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Jonathon L. Earle

@JonathonLEarle

12 Aug

We don’t talk enough about Daudi Ocheng. His political biography complicates much of what we think about Uganda’s late colonial moment. Some of the most articulate defenders of Buganda in the 1950s-60s were not Baganda. In this case, Ocheng was a son of Gulu. 1/11

Ocheng, unlike Okot p’Bitek, was one of the most articulate defenders of Buganda's political priorities. In my thinking, he was the most consequential Acholi activist in the late 1950s. Without his diplomatic work, KY & UPC would not have partnered to marginalize DP. 2/11

Ocheng was born in a Protestant home in Gulu. After attending Gulu Primary he joined Budo Junior School before matriculating at King’s College, Budo, where he and Kabaka Muteesa II began what would become a lifelong friendship. 3/11

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Jonathon L. Earle

@JonathonLEarle

10 Aug

I've been thinking lately about the ways in which Kentucky's past intersects w/ African politics. One example in the nineteenth century includes the invention of "Kentucky in Africa," what is now Montserrado County, Liberia. 1/9

Kentucky diplomats, notably the statesman and slaver Henry Clay, were at the forefront of creating the American Colonization Society. The KY chapter of the ACS was established in the 1820s, after which they purchased 40-square miles in Liberia, renamed "Kentucky in Africa." 2/9

The area was soon populated by freeborn Kentuckians and enslaved Africans from throughout the Caribbean world. Enslaved Kentuckians were granted emancipation contingent upon relocating to Liberia. 3/9

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Jonathon L. Earle

@JonathonLEarle

1 Aug

@Stephen42k

According to the current #Olympics registry, 5 Ugandans will compete in the respective marathons (women’s & men’s): Juliet Chekwel, Immaculate Chemutai, Filex Chemonges, @Stephen42k, & Fred Musobo. These outstanding athletes build upon a very long, rich history. #Tokyo2020 1/9

Racing & runners had a very long history in Buganda. Numerous words & classifications existed by the late 1800s. Glosses included, although were not limited to, omuddusi (one who runs in a race), omudduukirizi (one who runs to rescue), kayungirizi (one who overtakes), 2/9

toloba (to race quickly), vuganya (race or competition), oludduka (running contest), and obuddusi (racing or ability to race). 3/9

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Jonathon L. Earle

@JonathonLEarle

1 Aug

It was an absolute pleasure to spend time in Ghana with the library of W.E.B. Du Bois, who moved to Ghana in his late 90s to work on the Encyclopedia Africana. I am researching how the Ganda intellectual Ernest Balintuma Kalibala shaped Du Bois’ arguments on Black liberation 1/4

& progress, which were reworked in Black history writing throughout interwar America. Kalibala, pictured here at the Namirembe Conference in 1954 (top row, second from right), earned a PhD from Harvard for his sociological research on Buganda: ‘The Social Structure of the 2/4

@RutgersU

Baganda Tribe of East Africa’, (unpublished PhD, University of Harvard, 1946). Kalibala also worked alongside May Edel—who helped establish the anthropology department @RutgersU—to publish an English translation of Apolo Kaggwa’s Ekitabo Kye Mpisa Za Baganda in 1934. 3/4

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Jonathon L. Earle

@JonathonLEarle

31 Jul

Recreational & competitive swimming in UG existed long before colonization & the #Olympics. It existed for hundreds of years. By the late 1800s, one Luganda proverb re: swimming criticized judges who refused to dig deeply into a dispute, "Okuyita kungulu—ng'omuwuzi." 1/8

By 1920, Munno reworked the proverb slightly differently, offering a subject prefix to –yita, "Bayita kungulu—nga muwuzi." Throughout the 1800s, there were numerous programs to politically manage water, from Acholi rain rituals to Kabaka Mwanga's ambitious excavation project. 2/8

Colonial swimming pools, in time, also sought to give measurement and structure to the natural world. This was nothing new. In this photo, we see Lamech Kiwanuka, EMK Mulira, and one unidentified colleague during the early 1940s working on the pool at King's College, Budo. 3/8

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Jonathon L. Earle

@JonathonLEarle

22 Apr

On #EarthDayEveryDay #EarthDay21 a short thread on an often-overlooked chapter of the history of elephants in Uganda. There was a long history of interacting and hunting elephants in precolonial Uganda. 1/11

Colonial empires, of course, were predicated upon the assumption that the natural world could be tamed and regulated. Elephants were not exempt. Sir Hesketh Bell was Uganda’s commissioner/governor between 1907 and 1910. 2/11

He was largely remembered in vernacular histories for his association with Sleeping Sickness and the introduction of cotton and motor cars. Bell believed that by demonstrating superior knowledge over the natural world, 3/11

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