Keeping a reluctant and sinful king Anglican

3After 1892, King Mwanga joined the Protestant Party, but was not given a leading position befitting his rank. Apolo Kagwa and the important Protestant chiefs did not wish to share power with the king, but kept him as a figurehead to benefit from his prestige and deprive rivals of it. The CMS, considering his special status, eventually charged one of their British missionaries, John Roscoe, to tutor the king personally into the Anglican faith. In March 1894, John Roscoe felt he had achieved stunning results:

The king seems to be very interested in our readings and is living a different life now from what he used to live before I began reading. He never gets drunk now, is never known to smoke ‘bhang’ [Indian hemp] or commit the sin of sodomy.1

4Roscoe seemed unaware of the extent of King Mwanga’s dissatisfaction at the time. From November 1893, the king had been secretly negotiating with the White Fathers and the Colonial authorities his return to the Catholic Party.2 Here is how Bishop Hirth describes the situation in November 1893:

Only three days after the 13th [the 13 Nov. 1893, the day when the relics of the Martyr Charles Lwanga, hidden in 1888, were recovered] Mwanga made it known to me, that tired of the Bible readings the reverend ministers administered him every day and mostly starting to realize the extent to which they had deceived him, he wished to return to the Catholic religion, that he had left only but for a moment, giving way to violence. The poor king, if God could give him the grace of his conversion, would not bring us much of his former prestige, which the revolution has passed entirely in the hands of the Protestant Katikiro [Apolo Kagwa].3

5It is interesting to notice how the proposed return to Catholicism of Mwanga is viewed as a miracle brought by the relics of the Martyrs of 1886. Ironically the value of the miracle is mitigated by Mwanga’s loss of power. Let us not forget how the French Catholic Church was opposed to revolution. Bishop Hirth associated Kagwa and the Protestants with the hated republican king-slayers of 1793. But with a miracle, revolutions can be reversed. Unfortunately for the White Fathers and Mwanga, the colonial authorities had other plans. The British authorities were somewhat indifferent to King Mwanga’s religion, but in the context of the scramble for Africa, they feared the political implication and the influence of the French missionaries.

6Colvile, the British Commissioner, shared his analysis with us in his memoirs published much later:

A more serious matter still was the religious attitude of the king, a monarch of very varying convictions, who then seemed to be strongly inclined towards Roman Catholicism. […] Had he become Catholic a large proportion of his subjects would have gone over with him and consequently, the provinces set aside for Catholics becoming insufficient for them, they would have at once clamored for more land, a request that would have been vigorously refused by the Protestants.
The Protestants, on the other hand, loving Mwanga but little at the best of times, would probably have tried to dethrone him (Colvile 1895*, 71–72).

7Colvile feared disorder if the status quo was changed. He saw the Ganda religious bickering as a hindrance to his plans to invade Bunyoro (a large kingdom to the north of Buganda) and then advance against the Mahdist Sudan. As most of the British, he considered Mwanga’s religious conviction as childish at best and cynical at worst. That allowed him to brush aside the officially recognised freedom of religion. In December 1893, after some tergiversation, Colonel Colvile absolutely forbade King Mwanga from changing religion before the end of the invasion of Bunyoro by combined British and Ganda forces. The Rubaga Mission Diary reported the strong words of Colvile:

9—Colonel’s answer that does not consent to the king becoming Catholic before he returns from Unyoro. He warns Mgr not to push the king or beware of the consequences!4

8However, the invasion did not achieve a quick victory and a cruel guerrilla war lagged on until 1899.5 In April 1894, as fresh Ganda troops were being sent to Bunyoro, only a week after Roscoe’s letter, King Mwanga took the matter again to the British. The Rubaga Diary briefly summarises the discussion between the king and the British:

King at Kampala. The Colonel scares him with Mbogo’s child [another royal prince with rights to the throne]. He speaks of war if the king makes himself Catholic. The king is frightened and remains silent.6

9Uncompromising, Colvile threatened to depose Mwanga if he persisted with his plan and put a Muslim prince on the throne. An unlikely threat however tempting for the British officials, a Muslim king would free them of missionary lobbying but would probably be inacceptable for the London and British opinion (and the CMS). But the threat is sufficient to scare Mwanga.

10In May 1894, King Mwanga was showing many signs of good will to the Catholics.7 The Protestant chiefs became suspicious, and information on Mwanga’s continued love for hemp and boys started reaching the CMS missionaries again. Here is how Roscoe describes the situation:

You will be grieved to hear the king has gone back to his old sins of smoking bhang [an idiom for hemp] and sodomy. For some time, I have feared this was the case but could not gain proof by which to tax him about it. The other week however one of his boys who is in constant attendance upon him asked for baptism and the king sanctioned his going daily to one of the teachers for instruction. After reading for 10 days the lad appeared before his teacher in great distress and told him he had been severely flogged by the king during the night and that morning had been fined a sheep and a fowl because he refused to allow the king to commit this abominable sin with him. The teacher brought the lad to me and asked advice about what was to be done. The lad wanted to leave at once and go to some chief, but we thought he could do some better work if he consented to remain in the court and steadily refuse to do evil. The lad went back for a few days and the king again tried to force him to do evil and used threats. This was more than he could stand so he fled but was again induced to return; the king however heard the whole matter of his sin was known to the Protestant chiefs and refused to have the lad back again in his house. During this time, we had been making careful enquiries and found there were some 7 boys with whom the king had been in the habit of sinning. One was a baptised Roman Catholic who was recently converted and is reading for baptism (he was baptised privately by the Roman Catholics during the war) he has left the court, a second is a baptised Protestant who has I hope been brought to acknowledge his sin. He has left court too, number three is the boy above mentioned and four others are Roman Catholics all of whom were Protestants, one a baptised boy and three reading for baptism but when we had the special mission in December [The first East African revival led by George Pilkington, CMS] they found they could not continue as they were and be Christians, they joined the Roman Catholics.8

11The leading Protestants would have been aware of King Mwanga’s continued taste for hemp and boys for a long time. The palace was filled with their friends and relatives; the king could keep few secrets. Only when it became politically instrumental did they leak the information to the missionaries.

12The way it circulated is interesting. A discontented page (probably named Batwaya) who clearly was a lover of the king is punished and becomes disgruntled. The quarrel may have been about same-sex intimacies or about something different altogether (we only have the page’s version). The fact is that the disgruntled page, badly beaten, wished to leave the palace and needed the Protestants’ support to be allowed to do so without being arrested and brought back to the king. The fear of “sodomy,” whether true or not, is an effective motive, as we saw in 1892. Initially, this affair could have been settled between the king and his Protestant chiefs without involving Roscoe (as the Christian chiefs did later in 18979). It is likely that the Protestant chiefs, sensing the king chafing under their yoke, used the missionaries to remind the king of the new balance of power, and warn him that they knew all his secrets.

13Roscoe also informs on the changing religious affiliation of King Mwanga’s page-lovers. The four Catholic ones had been Protestant six months earlier, and one of the three Protestant pages had been baptised Catholic in 1892 before changing; another had only converted to Protestantism a month earlier and the third Protestant seemed more faithful to the king than to the church.10 This religious instability among royal pages is surprising. In the 1890s, in Buganda, especially after baptism, religious affiliations were rather stable. It can be explained in part by Protestantism being forced on King Mwanga and his entourage in 1892 after the king’s defeat. The four former Protestant—now Catholic—converts are probably the ones mentioned by Monsignor Hirth in January 1894.11 We only know the name of three of them: Musoke, Daliza and Boy. Their conversion to Catholicism was a sign of goodwill from the king to the Catholic Party. Roscoe points toward the Protestant revival of December 1893 as a probable cause of the pages’ defection from Protestantism. Led by George Pilkington of the CMS, the revival manifestation led to possession-like public penance and much fervour among Protestants.12 However, why this would have discouraged the pages to remain Protestant is very unclear and even doubtful. Their departure from the Protestant Party has probably more to do with King Mwanga’s aborted return to the Catholic faith during that month.

14The conversion to Protestantism of two other of Mwanga’s pages during the spring of 1894, while the king was preparing to change back to Catholicism, is intriguing. It may have been a sign of tension between them and the king. They may have been planning on deserting the service of the king. This suggests that the disillusion of pages and their drift from King Mwanga predates the flogging and therefore was most likely not based on unwanted sexual demands.

