Mwanga II

What is said of Mwanga here comes from the missionaries at his court, who were his opponents. Alexander Mackay wrote that King Mutesa died in October 1884 and that Mwanga, one of his younger sons, succeeded him (Mackay of Uganda p. 467). He lists the acts that followed: the burning of three Christian youths, the execution of Bishop James Hannington in October 1885, the death of the king’s favourite page for protesting at it, and in May 1886 the order for a general massacre of Christians (Mackay of Uganda p. 468). In a letter written that June Mackay gives as the occasion a Christian page’s refusal “to be made the victim of an unmentionable abomination”, and quotes Mwanga as saying that the Christians were disobedient and learned rebellion from the white man (Mackay of Uganda p. 276).

Mackay records that in 1888 Mwanga was driven from his throne by his Christian and Muslim soldiers together, after they discovered a plot to maroon and starve them on an island in the lake (Mackay of Uganda p. 469). See the Martyrs of Uganda.