The History of Busoga

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Boston University African Studies Center and Board of Trustees, Boston University are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The International Journal of African Historical Studies.Although Busoga attracted scholarly attention as early as the 1930s, it was not until the 1970s that historians seriously became active in that region.1 Lack of historical interest in Busoga was partly related to earlier attitudes that regarded African history either as nonexistent or as a footnote to European history.2 Busoga, however, had a further problem: within Uganda it was overshadowed by the famous kingdoms of Bunyoro-Kitara and Buganda.3 While some early writers presented a detailed overview of Busoga, their general impression of that region followed Harry Johnston's erroneous view that: "In many respects the Basoga resemble the Baganda so closely in physique, manners, and customs that in describing the latter I shall consider that I have at the same time described the Basoga.... ,4 Treating Busoga as though it is an appendage of 'Originally submitted to the University of Cambridge in 1937 as a dissertation for a diploma in anthropology, Douglas W. Robertson's The Historical Considerations Contributing to the Soga System of Land Tenure (Entebbe, 1940) represents some of the early academic writings that were produced on Busoga. 2For a recent discussion of this problem, see T. 0. Ranger's "Towards a Usable African Past," in Christopher Fyfe, ed., African Studies Since 1945 (London, 1976), 17-30. 3See map below showing states in the interlacustrine area. 4Although the writings of M. A. Condon ["Contribution to the Ethnography of the Basoga-Batamba," Anthropos V (1910), 366-384, and VI (1911), 934-936], and those of John Roscoe [The Northern Bantu (Cambridge, 1915), 145-158 and 197-256; Twenty-Five Years in EastAfrica (Cambridge, 1921), 234-249; and The Soul of Central Africa (London, 1922), 280-313] attempt an in-depth study of Busoga, on the whole most early studies were superficial. See Harry H.

Sources of local government extractive capacity: The role of trust and pre‐colonial legacy in the case of Uganda

“…In eastern Uganda, where Iganga is located, there was no large centralised administrative unit with a functioning tax system in pre-colonial times. Busoga, the eastern administrative unit, did not exist prior to colonisation but was amalgamated by the British from several smaller kingdoms (Nayenga, 1981). In the Western area, on the contrary, the kingdom of Ankole was a well-established centralised monarchy.…”

Pre-colonial centralization and tax compliance norms in contemporary Uganda

“…Toro broke away from Bunyoro as a separate kingdom in 1830. In the East, there was centralized Busoga, which was amalgamated by the British from several smaller kingdoms (Nayenga 1981).…”