15Roscoe continues his letter and the text show a different aspect of Mwanga:

Last week the 22nd or 23 May [missing an unreadable word] I visited the king and had a very long serious talk with him about his life. I pointed out how all his sins from childhood to the present were upon him, all the murders he had committed and every other sin and then pointed him to the Saviour; he seemed very much impressed and said he wished to become an out and out Christian and give up all these things, he also promised to put away the boys with whom he had done wrong. On the 25th as he had not sent away the boys, I wrote the following letter to try and bring him to the point: -Sir the King how are you? The other day you told me you wished to give up sin and I told you how very glad I was to hear it; at the same time, I told you how very difficult it was to do so and that nothing but the power of God could help you from returning to the old way. I told you it would be well to put away all the boys with whom you had sinned and choose others who are out and out Christians to serve you in the palace. Wada has now I am told gone to live out of the court. I now want you to put away Musoke, Daliza and Boy, to reinstate Batwaya; and place other boys in the places of the above. Another matter I wish you to do is to choose out from your wives one woman who will be your proper wife according to Christian customs. If you do these things I shall know you are really in earnest about religion, I am…. [salutations omitted by Roscoe]
The letter I am told gave him great trouble but he told the teacher whom I sent with it, he could not put away the boys, it would kill him and he would not put away his wives as it was not the custom of the Kings of Buganda. The teacher told him I would not consent to continue teaching him if he refused to put away the boys etc; he replied “well let him come”. He also sent a verbal reply by the teacher of which the above is the substance. Pilkington and I received the message and after consultation we sent word that as the king steadily refused to give up his sin I would not go again to read with him as my going would be taken by the people to mean, we permitted such things to be done by him because he was king and would be a stumbling block to others. He evidently did not think I would refuse to go because when the message reached him he wept a great deal but continues to give up the boys [sic].
The last I hear is he wants to come and see me about the matter. We all think it well to make a firm stand with him because the Roman Catholics may at any time say we cover his sins: he has been told by the Roman Catholics he can be baptized by them just before he dies, this makes him hold out a great deal because he thinks he can go on sinning until his death then be baptized and made fit at once for heaven.13

16This letter shows the typical brutal or frank CMS missionary style in dealing with and preaching to Mwanga. It is in part the result of the shift of power toward the CMS since British rule in Uganda. But the rhetorical tradition is older and it got Roscoe’s predecessors into much trouble with the king Mutesa as well as Mwanga before colonial rule. The passage shows that Mwanga’s taste for boys is only one of the stumbling blocks (Hannington, the Christian Martyrs, polygamy). What is interesting in this passage are the feelings and emotions Mwanga is said to have shown. Of course, the perception Roscoe has of Mwanga’s reactions (and vice versa) are mediated by the catechist intermediary who has his own agenda which we cannot guess. Mwanga’s negotiating, begging and crying are surprising considering he was trying to leave the Protestant Party. Politically, at the end of the month of May 1894, Mwanga is in a jam. Colvile has once again forbidden him to change back to the Catholic Party using severe threats. His departure having been aborted, he was left alone with the aggravated Protestants. Mwanga tried to soothe and make up with them, but not to the point of giving up his pages and polygamy.

17Of course, Mwanga tried to manipulate and fool the CMS missionaries to some extent, but accusing Mwanga of hypocrisy (and fickleness) has always been a way for colonial actors to ignore Mwanga’s wishes and demands. It fits the homophobic and racist stereotypes of the time and enables British missionaries or administrators to doubt the sincerity of his religious convictions and discard them despite the proclaimed religious freedom. Mwanga is quite conscious of individual missionaries’ failings and political motivations, and distinguishes between God and his servants. He has a comprehensive idea of the competing monotheism present in Uganda, and had been carefully instructed successively by Catholics, Protestants, and most likely also by Muslims. Mwanga may be struggling to figure out which faith he belongs to, but he was no longer a follower of the religion of his fathers. He believed in God, respected many rituals, and feared hell and damnation very much.

18To go back to Roscoe’s letter, after unsuccessfully and heartlessly trying to use the page Batwaya as a spy, the missionaries and their allies tried in vain to deprive the king of his favourite lovers, but Mwanga kept at least three of his page lovers around him (out of seven). To sum up, after failing to join the Catholic Party, Mwanga’s attempt in May to make peace with the Protestants did not succeed. We can actually wonder if Roscoe and Pilkington’s rigidity did not push Mwanga back to the Catholics in the following months.

19In July 1894, King Mwanga changed political tactics.14 He started by publicly announcing to his Protestant and Catholic chiefs his intention to leave the Protestant Party and join the Catholic one.15 Only then did he proceed to inform Colvile. Mwanga’s letter explaining his decision to the British High Commissioner has been preserved:

I have written this letter on purpose to remind you and tell you the truth which is in my heart. In the old days when my people drove me off of my town, I went to Usukuma [in 1888] where I saw 3 religions, Mahomedans, Protestants and Catholics [there were Muslim trader settlements, Protestant and Catholic Missions south of the lake]. I chose myself to be a Catholic and when I returned back to my city, I was still a Catholic though the Catholics were the ones making me angry [allusion to the crisis of December 1891 we have mentioned], but I stuck to my religion and not many days after, I was driven out again [religion war of 1892]. I ran away to Kiziba [across the border in German territory] where plenty of letters were sent to me by captain Lugard and the Protestants, asking me to return and that I could choose any religion I liked. When I returned all the Catholics were driven out as well as my servants. There was none left except myself, and the Protestant chiefs were coming down every day to me and forcing me to be a Protestant. When the company left then the messengers of the Queen arrived [the IBEAC, after the scandal of their management, the war of 1892, and a commission of inquiry, was replaced by the Foreign Office] and I was very glad indeed so that I was going where you were without any fear, and again I told you I wanted to return to my old religion you told me I must wait till the Unyoro expedition comes back [in December 1893] : ‘Then you can turn back to your religion.’ Again, I saw your written proclamation outside my palace in which you said that anyone could follow the religion he likes, again not many days ago I heard that [the] Queen will protect my country [declaration of the Protectorate 18th of June 1894], there will be no more fighting now and she will not go away again from the place. I was very glad in my head and rejoiced very much and told my boys [the pages] to fire guns and they fired. I have told you all which was in my heart but do not say that I want to act badly, because if I want to do so I will do it in my own place (in my house) but not to you Sir.16 And I will continue to obey you more and more, but I wish to be Catholic because I have written to Lubaga [Rubaga the Catholic Mission] (to say) that I will go there to school [catechism].
God bless you always
I am King Mwanga.17

Mwanga’s original letter in Kiswahili

20The letter was written in Kiswahili before being translated into English. Mwanga spoke Kiswahili and had some knowledge of reading and writing, but it is likely that one of his men, probably a Catholic, wrote it for him. Catholics were less literate than Protestants. The ones that had the best mastery of writing and Kiswahili were those that had chosen exile (including to flee the king’s bed) during King Mutesa’s reign, in Catholic missions south of the lake, in Bukumbi or Tabora (in current day Tanzania). A couple of years earlier it would have been a chief like Cyprien Mutagwanya or Gabriel Kintu. It may still be one of them but by 1894 Mwanga may have had more recently trained and younger men at his service sufficiently at ease in writing in Kiswahili.

21In the letter, Mwanga states his religious history since 1888 when he was chased from power. He probably did not want to dwell on the Uganda Martyrs of 1886 and Bishop Hannington’s murder in 1885.

22He passes quickly onto the fact that, in 1888, he first took refuge in a Swahili settlement and then had some hesitation about fleeing to either the Protestant mission or the Catholic one. He then recalls how he came back from exile a Catholic, had tense relations with his Catholic chiefs, was forced to convert to Protestantism after being defeated in 1892, and reminds Colvile of his promises. The issue of same-sex intimacies is not mentioned directly (a reference is only made to the failed Catholic purge of the palace in December 1891: “I was still a Catholic though the Catholics were the ones making me angry.”)

