British Uganda Programme

thumb|A newspaper with a greeting on the occasion of the opening of the sixth Zionist Congress and an illustration of Theodor Herzl on the balcony of the "[[Hotel Les Trois Rois" in Basel, 1903.]]

The British Uganda Programme, also known as the Uganda Scheme, was a proposal by the British Empire to establish a semi-autonomous Jewish territory in British East Africa. Conceived during the height of European imperial expansion, the plan emerged from Britain's strategic interests in developing the East Africa Protectorate and offsetting the financial burdens of the newly built Uganda Railway. It was promoted to Theodor Herzl by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain as a potential refuge for Jews fleeing antisemitic violence in Eastern Europe, particularly following the Kishinev pogrom.

The scheme provoked intense debate within the Zionist movement, challenging the primacy of Palestine as the focus of Jewish national aspirations. Although the Sixth Zionist Congress authorized a commission to assess the territory, widespread opposition from both Zionist delegates and white settlers in East Africa ultimately led to the withdrawal of the offer in 1905. The controversy marked a decisive moment in Zionist politics, contributing to the emergence of territorialist ideas, even as the movement reaffirmed its commitment to a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Background

East Africa protectorate and the British interests

The British Empire participated in the scramble for Africa to protect a range of interests, including maintaining commercial dominance, suppressing the East African slave trade, securing key routes to India, and competing with Germany and France for influence. In East Africa, the British chose to exert indirect control through the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEA), funded by William Mackinnon in 1888 and administered primarily by Frederick Lugard, George Wilson and other imperial officers involved in regional expeditions.

Despite significant investment, the IBEA was effectively bankrupt by mid-1895. Poor infrastructure, chronic financial instability, large debts, and weak management contributed to its collapse.

"Just the country for Dr. Herzl"

Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Zionist leader Theodor Herzl were acquainted through the Rothschild brothers. Nevertheless, he agreed to discuss El Arish with Lord Lansdowne, the Foreign Secretary, believing that doing so could help secure the support of world Jewry for Britain. Chamberlain left London in December 1902 to tour South Africa, stopping in Mombasa before continuing on to South Africa. and even proposed the idea of a Jewish homeland in East Africa to Herzl. He did not pursue the matter further, however, assuming Herzl's interest remained focused on Palestine or nearby.

Initial negotiations

Initially, Herzl had little interest, as his focus was on Palestine and its surrounding area. However, following the Kishinev pogrom in 1903, he redoubled his efforts to secure a Jewish homeland. Greenberg successfully obtained a letter from the Foreign Office expressing the British government's willingness to establish a Jewish colony with considerable land, local autonomy, and religious and domestic freedom under its oversight. At the Sixth Zionist Congress held in Basel in 1903, Herzl presented the proposal, and the Congress voted, with 295 delegates in favor and 178 against, to send a fact-finding group to East Africa.

The Zionist expedition to East Africa

In December 1904, the Zionist Organization dispatched a special commission to Uasin Gishu to assess whether the region's conditions were suitable for Jewish settlement. The commission consisted of Major Alfred St Hill Gibbons, a British veteran of the Boer War and noted explorer; Alfred Kaiser, a Swiss orientalist and advisor to the Northwest Cameroon Company; and Nachum Wilbush, a Zionist engineer.

Implications of the offer

The Plan was a significant turning point in Zionist history. Although it was rejected in 1905, it paved the way for the rise of territorialist ideology and the creation of the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO). The ITO stressed the pressing need to find a solution to condition of European Jewry, even if it meant giving up the return to the Land of Israel.

In fiction

In 1890, Theodor Hertzka published Freeland: A Social Anticipation, a novel which predated the Uganda Scheme by twelve years but built on many similar themes. In the book, Jewish adventurers work alongside Kenyans to build an egalitarian society in the Kenyan Highlands. This is also a theme in Tidhar's 2018 novel Unholy Land, in which a Jewish state called Palestina is established in Africa after the 1904 expedition returns a positive report. Unholy Land was shortlisted for several awards, including the Sidewise Award for Alternate History.
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 [Henry Morton] Stanley with the adventurism of the Age of Empire, stagecraft with statecraft."
Another alternate history treatment is Yoav Avni's novel Herzl Amar, הרצל אמר (Herzl Said) in which the Jewish state in East Africa is called Israel and has many features similar to the actual Israel: it has a big city called Tel Aviv, its army is called the Israeli Defence Forces, its Prime Minister in the 2010s is Ariel Sharon and the opposition leader is Shimon Peres; at its south, near the border with Tanzania, is an impoverished strip similar to the Gaza Strip, dotted with refugee camps of Masai tribesman who were earlier displaced from the more central parts of the country and who like Palestinians are seething with rebellion against Israeli rule. But a highly significant difference from actual history is that, though there had been an antisemitic German leader named Adolf Hitler, the Second World War ended in an Allied victory much sooner than in actual history and European Jews were spared the Holocaust.