Uganda

Uganda. Former British protectorate in eastern Africa. The search for the source of the White Nile first brought the region to Britain's attention in the 1860s. British missionaries reached Uganda in 1877 and the difficulties in which they became involved, together with Britain's interest in Egypt, to the north, led to the declaration of a British protectorate in 1894. The presence of well-organized indigenous societies was responsible for the decision, taken early in the 20th cent., to develop Uganda as an African, rather than as a white settler, dependency. This, in turn, led to the introduction of indirect administration, using modified indigenous institutions, and the policy was made economically viable by the encouragement of cotton, and later of coffee, to provide foreign exchange. The road to independence in 1962 was bedevilled only by the problem of accommodating the powerful, centrally located kingdom of Buganda in a unified state.

Kenneth Ingham