Apolo Kagwa

Who was Apolo Kagwa?

Sir Apolo Kagwa KCMG MBE is considered Buganda's first and foremost ethnographer. He was appointed prime minister of the Kingdom of Buganda by King Mwanga II in 1890, and served in that capacity until 1926. From 1897, Kagwa served as regent until 1914 when the infant King Daudi Chwa came of age.

Apolo Kagwa was an administrative apprentice at the Royal palace of Buganda when the first Christian missionaries arrived in the 1870s. These palace apprentices, referred to as "pages" by European historians of the era, were bright youths from all over the kingdom sent to the palace to train as the next generation of leaders. He was one of the earliest converts to the Protestant faith, and nearly became one of the Uganda Martyrs when King Mwanga II fell out with the Christians a few years later. He was reportedly spared execution because he had already shown himself to be exceptionally capable as an assistant in the Treasury.

From 1885 to 1887 the kingdom fell into a religious civil war with Protestants, Catholics and Moslem factions vying for control. Kagwa, still in his twenties, was from early on recognised as the leader of the Protestant faction. A keen rifleman, Kagwa served actively in combat during these wars. The Moslems were in ascendancy in the early part of the war, and Kagwa and other Protestants spent some time in exile in the neighboring kingdom of Ankole. King Mwanga, temporarily deposed, was restored in 1890 with the assistance of the Protestants, and Kagwa was named Katikkiro. King Mwanga was again deposed in 1897 when he rejected British rule and led an unsuccessful fight for independence. An infant prince, Daudi Chwa, was named King with Kagwa as one of three regents. Kagwa was one of the negotiators of the Uganda Agreement, by which Buganda became a British protectorate with limited internal autonomy.