Uganda Martyrs: History, Namugongo Shrines and Martyrs Day on 3 June

The Uganda Martyrs are the 45 young Christian converts, 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican, put to death on the orders of Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda between 1885 and 1887, most of them burned at Namugongo on 3 June 1886. Visitors tour the Catholic basilica and the Anglican shrine there, and millions mark Martyrs Day every 3 June. The story belongs to the Buganda kingdom and explains why Uganda’s largest pilgrimage happens on the edge of Kampala.

This guide covers the history in order, the people behind the names, what you will find at each shrine, and how to plan a visit, whether you are joining the pilgrims in June or stopping on a quiet weekday at the start or end of a Uganda safari.

Who the Uganda Martyrs Were and Why Their Story Draws Pilgrims

Most were boys and young men. Many served as pages in the royal enclosure, others were drummers, guards, craftsmen, a clerk, a chief or two, and the youngest was around fourteen. They had been taught by Anglican and Catholic missionaries who arrived at the court of Kabaka Mutesa I in the late 1870s, and they continued to pray and teach after his son Mwanga II told them to stop.

Their deaths did not end the new faith in Buganda. The opposite happened: congregations grew quickly in the following years, and the two churches that lost members side by side at Namugongo now hold separate shrines a short drive apart. That shared history is why the Uganda Martyrs pilgrimage draws Catholics and Anglicans alike, along with visitors of other faiths and none who come for the history.

Not every victim was a Christian. Accounts of the period record Muslim converts killed earlier in Mutesa’s reign and ordinary prisoners burned alongside the converts in 1886. The 45 names are the ones the two churches documented; the true number who died is not known.

Christianity Arrives at the Buganda Court: The Background to a Tragic Chapter

Anglican missionaries of the Church Missionary Society reached Mutesa’s court in 1877, and the Catholic White Fathers followed in 1879. Mutesa allowed both to teach. He was also weighing Arab traders, Egyptian ambitions to the north and the growing reach of European states, and he played the groups against each other with some skill.

Mutesa died in 1884. His son Mwanga II came to the throne still a teenager, and at first he seemed friendly to the missionaries. That changed fast. Older chiefs warned him that converts placed a foreign god above the Kabaka, a dangerous idea in a kingdom where the king’s word was law. Pages who had been baptised refused some of his orders, including his sexual demands, and openly told him why. Add the fear that Europeans would follow the missionaries and take the country, and the court became a dangerous place to pray.

Readers who want the wider picture of Buganda’s clans, the Kabaka’s role and how the kingdom fits into modern Uganda will find more in our guide to Uganda people and culture.

Busega and Bishop Hannington: The First Martyrdoms in Uganda

On 31 January 1885, three young Anglicans, Mark Kakumba, Joseph Lugalama and Noah Serwanga, were seized and taken to Mpiima Erebera, on the edge of the Mayanja swamp at Busega on the western side of what is now Kampala. They were mutilated and burned. Lugalama was a boy of about twelve. They are counted as the first Uganda Martyrs, and a memorial church now stands at the spot.

Later that year the Anglican bishop James Hannington set out for Buganda from the east, through Busoga. A belief at court held that the kingdom’s destroyer would come from that direction, and Mwanga ordered him stopped. Hannington and most of his porters were killed in Busoga on 29 October 1885, before he ever reached the capital.

Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe and the Execution at Nakivubo

Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe was a senior official in the royal household and the leader of the Catholic converts at court. He told Mwanga plainly that killing Hannington without a hearing was wrong, and he kept protecting the pages from the king’s advances. Pressed by the Katikkiro, the chief minister, Mwanga had him beheaded and burned at Nakivubo on 15 November 1885. He became the first Catholic martyr.

Charles Lwanga took his place as leader of the Christian pages that same night, and before dawn several of them went secretly to the mission to be baptised. They expected to be next.

From Munyonyo to Namugongo: The Death March of May and June 1886

The break came at Munyonyo, the royal lakeside residence on Lake Victoria, in late May 1886. Mwanga learned that a page, Denis Ssebuggwawo, had been teaching the faith to another boy. He speared Ssebuggwawo himself, and the boy was finished off nearby on 25 May. The following day the king called the pages together and ordered those who prayed to stand apart. Most did.