23Immediately after this letter, all sorts of accusations including accusations of violent homosexual practices reached the British authorities via the CMS and their converts (Rowe 1964c, 194). The following letter was written by Gibbs, a British officer in charge of Buganda reporting to his superior, Colvile the British commissioner. It illustrates very well the Protestant’s slander strategy:

I [Gibbs] saw the king today and explained your letter [Colvile’s letter] to him. I sent it to him yesterday and made the excuse of explaining it fully to him in order to hint at CMS and possibility of trouble. He appeared to be very grateful to you and [torn page: missing word] of us the interest we take in him and begged me to tell you.
I That he thinks there will be no row [because of Mwanga’s change of religion]
II That he wishes and is anxious to [torn page: missing word] the Queen
III That he will do his utmost please [sic]
IV and will ever be fair to RC [Roman Catholics] and P [Protestants] alike.
He laid too much stress on his anxiety to please and I do not trust him at all.
(Told me by Roscoe [CMS missionary]) The other day a boy died in great agony from the result of sodomy with the king and I hear awful stories of his behaviour. He has diseased lately a lot of his women, and is now suffering himself from an outbreak of syphilis. He has resumed bhang smoking and if I hear truth has broken out into a sodomy fit and cannot restrain his passions. Today I heard from Mr Fletcher [CMS missionary] that there are a lot of canoes waiting at Bulangugwe [Island of Bulingugwe, near the capital, Mwanga’s island fortress in 1888–1889 and 1892], that the king has already sent some of his goods and chattels down to Buddu [a large province and Catholic stronghold in western Buganda] and proposes going there himself soon.
I have also heard a rumour of the preparation in Buddu for an outbreak but whether it is to back up the King in case of a row with the Protestants or against us I cannot make out.18

24This letter is fascinating as it shows that reasonable words from Mwanga in his letter have no effect, whereas the most outrageous rumour carried by British missionaries are believed by Gibbs! It is not only a question of race; the White Fathers are not mentioned but we know they saw Gibbs on this question the 25 and 29 of July 1894 and were also ignored (and accused of bribing Mwanga).19 However, concerning the relations with the French missionaries, communication between francophone Catholic missionaries and anglophone British officials and Anglican missionaries was challenging. They mostly communicate through a mix of broken French, English, Latin, Luganda and Swahili. At least with Mwanga, proper Swahili interpreters were used on both the Baganda and the British sides. This language question led of course to many mix-ups and hindered relations and caused mistrust.

25The letter is also interesting as it exposes the path used by information. The British missionaries transmited rumours they collected among their Ganda Protestant parishioners to the British officials. Accusations of most vile actions were piled on Mwanga: plotting rebellion, smoking drugs, having syphilis, transmitting it to his wives (but not to his male lovers!), etc. The strongest accusations are about Mwanga’s love of boys. We can assume that Mwanga’s sexuality is an element at the forefront of Gibbs’ concern when he states that: “He laid too much stress on his anxiety to please and I do not trust him at all.” Gibbs claims Mwanga “has broken out into a sodomy fit and cannot restrain his passions.” But it seems to Mwanga’s enemy, “sodomy” is not enough. He is also accused of being a depraved paedophile (the pages are in their teens and in 1894 Mwanga is probably about 28) and disgusting murderer (violently sodomising to death one of his pages). During the summer of 1894 these accusations of homosexual child rape and murder are only one of many accusations put out against King Mwanga by the Protestant chiefs. However, it would have given the authorities a strong moral ground on which to depose the king, had it been considered expedient.

26Gibbs clearly lost his nerve during this crisis, but by that time, Colvile had acquired experience in Ganda politics and understood quite well the situation and the true nature of the accusations:

[July 1894] It having leaked out that he [Mwanga] wished to change his religion, I had little doubt that the Protestant chiefs had followed their old tactic, and immediately brought accusations against him (Colvile 1895*, 288–89).

27Cynically, Colvile preferred the status quo and for King Mwanga to remain a nominal Protestant. Threatened with war and deposition, Mwanga was compelled to back down once more. Colvile ignored the accusations of rape and murder against Mwanga even though they were carried by British missionaries. Colvile was not convinced of their veracity and sure enough, the Protestant chiefs and missionaries forgot all about their accusations the moment the king renounced to his change of religion.

The politics of the first Ganda anti-sodomy law (1896)

28Slowly, during the second half of the 1890s, the political divisions in Buganda evolved (Médard 2007, 499–532). Competition for power and chieftainship continued to put religious parties on opposing sides and would remain so throughout the colonial period and even beyond. But the religious antagonism hid different evolutions that united the Ganda regardless of religion. Political divisions also built up over British rule, the role of kingship etc. The tensions around nominations to chieftainships were also rife. The 1892 peace agreement had overwhelmingly favoured the Protestants, but the Roman Catholics had received a share and eventually even the Muslims had received a little land and honour. An informal alliance or truce uniting the great chiefs led by Apolo Kagwa and Stanislas Mugwanya, whatever their confession, was formed to maintain their privilege against their ambitious and less fortunate rivals. In this section, we will show how anti-sodomy laws were put into writing and enforced by the great Ganda Christian chiefs. Their aim was to muzzle opposition, and neutralise Mwanga and his political scheming to get back part of his previous power and prestige.

29Division inside the religious parties and growing dissatisfaction with colonial rule favoured King Mwanga who tried to unite the growing majority of the dissatisfied. His attempt to change party allegiance systematically countered, King Mwanga changed strategies again. James Miti, in his memoirs, recalls what was going on in the royal enclosure:

[In late 1895] With the number of the king’s courtiers increasing daily and with the king himself becoming more and more fond of pleasure, the enclosure soon became a place of promiscuous [one undecipherable word] king, with the result that the vice of intemperance begot other worse vices. The king’s men were even suspected of sins against nature, such as sodomy although it was difficult to prove it. […] Drinking, feasting, and making merry was the order of the day.20

30A Victorian logic can be found in this Protestant Ganda writing. Alcohol, like marijuana, is believed to deprive people of their self-control and to encourage promiscuity and even sins against nature. It is interesting to note that in James Miti’s text, alcohol had replaced Indian hemp as a major sin.

31In December 1896, the leading Christian chiefs reacted and chased the young men from the palace. Kagwa, Mugwanya and their close allies were only in part motivated by the enforcement of morality. The main reason that explains the purge of the palace had little to do with King Mwanga’s drug, alcohol or sex habits. Mwanga had been gathering followers among young boys and men and organising an army. Feasting and drinking were key elements in the process of gathering followers. In 1896, the king had become too powerful for the Christian chiefs to act on their own as the Catholics had attempted in December 1891. Both religious parties were deeply fractured on their leadership, their relation to the king and the British. Through 1896, the increasingly contested leaders of the parties attempted to incite the British to move in and put an end to King Mwanga’s political and military build-up. George Wilson, the British (actually Australian) administrator of Buganda, was not very politically astute, as the succession of blunders along his career suggest.21 Instead of seeing the leading Christian chiefs and their missionary protectors as the pillars of British rule, he saw their influence as rivalling his own. He had little sympathy for bigots.22 He kept a couple of African mistresses and enjoyed drinking extensively.23 The administration kept a deft ear to the suggestions of their Ganda Christian allies about Mwanga’s plotting.

32The growingly apprehensive Christian chiefs found an opportunity to act when the king was caught red-handed selling contraband ivory in German territory. British authorities were outraged by the king’s fraud. Moral issues and the purge of the court of its “wicked” pages were included by the Christian chiefs in the British retaliatory measures to reign in the king. James Miti gives us a long description of these events:

[Mwanga is tried for contraband by the British administration] The second accusation against Mwanga was that he kept in enclosure pages men of bad character, drunkards, scoundrels of the lowest type, notorious for their disobedience to and disregard for the king’s ministers as also for offences against nature (sodomy). […] The king now angered beyond words, replied to the second in charge by asking whether his accusers (chiefs) also did not drink beer in their homes and whether they did not drink it together with their servants and friends. And as to his courtiers’ alleged shameful practices and disregard of all authority and contempt of the ministers and other chiefs, as far as he Mwanga was aware, there had never been any case or cases of that nature brought either before him or to his notice by any of his chiefs. He would certainly have dealt most severely with such offences, if any had been complained of by his chiefs or other class of people in the country. But concluded the king, it was a matter of great surprise to him that his own ministers and other chiefs should report to Her Majesty’s Government things which they had never seen themselves nor for which they had any proof. Mwanga was also greatly disappointed in Her Majesty’s Government seeing that she was over credulous and acted upon mere hearsay. […] [the trial is dismissed for consultation].

