12/07/2022
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We learn much about European Kingdoms, today let's also learn about our Kingdom's that were thriving long before Europeans arrived.
Today we are learning about Kabaka Mutesa l the King of Buganda Kingdom from 1857 to 1884. During his reign the kingdom of Buganda was confronted by political problems, the like of which none of his predecessors had ever had to face.
When his father King Suna died of chickenpox in 1857 there was no definite successor despite leaving behind over 200 children. Of these, only sixty-one were sons of sufficient age to be deemed eligible candidates for the throne. One of these sons was Mutesa who was aged 18.
However, Mutesa was not King Suna's favourite son. The reason for this was as explained below.
His mother was a certain Gwolyoka of the sheep clan. She did not occupy a prominent position in Suna's household, nor was she one of his favoured spouses. When Mutesa was still a child,his mother offended King Suna by committing a trivial breach of etiquette.
As a result the King promptly sold her as a slave to a Swahili trader, who was in Buganda at the time and who carried her off to the coast. Before her departure she entrusted her child, Mutesa, to another wife of Suna, Muganzirwaza, of the elephant clan.
As Mutesa grew up he had fond memories and affection for his real mother. He also had a very real affection for his foster-mother, whose clan adopted him and assumed responsibility for his upbringing.
As Mutesa became of age the possibility of him ever taking his father's place upon the throne of Buganda was regarded as extremely remote.After selling the mother into slavery, Suna appears to have displayed not the slightest possible interest in the son.
And it can be said that Mutesa owed his ascension to the throne to palace intrigues.His selection was not due to any personal merit displayed by himself. Neither was it the result of any wish expressed by his father.
In spite of this, Suna's Katikiro and the leading members of Mutesa's adopted clan found it convenient to choose Mutesa as king in preference to all other candidates.
The Katikiro, with the assistance of the Kasuju-the hereditary guardian of the king's sons, so staged matters that the clansmen and backers of the rival candidates were powerless to resist or offer any effective protest to Mutesa's nomination.
Sixty-one of the sixty-three possible rivals of Mutesa were rounded up and put to death .The two survivors of this holocaust were infants and therefore not reckoned as dangerous. Both outlived Mutesa. One, them called Mayinja, was put to death in the civil war of 1888 .
The other, Mbogo, was for a brief period during the civil wars following on Mutesa's death recognised by the Mahommedan party as king of Buganda, but subsequently formally renounced all claim to the throne in favour of Mwanga and died at a good old age in 1921.
Nevertheless, the opening years of King Mutesa's reign very much resembled those of his father King Suna . The Katikiro, who had placed him on the throne in the hope that he would become his puppet, had the inevitable disillusionment which had befallen so many Katikiros before him.
In a few years' time, the young man decided that he was old enough to look after his own affairs and dismissed him together with other benefactors with ignominy.
He continued to pursue the same policies his father had pursued.
For example there were the usual raids into the territories of adjacent rulers and he also maintained the ban his father had imposed on the Arab and Swahili caravans.
Because of the conspiracies against him in the Kingdom, Mutesa felt maintaining the ban was necessary.Until he really felt secure in his kingdom, it was undesirable to have foreigners in the land, who not only might lend their retinues and their weapons to rival claimants for the throne but also might actively stir up rebellion for their own ends.
However, In 1860 , he removed the embargo and the leader of the first caravan informed him of the presence of Europeans at the southern end of Lake Victoria.
After receiving this information, he sent spies disguised as traders to investigate this new race of men requesting to enter his kingdom. Their reports were satisfactory and Mutesa decided to extend to the Europeans a cordial invitation to visit his kingdom.
There were a number of reasons why Mutesa allowed the Europeans to enter his kingdom. Curiosity was undoubtedly one. Another was doubtless a desire to achieve notoriety as having achieved a record, which none of his predecessors had had the opportunity to achieve.
Speke and Grant who were the first Europeans to meet Mutesa described him as "selfish , and irresponsible young man with one or two amiable traits as well as many others which were revolting and cruel." They also claimed that his appalling egotism prevented him from concentrating for any length of time upon any rational topic of conversation.
The fact is that these two were not being fair to Mutesa. First of all Neither Speke nor Grant had any great mastery of any African language. It was therefore difficult for Mutesa to maintain a prolonged conversation, when all in*******se had to be through the medium of an indifferent interpreter.
Mutesa realised this disadvantage and, in order to get into more direct communication with his visitors, went so far as to learn a little Kiswahili-a fact, which at least shows that he was interested in other issues of more than momentary interest.
As Mutesa continued with his rule he became aware of the great threats to his independence by the neighbouring rulers especially Kabarega of Bunyoro. As a result, he was determined to seek assistance by courting new allies. Arab slave traders from Zanzibar had already convinced him about the power and influence of their sovereign, Seyyid Burgharsh, Sultan of Zanzibar.
And at their suggestion he decided to send a small diplomatic delegation to establish an alliance with him and to ask for shipbuilders to be sent to him.
The delegation was also entrusted with another purely personal mission .Vague rumours had reached King Mutesa that his mother, who had been sold into slavery some fifteen to twenty years before, had been discovered down at the coast.
The emissaries were therefore charged with the task of finding her and bringing her back. They were given a large quantity of ivory as a present to the Sultan of Zanzibar and a young elephant.
The entire mission and journey to Zanzibar and back to Buganda , took two years and was not all that successful. Of the presents they were to deliver to the Sultan only the elephant was delivered. But the large quantity if ivory was stolen by the Wanyambo who waylaid the delegation. They also failed to find Mutesa's mother.
Even though , Sultan Seyyid Burgharsh received them with great courtesy, he failed to realise the fact that they came with a serious offer of a defensive and offensive alliance. He only sent them back laden with gunpowder, guns, soap, gin and brandy and a polite message to the King.
Explorer David Livingstone met the delegation at Tabora on their return journey Buganda . Livingstone managed to convince at least two of them to work for him instead of returning to Buganda.
One, them was Majwara, who was with Livingstone when he died in 1873, and was one of that little band of faithful servants, who so devotedly carried his body to the coast to be shipped to England.
Next time we will learn how the entry of foreigners into the Kingdom resulted in great political turmoil.
