{UAH} The allocation of mailo land

"In the actual choice of land, the saza chiefs and the Ministers (or regents) were given a free hand. Their claims were held to be overriding even where land had been previously occupied or the traditional claims of bataka operated. For nearly a quarter of a century the bataka were to engage in a struggle to recover their 'lost lands'. The saza chiefs 'chose their miles wherever it suited their good pleasure, preferring of course the 'byalo' (estates), the most densely populated and the most fertile'. The appropriation of land by the important chiefs from Kagwa downwards took place with lightning speed and was marked by their insatiable greed. They overrode the claims of the heads of clans and lineages, the bataka, whose evidence before Judge Carter constituted a reliable though not incontrovertible basis of our knowledge of the operation of the mailo system. Even the European officials were well aware of the chiefs' avarice for good land.

The chiefs were anxious to select compact estates already under cultivation. Once they chose their miles, they brought their own followers to settle, promptly evicting those who were already in occupation of the lands. The chiefs thus created a chaos of refugee movement in the countryside from which even Europeans district officers recoiled.

But the Lukiiko came to the support of chiefs whom it shielded from criticism" (T.V. Sathyamurthy 1986).

Originally 1000 chiefs were involved. The number of free land holder chiefs increased to 4000. By 1952 the number had increased to 50,000 (Gardner Thompson 2003).

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