Talk:History of Rwanda/Ethnic History of Rwanda

The Twa were the first known inhabitants of Rwanda. Rwanda is one of the few states in Africa to closely follow its ancestral borders. The Kingdom of Rwanda was controlled by a Tutsi royal family and it ruled the region throughout recorded history. While the upper echelons of this society were largely Tutsi, ethnic divisions were stark. Although some Hutus were among the nobility and significant intermingling took place, the Hutu majority made up 82–85% of the population and were generally poor peasants.

Pre-Colonial history

The exact date of the founding of the Kingdom of Rwanda varies from source to source with some placing it as early as 1312 and some as late as 1532. However, most sources agree that by the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Rwanda existed. It grew out of the fusion of several clans into a single kingdom under one royal clan, Abanyiginya. It was said that this clan was descended from a son of god and that the Abeeza, another royal clan, was descended from the other. Therefore, these two clans intermarried regularly. It is also important to note that both of these clans included only Tutsis, with the result that all kings, or Mwamis, were Tutsi. Other clans were comprised of both Hutu and Tutsi, which made it possible for Hutus to hold chieftaincies within the kingdom. One’s identity, though, was decided more through smaller kinship groups, called inzu, than through the larger clan group. These kinship groups were usually either Hutu or Tutsi, owing their identity to a patrilineal inheritance.

Prior to the nineteenth century, it was a basic assumption that Tutsis naturally had military power and that Hutus possessed supernatural power. Therefore, the Mwami’s council of advisors, abiiru, was made up of Hutus and gave a large measure of power to those Hutu clans that produced the advisors. However, over time Tutsi began to equal “power.” The differences in the degree of power held by the two groups began in the mid-eighteenth century.

Hutus were continuously subjugated under Tutsi rule. As the abiiru began to lose power during the reign of Mwami Rujugira to a possession cult, a religious group that practiced an indigenous religion somewhat akin to Voodoo, the Hutu influence in the court of the Mwami began to wane. However, organization was still possible, and this helped to check the power of the Mwami. Hutus could also serve in the military, albeit in an administrative role only.

One of the main ways that Hutus began to be subjugated was through an extensive set of patronage relationships. There were three categories of these arrangements. The first, umuheto, existed between lineage groups and could take place not only between Hutus and Tutsis, but between rich Tutsis and petits Tutsis, or poor Tutsis. The umuheto was basically a cattle clientship. It entailed a periodic gift of cattle to the powerful Tutsi in return for their protection. The main issue with this style of patron-client relationship was that it only applied to those who already owned enough cattle to make the gift, the upper-classes. The umuheto served as a tool to bring together the upper-classes into a single unit.

The second type of patron-client relationship was ubuhake. This existed between individuals, not lineage groups, and was therefore a more local arrangement. Since cattle-ranching was a more lucrative opportunity than agriculture, this arrangement relied upon the patron Tutsi lending the client petits Tutsi or Hutu a cow in exchange for some sort of political or social support. This system was more exploitative of the poor, but still applied to both poor Tutsis and Hutus.

The third type of patronage system, ubureetwa, was imposed only after a series of reforms centralized more land authority in the hands of the Mwami. The Mwami could now divide up land among chiefs of his own choosing, instead of land being something passed down through the lineage group. Land, then, became individually owned, making the Kingdom of Rwanda into a more modern state. Also, these chiefs were now administratively appointed instead of inheriting their titles. This had the consequence of further devaluing the Hutu in society since many of the hereditary chiefs had been Hutu, and now most of the appointed chiefs were Tutsi. The urubeetwa that was imposed by this more centralized authority was imposed exclusively on Hutus by their hill chiefs. They demanded manual labor as a payment for the right of Hutus to occupy the land. The Hutu status on these hills was downgraded to a serf-like position, with the newly-appointed Tutsi chiefs in the role of the feudal master. These centralizations, put in place between 1860 and 1895 by Mwami Rwabugiri, made Rwanda look more and more like a Tutsi power.

The other major modernization that took place in Rwanda during this period was the expansionist nature of the state, brought about largely because of the power of the military. Mwami Rujugira (1756–1765) was instrumental in this expansion. Because service in the military took one outside of one’s home region, it helped to offset some of the social polarization going on in the rest of the country. Though during Rujugira’s reign Hutus could only serve in administrative posts, it still gave them an opportunity to be integrated into the wider Rwandan society, and by the end of the nineteenth century, Hutus were allowed to serve in all aspects of the military.

At the beginning, the main job of Hutus in the military was herding. This was done by the entire lineage group, not just men, and it connected all of the Munyarwanda (Rwandan people) to the state. The lineage head became the military commander of the herding group, and was thereby transformed into a dual authority from kinship and the state. In this way, all the kin groups were connected to the state. This also lessened the influence of the kinship group and strengthened the power of the state over the people. The military was the outstanding success of an integrated Rwandan society and by far the most egalitarian structure within the Kingdom of Rwanda.

The administrative structure outside of the military was not nearly so integrated. When Rwabugiri centralized power, he brought the whole country under the control of the Mwami, who was given ultimate authority. This authority, however, was much of the time in name only. The centralization under the Mwami was decidedly less authoritarian than the colonial structure. Still, the Mwami was given far more power than before under Rwabugiri. He divided the state into four levels: the kingdom, the province, the district, and the hill. The kingdom was ruled over by the Mwami, who was always a Tutsi from the Abanyiginya or Abeeza clan. The position of Mwami was considered sacred, as the first Mwami was descended from the son of god.

