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.
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