Andrew Kaggwa, the royal drum master, was killed at Munyonyo on 26 May. Pontian Ngondwe was speared and hacked apart. Then the condemned were marched north toward Namugongo, the traditional place of execution, a march of a day or more. Some died on the road. Gonzaga Gonza, chained and unable to keep up, was speared at the roadside. Matthias Mulumba Kalemba, a chief of about fifty, had his limbs cut off and was left to die; he lingered for about three days. Athanasius Bazzekuketta was killed during the march as well.

The rest reached Namugongo and were held in a stockade for about a week while the executioners cut and stacked firewood. On 3 June 1886, Charles Lwanga was separated from the group and burned slowly, feet first, on a separate spot by Senkole, the deputy executioner. The others were wrapped in reed mats, laid on a great pyre and burned together. Among them was Mbaga Tuzinde, a son of the chief executioner Mukajanga, who begged him to recant until the last moment. Mbaga was clubbed and thrown on the fire. Catholic tradition counts thirteen of its saints from that day; a group of Anglican converts died beside them.

The killings went on in smaller numbers afterwards. The last recorded martyr, John Mary Muzeeyi, was beheaded on 27 January 1887.

Away from the march, the arrests reached into the countryside. At Mityana, west of the capital, the potter Noe Mawaggali was speared on 31 May 1886 outside the home of his friend Luke Baanabakintu, a subchief, and left to the dogs; Baanabakintu himself was taken to Namugongo and burned with the others. Several Anglican converts were castrated or speared in the same days, before the fire.

Heritage Tour Background: Why Kabaka Mwanga Ordered the Killings

Guides at the shrines tell the story as one of faith, and for the two churches it is. Historians add other layers, and a visitor who knows them will follow the arguments that still surface in Uganda every June. The anthropologist Heike Behrend writes that the reasons for the persecution are still heavily debated.

The court of the 1880s held three rival religious parties, Catholic, Anglican and Muslim, each with followers among the chiefs and pages, at the same moment that European powers were carving up Africa. Mwanga was young, and a new class of literate officials was rising around him, loyal to their teachers as much as to their king. Father Siméon Lourdel, a White Father who witnessed the events, thought Mwanga felt despised by these educated converts, and put the pages’ refusal of his sexual demands second. Other writers, including Marie de Kiewet Hemphill, see that refusal as the immediate trigger. The spark is usually traced to a page called Mwafu, a favourite of the king, whom Ssebuggwawo had been teaching; Mwanga took it as an attempt to turn the boy against him.

Not everyone accepts a purely religious reading. Some historians point out that Mwanga did not kill the most powerful Christian chiefs or the Christian women at court, which suggests politics and personal rivalries mattered as much as belief. The historian Iliffe argues that some victims were singled out by jealous seniors who felt threatened by ambitious young officials. Ward, a historian of the Ugandan church, describes how the king came to see Christians as rebels and as unwitting tools of foreign interests. The older chiefs, who disliked the converts’ new loyalties, pressed him to act. Muslims had been killed at the same court about a decade earlier under Mutesa I, for similar reasons of loyalty and obedience.

The aftermath shows why the politics cannot be ignored. Within a few years the Church Missionary Society used the deaths to build British public support for taking over Uganda. Mwanga was driven out by his own Christian and Muslim chiefs in 1888, returned with Christian backing a year later, and ruled through years of fighting between Catholic, Protestant and Muslim factions before Buganda became a British protectorate in 1894. He later rebelled against the British, was exiled to the Seychelles, and died there in 1903, by most accounts baptised an Anglican before his death. Today some Baganda voices defend his memory as a king who resisted colonial encroachment, while the churches remember the young men he killed. The shrines themselves present the faith account; a good guide will tell you about the debate if you ask.

Profiles of the Uganda Martyrs Behind the Shrine Tours

Guides at Namugongo tell these stories at the spots where they happened, so it helps to know a few names before you arrive. The rows below cover the martyrs visitors hear about most, followed by the full Catholic roll.

The table sets out all 22 Catholic saints with the date and manner of death the church records. Ages are approximate, and where sources disagree we give a range or leave the age out.

