PREHISTORY
According to localcollegeexplorer, the Uganda has been inhabited since the lower Paleolithic by men carrying Acheulean-type artifacts, an industry that later specialized in adapting to the forest environment, giving way to Sangoano (➔ # 10132;). The final period of the Paleolithic is documented by the site of Magosi, consisting of an artificial cistern, in which, for the most ancient phase, there are artifacts corresponding to the industries generically grouped under the label of Stillbay, and, in the most recent part, a microlithic industry associated with ceramics. Groups of hunter-gatherers, equipped with such tools, continued an autonomous existence even after the settlement of the first peasant communities, in the second half of the 1st millennium AD Connected to the beginnings of agriculture is the arrival in the region of Bantu populations who, although constituting a large section of the country’s population, they were dominated by aristocratic castes of Nilotic groups from the north: little is known about the legendary pastoral dynasty of the Chwezi, established in the current Uganda Hima which, in the 16th century, caused the end of the Chwezi realm.
HISTORY
- The period of the reigns and colonial
The kingdom of Bunyoro, established in the 15th century, gradually became dominant in the region, expanding to the East and S, where other small kingdoms ruled like that by chief priests were based. Towards the end of the 18th century, as the reign of Bunyoro declined, that of Buganda emerged (➔ # 10132;), of Ganda ethnicity. At the same time, the territory of the Uganda, which has always been crossed by trafficking over long distances, experienced an increase in trade due to the activity carried out by Arab merchants, coming from Zanzibar and the East African coast in search of slaves and ivory. ● The arrival from Europe of explorers such as JH Speke, JA Grant and HM Stanley it was followed by intense missionary activity led by Catholics (French) and Anglicans (English), in bitter rivalry with each other. The missions were welcomed in the kingdom of Buganda, which became in the 19th century. the largest state in the region, by the ruler (kabaka) Mutesa I, eager to get European help to repel Egyptian troops from Sudan, who entered his kingdom in the early 1870s. But rivalries between Catholics, Anglicans, Muslims and traditionalists sparked the anti-Christian persecution of Mwanga (who took the throne in 1884), which however failed to avoid the English protectorate (1894), preceded in 1890 by an Anglo-German agreement that assigned the Uganda to the sphere of influence of Great Britain. The protectorate was extended in 1896 to the other kingdoms (besides Bunyoro, Ankole and Toro) included in the possession. Bunyoro, with its plantation economy, was the hub of the Uganda British. ● The colonial authority excluded Africans from political institutions until 1945, introduced around 1920. The first parties saw the light in the 1950s and, even in the presence of an extremely fragmented ethnic framework, they generally favored unitary formulas. The Uganda, Which reached full independence within the Commonwealth in 1962, was organized as a federation between the four original kingdoms.
- The republic
In 1963 the country became a parliamentary republic and the kabakaMutesa II, on the throne since 1939, united the Buganda crown to the presidency of Uganda. In 1966 a coup d’état by AM Obote deposed the king and a new constitution established a unitary republic which also abolished the Buganda monarchy. Obote was overthrown in 1971 by a new coup d’état led by General I. Amin Dada, who established a ferocious and personalistic dictatorship. Banned by the international community, the Amin regime was overthrown by Tanzania, whose forces in 1979, supplemented by Ugandan exiles, invaded the country, taking control. The disputed elections of 1980, won by Obote, seemed to close the confused period that followed the fall of Amin, but the political life of the country did not calm down. Numerous armed movements took the field against the government and, as the country sank into chaos, Y. Museveni, launched an offensive that did not stop even after the deposition of Obote (1985). ● The consolidation of the regime established by Museveni (continuously re-elected since 1996to 2021), a combination of centralism and autonomy of management of local authorities and bodies, took a few years, mainly because the northern tribes fought bitterly before submitting; as part of the recognition of forms of local autonomy in 1993 the existence of the four traditional tribal kingdoms was reconstituted, with theoretically only cultural functions. This allowed the coronation of Mutebi II, son of Mutesa II, in a role destined to remain essentially symbolic, but which in fact has taken on a progressive political role. ● In the regional context, the desire to exercise economic control over Congo’s resources (participation in the Congo war, 1997-2002) and to assert its economic and political leadership in the region led towards the end of 1999 to the clash with Rwanda for control of the occupied territories in the Congo. Another front of conflict, that with the Sudanese Islamic-military regime, has dragged on since the late 1980s, seeing an improvement only since 2001. In 2002, the Uganda and Sudan signed an agreement to fight the Christian fundamentalist movement Lord’s resistance army, born in 1987 and which, perched on the border between the two countries, pursues a ferocious guerrilla activity, terrorizing the civilian population and forcibly recruiting boys and girls.
HOLY MARTYRS OF THE Uganda Twenty-two Ugandans converted to Catholicism were massacred during the anti-Christian persecution ordered in 1886 by the ruler of Buganda Mwanga. Beatified in 1920 by Benedict XV and canonized by Paul VI in 1964.
