Editing Buganda (section)

===European Accounts===

Europeans admired Buganda and often praised the kingdom, considering it the pinnacle of "native political evolution." Early travel, missionary, and colonial accounts often called the Baganda the "most advanced and intelligent of all central African societies."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Women_in_African_Colonial_Histories/Ky1lol7-vdcC?hl=en|title=Women in African Colonial Histories|page=97}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Deadly_Developments/qLDDC6XFXIEC?hl=en|title=Deadly Developments: Capitalism, States and War|page=108}}</ref>

To Europeans, the Baganda belonged to a distinct political and social order and were thus privileged over other ethnic and cultural groups in the region. [[Henry Morton Stanley]] described the [[Baganda]] as "an extraordinary people, as different from the barbarous pirates of Uvuma, and the wild, mop-headed men of Eastern Usukuma, as the British in India are from their [[Afridi]] fellow-subjects, or the white Americans of Arkansas from the semi-civilized [[Choctaws]]" <ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Through_the_Dark_Continent/Ut3CAgAAQBAJ?hl=en|title=Through the Dark Continent, Vol. 1|page=147}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Institutional_Pathways_to_Equity/a-TMNwEnE-cC?hl=en|title=Institutional Pathways to Equity: Addressing Inequality Traps|page=81}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Perhaps one of the best organised and most civilised of African kingdoms at the present day. In fact, putting aside the empires of [[Ethiopian Empire|Abyssinia]] and Morocco (as entirely independent states ranking with other world powers), Uganda would take a high place among those purely Negro kingdoms which retain any degree of national rule.|[[Harry Johnston]]|title=''The Uganda Protectorate''|source=<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Uganda_Protectorate/UQUyAQAAMAAJ?hl=en|title=The Uganda Protectorate|page=636}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Women_in_African_Colonial_Histories/Ky1lol7-vdcC?hl=en|title=Women in African Colonial Histories|page=98}}</ref>}}

[[William Lambton (British Army officer)|Colonel Lambkin]] and the explorer [[Harry Johnston]] both described the [[Baganda]] as the black Japanese or "the Japanese of the dark continent" and "the most naturally civilized, charming, kind, tactful, and courteous of black people."
<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Women_in_African_Colonial_Histories/Ky1lol7-vdcC?hl=en|title=Women in African Colonial Histories}}</ref> [[Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard|Frederick Lugard]] claimed that Buganda was "probably the most civilised of any native state in Africa."<ref>https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Rise_of_Our_East_African_Empire_Earl/bkmvvQEACAAJ?hl=en</ref>

The American president [[Theodore Roosevelt]] was amazed by the kingdom when he visited Africa in 1909, claiming that Buganda stood "far above most … in their capacity for progress towards civilization.".  Visiting Buganda had a profound impact on him and compelled him to rethink his negative views of African people, and even [[African Americans]] in the United States. The reality of Buganda's political sophistication commanded his respect.<ref>https://www.abhmuseum.org/theodore-roosevelt-and-the-real-wakanda/</ref>