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What made the colonization of Africa by European nations easy to achieve, despite early resistance, was five hundred years of race-based slave trading. Prior to formal European and American designs on colonial rule of Africa which started in the 15th century and formalized in the 19th century, European powers and later the United States instituted large scale race-based slave trading throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Initiated by the Portuguese and Spanish Empires in the 15th century to provide free labor for their plantation and empire building in the Western Hemisphere, slave trading in Africa was soon picked up by the British, French and later the United States. Arab nations were also involved in sub-Saharan slave trading, but their impact on damaging African society was less than Western slavery. European and American chattel slave trading, on the other hand, changed the course of Africa from a progression of kingdoms and flowering civilizations to a continent terrorized by racist slave trading which co-opted African leadership, drained the continent of tens of millions of its youngest people and set in motion the next phase of destruction, colonialism.

The 19th century brought about a continued industrial revolution in Europe, the abolition of the slave trade in the mid-19th century and the Berlin Conference in 1884-85 which formally divided up sovereign African kingdoms and clan-led societies into nation state model European colonies. The driving force behind the Berlin Conference was financial gain – the acquisition of land, natural resources, land and cheap labor, and the expansion of markets for European manufactured goods. Not surprisingly, the Christian churches played a huge role in the process, bringing the Bible and partisan politics while the European nations brought armed militaries to invade and conquer. Public/private ventures financed the invasions, leading the way for the takeover of lands and resources by foreign mining, textile, timber, agricultural and cash crop companies. In the course of the colonizing process, European powers used well trained and well armed militaries to back up a tax system which was insidiously imposed on huts and cattle to force African people to work cheaply on European plantations to come up with the cash. Those who refused to pay taxes were considered squatters and their land and cattle were confiscated. This tax system was a means of dispossessing African people from their land while at the same time, acquiring cheap labor to extract natural resources in the mines and forests and harvest cash crops such as coffee, tea, cotton, rubber, tobacco and sugar on the plantations.

To prevent African people of different backgrounds and ethnic groups from unifying in resistance, “divide and rule” practices were used, pitting one group against another. There was always the most favored group, such as the Tutsis in Rwanda and Igbos in Nigeria. Colonial powers oftentimes selected the favored group based on lightness of skin color, or size, or perceived circumstances. Sometimes, the favored group was first forced to cooperate with the colonial power, to prove its loyalty or demonstrate compliance. Almost always, colonial powers used racial stereotypes to select favored groups, or forced them to commit acts against other groups they would otherwise not have committed, such as joining a colonial armed force to invade a neighboring nation, or harass an occupied people. Divide and rule created anger and ultimately deep-seated hatred by the groups not in favor – the groups who lost most of their political and economic power – over the favored groups, who benefited the most politically and economically. After independence, the groups marginalized by colonialism often experienced similar marginalization from ruling parties of newly independent African nations. Indeed, in many instances, and certainly in the case of Uganda, departing colonial regimes played a large role in determining which ethnically-identified political party would take over power. This is because the departing colonial power was bowing out politically but intended on maintaining economic footholds in the nation and strategic influence in the region. Hence, marginalized ethnic groups oftentimes suffered worse repression from independent governments, leading to breakaway or rebel forces, inevitably resulting in ruling governments sending in the armies to crush “dissidents,” or “rebels.” This is the story of Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Liberia and many other places. It is also Uganda’s story.

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