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Who colonized Uganda?

East Africa — the powers that ruled Uganda, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Uganda?

Britain, through the Imperial British East Africa Company from 1888 and as a protectorate from 1894 until independence on 9 October 1962.

Uganda was governed through Buganda, whose chiefs were rewarded with land and authority over neighbouring peoples — an arrangement that generated grievances the independent state inherited.

Reference

Who ruled Uganda, and when

before 1894
Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole and Toro kingdoms
1888–1894
Imperial British East Africa Company
1894–1962
Uganda Protectorate

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Britain
Independence
9 October 1962
Indirect rule
Buganda's chiefs administered other peoples on Britain's behalf
Cash crop
Cotton, then coffee, grown for export by smallholders under quota
Legacy
The 'lost counties' dispute created by colonial boundary awards

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1894

    Protectorate declared.

  2. 1900

    Buganda Agreement entrenches indirect rule and a landlord class.

  3. 1899–1920s

    Bunyoro subjugated; large areas depopulated.

  4. 1962

    Independence.

Context

What the record shows

Britain's anti-sleeping-sickness clearances in the 1900s forcibly relocated hundreds of thousands from the lake shore.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Uganda?
Britain, from the company charter of 1888 and the protectorate of 1894 until 1962.
What was indirect rule?
Governing through existing local rulers, who collected tax and enforced colonial law in exchange for status and land — used extensively in Uganda through the Buganda kingdom.
When did Uganda become independent?
9 October 1962.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Uganda

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.