Uganda – from the great kingdoms to an independent nation
The region of today's Uganda has long been home to farming and herding peoples. Around the Great Lakes, powerful kingdoms developed over the centuries, among them Bunyoro-Kitara, Buganda, Toro, Ankole and Busoga. Buganda, on the northern shore of Lake Victoria, grew into a highly organised state under its kabaka, while in the north and east many peoples lived in societies without central kings.
In the mid-19th century Arab and Swahili traders, followed by European explorers and missionaries, reached the region. Rivalries between Protestant, Catholic and Muslim factions shaped Buganda's politics, and in 1894 Britain declared a protectorate, soon extended to the neighbouring areas. The colonial administration relied heavily on Buganda, and cotton and coffee became the main export crops.
Uganda became independent on 9 October 1962. Tensions between the central government and the kingdoms led to the abolition of the monarchies in 1967. In 1971 Idi Amin seized power; his dictatorship was marked by severe human rights abuses, many killings and the expulsion of the Asian community in 1972. After his overthrow in 1979 and further years of conflict, Yoweri Museveni's movement came to power in 1986. The following decades brought relative stability in much of the country, the restoration of traditional kingdoms as cultural institutions, but also a long, devastating conflict in the north with the Lord's Resistance Army.
Today Uganda is shaped by its many peoples and languages, its young population and the lakes and mountains that Winston Churchill once called the "Pearl of Africa".
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