History of Uganda | Uganda History

Uganda’s early history is the history of the country before it became a British protectorate at the end of the nineteenth century.
The Batwa pygmies the indigenous inhabitants of Uganda were hunter-gatherers.
For thousands of years, they resided in the woods of the Virunga Mountains and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in southern Uganda, which is home to mountain gorillas.
The first Bantu-speaking peoples arrived, travelled to, and settled in the Lake Victoria area around 200 BC. They were divided into loosely knit chiefdoms.

The Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom established the first centralised governmental structure in Uganda around 1500. Legends surround its origin.
The Batembuzi, who may have come from Sudan or Ethiopia, is supposed to have been the first dynasty king of Bunyoro Kitara, followed by Bachwezi, who controlled Bunyoro Kitara for several generations before mysteriously disappearing.
However, it is thought that the Nilotic Luo invasion from the north in 1650 terminated the Bachwezi dynasty’s dominance over Bunyoro Kitara. The Luo formed the Babiito dynasty under their prince Rukidi.
The advent of Luo coincided with the rise of numerous other kingdoms, including Buganda, Ankole, Toro, and Busoga, although Bunyoro remained the region’s largest and most powerful monarchy.

Buganda began to expand at the expense of Bunyoro around 1700.
Buganda was the most powerful politically and economically in 1800, controlling the land bordering Lake Victoria from the Victoria Nile to the Kagera River.

Arab traders in Uganda

According to Ugandan history, the first Swahili-speaking traders from the Indian Ocean coast came to Uganda during the reign of Buganda.
Swahili slave traders came to the Buganda Kingdom in the 1840s, which was controlled by Kabaka (King) Mutesa I from his capital, Kampala.
Slave dealers were allowed to operate from Kabaka Mutesa’s capital, and he participated in slave-raiding trips into neighbouring states.
Several Baganda chiefs were converted to Islam by the merchants.

Explorers from Europe in Uganda

In 1862, the British explorer John Hannington Speke became the first European to reach Buganda on his quest for the Nile River’s source.
Another British adventurer, Henry Morton Stanley, visited Buganda in 1875. He attempted to persuade King Mutesa 1 to accept Christianity.
Finding Mutesa to be receptive, Stanley addressed a letter to the Church Missionary Society in London on King’s behalf, persuading it to send missionaries to teach the people of Uganda.

Missionaries from Europe in Uganda

The British Missionary Society/ Church Mission Society (CMS) (Protestants) came to Buganda in 1877.
In 1879, the French Catholic White Fathers came to Buganda, setting the groundwork for a bitter theological struggle.
By the mid-1880s, all three groups (Protestants, Muslims, and Catholics) had converted a significant number of Baganda, some of whom held key posts at court.
Mutesa I died in 1884. Mwanga, his son and heir, was a temperamental and rebellious adolescent who ascended to the throne as religious tensions in Buganda heated up.

Meanwhile, the new flock of believers shifted their allegiance away from the king and towards other religious systems.
Mwanga was resolved by 1885 to rid his kingdom of the new teaching and its adherents.
On June 3, 1886, Mwanga issued an order to execute all converts, culminating in the death of 26 Christians. They were burnt to death in Kampala’s Namugongo (today’s Uganda Martyrs shrine).

Influence of Germany in Uganda

During the European rush for Africa and its split. All European countries wanted a piece of the well-watered and rich Kingdom of Buganda.
Carl Peters, a German colonialist, arrived in Mengo in February 1890 carrying a pact with the German East African Company.
Mwanga gladly signed it, presumably in the belief that German engagement would put an end to the Anglo-French theological intrigues that had long threatened his monarchy.
Unfortunately for Mwanga, German deliverance was not forthcoming; a few months after Peter’s arrival, Germany handed up Buganda to the British East African Company (IBECO) in return for Heligoland, a tiny but strategically important island in the North Sea.

Uganda’s British influence

As previously stated, in 1890, Britain and Germany signed the Heligoland Treaty, which granted Britain rights to what would become Uganda.
In 1892, Frederick Lugard, the Imperial British East Africa Company agent, extended the company’s power to southern Uganda and assisted Protestant missionaries in Buganda in their victory over their Catholic counterparts.
Uganda became a British protectorate in 1894.
In 1899, the British government dispatched Sir Harry Johnston, a seasoned administrator, to research and suggest the best system of administration that would maintain the Uganda protectorate tranquil and productive.
The British reached an agreement with Buganda in 1900 that granted it autonomy and established it as a constitutional monarchy ruled primarily by Protestant leaders.

