{UAH} DOESN'T IT BOTHER YOU THAT ACHOLI TODAY BLAME IDDI AMIN AND MUSEVENI FOR THEIR FAILURE? No seriously at what point does an Acholi firkin wake up and be a part of a solution than blaming everyone than themselves !!!!!!!

Reasons for the British Choice of the Acholi as the Martial Race of

Uganda, 1862 to 1962

 

Dr. Charles Amone,

Senior Lecturer of History, Gulu University-Northern Uganda and Fulbright Visiting Scholar,

Millersville University of Pennsylvania-USA.

 

ABSTRACT

During Uganda's colonial period, the British encouraged political and economic development in

the south of the country. In contrast, the Acholi and other northern ethnic groups supplied much

of the national manual labor and came to  comprise a majority of the military, creating what

some have called a "military ethnocracy". This reached its height with the coup d'état of Acholi

General Tito Okello in July 1985, and came to a crashing end with the defeat of Okello and the

Acholi-dominated army by the National Resistance Army led by now-President Yoweri Museveni

in January 1986. In this paper, I analyse   the reasons for the British choice of the Acholi as

the martial race of Uganda. The more accommodative pre-colonial political system of the Acholi

coupled  with  the  positive  remarks  by  early  European  explorers  and the  harsh  natural  and

economic situations made the Acholi dominate the colonial army in Uganda. When the Acholi

economy was  merged with  the international capitalist  system the  Acholi youth was  naturally

forced to join the army, the only salaried employment left for him.

Key Words: Acholi, Military, Martial Race, Valour, Labour

 

INTRODUCTION

The British divided their Uganda Protectorate into two,  namely labour  and production

zones. The division was based on presumed natural qualities of the people of northern Uganda

and those of the south. The people of the north were regarded to be strong, muscular and hard

working while the southern peoples were perceived as weak, lazy but intellectually superior. The

accuracy of those accolades is debatable. There existed sub-zones in each of the two zones. In

Northern Uganda, the people from Acholi-land became warriors; West-Nile communities were

plantation  workers while  those  from Teso  were  deemed fit  for  the police  force. This  paper

analyses reasons for the British choice of the Acholi as the martial race of Uganda.

Pre-colonial history of the Acholi

“On  the whole”,  wrote  Lloyd  (1908),  “one  would  call  them  a  fine  race  physically,  but  not

warlike. Probably if they had a leader, they would make a fighting tribe”. By 1903 when Rev. A.

 

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B.  Lloyd  arrived  in  northern  Uganda,  the  Acholi  were  living  under  separate,  distinct  and

independent chiefdoms.  Politically the Rwot (Chief) was the top- most figure.  He was assisted

by a group of chiefs called Jagi (Singular, Jago).  The Rwot of the Acholi did not have as much

powers as the Kabaka of Buganda, Omukama of Bunyoro or even the Asantehene of the Asante. 

Land, for example, was not owned by the Rwot but it belonged to everybody in the kingdom and

the king was never a despot. Although the concept of “Acholi-hood” existed prior to the  arrival

of European colonisers, it was  limited…It was  not a fully formed, self-identified ethnicity until

early twentieth century, at the height of colonial and missionary power (Atkinson, 1994).

In military terms, the Acholi chiefdoms never had a strong army although by 1900, there

were more than  20,000  guns among them.   Traditionally, they used  clubs, bows  and arrows,

spears  etc  to  defend  their  land  from  the  aggression  of  their  neighbors  such  as  the  Madi,

Karamojong, Langi, Alur, Topech and Didinga.  But when they started trading with Abyssinians,

Arabs and  Karimojong, the  Acholi acquired guns.   All  males were called  upon to  take up a

military duty whenever there was a threat.  The fighters were easily mobilized by sounding the

royal drum of each chiefdom. The army of pre-colonial Acholi was both garrisoned as situational

depending on the period in question. Before the Acholi began to face the wrath of slave trade and

imperialistic forces  from the north,  there were  no major  foreign threats  hence no  need for  a

standing army. 

However, from about 1850 onwards, when the “Khartoumers,”as Arab slave dealers from

Cairo were called, began to venture into Acholi-land with dangerous consequences, there was an

abrupt  change.  All  the  leading  states  developed  standing  armies  including  Padibe,  Palabek,

Payira, Lamogi and Koc. The standing army of Padibe kingdom was the most powerfull all over

Acholi-land, thanks to the diplomacy and political maneuvers of Rwot Ogwok: In preparation for

war with  the chiefdom  of Payira, Rwot Ogwok  joined hands with the  Kuturia,  who came to

trade, and raised a standing army called the Buchura. This was what made Padibe so powerful in

the later  half of the  nineteenth century.  By the time  the British colonised  Acholi-land, these

standing armies were already in place and disarming them became a nagging task for the British.

The major cause of the Lamogi rebellion of 1911-1912 was this policy of disarmament (Personal

communication with Picho Oywelo, The Rwot of Ariya).

