Kakumba Mark.
Kakumba Mark was martyred on January 31, 1885, at Mpiima-Erebera, Busega, Uganda. With colleagues Serwanga Noah and Lugalama Joseph, he was condemned by Mwanga II to “a slow burning death” the day before. Mwanga was the thirty-first kabaka (king) of B/Uganda. In a further act of brutality, the kabaka ordered that their bodies be dismembered and scattered throughout the capital to discourage his subjects from embracing Christianity. The three young men are the first recorded martyrs in sub-Saharan Africa.
The surname Kakumba, which remains prevalent in Uganda, indicates membership in the Ffumbe (civet cat) clan of Buganda’s clan system. His baptismal name, Mark, is derived from the New Testament author of the synoptic gospel. The name has occasionally appeared as Mako or Maliko, but these were efforts to Luganda-nize Mark.
Apollo Kaggwa, Buganda’s former katikkiro (prime minister), referred to him as Noah and his colleague Serwanga as Mark. Several records, however, indicate that Kaggwa may have mistakenly confused the names.
On January 30, 1885, Kakumba was apprehended at the residence of Alexander M. Mackay, a Scottish missionary affiliated with the Church Missionary Society (CMS). The CMS, a British-based mission agency had operated in Uganda since 1877. Mackay had been suspected of attempting to leave the country with his followers, which Mwanga considered unacceptable as most were also his subjects. He consequently sent his guards to capture everyone, with Kakumba failing to flee. Along with others, he was taken to Buganda’s capital where he was subjected to a sham trial that Mwanga himself conducted as the judge. He condemned him to death by immolation.
A number of Christian converts were apprehended on that day, among them Sarah Nakimu Nalwanga, wife of the prominent Christian leader of the time, Lutamaguzi Henry Wright, who himself had successfully fled to his home county of Bulemeezi. Despite her poor health and the presence of her infant child, Nalwanga was detained on allegations of possessing a forbidden Christian manuscript, which was subsequently confiscated and used as evidence.
But during the trial, it was brought to Mwanga’s knowledge that Nakimu was his relative, which led to her eventual pardon. However, she was ordered to renounce her Christian faith, which Mwanga deemed to be foreign superstition and witness the cruel execution of Kakumba, Serwanga, and Lugalama. Despite refusing to abandon her beliefs, she somehow managed to survive and went on to live a long and fulfilling life in which she participated in establishing Uganda’s Anglican tradition.
Some converts, two of whom sons of well-known Buganda chiefs, were released in exchange for ransom. Chiefs also succeeded in pleading for the release of a one Sambo who incidentally was Mackay’s aid. There are claims that the CMS attempted to secure the release of Kakumba, Serwanga, and Lugalama through negotiations, but the kabaka appeared to have had a vested interest in getting them killed because of their strong connection to CMS missionaries. He ignored their pleas. The majority of those who were arrested on the day were freed.
Interestingly, Mwanga had assumed the throne just three months before the beginning of this persecution, which would characterize his entire first reign as kabaka of Buganda. And while a prince, he was for a time a student of Mackay.
At about fifteen or sixteen years old, Kakumba was of the average age of most converts of Uganda’s eighteen-eighties, the country’s first Christian decade. They tended to be in their youth and overwhelmingly male. He had been baptized on December 25, 1883, with fourteen others by Philip O’Flaherty and Robert Ashe. The same day was also the country’s first celebrated Christmas on record by the CMS mission. Kakumba’s baptismal date makes him one of the earliest Anglican converts in the country, as the first baptism occurred on March 18, 1882, just a year prior.
The circumstances surrounding Kakumba’s martyrdom arose from the succession of Mwanga as kabaka after the passing of his father, Muteesa I, on October 10 (or 25), 1884. Unlike his father, who welcomed missionaries and allowed their activities in the kingdom, Mwanga had a more ambiguous stance. While refraining from expelling the missionaries, he harbored disdain for converting his subjects to their religion. Often, he would claim it was customary in Buganda to treat guests with respect and not ask them to leave and then turn around to torment those who got closer to them incessantly.
Intriguingly, one of the first things he did upon his enthronement was to request back to Buganda the Catholic mission, which had relocated to northern Tanzania in 1882 due to a dispute with his father. But no sooner had they returned than he rolled out a persecution of Christians never before seen in sub-Saharan Africa, earning himself the moniker “Africa’s Nero.”
When Kakumba was apprehended, it was believed that he and other Baganda converts were attempting to escape to a CMS mission outpost in present-day northern Tanzania, where both Anglican and Roman Catholic missionaries had outposts. In response, Mwanga dispatched his guards to detain them, which they did as missionaries were helpless. There were only three CMS missionaries in Uganda, and none was apprehended. As the converts were taken to the capital, a large crowd behind them kept taunting them, shouting at them to call Jesus to rescue them if, indeed, he was a savior. Kapalaga Mujasi, the guards’ leader, was not a traditionalist but a Muslim.
After their condemnation, Kakumba and his two colleagues were taken for execution to Mpiima-Erebera on the margins of a swamp called Mayanja in Busega. Kakumba is also cited for having begged for mercy from Mujasi along the way, claiming that Islam — his faith — was a religion of peace, but the plea, unfortunately, fell on deaf ears.
At Mpiima-Erebera, like his colleagues, his hands were hacked off, so he could not be able to resist being placed in the fire. Mwanga’s order had additionally stipulated their corpses be dismembered upon death and the parts placed in strategic locations in the capital to deter potential new converts. The tactic had the opposite reaction.
Joseph D. Mullins, in his book The Wonderful Story of Uganda, stated that Kakumba remained steadfast in his faith during the fire that claimed his life, even singing the Kiswahili hymn Killa sifu tunsifu… (daily, daily, sing the praises) as he burned away. This was, however, refuted by Ashe, who was in Uganda at the time of Kakumba’s death. He said the hymn was sung as they were being led to Mpiima-Erebera, not during the burning.
Regardless, Kakumba was martyred on January 31, 1885.
On May 22, 1905, the site of his death was visited by the third bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa and, subsequently, the first bishop of Uganda, Alfred R. Tucker, and the bishop of Zanzibar, Revd. E. Millar. The former later claimed that they retrieved human bones at the site, which were verified by the latter, who had also trained as a medical doctor. They later claimed the remains must have belonged to the three martyrs.
Busega Martyrs Memorial was consecrated in his memory by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Revd Robert Runcie, who laid its foundation stone on January 28, 1984. In their memory, Tucker also consecrated the first church at one of the formal education schools in Uganda, Kings College Budo. There are also churches in the Anglican Tradition of Uganda named after him, including Saint Mark Kakumba in Kyanja, Uganda.
Kakumba Mark is revered as a martyr in the Church of Uganda.
Bibliography
Adam Matthew Digital. 2024. “Primary Sources for Teaching and Research.” www.amdigital.co.uk. Sage Publishers.
Faupel, John F. 1962. African Holocaust: The Story of the Uganda Martyrs. New York: Kenedy and Sons, P.J.
Kimeze Teketwe. 2023. “The Woman between Us: Sarah Nakimu Nalwanga and the Founding of Uganda’s Anglican Tradition.” Journal of Anglican Studies, 1–14.
Robert Pickering Ashe. 1889. Two Kings of Uganda. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.
— — — . 1894. Chronicles of Uganda. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Stock, Eugene. 1899. The History of the Church Missionary Society. London: Church Missionary Society.
Teketwe, Kimeze. 2024. “Philip O’Flaherty and the Irish Roots of Uganda’s Protestantism.” Missiology: An International Review 52 (2).
