Uganda: European Contacts and Religious Conflicts
European Contacts and Religious Conflicts
In 1862, John Hanning Speke, a British explorer interested in establishing the source of the Nile, became the first European to visit Buganda. He met with Mutesa I, as did Henry M. Stanley, who reached Buganda in 1875. Mutesa, fearful of attacks from Egypt, agreed to Stanley's proposal to allow Christian missionaries (who Mutesa mistakenly thought would provide military assistance) to enter his realm. Members of the British Protestant Church Missionary Society arrived in 1877, and they were followed in 1879 by representatives of the French Roman Catholic White Fathers; each of the missions gathered a group of converts, which in the 1880s became fiercely antagonistic toward one another. At the same time, the number of Baganda converts to Islam was growing.
In 1884, Mutesa died and was succeeded as
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- Uganda after Amin
- Amin's Reign of Terror
- An Independent Nation
- The Colonial Era
- European Contacts and Religious Conflicts
- Early History
- Government
- Economy
- Land and People
- Bibliography
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