The Ugandan Martyrs of Namugongo – the full truth behind this historic event

The thousands of pilgrims from all over the world who gather at Namugongo, about 3,5km from Kampala, Uganda’s capital, do so to commemorate the lives of the 23 Anglican and 22 Catholic young men who were murdered between 1885 and 1887, reportedly for their faith, by Kabaka (King) Mwanga, a traditional leader of the Buganda Kingdom.

The first victim of the king’s wrath was his page, Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, a leader among Christians, on 15 November 1885. He was killed for pleading with the king to abandon homosexuality and not to kill Bishop Hannington, an Anglican missionary, who had entered Buganda through another kingdom, that of Busoga. From that point onwards, the king turned against all Christians who refused to give in to his homosexual demands. These Christians were also persuading the king’s pages to defy all his orders. Some of these young men were hacked to pieces, others were speared, while the rest were burnt alive at Namugongo.

The 20 Roman Catholic victims were beatified by Pope Benedict XV on 6 June 1920 and canonized by Pope Paul VI on 18 October 1964. The two victims who were speared to death at Paimol, Gulu in Northern Uganda in October 1928 were beatified by Pope John Paul on 20 October 2002.

When Pope Francis visited Uganda in November 2015, he urged Ugandans to use the martyrs’ example of faith to be missionaries at home by taking care of the elderly, the poor, the widowed and the abandoned.

“This legacy is not served by an occasional remembrance or by being enshrined in a museum as a precious jewel,” he is quoted as saying by CBS News. “Rather we honor them and all the saints when we carry on their witness to Christ in our homes and neighborhoods, in our workplaces and civil society, whether we never leave our homes or we go to the farthest corner of the world.”

The retelling of the martyrs’ story has many gaps that are left unaddressed.

Kabaka Mwanga, the gay king?                                                         

In the early 1870s, Henry Morton Stanley published a letter in London. The letter, purported to be from King Mwanga’s predecessor, Mutesa I, was an open invitation for missionaries of all Christian denominations to his kingdom. Although its authenticity is disputed, it did not stop several missions from sending representatives to the Ugandan monarchy.

The 45 young men were murdered partly for demurring to abandon Christianity, which they had converted to, but also for their refusal to have gay sex with the king. History has exalted them and vilified the serial rapist and homosexual that Mwanga became. This, however, is a fact that is hardly mentioned in Uganda’s religious circles. In fact, none of the religious leaders are on record for giving information about the gay king that Mwanga was.

One of the earliest written records of Mwanga’s sexual preferences was a letter by Alexander Mackay, a Presbyterian missionary. The letter told the story of how a young page, Apollo Kaggwa, had been punished for refusing to sleep with the king. Mackay further wrote that Mwanga had copied homosexual behaviour from Arabs at his court.