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ALL THE KABAKA'S WIVES: MARITAL CLAIMS IN BUGANDA'S 1953–5 KABAKA CRISIS*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2017

CAROL SUMMERS
CAROL SUMMERS*
Affiliation:
University of Richmond, Virginia
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Abstract

When Britain withdrew recognition from Kabaka Mutesa II in 1953, considering him disloyal for failure to advocate for the new governor's progressive initiatives, Buganda's response was distinctive and successful: mourning. Ganda wept publicly, and portrayed themselves as wives forcibly divorced from their king/husband. With the removal of Mutesa, they argued, Britain even violated its own alliance, or marriage, with Buganda. Metaphors of marriage and declarations of loyal wives proved successful in destabilizing imperial efforts to reshape power in Buganda to fit into a unified Uganda. Drawing on specific associations of love and politics associated with Ganda marriage, Ganda fought, successfully, to achieve Mutesa II's return and to ensure Buganda's distinctive political identity. In the process, though, they declared and institutionalized an identity as subjects of the Kabaka, abandoning ideas of citizenship through Bataka (clans) voiced by earlier activists and enacting troublesome precedents for proponents of Ugandan nationalism.

Keywords

Ugandacolonial administrationemotiongendermarriagepolitical culture
Type
Disputing Political Power in Buganda
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , March 2017 , pp. 107 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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60 AFPLA v. 150, Nnabagareka to Dr Warren, 22 Dec. 1953 (copy).

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62 AFPLA v. 150, Bishop Stuart to Archbishop, 1 Jan. 1954. Mary Stuart, an education expert, was a supporter of the Kabaka, taking a seat in his plane for his return to Uganda. Mutesa, Desecration of my Kingdom, 142–3.

63 AFPLA v. 150, Nnabagareka to Dr Warren, 22 Dec. 1953 (copy).

64 The delegation's aims were evocative: ‘It is our sincere desire that our beloved Kabaka shall be restored to his people … the most ardent wish of the Kabaka's subjects.’ NAGB CO822/762, M. Mugwanya, A. K. Sempa, E. M. K Mulira, T. Makubi, and A. Kironde, ‘Comments by the Buganda Delegation on the White Paper’, typescript, 21 Dec. 1953.

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67 Peter Mulira, for example, emphasized other factors (such as the Kabaka's British connections, good legal advice and the support of liberal imperialists such as Marjorie Perham) over his mother Rebecca Mulira's leadership in agitating for the Kabaka's return. Interview with Peter Mulira, Kampala, Uganda, 7 July 2006.

68 KHICS MS 29/1/1–7, Cohen to Hancock, 14 June 1954. The scale of what they were seeking to reclaim from the Nnabagareka – cars, servants, and luxuries – undermines any portrayal of the Kabaka's domestic life as simple. But the image in Britain and in Buganda was that of evicting a bereaved but loyal wife. Official statements were as defensive as the quoted private defense. See, for example, ‘Our correspondent’, ‘The Kabaka's retainers’, The Times (London), 9 June 1954.

69 Mutesa, Desecration of my Kingdom, 138.

70 See, for example, NAGB CO 536/211, letters written by wives of the 1945 deportees.

71 Kavuma, Crisis in Buganda, 56.

72 AFPLA v. 150, M. Parma-Ntanda, for the Women's League of Buganda, ‘Deposition of H. H. the Kabaka of Buganda’ (undated 1954 statement).

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75 See, for example, NAGB CO 822/762, Report by Special Branch, 13 Feb. 1954.

76 NAGB CO 822/751, A. Cohen, The Buganda situation, top secret cabinet paper, 29 Sept. 1954.

77 According to one sympathetic observer, Cohen seemed ‘very overdone by all this business and almost in danger of some kind of breakdown … The whole thing has come to him as a terrific shock obviously, and he does not see his way through.’ AFPLA v. 150, Archbishop to Warren, 24 Feb. 1954.

78 KHICS Ms 29/1/1–7, Cohen to Hancock, 1 Apr. 1954.

79 KHICS Ms 29/1/1–7. Hancock to Cohen, 10 Apr. 1954.

80 AFPLA v. 150, M. Warren to Archbishop, 11 May 1954 (notes on discussion with Hancock).

81 KHICS Ms 29/1/1–7, E. B. David (Colonial Office) to Hancock, 16 June 1954.

82 KHICS Ms 29/1/10, P. Kisosonkole et al. to Hancock, 21 June 1954.

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85 KHICS, Hancock's Uganda Diary 10.114, Hancock to Kisosonkole, 22 June 1954.

86 KHICS Ms 29/1/10, Children of Daudi Chwa to Hancock, 9 July 1954 and notes on meeting 26 July 1954.

87 KHICS Ms 29/1/10, ‘Kasubi Mourners’ to Hancock, 2 Sept. 1954.

88 KHICS, Hancock to D. A. Low, 24 July 1954 and notes from Uganda journal 10.51 and 10.51b. See also his meeting with the women of Natete Village, Memo summary, 10 June 1954.

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91 NAGB CO 822/762, Report by Special Branch, 13 Feb. 1954. The reporter Colin Legum, summarized this in his book Must we lose Africa?, finding activists’ metaphor of marriage so compelling that his history chapters have suggestive titles such as ‘Give me the White Men’ and ‘Honeymoon with the West’. Legum, Must we lose Africa?.

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101 NAGB CO 822/1212, Chief Secretary to Max, 25 Nov. 1959 and Governor Crawford, notes for top secret file on Kabaka Mutesa II, 6 Jan. 1958.

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