Munyagabyanjo Robert.
Munyagabyanjo Robert was martyred on June 3, 1886, at Namugongo, Wakiso, Uganda. His hands were hacked off first and thrown into the fire in his sight. Then they hacked off one of his legs, which was also thrown into the fire. And finally, the remainder of his body was thrown on the pyre, where it burnt to ashes. Few of the so-called Uganda Martyrs met as brutal a death as he did.
He was baptized on June 22, 1883, making him one of the earliest Protestant converts in Uganda, as the first baptism occurred on March 18, 1882. He may also have been the first Ugandan baptized by the English missionary Robert P. Ashe because of the similarity of their first names. After the baptism, Ashe, who arrived on May 2, 1883, journaled, “Today we baptized a jovial young Christian called Robert [Munyagabyanjo].” It was common for missionaries to recommend their first names as the baptismal names for their first students. Alexander M. Mackay’s first student was baptized Mackay [also Sembera], while that of Philip O’Flaherty was baptized Philip [also Mukasa]. Munyagabyanjo, therefore, represents the beginning of Ashe’s ministry in Uganda. He enrolled his wife and child at the mission station in Nateete, Kampala, Uganda.
His surname and baptismal names have been distorted throughout history, starting from his generation when, understandably, writing was only beginning to emerge in Buganda. Munyagabyanjo seems to be the right spelling of his surname. Ashe, however, called him Munyaga byenju. According to the Church Missionary Intelligencer of March 1893, the name was written as Munyaga bya njo. His baptismal name also has multiple variants, including Roberto, Lobato, and Alubato. All three are attempts at Luganda-nizing the English name Robert, even as the latter suits another English Albert better. This short biography believes Munyagabyanjo Robert was the right iteration of his full name.
His ethnicity also raises some questions. While the Ugandan writer Miti James claimed he was a Muganda from the lungfish, another Ugandan, albeit a politician and literary writer, Kisosonkole Pumla, called him a Munyoro from the Banyoro ethnicity. Munyaga is a common word among the Batoro, an ethnicity closely related to the Banyoro, further complicating the issue. It was common for people from ethnicities neighboring Buganda to be found in the capital of Buganda because of the regular raids for people — particularly boys and women — the kingdom made on them. Some of these enslaved people were sold to Zanzibari-Arabs, who started coming into Buganda during the reign of Ssuuna II, but others were retained by chiefs or the Kabaka (king).
Munyagabyanjo started his career as a page in the court of Muteesa I, the thirtieth Kabaka of Buganda, rising to the position of chief gatekeeper during Mwanga II’s reign, who succeeded his father as Kabaka on October 10, 1884. Earlier in the year, he had lost a son to a smallpox pandemic that ravaged Buganda, claiming as many as 7,000 lives, according to a survivor, Mukasa Ham. He doubled between his day job at Mwanga’s court and the expectation imposed on him after becoming a Christian as baptism was, at the time, seen as a leadership development program, where converts were expected to lead, spreading the new religion even further. He often led large groups of Christians in prayer outside Mwanga’s court, while his home was also a meeting place for Christians desiring to learn and pray. Munyagabyanjo believed all Christians should be evangelists, inspiring the next generation of leaders, including pioneer missionaries like Apollo Kivebulaya.
In July 1885, when missionaries felt that they might be expelled from Uganda because Mwanga disliked Christianity, evidenced by the brutal murder of Lugalama Joseph, Kakumba Mark, and Sserwanga Noah on January 31, 1885, they created a church council composed of twelve Ugandan Christians who would carry forward the work they had started in their absence. “We felt this to be a very necessary step, for in case of our being sent away, we wished them to have some organization. These elders were authorized to conduct service and to preach in the absence of the missionaries,” Ashe wrote.
Munyagabyanjo Robert was elected to the council, which included leading figures like Sembera Mackay, Lutamaguzi Henry Wright, Walukagga Noah, and Kizza Frederick Wigram. This council was the first act of localizing Anglicanism in Uganda as, for the first time, Ugandans were thrust into the church’s leadership. Mwanga did not expel missionaries yet, but persecution intensified, making the formation of the church council a wise decision as it organized the Munyagabyanjos into some form of leadership to respond to Mwanga’s schemes against them. These men were prime targets of the persecution, and most were frequently in hiding.
On October 29, 1885, James Hannington, who was coming to Uganda as the first bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa (including Uganda), was murdered by a southern Busoga chief called Luba on purportedly the orders of Mwanga. Munyagabyanjo came into contact with one of the men who had participated in the murder of the bishop and had the bishop’s Bible to prove it. He offered to buy it from him, and he accepted taking it afterward to the Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries at Nateete, Kampala, Uganda. When they tried to compensate him for his deed, he declined the offer, arguing that it was his responsibility as a Christian to retrieve the Bible.
Marked for death as a Christian leader for a while, Munyagabyanjo was eventually arrested in late May 1886. He was found praying alone at his home as the rest of his household had earlier fled. While they had received prior information that they were wanted, he and Walukagga considered themselves leaders and did not think fleeing would send the right message about their conviction in Christianity, so he stayed. As a chief gatekeeper of the Kabaka, he had a gun that he could have used to resist an arrest he considered unjustified, but he did not. Instead, he told his captors that he never planned to be violent at all, and if only they could let him put on his Kanzu (tunic), he would surrender himself to them easily. He was consequently taken and presented before a tribunal where he was summarily condemned to death for his association with Christianity without much of a response and taken to Namugongo, Wakiso, Uganda, the place of eventual death.
Of the original twelve, Munyagabyanjo, Walukaga, Kizza, and Bekokoto Shem did not survive the persecution, as all four were martyred at the peak of the persecution in mid-1886.
Bibliography
Ashe, R. P. Two Kings of Uganda. London, UK: S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1890.
Faupel, John Francis. African Holocaust; New York, NY: P. J. Kenedy, 1962.
Mackay, Alexander Murdoch. Alexander Mackay: In Memoriam. Reprinted from the Church Intelligencer for May, and the Church Missionary Gleaner for June, 1890. London, UK: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1890.
Mullins, J. D., and Ham Mukasa. The Wonderful Story of Uganda; to Which is Added the Story of Ham Mukasa, Told by Himself. London, UK: Church Missionary Society, 1904.
Stock, Eugene. The History of the Church Missionary Society. London, UK: Church Missionary Society, 1899.
