THE king’s word was law. Rules were made and amended according to his whim. He was elevated to the status of a deity – a spiritual being whose reign was shrouded in mysticism. Worshipping the Kabaka was the reason a Muganda lived. But the arrival of Anglican and Catholic missionaries in the Buganda kingdom from Europe in 1877 opened the gates for a religious, social and political revolution in a conservative traditional set-up.<\/p>\n
The revolution would culminate into King Mwanga II’s vicious persecution of his servants. The missionaries taught a new religion (Christianity) and about a supreme loving God, who they said was the creator and ruler of everything, including Kabaka Mwanga, their king.<\/p>\n
Whoever denounced all native religious behaviour and practices as heathen and satanic and converted to Christianity, would be rewarded with everlasting life in heaven.<\/p>\n
Heaven, Mwanga’s subjects were told, was a place where there is no death, disease or suffering of any form.<\/p>\n