The rise of a militant scientific literature turned towards the present, struggling to understand the African past

7Ironically, Uganda has today achieved a notoriety for its recent repressive and extreme homophobic laws, that eclipse the notoriety that Mwanga’s homosexuality had achieved in the 19th century.

8Up until two decades ago the academic literature on homosexuality in Africa barely existed. Only a spattering of brief, vague, often moralistic, mentions in classical ethnographical monographs could be found (Vangroenweghe [1997] 2000, 189). A rare exception is Evans-Pritchard’s impressive article, “Sexual Inversion among the Azande,” written late in his career.3 In 1998, Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe could fit into one volume 80% of what had been written on the topic during the 20th century.4 Academic preoccupations changed in the 1990s with the AIDS epidemic, and a decade later the rise of state homophobia. The number of publications has since grown exponentially caused by the explosive growth of Queer Studies.5 Most of those publications have been militant and advocate the furthering and advancement of LGBTQ+ rights. Considerable knowledge was gathered on contemporary LGTBQ+ communities in Africa and their daily struggles. Understanding contemporary gay bashing in Africa has become a mainstream topic in the social sciences.6

9However, there is still a clear gap in knowledge. As Sylvia Tamale (2013, 34) puts it: “It is rather amazing how the issue of homophobia in Africa is treated in an ahistorical fashion.” As she notes, the field is dominated by anthropologists, political scientists and literary critics. Historical perspectives are truly few. Much of the historical literature is about the British Empire rather than Africa specifically. It underlines the key role played by British colonial laws (in particular the Indian Penal Code of 1862 and the Queensland Criminal Code of 1899) in criminalising same-sex intimacies in the British Empire, and more globally the British and missionary role in the spread of homophobia (Han and O’Mahoney 2019).

10It seems historians of Africa until recently, with the notable exception of South Africa and its neighbours, have conspicuously steered clear of these debates. The main reason, as has been noted by Kenda Mutongi, is the scarcity of sources and their complexity when they do exist (Mutongi 2000, 5). There has been little historical work on periods prior to the 20th century (Belcher 2016). Southern Africa is an exception and has attracted more attention than the rest of the continent. Most likely because the contemporary LGBTQ+ community is very active there, written records are abundant, and more historians work in South Africa than in the rest of the continent combined. Pioneering fascinating historical works about same-sex relationships were written as early as the 1970s and 1980s, first by Charles van Onselen, then by Dunbar Moodie and Patrick Harries. They focused on migrant workers in colonial Southern Africa.7 In 1990s and 2000s, Epprecht followed their lead around migrant workers, and then widened the debates to a more global history of homosexuality in southern Africa and further (Epprecht [2004] 2013). His work has laid the foundation of academic history of homosexuality in Africa as a whole (Epprecht (2008; 2013b). Among other things, he trailblazed the study of the repression of homosexuality by the colonial justice. A topic that moved beyond southern Africa and was followed by a handful of historians across the continent.8 Both migrations in southern Africa and colonial justice have produced archival sources and in consequence made latter historical research more likely.

11A rare exception outside Southern Africa or colonial justice is Kenda Mutongi’s article built from letters from readers and advice columns published in the famous African Drum magazine during the 1960s–1970s. Some of the letters dealt with homosexuality. She describes a situation in Africa where homophobia was present but societies remained more accommodating to homosexual practices than today, a period before the rise of radicalised homophobia in the 2000s (Mutongi 2000).

12Globally, concerning the historiography, Shane Doyle rightly argues that “previous studies of the history of homosexuality in Africa have tended to focus on demonstrating its existence, and its indigeneity” (Doyle 2021, 34). Going further, Kenda Mutongi has aptly summarised the tendencies of historical writing on homosexuality in Africa:

13The few available studies have often associated homosexuality in Africa with arcane initiation rituals or have tended to over-rationalize the reasons why people enter homosexual relations. In other words, scholars have often treated homosexuality as either an adolescent phase or the male migrant labourer’s temporary means of coping with the unavailability of women, and hence of no serious consequence to the “proper” functioning of society” (Mutongi 2000, 5).

14Anthropologists and historians increasingly regret that sexuality is seldom studied for itself, and some pioneer works have been recently published on the history of love and pleasure.9 However, most existing sources do not bend easily to such a perspective. The evolution they call for should remain combined with a wider social approach. To some extent, sex for sex is biology; what is interesting for the social sciences is how society uses, diverts, transforms biology and not coitus as such. As Nakanyike Musisi notes “It is difficult to think of Mwanga and his sex “scandal” in isolation from the social and political tensions that were endemic to his times” (Musisi 2020, 118). The study of same sex practices also opens new understandings of classical topics such as sacred kingship and early colonial African politics (as I will try to demonstrate here). This may be restrictive but is important nonetheless.

15Publications on Uganda fit very well into this global African context. There was little interest about homosexuality before 2009, but since then the number of studies has risen very sharply.

16Since 2009, the main preoccupation of scholars and activists has shifted to shed light on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (2009–2014). Anthropologists have interpreted events as a “moral panic” over homosexuality in Uganda.10 Rejection of homosexuality has formed a unifying national shared moral value in the context of growing social and political fragmentation, and tension during the last part of the forty years of President Museveni’s rule.11 Human rights advocates are at the forefront of research agendas on homosexuality.12 Initially, controversy over gay rights inside the Anglican Church fed public debates and the rise of homophobia in Uganda in the late 1990s.13 However, scholars have been more attracted by the later role of Pentecostal churches and the international (mostly American) connections of Christian anti-homosexual crusades.14 These debates have also shed light on Uganda’s contemporary gay communities.15 Attacks on gay communities in contemporary Uganda also constitute disguised ethnic politics and attacks on Buganda kingship (“stained” by its filiation to King Mwanga), and by extension the Baganda people (the Baganda, like the Swahili, carry a gay ethnic stereotype across East Africa). This internal aspect of the debate has attracted little scholarly attention.16 Very recently, Phillip Schulz has widened the scope by documenting sexual violence against males during the civil war in northern Uganda (1990–2005) (other aspects of violence having been previously covered by other scholars.)17

17Insufficient research has been carried out on the history of homosexuality in Uganda (as for the rest of Africa). Concerning the more recent 20th century history, only three professional historians very briefly mention the question of homosexuality. Shane Doyle’s carefully researched three pages on men who have sex with men in Uganda between the 1920s and 1980s is the most detailed, and offers a quick overview of the question (Doyle 2021, 34–37). Carol Summers mentions homosexuality and male prostitution in Buddo (the most prestigious high school in Uganda) amidst student riots and scandal in 1942 (Summers 2006, 99–101). Her paper is focused on the politics of crowning the new king of Buganda. She does not dwell on the social dynamics of same-sex intimacies in the boarding school (probably because the topic in the context of the British public-school system is already well known). Marc Epprecht focuses on the invisibilisation of men who have sex with men in medical research in Africa and Uganda in particular, at a later period, between 1983 and 1988.18 Two non-historians must be also noted for their history-oriented contribution. Kevin Ward has carefully documented the evolution of the Christian church’s position on homosexuality.19 In 2019, Adrian Jjuuko, using existing published literature, wrote a handy descriptive synthesis of our knowledge on the history of homosexuality in Uganda as a whole (Jjuuko 2019).

