This article examines the nature of peacemaking and social reconstruction in Arua district, a marginalized border area of Uganda, in the late 1990s. After considering other recent accounts of violence and peacemaking, it focuses on the roles of local history writing and other forms of historical narrative in coming to terms with past violence. Local historians had two main aims: to maintain a particular understanding of the past within the local community itself, and to present themselves to others as the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of the violence in their past, as part of a wider process of mending relationships with both neighbouring groups and the Ugandan state. In attempting this, they deployed a variety of media that may be understood as historical narratives, from the performance of ritual healing ceremonies to writing conventional local histories.