; Mackay to Lang, 28 December 1889; Mackay to Ashe, 3 January 1890, G3 A5/O5, C.M.S. Archives.

²⁰ The most important of them, Apolo Kagwa, was Katikiro (Chief Minister) of Buganda for thirty-seven years (1889–1926).

²¹ Amongst themselves, their followers and all those who would accept their dominance. Low, D.A. and Pratt, R.C., Buganda and British Overrule 1900–1955 (London, 1960), Ch. V.Google Scholar

²² E.g. Tucker, A.R., Eighteen Years in Uganda and East Africa (London, 1911, new edn.), pp. 287, 290.Google Scholar

²³ There is plenty of other evidence for this, e.g. “the chiefs have to be very gentle in making the people work for them for fear of their leaving and going to some other chief”; and (about the payment of rents in cash) ”The chiefs are afraid to press the point lest the people leave them”, Memorandum by Walker for Hayes Sadler, 20 July 1902, Entebbe Secretariat Archives A22.1.

²⁴ Perhaps the two most striking manifestations of their power were first their supervision in 1907 of the removal of the whole of the population living within two miles of Lake Victoria's shore as one of the measures taken to combat the Sleeping Sickness epidemic which was rampant at that time, and, second, their enforcement of the stringent Cotton Rules of 1908 (which saved the reputation of Uganda Cotton on the British Market at a critical moment). Both were effected without open conflict. Half a century later this would have been inconceivable. Sir Bell, Hesketh, Glimpses of a Governor's Life (London, 1946), pp. 163–4, 176–7.Google Scholar

²⁵ I have detailed some of this in a chapter on “Uganda: the establishment of the Protectorate 1894–1919” in the forthcoming second volume of the Oxford History of East Africa.

²⁶ Low and Pratt, pp. 141–45.

²⁷ This included steady increases (with British support) of the rents which tenants had to pay; e.g. Powesland, P.G., Economic Policy and Labour (= East African Studies No. 10) (Kampala, 1957), pp. 6, 22.Google Scholar

²⁸ Thomas, H.B., “An Experiment in African Native Land Settlement”, Journal of the African Society, XXVII (04, 1928), p. 244.Google Scholar

²⁹ I touch on this towards the end of my chapter on Uganda in Volume II of the Oxford History of East Africa.

³⁰ Low and Pratt, pp. 142–143; Mukwaya, A.B., Land Tenure in Buganda, Present Day Tendencies (= East African Studies no. 1) (Kampala, 1953), p. 16.Google Scholar

³¹ Mair, L.P., An African People in the Twentieth Century (London, 1934), pp. 166 sqq. 183, 275–7.Google Scholar

³² Low and Pratt, pp. 142 sqq.

³³ Or, for that matter, his landowner.

³⁴ Wrigley, C.C., Crops and Wealth in Uganda (= East African Studies No. 12) (Kampala, 1959), pp. 48–9Google Scholar, 55. Busulu was a tribute (or rent), nvujjo a tithe.

³⁵ I think the critical point in the difference between the Buganda situation and that amongst the Mambwe and Tonga, described by Watson and van Velsen, probably lies here. Cf. Watson, William, Tribal Cohesion in a Money Economy, Manchester, 1958Google Scholar (the crucial point is summarised in Professor Gluckman's Introduction on p. x); van Velsen, J., “Labour Migration as a Positive Factor in the Continuity of Tonga Tribal Society”, in Southall, Aidan (ed.) Social Change in Modern Africa (London, 1961), pp. 230–41.Google Scholar

³⁶ And in certain respects landowners who were not administrative Chiefs.