33It is interesting that disrespect to the chiefs and “sodomy” are put on the same level. As usual, a mismatch of very varied accusations was put together by Mwanga’s enemies to convince the British to act against him. A long list of misdeeds was assembled to destabilise the king. Most of them instrumentalised recurrent tensions. Pages being accused of being “notorious for their disobedience to and disregard for the king’s ministers,” is a recurrent accusation against royal pages, it was structural to the system. Their low status but proximity with the king clashed with the great chiefs’ high status but greater distance from the king. On missions from the king, these young boys behaved in a highhanded manner and made many enemies. Insufficiently fed in the palace, pages often committed thefts (mostly to eat and feast on goats). It was cyclical; chiefs complained, the pages were reigned in and disciplined, and later they began again. Same-sex intimacies had always been common among the pages. There was nothing specific in these accusations in 1896 that justified reaction. The real motives were not spelled out. It was to prevent Mwanga from gathering a large armed following and deprive him of his main autonomous patronage tools (feasts with meat and banana beer).

34Mwanga’s answers are twofold and logical. Firstly, why did his chief complain about his household matters to the British instead of to him (the normal procedure formally)? And secondly, he defended a man’s right to rule his own household and to hold feasts and parties. James Miti continues:

Not wishing to have the matter settled without the knowledge of the ministers, Wilson summoned Apollo, Mugwanya and Kisingiri before him in the month of December (1896) and after informing them of the king’s reply to the various charges brought against him, he asked what they considered as the best means for keeping their king away from bad company and for restoring the old connection and cooperation between the king and his people.
The ministers suggested expulsion of all the king’s pages and courtiers and their replacement by a fresh lot of better class, chosen or approved of by themselves.
But as to the king’s alleged debauchery, Her Majesty’s representative was of opinion that the ministers and other chiefs were equally to blame in this regard for drums and other signs of excessive beer drinking were often heard almost all around Mengo and Kampala. But that he left entirely in their own hands to take what steps they considered proper and adequate for the settlement of the matter at issue.
[…] At 2pm [5 Dec. 1896], the Prime Minister delivered the following message to the king: -Sir, Her Majesty’s Government and ourselves have decided, after deep consideration, that Your Majesty’s palace should be rid of the present crowd of servants, courtiers and other royal attendants in Your Majesty’s service or at least most of them and that a new and better type of men should be engaged in their place. The reasons that have led to our decision are none other than the corruption and spirit of insubordination which are so much manifest in Your Majesty’s servants and which, we fear, may in time affect Your Majesty’s private life badly and have disastrous effects upon your kingdom.24

35Miti’s text makes clear that the idea of the court purge came from the important Christian chiefs. Wilson had rather a Pontius Pilate position. His interest was in fining the king for contraband and reigning him in. In essence, he told the chief that their accusations were not convincing but they may do as they see fit. It is quite clear that the question of “sodomy” was added by the Christian chiefs to convince the colonial authorities to disband the pages. Kagwa’s version of the events, compared to Miti’s, illustrates his manipulative strategies very well:

We went to the Kabaka and conveyed the full text of what we had been told [by the British authorities]: the Kabaka replied as follows: “I have understood them all,” but objected to the suggestion of expelling his pages from the Lubiri and said; “I will be prepared to pay anything which the European may impose on me to save the expulsion of my favorite pages from the Lubiri. After conferring with him, we went back to Kampala where Mr Tayali [Wilson] was with his colleagues; and upon our reporting what had transpired with the Kabaka, they suggested summoning all chiefs to the Lukiko [chief assembly] when the whole issue should be discussed. That very night the chiefs were summoned who were: -Apolo Kagwa Katikiro, Stanislas Mugwanya Katikiro, Alikisi Sebowa Pokino, Zakaliya Kizito Kangawo, Yona Waswa Mukwenda, Paulo Bakunga Kago, Mususala Kibude Sekibobo, Mususala Kamya Sekyoya, Daudi Sebowa Omubito, Sepiriya Mutagwanya Luwekula, Tefiro Kisosonkole Omusalosalo, Sitefano Kyakwambala Bulusi and others. When all these arrived to answer the call, they were asked as follows: -the Kabaka has objected to the government suggestion of removing pages from the Lubiri saying, “I will not remove my pages from the Lubiri. What have you got to say to that yourselves? Should they be removed or not?” We then replied to the questionnaire that we were all satisfied that they should be removed from the Lubiri. We were afraid for the government doing whatever it pleased which we suspected was likely to be declared by the Europeans had we sided with the Kabaka and disputed the government’s suggested action. We discussed these matters from 7 p.m. in the evening up to 5 o’clock a.m. and all the chiefs were satisfied there was justification to remove the pages from the Lubiri that were ruining the Kabaka.25

36Apolo Kagwa, the Protestant Prime Minister, excelled at pushing his own decisions on to both the British and the Ganda authorities in this manner. On the one hand, he could convince the British administrators that an action was the will of the Ganda people and in accordance with “tradition.” On the other hand, to Ganda chiefs, the king and their followers, Kagwa implied that his own unpopular decisions were imposed by the British and that the Ganda had no alternative than to submit and, in this case, expel the pages.

37Mwanga is unanimously described as distraught at the idea of losing his pages and was described as desperately begging to keep his favourite boys. Walker from the CMS wrote the following words with contempt:

The chiefs say that the boys Mwanga has about him make a fool of him. Mwanga says he will submit to anything but will not allow his boys to be taken from him.26

38In the Rubaga Diary, Streicher, the-soon-to-be White Father bishop, is even more ironic:

As to sending away his pages, never! I’d rather die! Better to be bound by my hands and feet! Tie me! Screams this monster of depravity, kill me, but do not take away my pages from me. They are dearer to me than my kingdom, dearer than my life! Never had a threatened passion uttered such heart-breaking cries! The two humiliated ministers [Apolo Kagwa and Stanislas Mugwanya] carry the answer of their master to Kampala. […]
[The next day Mwanga goes to Kampala fort. The Protestant Kangawo Kinsigiri (future regent) accompanying the king is the source] ‘Bwana [Kiswahili for sir, here George Wilson a British administrator], I will give you 200 frasila [weight of ivory] or even more but leave me my pages! I love them more than my throne more than my life’ […] Oh Lord! What pit of corruption that King Mwanga! It’s no surprise that the Good Lord would punish him for his indecencies and that the disgrace he soils himself with daily brought on him the disdain of all the Christians, Catholics and Protestants of his kingdom.27

39Mwanga is showed with all the stereotypical effeminate attributes of a homosexual: crying, superficial, ridiculous and without dignity. This presentation implies a king unfit to rule. Mwanga is said to prefer satisfying his lust and his passions rather than fulfilling his royal function. It is hard to tell if Mwanga behaved in such a way. Neither of the missionaries were present (though their sources were different). However, Mwanga undoubtably wanted to keep his pages. The very high ivory fine for contraband he received was bad enough, but the burden was going to weigh on the kingdom’s taxpayer and indirectly on the Christian chiefs. The meddling with his personal entourage affected Mwanga more personally. Of course, the king had close love, affection and friendship ties with some of his pages. The chiefs were proposing to tear his closest and most trusted confidants away from him. But the purge of the palace was more than that. The purge made Mwanga lose face; he could not protect, not to mention favour, his friends and faithful servants. He could not rule his own house. The last remnants of his patronage power were being taken away from him. His former loyal pages were being changed for new ones, spies loyal to the great Christian chiefs. Mwanga feared for his safety, his faithful guards were being replaced by those he needed protection from.