18The other historical reference concerns an older period and the sexual preference of Kabaka (King) Mwanga who ruled Buganda from 1884 to 1899.20 He is famous for having executed dozens of Christian pages who refused his sexual advances in 1886. His sexuality is widely debated and used, either to prove that it is possible to be fully African and gay, or to deny that possibility fiercely. Many publications on the global history of homosexuality include King Mwanga’s sexual preference as a passing example. The rare more focused studies on Mwanga concentrate mostly on the memory and contemporary significances of the king’s sexual practices.21 For example, Rao wrote a very carefully researched book on how Mwanga’s sexuality is remembered today. The major and crucial criticism that can be made to this whole historiography is that it relies very little on the primary sources concerning Mwanga’s reign directly. This methodological flaw which can be explained as the history of the reign of Mwanga is only the setting for most of these authors’ research who are more concerned with contemporary issues. However, combined with the absence of previous historical ground research to build on, such general approaches are fragile, facts are often wrong, and the results, though often insightful, do not allow for sufficient understanding of local dynamics in 19th century Buganda.

19Two Ugandan scholars stand out however for their contribution on the dynamics of the history of gender, and by extension on that of homosexuality: Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza and Nakanyike Musisi. Neither of them uses directly the major historical source on same-sex practices in Buganda which are found in the White Father archives. Nannyonga-Tamusuza and Musisi, as other authors, only glimpse on those sources through the deformed lens of the Roman Catholic Church’s hagiographical publications on the Uganda Martyrs. Nannyonga-Tamusuza and Nakanyike Musisi knowledge relies however on other strong sources. They worked through oral history, ethnographic data and wide knowledge of the Luganda early 20th century writings. This is particularly true of Musisi’s impressive knowledge of same-sex intimacies mentioned in Ganda early autobiographies. She uses them more as a background to her work than directly. This is why in her study of Mwanga, she did not always feel compelled to refer to them directly (Musisi 2020).

20The pioneering work of Nannyonga-Tamusuza, a Ugandan ethnomusicologist, on the royal Baakisimba dance has been a methodological breakthrough (Nannyonga-Tamusuza 2005, 215, Chapter 8). She gathered oral sources and examined debates before 2009. At the time, research on homosexuality was difficult but still possible for Ugandans. She titled the concluding chapter of her book, “Baakisimba and homosexuality among the Baganda.” She carefully went over the vocabulary and analysed the dance which historically took place inside the palace, and more recently outside the palace. She showed how male dancers adopted womanly steps and postures which were meant to be attractive and sexually enticing to the king. Her work shows how royal sacrality leads to a blurring of gender categories. This sheds new light to the considerable literature on male daughters and female husbands in Africa.22

21The Uganda historian Musisi followed a complementary path. Her initial work23 in the 1990s on women and Ganda gender categories based on different sources and methodologies fed Nannyonga-Tamusuza’s later ethnomusical demonstration on shifting gender categories. Combined, these authors show that the exercise of power was in itself “engendering” (to borrow Donald Donham’s expression : Donham [1990] 1999, 91–92). Helped by Musisi’s work, Nannyonga-Tamusuza minutely deconstructed Ganda gender categories. She showed that the Ganda used multiple, relative and fluid gender categories. She distinguishes in the royal palace between the “Man” (the king), the female-men (princesses), the male-men (princes), the female-women (female commoners), male-women (male commoners).24 These structural and ideological features of the royal court of Buganda illuminate primary sources and allow us to understand Ganda gender politics before colonial rule in a very different manner, as this work will show.

22In 2020, Musisi pushed her reasoning towards the question of homosexuality in a chapter titled, “Anxiety over Masculinity. Gendered and Sexual Struggles in Mwanga II’s Buganda, 1884–97” (Musisi 2020). Her paper deals with gender anxiety during the reign of King Mwanga. She shows that with the conversion to Christianity and the colonial rule, two conceptions of masculinity and patriarchal ideologies, one local, the other European, collided in Buganda. King Mwanga’s masculinity and therefore royalty was contested by the new Christian ideas because of his taste for both men and women. This clash destabilised the society and the power structure of Buganda and fed social anxiety.

23My own work only partly overlaps with Musisi’s (she focused on gender anxiety, whereas I focus on homosexuality). She has attained an abstract perspective on gender dynamics and ideology. My approach is closer to sources, more detailed, systematic and descriptive, allowing me to go further. My work relies on archival sources directly rather than using Faupel’s hagiography of the Uganda Martyrs (Faupel [1962] 1984). It allows me to build on the ideological clash, mentioned by Musisi, a more grounded and precise political and religious history of same-sex relations in Buganda at the end of the 19th century. It allows me to analyse the political schemes that fed the growth of homophobia in the 1890s. However, in spite of different sources and perspectives, our conclusions do not contradict each other, but rather feed the debate in the same direction. This work builds on the contributions of both Musisi and Nannyonga-Tamusuza, and expands, reinforces, deepens and complexifies their leads.

24An effective way of writing the history of Buganda is to remember that it was just one kingdom among numerous others in the region. Without being identical, they shared much cultural background and practices. For Sarah Watkins: “These same-sex practices were an accepted part of elite life in societies throughout the interlacustrine region, as was gender transgression” (Watkins 2014, 90). However, same-sex practices in neighbouring kingdoms have attracted very little scholarly attention, with the exception of Rwanda.

25Historians of Rwanda have pointed out how widespread same-sex practices were at the royal court. According to Sarah Watkins, in the 19th century, patronage and same-sex relationships seemed to have added up on occasion. Sarah Watkins has studied the rivalry for the king’s favours between queens and male favourites (bamutoni) during the reign of Mwami Gahindiro (1820–c.1845).25 Unsurprisingly, same-sex intimacies were widespread among boys in their teens undertaking training at the royal court (intore) (Liebhafsky Des Forges 2011, 219). Rwanda seems therefore not to be much different from Buganda at the same time. In both kingdoms, royal favourites could also be royal lovers. For example, the relationship of King Mwanga and Saidi Lutaya bears resemblance with that of King Gahindiro and the royal favourite (Umutoni) Rugaju, described by Watkins. The Rwandese intore and the Ganda bagalagala, among whom same-sex intimacies were rife, were related institutions: both could be translated as pages or trainees. Unfortunately, historians of Rwanda do not elaborate on the social understanding and ideology of same-sex practices. Later during the colonial era, these practices were racially stereotyped and associated with the Tutsi ruling elite (Maquet ([1961] 1970, 77–78). Homophobia was used by the White Fathers and Belgian administrators in Rwanda to justify deposing King Musinga in 1931 (Liebhafsky Des Forges 2011, 219). Racial homophobic stereotypes were again used by the Belgian administration to justify and support the 1959 social-racial revolution (Logiest 1988*, 45).

26We can widen our focus from Rwanda to Burundi. There, the White Fathers dictionaries at the same time, typically, document the existence of same sex practiced while denying that the Barundi practised them.26 According to Jean-Pierre Chrétien sexuality in the homes and enclosures was very regulated and oriented towards reproduction, while outside in the pasture and in the bush, sexual licence was full.27 These elements and contradictions seem quite relevant and echo across the region.

27As the Rwandese case shows, Buganda was not unique amongst its neighbouring kingdoms. We can assume that the question raised in Buganda and Rwanda are also to some extent relevant for the other Great Lake Kingdoms (Ankole, Bunyoro, Burundi, Buhaya etc.). Unfortunately, the historiography of the region28 does not at this time offer us new leads to understand social dynamics around same-sex intimacies in Buganda. One of the explanations of the dearth of historical studies resides in the nature and scarcity of sources.

Underused and unique sources on same sex intimacies in Buganda

28The aim of this book, as I mentioned, is to gather and share a wider number of sources on same-sex intimacies in Buganda in the 19th century. They will be presented and put into context in order to feed research and focus debates on sources and understanding them. A richer historical understanding is crucial to enliven contemporary debates around homosexuality in Africa. Popular opinions are rife with conflicting myths and fantasies about the past and about homosexuality. It is important to discard them to be able to advance our understanding.

