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V. Macdonald's Expedition and the Uganda Mutiny, 1897–98
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2010
Extract
Although it failed to achieve its original goal, Macdonald's expedition is still of interest in that it marks the end of an epoch. It is the last flicker of the Scramble, and it was carried out in the tradition of the great expeditions which in the previous decade traversed vast stretches of Africa and staked the claims of the various European powers.
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References
1 The Times, II March 1899. Mr H. Labouchere, M.P. for Northampton.
2 Foreign Office Confidential Print (hereafter cited as F.O. (C.P.) 6964/109 Salisbury to Macdonald, 9 June 1897.
3 F.O. (C.P.) 7077/48, Hardinge to Salisbury, 21 March 1898.
4 F.O. (C.P.) 7018/115, Count Costa to Salisbury, I Sept. 1897.
5 F.O. (C.P.) 7032/96, Sir E. Monson to Salisbury, 22 Nov. 1897.
6 F.O. (C.P.) 7402/30, Macdonald to Salisbury, 31 July 1899.
7 During the autumn and winter of 1897-98 continual rumours were coming down to the British sphere, of armed bands of Abyssinian horsemen raiding into and penetrating the country to the north of Lake Rudolf. Abyssinia was aware of the pretensions of European powers and was herself making ill-organized forays into the region to establish her claim to it.
8 Langer, W. L., The Diplomacy of Imperialism (New York, 1956), p. 539.Google Scholar
9 Langer, ibid.
10 F.O. (C.P.) 7032/113, Precis of Events on the Upper Nile: 15 March 1898.
11 F.O. (C.P.) 7402/30, Macdonald to Salisbury, 31 July 1899.
12 F.O. (C.P.) 6964/109, Salisbury to Macdonald, 9 June 1897.
13 F.O. (C.P.) 6964/79, Macdonald to Salisbury, 24 May 1897.
14 In conjunction with the advance from Berbera there would be an advance up the Juba: the two expeditions would link up on the upper Juba. A plan for a direct advance up the Nile from Uganda by way of Lake Albert was dropped as taking too long and because of the difficulty in maintaining its secrecy.
15 F.O. (C.P.) 6964/109, Salisbury to Macdonald, 9 June 1897. Macdonald differed from Salisbury as to the danger from the Abyssinians, and would have preferred the Juba route.
16 Macdonald was provided with two sets of treaty forms—one to establish relations, and the other to establish protectorates; but he was instructed to use the latter only as a last resort, ‘as it binds H.M. Government to certain duties towards the native signatories it is desirable to avoid its use’. F.O. (C.P.) 6964/118, F.O. to Macdonald, 15 June 1897.
17 At Aden Macdonald received news of an Abyssinian thrust southwards, this decided him to establish a post between four and five degrees of latitude—it would frustate any French attempts south of the ‘Nile Swamp’ and ‘would prevent Abyssinia from establishing herself on the Nile from Lado southwards’.
18 F.O. (C.P.) 7018/90, Major Ternan to Salisbury, Nandi Station, 25 June 1897.
19 At Kikuyu, Macdonald received news of Major Cavendish's expedition to the immediate south of Abyssinia. Cavendish found that reports of Abyssinian penetration southwards were exaggerated; it had reached no further than four and half degrees North Latitude. Abyssinia however, claimed the whole of Lake Rudolf and the territory west of it towards the Nile, and as far south as two degrees North Latitude.
20 F.O. (C.P.) 7402/30, Macdonald to Salisbury, 31 July 1899.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 F.O. (C.P.) 7402/30. Macdonald to Salisbury, 31 July 1899.
25 Major Thruston wrote a letter to The Times, pointing out the unsatisfactory state of the troops, and George Wilson remarked on the doubtful loyalty of the Sudanese.