The Acholi “have no sultans of any consequence” claimed the explorer Speke (1863), one

of the first European visitors to Acholi-land. He was referring to the poly-cephalous nature of the

people. Although there were chiefs scattered all over the land, none wielded authority over the

entire people and there was no political or any other system that brought all Acholi people under

one realm.

Socially, the  Acholi chiefdoms  were highly  egalitarian, like  all other  Lwo societies.    Father

Crazzolara who spent more than thirty years in Acholiland and who has so far made the most

detailed anthropological research on the Lwos described a Lwo man as follows:

             He is frank, candid and pleasant in dealing with bonafide individuals

             who approach him; he likes to talk, joke and laugh.  He is hospitable and

             generous to guests and visitors without distinction.  He treats all as equals                                             

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             for there is no class distinction among them (Crazzolara, 1950).

 

The dry seasons were for sports, games, courtship and visits.  The humility and hospitality of the

Acholi  allowed  everybody  including  strangers  to  feel  at  home.    One  European  visitor  was

impressed.  He wrote;

               I arrived here today (January 13th, 1876) five days after Fatiko

               (Patriko)….A vast undulating Prairie of Jungle grass and scrub trees…

               The Shuuli (Acholi) are a very polite people, always ready with greetings

               And inquiries after one’s health (Baker, 1874).

 

It is amazing that about fifty years later, the Acholi who were “very polite and always ready with

greetings,” became the warrior race of colonial Uganda.

The people now called Acholi had a rich variety of wild  game roaming the land  they

occupied.  This  high  population  of  wild  animals  is  explained  by  the  supportive  savannah

grassland type of vegetation coupled with favourable climatic conditions of high temperatures,

clear sunshine, moderate humidity and high altitude. Sir Samuel Walker Baker once called this

land, the paradise of Africa. “As we approached Patiko,” wrote Baker,  

I gave orders that on the morrow all the troops were to appear in their best uniforms, as

we were  only six  miles from  Fatiko…On 6th February we started at 6:10 am. We were

now  in the  country  were I  had  been well  known on  my former  exploration –  in the

paradise of Africa, at an elevation of 4,000 feet above the sea (Baker 1874).

Patiko or “Fatiko” as Samuel Baker called it is now a sub county in Gulu district. Baker himself

benefited enormously from the rich wild life of the Acholi territory. The cheapest way to feed the

two thousand people he travelled with was to hunt on a daily basis because the cattle population

had been wiped out by slave raiders from Khartoum.

While hunting began primarily as a method of survival, in time, it became interlinked

with  other  aspects  of  culture.  Initiation  ceremonies  sometimes  included  a  demonstration  of

hunting skills and prowess. Ceremonial hunting was also used to deepen a sense of collective

identity.  Until  the  rich  game  resources  of  the  area  were  depleted in  the  last  century,  multi

chiefdom hunts organised in the dry season were the largest scale undertakings engaged in pre-

colonial Acholi. The rigours of these hunts prepared Acholi men for military services.

Later Samuel Walker Baker described the  Acholi as people of  “fine  physique.” To him,

“The men  of  Shooli  (as the Acholi were called) are the best proportioned that I have ever seen;

without  the extreme  height of  the Shilluks  or Dinkas,  they are  muscular and  well knit,  and

generally their faces are handsome (Baker, 1874).”   

The colonial Labour policy

“What I know the Colonial Government does think about West Nile” fumed the area MP, “is to

keep it a human zoo, and get cheap labourers from  it to work in places like Kakira, Kawolo

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(central  Uganda)  and  where  new  industries  will  be  started”.  He  went  on,  “I  do  believe  that

government does think that if industries  are started in west Nile, the flow of labour from that

district to  other districts  will be  stopped” (Hansard  35, 3135-3136). Up to 1962, no industries,

large plantations nor bituminized roads existed in northern Uganda.

The emigration of labour from Acholi-land to other parts of Uganda was not a surprise.

The British had introduced taxes and monetized the economy: money was now the only medium

of exchange. One was forced to work for a salary if they were to keep afloat the new economic

system. Those like the Acholi who lacked investments in their regions were forced to migrate out

of their regions. Their efforts developed the regions in which they worked more than where they

hailed. As has been stated:

The uneven spread of colonial economic and infrastructure development between cash-

crop  and  labour  reserve  regions  …  introduced  significant  regional  differentiation  in

access  to  cash  crop  production,  trade,  education,  wage  labour  and state  employment

amongst different ethnic communities to produce sharper edges in the confrontation and

competition of political tribalism (Kasfir, 1972).

Meanwhile the migrant labourers had to be closely monitored so that their tribal origins

are never lost. Application forms for government employment included a question on the tribe of

the  prospective  job  seeker.  Census  forms  requested  similar  information.  The  government

intention  was  not  only  to  encourage  migrant  labour  but  also  to  ensure  continuity  of  tribal

systems. Thus,

The protectorate Government  laid  the foundation  for the controlled  system  of migrant

labour  by  retribalising  the  unemployed  …  It  began  to  make  the  tribe  rather  than  the

individual the basic unit of social organization. Individual rights were subsumed under

tribal obligations. In a very real sense, the tribe, in official parlance, at least, now owned

the people (Kasfir, 1972).