40Apolo Kagwa then cleverly made use of Mwanga’s protestations (and ignorance). In December 1896, he cynically blackmailed and tricked the distraught king. Kagwa allowed the begging Mwanga to keep a handful of pages in exchange for his signature on a new law making “evil practices” unlawful:

They [Kagwa and the chiefs] would demand him [Mwanga] to enter an agreement with them and sign it in regard to the observance of proper order and good conduct in among the king’s servants in the palace.
The following is a translation of King Mwanga’s agreement with his ministers and chiefs, as drafted and prepared by chief Zakaria Kizito Kisingiri [important Protestant chief, future co-regent]:-
Whereas the evil brought about by the bad conduct of His Majesty’s royal pages, courtiers, and other servants and by other shameful practices upon His Majesty’s Government and have thus caused disturbance in the country, it is now hereby resolved that all such pages, courtiers and other servants in his Majesty’s service be expelled from their work and from the palace forthwith and how better servants be engaged in their place. And that from now on, with His Majesty’s approval and cooperation all cases of shameful conduct condemned by either Christian religious sect shall be most severally dealt with, as such evil practices, bring shame upon our nation and are forbidden by law. That His Majesty the King of Buganda has also approved of the resolution and as a most fitting and adequate means for the maintenance of order in the country and as the unanimous decision has been made for the preservation of His Majesty’s own life as also for the welfare of his Kingdom.
Sd/ Mwanga Basammula, King of Buganda
“ Apolo Kagwa, Prime Minister
“ Stanislas Mugwanya, Minister
“ Alexis Sebowa, county chief (Pokino) of Buddu
“ Paul [Nsubuga Bakunga], Kaggo
“ Zakaria Kizito Kinsingiri
and the whole court of Buganda Kingdom.28

41The law is vaguely phrased, which is bad in technical terms but common enough. The summary of the law written by the White Fathers in their diary was clear and to the point:

“Both Katikiros [Apolo Kagwa and Stanislas Mugwanya] pushing the advantage obtained over the king with their successes of the previous days, invite Mwanga to sign an act that stipulates that any man convinced of sodomy will be arrested and put in irons. The king signs.”29

42The White Fathers made it clear, “shameful” or “evil” acts mentioned in the law were understood at the time as referring to “sodomy.” This law is interesting as, contrary to common belief, it shows anti-sodomy laws in Buganda do not stem from British initiative. Buganda was a protectorate and was mostly still governed by its own law in 1896. Since 1894, when British direct rule was officially ratified, Indian colonial laws were applicable to a limited extent in Buganda, but it took a while for the colonial administration to settle down and it was only in 1902 that coherent colonial laws were formalised and settled in Uganda. Only then did British laws (modelled from Section 377 of the Indian penal code of 1862 and finally after 1930, from the Queensland 1899 criminal code) “against the order of nature” become applicable.30 The Christian chiefs probably did not know about the Indian penal code, but some of the leaders closest to the British missionary were probably aware of the Labouchere Amendment of 1885. Missionary influence in this matter was only indirect (the Catholic missionaries supported the law, but in France “sodomy” was no longer a crime from 1791 and the French Revolution). The British administration was not consulted, though they were obviously informed once the law was signed. Unfortunately, we do not know their reaction.

43The written and signed form of the law raises intriguing questions. Why did Christian chiefs go to so much trouble to write the text down and force the reluctant king to sign it? This text was not taken in the usual manner in the full assembly. The council neither met in to the royal enclosure in Mengo nor in the British one in Kampala. It was taken to the assembly hall of the Prime Minister, Apolo Kagwa. The king had to beg admission into the Prime Minister’s enclosure where the chiefs had gathered. This clearly proclaimed where the new power was.

44This law also shows the growing literacy of Ganda chiefs since Zakaria Kizito Kinsingiri was the scribe. Previously, royal decisions were usually made during the meeting of the Lukiko (chief assembly) and proclaimed orally. In the 1890s, written laws and agreements became more common. From 1894 onwards, minutes of the Lukiko meeting started to be taken but most of the early documents have been lost.31 Written laws were mostly designed to regulate relations between the Kingdom of Buganda and the Protectorate authorities. In December 1896, even though the king had been stripped of all his power, a law had to be signed by the king and the Lukiko chiefs in order to be recognised by the British. Ganda chiefs aptly used legal formalism and borrowed from British legal traditions. It enabled the chiefs’ decisions to be less contested or ignored by the colonial authorities. In this case this was crucial since the Protectorate authorities, as we suggest, were not pushing for this anti-sodomy law. By putting this text in writing, Apolo Kagwa was also making sure King Mwanga did not later renege on his promises, as he had attempted in several previous instances.

45The evolution of the White Fathers’ opinion as it is reflected across the month of December in their mission diary is very illuminating on this matter. Henri Streicher, soon to be bishop, probably held the journal during that month. Initially the comments are hostile and harsh concerning George Wilson and the British administration’s decisions in reprisal for King Mwanga’s contraband.32 They are patronising and depreciative concerning Mwanga (as they always are) but not without sympathy for the king’s plight. Later, they are briefed by Stanislas Mugwanya and the question of “sodomy” is introduced into the debate. The Catholic missionaries then fully support the reforms and violently mock the king’s defence of his page-lovers in their journal.33 The law brings forward a general reconciliation between the leaders of the religious parties, the missionaries of both confessions, and the British administration. This is very well reflected in their social life with the sudden multiplication of dinners and visits.34

46Following this decision, several hundred pages were disbanded. This is how the Roman Catholic Bishop Hanlon describes the event:

Some 400 of them [royal pages] were taken from the king as part of his sentence [for contraband], a great blessing in many respects—not least is that he was in terms of ignominious intimacy with them. It is to be hoped that these degraded youths will not spread this most horrid infection as they have been dispersed throughout the country. The forced Bible reading to which the king has had to submit for so many years does not seem to have cured him of awful and unnatural weaknesses.35

47It is revealing that the Mill Hill mission’s British Catholic Bishop H. Hanlon fearing “contagion” was not fully convinced that disbanding the pages was the safest solution to put an end to these “sinful” practices. It is likely that the public opinion in Buganda was much more outraged by the decision to chase the royal pages than Kagwa or the missionaries allowed.36 Actually, the very unusual nightly hours and the length of the debates among the chiefs (all night) as to whether Mwanga should be deprived of his pages and Kagwa’s insistence of the chief’s unanimity is in itself suspect:

We were all satisfied that they should be removed from the Lubiri.
We discussed these matters from 7 p.m. in the evening up to 5 o’clock a.m. and all the chiefs were satisfied there was justification to remove the pages from the Lubiri that were ruining the Kabaka).37

48The meeting was furthermore, as we have mentioned, strange as it was not held in one of the usual places but in Apolo Kagwa’s enclosure and the king had to beg for admittance!38

49All this shows that even the Christian chiefs were hard to convince. Pioneering Ugandan historian Semakula Kiwanuka is more precise. He argues that only the major chiefs supported the expulsion of the royal pages. Lesser chiefs and the population were deeply shocked by this action. Kiwanuka claims however that the accusation of “sodomy” was a clever move that silenced the protest since all the Baganda, whether Christian or not, disapproved of such practices.39 The last point I suspect is more reflective of the anachronistic feelings of the Ganda historian than historical evidence. John Rowe has also insisted on Kagwa’s cynical use of the king’s sexual preference in this crisis.40 Kagwa, Mugwanya and their friends simultaneously (orally) allowed the king to keep his lovers close to him and (in writing) formally made “sodomy” illegal. Kagwa was not trying to make King Mwanga into a virtuous Christian man. He was planning for Mwanga to relapse and to use that against him.

50It did not take long before Kagwa chose to use his new weapon. Six months later, Kagwa was already attempting to terrorise Mwanga into submission with it. Early in July 1897, he sent the following message to the king:

I have heard that you have returned boys who had been expelled from the palace. If the Bazungu (Europeans) hear of it, it will be new shame because your palace now is in the hands of Europeans. Do not return boys who were expelled from Lubiri.41

51This letter was famous at the time and much discussed. King Mwanga complained throughout the following years that Kagwa threatened and insulted him, and that the letter was the reason for his deserting the capital and the rebellion that followed.42 Ham Mukasa wrote several pages trying to convince us that the letter was misread by wicked pages to Mwanga. However, we know by Roscoe who taught him that King Mwanga could read fluently enough.43 Kagwa gives us his version defensively:

On the morning of 6th of July 1897, Kabaka Mwanga rebelled from Buganda and departed for Budu. […] We did not know at first the reason why he had decided to do so but learnt of one later. His pages happened to tell him that as Mugwanya had returned [from war], there was a plan to invade the Lubiri and a search made for all the pages who had illegally stayed behind. They further told him lies when they reported to him that Apolo had paid a visit to Mugwanya to discuss the question of expelling pages from the Lubiri. They confirmed their story by saying: “do not dispute what we tell you is the truth—and the cause is due to the fact that five of the pages who are Mwanjale, Bakuba, Byalo, Ntate and Alubato, caught a little boy by name of Lule and committed unnatural indecent assault with him. He fled from the Lubiri [royal enclosure] and reported them to Mugwanya: “those who committed this homosexuality with him by force, will be removed.” Upon hearing this he said, “If they remove them, I will most certainly be killed.44

52Kagwa describes a common occurrence in the royal enclosure: older pages catching a younger new page and collectively raping him. The victim, Lule, is probably a new page sent by Catholic chiefs to replace the ones that had been expelled in December or January. Some of the perpetrators had probably managed to stay inspite of the purge (some experienced and older pages had to be kept to train the newcomers). Joseph Mwanjale was one the pages Mwanga had successfully begged to keep in December. He was one of Mwanga’s dearest and most faithful favourites. In July 1897, he was among the small following that accompanied Mwanga in his flight from the capital and in rebellion. He was captured with the king and stayed with him until his death in exile.45 What is interesting is that Lule, the young page, went to Mugwanya to complain and not to Mwanga or one of the palace chiefs. This really shows the shift in power in the royal enclosure towards the Christian chiefs. However, Kagwa stops short of accusing Mwanga of the crime of “sodomy.” He even denies that he and Mugwanya planned to purge the palace once again. This is because he is trying to avoid the blame for causing the flight and rebellion of Mwanga (or at least to deflect it onto Mugwanya). It suits him to accuse the king of having rebelled on a whim, listening to wrong advice, and without cause or provocation.