29Interestingly, the widespread Christian and Islamic myth of the curse on Ham (or Cham) and the racial Hamitic myth of the 19th century were not mobilised to emphasise the link between Africa and homosexuality. These myths spread like wildfire among Africans, and have played an important role in contemporary identity politics in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa.29 These myths dramatically fed the ideology behind the Rwanda genocide (Chrétien and Kabanda 2013). The initial religious myth recounts in a polite and euphemised manner how Ham committed incest on his drunk father Noah, and God cursed the descendants of Ham and made their skin black (Genesis 9:20–27). Some Muslims and Christians, especially during the slave trade, have understood this to mean that black people were the cursed descendants of Ham, and they were justified to enslave them. In the 19th century, a new scientific interpretation was invented that made Hamites into migrants of a white or lighter race that brought elements of civilisation to black Africa. Strangely, the homosexual incest at the origin of the curse has been put aside by the racist propagandists of the myth. This might be explained by a literalist reading of the Bible that obscured the obvious incestuous implications of the verses.

30The 19th century sources on same-sex intimacies in the Kingdom of Buganda are unique for the interior of Africa. They allow us a glimpse into the 1880–1890s, just before and during colonial conquest (1890–1899), in other words, before the colonial state had really settled in after 1900.30 This is crucial since the latter colonial rule involved the importation of laws criminalising “sodomy,” which are commonly assumed to have forced same-sex behaviours or relationships underground or to the margins. References to such practices in the sources are surprisingly numerous, but easy to overlook.

31A wide array of sources exists. Ganda and European sources are equally numerous, written by Catholics as well as Protestants. However, “Pagan” and Muslim Ganda have left no written source, and women’s voices are absent. Reference is made to homosexuality in passing in colonial archives, in missionary archives, in personal memoirs and in published works.

32In relation to the process of the beatification of the Uganda Martyrs (1886), the White Fathers’ archives hold more documents than any other archives on the issue of homosexuality. They are particularly rich and under-used. The Martyrs were the first African converts of the modern era to be beatified by the Catholic Church. Their lives and demise were carefully researched and documented. The sources were produced by the White Fathers and then submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Rites in Rome for their beatification and subsequent canonisation. Most of the original and initial documents can be found at the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) Generalate in Rome where the archives of the order are held, and to a lesser extent in Rubaga Cathedral in Kampala. These documents reflect the ideas of the time around sexuality. They are, however, often precise and full of detail on court life in Buganda. The documents, in French, Latin and Luganda, have seldom been consulted by historians. Scholars have usually accessed them indirectly and in English through a limited rewritten but easily accessible form in Faupel’s African Holocaust, the authorised hagiography of the saints (Faupel [1962] 1984).

33One of the key documents of the canonisation process of the Uganda Martyrs is the Apostolic Process (Procès Diocésain in French) dating from 1912–1914. It transcribed the verbatim testimonies of 20 survivors from the 1886 persecutions.31 Another document, much shorter, but older, dating from 1887, is the Informative or Ordinary Process that holds the deposition of 7 survivors. Protestant, Muslim, “Pagan” or even “dubious” Catholic survivors of 1886 were not called on in either enquiry. Only staunch and reliable Roman Catholics were interviewed. However, they were questioned under the strongest oath. A lie would, in their mind, have sent them to eternal damnation. Some of the victims and survivors were former lovers of the king. These transcripts are the widest corpus of direct Catholic Ganda voices from the 19th century. We will return, in more detail, to these exceptional sources in Chapter 2 when dealing with the Uganda Martyrs.

34Beyond this corpus, the African voices are very specific. All authors were former pages, generally with first-hand knowledge of same-sex practices at the royal court, and some were even former sexual partners of the kings. The Catholic Ganda of the first generation, converted in the 1880s, did not write their memoirs. Their first-hand accounts are scarce, but their life histories and deeds were recorded later by younger Catholic authors belonging to the next generations, who acquired a formal colonial education early in the 20th century (Rowe 1964a, 229–30). In other words, it is the second generation that recorded the life histories of their fathers. Fortunately, we have first-hand transcribed oral testimonies of the early Catholic converts in the Apostolic Process as was previously mentioned.

35Protestant authors wrote more and earlier than their Catholic counterparts. They mention same-sex intimacies in passing. The Protestant sources are found in the typical Ganda autobiographical historical memoirs (Apolo Kagwa, Ham Mukasa, Bartholomew Zimbe, James Miti…).32 These often lengthy and very detail memoirs were written by the first generation of Christians who were also the first literate generation in Buganda. This is not specific to Buganda. Across Africa, often enthusiastically, these newly acquired skills were used to write autobiographies, and the history and customs of their kingdom or “tribe.” However, most of them (Abbé Kagame in Rwanda, Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Charles Atangana in Cameroon, Amadou Hampâté Bâ in Mali…) were schooled in the formal colonial system or in seminaries a generation or two later than the Ganda pioneers. The Ganda authors usually converted in the 1880s. They learned to read and write informally before the colonial conquest. They were raised and educated before the colonial rule (this is very important), they took part in the colonial conquest, and then in colonial rule, and later some became disgruntled. They tell of the glory and deeds of their generation, war, political intrigues, the “coming of religion,” persecution and trials, and the reigns of their contemporary kings (Mutesa, Mwanga and Daudi Chwa). They give us a deep knowledge from the interior of the precolonial society and the period of conquest. They were also religiously and politically motivated. Authors were responding indirectly to what had been written by their political rivals. These Protestant Ganda sources are rich in context and mention homosexual practices more often than what is usually realised even in academic writings.

36Existing documents are frustrating in many ways. They are widely dispersed, which makes research very slow and tedious. They are usually very brief (a sentence, a paragraph, rarely more), mostly vague, repetitive, and stereotypical. These sources seldom answer our contemporary questions. As is often the case, female same-sex intimacies are never mentioned.33 Very little is found on aspects that are essential to understand the sociology of male same-sex intimacies.

37Texts are puzzling and ambiguous to the point that it is often difficult to know if the text is about sex or something totally unrelated. For example, Joseph Kasirye, a Uganda biographer from the 1960s has left us this passage he collected from Stanislas Mugwanya (c.1848–1938), a former page of King Mutesa and later leader of the colonial Catholic Party:

Kabaka Muteesa started washing his body with soap [with the arrival of the Arabs and Islam]. Kabaka chose Mugwanya as the page to clean his back with soap. This was a trustworthy job and if you think deeply, you see that it was a chance in a million to touch Kabaka’s body. It is surprising that this job was not done by women as would have been expected! (Kasirye (1963*, 201/5–202/6)

38How should we understand this extract? Clearly the extract shows a young boy’s awe and adoration of his king. But it shows more: we know King Mutesa (1856/7–1884) had both male and female lovers. At the time, the good-looking Mugwanya was a Muslim convert. Later as Catholic leader, the same Mugwanya insisted that Islam brought “sodomy” to Uganda. In the next paragraphs, not quoted here, the text continues about how handsome King Mutesa was. The relation between the king and the page are ambiguous and full of sexual tension. Mugwanya was a potential lover for the king (but in the same manner as the royal wives, pages were much too numerous to all have sexual relations with the king). Was the king sufficiently attracted to him to make him his actual lover? We do not know. However, the text does clearly state how gender roles were overturned in the king’s service, how a page occupied functions expected of a woman and later in the same document how converted Muslim pages practiced “sodomy.”

