The history of Buganda is that of the Buganda kingdom of the Baganda people, the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day Uganda.
Pre-colonial and colonial Buganda
Originally a vassal state of Bunyoro, Buganda grew rapidly in power in the eighteenth and nineteenth century becoming the dominant kingdom in the region. Buganda started to expand in the 1840s, and used fleets of war canoes to establish "a kind of imperial supremacy" over Lake Victoria and the surrounding regions. Subjugating weaker peoples for cheap labor, Buganda grew into a powerful "embryonic empire". The first direct contact with Europeans was established in 1862, when British explorers John Hanning Speke and Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton entered Buganda and according to their reports, the kingdom was highly organized.
Muteesa I of Buganda, who had been visited by explorers, like John Hanning Speke, James Augustus Grant and Henry Morton Stanley, invited the Church Missionary Society to Buganda. One of the missionaries from the Church Missionary Society was Alexander Murdoch Mackay. Muteesa I never converted to any religion, despite numerous attempts. In 1884, Muteesa died and his son Mwanga II took over. Most of what is known about Muteesa comes from primary sources from various Kiganda researchers and some foreign explorers, notably John Hanning Speke, and the Church Missionary Society. Mwanga was overthrown numerous times, but was reinstated. Mwanga signed a treaty with Captain Lord Lugard in 1892, giving Buganda the status of protectorate under the authority of the British East Africa Company. The British saw this territory as a prized possession.
The twentieth-century influence of the Baganda in Uganda has reflected the impact of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century developments. A series of Kabakas amassed military and political power by killing rivals to the throne, abolishing hereditary positions of authority, and exacting higher taxes from their subjects. Ganda armies also seized territory held by Bunyoro, the neighboring kingdom to the west. Ganda cultural norms also prevented the establishment of a royal clan by assigning the children of the Kabaka to the clan of their mother. At the same time, this practice allowed the Kabaka to marry into any clan in the society.
One of the most powerful appointed advisers of the Kabaka was the Katikkiro, who was in charge of the kingdom's administrative and judicial systems – effectively serving as both prime minister and chief justice. The Katikkiro and other powerful ministers formed an inner circle of advisers who could summon lower-level chiefs and other appointed advisers to confer on policy matters. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Kabaka had replaced many clan heads with appointed officials and claimed the title "head of all the clans".
The sophisticated structure of governance of the Baganda so impressed British officials, but political leaders in neighboring Bunyoro were not receptive to British officials who arrived with Baganda escorts. Buganda became the centrepiece of the new protectorate, and many Baganda were able totake advantage of opportunities provided by schools and businesses in their area. Baganda civil servants also helped administer other ethnic groups, and Uganda's early history was written from the perspective of the Baganda and the colonial officials who became accustomed to dealing with them. At independence in 1962, Buganda had achieved the highest standard of living and the highest literacy rate in the country.
Power politics before Ugandan independence
The prospect of elections in the run up to independence caused a sudden proliferation of new political parties. This development alarmed the old-guard leaders within the Uganda kingdoms, because they realized that the centre of power would be at the national level. The spark that ignited wider opposition to Governor Sir Andrew Cohen's reforms was a 1953 speech in London in which the secretary of state for colonies referred to the possibility of a federation of the three East African territories (Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika), similar to that established in central Africa.