Mutara III Rudahigwa

Who is Mutara III Rudahigwa?

Mutara III Rudahigwa was born in March 1911 at Nyanza, the royal capital of Rwanda, the son of King Yuhi V Musinga and Queen Kankazi. He acceded to the Rwandan throne on 16 November 1931, four days after Belgian colonial authorities deposed his father. As Mwami under Belgian trusteeship, Rudahigwa became the first Rwandan king to embrace Catholicism, being baptized Charles Leon Pierre, and in 1946 he formally dedicated the kingdom to Christ, cementing Christianity's central place in Rwandan public life. His long reign, lasting until 1959, coincided with major social change, including the expansion of Western education and the formal abolition of certain forms of forced labor (uburetwa), but also with severe hardship, most notably the Ruzagayura famine of 1943 to 1944, one of the deadliest recorded in Rwanda's history. He died suddenly and under disputed circumstances in Bujumbura on 25 July 1959, shortly before the political upheavals that would end the Rwandan monarchy, and his death remains a significant, debated moment in Rwandan historical memory.

Sources: Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren), "The last king of Rwanda" · Jan Vansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (2004) · Encyclopaedia entries, "Mutara III Rudahigwa"