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| Title: | The Ganda on Lake Victoria: a Nineteenth-Century East African Imperialism |
| Author: | Reid, Richard |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
| Volume: | 39 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Pages: | 349-363 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Uganda |
| Subjects: | Ganda (Uganda) inland water transport history traditional polities History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) colonialism |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/183358 |
| Abstract: | In the 19th century, the Ganda developed a fleet of canoes designed to extend their military power and to control the increasingly lucrative trade routes linking the Victoria Lake region with the East African coast. Naval construction increased rapidly from the 1840s onward, partly in response to the gradual decline of the army on land and partly to secure Ganda commercial interests in long-distance trading operations. Canoe-building was the most dramatic example of the ways in which the Buganda State (in present-day Uganda) utilized its human and material resources - most notably those on the Sesse Islands - and also reflected a continuing expansionist drive straddling several reigns. The systematic attempt to control Lake Victoria with these ends in mind illustrate the political, economic and social dynamics that had enabled Ganda society to become one of the most successful in the precolonial era. However, the success of the naval programme was extremely varied; although Buganda was the dominant naval power on Lake Victoria, there were critical weaknesses in both naval organization and strategy. While Ganda vessels could move with impunity in the western and southern areas of the lake, bordered by societies with no naval technologies, they were unable to pacify the northern lake shore closer to home. Moreover, the ruthless exploitation of Sesse labour was a source of potential weakness and, as a result, the Ganda failed to develop a motivated naval class. Notes, ref., sum. |