The Anglican martyrs are less widely known outside Uganda, partly because the Church of England does not canonise saints, but the Church of Uganda keeps their names as carefully. The roll published from Ugandan church sources lists Makko Kakumba, Yusufu Lugalama and Nuwa Sserwanga of Busega; Mukasa Musa and Wasswa, killed at the start of the purge; Mbwa Eriya, Muddu Aguma, Daudi Muwanga, Muwanga, Kayizzi Kibuuka and Mayanja Kitoogo, several of whom were castrated or cut down in the last days of May; and Nuwa Walukagga, Alexander Kadoko, Frederick Kizza, Robert Munyagabyangu, Danieri Nakabandwa, Kiwanuka Giyaza, Mukasa Lwakisiga, Mubi Azaalwa, Kwabafu, Kifamunnyanja and Muwanga Njigiya, burned at Namugongo on 3 June. The same roll also honours Charles Lwanga, whom both churches claim. Spellings vary between sources, and the Anglican shrine and museum at Nakiyanja hold the fullest record.

Why do the totals vary from one source to the next? Church calendars count only the named martyrs, and some count only those burned on 3 June, which is why one Anglican calendar speaks of thirty two pages burned alive that day. Eyewitnesses and later writers put the full toll much higher, at a hundred or more, once unnamed prisoners, servants and people killed in the provinces are included.

Canonisation, Papal Pilgrimages and the Paimol Martyrs

Pope Benedict XV beatified the 22 Catholic martyrs on 6 June 1920. Pope Paul VI canonised them in St Peter’s Basilica on 18 October 1964, during the Second Vatican Council, making them the first saints from sub Saharan Africa in modern times. Five years later, on 2 August 1969, Paul VI celebrated Mass at Namugongo and consecrated the altar on the spot where Lwanga died, the first reigning pope to visit the region.

Work on the present basilica began soon after, and it was completed and opened in 1975. Pope John Paul II came on 7 February 1993 and raised it to a minor basilica; Pope Francis celebrated Mass there on 28 November 2015, after blessing the cornerstone of the new church at Munyonyo the day before. The Anglican side has its own milestones, including the pilgrimage of Archbishop Robert Runcie of Canterbury, who laid the foundation stone of the Busega memorial in January 1984.

Devotion grew long before Rome acted. Archbishop Henri Streicher founded the Uganda Martyrs Guild in 1897 to carry the faith on through lay members. At the canonisation in Rome, a Ugandan choir of nearly a hundred voices led by the composer Joseph Kyagambiddwa sang his hymns about the martyrs, part of a set of 22 he wrote about them, and his songs are still heard at Namugongo. Posta Uganda marked the fiftieth anniversary of the canonisation with a set of stamps, and for the sixtieth anniversary relics of Charles Lwanga and Matthias Mulumba were brought back to Uganda. The Church of England, which keeps 3 June as the commemoration of the Martyrs of Uganda, also remembers alongside them Archbishop Janani Luwum, killed under Idi Amin in 1977, with his own day on 16 February.

Two later martyrs are often added to the story. Daudi Okelo and Jildo Irwa, young Acholi catechists, were speared to death at Paimol in northern Uganda on 18 October 1918. John Paul II beatified them on 20 October 2002; they have not been canonised. This is why the Catholic shrine at Namugongo speaks of 24 Uganda Catholic Martyrs: the 22 saints killed under Mwanga plus the two blessed of Paimol.

Touring the Namugongo Shrines: Catholic Basilica and Anglican Shrine

A Namugongo shrine tour takes in two separate sites, and most visitors do both in a morning.

The Catholic Basilica of the Uganda Martyrs stands where Charles Lwanga was burned. Its tall conical roof echoes a traditional Kiganda hut, raised on a ring of 22 copper clad pillars, one for each Catholic saint, and the altar inside sits over the place of his death. Below the basilica lies the Martyrs Lake, a man made pond with a raised pavilion in the middle where the main celebrants sit on 3 June. Many pilgrims fill bottles with its water, which they hold to have healing properties. Expect a guide at the gate offering to walk you round; their stories add a lot.

The Anglican Uganda Martyrs Shrine is at Nakiyanja, the old execution ground itself, a short drive away. Here you see a reconstruction of the holding cell, the place of the great pyre, and the dead trunk of the tree where condemned prisoners were beaten and maimed, said to be the only thing left on site from 1886. Sculptures by the spring show Mukajanga and his men at work, which some visitors find hard going, so prepare children for it. Mukajanga, by most accounts, was himself baptised late in life. The Uganda Martyrs Museum on the Anglican site tells the story with documents and displays and is worth an hour.

Both shrines are working places of worship. Services run through the day on Sundays and feast days, so a weekday morning gives you the grounds at their quietest.

