The Kabula massacre, Nkore's longest succession war and the ascension of Ntare V

Sometime around 1870, Omugabe Mutambuka, the ruler of Nkore Kingdom, died. His death triggered what would become the longest and bloodiest succession war in Nkore's royal history.

That war eventually brought Ntare V to the throne, but it lasted three years, and by the end, the Nkore royal family had been torn apart and almost destroyed. The effects of that succession struggle would haunt Ntare throughout his reign, which ended in 1895.

Context

In Nkore, succession disputes were common; in fact, they were almost the norm. Rarely did a prince have the support of all his brothers and uncles to become king.

However, Mutambuka had been one of the exceptions. His own rise to power met little resistance, and for most of his reign, it seemed his eldest son, Bacwa, would also have a fairly straightforward path to the throne. Bacwa appeared to have everything: military standing, a loyal following among fighting men, and the respect that came with being the first-born son. By tradition and expectation, the throne seemed to be his.

But that never happened.

During a drunken quarrel, Bacwa killed his cousin. The dead man was the son of Kibangura, Mutambuka's sister, and she never forgave him. Kibangura pressured Mutambuka to banish Bacwa from the kingdom.

Bacwa first went to Mpororo, from where he later made his way to Rwanda. There, he was killed, allegedly by Kibangura's agents.

But Kibangura did not stop there. She demanded that Mutambuka have Bacwa's eldest son, Rukamisa, killed as compensation for the death of her own son. Mutambuka agreed because at the time, he did not know that Bacwa had already been killed in Rwanda.

So by the time Mutambuka finally died, Bacwa's line had been shattered. But it had not completely disappeared. One of Bacwa's surviving sons was a young man named Ntare. At that point, nobody thought much of him.

The War Begins

With Bacwa out of the picture, the real fight was between Mutambuka's surviving sons.

On one side was Rukongyi, who had actually adopted the young Ntare. Rukongyi was supported by several princes, including Makumbi, Nkuranga, and Gandiga.

On the other side was Mukwenda. He was strongly backed by his younger brother, Muhikira.

Most of the other princes supported Rukongyi. One reason appears to be that many people associated Bacwa's misfortunes with Mukwenda's side. But others were afraid of what Rukongyi's camp might do if it won. They feared revenge.

The spark that started the war was a murder that broke every rule and norm around the death of an Nkore king. After Mutambuka's death, the royal purification rites were supposed to be sacred. It was a time when violence was forbidden. But during those rites, one of Mukwenda's supporters killed Rukongyi.

Rukongyi's supporters were shocked. The leadership of their faction then passed to Makumbi, Rukongyi's younger brother.

Makumbi made a decision. He would retreat towards Kabula, near the Buganda border, and try to secure outside support.

The Trap

But Makumbi did not know that Mukwenda had moved faster. Mukwenda had reached out to the Baganda first, and he had won them over to his side.

Makumbi's party then met Mukasa, the chief of Buddu. Mukasa had been sent by Kabaka Muteesa. Makumbi and his followers believed they were meeting an ally.

Mukasa gave them a warm welcome. He invited Makumbi and the leading princes into a large house. The house had been built specifically for the meeting. It was presented as a place for a peace ceremony — a blood-brotherhood ritual, a sacred bond between allies.

But behind the walls of that house, there was a trap. The walls had been lined with bark cloth. And behind that bark cloth, armed men were hiding, waiting.

Makumbi's party were politely asked to leave their spears outside. After all, they were told, this was a ceremony of peace. You do not bring weapons into a ceremony of peace. The request seemed reasonable, so they complied without hesitation. They left their spears outside. Then they walked in.

And that is when Mukasa's men attacked.

The hidden men fell on them the moment the doors closed. What had been presented as a gathering of peace became a massacre. Seventy-eight people were murdered. Many of them were of royal blood.

The Aftermath

The Kabula massacre almost destroyed the anti-Mukwenda cause entirely. The senior princes were gone. The military leaders were gone. Many royal partisans who had committed themselves to the fight were also gone. And those who survived were in shock.