39Sources naturally reflect the preoccupations of their time. They focus on the king and his court; lesser people are mostly forgotten. In the 1880s, homosexual practices were first brought to the attention of foreign missionaries through the reluctance of some of the young male converts to have sex with the king. Pages feared displeasing the king and losing their life. As a troubled Father Lourdel puts it in 1887: “This poor King [Mwanga], despite all his wives, has the vice of Sodom. Sometimes young Christian pages exposed to his passion come and ask for help.”34

40In the 1890s, power had shifted from the king to former pages. The converts had acceded to power. Documents then are more about the political instrumentalisation of homophobia.

41One of the difficulties is that it is tempting to transfer what we know of the better documented royal behaviours onto to the common people, whose practices we know less of. The king’s behaviour was at the same time both freer and more constrained than common people’s. The royal moral constraints were specific and unique but were imitated and used as models by the whole population. Powerful people around the world (and Ganda kings were no exception), often believe they are above the law and that they can transgress moral norms with impunity. Royal sacrality, where it is practised, on the other hand makes the respect of ritual obligations by the king extremely important. Outside of rituals, a transgression by the king, including a sexual one, could in theory bring the whole kingdom to its end. However, to become king and remain on the throne, the ruler is a prisoner of specific norms that differ from those of common people. What is forbidden to them can be a ritual obligation to him (royal incest, for example).35

42To make things more difficult, the sources we rely on were produced at a time when the meaning of kingship was evolving rapidly (Médard 2007, 345–84). It was confronted to generational change, to globalisation and to the conversions to Islam and Christianity. Contradictory meanings and practices more than superseding each other overlapped and contributed to tensions building in the 1880s. On the other hand, as I have shown elsewhere, by the 19th century, Buganda was also a court society.36 Everyone at court copied the royal fashions and the court was copied across the kingdom. This makes the use of sources complex, and chronology an essential element to understanding them.

43To conclude, however complicated and dispersed these sources are, with a slow piecing together of small pieces of repetitive information used in conjunction with a very strong understanding of the context, it is possible to build an incomplete but effective history of same-sex relations in Buganda at the end of the 19th century. We have here unique, exceptionally rich, detailed and varied sources on the history of homosexuality in Buganda at the end of the 19th century. Likely no other place in Africa has such rich information concerning the period that preceded colonial rule. We will be putting into context and understanding these difficult sources, in an attempt to give some social and religious understanding around same-sex intimacies in the royal court of Buganda, and changing politics of acceptance and rejection of men who have sex with men.

Putting words on sexual intimacies in Buganda: an impossible dilemma full of traps and contradictions

44The words used to describe men who have sex with men are hotly contested. There is wide agreement that the use of “homosexuality” concerning the late 19th century African context would be anachronistic and ethnocentric, though it is the most accessible and widely understood expression. The term “queer” shares the same Eurocentric and anachronistic setbacks. The same could be said of terms like gay, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA+, etc. Currently, expressions such as “men who have sex with men” or “MSM” are considered the proper scientific expression to be adopted, but this might change and the abuse of acronyms weighs heavily on non-specialists. Another setback of this expression is that it fits badly with the earlier local understanding in Buganda, as we shall see. The word “homophobia” is not perfect either. As Berridge notes, it is a recent concept, born in the 1970s. Therefore, it is then absent from the sources and the idea it conveys is utterly foreign to the 1880s–1900s. Since linguistically it takes root from “homosexuality” and “phobia,” it shares the same setbacks as the former. The use of “anti-queer animus” or better “queerphobia,” has been suggested (Berridge 2023, 362–63). These expressions are also obscure and unfamiliar to most of the readership, and, thus, for clarity’s sake, I will avoid them. In spite of its many drawbacks, I will use “homophobia” in this text, because it effectively conveys the idea of a social or individual fear or hatred against MSM or WSW (women who have sex with women).

45Even though they convey the dominant ideologies and prejudices of their time, a solution to avoid anachronism might be to use the same words as the ones used in 19th century sources. Yet, as Neville Hoad (2007, 7–8) noted, crude, sexual and explicit words were often avoided in writing at the time. Less vulgar, vague and often negative expressions such as, “disgraceful sin; unnatural act; unbridled heathen obscenity;” and “shameful passion” were usually preferred. The same can be said on the side of Ganda writers (Kisekka 1973, vol. III, 149). Expressions used are more allusive and sometimes difficult to grasp. Sources in French are rather blunter than those in English. It clearly is very inaccurate and misleading to reduce male same-sex intimacies to anal sex, but when writers at time needed precision, the word used was “sodomy.” The shift of meaning between “sodomite” and “homosexual” is considerable since it changes from the practice of a specific sexual act to the essence of a person, independent of the acts.37 “Sodomy” is a rather crude term but faithful to the meaning and ideas of the time. However, this habit is not specific to men who have sex with men. Actually, the wording in many of the 19th century legal texts did not specifically target men. Women and animals were also included as recipient in the laws against “buggery.” The formulation of the laws implies that it is anal sex that was forbidden, rather than specifically men having sex with men. It was only in the practice of the law that men mostly were targeted by enforcers (Han and O’Mahoney 2019). In the 19th century non-legal sources, especially the Roman Catholic ones, “sodomy” does not refer to anal sex only, but to a wide range of non-vaginal and not necessarily reproductive sexual activities.

46Scholars of Africa often feel that the use of the local language and categories is the safest manner to proceed to avoid such discussions. However, Daniel Vangroenweghe notes that many African languages did not have a word for “homosexuality” because sex between men was a practice, not an identity (Vangroenweghe [1997] 2000, 188). Marc Epprecht cautions us even further, that translating into African languages Western sexual expressions such as anal sex, oral sex or even sex, is not always straightforward and easy (Epprecht 2013b, 191, 193–94).

47Unsurprisingly therefore, words to describe same-sex sexual relations in Luganda do not give us a convenient concept. As in most languages, expressions about sex are mostly pejorative, rude, vulgar and often belong to slang. Slang and insiders’ languages are meant to exclude non-initiates and change very quickly. Contemporary vocabulary in use in the 2000s and 2010s in Kampala are new and recently imported from the USA gay culture or from wider East African urban and Indian Ocean coastal gay cultures (Rao 2020, 29). This is the case of “Kuchu,” for example, recently borrowed from Kiswahili (Jayawardene 2019, 1898–99). The use of these words cannot be pushed into the past either.

48Older words can be collected in Catholic sources and dictionaries. Father Modeste Raux notes two expressions, “Bugwagwa” and “Okugwamu Nsonyi” that he translates as “sodomy.”38 Dictionaries are a bit more ambiguous on (or shy about) these terms. In the oldest dictionary, that of Henri Le Veux in 1917, -gwagwa is defined as: “dirty, rude, disgusting, to dishonour, to be perverted or to pervert, and a type of monkey.” In other words, the practice of “sodomy” is associated with behaving disgustingly, and behaving like a monkey (Le Veux 1917*, 241). It is clearly an insult.39 Okugwamu Nsonyi could literally be translated as being finished from shame, to be exhausted from shame or shameless (Ensonyi means shame, timidity).40 However, to conclude that these pejorative words reflect the homophobia of Luganda speakers, is probably stretching the evidence a bit. In Luganda, as in most languages, anything sexual can be rude and used as an insult.

