{UAH} Allan/Frank/Pojim/WBK: Kakungulu transforms Mbale from wilderness to trade hub

http://www.monitor.co.ug/Magazines/PeoplePower/Kakungulu-transforms-Mbale-from-wilderness-to-trade-hub-/689844-3376258-l285sd/index.html

Kakungulu transforms Mbale from wilderness to trade hub

Mbale Town's current location was a buffer between two warring Bagisu clans. The area was basically no man's land. It was claimed not only by the Bagisu, but also by the Iteso and the Karimojong.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11 2016

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Mbale clock tower in the 1960s. A missionary traveller who moved through the area in the early 1900s described it as a long wilderness of scrub inhabited by elephants. COURTESY PHOTO  

In Summary

Birth from wilderness. Mbale Town was born from a place once described as not fit for human habitation and rose to become the most powerful after Kampala and Entebbe. From the Archives this week we go back to 1902 when the town was founded as a settlement for a dismissed colonial agent and his followers.

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By Henry Lubega

The colonial flag preceded trade caravans in establishing colonial administration in the interior of Africa. To many, this was attributed to development and civilisation. 
Prior to that, East Africans had their own semblances of urban centres. The East Africa Royal Commission 1953-1955 report says: "Organised concentrations of huts which existed in the lacustrine region of East Africa in the pre-colonial period were merely temporary growths which bore no resemblance to the permanent urban centre as we know it today." 
The report went on to say towns were an introduction of the colonial powers. 
Though this may be true to a great extent, one town in Uganda, however, stands out. By the time Mbale became a British protectorate, it had already established itself as a town with major trade routes attracting Arabs, Swahili traders and European game hunters.

Origin
Mbale Town's current location was a buffer between two warring Bagisu clans. The area was basically no man's land. It was claimed not only by the Bagisu, but also by the Iteso and the Karimojong.
Writing in the Uganda Notes of 1902, C. P. Philips, a missionary traveller who moved through the area, described it as "a long wilderness of scrub inhabited by elephants". 
According to an entry of the Entebbe Secretariat Archives by William Grant dated November 13, 1903, the place was "a dreary waste". 
In Kakungulu Omuzira Omuwanguzi (Kakungulu the conquering hero) by Temuteo Mwebe Kagwa, one of the first Muganda soldiers to reach the place, Mbale was "a small and fearsome place swarming with wild animals".
Despite the dreadful descriptions, Mbale still had attractions. Key of these was the abundance of water, according to a 1932 publication Kakungulu Omuzira wa Uganda (Kakungulu the Hero of Uganda) by Paulo Bazonona Kaggwa. 
"We were fortunate as regards water; we had a good supply from the rivers which run down from Nkokonjeru," he notes.
Besides water availability, the location was a connecting route between Namatala swamp and the Nkokonjeru escarpment.
The town was founded by Semie Kakungulu, a Muganda agent who spread British administration to eastern Uganda. In 1902, he was relieved of his duties as an agent and had to leave his official palace at Budaka, where he had declared himself king of Bukedi. 
The British wanted to exile him to Lango, but he refused and instead asked for a grant of land between Naboa and Masaba (this was the Lugisu name for Mt Elgon) for him and his followers. He had the option of having a small grant of 8 square miles like all saza chiefs in Buganda and be retained in the administration, but of lower grade. 
Kakungulu opted to resign from the protectorate government service and went into private life. He was bought off with 20 square miles of land. However, the next hurdle was where the said land would be got. The protectorate government decided to offer the stretch they deemed not habitable to humans, and on March 16, 1902, he was given a deed for the land where he went to establish himself and his followers.
To choose a spot for his palace, certain factors had to be considered. Key to these was food. Different spots as far as present day Kumi and beyond were surveyed. Mbale was chosen because of the abundance of matooke, a staple food in Buganda. 
The Mbale settlement had a lot in common with Mengo in terms of physical appearance. According to the Church Missionary Intelligence of 1904, Bishop Tucker described Mbale two years after Kakungulu's settlement as: "We were altogether surprised at the appearance of this place. Only two years had passed by since Kakungulu had settled down on what was little better than a wilderness, and lo! We found ourselves surrounded by gardens, well cultivated gardens, and well-kept houses too had sprung up, most of them well built. Broad roads intersected the whole countryside, one of them running right through the settlement from the chief's enclosure to the traders' quarters, reminding us of the main road in Mengo."

Town and trade route 
The first market was established while the settlement was still under construction. The mode of trade was barter between the indigenous Bagisu clans from the surrounding areas and Kakungulu's followers. 
Kakungulu's men exchanged beads and hoes for food and wood. He was getting the beads from Mumias in Kenya. According to the entry of May 18, 1903, of Kakungulu's diary, he writes: "We have given Sale Kamya the market and he will give 20 Rupees every month."

Writing in volume 30 of the Uganda Journal of 1966, Michael Twaddle says after establishing himself in Mbale, Kakungulu started trading with other tribes surrounding the area. 
"There was also a fairly considerable trade in cattle with surrounding tribes. The Iteso of Bukedea, for instance, remember having to send cattle to Kakungulu at Mbale before 1904," Twaddle writes.
Under the command of Isaka Nsiga, one of Kakungulu's lieutenants in 1903, Kakungulu started trading in ivory got from the elephants in the Mt Elgon. This attracted the Swahili and Arab traders, who bartered beads and hoes for Ivory. Besides the availability of ivory, the Swahili traders were attracted to Mbale because of its proximity to Karamoja which was believed to have huge stock piles of ivory.
Before the founding of Mbale, Mumias in Nyanza (Kenya) was the advance base for the Swahili traders in the interior. Mumias lost out to Mbale which became the new base for traders in the interior. 
By 1904, Mbale was an established ivory centre patronised by ivory big merchants like Omar Mohidin and Idi bin Shero who had shifted their base from Mumias to Mbale until 1911. They were joined by others like Mohomad Bakar who shifted his base from Kampala and European hunters like W. D. M. Bell.

