The commemoration of Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II’s 33rd coronation anniversary has drawn my appreciation to the reality that Buganda’s history is not merely a record of events and fallen kings.
Every kabaka inherited a different Buganda and left behind a different Buganda. Crowns and thrones are often mistaken for symbols of glory and pomp. Yet behind Buganda’s palaces and political institutions lies a trail of ambition, betrayal, reform and resilience. Few institutions illustrate this better than Buganda Kingdom, whose more than 800-year history has been shaped by 36 kabakas, each leaving a distinct mark on the kingdom. Forget what your Primary Three Social Studies teacher taught you; that Kato Kintu was the first Muganda.
More accurately, Kato Kintu was the founding father of the Baganda people and the first Kabaka of Buganda. He defeated Bemba Musota, ruler of Ensi Muwawa, united the clans under Bemba’s rule, added 13 more, and founded present-day Buganda. Tradition holds that Kintu and his Katikkiro, Kisolo, mysteriously disappeared after a 30-year reign from 1200 to 1230. Kintu laid the foundation upon which the 35 kabakas after him built. They expanded Buganda from the three counties of Mawokota, Busiro and Kyadondo into one of Africa’s most formidable kingdoms. They refined governance by delegating authority to county chiefs, strengthened the clan system that became the kingdom’s backbone, and assigned every clan duties at the royal palace while regulating relations between clans through customary law.
They also built a formidable army that protected Buganda’s sovereignty and fuelled its expansion. They opened new trade frontiers, notably Ssekabaka Ssuuna II’s commercial ties with Arab traders from Zanzibar. Like monarchies elsewhere, Buganda was no stranger to succession disputes, conspiracies, assassinations and wars. Many kabakas paid with their lives, reminding every occupant of the throne that power was never inherited without peril. By the time Ssekabaka Muteesa I ascended the throne, Buganda was larger, wealthier and more politically sophisticated than Kintu could have imagined. Yet it now faced challenges that would redefine its future.
Many historians regard Muteesa I as Buganda’s greatest strategist in governance, diplomacy, trade, religion and education. He famously wrote to the Queen of England requesting emissaries to educate his people. During his reign, Protestantism and Catholicism took root in Buganda, while Islam, introduced during Ssuuna II’s reign, continued to flourish. He allowed every faith to preach freely before succumbing to illness. His successor, Mwanga II, ruled amid fierce religious and colonial conflicts. Yet by the time he died aged only 35, he had commissioned the Kabaka’s Lake, built the perimeter wall around Mengo Palace, and donated land that today hosts Namirembe and Rubaga cathedrals and hospitals.
Under his son, Daudi Chwa II, the 1900 Buganda Agreement and the 1902 Orders in Council stripped the Kabaka of the absolute authority his predecessors had enjoyed. The burden of that transformation weighed heavily on him until his death in 1939 at just 43. Edward Muteesa II inherited the throne during intense political upheaval. Britain sought to dilute Buganda’s autonomy by integrating it more firmly into an East African colonial state and, at one point, Sir Andrew Cohen contemplated casting a ballot to replace him because he had violated the 1900 Buganda Agreement. Rather than yield, Muteesa stood his ground.
His exile in 1953 ignited widespread resistance, culminating in the 1955 constitutional settlement that restored him to the throne with stronger guarantees for Buganda’s identity and institutions, cementing his place as one of the kingdom’s foremost constitutional defenders at only 30 years of age. He later became Uganda’s first president in 1962 before being overthrown four years later and forced into exile for the second time. The kingdom was abolished, and he died in exile in 1969 amid allegations of poisoning. Buganda remained abolished for 27 years before its restoration in 1993. As Buganda marks Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II’s 33rd coronation anniversary, it celebrates not merely the reign of its 36th monarch but the resilience of an institution that has endured for more than eight centuries. The hills and valleys of the Mutebi era deserve a discussion of their own.