What backwardness did colonialism really seek to end in Africa?

Kampala

The joint war of resistance between Kabaka Mwanga and Omukama Kabalega of Bunyoro were the best – albeit belated effort by the kings to keep the yoke of colonialism at bay.

That war of resistance had, by late 1899 been defeated following the capture of Mwanga and Kabalega and their subsequent being sent away into exile.

Before continuing with the story of the events that led to the shaping of the kingdoms, societies and communities that existed at the time into the nation-state that came to be known as Uganda, it is perhaps important that we pose and reflect on the context of the colonial justification, at least in Uganda.

As seen earlier, Arab traders had come to the interior of Africa to trade, introducing guns and other items, including cloth, in exchange for ivory and slaves. They appear to have been interested predominantly in trade and did not take on open imperial interest until their trading position was threatened by the European missionaries and imperialists.

The European imperialists, on the other hand, had not only shown their colonial hand in India, Egypt, the Americas and elsewhere, but would go on to impose their authority over present-day Uganda in a little over 20 years.

The justifications given for that colonial interest need to be put in context so that colonialism – with all its benefits and disadvantages – can be seen for what it was; an end in itself.

While the Europeans actively helped stop the slave trade (years after benefitting from it), historical accounts now show that claims of slave trade in, for instance, Buganda Kingdom, were heavily exaggerated. While slaves were captured, say during raids, or offered to chiefs and kings by subjects, it was mainly a form of domestic labour and not an item of commerce.

The second claim – that the European explorers and missionaries came to bring religion to peoples without faith – has been less examined but is no less inaccurate. While it is true that Arabs had introduced African people to Islam, this new religion and the Christianity that followed were not introduced into a vacuum.

John Roscoe, who wrote the books, ‘Twenty Five Years in East Africa’ and ‘The Northern Bantu Tribes’ attempted to offer some rough anthropological understanding of the ways of life by the people and communities that the explorers encountered in the heart of Africa.

Writing on religion in Buganda, Roscoe notes in the first of the two books: “In the year 1880 a traveller marching the eight hundred miles from the east coast of Africa into the interior to Uganda, would have found little to suggest that the tribes through which he passed had any religion; there was little or nothing to betoken that the people had any thoughts of another world or an after life.”

He added: “We now know that all these tribes have some form of worship, and are armed with either fetishes or amulets on their persons, which are supposed to protect them from ghostly enemies and from all forms of magic, and also to preserve them from danger from wild animals or from hostile tribes.”

Roscoe noted that religion played a key role in the lives of many of these tribes, noting the existence of temples and shrines as well as religious rituals among the people.

“Religious ceremonies began with the birth of a person and continued throughout life until his death, when there was an elaborate funeral ceremony, after which the ghost of the departed was worshipped,” he noted.

“Each day in a house began with certain ceremonies for ridding the family or the individual from magic and unwholesome spells, and it closed with some form of worship to protect the sleeper during the night.”

It was a different religion – but it was a set of beliefs that constituted a religion all the same. What has not been fully explained is why the people of Buganda quickly adopted the new religions, not just as a faith and a way of life, but as a source of identity for which they were willing to fight, die, and, ultimately, destroy their kingdom.

Prof. Samwiri Lwanga-Lunyiigo attempted to provide an explanation, arguing in his book, Mwanga II, that the Baganda were wired to admire exotic things. To illustrate the point, he provides anecdotal evidence of Baganda adopting and celebrating foreign customs, from the mundane, useful ones of wearing tunics, to the forgettable ones of taking pride in smoking bhang and acquiring venereal diseases.

Interesting though it might be, it does not complete the puzzle but it confirms that colonialism sought to replace an existing world order, not create one out of chaos or nothingness.

While life in pre-colonial Uganda was often turbulent and full of unexpected turns, there was, in many things, method in the madness. In Buganda, for instance, roads were long, straight and wide (sometimes four metres across) and maintained regularly through work camps organised by chiefs along clan lines.

There was a fairly advanced field of medical knowledge that treated many diseases and which was handed down from one generation to another.

There were, across the region, organised political entities with a ruling class, a taxation regime/policy and, in some cases, a standing army to defend the borders and expand territory. There were diplomatic pacts between rival kings cemented by marriage – similar to the wedding band diplomacy carried out by European monarchs – and there was trade between peoples, places and princes.

Understanding Africa
Even violence – painted by western historical accounts as evidence of the savagery they came to end – was a well-thought-out tool used by the kings to project power and ensure the loyalty of their subjects.

Many of the items introduced by colonialism, including western education, medicine, transport, etc., had a remarkably positive influence on African society (and some continue to do so to this day) but they are best measured and understood from the context of the world order that they replaced – one that had evolved over hundreds of years.

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