Another Asian trader who played a part in the development of Mbale as a trading town was Allidina Visram. Though he was not involved in the Ivory trade, he opened shops dealing in fabrics, metallic plates and cups, rice and salt. His company was contracted by Kakungulu to build him a permanent house at a cost of 8,500 Rupees.
Unlike in Mumias where there was official control and restrictions on trade activities, the absence of such controls helped Mbale develop as a trading centre. In Mumias the British colonial administration office required traders to explain why they were dealing in immature ivory and ivory from female elephants, on top of requiring them to pay taxes.

In Mbale, Kakungulu had no restrictions, even the taxation was no way near what the British were demanding.
The Ivory traders also saw a potential market in Mbale for their goods from the coast. The population of Kakungulu's followers far outnumbered that of Mumias, making it a potential market for both Arab and Swahili traders. Allidina Visram was the first Indian to open shop in in Mbale through an agent.
According to Twaddle, "another attraction to Mbale was the existence of the lucrative trafficking in firearms as it had been in Budaka."

Elephant hunting made the gun market lucrative in the area, though some went as far as Ethiopia. This rapid development of an area originally described as a waste attracted the attention of the protectorate office in Kampala and Entebbe and brought it to the attention of the colonial office in London and hence the desire to bring it under the British protectorate.

According to the February 27, 1904, communication from commissioner James Hayes Sadler to the colonial office describing the area after a visit to eastern Uganda, he said: "Mbale has become the biggest trading bazaar in Uganda outside Entebbe and Kampala."
Writing about his road trip from Bukedi in the August 1902 issue of Uganda Notes, W. Chandwick says: "Asian traders also came to Mbale by way of Jinja and Budaka along the good, wide road which Kakungulu had built over the Namatala swamp towards Terinyi."

Protectorate government takes over Mbale
In January 1904, a decision was taken to make Mbale the new administrative station by the new commissioner of the protectorate government, James Hayes Sadler, following his visit to eastern Uganda. 
In his push for the relocation, he informed the colonial office, "here one seemed to find oneself back again in the civilisation of Mengo or Tooro. Neatly dressed Baganda welcomed us along the road, and on all sides were flourishing. Mbale is an important position. It is situated on the route from Mumias to the Karamoja country. The Kakungulu's place is on a hill somewhat resembling Mengo, and half a mile to the east, and connected with the former by a continuation of the Jinja road, is another small hill where some 25 Indians and Greek traders, besides Swahilis, have their shops in a Bazaar running both sides of the road."

"Mbale is the natural trade centre of the district, and where all the traders have their shops. Budaka, on the other hand, the existing protectorate station, seemed a very depressing place." 
As earlier indicated, in most cases the approach colonialists used to control many of their colonised territories, Uganda inclusive, was trade first and the flag later. The same thing applied to Mbale. 
Sadler gave two reasons for his decision to relocate the administrative offices from Budaka to Mbale: To control traders and travellers in the un-administered districts north of Mt Elgon and to exercise some control over traders dealing with Karamoja.

Though Sadler fronted controlling traders in the region, the unsaid motive was to widen the protectorate's tax base having realised that Kakungulu's establishment was flourishing at the cost of their controlled Budaka. 
The case for the annexation of Mbale was for financial gains by not getting involved in trade but to collect taxes from the already flourishing trade. Notes 58, 61, 67 and 68 in the Entebbe Secretariat Archives attest to the protectorate's interest in Mbale booming trade.

However, though there was an economical value attached to moving the protectorate office to Mbale, there was a political one as well. Since Kakungulu had rebelled against his former masters and went on to be more successful in his controlled areas, he was seen as a potential threat should he be left to have his influence grow. Hence the need to get him back into their fold and control him.

In Minute Paper 885/1910-28 dated January 13, 1923, by P. W. Perryman, a chief secretary of the protectorate, said: "Mbale was first occupied as a site for a protectorate station in January 1904, not because there were a very large number of traders there, but because Kakungulu had moved there from Budaka and it was necessary to be on the spot to watch him." 
The reason for watching Kakungulu was because his political influence had continued to grow since leaving Bukedi to Mbale beyond that of his replacement W. R. Walker, the accredited local representative of the protectorate administration. 
When Mbale was brought under the British protectorate, Kakungulu was appointed saza chief of Mbale and was given powers to collect hut tax within his settlement alone. For him, the reinstatement by the British was like their affirmation of his kabakaship over his area. 
The founding of Mbale is a direct contrast of the European belief that it's them that led to the growth of towns in the interior of East Africa. The fact that Mbale grew and attracted the British to take it over demonstrates the fact that Africans had the potential to develop without the European administration.

Kakungulu's final resting place

Semei Kakungulu was buried in Mbale on Gangama Hill, about 5km north of Mbale Town. In 1917, Kakungulu setup his home on Gangama Hill where he lived till his death in 1928. The hill has since then attained a historic, cultural and religious significance. Gangama is revered by historians as one of the major sites containing the remains of one of Uganda's renowned colonial administrators. The hill is also revered for its religious significance. It is the headquarters of the Abayudaya Jewish sect, which Kakungulu founded in 1917.

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