49Bisiyaga is, according to Nannyonga-Tamusuza (2005, 216), the word used for “sodomy” in the first complete Protestant translation of the Bible published in 1896. Father Raux, who authored the later Catholic translation of the Bible, does not mention the expression. But it can be found in Le Veux’s dictionary, defined, not in French for decency’s sake, but in Latin: “bisiyaga. Kiswahili word, kulya ebisiyaga, the sin of sodomy” (Le Veux 1917*, 62). Kulya refers to eating and in Luganda (as in French and many other languages) food, cooking, etc. are commonly associated with sex. On H-Africa, according to John Boldrick, on a trope concerning homosexuality, Siyagi is the Luganda word for butter.41 Siyagi means butter or ghee. So literally sodomy would be associated with eating butter (or ghee), the reference to lubricant used for anal or intercrural sex is obvious (the latter being more common in many African contexts). However, Siyagi probably comes from gasiya, meaning “trash; garbage (worthless unwanted things).” This would liken sodomy to “eating trash,” in other words “having trash sex” or rather “playing trash sex” as Ugandans would word it. Le Veux, as many others after him, wrongly claims that the word bisiyaga is borrowed from Kiswahili.42 It is clearly a Luganda word. No correspondence can be found in Kiswahili dictionaries.43 This type of negation or distortion of linguistic evidence concerning homosexuality, as Bleys has shown, can be found across the continent (Bleys 1996, 168).

50A systematic collection of vocabulary and expressions on same-sex intimacies in Luganda sources do not exist, but we have collected a sample of Luganda expressions found in the Diocesan enquiry. A common expression in the Diocesan enquiry is mirimo gya sodoma,44 translated into French as œuvres de Sodome (deeds of Sodom). Mirimo is found in other expressions in the next paragraphs. According to Murphy it means “mulimu, o- (mu/mi) work; task; job; employment, business.” The foreign, recent and biblical origin of mirimo gya sodoma is obvious.

51Jean Sanda uses the expression “obukabe eby’abalenzi”45 translated in French by “la sodomie”46 (sodomy). “Abalenzi” means “young men”, “youths” or “teenagers.”47 The expression “obukabe eby’abalenzi” literally refers to the “immorality of youths”. Two related expressions are found in the testimony of Mathieu Kirevu48 “okukola eby’obuwemu wamu n’abalenzi”: “faire avec des garçons des actions honteuses”49 (do shameful acts with young men) and “emirimo gy’abalenzi”: “l’œuvre des garçons (sodomée)”50 (the deeds of young men). The semantics seem to indicate that in Buganda same-sex relations were understood as generational and practised with young men and / or among young men.

52Jean Sanda51 also uses the expression “emirimo egyo agikola” translated in the French version of Diocesan enquiry by “il pratiquait la sodomie^”52 (he practised sodomy) and further in the same paragraph “akolera ddala,” translated into French in the same manner: “il pratiquait la Sodomie” (he practised sodomy). The Luganda text is not as explicit as the translation. “Emirimo egyo agikola” could be translated literally by “these things he did,” “akolera ddala,” as “he did it completely.” But what those implied things were are clearly stated in the preceding paragraph with the use of “Okwonoona” that is explained in depth below.

53In the Diocesan Enquiry, Aleni Nganda,53 used the expression “ebigwagwa,” politely translated as “ces saletés-là” (this filthiness), a word that we have already encountered.

54Further in his testimony we find the expression “eby’obuwemu”: “these shameful things”, translated into French as “sollicitations honteuses” (shameful solicitations). Further in the same vein, Aleni Nganda uses “enyo eby’obuwemu ebyo” in the French version, “ces pratiques impures” (these impure practices), and Léon Kyakwogera54 uses a close expression, “eby’obuwemu bengi”: “toutes sortes d’actions obscènes” (all sorts of obscene actions). “Obuwemu” is the key term here. Murphy gives the following definition: “Buwemu, o- (bu/-) impudence; shame; disgrace; scandal; immorality. […] okulola eby’obuwemu, to engage in sexual activities outside marriage.”55

55Léon Kyakwogera56 also used the following expression “olusi okukola naye obubi”, “faire le mal avec lui” (do evil things with him), and further, “okukola ebigambo ebyo,” translated as “faire avec lui ces saletés” (do these dirty things with him). Actually, in both cases the Luganda is less explicit than the translation makes it. Rather, it is “these things” than “these dirty or evil things.”

56In many of the Luganda expressions found in the Diocesan enquiry, same-sex intimacies are more often implied rather than explicitly stated. The translation leaves no doubt to the meaning, and the French version is more explicit. The very formal context of the enquiry must be considered. Witnesses would have used idiomatic, polite, euphemistic and respectful formulation as much as they knew how.

57Apolo Kagwa’s published writings from the late 1890s or early 20th century also give us some sense of direction. In his Book of Kings, he uses “to commit an unnatural offence with him” (namutwala okwonoona naye).57 The dictionaries help us understand this expression better. According to Murphy’s “‘Yonoona’: to sin, commit evil, spoil, make dirty, ruin, mess up” (Murphy 1972, 638). For -onona, Le Veux mentions the French equivalents: “to deprave, to make into a pervert, and in Latin ‘stuprivit’ i.e. to have (illicit) sexual intercourse with” (Le Veux 1917*, 797). The sexual undertone (in Latin), in Le Veux’s dictionary, is clear but is not specifically directed to same-sex intimacies. In a book from 1907, Kagwa uses the expression “men taking fellow men as wives” (abasaja nabasaja, abalala okufula banabwe abakazi).58

58Many expressions used are sexual (some may not be), but vague and not specifically ascribed to men who have sex with men. Some expressions do point out that same-sex intimacies were culturally associated with the youth in Buganda. This is a common feature in many cultures across the world. The explicit expressions mention action (sodomy) rather than essence (homosexuality). Does that reflect Ganda categories or only those of the Europeans who collected the vocabulary? It is hard to tell. These words are not of much help to historians. Dirty and rude words for sex are the norm all over the world, and so is the use of vague words and elliptic sentences to avoid those rude expressions. Unfortunately, all the expressions we have encountered, have major flaws. As a lesser evil, as it is the most common, widely understood and not a pejorative word, this book will use the term “homosexuality” only in a very wide and general manner, and usually refer to “sodomy” or “male same-sex intimacies” in reference to sexual acts.

59Buganda Kingdom in the late 19th century59

60Contemporary Uganda takes its name from an ancient Kingdom, Buganda. U-ganda and Bu-ganda are the same word, one in Kiswahili and the other in Luganda (the Ganda Language). During colonial rule, the use of “Uganda” expanded to englobe a much wider area, the “Uganda protectorate.” “Buganda” started to be used to describe the kingdom specifically that constituted only the Central Province of the Protectorate.

61Buganda was one of the many related kingdoms of the Great Lake region of East Africa. In the 19th century, Buganda was among the most powerful kingdoms of the region with Rwanda, Burundi and Bunyoro. It had become a highly centralised state centred around its king, the Kabaka, and his royal capital, the Kibuga.60 Buganda had developed an extremely elaborate and complex court society, which was organised in minute detail to establish the power, the centrality and the glory of its king.61 The capital was one of largest human settlements in the interior of East Africa (around 20 000 people). The site was moved every few years, but in the 1880s and 1890s it remained in the same area included in today’s Kampala. The heart of the capital was the royal enclosure, built on top of a hill, inhabited by the king and his thousands of wives and hundreds of pages (all key actors in the debates around same-sex intimacies in Buganda as we shall see). Around the palace, the chiefs kept their own establishments in the capital, with their own numerous wives and pages. They shared their time between their estates in the provinces of the kingdom and attending court. A constant flow of workers, porters, warriors, envoys, traders, and craftsmen travelled to and from the capital.62

62Without being completely cut from the rest of the world, central Africa remained quite isolated until the 19th century. International trade started growing in the late 18th century, but direct contact with the Indian Ocean was only first established in the late 1840s, when the first Muslim traders, subjects to the Sultan of Zanzibar, visited the royal capital of Buganda. The traders brought mainly cloth, guns and luxury goods, that they exchanged for ivory and slaves. The Ganda would extract both from their neighbours, through tribute, war and trade. The logics of the slave trade fed into the previous logics of militarisation linked to Ganda territorial expansion since the late 18th century. The kingdom became an increasingly predatory state. Slavery became central to the society and the numbers of slaves rose tenfold. In the 19th century, approximately half of the population in the capital of Buganda were slaves. They consisted mostly of women, children and youths. This clearly had a strong impact on gender relations and fed radical violent patriarchal ideologies and practices in a society already organised around patrilineal kinship. These evolutions also impacted the manner in which same-sex intimacies were understood locally in the 19th century as we will see.

