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The Uganda Agreement of 1900, also called the Buganda Agreement, was signed on 10 March 1900 between the British special commissioner Sir Harry Johnston and the regents of Buganda, led by Katikkiro Apolo Kagwa, on behalf of the four-year-old Kabaka Daudi Chwa II. It made Buganda a province of the British protectorate with its own king and parliament, introduced taxes, and divided Buganda’s land between the Crown and the kingdom’s elite as “mailo” land. That land system still shapes property, politics and daily life in central Uganda today.
Why the Agreement was made
Britain had declared a protectorate over Buganda in 1894, after years of religious civil war at the Kabaka’s court between Catholic, Protestant and Muslim factions. Kabaka Mwanga II rebelled in 1897, was defeated and exiled, and his infant son was installed with three regents: Apolo Kagwa, Stanislaus Mugwanya and Zakaria Kisingiri. Johnston arrived in 1899 to put the protectorate on a firmer, cheaper footing, and the Protestant-led chiefs who had sided with Britain were in a strong position to bargain. See our history of the Buganda kingdom.
What it established
The Agreement recognised the Kabaka as ruler of Buganda, as long as he stayed loyal to Britain, and gave legal status to the Lukiiko, the kingdom’s council, and to the Katikkiro, or prime minister. Buganda’s chiefs ran local government under British supervision. A hut tax and a gun tax were introduced, payable to the protectorate. Buganda’s borders were fixed, including counties taken from Bunyoro during the wars of the 1890s, which later became known as the “lost counties”.
Mailo land
The most lasting part of the Agreement was land. Roughly half of Buganda, mostly forest, swamp and so-called waste land, went to the Crown. The rest, around 8,000 square miles, was allocated in square-mile blocks, hence the name mailo, to the Kabaka, the royal family, the regents and about a thousand chiefs and notables as private, freehold estates. Before this, land had been held under the Kabaka and allocated through chiefs and clans; the Agreement turned powerful chiefs into landlords and the farmers living on their land into tenants.
Tension between owners and tenants followed. The Busuulu and Envujjo Law of 1928 limited the rent and crop dues landlords could demand, and the Land Act of 1998 gave long-term occupants of mailo land legal protection. Even so, overlapping claims between registered owners and people who have lived on the land for generations remain one of the most common sources of land disputes in central Uganda.
Buganda’s special status and its costs
The Agreement made Buganda Britain’s main partner in Uganda. Baganda chiefs and agents, such as Semei Kakungulu, helped extend colonial rule into the east and north, and Buganda gained early from missionary schools and cash crops such as cotton and coffee. Other regions resented this privileged position. When Kabaka Mutesa II resisted British plans for a unified Uganda, he was deported to Britain in 1953 and returned in 1955 under a revised agreement. See our guide to the scramble for Africa and Uganda’s borders.
After independence
The 1962 independence constitution gave Buganda a federal status, and Mutesa II became president in 1963. A 1964 referendum returned two of the lost counties, Buyaga and Bugangaizi, to Bunyoro, worsening relations with Prime Minister Milton Obote. In 1966 government forces attacked the Kabaka’s palace and Mutesa fled into exile; in 1967 the kingdoms were abolished. They were restored in 1993 as cultural institutions, and Buganda still campaigns for a federal system and the return of land and properties. See our guide to Uganda’s independence and the Bunyoro-Kitara kingdom.
Seeing this history in Kampala
The Bulange in Mengo, home of the Lukiiko, is linked by a straight road to the Lubiri palace attacked in 1966, and the Kasubi Tombs hold the graves of Daudi Chwa II and Mutesa II. A half-day tour of these sites, ideally with a guide, gives real context before you head to the gorillas in the south-west. See our guide to the Kasubi Tombs.
Frequently asked questions
Sir Harry Johnston for Britain and Buganda’s regents, led by Apolo Kagwa, for the infant Kabaka Daudi Chwa II.
Freehold land in Buganda allocated in square-mile blocks under the 1900 Agreement to the Kabaka, chiefs and notables.
Counties taken from Bunyoro and given to Buganda; two were returned to Bunyoro after a 1964 referendum.
Yes, mainly through mailo land tenure and Buganda’s continuing claims for land and a federal system.
