Geographical Context

For instance, in the 1950s and 60s, it became important for the ethnic groups in Western Uganda, Bakonzo and Bamba, to forge tribal bonds for their societies because the Bamba and the Bakonzo, despite existing for ages as a separate tribal entity, was dominated by Toro with support of the British in the 1900s (Sseremba). Due to discrimination against Bakonzo and Bamba by the Batoro in Uganda’s Toro Kingdom, intellectuals from the former two tribes formed the Rwenzururu Movement to defend themselves (Sseremba). Agitating for the liberation of the Bakonzo and Bamba, the Bakonzo intellectuals sought to forge a tribal bond to support their societies, including the demand” that the 1900 Toro Agreement should be amended to spell out clearly that these societies were distinct “native tribes” of Toro like the Batoro” (Sseremba). However, if it wasn’t for the precedent colonialists set wherein land and political inclusion was granted to “native tribes,” there would not be as great a need for African intellectuals to tribalize their societies (Sseremba).

Land Ownership and Agriculture:

Because of colonization in Uganda, there is a great disconnect between bordering, policies, and practices of the nation-state, and the bordering, policies, and practices of particular tribes (Naybor 884). According to Naybor, prior to colonization, land was not privately owned but rather occupied by either the king or the chief of the people (884). While women’s rights over land varied tribe to tribe, these roles over land-ownership were traditionally held by men (Naybor 884-5). In a number of tribes however, for example, matrilineal tribes, the rights to land “often transferred from mother to daughter, and husbands were expected to move to their wives’ villages” (Naybor 884-5). It remains that the nature of traditional land rights vary throughout Africa, however, with privatization of land, wherein rights to the land become concentrated in the hands of those who are able to successfully claim their ownership right to land, there is a current, general movement “toward uniformity and increasing patrilineal control” (Naybor 885). Poor rural women and ethnic minorities become more disconnected from their rights to the land due to not being able “to participate fully in the land market” (Naybor 885).

Agricultural land ownership largely shifted in sub-Saharan Africa due to colonialism which strived to transform farms into plantations. In Uganda, British colonial administrators took over large land tracts originally owned by tribal rulers in order to create large commercial plantations. While this kind of farming did not take off in Uganda, a “continuing shift in control of rural land use...resulted in contemporary land expropriation for creation of male-owned land title, labeled as customary law” (Naybor 885), despite originating during colonialism and precolonial customs centering around tribally controlled communal land ownership “ including strong matriarchal rule in some regions” (Naybor 885). This form of land tenure is claimed to be traditional despite precolonial customs of tribally controlled communal land ownership. Furthermore, while it is true that the tribal traditions predating colonization “entailed patriarchal inheritance rights in a majority of Uganda” (Naybor 889), because the tribal infrastructure revolved around the communal rights of all to the land, it was possible for women to maintain a connection to the land even without having a relationship to a man (Naybor 889). The privatization of land under colonial rule however left women abandoned to their relationship to the market, greatly determined by privileges most Ugandan women do not have access to (Naybor 889).

By Sarah Burns