63Relations with Zanzibar only became firmly established during the reign of Mutesa I (1856/7–1884) (Oded 1974, 133). Coastal traders were very well received at court. Zanzibar was increasingly perceived as a rich, powerful and useful ally. With trade, new ideas and trends reached Buganda. King (Kabaka) Mutesa became interested in Islam, adopted the religion and ordered his subjects to do the same. Ramadan was respected in the kingdom between 1867 and 1875. As in many parts of Africa, Arabs were nearly unanimously accused, as early as the 1880s, of introducing homosexual practices in Buganda. We will come back to this question.

64Conversion is always fraught with contradictions and tensions. These came to a head in the 1870s, when the Egyptian Khedivial State, expanding up the Nile, reached the Great Lakes Region and tried (but failed) to annex the sources of the Nile (Doyle 2006, 42–60). The sudden arrival of these new aggressive Muslim actors created much fear and confusion. King Mutesa became more aloof from Islam, and around 1876, he even ordered the massacre of the most fervent Ganda Muslims (mostly royal pages). Yet, he did not sever all links with Islam and Zanzibar. A large Zanzibari community had settled in Buganda and Zanzibar’s influence continued to grow.

65Simultaneous interest in discovering the sources of the Nile brought the first Europeans and Americans to the kingdom as well. King Mutesa invited and welcomed Christian missionaries to his court. The mainly British Protestants of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) reached Buganda in 1877 and the mainly French Catholic White Fathers arrived in 1879. While King Mutesa pitted the Arab Muslims, the British Protestants and French Catholics against each other, many Ganda, especially in the capital and among the royal pages, converted to one or the other of these competing faiths.

66In 1884, King Mutesa died and was succeeded by his teenage son, Mwanga (1884–1899). King Mwanga is remembered today, among other things, for his taste for boys (Rao 2015). This young inexperienced king ascended to the throne at a complicated time. In the 1880s, slavery was eroding the social and economic fabric of Ganda society. European geographical interests in the sources of the Nile were progressively replaced by more blatant imperialism. In October 1885, misinformed and fearing a foreign invasion, King Mwanga ordered the execution of the British Protestant bishop, Hannington, on his way to Buganda. In the follow-up, during the spring of 1886, King Mwanga ordered a general persecution of Ganda Christians (but not of the missionaries). The Christian pages (many of whom were the king’s lovers or former lovers) suffered the brunt of the violence. After a few months, the persecution abated. Christians came back in favour and King Mwanga recruited them, as well as Muslims, to his newly created personal guard. In September 1888, fearing renewed persecution, the army rebelled and overthrew King Mwanga. He fled across Lake Victoria and eventually sought asylum with the White Fathers in Bukumbi Mission (close to Mwanza in modern day Tanzania).

67The leaders of the coup were organised along religious lines but Christians and Muslim soon fell out with one another. Shortly after overthrowing and chasing King Mwanga, the Muslims chased the Christians and chose a new Muslim king, Kalema (1888–1890). During that time the country fell into chaos fuelled by religious wars (1888–1893). The deposed king, Mwanga, was recalled by an anti-Muslim coalition. They fetched him from his exile across Lake Victoria where he had sought refuge in a Catholic Mission. With their support, especially that of the Christians, he defeated his Muslim brother and regained his throne in 1890. In disarray, King Kalema fled with his Muslim supporters to the northern borderlands between Buganda and Bunyoro where he died shortly after. He was succeeded as Muslim king in exile by his uncle Mbogo (1890–1892). From their refuge the Muslims continued to raid Buganda until 1892 when a religious peace agreement was negotiated, and Prince Mbogo stepped down. Religious groups organised themselves in structured political parties. Power was shared in Buganda between the victorious Protestants and Catholics parties. Because the White Fathers Missionaries were mostly French and the CMS mostly British, the Catholic Party known locally as the French (bafaransa) Party, and the Protestant as the English (baingeresa) Party. Due to the fact that his exile was at a Catholic Mission, Mwanga was considered a Catholic sympathiser. Since the king was Catholic, to balance the power between both religious parties, the position of prime minister (Katikiro), the second most powerful role, was given to the Protestant Apolo Kagwa. The third ranking position fell to Stanislas Mugwanya, a staunch Catholic, head of the Catholic Party, and so on.

68This was the time when the British and German columns, who had been carving up Africa and collecting treaties, reached Buganda. Although King Mwanga and the Catholics preferred a German alliance, it was a British charter company, the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) supported by the Protestant Party that obtained Buganda in the Anglo-German Agreement of 1890 (or Heligoland Treaty). Political and therefore religious tensions grew, and created a rift between the former Christian allies. Finally, war erupted in 1892. The IBEAC sided with the Protestants and soundly defeated King Mwanga and the Roman Catholics, before compelling them to sue for peace. The Catholics kept a small number of chieftainships, but most of the country was passed to the Protestants. Whilst Mwanga remained king, he had lost most of his actual power to the British and the Protestant chiefs. The defeated king became nominally Protestant. After 1892, the British were fully in control, however the IBEAC was rocked by scandal and bankruptcy, and was replaced by the British government. Buganda became a British Protectorate in 1894.

69Dissatisfied, King Mwanga tried to regain some autonomy. Between 1893 and 1897, helped by the growing hostility to colonial oppression, he tried to collect supporters and attempted to pit Catholics and Protestants against one another. He was outmanoeuvred by Apolo Kagwa and his allies. During this conflict, the question of his sexual preference was actively used against him in political intrigues as we will see. In August 1897, cornered and fearing arrest for sedition and “sodomy,” he fled his capital and called to arms. The Ganda flocked to him in large numbers, but not the great chiefs who were Protestant, Catholic, and to a lesser extent, Muslim. The fighting went on until 1899 when he was captured and exiled, first in Somalia then in the Seychelles Islands where he died in 1903.

70After his death, the question of homosexuality basically disappears from sources until the 1990s.

The return of debates over homosexuality in contemporary Uganda

71Since the late 1990s, some public figures in Uganda, and more recently in parliament, have been at the forefront of the condemnation of homosexuality. In 1997, Uganda’s bishops took a prominent role in protesting against the opening of the Anglican Church to gay rights (first by allowing gay marriage, then the ordination of gay priests).63 Tension simmered through the 2000s fuelled by new and growing Pentecostal churches.64 The rise of homophobia in Uganda must be understood in the context of fierce religious competition between the established churches,65 the Anglican Church, Catholic Church, the Muslim institutions, and the more recent Pentecostal churches.

