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Uganda Early Political Systems
As the Bantu-speaking agriculturists multiplied over
the
centuries, they evolved a form of government by
clan (see Glossary) chiefs. This kinship-organized system was useful
for
coordinating work projects, settling internal disputes,
and
carrying out religious observances to clan deities, but it
could
effectively govern only a limited number of people. Larger
polities began to form states by the end of the first
millennium
A.D., some of which would ultimately govern over a million
subjects each.
The stimulus to the formation of states may have been
the
meeting of people of differing cultures. The lake shores
became
densely settled by Bantu speakers, particularly after the
introduction of the banana, or plantain, as a basic food
crop
around A.D. 1000; farther north in the short grass
uplands, where
rainfall was intermittent, pastoralists were moving south
from
the area of the Nile River in search of better pastures.
Indeed,
a short grass "corridor" existed north and west of Lake
Victoria
through which successive waves of herders may have passed
on the
way to central and southern Africa. The meeting of these
peoples
resulted in trade across various ecological zones and
evolved
into more permanent relationships.
Nilotic-speaking pastoralists were mobile and ready to
resort
to arms in defense of their own cattle or raids to
appropriate
the cattle of others. But their political organization was
minimal, based on kinship and decision making by kin-group
elders. In the meeting of cultures, they may have acquired
the
ideas and symbols of political chiefship from the
Bantu-speakers,
to whom they could offer military protection. A system of
patronclient relationships developed, whereby a pastoral elite
emerged,
entrusting the care of cattle to subjects who used the
manure to
improve the fertility of their increasingly overworked
gardens
and fields. The earliest of these states may have been
established in the fifteenth century by a group of
pastoral
rulers called the Chwezi. Although legends depicted the
Chwezi as
supernatural beings, their material remains at the
archaeological
sites of Bigo and Mubende have shown that they were human
and the
probable ancestors of the modern Hima or Tutsi (Watutsi)
pastoralists of Rwanda and Burundi. During the fifteenth
century,
the Chwezi were displaced by a new Nilotic-speaking
pastoral
group called the Bito. The Chwezi appear to have moved
south of
present-day Uganda to establish kingdoms in northwest
Tanzania,
Rwanda, and Burundi.
From this process of cultural contact and state
formation,
three different types of states emerged. The Hima type was
later
to be seen in Rwanda and Burundi. It preserved a caste
system
whereby the rulers and their pastoral relatives attempted
to
maintain strict separation from the agricultural subjects,
called
Hutu. The Hima rulers lost their Nilotic language and
became
Bantu speakers, but they preserved an ideology of
superiority in
political and social life and attempted to monopolize high
status
and wealth. In the twentieth century, the Hutu revolt
after
independence led to the expulsion from Rwanda of the Hima
elite,
who became refugees in Uganda. A counterrevolution in
Burundi
secured power for the Hima through periodic massacres of
the Hutu
majority.
The Bito type of state, in contrast with that of the
Hima,
was established in Bunyoro, which for several centuries
was the
dominant political power in the region. Bito immigrants
displaced
the influential Hima and secured power for themselves as a
royal
clan, ruling over Hima pastoralists and Hutu
agriculturalists
alike. No rigid caste lines divided Bito society. The
weakness of
the Bito ideology was that, in theory, it granted every
Bito clan
member royal status and with it the eligibility to rule.
Although
some of these ambitions might be fulfilled by the Bunyoro
king's
(omukama) granting his kin offices as governors of
districts, there was always the danger of coup d'état or
secession by overambitious relatives. Thus, in Bunyoro,
periods
of political stability and expansion were interrupted by
civil
wars and secessions.
The third type of state to emerge in Uganda was that of
Buganda, on the northern shores of Lake Victoria. This
area of
swamp and hillside was not attractive to the rulers of
pastoral
states farther north and west. It became a refuge area,
however,
for those who wished to escape rule by Bunyoro or for
factions
within Bunyoro who were defeated in contests for power.
One such
group from Bunyoro, headed by Prince Kimera, arrived in
Buganda
early in the fifteenth century. Assimilation of refugee
elements
had already strained the ruling abilities of Buganda's
various
clan chiefs and a supraclan political organization was
already
emerging. Kimera seized the initiative in this trend and
became
the first effective king (kabaka) of the fledgling
Buganda
state. Ganda oral traditions later sought to disguise this
intrusion from Bunyoro by claiming earlier, shadowy,
quasisupernatural kabakas.
Unlike the Hima caste system or the Bunyoro royal clan
political monopoly, Buganda's kingship was made a kind of
state
lottery in which all clans could participate. Each new
king was
identified with the clan of his mother, rather than that
of his
father. All clans readily provided wives to the ruling
kabaka, who had eligible sons by most of them. When
the
ruler died, his successor was chosen by clan elders from
among
the eligible princes, each of whom belonged to the clan of
his
mother. In this way, the throne was never the property of
a
single clan for more than one reign.
Consolidating their efforts behind a centralized
kingship,
the Baganda (people of Buganda; sing., Muganda) shifted
away from
defensive strategies and toward expansion. By the
mid-nineteenth
century, Buganda had doubled and redoubled its territory.
Newly
conquered lands were placed under chiefs nominated by the
king.
Buganda's armies and the royal tax collectors traveled
swiftly to
all parts of the kingdom along specially constructed roads
which
crossed streams and swamps by bridges and viaducts. On
Lake
Victoria (which the Baganda called Nnalubale), a royal
navy of
outrigger canoes, commanded by an admiral who was chief of
the
Lungfish clan, could transport Baganda commandos to raid
any
shore of the lake. The journalist Henry M. Stanley visited
Buganda in 1875 and provided an estimate of Buganda troop
strength. Stanley counted 125,000 troops marching off on a
single
campaign to the east, where a fleet of 230 war canoes
waited to
act as auxiliary naval support.
At Buganda's capital, Stanley found a well-ordered town
of
about 40,000 surrounding the king's palace, which was
situated
atop a commanding hill. A wall more than four kilometers
in
circumference surrounded the palace compound, which was
filled
with grass-roofed houses, meeting halls, and storage
buildings.
At the entrance to the court burned the royal fire
(gombolola), which would only be extinguished when
the
kabaka died. Thronging the grounds were foreign
ambassadors seeking audiences, chiefs going to the royal
advisory
council, messengers running errands, and a corps of young
pages,
who served the kabaka while training to become
future
chiefs. For communication across the kingdom, the
messengers were
supplemented by drum signals.
Most communities in Uganda, however, were not organized
on
such a vast political scale. To the north, the
Nilotic-speaking
Acholi people adopted some of the ideas and regalia of
kingship
from Bunyoro in the eighteenth century. Chiefs
(rwots)
acquired royal drums, collected tribute from followers,
and
redistributed it to those who were most loyal. The
mobilization
of larger numbers of subjects permitted successful hunts
for
meat. Extensive areas of bushland were surrounded by
beaters, who
forced the game to a central killing point in a hunting
technique
that was still practiced in areas of central Africa in
1989. But
these Acholi chieftaincies remained relatively small in
size, and
within them the power of the clans remained strong enough
to
challenge that of the rwot.
Data as of December 1990
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