Ties of dependence: ubuhake, ubukonde and uburetwa – Organisation of Pre-colonial Rwanda (Senior 1 History and Citizenship) | Ganzaa

Organisation of Pre-colonial Rwanda

Lessons

Senior 1 · History and Citizenship

Organisation of Pre-colonial Rwanda

5 lessons

Lesson 5 of 5

Ties of dependence: ubuhake, ubukonde and uburetwa

25 min

Three ties across two centuries

In pre-colonial Rwanda many people depended on a more powerful person for cattle, land or protection, and owed that person goods or work in return. The timeline shows the three main ties of this kind, and a fourth, akazi, added by the colonial government.

Figure 3. Ubukonde, ubuhake, uburetwa and akazi, 1750 to 1960. The dates of the early stages are approximate. Drawn by Ganzaa.

Which tie lasted longest? Which was the newest before colonial rule?
What happened to uburetwa and to ubuhake in 1949 and 1954?
Which tie was not Rwandan in origin?

Definition

Clientship: a relationship between a more powerful person (the patron) and a less powerful one (the client), in which the patron gives protection or goods and the client gives loyalty, services or produce.

Definition

Ubuhake: cattle clientship: a patron (shebuja) gave the use of one or more cows to a client (umugaragu), who kept the milk and some calves; in return the client gave services, gifts and loyalty. Either side could in principle end it, with the cattle returned.

Definition

Ubukonde: land clientship in the north and north-west of Rwanda: the lineage that first cleared a piece of forest (the abakonde) owned the land and let newcomers (abagererwa) farm part of it in return for gifts of produce and work.

Definition

Uburetwa: labour service owed to the land chief by people who farmed land under his authority. It was introduced on lands taken by Kigeli IV Rwabugiri and fell mainly on farmers (Hutu).

Definition

Akazi: forced labour for the colonial government, on roads, plantations and buildings, added by the Belgian administration on top of uburetwa.

The three ties compared

	Ubuhake	Ubukonde	Uburetwa
Based on	cattle	land cleared by a lineage	land under a chief's authority
The stronger side	patron (shebuja), often a chief or wealthy herder	landholding lineage (abakonde)	the land chief
The weaker side	client (umugaragu): of any social category	tenant family (abagererwa)	farming families living on the land
Where	across the kingdom, especially the centre	north and north-west	regions under the central court
The weaker side received	milk, some calves, protection, a powerful friend at court	land to farm	the right to go on living on and farming the land
The weaker side gave	services, gifts, loyalty, support in disputes	gifts of beer and produce, some labour	unpaid work on the chief's fields
Could it be ended?	in principle yes, by returning the cattle	by leaving the land	no: it was an obligation, not a choice
How it ended	abolished by Mutara III Rudahigwa in 1954	weakened under colonial land rules	replaced by a cash payment in 1949

Warning

Colonial writers often described ubuhake as a simple bargain in which one "race" ruled another. That picture is wrong in two ways: clients came from every social category, including many poor Tutsi, and the ties that weighed most on ordinary farmers were uburetwa and, later, akazi, not ubuhake.

Worked example: testing a historian's claim

Claim: "Uburetwa became much heavier under colonial rule." (This is the argument of the historian Catharine Newbury, in The Cohesion of Oppression, 1988.)

What kind of source is the claim? A secondary source: a historian's conclusion after studying colonial records and interviewing elders in Kinyaga, south-west Rwanda.
What evidence supports it? The Belgian reforms of 1926 to 1931 made each individual, not each lineage, responsible for the work, and spread uburetwa to regions that had not known it. The colonial government also added its own forced labour, akazi.
Is there evidence of resistance? Yes: in 1923, groups of farmers in the north refused uburetwa and were jailed.
What about the other side? Uburetwa existed before colonial rule, under Rwabugiri; it was not invented by the Belgians.
Verdict: the claim is well supported. The fairest summary is that uburetwa began under the kingdom but was extended and hardened under colonial rule, until it was replaced by a cash payment in 1949.

Case study: ending the ties, 1949 to 1954

After the Second World War, the Belgian administration, under pressure from the United Nations, which now oversaw Ruanda-Urundi, began to change the old obligations. In 1949 uburetwa was abolished as unpaid labour: people now had to pay a sum of money each year instead. In 1954 Mwami Mutara III Rudahigwa abolished ubuhake, and the cattle held under the old contracts were to be shared between patrons and clients.

The reforms came late. By then colonial rule had fixed people's social categories on identity cards and tied them to these unequal obligations, and the resentments this caused were used by politicians in the years that followed. The history of these ties helps to explain the tensions of the 1950s, which you will study in later years.

Tip

Memory hook: ubuhake is about handing over cattle; ubukonde is about land held by the lineage that first cleared it; uburetwa is about required work for the chief.

Discussion

Class debate: "Ubuhake was a partnership that helped both sides." Argue for and against, using the table. Then compare: was uburetwa more or less fair than ubuhake? Why?

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Practice

What is clientship?
In ubuhake, who was the shebuja and who was the umugaragu?
Where in Rwanda was ubukonde found, and who were the abagererwa?
Give one difference between ubuhake and uburetwa.
What was akazi, and who introduced it?
What happened to uburetwa in 1949 and to ubuhake in 1954?
Explain how colonial rule changed uburetwa. Use two pieces of evidence.

Show answersHide answers

A relationship in which a more powerful patron gives protection or goods and a less powerful client gives loyalty, services or produce.
The shebuja was the patron who gave the use of cattle; the umugaragu was the client who received it and gave services in return.
In the north and north-west; the abagererwa were newcomers who farmed land belonging to a landholding lineage (the abakonde).
Any one: ubuhake was based on cattle, uburetwa on land; ubuhake could in principle be ended by returning the cattle, uburetwa could not be refused; ubuhake clients came from every category, uburetwa fell mainly on farmers.
Forced labour for the colonial government on roads, plantations and buildings, introduced by the Belgian administration.
In 1949 uburetwa was replaced by an annual cash payment; in 1954 Mwami Mutara III Rudahigwa abolished ubuhake.
Model answer: colonial rule extended and hardened uburetwa. The Belgian reforms of 1926 to 1931 made individuals, not lineages, responsible for the work and spread it to new regions, and the government added its own forced labour, akazi. Farmers in the north who refused it in 1923 were jailed.

1Three ties across two centuries

2The three ties compared

3Case study: ending the ties, 1949 to 1954

4Discussion

Three ties across two centuries

The three ties compared

Case study: ending the ties, 1949 to 1954

Discussion