72We use the term Pentecostal here in a loose manner to regroup the proliferation of non-established Protestant churches. Most Ugandans belonging to these churches would call themselves “saved” or “born again.” These Protestant splinter religious movements were of little significance until the late 1980s. They appeared in the aftermath of the bloody civil war in southern Uganda, and its transfer to northern Uganda. Their success coincides with the rise to power in 1986 of the National Resistance Movement (NRM), a guerrilla movement led by Yoweri Museveni, who is still in power today, and the AIDS epidemic. From the late 1970s, Uganda bore the brunt of a devastating AIDS epidemic that literally decimated the country’s population. The epidemic is still ongoing but peaked during the 1980s and 1990s.

73The focus of the Pentecostal church on faithfulness and abstinence, and rejection of the use of condoms enabled them, after 2003, to gain privileged access to PEPFAR (the United States President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief), a huge fund (90 billion dollars spread over 20 years) started by the Bush Republican American administration. After the epidemic had peaked, the church’s focus slowly evolved from fighting AIDS to warning against the dangers of homosexuality.

74This change in emphasis had two results. First, it attracted funding from the American religious right and Protestant fundamentalist movements bent on seeking revenge for their setbacks in America’s culture war. Then, Pentecostal churches positioned themselves on the high ground of virtue against their religious rivals, especially the Anglican Church. Established churches in Uganda, though condemning homosexuality, belong to global movements that are much divided on these matters: they cannot take the same radical stands as some Pentecostal churches. Both the Church of England and the Catholic Church today stand against the death penalty, and it makes it difficult for them to support executing gay people. Likewise, both churches depend on donors and sister churches in the West. Their conservative stances alienate them with the most liberal wings of the Anglican and Catholic church, those that are keen to help countries of the Global South.66

75In the 2000s, Ugandans experienced renewed and rising anxiety about their children. For example, rumours of child sacrifice executed by witch doctors to feed the greed for wealth of powerful people (or international organ trafficking) were rife. While faith in the public-school system was declining (the Universal Primary Education (UPE) reform of 1997 made public school free but starved of funding), consequently private school fees became increasingly high. In this context parents were terrified and panicked by mysterious, repeated and deadly fires in boarding schools, with scores of children locked inside dormitories burning to death. Varied and contradictory rumours linked these supposed arsons to the actions of homosexuals.

76In the last decades in Uganda, severe tensions have risen around gender roles and masculinity, in a country experiencing strong demographic and economic growth, and rapid social change.67 Women’s access to education, the fear of AIDS, and patriarchal monogamic Pentecostal Christian family values, have converged and changed the balance of family power structures and expectations in Uganda.

77Over the course of the last 50 years, the idea of homosexuality evolved in Uganda and across the continent. In the 1980s, it was understood as something un-African, immoral and bizarre, practised outside the continent. Homosexual practices were tolerated so long as they were hidden and did not interfere with social obligations (Mutongi 2000, 19). In the wake of the AIDS epidemic, new forms of homosexual culture and representations from the West were globalised. Uncloseted, vibrant, easily provocative, the gay pride parade is a good illustration of these new dynamics. These global evolutions irrupted into contact with the very conservative, or at least secretive, local views on same-sex intimacies. The cultural shock was enhanced by the massive growth since the late 1990s of the diffusion of pornography, first through widely circulated video tapes, then with the internet. One can imagine the disturbing and distorted image of same-sex intimacies that this led to for people living in an African context with minimal and distorted sex education, and in a society where homosexuality was hidden.68

78A new counter perception of homosexuals carried by Pentecostal preachers gained popularity as a direct reaction to this phenomenon. It introduced the idea that an extremely powerful international mafia of perverted devil worshiping paedophiles (including some of the world most influential leaders) wished to sexually abuse Uganda’s children by force, or corrupt them with money (Tamale 2007). This has little to do with sociological realities of same-sex intimacies in Uganda or elsewhere. Confusing paedophilia with homosexuality is a very common misconception historically. The association of homosexuality to witchcraft (“devil worshipers,” Freemasons in this case) is well attested in Central Africa69 and even beyond in Medieval and Modern Europe.70 The strength of this belief in a secret powerful gay society was confirmed for many Ugandans when in 2009, the international community remained mostly silent when the security forces killed, beat and arrested many Ugandans in royalist riots,71 but a few months later, by contrast, all major Western world leaders (Obama, Sarkozy…) called President Museveni to warn him not to pass new anti-homosexual laws.72

79In this context, to defend homosexuality is seen as defending child prostitution and rape, and to a lesser extent witchcraft and the devil. It is an impossible public stand to take even for the many Ugandans that neither confuse paedophilia with homosexuality, nor with devil worshipping.

80Uganda’s political class could not ignore this debate. Most of the opposition, condemning a government they accused of being violent, cynical and corrupt, sought to stand for virtue and morality, and called for a crackdown on homosexuality.

81President Museveni and the NRM majority, when they came to power in the 1980s, had initially launched very progressive policies empowering women, fighting AIDS etc. These policies did not extend to homosexuality. In 1990, in the context of fighting AIDS, the penalty for “sodomy” inherited from colonial rule was hardened to life imprisonment. Later, in 2000 to foster gender equality—the Penal Code Amendment (Gender References) Act 2000—the wording of the law was changed and resulted in making lesbian sex also illegal. In 2005 the Ugandan parliament, despite homosexuality already being criminalised, passed a redundant law making gay marriage also criminal. However, the terms of the initial law against homosexuality made prosecution very difficult, as suspects had to confess, or be caught in the act. Very few people were successfully prosecuted under those laws.73

82During their first decade in power, except in the North of the country, the NRM enjoyed massive popular support. But this eroded with time, and with it the government’s tolerance to the opposition. As a consequence, the established churches and the Kingdom of Buganda increasingly distanced themselves from the regime, and sometimes cautiously called for an end to corruption, and demanded respect for human rights and the rule of law. Since the 1990s, Pentecostal leaders had become particularly influential within the government and military circles, perhaps in part because high-ranking members of the NRM had found the weakening of the rival influence of Uganda’s established churches to be politically convenient. Condemning homosexuality could be used as a way to support the Pentecostal churches against the Catholic and Anglican church.

83Homophobia was used not only as a convenient tool in religious politics, but also in Uganda’s ethnic politics. In the 2000s tensions were rising between the ruling party and the Buganda Kingdom, which had formerly been a staunch ally of the NRM. Conflicts between them around land issues and the borders of the kingdom led to riots in 2008. In that instance, some NRM politicians used homophobia aimed subtly at the Buganda Kingdom, and more widely at the Baganda people. The topic reminded the Ugandans of King Mwanga of Buganda (1884–1886), his taste for boys and the death of the young Christian victims of his tyrannical royal lust in 1886.

84Since the 1990s, Africa has experienced the rise of “Homophobic nationalism” to take the expression of Rodriguez (2017, 398), and others. The rising narrative stipulates that homosexuality is un-African, a practice against nature imported from outside the continent. Thus, it opposes virtuous Africa to decadent and depraved secular Western democracies and their neo-colonial imperialist tendencies, homosexuality being one of them. After decades of personal rule, betrayal, infighting, corruption and violence, the political class in Uganda (and many other African countries) is in dire need of a new and virtuous image. Following Mugabe’s example in Zimbabwe, it has become common practice among dictators worldwide to profess public nationalist homophobic hate speech particularly in the run-up to elections. Uganda is no exception. This type of speech automatically attracts strong protest by human rights international NGOs. This enables rulers to associate human right activists to Western gay imperialists, who in their mind support paedophilia, and thus, gives them a clear reason to reject the Western decadent democratic model. These cynical deliberate provocations are intended to trap international political critics into association with homosexuality. It allows them to discredit other accusations of human rights abuse and election fraud because they are emanating from “gay lobbies” that wish to corrupt, prostitute and rape young African boys. Nationalism and high African moral grounds conveniently hide human rights abuse and corruption.

