Uganda Occupied by Britain

During the scramble for East Africa, Britain and Germany competed for influence over the lands around the Great Lakes, including the powerful kingdom of Buganda. Rival agents and chartered companies sought treaties with local rulers, raising the danger of conflict between the two European powers.

The dispute was settled by the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890. Germany relinquished its claims to Uganda and recognized a British sphere of influence there and a British protectorate over Zanzibar, in return for which Britain ceded to Germany the strategically valuable North Sea island of Heligoland and adjusted boundaries elsewhere in Africa.

With the German claim removed, Britain extended its control, working at first through the Imperial British East Africa Company and then directly. A British protectorate over Uganda was formally declared in 1894. British rule, exercised in large part through the kingdom of Buganda, lasted until Uganda achieved independence in 1962.