In line  with the  above the  colonial  administration legalised  a Vagrancy  Ordinance  in

1925, which restricted the migrant option to two: he could either work or he could return home to

the  “tribe”.  The  migrant  labour  from  Acholi-land  was of  low  quality, mainly casual  workers.

They could only occupy low profile jobs because of the minimal education received or outright

illiteracy.  The first  schools  to open  in  Uganda  were  all in  the  southern half  of the  country

especially Buganda. The Baganda became the most educated in Uganda and the most affluent

since  they  occupied  most  of  the  senior  non-military  posts  in  both  government  and  non-

governmental  enterprises. Considering  that university  degrees  were  the gateway  to  the most

powerful positions  and greatest economic  opportunities, the  fact  that 40  percent of  the 1698

persons  who  entered  Makerere  University  before  1954  from  all  parts  of  east  Africa  were

Baganda explains much of their predominance today.

Education continued to be dominated by the Baganda throughout the colonial period and

up  to  today.  Writing  about  the  situation  in  the  highest  institution  of  learning  in  Uganda  –

Makerere  University  in  the  1950s,  Nelson  Kasfir  (1972)  stated  that  while  Baganda  over representation has fallen, and continues to fall, they still provide over 50 percent of the Ugandan

entrants as late as 1953. And that, of Uganda students abroad in the last quarter of 1960, 143

were sponsored by the then Kabaka’s government, as compared to only 106 sponsored by all the

rest of the districts and kingdoms of Uganda. This imbalance in education meant that the Acholi,

and  other  communities  of  the  north,  were  to  continue  working  in  the  central  regions  but

occupying low key posts for a very long time.

Even when cash crops were introduced among the Acholi like elsewhere in Uganda, the

situation did not alter much. The natural conditions in Acholi-land especially East Acholi could

only  favour annual  crops like  cotton and  tobacco. These  two crops  are labour  intensive  yet

harvested only once  a  year. The  north was left  to  grow an  annual cash  crop – cotton whose

returns were over a long period of time and at low prices. This marked the beginning of disparity

between the  north and the south as far as  economic development is  concerned, and prompted

many Acholi men to enroll in the army.

The Acholi were still at a disadvantage compared to the southern communities who grew

coffee, pyrethrum and  tea among others. But the  Acholi had no choice because  unlike before

they were now confronted with a capitalist system in which the economy was highly monetized.

Therefore, the young Acholi had only two alternatives: to get a job elsewhere or to grow cotton.

When cotton prices began to drop after world war two, the situation was even more precarious.

The Acholi were left with one choice: to look for salaried employment which meant traveling to

the south where they were despised and insulted. An area member of parliament noted that:

Acholi District is poor, it has remained poor for a long time for various reasons; it is far

away from the  cattle trade and money circulation. There is  lack of employment in the

district. This has been illustrated in many ways. In the past, we did get a lot of people

coming down here (Buganda) in search of work. Most of them go back worse that when

they  came….Acholi  District  is  one  of  those  areas  in  Uganda  which  has lagged behind

economically (Mamdani, 1984). 

As noted above Acholi District lacked employment opportunities in industries, plantations and

state enterprises. What was readily available was the army, to which young Acholi men went in

large numbers.

According to Karugire (1980), The bulk of the Protectorates armed services were recruited from

Northern  Uganda,  particularly  Acholi,  Lango  and  West  Nile  in  that  order  of  numerical

representation. This became the established order throughout the colonial period. And it was not

long  before  the  colonial  government  invented  a  rationalization  for  building  this  ethnically

unbalanced  army: the  people  of  northern  Uganda  were  the  ‘martial  tribes’  of  the  Protectorate,

and  since the  African soldiers  required  in the  colonial army  were those  of strong  physique, anyone else.  It was  a  terrible  mistake”. Those  were  words  of  Major  Iain  Grahame,  a  British

officer  serving  with  the  4th  Battalion  of  the  King’s  African  Rifles  in  Uganda  as  reported  by

Hugh (1983). What  the army officer  is regretting  here is  that they  preferred people  of valor,

courage and physical strength rather than level of education. Most Acholi recruits were men of

physique and height relative to those of other regions (Personal communication with Ret. Major

Anywar in Gulu).

 CONCLUSION

The  British  did  not  wish  to  encourage  any  degree  of  unity  among  the  different

communities of  Uganda. Keeping them  at variance meant  that there would  be no  nationalist

movement  for  independence.  Hence  the  British  invested  only  in  what  they  regarded  as

production zone. The labour zone was only to supply the production zone with man power. Until

independence, the British established no single investment among the Acholi. The effect was that

within a short time the demand for labour in Buganda caused wage inflation and stimulated a

flow of migrant labour from Kitgum, Gulu and parts of West Nile, Northern Province. However,

due to limited educational facilities, most Acholi could not get salaried jobs other than those of

the armed forces. With time it became the job of the Achol

 

EM         -> {   Gap   at   46  } – {Allan Barigye is a Rwandan predator}

On the 49^th Parallel          

                 Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in anarchy"
                    Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni katika machafuko"