When exploring the history of Kabale it should be noted that modern day
nation states such as Uganda, Rwanda, DRC and Tanzania are historically areas defined by their people and clans rather than the imposed and
often arbitrary boundaries forced on the area by white Europeans during
and after the 1884-1885 Conference of Berlin. Even today many of the people
from this area see themselves as part of a wider east African community
than citizens of post colonial states. Kabale itself
means "a small stone" and was so named after a piece of local iron that
was so heavy that people visited from far and wide to see and handle it.
The town is located within an area inhabited mainly by the Bakiga (people
of the highlands, above) of Rukiga (highlands), the Bahororo of Rujumbura and the
Banyarwanda people of Bufumbria, home to the volcanic Muhavura Mountains
and Bwindi National Forest.
Modern day
Kabale was formerly part of Empire of Kitara that straddled the great
lakes area of Africa until it was broken up and superseded by smaller
kingdoms during the 16th century. By 1650 the Mpororo Kingdom had been
established in the area encompassing present-day northern Rwanda and
Western Uganda ~ mostly the present-day Kabale and Ntungamo Districts. However,
within a hundred years, this kingdom had fractured and whilst parts were
absorbed into the more northern Nkore kingdom, what was to become the
Kabale area was then nominally ruled by the Batutsi of Rwanda although,
in reality, the fiercely independent nature of the locals made them
subject to no-one, and, as such, they operated largely autonomously and
untroubled by the encroaching outside world. (Research from the 1930s
concluded that the people were "united only in their disunity" whilst a
contemporaneous Anglican missionary wrote in May 1921 "They have no King
and everyone seems to do just as he pleases" whilst the British Western
Province Annual Report of 1913-14 concluded "discipline and obedience
among themselves are to them unknown quantities.")
By
the time the Europeans arrived in the region in the late nineteenth century,
the area was little more than a chiefdom ruled over by a Omukama as part
of the former Mporora Kingdom. The British, Germans and Belgians all
attempted to establish hegemony over the area but each was unable to
establish a viable boundary not least because of the topography of the
area ~ making it known as the Switzerland of East Africa given its
mountainous terrain (above) ~ rising from 3,000ft above sea level at Lake Edward
to 13,500 feet above sea level in the far south-west. Indeed when the first British political officer toured the area in 1910
he reported that the country was "a mass of broken hills" making the
workload for his porters "very arduous." In fact it took him five days
to walk from one end of the highlands to the other. Eventually the
British were to gain the upper hand over their colonial rivals, albeit
it largely ignored by the locals although occasionally insurrections
erupted when the colonials attempted to impose their unwanted
administrative will over the independent local population.
Around the
turn of the nineteenth century the British began to subsume the Kingdoms
of Buganda, Nkore and others into a protectorate rather than colony, and,
as such, the six chiefdoms that had emerged from the broken Mporora kingdom
including the Rukiga were considered too small to deal with separately so
an instruction went out that they were to subjugate themselves to the rulers
of the Nkore Kingdom which later became subject to the Ankole Agreement
of 1901. With that present day Kabale became a town within the new country
of Uganda, albeit a country that was little more than an area defined by
not being one of its neighbours. Despite
this, the British and other Europeans had very little actual physical presence
in the area. Indeed by 1931, a full thirty years after the Ankole Agreement
was signed and implemented, in the Kabale area there were just thirty-three
resident white Europeans, eighty-six Indians and six Arabs compared with
a local indigenous population of just under a quarter of a million people.
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As yet largely uncommercialised,
Western Uganda has many tourist
attractions for the explorer to visit.
As well as the main tourist attractions
there are many other activities
to enjoy in Western Uganda.
A guide to the main towns in and
around Western Uganda, where to stay,
eat and things to see and do.
A comprehensive guide to the best
places to stay when visiting Western
Uganda from hotels to camp sites.