Protectorate of Uganda

The Protectorate of Uganda was a British protectorate in East Africa that existed from 1894 to 1962. Its origins lay in the rivalry among Protestant, Catholic and Muslim factions within the Kingdom of Buganda in the late 1880s. The Imperial British East Africa Company intervened, and in 1893 it transferred its administrative rights to the British government. On 18 June 1894 Britain declared Uganda a protectorate and gradually extended its territory beyond Buganda to an area roughly corresponding to modern Uganda. The Uganda Agreement of 1900 entrenched the power of Protestant Baganda chiefs and allowed Britain to govern through them with few officials. The colonial capital was Entebbe, close to the Buganda capital. Cash-crop cultivation, especially cotton and coffee, was promoted, while Asian traders dominated commerce and cotton ginning. Periodic protests, including the 1907 nyangire rebellion in Bunyoro and the 1949 Baganda riots, exposed tensions over land, taxes and political representation. After the Second World War, constitutional reforms expanded African representation and prepared the country for self-government. Uganda became independent in October 1962, with Milton Obote as prime minister.