Nkuranga and Gandiga, both sons of Mutambuka, were legitimate claimants in their own right. But they lost heart. They considered abandoning the struggle altogether. And by doing so, they effectively surrendered their claims to the throne.

Ntare did not.

He was younger. He belonged to the next generation. By strict seniority, he was not the obvious choice. But he was the only one still willing to fight.

His claim also had real weight. He was the son of Bacwa, the prince many believed would have become king if he had lived. Ntare had also been adopted by Rukongyi, which connected him directly to the defeated claimant whose following he now inherited. And above all, Ntare was still standing when everyone else seemed ready to give up and flee into exile. To his supporters, that courage mattered more than birth order.

There was also something personal driving him. By fighting Mukwenda, Ntare was not only seeking the throne — he was avenging his father. This was both a succession war and a blood feud.

The Road to the Throne

But the road to the throne was not smooth.

After Kabula, Ntare's battered party returned home to Nkore. They camped in what is now Kashongyi, in Kiruhura District. Mukwenda attacked them there. The battle was intense, the casualties were heavy, and Ntare barely escaped with only a handful of followers. He regrouped. Then he tried to rebuild.

Mukwenda again turned to deceit. He persuaded one of Ntare's servants to give him poisoned beer. Ntare became gravely ill. Before Ntare had recovered, Mukwenda attacked the camp. His forces scattered Ntare's party with ease. Again, Ntare barely escaped. He fled to Buhweju. There, he was treated, and eventually he recovered from the poisoning.

After recovering, Ntare returned to the struggle. He settled at Mugoye, in present-day Ibanda. Once again, he tried to consolidate his position. But Mukwenda soon attacked. This time, the battle was decisive.

The fighting was bitter. The casualties were heavy on both sides. But by the end of the battle, Mukwenda was dead. His brother Muhikira was also dead. The succession war was over. Ntare had won.

What He Inherited

But what exactly had he won?

Not a united kingdom. Not a realm that had peacefully chosen him. Ntare inherited a society consumed by murder, betrayal, and civil war. The royal family had been torn apart. Most of Mutambuka's sons and many of the kingdom's leading princes were dead. Subjects had fought on opposite sides. Families carried memories of relatives killed by fellow Banyankore. Ntare had won because he was the last credible fighter still standing — not because the kingdom had calmly accepted him.

His real achievement came after the war. He held Nkore together through the exhaustion that follows catastrophe. Later, he expanded the kingdom's frontiers through raids on neighbouring peoples, which showed his regime had recovered enough strength to act outwardly.

But the foundation remained fragile. The civil war had consumed most of the ruling class. Nearly every senior prince who might have provided stability, succession options, or internal balance was gone.

Closing Thoughts

Ntare's throne was won through endurance. It was won through war. But the price was severe.

A kingdom survived. A ruler emerged. But Nkore's royal house had nearly destroyed itself to put him there.

The 1905 Murder of Harry George Galt and Uganda's First High Profile Trial

120 years ago, on the evening of May 19th, 1905, Harry St. George Galt, the acting Sub-Commissioner of Uganda’s Western Province, sat on the verandah of a rest house near Ibanda. Suddenly, a spear pierced his lung. Moments later, he turned to his cook and uttered his last words: “Look, cook, a savage has speared me.”

Galt collapsed and died instantly.

This was not just a murder. It sparked one of the earliest and most high-profile trials in Uganda’s colonial history. A case that revealed deep political rivalries, suspicions of conspiracy, and a mystery that has never been fully resolved.

The Background

To understand Galt’s murder, we must go back a decade earlier.

In 1895, the death of Ntare, king or Omugabe of Ankole, left the Kingdom in turmoil. Three claimants struggled for the throne, cattle were ravaged by rinderpest, and unrest spread across the kingdom.

From this chaos rose a dominant figure: Nuwa Mbaguta. He was determined to see the young Kahaya crowned as Omugabe, with himself as Enganzi, or chief adviser. Mbaguta secured British backing, and in 1898, a civil station was established at Mbarara.

