A Queen Mother Defiant: Irene Drusilla Namaganda and the Remaking of Power and Gender in Colonial Uganda

In 1941, Irene Drusilla Namaganda, the reigning queen mother of British-occupied Buganda, shocked the kingdom when she revealed she was six months pregnant—only fifteen months after the king’s death. The father of her child, a schoolteacher nearly two decades her junior, quickly became the focal point for a scandal that engulfed the monarchy. The ensuing political crisis led to Namaganda’s removal from the office of queen mother (Nnamasole) and her companion’s exile, spurring her own depart...