³⁷ This is not the place to set out an account of the political events of the 1920s. A campaign to dismantle the land settlement under the 1900 Agreement, so as to restore their traditional lands to the Bataka, was mounted. This attracted support from various groups which were then opposed to the existing Chiefs. It was eventually decided that it would be impossibly complicated to untangle the land settlement; instead there were changes in the personnel of the Chiefs; and the Busulu and Nvujjo Law checked the former exploitation of the peasants. It is significant that these last two changes removed the immediate force of the agitation, although the most overt objective had been in no way attained. There are important studies of Buganda in the mid–1920s in Buell, R.L., The Native Problem in Africa (New York, 1928), vol. IGoogle Scholar, Section VI; and Thomas, he. cit.; and of the 1920s and 1930s in Apter, Ch. 6 sqq; Low and Pratt, Ch. 9; P. G. Powesland, Chs. II–III; C. C. Wrigley, Ch. IV; and Mair, An African People,

³⁸ On the story of the Anglican Church at this time see Taylor, J.V., The Growth of the Church in Buganda (London, 1958)Google Scholar, Ch. 4. See also Welbourn, F.B., East African Rebels (London, 1961), esp. p. 190.Google Scholar

³⁹ Professor Apter (Political Kingdom, p. 90) makes an important point when h e asserts that by the 19th century the Baganda – or at all events, their upper echelons – had switched from “consummatory” to “instrumental” values. See also Apter, D.E., “The Role of Traditionalism in the Political Modernization of Ghana and Uganda”, World Politics, XIII (1960), pp. 45–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But so much of the history of Buganda since then (e.g. as outlined in this paper) looks remarkably like a revulsion from that switch.

⁴⁰ Mr Wrigley remarks of this period: “…since …the peasant producers were receiving very much less than the export value of their crops, there can be no doubt that the rural population was markedly less well off than it had been before the war – a fact which goes far to explain both the unrest and general malaise which characterised Uganda in these years … ”, Crops and Wealth, p. 69.

⁴¹ He had held this office since 1928. He had made a considerable mark in London by the dignity and forthrightness of his evidence to the Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa in 1931.

⁴² Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances which occurred in Uganda during January 1945, Entebbe, 1945Google Scholar. (With this, as with the Report on the 1949 riots, it is frequently more important to read between than to read on the lines.)

⁴³ He was the foremost member of the first Christian oligarchy.

⁴⁴ Report of the Commission ]of Inquiry into the Disturbances in Uganda during April, 1949 (Entebbe, 1950), p. 21.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Stonehouse, John, Prohibited Immigrant (London, 1960)Google Scholar, Ch. 3 sqq. See also Shepherd, G.W. [Stonehouse's American colleague], They Wait in Darkness, New York, 1955.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Apter, Chs. 11–12; Low and Pratt, Ch. 11.

⁴⁷ Brockway, Fenner, African Journeys (London, 1955), Chs. 4–6.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Thomas, pp. 245 sqq.; Buell, pp. 594–599.

⁴⁹ E.g. although there were complaints at the loss of their lands under the terms of the Land Settlement of the 1900 Agreement as early as 1902 (Low and Pratt, pp. 109, 144) these never enjoyed much popular backing until the 1920s.

⁵⁰ E.g. in 1953 the Uganda Government abandoned its former policy and agreed to the payment of cotton and coffee prices to producers on the basis of the best estimate possible of the world price, Despatch from the Governor of Uganda to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on subject of the East African Royal Commission, 1933–1955, Uganda Protectorate ( = Sessional Paper No. 4 1951/57), pp. 14–15; see also Wrigley, Crops and Wealth, p. 78.

⁵¹ This was at the time when the de Bunsen education committee was collecting evidence. Personal recollection.

⁵² Memorandum on Constitutional Development and Reform in Buganda, Entebbe, 1953.Google Scholar

⁵³ Low and Pratt, Appendix I, contains the fullest available account.

⁵⁴ This had occurred in the 1920s (e.g. Low and Pratt, pp. 234–35), and, as we have just seen, in the 1940s.

⁵⁵ He had previously given a very different appearance, e.g. during the 1949 riots.