26 F.O. (C.P.) 7032/68, Captain Sitwell to G. Wilson, Toru, 23 August 1897.
27 News of the Congo Mutiny reached George Wilson in Kampala in late August 1897; Captain Sitwell reported from Toru that the mutineers had fought the Belgians near the Lendu River and that 200 mutineers had been killed and one of the Belgian officers had been treated for wounds at a Catholic mission in British territory. Later news indicated trouble between the Belgians and the Dervishes; in October 1989, came news that Congolese troops near Lake Tanganyika had been mutinying in the previous months. These reports must certainly have had an unsettling effect on the troops in Uganda, and in turn the Uganda Mutiny had an unsettling effect on troops in the German sphere, where the Germans took steps to anticipate trouble.
28 F.O. (C.P.) 7159/108, Berkeley to Salisbury, 10 Oct. 1898.
29 F.O. (C.P.) 7401/120, Incl. 3. Deputy Commissioner Ternan to the Editor of The Times 28 Jan. 1899, in reply to their comments of 27 Jan. 1899.
30 F.O. (C.P.) 7024/30, Hardinge to Salisbury, 19 Nov. 1897.
31 The three European prisoners at Luba's were fastened by chain and collar around their necks. One of the rebel leaders shot Major Thruston, and when Wilson and Scott made a desperate effort to escape another rebel leader shot them through the back of the head. The bodies were carried away some 200 yards and left in the open for nearly 3 weeks, when, there being only the skeletons left, the bones were collected in a basket and sunk in the lake. In the course of the proceedings before the court-martial, which followed the suppression of the mutiny, a witness stated that he knew where the bodies had been sunk, and the basket's contents were thus recovered and brought to Kampala on 18 May 1898. The remains, along with those of Molony, Fielding and Macdonald (Major Macdonald's brother) who also subsequently fell in fighting the mutineers, were buried on 23 May 1898, in the C.M.S. churchyard on Namirembe Hill. F.O. (C.P.) 7090/109 Berkeley to Salisbury, 24 May 1898.
Major Thruston's brother, E. H. Thruston, pressed the Foreign Office for a statement on the tragic occurrence, and blamed Macdonald—quoting from the latter's book, p. 270, where Macdonald stated—on receiving a false report that Major Owen and Mr Grant were taken prisoners of the Sudanese, ‘that if half the Europeans in Uganda were prisoners it would not in any way deflect his preconceived course.’ F.O. (C.P.) 7024/3 Mr E. H. Thruston to Salisbury, 4 Jan. 1898.
32 F.O. (C.P.) 7400/121, Memo by Clement Hill, 3 Feb. 1899.
33 F.O. (C.P.) 7024/791, Wilson to Salisbury, 7 Dec. 1897.
34 F.O. (C.P.) 7024/28, Wilson to Salisbury, 30 Nov. 1897.
35 F.O. (C.P.) 7024/49, Hardinge to Salisbury, 4 Feb. 1898. F.O. (C.P.) 7024/60, Milner to Chamberlain, 21 Jan. 1898. F.O. (C.P.) 7024/44, Vice-Consul Jenner to Hardinge, 28 Feb. 1898.
36 F.O. (C.P.) 7077/11, Wilson to Salisbury, 28 Jan. 1898.
37 F.O. (C.P.) 7400/82, Incl. Captain Sitwell's Report on Toru, 4 June 1898.
38 Among those who played a meritorious part in this campaign was a Michael Moses, an Armenian clerk who ‘always won the good opinion of officers under whom he served…He is man of considerable attainments’. Michael Moses later became a prominent trader in Uganda. He died in Kampala in 1959.
