Kabalega (Kabarega) of Bunyoro (ca. 1853–1923)

Abstract Kabalega, ruler of the kingdom of Bunyoro between 1870 and 1898, was one of the major figures in late nineteenth‐century eastern Africa, noted for both his remarkable military reforms and the prolonged resistance he offered to the British during their conquest of Uganda. His father was Kamurasi, ruler from 1852 to 1869, whose death sparked a succession struggle; Kabalega, whose support was drawn mostly from the army and the peasantry, was pitched against his elder brother Kabigumire, who was the candidate favored by the traditional nobility. Kabalega emerged victorious from the civil war in 1870, and two key themes would consequently dominate his reign, namely his reliance on military force to engender change in Bunyoro, and his attempt to restrict the power of the kingdom's great chiefly families. Kabalega inherited a kingdom in decline: he sought to reverse this process both militarily and politically, and also by taking advantage of the burgeoning commerce in slaves and ivory.