Kigeli IV Rwabugiri is considered to have been one of the very greatest of the abami, despite a considerable reputation for harshness in dealings with his subjects. His strict administration imposed a draconian regime on the once semi-independent Tutsi and Hutu chieftains of the Rwandan hinterland, frequently confiscating their holdings and eventually breaking their political power in the country. He also established a more modern army, one that was equipped with guns, and which successfully blocked most foreigners from entering the tiny state during the greater part of his reign.

   In the domain of socio-political engineering, Kigeli IV relied on a number of feudal structures, such as the uburetwa ("labor for land") system, which was somewhat analogous to the institution of serfdom practiced in medieval Europe. Although his reign officially began in 1853, it was not until 1860 that Kigeli IV Rwabugiri managed to unite all parts of Rwanda under his strong, centralized rule. Despite the fiercely independent spirit of its monarch, Rwanda fell under the control of the German East Africa Company by an act of the Berlin International Conference of 1884-85. The regions of Rwanda and Urundi were ceded to Germany as colonial spheres of interest, and it was during the final year of Kigeli's long reign that a caravan of over six hundred men, led by the German Count von Götzen, finally penetrated the borders of the kingdom.

Yuhi V Musinga in Regalia

   On May 29, 1894, Count von Götzen was received by the mwami in person while the Royal Court of Rwanda was in residence at Kageyo, near the present-day town of Gisenyi. The German soldiers organized military parades and demonstrations of marksmanship, as well as a display of fireworks. For his part, the mwami made a valuable gift of livestock to the foreign visitors, and appeared to be moderately pleased with the encounter. What he could not know, however, was that this meeting would mark the beginning of a painful and tremendously difficult century for his formerly isolated kingdom, a century that would see her increasingly on the defensive against a carefully planned and minutely coordinated takeover by European rulers whose domains lay thousands of miles away from the sacred enclosure of his simple palace at Nyanza. Unknown to Kigeli and his abiru, the Rubicon had been crossed, and sadly there was soon to be no reasonable hope of a safe return.