‘Subterranean Evil’ and ‘Tumultuous Riot’ in Buganda: Authority and Alienation at King’s College, Budo, 1942

Staff petitions, sexual and disciplinary scandal and open riot pushed Buganda’s leaders to close Budo College on the eve of Kabaka (King) Muteesa II’s coronation. The upheaval at the school included a teachers’ council that proclaimed ownership of the school, student leaders who manipulated the headmaster through scandal and school clubs and associations that celebrated affiliation over discipline. Instead of enacting and celebrating imperial partnership and order in complex, well-choreographed coronation rituals, the school’s disruption delineated the fractures and struggles over rightful authority, order and patronage within colonial Buganda, marking out a future of tumultuous political transition. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]