53To understand Kagwa’s letter, the judicial and political context must be explained. In 1896–1897, British rule was settling down in Buganda. It was increasingly interfering in the kingdom’s judicial system. The Ganda people found it unpredictable and had trouble making any sense of the British laws. Their sentences seemed to be harsh for insignificant crimes and lenient for terrible misdeeds, in other words arbitrary. A series of important men (for example the King of Toro, a western kingdom and staunch ally of the British and Protestants, or a very close friend of King Mwanga his personal envoy in Busoga) had been harshly and shamefully dealt with by the British authorities. British officials seemed to take no heed to status. After Kagwa’s letter, the chain gang46 and degrading punishments seemed to Mwanga a very possible conclusion to his reign.

54Apolo Kagwa, the Prime Minister, was the actual ruler of Buganda from 1892. With the assistance of his Protestant missionary friends, he understood, better than most, the British justice system and its logic. He skilfully manipulated others’ ignorance to eliminate his rivals or to terrorise and threaten them.

55Roscoe may have been right to write that, had he been in Uganda, he may have prevented the rebellion. In the absence of Roscoe, no person trusted by King Mwanga was available to the give the king independent advice on British justice (Roscoe 1921*, 116).

56Of course, sexuality was only a pretext. The real issues were political. Doubtlessly King Mwanga (and major chiefs like Gabriel Kintu and John Waswa and many more discontented Baganda) were plotting against the religious party leaders Kagwa and Mugwanya. Whether Mwanga was plotting against the British is less clear, though intense hatred of foreign domination and colonial rule was widespread (Médard 2007, 534–36). The confusion between rejecting Kagwa and rebelling against the British may well have been the fruit of a manipulation from the leading Protestant and his allies. Fearing colonial punishment, Mwanga choose to flee from the royal capital in July 1897 and lead a bloody “rebellion” against the British from 1897 to 1899.

57Immediately after the king left the capital in 1897, Protestant leaders accused him of choosing to sin with his pages, rather than taking on his responsibilities as a ruler.47 This insistence was part of a propaganda war opposing King Mwanga and his chief minister (Katikiro). Resistance to colonial rule in Buganda and more widely in the Great Lakes Kingdoms of East Africa rested on numerous grievances, the repression of same-sex intimacies was a very minor one. These debates about King Mwanga’s sexual preferences were lost on the people living far from the court. They followed en masse their king when he decided to resist his Katikiro and their British protectors.48

58Mwanga was captured two years later and exiled, first to Somalia and then to the Seychelles. His son Daudi Cwa, an infant, became king. Royal sexuality ceased to be a political issue until the child king reached puberty. At any rate, after the exile of Mwanga and with the 1896 anti-sodomy law, the Christian Ganda administration had the legal tools to suppress same-sex intimacies if it saw fit. After 1900, same-sex intimacies ceased to be a political or even a social issue in Uganda until the AIDS epidemic and its contemporary political aftermath (Doyle 2021, 34–37).

Homophobia?

59Before even ascending to the throne, Mwanga adhered to the new religious’ ideas, at least to the extent of fearing hell and God’s justice.49 His sexual preferences went against his new religious morals and political interests, which put a lot of pressure on him to change his ways. Roscoe’s quote illustrates how much psychological pressure he was going through (Musisi 202, 128).

There was, however, much good feeling and even tenderness in his [Mwanga’s] character when he could be kept from his bad habits and was free from evil influences. Whenever he fell into habits of vice, he would give way to terrible passions being unable to restrain his lust towards his page boys. Afterwards he would suffer torture mentally and physically and be more like an irresponsible person than a sane man. He struggled feebly against these passions and was always most grateful for any help or sympathy. It was during one of these falls at a time when I was absent from the country that he fled from Mengo his capital and revolted against the British. This cost him his throne, for he was captured while still in open revolt, and was deported to the Seychelles, where he died. After his capture it was pathetic to hear him say sadly: “Ah Roscoe, if only you had been there, I should not have revolted, but someone told me that I was going to be imprisoned.” (Roscoe 1921*, 115–16)

60Of course, King Mwanga was conscious of how same-sex desire made it difficult for him to attain his political objectives. Incapable of changing the way he was, he also failed to hide it.

61Without denunciations from locals, Europeans were left deaf and blind to the matter. Missionaries were totally ignorant of their converts’ private lives. Later, disgruntled spouses would be a major source of information for the church, but in the 1890s the major source of information for Europeans was the slandering of political rivals. King Mwanga was too much of a public figure and had too many enemies to keep his private life secret.50

62Strangely, especially considering the claims about the symbiosis of homosexual practices and Islam in Buganda, King Mwanga did not seem to consider the Muslim Party an option. He flirted from time to time with Islam before 1888 but it never lasted. After the religious wars of 1888–1893, he had little sympathy left for Islam. As his father before him, he strongly rejected circumcision.51 Another perhaps even more important element in the 1890s, was the leadership on the Muslim Party of his uncle and rival to the throne, the Muslim Nuhu Mbogo. In 1898, most of the Muslims joined the anti-British rebellion led by Mwanga, but his uncle stayed loyal to Great Britain. Mwanga got closer to the Muslims, ordered some of his pages to be circumcised but he did not convert himself (Wright 1971, 179–80).

63How widespread was homophobia? Clearly King Mwanga’s passion for boys made it difficult for him to build a personal relation of trust and alliance with Europeans. Mwanga’s sexual preferences plagued his relationship with some Europeans.52 Most British officers looked at the king with disdain and disgust as a repulsive, effeminate, fickle “sodomite” (and as the murderer of CMS Bishop Hannington in 1885). Frederick Lugard put it thus in the early 1890s:

I detest both having him [Mwanga] here [Kampala, the IBEAC fort], or going to him. I have never made blood-brotherhood with him. We are on the best of terms, but he is a murderer, and a public and open Sodomite—a mean despicable brute, and a notorious coward. (Lugard 1959*, vol. 3, 234)

64By refusing blood brotherhood, which Lugard seldom did, he was preventing trust between him and King Mwanga, and making sure the allies of the IBEAC, and later the British Protectorate, would not be the king but some of his chiefs.

65Another illustration can be found in Captain James Ronald Leslie Macdonald’s report on the causes of the War of 1892 (that opposed Protestants supported by the IBEAC and Catholics supporting the king). Mwanga’s character, linked explicitly to his homosexuality, is listed among the first causes of the war:

The character of Mwanga, king of Uganda has already been described. He was a weak and irresolute bully, whose main trait was his personal cowardice. His cruelty and injustice had already cost him his throne once, and hence he developed an intense mistrust and suspicion of anything he could construe into a possible danger. His personal fear of consequences to himself of the unwarranted murder of Bishop Hannington rendered him still more suspicious of the British Agents, while his knowledge of the new forces that were developing in his kingdom made him fear and open rupture with the British company. All this combined to make his actions still more vacillating. To such an extent at times as to cause Capt. Lugard to doubt his sanity. Of Mwanga’s moral character little need be said as his vices are notorious.53

66Mwanga’s taste for boys made him a weak and unreliable ally in the British understanding, and a perfect scapegoat for the difficulties they encountered in their imperial endeavour.

