Resource 5: Making meaning

 Teacher resource for planning or adapting to use with pupils

Paragraphs for older classes: The Buganda

Around 500 bc, Bantu-speaking people migrated into southwest Uganda from the west. By the 14^th century, they were organised in several kingdoms (known as the Cwezi states), which had been established by the Hima.

Around 1500 ad, Nilotic-speaking Luo people from present-day southeast Sudan settled the Cwezi states and established the Bito dynasties of Buganda, Bunyoro and Ankole. Later, other Luo-speaking peoples conquered northern Uganda, forming the Alur and Acholi ethnic groups and the Langi and Iteso migrated into Uganda.

Bunyoro became the leading state of southern Uganda, controlling an area that stretched into present-day Rwanda and Tanzania. Then Buganda began to expand (largely at the expense of Bunyoro), and by 1800 it controlled a large territory bordering Lake Victoria from the Victoria Nile to the KageraRiver.

Buganda was centrally organised under the kabaka (king), who appointed regional administrators and maintained a large bureaucracy and a powerful army. The Baganda raided widely for cattle, ivory and slaves. In the 19^th century, Muslim traders from the Indian Ocean coast reached Buganda, and they exchanged firearms, cloth and beads for the ivory and slaves of Buganda.

Bunyoro, ruled by Kabarega and using guns obtained from traders from Khartoum, challenged Buganda's ascendancy. By the mid-1880s, however, Buganda again dominated southern Uganda.

In the 19^th century, John Hanning Speke [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , a British explorer interested in establishing the source of the Nile, became the first European to visit Buganda. He met with Mutesa I, as did Henry M Stanley. Mutesa, fearful of attacks from Egypt, agreed to Stanley's proposal to allow Christian missionaries (who Mutesa mistakenly thought would provide military assistance) to enter his realm.

Members of the British Protestant Church Missionary Society arrived, followed by representatives of the French Roman Catholic White Fathers. Each of the missions gathered a group of converts, which became fiercely antagonistic toward one another. At the same time, the number of Baganda converts to Islam was growing.

When, Mutesa died, he was succeeded as kabaka by Mwanga, who soon began to persecute the Christians out of fear for his own position. Mwanga was deposed by the Christians and Muslims and replaced by his brothers. He regained the throne, only to lose it to the Muslims again after a few weeks.

Eventually, Mwanga permanently regained his throne, but at the expense of losing much of his power to Christian chiefs.

Picture story for younger classes: The dog and the meat

Taken from: Pictorial story – Standard 2 Language Book, Maskew Miller Longman