Martyrs Day on 3 June: The Pilgrim Walks and the Novena

Uganda Martyrs Day is a public holiday and one of the largest religious gatherings in Africa. Organisers’ estimates have run past two million people in big years, and some church sources have claimed more than three million, while one recent government count put attendance nearer 800,000; either way, the hills around Namugongo fill completely. A nine day novena of prayer runs at the shrines in the days before, and each year a different Catholic diocese leads the main Mass, supplying the choir, the liturgy and much of the organisation. The Anglican shrine holds its own service the same morning.

The walks are the part of the pilgrimage most visitors have heard of. Groups set out on foot from dioceses across Uganda and from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan and the Congo, some covering more than 300 km over two or three weeks. Parishes along the route feed them and give them floor space; Kenyan groups often meet up near Mabira Forest before the last stretch through Mukono. Some walk barefoot. Many arrive days early and camp in the shrine grounds through the novena.

The road is the real hazard. Walking groups share highways with buses and lorries for days, and pilgrims have been killed by vehicles on the way in, which is why police ask walkers to keep to the right hand side, facing oncoming traffic, and why the last stretch through Kyaliwajjala is closed to ordinary vehicles in the final days.

Joining a pilgrim walk as a foreign visitor is possible through a parish group, but it means long days on the road shoulder in the heat, basic sleeping arrangements and little privacy, so talk to the organising parish well ahead.

Planning a Martyrs Day Trip: Crowds, Traffic and What to Bring

Go on 3 June for the atmosphere, not for a close view. Roads into Namugongo close or turn one way from the day before, public parking at the shrines disappears, and buses drop pilgrims well short of the gates. In recent years police have issued coloured car stickers for vehicles allowed near each shrine, and cars without one are turned back at points such as Kireka, Naalya and Seeta; the routes change each year, so check the police traffic notice published in late May. The last few kilometres are on foot for almost everyone. Security is heavy, with bag searches, banned items and long queues at the checkpoints, and an attempted bombing near the Munyonyo shrine during one recent celebration has made the police stricter still. Travel with a local driver or guide who knows the current routes.

Dress modestly, with shoulders and knees covered. Bring water, a hat or umbrella for the sun, a light rain layer, a mat to sit on, some snacks and any medicines you need, in a small bag that is easy to search. Wear shoes you can stand in for hours. Keep phones and cash out of sight, since pickpockets work the crowds, and be wary of people asking for donations on behalf of the shrine. Temporary clinics and first aid points are set up, yet toilets are few and queues long. Ask before photographing people at prayer.

For the quietest visit, come in the weeks either side of the feast, or any weekday morning outside May and June. If you would like to see the build up without the peak crowds, the last week of May, when the walkers arrive and the novena is under way, is a good compromise. More general advice on getting around the country safely is in our page on whether Uganda is safe to visit.

Other Uganda Martyrs Sites on a Kampala Heritage Tour

A half day Kampala heritage tour can trace the story beyond Namugongo. The Uganda Martyrs Basilica at Munyonyo, on the Lake Victoria shore south of the city, marks where the persecution of May 1886 began; the Vatican raised it to a minor basilica in 2019. The Busega Martyrs Memorial on the western side of the city marks the deaths of Kakumba, Lugalama and Serwanga. In the city centre, Nakivubo is where Balikuddembe was killed, and the large market nearby carries his name.

Pair these with the twin cathedrals of Rubaga and Namirembe, the Kasubi royal tombs and a Kampala market and you have a full day. Our list of things to do in Uganda covers more ideas for the days around your flights.

Adding Namugongo to a Uganda Safari with Bwindi Gorilla Trekking

Namugongo sits on the Jinja side of Kampala, roughly an hour from Entebbe International Airport outside rush hour, so it slots easily into the first or last day of a trip. Many travellers see the shrines on arrival, then head southwest for gorilla trekking in Bwindi, a long day on the road or a short domestic flight; the options are set out in how to get to Bwindi. Others go east instead, to the source of the Nile at Jinja and on to Sipi Falls, before swinging west to chimpanzee tracking in Kibale and Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Timing matters if you want Martyrs Day and gorillas on one trip. June opens the long dry season, the busiest months for trekking, so permits and lodges go early; read the best time for gorilla trekking in Uganda and the gorilla permit booking guide before you fix dates, then choose a base from our Bwindi lodges page. Pilgrims arriving from Kenya or Tanzania can turn the trip into a wider East Africa circuit, pairing Bwindi with a Masai Mara safari or crossing south for gorilla trekking in Rwanda.

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