Mwanga II of Buganda


Danieri Basammula-Ekkere Mwanga II Mukasa was the 31st Kabaka of Buganda who ruled from 1884 until 1888 and from 1889 until 1897.

Claim to the throne

He was born at Nakawa on 3 June 1868. His father was Muteesa I of Buganda, who reigned between 1856 and 1884. His mother was Abakyala Abisagi Bagalayaze, the 10th of his father's 85 wives. He ascended to the throne on 18 October 1884, after the death of his father. He established his capital on Mengo Hill.

Reign

Mwanga came to the throne at the age of 16. He increasingly regarded the greatest threat to his rule as coming from the Christian missionaries who had gradually penetrated Buganda. His father had played-off the three religious traditions – Catholics, Protestants, and Muslims – against each other and thus had balanced the influence of the powers that were backing each group in order to extend their reach into Africa. Mwanga II took a much more aggressive approach.
On his orders, the Uganda Martyrs, a group of 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican converts to Christianity in the kingdom of Buganda, now part of Uganda, were executed between 31 January 1885 and 27 January 1887. The deaths took place at a time when there was a three-way religious struggle for political influence at the Buganda royal court. The episode also occurred against the backdrop of the "Scramble for Africa" – the invasion, occupation, division, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers.
These murders and Mwanga's continued resistance alarmed the British, who backed a rebellion by Christian and Muslim groups who supported Mwanga's half brother and defeated Mwanga at Mengo in 1888. Mwanga's brother, Kiweewa Nnyonyintono, was elevated to the throne. He lasted exactly one month and was replaced on the throne by another brother, Kabaka Kalema Muguluma. However, Mwanga escaped and negotiated with the British. In exchange for handing over some of his sovereignty to the British East Africa Company, the British changed their backing to Mwanga, who swiftly removed Kalema from the throne in 1889. Mwanga later converted to Christianity and was baptized as a Protestant.

Final years

On 26 December 1890, Mwanga was to sign a treaty with Lord Lugard, granting certain powers over revenue, trade and the administration of justice to the Imperial British East Africa Company. These powers were transferred to the crown on 1 April 1893.
On 27 August 1894, Mwanga was forced to accept Buganda becoming a Protectorate. As a result, on 6 July 1897, he declared an anti-colonial war on the British and launched an attack but was defeated on 20 July 1897, in Buddu. He fled into German East Africa, where he was arrested and interned at Bukoba.
He was deposed in absentia on 9 August 1897. Tenacious and anti-imperialist as he was, he escaped and returned to Buganda with a revolutionary army that was determined to free Buganda of colonial influence, but was again defeated on 15 January 1898. He was captured, tortured and in April 1899 was exiled to the Seychelles. While in exile, he was coerced into the Anglican Church by way of forced baptism and was given the name Danieri. He spent the rest of his life in exile but his anti-imperialist resolve was never broken. He remained deeply resentful about the conquest of his own people by the British and urged them to keep up the struggle against a European rule. He died in the Seychelles on 8 May 1903, aged 34 or 35 as a result of torture by British soldiers and starvation. On 2 August 1910, his remains were repatriated and buried at Kasubi.

Married life

Mwanga is on record as having married 17 wives:
  1. Damali Bayita Nanjobe
  2. Naabakyaala Dolosi Mwaan'omu Bakazikubawa
  3. Esiteri Nabunnya
  4. Naabakyaala Eveliini Kulabako, Omubikka
  5. Naabakyaala Loyiroosa Nakibuuka, Kaddulubaale
  6. Naabakyaala Samali Namuwanga, Sabaddu
  7. Nabweteme
  8. Nakijoba Nabulya
  9. Bezza Batwegombya
  10. Naabakyaala Ntongo, Kabejja
  11. Naabakyaala Nabisubi, Omuwanga
  12. Namirembe
  13. Lakeeri Mbekeka
  14. Nalwooga, Omuyigiriza
  15. Elizaabeeti Buteba
  16. Nattimba Binti Juma
  17. Amalemba Tutsi