The next level, the province, was ruled by a chief of men. His main job was to recruit soldiers to serve in the active army that not only conquered neighboring peoples, but also guarded the borders and the hills from invaders. The provincial chief was always Tutsi. At the district level, there were two chiefs. One was the chief of landholding. He was in charge of agriculture and collected all dues on labor and products from agriculture. The second was the chief of pastures, who presided over grazing land and all dues that came from cattle-ranching. While most of these were Tutsi as well, some of the landholding chiefs were Hutu, since agriculture was the traditional activity of the Hutus.

Finally there was the hill chief. This would be comparable to a village chief in other societies. However, given the topography of Rwanda, these villages were often centered on the hills. The hill chiefs, as mentioned earlier, were appointed by the Mwami or some higher chief, and though they could be either Hutu or Tutsi, tended more to be Tutsi.

The reign of Rwabugiri was an important transition in Rwandan sociopolitical development. He simultaneously incorporated Hutus into power in the military and administration while further disenfranchising Hutus socially and politically. His reign was also important for the expansion it brought and what it came to mean for identity in Rwanda. As the state expanded and new people brought under its umbrella, Rwabugiri did not bother to assess what ethnic groups were being assimilated into Rwandan society. All of the new conquered people were simply, “Hutu.” The title “Hutu” came to be identified with being a subjugated class, and therefore became a “transethnic” identity. This identity also helped to solidify the idea that “Hutu” and “Tutsi” were socioeconomic, not ethnic, distinctions.

However, social mobility was still possible, even in the highly centralized state built by Rwabugiri. One could kwihutura, or “shed Hutuness” by accumulating wealth and cattle and rising through the hierarchy. One could also gucupira, or lose social status and wealth, thereby becoming Hutu. Both of these processes took several generations to accomplish, but could happen. This ability to change one’s identity through one’s actions supports the theory that “Hutu” and “Tutsi” were less dictated by sociobiology and more by class and political power.

Tensions came to a head after Rwabugiri’s death. A succession dispute occurred between the Abanyiginya clan and the Abeeza over who should take the throne, and a power struggle erupted pitting the Tutsi elite on one hand with the excluded Tutsis and the newly subjugated Hutu on the other. A coup in favor of the Abeeza brought the struggle to an end with the anointing of Rucunshu as the new Mwami, but in their anger the rebels massacred many leaders of the Abanyiginya clan and put up Abeeza chiefs in their place. However, this was less an “ethnic” struggle between Hutu and Tutsi than an action demonstrating the dissatisfaction of the newly subjugated peoples, including the formerly autonomous Bakiga in the northern part of the kingdom. In short, the coup demonstrated the unhappiness of the oppressed Hutu lower classes under the superior Tutsi upper classes.

What is important to glean from this section is that identity within pre-colonial Rwanda had little to do with ethnicity and more to do with political and economic power. All Kinyarwanda-speaking people lived in the same cultural community, though not the same political or economic community, and those who lived outside of the kingdom of Rwanda could accurately be labeled as a diaspora. However, a political polarization was still not inevitable at this time, as the Hutu population was growing in number and strength, as demonstrated by the coup. “It is the history of the state that ultimately made of Hutu and Tutsi bipolar political identities.”(Mamdani, Mahmood. Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ. 08540. 2002. pg. 74) This history, focusing on the centralization of the state and the social processes, most importantly the changes in patron-client relationships, is what had a major impact. The event that would have the biggest impact, however, was the voluntary ceding of authority in 1890 to Germany.

Colonial History

In 1885 European Representatives met in Berlin to carve Africa up for colonialization. Rwanda and Burundi were given to Germany, and were administered as a joint colonial territory. Germany did not intend to colonize Rwanda and Burundi for European habitation, and so adopted a form of indirect rule. Germany sought an elite class that could act as functionaries to rule indirectly. Drawing on John Hanning Speke's Hamitic Theory of Races, and recognizing that the Tutsi were somewhat superior in Rwandan society, they chose the Tutsi to rule. This further exacerbated the divide between Tutsi and Hutu both economically and politically, and is speculated to be one of the root factors that lead to the extreme hostility between the two groups. However, the most influential colonial policy began after the First World War, when as a trusteeship of the League of Nations, the Kingdom of Rwanda became a protectorate of Belgium.

Self-government

After World War II the Belgian colonial administration in Rwanda was placed under United Nations trusteeship and was therefore expected to prepare Rwanda for independence. Preceding the Belgian pull out, elections brought the Hutu nationalist Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (PARMEHUTU) to power in 1959. They launched a program of advancing the power of the Hutu majority, largely in the West. While the Tutsi had been the favourites of the colonial powers, perception shifted as the Tutsi became viewed as feudal overlords. It was thus seen as proper that the Tutsi leadership was ousted in favour of rule by the Hutu majority. This also led to a downplaying of the violence that was associated with this process. Some 20,000 Tutsi were killed and an additional 200,000 fled to neighbouring countries.