67King Mwanga did develop special relations with the pioneer missionary Father Lourdel, but the priest died in 1890. He had a great friendship with Charles Stokes, but the former CMS missionary turned trader had terrible conflicts with the IBEAC and was hanged by the brutal and out of control Congo Free State soldiers in 1895. King Mwanga built a relation in 1890 with the German imperial adventurer Karl Peters. He also became blood brother with a couple of German officials in 1891 and 1892, but Buganda was given to Great Britain.54 John Roscoe is the only CMS missionary to have entertained cordial relations with the king, but his loyalty to Kagwa far surpassed any of his feeling for the king.55 So, it is not that homophobic feeling among Europeans completly barred him from building relations with them, but it reduced the number of people he could count on and more importantly by favouring French Catholics or imperial Germans, he clearly did not choose the winning side.

68In early colonial Uganda, missionaries were key to the chiefs’ political survival. Without their help and advice, it was difficult for Africans to make any sense of colonial rules and legislation. When they, unavoidably, got into trouble with the authorities, missionaries were effective in pleading for pardon. Without missionary assistance leaders were too vulnerable to their enemies’ slander and British whimsical tyranny.

69This made it difficult for King Mwanga to take the lead in the local political game dominated by the rival Protestant and Catholic parties. The role of missionaries in political survival saw the most religious and bigoted factions, the closest to European missionaries, gain the upper hand and the highest positions inside both Christian religious parties. King Mwanga’s supporters and allies inside the parties were on the losing side. Mwanga’s downfall in 1897 can be explained by his lack of missionary support and his inability to build a strong relation with his British overlord. Mwanga’s passion for boys and the British moral condemnation of it played a major role in this failure.

70The British commissioner, Harry Johnston, who arrived in Buganda in December 1899, shortly after Mwanga’s capture and exile also insist that Mwanga’s sexuality made him unfit to rule but in a different manner. He wrote:

Perhaps he [Mwanga] might still have been king had not his vicious propensities taken a turn which disgusted even his negro people, and made them fear that his precept and example spreading widely among the imitative subjects might result in the disappearance in time of the Uganda race. (Johnston 1902*, vol. II 685)

71Politically, King Mwanga was not abandoned by his people as Johnston suggests, as it was the British forces that deposed Mwanga. Their local supporters were only a handful. The vast majority of the population was, initially at least, actively or silently behind their king. Johnston’s demographic logics are more challenging. They could reflect his ethnocentric fears built around the common stereotype of the “dying tribe” or “disappearing race,” rather than the Ganda fears, but on the other hand this conception is common in Uganda today and in many parts of Africa.56 As late as April 2023, President Museveni was even quoted by Ugandan official media declaring:

Africa should provide the lead to save the world from this [homosexuality] degeneration and decadence which is really very dangerous for humanity. If people of opposite sex stop appreciating one another then how will the human race be propagated?57

72A bizarre declaration, as if the only factor retaining humans from exclusively having same-sex intimacies was its proscription. Though these ideas are probably anachronistic, we cannot absolutely exclude that they have older roots. Between the 1850s and the 1920s, Buganda was suffering from a frightful population decline (Doyle 2006, 31–138). In old Buganda’s understanding, it was clearly a sign of the king failing in his ritual duties of maintaining the fertility of the kingdom. This would ideologically justify his downfall. The failure to curb the demographic crisis is one of the reasons that pushed King Mutesa to look towards Islam and Christianity, and give up this responsibility to God (Médard 2007, 370–71).

73Furthermore, the king personified the realm. Mutesa (1856–1884) is usually described by both Ganda and European sources as a powerful, manly heterosexual king and his son and successor, Mwanga (1884–1899) as a weak, homosexual ruler addicted to Indian hemp. However, there was not much difference in their sexual behaviour. They both had male and female sexual partners (we have no information on earlier kings). However, according to Kagwa’s count, King Mutesa fathered almost 100 children, his father Suna more than 200. For King Mwanga, he only names ten children.58

74This was mostly the consequence of his shorter and troubled reign. His harem was dispersed on three occasions (1888, 1892, 1897), and his brother Kalema executed all of Mwanga’s children in 1889. Even considering these circumstances, ten was not many offspring, considering the number of children polygamy can bear to one man. A century earlier, the mother of King Junju (c.1790–c.1800) is quoted by Kagwa as calling her son “barren” for begetting only two children.59 Monsignor Hanlon’s comments are also interesting. Starting from 1896, it was the Mill Hill Fathers and no longer the White Fathers, who oversaw the Catholic royal wives and pages in the capital. He noted that not only did King Mwanga have few children, but they were weak and most died young:

As to Mwanga’s son, Daudi Cwa, it is not expected that he will live long; all Mwanga’s children have died young, his private life depriving his offspring of the necessary vitality. He has had two daughters and two sons. The girls lived to be 5 and 6 years old respectively and the first boy died when 6 months old.60

75Hanlon explains this failing to King Mwanga’s homosexuality and multiple partners that would have dilapidated his reproductive strength. Monsignor Hanlon even doubted that Mwanga was capable of fathering and suggested the children may not be Mwanga’s.61 He supported the rights to the throne of Mwanga’s Catholic nephews when Mwanga was deposed by the British in 1897. Hanlon unsuccessfully challenged the choice of Daudi Cwa, the Protestant infant son of Mwanga, as heir to the throne, by going as far as putting his paternity in doubt.

76How close these European ideas and the Ganda conception around homosexuality and fertility were, is hard to say. They both shared the feeling that the small number of children born to King Mwanga was a royal failure and dangerous for the country, but did the Baganda link this lack of fertility to homosexuality? Was this enough to feed a popular sense of homophobia in Buganda? We cannot be sure.

77Was homophobia only a preoccupation of the elite and foreigners? How common homophobia was among the wider Ganda public is hard to answer.62 Robert Felkins, an early medical missionary from the CMS, claimed:

Unnatural offences, which have been introduced by the Arabs, are intensely abhorred; they are happily of rare occurrence; the stake is the punishment. (Felkin 1886*, 723)

78Felkin’s writings are not always trustworthy; he is known to have been quite creative… The stake looks suspiciously like a Western stereotype and he is the only one to mention it. But forms of homophobia are so common across the world that the rest of his description cannot be discarded offhand. A later colonial French missionary also claimed that “even the most sexually vicious Baganda were astounded” by the Arabs’ practice of “sodomy.”63 Father Modeste Raux’s long experience of Buganda must be acknowledged, but he arrived in Uganda much later, during the first decades of the 20th century, half a century after the first coastal traders had reached the kingdom. It is more likely in both cases that these elements are a Western intellectual racist construct built around the assumed innocence and simplicity of “primitives” living close to nature, rather than on observation.64

79Around the year 1800, a taunt made by the Queen Mother (Namasole) Nanteza to her son Prince Semakokiro told by Kagwa could be understood as an early trace of homophobia. She called him to overthrow King Junju (c.1790–c.1800) with the help of the warriors she had sent him or, “if you are a woman, get married to these men” (“nti Oba oli mukasi, kale fumbirwa abasaja babo”).65 By marrying these warriors, Junju would become a woman which is the opposite of what we described later in the 19th century. This inversion is easy to understand. The Queen Mother was mockingly suggesting Semakokiro would take the female role in marriage and not the male one. If he were a real man and true royal, he would fight King Junju, his brother, and not submit to him. Of course, Semakokiro chose war. David Schoenbrun notes the translation could as much be “if you are a commoner” as “if you are a woman” (Schoenbrun 2021, 310). This anecdote mostly points towards the historical depth of Ganda gender categories. It calls more on Semakokiro to stand up to his princely status than it points to misogyny or homophobia.

80Before Islam and Christianity, homophobia could not make any sense, since men having sex with men was not understood in that way. It was understood as men having sex with women and therefore it was normative. This naturally does not mean that everyone practised or relished same-sex intimacies, only that they were not a distinctive sexual category. Later sources show a rise of homophobia in Buganda in the 1880s and 1890s, but this feeling was far from universal. In the 1880s, same-sex intimacies were widely accepted at the court and in the capital though many unwilling participants resented it. Though it has been suggested that more conservative older and rural folks frowned upon it, it is really impossible to say what the perception was outside the capital (Mukasa 1904*, 176).

