page_title: Uganda Protectorate
section_title: 1894–1901
hierarchical_section_title: Uganda Protectorate / British rule / 1894–1901
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of an African explorer attempting to sell his white elephant to a wealthy man. A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth. In 1892, the British East Africa Company (as the explorer), which was the administrator of British East Africa (including the territory of Uganda, as the white elephant), was becoming increasingly ineffective in its venture as a commercial company with colonial administrative rights – amidst conflicts between rival factions, including the Kingdom of Buganda, French Catholic, and British Protestant missionaries. By 1894, the British government (as the wealthy man) had assumed administration rights of the territory and established the Uganda Protectorate, effectively dissolving the company. The title and caption (not shown): THE WHITE ELEPHANT. PRESENT PROPRIETOR (loq.). "SEE HERE, GOVERNOR! HE'S A LIKELY-LOOKING ANIMAL,—BUT I CAN'T MANAGE HIM! IF YOU WON'T TAKE HIM, I MUST LET HIM GO!!"
context_page_description: The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the British Government.
  In 1894 the Uganda Protectorate was established, and the territory was extended beyond the borders of Buganda to an area that roughly corresponds to that of present-day Uganda.
context_section_description: The Uganda Agreement of 1900 solidified the power of the largely Protestant 'Bakungu' client-chiefs, led by Kagwa. London sent only a few officials to administer the country, relying primarily on the 'Bakungu' chiefs. For decades they were preferred because of their political skills, their Christianity, their friendly relations with the British, their ability to collect taxes, and the proximity of Entebbe (the Ugandan capital) to the Buganda capital. By the 1920s the British administrators were more confident and had less need for military or administrative support. Colonial officials taxed cash crops produced by the peasants. There was popular discontent among the Baganda rank-and-file, which weakened the position of their leaders. In 1912 Kagwa moved to solidify 'Bakungu' power by proposing a second 'Lukiko' for Buganda with himself as president and the 'Bakungu' as a sort of hereditary aristocracy. British officials vetoed the idea when they discovered widespread popular opposition. Instead, British officials began some reforms and attempted to make the 'Lukiko' a genuine representative assembly.
  Although momentous change occurred during the colonial era in Uganda, some characteristics of late-nineteenth-century African society survived to reemerge at the time of independence. The status of Protectorate had significantly different consequences for Uganda than had the region been made a colony like neighboring Kenya, insofar as Uganda retained a degree of self-government that would have otherwise been limited under a full colonial administration.
  Colonial rule, however, affected local economic systems dramatically, in part because the first concern of the British was financial. Quelling the 1897 mutiny (see Uganda before 1900) had been costly—units of the British Indian Army had been transported to Uganda at considerable expense. The new commissioner of Uganda in 1900, Sir Harry H. Johnston, had orders to establish an efficient administration and to levy taxes as quickly as possible. Johnston approached the chiefs in Buganda with offers of jobs in the colonial administration in return for their collaboration.
  The chiefs, were more interested in preserving Buganda as a self-governing entity, continuing the royal line of Kabakas, and securing private land tenure for themselves and their supporters. Hard bargaining ensued, but the chiefs ended up with everything they wanted, including one-half of all the land in Buganda. The half left to the British as "Crown Land" was later found to be largely swamp and scrub.
  Johnston's Buganda Agreement of 1900 imposed a tax on huts and guns, designated the chiefs as tax collectors, and testified to the continued alliance of British and Baganda interests. The British signed much less generous treaties with the other kingdoms (Toro in 1900, Ankole in 1901, and Bunyoro in 1933) without the provision of large-scale private land tenure. The smaller chiefdoms of Busoga were ignored.
caption: Punch cartoon depicting Uganda personified as a White elephant which the East Africa Company is attempting to sell to Britain (1892)
exif: {}