85Since the late 1980s, Uganda has massively relied on Western foreign aid. In the 2000s with the rise of China and with the discovery of petroleum reserves, Ugandan politicians were briefly under the illusion that the country no longer needed to rely on Western aid. This would have meant they could ignore the growing criticism from donors concerning the growth of corruption and the deterioration of the human rights situation in Uganda. This, coupled with huge support in the Ugandan public, allowed the Anti-Homosexuality Act to be submitted in 2009 and adopted in 2013.

86It seems that persecutions of Uganda’s gay community (especially the death sentence for any act deemed as “aggravated homosexuality”) brought a stronger international reaction than anticipated by the Ugandan government. The sanctions and suspension of aid that Uganda incurred made the law too costly compared to the political gains, especially considering that Uganda already has laws against “gross indecency” inherited from British colonial rule. The 2013 law also deals with crimes such as paedophilia and rape, but as in most countries they are already severely punished. The government organised for the law to be nullified on a technicality in 2014. President Museveni had skilfully played two opposing games; he had encouraged homophobic feelings with incendiary declarations whilst also managing to convince international actors that he was the sole person capable of stopping or mitigating the laws pushed through parliament with popular support. He even managed to have the same NGOs and governments that lectured him on the importance of human rights and democracy, encourage him to ignore the votes of parliament and popular feeling.74

87However, hate politics are difficult to control and usually get out of hand. Ugandan public opinion has been misinformed and fed by recurrent scandals in boarding schools, and is still massively calling for a crackdown on “homosexuals” (i.e. in their mind, depraved, rapist paedophiles and devil worshipers). Passing homophobic laws are a much easier objective for politicians than working towards development, justice or the fight against corruption and violence.

88In an increasingly divided Uganda, the anti-homosexuality laws are probably the only issue that continues today to unite parliament across the political divide. The global context was very similar but only worse, a decade after 2013. In 2023, the population was brutalised and impoverished by the restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 epidemic. Corruption and political violence were on the rise as the ruling class prepared for the succession of an ageing Museveni. The Church of England’s decision to bless civil marriages in February 2023 angered the Church of Uganda who rejected that decision. At the same time, early in 2023, accusation of homosexual abuse in the Anglican and most prestigious boarding school of Uganda, King’s College Buddo, fed the fears of parents across the country. It is not surprising that a new anti-homosexuality bill was again passed on 22 March and signed by President Museveni on 23 May. It was voted unanimously with the support of all parties (in spite of dubious legal phrasing and a handful of dissonant voices). However, the international context was different in 2023. In particular, because of the war in Ukraine, Uganda felt less international pressure than a decade earlier.

Outline of the work

89Looking through 19th century sources, one is struck by the pace of change and the complete inversion of values concerning homosexuality. In 1880, Buganda was a kingdom where same-sex intimacies were not only fashionable in high places, but often encouraged. The practices were common throughout society. Less than twenty years later, on 7 December 1896, an anti-sodomy law was drafted, passed, and signed by all the major chiefs and King Mwanga. To some extent, one could say that the “mignons” (the king’s page lovers turned Christians) of the 1880s turned their back on their youth and banned the practice.75 The chapters of this book follow a chronological outline.

90Chapter 1 shows that homosexuality did not exist in Buganda before the 1860s, although same-sex male intimacies were widespread. Through an innovative gender system, anatomically male sexual partners were understood as man and woman and their relations as heterosexual (Rao 2020, 160). However, this concept does not exist without the twin concept of homosexuality, maybe describing them as sexually normative would be more correct. Conversion to Islam, starting in the 1860s, changed the way gender was constructed and the way same-sex intimacies were understood. They progressively became a specific but accepted form of sexuality (Zanzibar society was quite liberal on these issues). In the 1880s, as in many other aspects of Ganda culture, the former same-sex practices continued but with a change of meaning. The exercise of power remained a key element in same-sex intimacies. Two groups of young men were particularly involved in these practices: slaves and pages (and some were both slaves and pages). The experience of boys and young men in slavery most often included sexual abuse. The pages training to become future leaders of the country were also involved, willingly or not, in same-sex practices. Both King Mwanga and King Mutesa picked and kept their lovers among the pages of the king’s house. More widely, junior pages serving the king and the important chiefs were involved in sexual networks extending to senior pages and courts chiefs.

91Chapter 2 examines how Christianity made “sodomy” into a sin. Initially, during the reign of King Mutesa, the missionaries first converts were royal pages and many were also lovers to the king. The missionaries failed to find an effective way to protect them. The most determinedly reluctant lovers were discharged from court and fled the country. This new sexual taboo fed ill feelings between the new King Mwanga and his reluctant Christian lovers, and the drift sparked the dramatic Christian persecution of 1886–1887. Many Christian pages, some of whom were the king’s most unwilling lovers, lost their lives. The persecution was encouraged by some court’s chiefs and by fellow Muslim pages. The latter had most to gain from the demise of the Christian pages. It was an opportunity for them to replace the Christian pages, including in the royal bed. In 1888, King Mwanga was overthrown by his Muslim and Christian guards. Religious wars followed, pitting Christians and Muslims (1888–1893) and Protestants and Catholics (1892). When King Mwanga was reinstated to the throne by the Christians in 1889, his sexual preferences became a religious issue among the Catholics and the source of much tension. It came to a head in December 1891 when Catholic chiefs tried to ban hemp smoking and “sodomy” from the palace. However, the leaders of the coup miscalculated the power balance, and had to back down and negotiate an agreement with the king. This agreement was never implemented because in January 1892 war broke out between the British and Protestants on one side, and the royalists and Catholics on the other.

92Chapter 3 shows how religious taboos eventually fed into politics. After being defeated in 1892, King Mwanga was compelled to join the Protestants. Marginal in the Protestant Party, the king’s taste for boys started being used as a political tool against him. Christian chiefs manipulated British homophobia to weaken the king’s political standing. In 1894, the king attempted to return to the Catholic Party. The Protestants immediately started slander campaigns, including accusations of paedophilia and deadly rape. After some hesitation, the British colonial authorities forbade King Mwanga from changing religion. In response, starting in 1895, King Mwanga started increasing the number of pages in his enclosure with the idea of building an armed following. In spite of warnings from the leading Christian chiefs, the British authorities refused to see the danger. In December 1896 King Mwanga was caught red-handed by the British authorities selling ivory contraband into German territory. The leaders of the Christian parties managed to convince the colonial government to include the disbanding and replacement of the royal pages on moral grounds, amongst other retaliatory measures. Pleading to keep his favourites, King Mwanga was blackmailed by the chiefs into signing an anti-sodomy law. Paradoxically, Mwanga exchanged the right to keep his lovers by his side by making “sodomy” illegal. The law of 7 December 1896 was made not to moralise Buganda, but to control the king with blackmail in the new colonial setting. To conclude, this chapter takes up the question of the growth of homophobia in the late 19th century. It points out the importance of homophobia among Christian missionaries and influential colonial administrators (the future Lord Lugard in particular). Some Christian chiefs were strongly opposed to same-sex intimacies, but most found mainly in homophobia an effective and cynical political instrument against their rivals. Their skill in manipulating European homophobia to achieve their ends appears clearly. The rest of the population of Buganda seems rather indifferent to same-sex intimacies.

93In other words, we will show that same-sex intimacies were made into a distinctive category through contact with Islam, and that Christianity made it into a sin and a religious problem. Christian chiefs disputing King Mwanga’s power found it convenient to instrumentalise British homophobia for their own political gains.