22 Uganda Martyrs – 3 June – Story & Sacred Art Iconography
22 Uganda Martyrs. Young African men. Catholic coverts to Christianity. Persecuted and killed on the order of the royal court in 1885–1887.
The Uganda Martyrs were a group of 22 Catholic converts to Christianity who lived in the Kingdom of Buganda (a part of the modern-day Uganda) and were executed between the years 1885 and 1887. They were killed on the orders of the king of the kingdom.
The death occurred at a time when there was a three-way religious struggle for political influence in the Buganda royal court. During the same time the so-called “Battle for Africa” was happening in Buganda – the invasion, occupation, division, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers. A few years later, the English Church Missionary Society used these deaths to drum up wider public support for the British acquisition of Uganda for the Empire.
The king of Buganda, Mwanga II of Buganda, a 16 years old teenager, was inclined to believe his advisers, who argued that the main harm for his kingdom came from religions. Therefore, during his short reign, given the political instability on the African continent due to the intrusion of European states and the large number of Christians in leadership positions in the Buganda kingdom, executions for religious reasons occurred quite often. Both Christians and Muslims were subject to the death penalty.
Iconography of 22 Uganda Martyrs – A group of young African men, wearing kente (toga) in white and gold, holding palm branches, spears and books.
