Intimate Colonialism: The Imperial Production of Reproduction in Uganda, 1907-1925

Abstract

In 1924, the British recorded more births than deaths in Uganda for the first time since the foundation of the Uganda protectorate in 1900.' Civil war, smallpox, cholera, trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), bubonic plague, and other epidemics had combined to keep the recorded death rate above the recorded birth rate. But even as the high mortality of the trypanosomiasis epidemic fell, the population of this prize protectorate continued to decline. Protectorate officials and missionaries blamed the continued decline on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), particularly syphilis. In retrospect, their alarm may have been unwarranted. Researchers have since argued that syphilis was confused with endemic yaws and that infertility is a classic symptom of gonorrhea