Plague narratives from the great lakes

The second plague pandemic spread across Eurasia during the 14 th century and continued until the 19 th century.Recent contributions have argued that it also spread to sub-Saharan Africa.Here, I support that argument by presenting a study on the first emergence of plague in the kingdom of Buganda based on a combination of sources.These include notes from missionaries sent to Buganda by the Church Missionary Society in the 19 th century, early ethnographic work on the Baganda, and Apolo Kagwa's published oral history of the Baganda kings, as well as a critical review of the archaeological record from the region and studies on East African plague genomes.I suggest that the most likely introduction of plague into the region was the turn of the 17 th century, which is then discussed in a broader African context.This highlights that sub-Saharan societies should be included in global studies of the second pandemic.