81Jean Sanda, a former page, testified that before 1886 King Mwanga was ashamed:

The young Christians he [Mwanga] wished to do wicked things with, were making him ashamed when they refused to accept. This is how they became a weight for him and that is why he started hating them.
When he had finished killing those Christians, the king must have thought this: “From now on I am saved, I do not have to worry!” Indeed, before he had killed the Christians, he practiced sodomy like a thief (hidden) because he feared those Christians. But once he had them put to death, he practiced sodomy publicly, nothing withholding him at all.
Everything I have just said while answering this inquiry, I have seen it and I know it because I lived a long time with this Mwanga, and I know many of his habits.66

82Mwanga had to “practice sodomy as a thief,” in other words hidden, and it was only after killing the Christians that he could “practice sodomy publicly.” However, it seems he was ashamed because of peer pressure from his fellow Christian companions, and not because of wider public social pressure. It must be remembered that before becoming king, Mwanga had belonged to the same group of young Christian sympathisers that he eventually persecuted in 1886.67 Previously, King Mutesa had publicly displayed without shame his favourites pages.68

83Ham Mukasa is very interesting on this topic; however, his writings are somewhat contradictory. As we mentioned previously, his parents had advised him, before he was 12, against same-sex intimacies, saying that he would die if he did not listen to their advice (Mukasa 1904*, 176). This could reflect that in the 19th century, in rural areas in Buganda these practices were looked upon as sacrilegious. However, it could also not have been a condemnation of same-sex intimacies as such, but rather a way of scaring children from doing adult activities. Ham Mukasa is quite clear he did not follow his parents’ advice. Later, he does seem to have been reluctant to engage in sex with males. Here is what he wrote when he obtained the royal pardon in 1886 or 1887 after the persecution:

You must not suppose that I refused to sin on religious grounds. I was afraid of the dropsy [translating Luganda words for sickness in English is a difficult task], for I had heard that men who commit certain sins fall ill of dropsy, and I had seen many people ill with dropsy (Mukasa 1904*, 186).

84Ham Mukasa’s reluctance could be understood not as a rejection of same-sex intimacies but rather in the same way someone may abstain or be selective in his/her choice of partners in fear of STDs. The religious danger of “sodomy” only became apparent to Ham Mukasa a little later, in 1887 or 1888, when he was taught about the destruction of the city of Sodom:

There was this man called Salemani Kibanda, who came one day and taught us about the city of Sodom and how it was destroyed. That description made me feel much afraid. For many days I was in much mental distress and could not think of nothing but the destruction of Sodom. And I then dreamed one night that our capital, Mengo, was all on fire [Mengo burned repeatedly between 1885 and 1888 and many pages lost their lives], and that I could not run away, but kept falling down. For many days I was full of fear about that matter. And this led me to want to be taught [Christianity] (Mukasa 1904*, 187).

85The similarity between the city of Sodom and Mengo was striking to Ham Mukasa and many others. Fed by the slave trade, colonial conquest and epidemics, there was a sense of loss and the end of the world in Buganda in the 1880s and 1890s. The fear of God’s probable incoming wrath was terrifying. This enabled in part the mass conversion of the Baganda. Ham Mukasa’s memoirs clearly show how new sexual meaning and new prohibitions were adopted during these troubled times.

Conclusion

86The end of the 19th century in Buganda was a time of conflicting ideology, including the meaning of masculinity (Médard 2007, 554). As Musisi has argued, former dominant forms of masculinity were in contradiction with new moralities and masculinities—not only conflict around same-sex intimacies, but also slavery, polygamy and others (Musisi 2020). The debates around sexuality reflected wider tensions across society on the meaning of kingship, life, death and the organisation of society. What was normal and expected in the 1880s became a source of shame and scandal in the 1890s.

87Most of the Christian leaders were former pages of King Mutesa and King Mwanga, some were even their former lovers. Ideas or fear about same-sex intimacies were modernised into a globalised homophobic feeling that became widespread among them. Cyprien Mutagwanya was quite sincere. Apolo Kagwa was more cynical than militant in his rejection of “sodomy.” King Mwanga and Kagwa hated each other, but Mutagwanya was Mwanga’s friend even in the 1890s. Mwanga’s taste for boys created a rift between them and made his close Catholic friend an unreliable ally.

88From 1894 to 1897, King Mwanga’s passion for his mignons became a convenient and efficient instrument in the hands of the Protestant Party to control the king. To some extent the passing of the 1896 anti-sodomy law is the paroxysm of this strategy. The king was allowed to keep a couple of lovers in exchange for a law formerly banning “sodomy.” The 1896 banning of “sodomy” united chiefs widely across political and religious divides (as did the anti-homosexuality bill between 2009 and 2014). The sceptics were shamed into a cautious silence.69 King Mwanga was completely trapped. But Kagwa overplayed his card. Early in July 1897, Kagwa wrote a letter about the royal pages’ homosexual conduct to the king. The message was understood as carrying judicial threats against Mwanga. Fearing arrest, Mwanga fled his capital and raised the banner of revolt a few days later. Instead of making Mwanga into an obedient puppet, Kagwa’s blackmail led to a long and protracted civil war. In spite of his non-royal lineage, Apolo Kagwa tried to convince the British to make him king instead of the deposed Mwanga, but his proposition was never considered seriously by the colonial authorities; they kept kingship in the royal line. To the Ganda’s surprise, Kagwa preferred to name a baby to the throne (an older Catholic prince or the former Muslim King Mbogo would have been more suitable).70 Did Kagwa provoke the rebellion in the hope of succeeding Mwanga? It is doubtful. Looking back, the rebellion seemed doomed but at that time perspectives were different. The British and colonial Ganda chiefs, to minimise their responsibility, downplayed the amount of support that rallied around the king and the unpopularity of the new colonial regime in their writing. When the Baganda rallied en masse around their king in August 1897, the great loyalist Christian chiefs wavered and were terrorised. However, the numbers were no match against the modern colonial army fire power. It would have been foolhardy for Kagwa to seek war with Mwanga.

89In European minds, hemp smoking, heavy drinking, syphilis and the murder of Hannington were all associated with King Mwanga’s taste for boys. It remains difficult to know how much these associations were also accepted among the Baganda beyond a handful of converts closest to the missionary teaching. However, homophobia could not have emerged very intensely in early colonial Buganda. Shane Doyle describes a society largely indifferent to the issue. He comments that “between 1938 and 1961, Buganda’s provincial courts tried only two cases of sodomy, 0.1 per cent of all sexual crimes, far fewer than, for example, cases relating to bestiality” (Doyle 2021, 34). This tendency is confirmed by Yolana Pringle. She notes that although homosexuality was still a crime (“unnatural offence”: up to 7 years in prison), very few cases were tried during the late colonial period in Uganda, for example: one in 1956, four in 1959, one in 1960 (Pringle 2019, 133–34). According to Doyle, Buganda seemed to be a society that saw homosexuality as mostly a harmless game with no consequence on kinship (Doyle 2021, 34–37). In 1942, riots necessitating police intervention erupted at King’s College Buddo, the most prestigious elite Protestant high school in Uganda. In the subsequent official inquiry, information about homosexual prostitution involving students, African teachers and European government employees leaked. But this information seemed to have been mostly an exercise in slandering the powerful and a European preoccupation (Summers 2006, 99–101). In Africa (and elsewhere), apart from boarding schools (and barracks), homosexuality is usually noticed in prisons. Tanner described a contrasted situation in East African Prisons during the late colonial period, in which homosexual relations were well organised and ritualised, but decried and condemned at the same time (Tanner 1969, 300–2, 306).

90Though much of same-sex intimacies were consensual in the 1890s, homophobia was fed by fear or memories of rape. However, in a society so freshly out of slavery, consent could not have been considered very important. The British colonial authorities in Uganda were completely indifferent to this issue— British law usually did not even distinguish consent or the absence of consent in cases of sodomy (Han and O’Mahoney 2019).

91One cannot exclude a sudden and brief moral panic among the Christian converts (as in today’s Uganda). Ham Mukasa described his personal panic when he heard about the fate of the town of Sodom in the late 1880s. Another panic could have coincided with the first East African revival in 1893; however, these two events do not seem to have played a role in the Buganda anti-sodomy law of 1896. What was important was the politicisation of royal same sex-intimacies and partisan political calculation. As soon as the king was out of the way, the issue was forgotten.