![Die Welt, Basel 27 August 1903](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Die_Welt%2C_Basel_27_August_1903.png)
The Uganda Scheme was a proposal presented at the
Sixth World Zionist Congress in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
in 1903 by
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...
founder
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl; hu, Herzl Tivadar; Hebrew name given at his brit milah: Binyamin Ze'ev (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern p ...
to create a Jewish homeland in a portion of
British East Africa
East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Controlled by Britai ...
. He presented it as a temporary refuge for Jews to escape rising antisemitism in Europe. At the congress the proposal met stiff resistance.
History
British
Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain (8 July 1836 – 2 July 1914) was a British statesman who was first a radical Liberal, then a Liberal Unionist after opposing home rule for Ireland, and eventually served as a leading imperialist in coalition with the Cons ...
was aware of the ambitions of the
Zionist Organization
The World Zionist Organization ( he, הַהִסְתַּדְּרוּת הַצִּיּוֹנִית הָעוֹלָמִית; ''HaHistadrut HaTzionit Ha'Olamit''), or WZO, is a non-governmental organization that promotes Zionism. It was founded as the ...
, which had been on his mind during a trip to East Africa earlier in the year. Chamberlain noted during his trip that, "If Dr Herzl were at all inclined to transfer his efforts to East Africa there would be no difficulty in finding land suitable for Jewish settlers."
Herzl was introduced to Chamberlain by
Israel Zangwill
Israel Zangwill (21 January 18641 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of cultural Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and be ...
in the spring of 1903, a few weeks after the outbreak of the
Kishinev pogrom
The Kishinev pogrom or Kishinev massacre was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev (modern Chișinău, Moldova), then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on . A second pogrom erupted in the city in Octob ...
s.
Chamberlain offered at
Uasin Gishu (also spelled "Gwas Ngishu"), an isolated area atop the
Mau Escarpment
The Mau Escarpment is a fault scarp running along the western edge of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya
)
, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
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, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, ...
in modern
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
(not Uganda).
The land was thought suitable because of its temperate
hill station
A hill station is a town located at a higher elevation than the nearby plain or valley. The term was used mostly in colonial Asia (particularly in India), but also in Africa (albeit rarely), for towns founded by European colonialists as refuges ...
-like climate and its relative isolation, being surrounded by the
Mau Forest
Mau Forest is a forest complex in the Rift Valley of Kenya. It is the largest indigenous montane forest in East Africa. The Mau Forest complex has an area of .
The forest area has some of the highest rainfall rates in Kenya. Mau Forest is the la ...
. The offer was a response to
pogrom
A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s against the Jews in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
, and it was hoped the area could be a temporary refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.
Chamberlain saw the land as he was passing by on the
Uganda Railway
The Uganda Railway was a metre-gauge railway system and former British state-owned railway company. The line linked the interiors of Uganda and Kenya with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya. After a series of mergers and splits, the lin ...
, although the land was not in fact in Uganda but in the
East Africa Protectorate
East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Controlled by Britai ...
(modern Kenya). This territory had only recently been transferred from the
Uganda Protectorate
The Protectorate of Uganda was a protectorate of the British Empire from 1894 to 1962. In 1893 the Imperial British East Africa Company transferred its administration rights of territory consisting mainly of the Kingdom of Buganda to the Brit ...
to the East Africa Protectorate in 1902, as part of the
Uganda Railway
The Uganda Railway was a metre-gauge railway system and former British state-owned railway company. The line linked the interiors of Uganda and Kenya with the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya. After a series of mergers and splits, the lin ...
development plan.
Herzl presented the plan at the Sixth Zionist Congress but it faced resistance from many of the 573 assembled delegates. They considered it a betrayal of the 1897
Basel Program
The Basel Program was the first manifesto of the Zionist movement, drafted between 27-30 August 1897 and adopted unanimously at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland on 30 August 1897.
