The Buganda People in Uganda

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The Buganda people were a smaller but more organized monarchy, and fanned the flames of rebellion in neighboring Bunyoro-Kitara. In the late sixteen-hundreds Buganda doubled in size through successful military campaigns, and by the eighteen-hundreds was the dominant power in Uganda. One key to their success was the method by which they chose the new “kabaka” or king. Rather than determining inheritance through the paternal line, the throne was inherited by a prince of the queen’s clan. As the king married outside his clan, this method ensured that a single clan could never occupy the throne for more than one reign in a row. Through this sharing of power, the Buganda people were united while their neighbors and competitors were rocked by internal strife. The Buganda were a formidable military might and as witnessed by a British reporter in 1875 “the kabaka had organized a 125,000-man army and a fleet of 230 war canoes for a single campaign” (Ofcansky 15). The Buganda were to become the main native power in both colonial and postcolonial Uganda.
The nation of the Toro was created by the disenfranchised son of the Bunyoro-Kitara monarch who left Bunyoro-Kitara and set up a rival state south west of the Bunyoro Kingdom. After defeating his father’s army sent to destroy his fledgling nation, Prince Kaboyo created a well run but small state. After his death, a period of strife occurred which was then followed by the British placement of Kasagama as king of Toro. Kasagama was friendly towards the Buganda nation with whom the British had allied themselves, and was therefore a natural choice. The final major nation in southern Uganda is that of the Ankole. Beginning as a pastoral people in southwestern Uganda, the Ankole managed to remain...

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... that each nation knows how best to address the needs of its people. the NRM is neither pro-West nor pro-East; it is pro-Uganda” (Ofcansky 58).
The second independence movement that this essay will examine is that of a small island nation name Sao Tome et Principe.

Works Cited

Rubenson, Sven. "Some Aspects of the Survival of Ethiopian Independence in the Period of the Scramble for Africa." JSTOR. Institute of Ethiopian Studies, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
"Uganda Profile." BBC News. BBC, 14 Mar. 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
"Sao Tome and Principe Profile." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Childs, Peter, and Patrick Williams. An Introduction to Post-colonial Theory. London: Prentice http://www19.homepage.villanova.edu/silvia.nagyzekmi/teoria/childs%20postcolonial.pdfHall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1997. Print.
"Ethiopia Profile." BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.

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