In addition, the Kabaka of Buganda and his council of chiefs were recognised by Britain in the pact.
Unlike in Kenya, where Europeans inhabited the Kenyan Highlands, the British considered Uganda uninhabitable.

Uganda has achieved independence.

Dr Milton Obote, a Lango schoolteacher, managed to put together a loose coalition led by the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) in the mid-1950s, which led to Uganda’s independence.
Uganda gained independence in 1962, with Milton Obote as Prime Minister and Kabaka (King) Edward Mutesa II of Buganda as President.
Milton Obote abolished Buganda’s autonomy and ascended to the presidency in 1966. He imprisoned numerous cabinet officials and sent Idi Amin, his army chief of staff, to invade the Kabaka’s palace in Kampala.
Following the revolution, Obote declared himself president, and the Buganda monarchy, as well as those of the Bunyoro, Ankole, Toro, and Busoga kingdoms, were dissolved. Meanwhile, Idi Amin’s star was rising.

In 1967, Obote directed his attorney general, Godfrey Binaisa, to revise the constitution, concentrating practically all powers in the presidency, and then began the process of nationalising foreign assets.
In 1969, a scandal erupted about $5 million in unaccounted-for finances and weaponry provided to the Ministry of Defence. When Idi Amin refused to provide an explanation, his deputy, Colonel Okoya, and other younger officers sought his resignation.
Soon after, whispers began to spread regarding Amin’s impending arrest. It never arrived. Instead, when Obote travelled for Singapore to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in January 1971, Amin planned a coup. Obote sought refuge in Tanzania.

Idi Amin’s reign in Uganda

Uganda’s first reign of terror began in 1971.
All political activity was soon halted, and the army was given the authority to kill on sight anybody suspected of opposing Amin’s dictatorship.
Over the next eight years, an estimated 300,000 Ugandans died. The Asian community was also attacked.
Amin ordered 70,000 Asians to leave Uganda in 1972. They were granted 90 days to depart the facility.
Meanwhile, the economy had crashed. Soldiers machine-gunned the abundant animals for flesh, ivory, and skins, and the tourism sector vanished.

Faced with anarchy and a 1000% inflation rate, Amin was obliged to cede more and more responsibilities to provincial governors, who became veritable warlords in their own districts.
Towards the conclusion of Amin’s reign, the treasury was so depleted of finances that it was impossible to pay the soldiers.
Colonel Gadaffi, one of Amin’s few allies at the end of the 1970s, bailed out the Ugandan economy in the name of Islamic brotherhood and launched an active push to equip Ugandan troops with advanced weaponry.
However, the rot had grown too far and was no longer curable with a few million bucks from Libya.

Faced with a restless army tormented by intertribal conflict, Amin sought a distraction.
He picked a battle with Tanzania to punish that nation for backing anti-Amin rebels. It was his final significant act of irresponsibility, and it proved to be his undoing.
In 1978, the Ugandan army marched practically unchallenged into northeastern Tanzania, capturing more than 1200 square kilometres of land.
Tanzania invaded Uganda in 1979, uniting diverse anti-Amin factions under the banner of the Uganda National Liberation Front.
Amin fled the nation and finally settled in Saudi Arabia, where he died in 2003 without ever facing prosecution.

Uganda following Amin

Yusufu Lule was elected president in 1979.
Following a disagreement over the scope of presidential powers, Lule was hustled out of office on June 20, 1979, and replaced by Binaisa, who had served for 68 days.
Binaisa was deposed by the army in 1980. After the elections, Milton Obote was re-elected president.
Obote was overthrown in a military coup in 1985 and replaced by Tito Okello.
On January 26, 1986, the National Resistance Army rebels reached Kampala, Okello was peacefully surrendered, and Museveni was sworn in as president. The lengthy nightmare had come to an end.

Beginnings of healing

Museveni restored Uganda’s old kingdoms, including Buganda, Bunyoro, and Tooro, but without governmental authority.
A new constitution was drafted in 1995 that legalised political parties while maintaining the ban on political participation.
Museveni was re-elected in Uganda’s first direct presidential election in 1996.
With peace came hope: services were restored, factories and farmland that had been dormant for years were reopened, important highways were renovated, and the infrastructure of national parks was rebuilt.
The peace and reconstruction that came with President Museveni’s election in 1986 were followed by economic success in the 1990s.

For many years, Uganda has been Africa’s fastest-growing economy, making it a popular investment destination.
Uganda’s economy developed fast during the 1990s and early 2000s, and the country has been praised for its economic stability and high rates of development.