⁵⁶ Cf. Bendix's summary of Weber; “Patrimonialism appeals to the masses against the privileged status groups: not the warrior-hero but the ‘good king’, the ‘father of his people’, are its prevailing ideal. That the patrimonial ruler sees to the welfare of his subjects is the basis on which he legitimizes his rule in his own and their eyes”, Bendix, Reinhard, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (London, 1960), p. 364.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ For the events of this time see The Times, 24 October, 1, 9, 14, 17, 18, 22, 24, 28 November, 6, 22, 24, 28, 29, 30 December 1955.

⁵⁸ I hope to give details in another place.

⁵⁹ Low, D.A., “The British and the Baganda”, International Affairs, 32 (1956), pp. 308–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁰ See references to The Times above.

⁶¹ I discuss this at greater length in “Political Parties in Uganda 1949–1962”, Commonwealth Papers No. 8, London, 1962Google Scholar. See also Pratt, “Nationalism in Uganda”, pp. 157–178.

⁶² Low, “The British and the Baganda”, passim.

⁶³ Professor Fallers in The King's Men, p. 189, shows that although ‘today there are somewhat more places in the hierarchy at levels above the lowest than there were formerly’, there is still a broad, undifferentiated base making up some six-seventh of the population; a middle group of approximately one-seventh, consisting of the relatively few men engaged in the more specialized forms of production and exchange; and a tiny elite of the wealthy, educated and powerful.

⁶⁴ Pratt, “Nationalism in Uganda”, pp. 157–178.

⁶⁵ For some of these see, for example, Stonehouse, Ch. 7.

⁶⁶ Pratt, loc. cit.

⁶⁷ All this was exemplified both at the end of 1955 when there were violent attacks upon “traitors” in Buganda, and in 1959 during the boycott of Asian traders: see the Luganda newspapers for these periods, passim.

⁶⁸ Cf. the way in which Africans who are not Baganda are assimilated in Buganda when they immigrate there, even if this process is not without its difficulties, Richards, A.I., Economic Development and Tribal Change (Cambridge, 1954), esp. Ch. VII and Plate I.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Two groups – the African rural shopkeepers (who were in direct competition with Asian shopowners – and very frequently belonged to the small Muslim community) and the African taxi drivers (who were in sharp rivalry with Asian bus owners) – had an important influence on, and played a key role in, the boycott; but neither could have built up the boycott to the scale it eventually reached had there been no wider-ranging dissatisfactions to draw upon: see e.g. Stonehouse, pp. 90–1, 94.

⁷⁰ The decision about this reform was taken by Mr James Griffiths when British Colonial Secretary in 1951. He visited Uganda at the time.

⁷¹ The Advancement of Africans in Trade, Uganda Protectorate 1955.Google Scholar

⁷² E.g. the terms of reference of the Constitutional Committee set up in 1959, Report of the Constitutional Committee 1959 (Entebbe, 1959), p. 1.Google Scholar

⁷³ Ibid.; and Elections to Legislative Council (= Sessional Paper No. 4 of 1957/58), p. 4.

⁷⁴ E.g. Welbourn, Rebels, p. 240 (n. 22).

⁷⁵ It is impossible to give detailed references for the boycott. I have used Uganda News published almost daily by the Department of Information, Kampala, and its regular Summary of the Local Press. I have also to acknowledge my debt to valuable typescripts dealing with the boycott by Miss Lalage Bown, and Rev. F. B. Welbourn. See also Pratt, “Nationalism in Uganda”, pp. 167–70.

⁷⁶ E.g. Leader on “A Fight for Democracy”, The Times, 28 Oct. 1958.

⁷⁷ Uganda: Report of the Uganda Constitutional Conference, 1961, and Text of the Agreed Draft of a New Buganda Agreement initialled in London on 9th October 1961 (Cmnd. 1523).

⁷⁸ For further details, see Low, “Political Parties in Uganda”, pp. 54–7.

⁷⁹ Most of the older Chiefs abstained from the upheavals of 1888.

⁸⁰ See footnote 3 on page 424 above.

⁸¹ I hope to discuss this topic elsewhere.