Small-Scale Resistance in Uganda: the Lango ‘Rising’ at Adwari in 1919

Summary

John Tosh conducted his research in Uganda while a Research Student of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. He is now lecturing in London.

This article attempts to shed light on the reception of colonial rule in stateless societies through the detailed reconstruction of a single armed clash in Lango. The Adwari disturbances of 1919 were not a major upheaval, but merely one of many small-scale ‘incidents’ which attended the extension of colonial rule during the pacification period in East Africa. Such incidents were an important feature of early colonial government, but they cannot often be rescued from obscurity, and their atmosphere tends to be elusive. For the Adwari disturbances, however, there exists an unusually rich combination of sources. As a result, the movements and motives of Lango rebels, Lango ‘collaborators’, colonial officials and Ganda agents emerge in focus. Most interest attaches to the contrasting attitudes of the Lango participants; these suggest that the response of stateless societies to colonial rule could be complex, and that opportunities to manipulate European officials in the interests of local factions were not confined to centralised polities.