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Kigeli IV Rwabugiri was the king (mwami) of the Kingdom of Rwanda in late 19th century. He was 17th in a ruling dynasty that had traced their lineage back four centuries to Ruganzu I Bwimba, the first 'historical' king of Rwanda whose exploits are celebrated in oral chronicles. He was a Tutsi with the birth name Rwabugiri. He was the first King in Rwanda's history to come into contact with Europeans. He established an army equipped with guns he obtained from Germans and prohibited most foreigners especially Arabs from entering his kingdom.

Rwabugiri held authority in 1853–1895. He died in September, 1895 shortly after the arrival of the German explorer Gustav Adolf Von Götzen. He died unexpectedly during an expedition in modern day Congo, his adopted son, Mibambwe IV Rutarindwa was proclaimed the next king.

By the end of Rwabugiri's rule, Rwanda was divided into a standardized structure of provinces, districts, hills and neighborhoods administered by a hierarchy of chiefs predominantly Tutsi at the higher levels and with a greater degree of mutual participation by Hutus.

He defended the current borders of the Rwanda kingdom against invading neighboring kingdoms, slave traders and Europeans. Rwabugiri was a warrior King and is regarded as one of Rwanda's most powerful kings. Some Rwandans see him as the last true King of Rwanda due to the tragic assassination of his successor son Rutarindwa and coup by his stepmother Kanjogera who installed her son Musinga. By the beginning of the 20th century, Rwanda was a unified state with a centralized military structure.

Pre-colonial Rwanda
Tradition has it that the kingdom of Rwanda was originally occupied by a number of Bantu chieftaincies which were conglomerated during the 10th century by Tutsi pastoralists from the North, that brought ideas of caste systems and a political society. By the 19th century, the state had become much more centralized.

Royal Family
Pre-colonial Rwanda had an oral tradition and therefore it is hard to accurately document a list of leaders who reigned between the 11th and 15th century.

Expansion
Ethnicity became an important factor during the period of state expansion that began in the late 19th century. Rwabugiri gained increasing control over land, cattle, and people in Central Africa. Rwabugiri not only saw a personal increase in power over the land, but also consolidated power among political elites that became to be known either officially or informally as Tutsi. Previously, they had mostly been local chiefteins who were now finding themselves as part of a complex network that allowed the Mwami to build national cohesion in newly acquired regions. The appointed cheiftains were occasionally met with local resistance. For example, in the Northwest region the Balera group challenged the power of the Nduga who had been appointed to the region by the royal court. The contestation was along clan, rather than ethnic, lines, as both groups were considered Tutsi under the current ethnic understanding. During this period, there was an increase in the long-standing traditions of ubuhake and ubureetwa, a practice of vassalage under which labor and resources are exchanged for political favor.

German Colonial influence
Rwanda was unlike other African states in that was it initially not divided among the colonial powers during the Berlin Conference in 1884. Instead, Rwanda was assigned to the German Empire in the later 1890 conference in Brussels. Still, there were no expeditions made until 1983, when the German explorer, Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen led an expedition into Tanzania. Germany had made little effort to establish a colonial administration at the time, as they had limited forces in East Africa, and Rwanda was a densely populated territory with an existing strict administrative network. The death of Kigeli IV, however, and the subsequent coup weakened the state and opened a window for German direct colonization in 1897.

Last True Rwaburgiri
After Kigeli IV died, his son Rutalindwa was declared king. The new mwami's queen mother, however, was not his biological mother but was another wife of Kigeli IV; Kanjogero of the Bega clan. Rutalindwa's birth mother was from a politically weak clan, the Akabono. The Nyiginya Clan, to which the old and new mwami belonged, was also weak at this particular time because Kigeli IV had killed chiefs from this lineage of clans who had showed too much independence. As such, the Bega clan was in a unique position after the death of Kigeli IV to change the status quo and assume power. Together with her brother Kabare, chief of the Bega clan, Kanjogero carried out a coup d'etat at Rucunshu where Rutalindwa was killed and Kanjogera's own son, Musinga, was named mwami under the name Yuhi V Musinga. Kanjogero and her brother were effectively in charge at his point, as Musinga was still too young to rule. The two continued to purge the Nyinga who had survived Kigeli IV's purge, as to avoid the possibility that they would return to power. It was under this conflict that German colonialists began to exercise control over the Mwami by supporting their royal forces.