Twenty-two pages of the Buganda court, burned alive for refusing to renounce their faith.
In the 1880s the court of King Mwanga II of Buganda held a growing number of pages baptised by missionaries. The king, who saw in this new allegiance a threat to his own and met the young men's refusal of his advances, ordered their deaths between 1885 and 1887. Charles Lwanga, master of the pages, had taken over from his executed predecessor and himself baptised the youngest on the eve of their arrest. At the end of May 1886 they were marched from Munyonyo to Namugongo, some thirty kilometres from the capital; on 3 June they were wrapped there in reed mats and burned. There were twenty-two Catholics; Anglicans died alongside them. Paul VI canonised them in 1964 and went to their tomb in 1969, the first pope to come to Africa.
Young Africans in white tunics, palms in hand, standing amid flames.