Who was Mwanga?
MWANGA was the 33rd king of Buganda. But Danieri Basamula-Ekkeri Mwanga II Mukasa is best known for his role in the execution of 45 young Christian converts between January 1885 and January 1887.
By Vision Reporter
MWANGA was the 33rd king of Buganda. But Danieri Basamula-Ekkeri Mwanga II Mukasa is best known for his role in the execution of 45 young Christian converts between January 1885 and January 1887.
He received a private education. Legend has it that Mwanga did not grow up in his father’s court. He ascended the throne on October 18, 1884 after the death of his father and his court was at Mengo.
It was Mutesa’s dying wish to have Mwanga as his successor,†writes J.F. Faupel in his book entitled African Holocaust. Faupel says Mwanga was about 18 years when he ascended the throne.
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He was like his father, but shorter and with more negro about him. He was considered very handsome, with rounded eyes and, later, “a beard of extraordinary quality,†he says.
To those who were close to him, Mwanga was a sometimes amiable and quite enthusiastic fellow. But to those who met him for the first time, he tended to be strange, sometimes silly.
Giving an account of his persona, Alexander Mackay, a Scottish missionary of the Church Missionary Society says: “It would be difficult to describe Mwanga’s character.
He knows how to behave with dignity and reserve when occasion requires that; but he soon throws off that assumed air and chats familiarly, but none can fail to see that he is fitful and fickle and, I fear, revengeful.â€
From his youthful days, Mwanga is said to have taken to smoking bhang (hemp) and heavy drinking. These habits left him dazzled and in the words of one author, often stupefied.
Commenting about his behaviour, Mackay said: “One vice to which he is addicted, is the smoking of bhang. This being so, one cannot place much confidence in Mwanga’s stability. Under the influence of the narcotic, he is capable of the widest unpremeditated actions.â€
According to Kabaka Mutesa, Buganda’s 35th monarch and Mwanga’s grandson, the king was generally despised by the Europeans. “He has had much abuse and little praise from Europeans,†Mutesa writes in his book Desecration of my Kingdom.
Archdeacon Walker, a missionary who had audience with Mwanga concluded that Mwanga looked a young and frivolous sort of man, very weak and easily led, passionate and, if provoked, petulant.
“He looked as if he would be easily frightened and possessed very little courage or self-control.â€
When he ascended the throne, Mwanga sought to pursue the legacy of his late father. He received Christian missionaries well and seemed to want to support them.
His attitude towards them changed when they started diverting the attention of his loyal pages.
Following in the footsteps of his charismatic and astute father, Mwanga was often the victim of unfair comparison between himself and Mutesa I.
It is a comparison in which the errant monarch terribly fell short not only for his lack of discretionary foresight, but also for a disturbing record of indiscipline that seemed to dog him well into his reign.
As a young prince, Mwanga is reported to have adopted homosexual tendencies which he is believed to have learnt from his Arab friends.
Apart from presiding over the signing of a treaty with Lord Lugard at Mengo, granting certain powers over revenue, trade and the administration of justice to the Imperial British East Africa on December 26, 1890 and accepting the protectorate on August 27, 1894, Mwanga did not have a successful reign.
His career was marred by internal strife precipitated by conflicting religious factions. On two occasions, he was defeated by a combined Christian and Muslim rebel forces at Mengo, deposed and replaced first by Kiweewa and then Kalema, his Muslim half-brother.
He was captured and exiled to the Seychelles in April 1899, where he died in 1903.
MWANGA was the 33rd king of Buganda. But Danieri Basamula-Ekkeri Mwanga II Mukasa is best known for his role in the execution of 45 young Christian converts between January 1885 and January 1887.
He received a private education. Legend has it that Mwanga did not grow up in his father’s court. He ascended the throne on October 18, 1884 after the death of his father and his court was at Mengo.
It was Mutesa’s dying wish to have Mwanga as his successor,†writes J.F. Faupel in his book entitled African Holocaust. Faupel says Mwanga was about 18 years when he ascended the throne.
“
He was like his father, but shorter and with more negro about him. He was considered very handsome, with rounded eyes and, later, “a beard of extraordinary quality,†he says.
To those who were close to him, Mwanga was a sometimes amiable and quite enthusiastic fellow. But to those who met him for the first time, he tended to be strange, sometimes silly.
Giving an account of his persona, Alexander Mackay, a Scottish missionary of the Church Missionary Society says: “It would be difficult to describe Mwanga’s character.
He knows how to behave with dignity and reserve when occasion requires that; but he soon throws off that assumed air and chats familiarly, but none can fail to see that he is fitful and fickle and, I fear, revengeful.â€
From his youthful days, Mwanga is said to have taken to smoking bhang (hemp) and heavy drinking. These habits left him dazzled and in the words of one author, often stupefied.
Commenting about his behaviour, Mackay said: “One vice to which he is addicted, is the smoking of bhang. This being so, one cannot place much confidence in Mwanga’s stability. Under the influence of the narcotic, he is capable of the widest unpremeditated actions.â€
According to Kabaka Mutesa, Buganda’s 35th monarch and Mwanga’s grandson, the king was generally despised by the Europeans. “He has had much abuse and little praise from Europeans,†Mutesa writes in his book Desecration of my Kingdom.
Archdeacon Walker, a missionary who had audience with Mwanga concluded that Mwanga looked a young and frivolous sort of man, very weak and easily led, passionate and, if provoked, petulant.
“He looked as if he would be easily frightened and possessed very little courage or self-control.â€
When he ascended the throne, Mwanga sought to pursue the legacy of his late father. He received Christian missionaries well and seemed to want to support them.
His attitude towards them changed when they started diverting the attention of his loyal pages.
Following in the footsteps of his charismatic and astute father, Mwanga was often the victim of unfair comparison between himself and Mutesa I.
It is a comparison in which the errant monarch terribly fell short not only for his lack of discretionary foresight, but also for a disturbing record of indiscipline that seemed to dog him well into his reign.
As a young prince, Mwanga is reported to have adopted homosexual tendencies which he is believed to have learnt from his Arab friends.
Apart from presiding over the signing of a treaty with Lord Lugard at Mengo, granting certain powers over revenue, trade and the administration of justice to the Imperial British East Africa on December 26, 1890 and accepting the protectorate on August 27, 1894, Mwanga did not have a successful reign.
His career was marred by internal strife precipitated by conflicting religious factions. On two occasions, he was defeated by a combined Christian and Muslim rebel forces at Mengo, deposed and replaced first by Kiweewa and then Kalema, his Muslim half-brother.
He was captured and exiled to the Seychelles in April 1899, where he died in 1903.