39 F.O. (C.P.) 7024/76, F.O. to Treasury, 12 Feb. 1898.
40 F.O. (C.P.) 7159/65, Berkeley to Salisbury, 21 April 1898.
41 F.O. (C.P.) 7159/65, Berkeley to Salisbury, 24 Aug. 1898.
42 F O. (C.P.) 7403/48, C.M.S. to Salisbury, 8 Nov. 1899.
43 F.O. (C.P.) 7690/60, F.O. to Treasury, 22 Jan. 1901; F.O. (C.P.) 7400/50, Hardinge to Salisbury, 20 July 1898.
44 F.O. (C.P.) 7042/60, Milner to Chamberlain, 21 Jan. 1898; F.O. (C.P.) 7077/44, Vice Consul Jenner, Memo., 28 Feb. 1898. Milner claimed that, apart from Cape Boys—and these were prone to malingering, indiscipline, and excessive drinking and raping, there were no forces available in South Africa. An attempt to recruit Ogaden Somalis also failed. The idea of using the Baganda was considered but quickly dropped owing to their sole dependence on the banana for food…it made them incapable when serving ‘outside the banana growing areas’; and despite their ‘dash and valour’ during the recent mutiny, they had not the stamina required for prolonged campaigning. The Swahilis were good porters, but did not make good troops. Recourse was finally had to Indian troops. By February 1898, there were five companies of Indian troops in Uganda.
45 F.O. (C.P.) 7024/71, Intelligence Division to F.O., 8 Feb. 1898.
46 F.O. (C.P.) 7018/99, Sir E. Monson to Salisbury, Paris, 29 Aug. 1897.
47 F.O. (C.P.) 7032/96, Sir E. Monson to Salisbury, 22 Nov. 1897.
48 F.O. (C.P.) 7024/71, Intelligence Division to Foreign Office, 8 Feb. 1898.
49 F.O. (C.P.) 7159/58, Macdonald to Salisbury, 25 July 1898.
50 F.O. (C.P.) 7402/30, Macdonald to Salisbury, 31 May 1898.
51 F.O. (C.P.) 7400/84, Berkeley to Major Martyr, Kampala, 7 July 1898.
52 Ibid.
53 F.O. (C.P.) 7159/58, Macdonald to Salisbury, 25 July 1898.
54 F.O. (C.P.) 7402/27. Macdonald to Salisbury (Major Ternan had already made a treaty in February 1896, with Abura, a Shuli Chief—two hours march inland on the right bank of the Nile, thirty miles north of Wadelai, one of a number of Shuli chiefs, who had been feuding for some time with Kabarega and raiding his cattle (Abura had a following of over 200 guns of various kinds). See , Powell-Cotton, P.H.C. In Unknown Africa (London, 1904), pp. 321–2.Google ScholarPubMed When he visited Titi in 1903 he found Macdonald's store house of grain still intact and guarded by the Dodoth awaiting Macdonald's presumed return.
55 F.O. (C.P.) 7400/152, Macdonald to Salisbury, 10 Nov. 1898.
56 Ibid. Berkeley suggested that Macdonald might still link up with Martyr but ‘the suggestion was couched in such vague language as to leave me in complete ignorance of what assistance in men, stores, transport etc. Lt. Col. Martyr could afford me’.
57 F.O. (C.P.) 7400/157, Macdonald to Salisbury, 13 Dec. 1898.
58 F.O. (C.P.) 7400/117, Captain Austin to Hardinge, 16 Nov. 1898. The Abyssinians continued to raid as far south as North Rudolf into the twentieth century. In January 1902 the raids of the Abyssinians into the Boran country were causing much apprehension (F.O. (C.P.) 7946/121, Jackson to Lansdowne, 20 Jan. 1902).
59 F.O. (C.P.) 7402/15, Lt. Col. Martyr's Report on the Nile District, 15 April 1899.
60 F.O. (C.P.) 7077/128 Salisbury to Hardinge, 31 May 1899. In February 1900 Johnston sought F.O. permission to extend the area of the Uganda Protectorate to include the northern area to the fifth degree of latitude. The basis Johnson used for this extension was Macdonald's treaties.
61 F.O. (C.P.) 7400/150, F.O. to Treasury, 17 Feb. 1899.
62 F.O. (C.P.) 7401/96, F.O. to Treasury, 16 May 1899.
63 F.O. (C.P.) 7403/117, Cromer to Salisbury, 11 Dec. 1899.
64 F.O. (C.P.) 7405/130, Salisbury to Sir F. Plunkett, 20 June 1900.