The Cross and the Crescent: Alien religions come knocking

L-R: Sabaddu, Kataruba, Rev. C. T. Wilson (Interpreter), Namukadde, Earl Granville (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) Her Majesty Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice. COURTESY TABAMIRUKA/COPYRIGHT UNKNOWN.

In June 1876, seven months after Kabaka Mutesa’s letter asking for friendship with the white man appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, the first set of Christian missionaries from England arrived in Zanzibar.
The party of eight included Lt. Shergold Smith, Rev. C.T. Wilson, Mr T. O’Neil, Dr. John Smith, Alexander Murdoch Mackay as well as three artisans. The harsh conditions, including disease, immediately claimed the lives of one of the artisans and forced the other two to be sent back to England.

Mackay, who would play a pivotal role in the establishment of Christianity as well as western-style education and craftsmanship, was left bed-ridden as the party made its way into the interior and returned to the coast to recuperate.

On June 30, 1877, Shergold Smith and Rev. C.T Wilson arrived to a very warm welcome at Mutesa’s court, becoming the first Christian missionaries in Buganda. In a very rare sign of respect, Kabaka Mutesa is said to have risen from his throne to greet the two missionaries when they were presented at his court.

However, the good times only lasted a few months. Smith and O’Neil, who had later joined his colleagues, would be dead less than six months later, murdered in December 1877 by inhabitants of Ukerewe Islands on Lake Nalubaale. This left Wilson, who incidentally was the only ordained priest, as the only missionary in Buganda. In fact, for a time, when Wilson left to collect Mackay, there was no missionary in Buganda until their joint return in November 1878.

Mackay immediately went to work. He had learnt Swahili during his time as a convalescent at the coast and resumed the Sunday services that Stanley had previously conducted. That, and the work of his skilled hands, was so impressive that by the end of the year he noted in a letter that, “The king and I are great friends and the chiefs also have confidence in me.”

At the start of 1879, the seeds of great change were being sown in Buganda. The Mzungus were introducing a new religion that challenged over 500 years of faith, belief and religious rituals.

On Sunday, January 26, 1879 Mackay’s sermon was so powerful that Mutesa is reported to have turned to Sengura, one of the Arabs present, and said: “This is the truth I have heard today. There can only be one truth…your religion is different from the truth, therefore it must be false.”

Up until that point, although the Arabs had converted a few Baganda into Islam and impressed some of its virtues upon the Kabaka, they were primarily interested in their trade in slaves and ivory, not proselytising. However, they now saw in the new arrivals the danger of diminished influence in the royal court and started stocking fires. But the results of their plotting were still several months away.

The more immediate matter was the arrival, on February 14, 1879 of three more missionaries: Rev. G. Litchfield, C.W. Pearson and R.W. Felkin from the Church Missionary Society.

It was not so much the arrival of more white men that caught Mutesa’s attention but the route they had used, down through Egypt and the Sudan. Mutesa was wary of the imperialist threat from the Egyptians and Governor Gordon who had replaced Samuel Baker in the Equatorial Province and viewed the new arrivals with great suspicion.
Three days later the Catholics arrived.

The two French missionaries, Fr. Simeon Lourdel and Brother Amans Delmas, arrived in Bugonga, near Entebbe after an ardours journey that had started 10 months earlier in Marseille, France.

Described as tall, muscular and with rugged good looks, Fr. Lourdel came to be known as ‘Mapeera’, a word for guavas in Luganda, but which was a corruption of the French phrase ‘mon pere’ (my father) which he was fond of saying.

Mackay had a personal antipathy towards Catholics and was quick to show it in regard to the new arrivals. The Protestants were also quick to try and reassure Mutesa that although they had come through Governor Gordon’s territory, they meant no harm and, in fact, had imposed upon Gordon the need to remain peaceful towards Buganda.

Although he enjoyed the gifts that the visitors to the palace brought, Mutesa was trying to come to grips with the two foreign religious influences that were now present in his kingdom.

Now here was another bunch of Mzungus who said they were also Christians but claimed that their brand of Christianity was better and superior to that of the Protestants.

It did not help matters that the Catholics and Protestants immediately started squabbling amongst themselves, each seeking the upper hand.

That rivalry, between the Christians and the Muslims on the one hand, and between the Catholics and the Protestants on the other, would lead to war within a few years and set the scene for religious rivalry that continues to this day.
In the interim, it played into Mutesa’s hands. Mutesa was no fool. The more the Protestants assured him that they were responsible for Gordon’s restraint towards Buganda, the more he reckoned that their influence over the Governor, could as well easily turn into incitement to attack his Kingdom.

Mutesa, a shrewd operator who had mastered the art of playing one faction against the other, also realised that the two sets of Christian missionaries belonged to different countries.

Around June 1879, at the encouragement of the Protestants, Mutesa dispatched three envoys, accompanied by Rev. Wilson as an interpreter, to visit England and deliver a letter to Queen Victoria.

The three – Sabaddu, Kataruba and Namukadde – thus became the first Baganda (and by extension, Ugandans) to visit England and meet the Queen.

The letter itself is hardly remarkable for its contents; in it Mutesa was repeating his invitation to the “wite men” to come to his kingdom and sending regards to his fellow kings along the route to the Ocean. What is remarkable is that the letter was written by one of the pages at his court – one of the first to enroll for the western-style classes that the missionaries had started conducting.

The envoys were but lowly slaves, not eminent officers of the court as had been promised, and the journey was simply a ruse – part of Mutesa’s plot to play the three factions against each other. It was a political strategy that would backfire terribly and lead to bloodshed in the kingdom.
Continues Monday