In 1951 it was replaced by the Jerusalem Progra ...
which had promoted settlement in
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
. A proposal to form an exploratory committee to consider the offer and investigate the land in question won the formal support of the congress but it caused a rift between those who were in favor of the plan and those who were against it. The Russian delegates in particular were unhappy with the plan. "These people have a rope around their necks, but they still refuse," Herzl commented.
Shortly afterwards, the British withdrew their offer of land in East Africa.
In fiction
* The story of the 1904 expedition, as well as an imagined vision of a Jewish state in Uasin Gishu, is told in
Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar ( he, לביא תדהר; born 16 November 1976) is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Tid ...
's
novelette "Uganda", in his 2007 collection ''HebrewPunk''.
* Adam Rovner's ''"What If the Jewish State Had Been Established in East Africa"'', a travel guide for the fictional Jewish homeland of New Judea, located in present-day Uganda, won the
2016 Sidewise Award for Alternate History award for short form alternate history. According to Adam Rovner the plan was appealing to early Zionists as it "twinned the adventures of
enry MortonStanley
Stanley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Film and television
* ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film
* ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy
* ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short
* ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...
with the adventurism of the Age of Empire, stagecraft with statecraft."
* In
Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar ( he, לביא תדהר; born 16 November 1976) is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Tid ...
's 2018 novel ''Unholy Land'', a Jewish state called Palestina is established in Africa after the 1904 expedition returns a positive report.
It was shortlisted for several awards, including the
Sidewise Award for Alternate History
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.
Overview
The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in wh ...
, and builds on the author's earlier story, "Uganda".
See also
*
Abayudaya
The Abayudaya (''Abayudaya'' is Luganda for "People of Judah") are a community in eastern Uganda, near the town of Mbale, who practice Judaism. They are devout in their practice, keeping kashrut and observing Shabbat. There are several differ ...
*
Madagascar Plan
The Madagascar Plan was a plan to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar which was proposed by the Nazi German government. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, pro ...
*
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO; russian: Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть, (ЕАО); yi, ייִדישע אװטאָנאָמע געגנט, ; )In standard Yiddish: , ''Yidishe Oytonome Gegnt'' is a federal subject ...
*
Slattery Report
The Slattery Report, officially titled ''The Problem of Alaskan Development'', was produced by the United States Department of the Interior under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary Harold L. Ickes in 1939–40. It was named after Undersec ...
*
Fugu Plan
Shortly prior to and during World War II, and coinciding with the Second Sino-Japanese War, tens of thousands of Jewish refugees were resettled in the Japanese Empire. The onset of the European war by Nazi Germany involved the lethal mass persecuti ...
*
Beta Israel
The Beta Israel ( he, בֵּיתֶא יִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Bēteʾ Yīsrāʾēl''; gez, ቤተ እስራኤል, , modern ''Bēte 'Isrā'ēl'', EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "House of Israel" or "Community of Israel"), also known as Ethiopian Jews ...
*
Lemba people
The Lemba, Remba, or Mwenye are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group which is native to Zimbabwe and South Africa, with smaller branches in Mozambique and Malawi. According to Tudor Parfitt, when he first worked in the field among the Lemba in South ...
*
Proposals for a Jewish state
There were several proposals for a Jewish state in the course of Jewish history between the destruction of ancient Israel and the founding of the modern State of Israel. While some of those have come into existence, others were never implemented. ...
*
Jewish Territorialist Organization
The Jewish Territorial Organisation, known as the ITO, was a Jewish political movement which first arose in 1903 in response to the British Uganda Offer, but which was institutionalized in 1905. Its main goal was to find an alternative territory ...
*
History of the Jews in Uganda
References
Bibliography
* {{cite book, first=Adam, last=Rovner, title=In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ej_UBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA45, date=2014, publisher=NYU Press, isbn=978-1-4798-1748-1
External links
Jewish Virtual Library on Uganda Proposal
East Africa Protectorate
Uasin Gishu County
History of Kenya
History of Zionism
History of the Jews in Africa
Settlement schemes
Proposed countries
Proposed Jewish states
Jewish Ugandan history
Jewish Kenyan history