Africa
Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
There is little information about Uganda's early history as there was little trading contact with the outside world until the 19th Century when Arab traders, as in many other parts of Africa, pushed further into the interior in search of gold, ivory and slaves.
Uganda had been split into a number of different kingdoms for many centuries, but during the 19th Century the Buganda people, being the largest and most dominant kingdom, took control of the whole country under Kabaka Muteesa I. Muteesa was an enlightened Kabaka and was keen to bring in foreigners to teach his people about construction, manufacture and general education, but the only people who arrived were missionaries. Muteesa soon died and his heir was overthrown after religious persecutions could no longer be tolerated. Thereafter, when the various religious leaders were left to run the country, they could no longer agree amongst themselves and this resulted in further religious fighting.
At the end of the 19th Century when the British took control of the country, law and order was restored, cotton and coffee were planted as cash crops and a railway was built all the way from Mombasa to Lake Victoria. With few Europeans settling the land in Uganda, compared to Kenya for example, the call for independence was slow, but eventually in 1962 a schoolteacher by the name of Milton Obote rose to power as prime minister with the Kabaka as President.
Over the next 24 years the Ugandan people suffered many hardships as the country was thrown into strife by the politics of Obote and then Idi Amin. The economy completely collapsed and in 1978 Amin invaded Tanzanian soil as a national diversion which soon resulted in his defeat and exile to Saudi Arabia. Obote returned from exile and was re-elected to the presidency, but failed to stop the economic collapse of the country.
Finally in 1986 Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Army (NRA) took power. Museveni who is still in power today, has pulled the country out of the doldrums with peace having been restored and the economy improving year by year. Most of the population is employed in agriculture and the country's main export is coffee.