This move cemented Kahaya’s authority as Omugabe and strengthened Mbaguta’s power. But it also created bitter enemies. The Ankole royal clan, the Bahinda, saw Mbaguta as an upstart from a minor clan. Rival chiefs remembered the exile of Igumira, their preferred contender for the throne, the death of independent rulers like Ndagara of Buhweju, and the imposition of unpopular taxes as the British consolidated their control over Ankole.

The British administration, represented by men like Galt, was closely tied to these shifts in power. And that meant resentment against colonial authority was simmering beneath the surface.

The Murder

On May 19, 1905, Galt was travelling from Fort Portal to Mbarara. He stopped for the night at a rest camp in Ibanda.

At about 6:30 in the evening, a spear was hurled at him. He died almost instantly.

An inquiry into the murder was quickly set up. This inquiry first suggested revenge as a possible motive because just days before he was murdered, Galt had ordered the hanging of a man from Toro for murder.

Could his son have retaliated?

However, there was no evidence to support this theory.

Suspicion quickly shifted toward political motives rooted in Ankole’s rivalries.

The Wilson Inquiry

Soon after, another inquiry was set up with George Wilson, the acting commissioner of the Uganda Protectorate, leading a thorough investigation. Chiefs from Ankole and Toro were summoned, but he found them evasive, secretive, and even deceptive.

At first, a peasant named Rutaraka was identified as the killer. The spear that killed Galt was traced to him, and villagers described him as violent, even unstable. But soon after, Rutaraka was found dead (allegedly a suicide by hanging). Wilson doubted this. He suspected that Rutaraka was silenced to cover up deeper involvement.

More witnesses emerged. Testimony pointed fingers at two powerful figures: Gabrieli Rwakakaiga, the county chief of Mitooma, where Ibanda was situated, and Isaka Nyakayaga, a dismissed official.

Witnesses claimed that Rwakakaiga had promised cattle, land, and even chieftainships to anyone who killed a European. They said Nyakayaga helped recruit and shelter Rutaraka. Eventually, both men were arrested and charged with instigating the murder.

The Trial

The trial opened on October 20, 1905, at Entebbe before Judge G. F. M. Ennis.

The accused were defended at their own expense by Byramji Rustamji of Mombasa, whose fees were apparently paid in cattle.

The prosecution relied on five key witnesses. They testified about conversations where Rwakakaiga and Nyakayaga supposedly incited Rutaraka to spear Galt. However, their stories were riddled with contradictions — dates, locations, rewards, and even the presence of witnesses varied wildly.

Still, Judge Ennis dismissed these inconsistencies as “usual in native evidence.” He convicted both men and sentenced them to death.

However, in January 1906, the Court of Appeal for East Africa sitting in Mombasa overturned the convictions. The judges ruled the testimony unreliable, contradictory, and uncorroborated. Rwakakaiga and Nyakayaga were acquitted.

One appeal judge, however, admitted to a lingering suspicion that they had indeed instigated the murder, though this had not been conclusively proved.

Aftermath

Despite the acquittal, colonial authorities were not satisfied. George Wilson deported both men to Kismayu, in present-day southern Somalia, which was part of the British East Africa Protectorate at that time. Rwakakaiga died there ten years later. Nyakayaga was allowed to return in 1925 as long as he agreed to live in Jinja.

The Mugabe and chiefs of Ankole were fined 1100 heads of cattle, the people of the Ankole counties of Buhweju, Buzimba and Mitooma and the Tooro county of Kitagwenda were made to pay double poll tax for that year. Forced labour was imposed on the people, and the Ankole Agreement was suspended. The whole kingdom suffered collective punishment.

The murder left scars. Some said it was an act of revenge for old injustices. Others believed it was orchestrated to undermine Mbaguta’s power or even instigated by rivals in Toro.

Even today, the murder is still talked about, and the true motive remains a mystery. Some still believe that Rutaraka was merely a scapegoat, too sick to have thrown the fatal spear.

Retrospect

The trial of Galt’s murder was Uganda’s first high-profile colonial case. It exposed the tensions between chiefs, the fragility of early colonial justice, and the deep mistrust between the people of Ankole and their new rulers.

But one thing is clear: the truth was never fully uncovered. Was Galt the victim of a political conspiracy? Or just a tragic target of a random act of vengeance?

We may never know.