    Issue

Mwanga II fathered several sons and daughters from his 16 wives including Daudi Chwa II of Buganda:
  1. Prince Kagolo, whose mother was Damali Bayita Nanjobe. He was killed by his uncle Kalema, in 1889.
  2. Prince Mulindwa, whose mother was Nabweteme
  3. Prince Nganda, whose mother was Lakeeri Mbekeka
  4. Prince Abdallah Mawanda whose mother was Lakeeri Mbekeka. Perceived as a potential agitator during the reign of Chwa, he was appointed as one of the British Agents to Kigezi in South Western Uganda.
  5. Daudi Chwa II of Buganda, who reigned from 1897 until 1939. His mother was Eveliini Kulabako.
  6. Prince Yusuufu Suuna Kiweewa, whose mother was Esiteri Nabunnya. He was born at Mengo, Uganda on 16 February 1898 and was educated at Mengo High School and King's College Budo. Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in October 1914. He served in the Great War from 1915 until 1919. Promoted to Lieutenant in the 7th Territorial Battalion on 25 May 1939. He served in the Second World War in Eastern Africa and in North Africa, from 1939 until 1940. Retired on 18 March 1940. He was implicated in the Buganda riots of 1949 and exiled to the Ssese Islands, where he died in 1949.
  7. Prince Tobi, whose mother was Nabisubi
  8. Prince Nayime?, whose mother was Loyiroosa Nakibuuka
  9. Princess Najjuma Katebe, whose mother is not mentioned
  10. Princess Anna Nambi Nassolo, whose mother was Samali Namuwanga
  11. Princess Mboni Maliamu Kajja-Obunaku, whose mother was Nattimba. She was educated at Saint Monica's School in Zanzibar.

    Quotes

"I do not want to give them my land. I want all Europeans of all nations to come to Buganda, to build and to trade as they like."
  • Mwanga's message to Euan Smith, British Consul in Zanzibar, 1890
"I am Mutesa's son, and what Mutesa was in Buganda that I will also be, and against those who will not have it so I shall make war."
  • Mwanga to Karl Peters, 1890
"The English have come; they have built a fort; they eat my land; they have made me sign a treaty; they curtail my powers; and I get nothing from them in return."
"Abalangira timba buli afuluma amira munne."
  • Mwanga after defeating the Muslim faction, 1893
"When I die it will be the end of the kingdom of Buganda. Europeans will take over this country of mine."
  • Mwanga before joining forces with Kabalega, 1898

    Quotes about Mwanga II

"To his distorted view the missionaries were men banded together for the undermining of his authority, for sapping the affections and loyalty of his subjects and for ultimately occupying the whole of Buganda."
"... there was, however, much good feeling and even tenderness in his character when he could be kept from bad habits and was free from evil influences."
"Mwanga was a jovial, friendly person who had many friends."
  • Batolomewo Zimbe, Buganda ne Kabaka, 1939, p. 53.
"Mwanga fought to free himself and his country of the intruders for all his reign. He did not like or want them; he was impressed by their power, but not interested in their ideas. He could not recover the old way of life nor adapt himself to the new, and in his perplexed and unhappy groping in the gap between he seems to me to deserve some sympathy."
"He had wanted to be master in his own house, but unfortunately for him and for the monarchy, chieftainship triumphed over royal authority in a manner that had never happened before."
  • MSM Kiwanuka, "Kabaka Mwanga and His Political Parties", 1969
"When Mwanga was brought to the capital as a captive the administration expected the people to be happy now that the enemy of their peace and religion was going into exile. On the contrary, people wanted him pardoned."
"Mwanga... was demonstrably unequal to the task of controlling the foreigners who were subverting his kingdom under his very nose. He did not have the experience or the prestige that had enabled his father to keep foreigners in their place within his kingdom."
"Mwanga was quite right to seek to be the master in his own kingdom just as his forefathers had been, all his excesses and fault of character notwithstanding. Some of his predecessors had been guilty of worse acts of cruelty and injustice and nothing drastic had befallen them. In other words even if all the charges levelled against Mwanga by his numerous Christian and Muslim detractors were true, he was still right to claim supreme authority in the kingdom of his forefathers."
  • Samwiri R. Karugire, A Political History of Uganda, 1980
"... Mwanga struck them as being kinder and gentler than Mutesa had been while a youth. For sheer tyranny, Mwanga II was easily outclassed by his father, grandfather and great grandfather, each of whom was remembered in Ganda tradition at the time of the British colonial take-over as having become uncontrollable at some stage during their respective reigns. This is something Mwanga never became."
  • Morris Twaddle, Kakungulu, 1993
"No Kabaka of Buganda had ever faced the challenges that Mwanga faced, dealing with mighty religious parties which eventually drove him from the throne and his kingdom."
  • Samwiri Lwanga Lunyigo, Mwanga II, 2011, page 4
"Mwanga II should be judged within the context of nineteenth century Buganda, where kings had absolute executive, legislative, judicial, military and even economic power. To see him through the lenses of his foes, those who took away the sovereignty of his country and their local collaborators is to miss him. He cannot be understood through the fairy tales of his enemies who denounced him."
  • Samwiri Lwanga Lunyigo, Mwanga II, 2011, p. 35