Editing Protectorate of Uganda (section)

=== Buganda administrators ===
The Baganda immediately offered their services to the British as administrators over their recently conquered neighbours, an offer which was attractive to the economy-minded colonial administration. Baganda agents fanned out as local tax collectors and labour organizers in areas such as [[Kigezi]], [[Mbale]], and, significantly, Bunyoro. This sub-imperialism and Ganda cultural chauvinism was resented by the people being administered.

Wherever they went, Baganda insisted on the exclusive use of their language, [[Luganda]], and they planted [[banana]]s as the only proper food worth eating. They regarded their traditional dress—long cotton gowns called [[kanzu]]s—as civilized; all else was barbarian. They also encouraged and engaged in mission work, attempting to convert locals to their form of Christianity or Islam. In some areas, the resulting backlash aided the efforts of religious rivals — for example, Catholics won converts in areas where oppressive rule was identified with a Protestant [[Muganda]] chief.

The people of [[Bunyoro]] were particularly aggrieved, having fought the Baganda and the British; having a substantial section of their heartland annexed to Buganda as the "lost counties", and finally having "arrogant" Baganda administrators issuing orders, collecting taxes, and forcing unpaid labour. In 1907 the Banyoro rose in a rebellion called ''[[nyangire]]'', or "refusing", and succeeded in having the Baganda subimperial agents withdrawn.

Meanwhile, in 1901 the completion of the [[Uganda Railway]] from the coast at [[Mombasa]] to the [[Lake Victoria]] port of [[Kisumu]] moved colonial authorities to encourage the growth of cash crops to help pay the railway's operating costs. Another result of the railway construction was the 1902 decision to transfer the eastern section of the Uganda Protectorate to the [[Kenya Colony]], then called the [[East Africa Protectorate]], to keep the entire line under one local colonial administration. Because the railway experienced cost overruns in Kenya, the British decided to justify its exceptional expense and pay its operating costs by introducing large-scale European settlement in a vast tract of land that became a centre of cash-crop agriculture known as the "[[White Highlands]]". A major part of the territory eventually left out of the "East Africa Protectorate" was the [[Uganda Scheme]], in which the British Empire offered to create a Jewish nation-state. The offer was made to the [[World Zionist Organization|Zionist movement]] which rejected it, refusing to accept anything other than the ancient [[Land of Israel]].

In many areas of Uganda, by contrast, agricultural production was placed in the hands of Africans, if they responded to the opportunity. Cotton was the crop of choice, largely because of pressure by the [[British Cotton Growing Association]], textile manufacturers who urged the colonies to provide raw materials for British mills. This was done by cash cropping the land. Even the [[Church Mission Society|CMS]] joined the effort by launching the [[Uganda Company]] (managed by a former missionary) to promote cotton planting and to buy and transport the produce.

Buganda, with its strategic location on the lakeside, reaped the benefits of cotton growing. The advantages of this crop were quickly recognized by the Baganda chiefs who had newly acquired freehold estates, which came to be known as [[mailo]] because they were measured in square miles. In 1905 the initial baled cotton export was valued at £200; in 1906, £1,000; in 1907; £11,000; and in 1908, £52,000. By 1915 the value of cotton exports had climbed to £369,000, and Britain was able to end its subsidy of colonial administration in Uganda, while in Kenya the white settlers required continuing subsidies by the home government.

The income generated by cotton sales made the Uganda kingdom relatively prosperous, compared with the rest of colonial Uganda, although before [[World War I]] cotton was also being grown in the eastern regions of [[Busoga]], [[Lango sub-region|Lango]], and [[Teso sub-region|Teso]]. Many Baganda spent their new earnings on imported clothing, bicycles, metal roofing, and even cars. They also invested in their children's education. The Christian missions emphasized literacy skills, and African converts quickly learned to read and write. By 1911 two popular journals, ''Ebifa'' (News) and ''Munno'' (Your Friend), were published monthly in Luganda.

Heavily supported by African funds, new schools were soon turning out graduating classes at Mengo High School, St. Mary's Kisubi, Namilyango, Gayaza, and [[King's College Budo]] — all in Buganda. The chief minister of the Buganda kingdom, Sir [[Apollo Kaggwa]], personally awarded a bicycle to the top graduate at [[King's College Budo]], together with the promise of a government job. The schools, in fact, had inherited the educational function formerly performed in the [[Kabaka of Uganda|Kabaka]]'s palace, where generations of young pages had been trained to become chiefs. Now the qualifications sought were literacy and skills, including typing and English translation.

Two important principles of precolonial political life carried over into the colonial era: clientage, whereby ambitious younger officeholders attached themselves to older high-ranking chiefs, and generational conflict, which resulted when the younger generation sought to expel their elders from office in order to replace them. After World War I, the younger aspirants to high office in Buganda became impatient with the seemingly perpetual tenure of Sir Apollo and his contemporaries, who lacked many of the skills that members of the younger generation had acquired through schooling. Calling themselves the [[Young Baganda Association]], members of the new generation attached themselves to the young Kabaka, [[Daudi Chwa]], who was the figurehead ruler of Buganda under indirect rule. But Kabaka Daudi never gained real political power, and after a short and frustrating reign, he died at the relatively young age of forty-three.