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Henry Morton Stanley visits the court of the Kabaka of Buganda

Henry Morton Stanley, an explorer and colonialist, made contact with the Kingdom of Buganda in present-day Uganda. Stanley made the second recorded European visit to the region after Speke and Grant.

Stanley’s visit was made famous in Europe for the publication of letters expressing the Kabaka’s (king) request for Christian missionaries.

Kabaka Mutesa I

Source: Godefroy Durand, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One such letter read as follows:

“From King M’tesa, the greatest King of the interior of Africa, 3 April 1876.

This letter is from M’tesa, the greatest King in Africa. It is I M’tesa, King of Uganda, Usoga and Karagwe. Listen then to my word which I tell you. Oh! thou European, I have become your true brother, I am a Christian, only I have not yet been baptised.

I believe in God the Holy Father, Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only true Son of God, begotten of the Father before the creation of the earth. He is God of God.

May your Queen be a mother to me and may I become her son. May her sons and daughters be my brothers and sisters. It is I M’tesa, King of Uganda. Formerly the Mahommedans tempted me saying that Mahommed was the first and last of good people, but we find this is not the truth but a lie. May we both be united. Oh! Colonel Gordon, come quickly to me, and, if you do not come, at least send one of your white men, who you have with you, I want the reply to this letter to be printed.

May God be with the Queen, May God be with your Majesty and I beg you to send me paper, ink and pens, because all my paper is finished.”

Source: ‘Kabaka Mutesa I to Gordon, 3 April 1876’, cited in Low, Donald Anthony. The mind of Buganda: documents of the modern history of an African kingdom. Univ of California Press, 1971., p. 5-6

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