Conquest and colonisation: soldier settlers in the Sudan and Uganda, Sudan Notes & Records, NS 4 (2000): 59-79 (original) (raw)
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Domestic Slavery in the Nineteenth-and Early Twentieth-Century Northern Sudan
Abstract This study concentrates on the experience of domestic slaves--men, women, and children who were affiliated to an owner's household--in the nineteenth-and early twentieth-century northern Sudan. Whereas most studies on Sudanese slavery show concern for the slave trade, the anti-slavery movement, or the abolition effort, this study instead examines the slaves themselves, and how they lived, worked, and functioned within their society. A few key themes surface throughout this thesis. One relates to the rapid pace of change, both political and social, which occurred in the northern Sudan in the period under study and had a profound effect on slavery. In the course of a single century, slave-owning changed from a preserve of the elite to a commodity for the free majority, before coming under the onslaught of abolition. Another recurring theme pertains to the tremendous diversity within the slave experience--in terms of occupation, treatment, outlook, and so forth. Finally, the study also grapples with the question of slavery's relative benevolence in the Sudan, while discussing opportunities for the eventual assimilation and social integration of the servile elements. A gaping hole exists in the historical record: namely, the absence of a large body of materials revealing the slave's own perspective. Thus the selfsame travellers' accounts and administrative records from which historians have shaped their narratives on trading, raiding, and abolition inform this study. Undeterred, this thesis launches an indirect attack on the subject. By piecing together observations made by witnesses to the slavery scene, and by filling in the gaps with carefully-considered hypotheses, a clearer and more colourful portrait emerges of the slave experience.
HUMANUS DISCOURSE, 2021
The present paper examines the nature and patterns of interactions between the people of North Africa and the Sudanese zone of West Africa during the pre-colonial period. It reveals the symbiotic relations that shaped their interaction during the period and the factors that facilitated their contact despite the barrier of the Saharan desert. Similarly the paper refutes the claims of some European writers in the colonial period, and shortly, after that, the peoples of the Sudanese zone were incapable of any historical consciousness, nor able to evolve genuine institutions, without the support of the peoples of North Africa and Europeans. The work establishes that despite the impenetrable space of the Saharan desert, the peoples of North Africa and the Sudanese zone were able to mingle, exchange goods, ideas, beliefs and foster mutual relationships that impacted positively on both regions of the continent. The paper reveals that a major factor that has influenced if not, contributed to the belief held by some of these Europeans concerning the history of the Sudanese zone in particular, and Africa South of the Sahara in general is the narrow nature of their sources, which focuses more on secondary sources. The paper concludes that the biased account concerning the Sudanese zone during the period under review has been refuted successfully through broader approaches to the historical study of African history that involves interdisciplinary approach as well as expansion of the sources to include oral sources among others. It utilises the theory of transnationalism to theorise and shed light on the frontier dimension of human movement across borders. The paper also employs secondary sources.
Ordinary Sudan: From Social History to Politics from Below, Vol. 1, ed. Elena Vezzadini, Iris Seri-Hersch, Lucie Revilla, Anaël Poussier, and Mahassin Abdul Jalil , 2023
In January 1863, 446 soldiers boarded a French ship on the Egyptian coast and sailed for Veracruz, Mexico. Almost all these men had been born and raised in the Sudan and had entered the Egyptian Army as slaves, whereupon they became Muslims, with new Muslim names. Four years later, in March 1867, the 299 survivors of le bataillon nègre égyptien (“the black Egyptian battalion”, as French authorities called them) sailed from Veracruz to Toulon in France, and went to Paris, where they received honors from Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Leaving France, they sailed to Alexandria, where the Khedive Ismail reviewed them and Egyptian dignitaries honored them at a banquet before sending them back to Sudan. At a time when Egypt was trying to expand its empire in northeast Africa, some of these Mexico veterans later fought on the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) front. Others served in Darfur and the Equatoria region along the White Nile which included much of present-day South Sudan and northern Uganda. Later, after Sudanese Muslims associated with the Mahdist movement declared jihad against the Turco-Egyptian regime (which had been subjecting much of Sudan to colonial rule since 1820, in a search for raw materials and slave soldiers for military expansion), four Sudanese veterans of Mexico, led by the British general Charles Gordon, died in 1885 at the Fall of Khartoum. A few joined the Mahdist side and turned to fight the Egyptians. The remarkable story of these Sudanese soldiers takes Sudanese history beyond the Nile Valley, and beyond Sudanese relations with the colonial powers of Egypt and Britain, while making it possible to trace longer arcs between North Africa, Europe, North America, and western Asia during the nineteenth century. This exercise illuminates global histories of slavery, race, military formation, and empire-building, as well as comparative histories of civil war and religious sectarianism. At the same time, it shows how service in Mexico enabled the Sudanese soldiers to rise in rank in the Egyptian Army while involving them in formative episodes of Sudanese history. Finally, the careers of these men provide evidence for networks that connected the two Sudans – Sudan and the country which seceded from it in 2011, South Sudan – to Mexico, France, and the United States, in addition to Egypt and Britain.
The Archaeology and History of Slavery in South Sudan in the Nineteenth Century
IN THIS CHAPTER WE OFFER A SYNOPSIS OF THE HISTORICAL EVIDENCE concerning the expansion of slavery and the trade in ivory during the Turco-Egyptian (or Turkiyya) era in the Sudan between 1820 and 1881, and a description of the results of recent and very preliminary archaeological investigations at three sites associated with this trade around the town of Rumbek in Lakes State, South Sudan. The paper begins with a brief review of the establishment of Ottoman rule in Egypt, before moving on to consider the broader geopolitical forces that gave rise to the decision by the Egyptian Khedive, Mehmed Ali, to invade Sinnar, Kordofan and adjacent areas of northern Sudan. We then discuss some of the economic consequences and legal changes following the establishment of Turco-Egyptian rule that helped create the conditions for the expansion of slaving expeditions into southern Sudan via the Bahr al-Ghazal and the White Nile (or Bahr al-Jabal), and the establishment of a series of fortified camps or zaribas in these areas. Following this, the history of the site of Pendit and other zaribas around Rumbek and the available archaeological information from these sites is considered in more detail. The chapter concludes with suggestions for further archaeological research on this topic.
The Sudd Institute, 2018
where he graduated with high honors. And athough he ranked first in his class, the second ranked student, an "Arab," was immediately appointed as a Teaching Assistant, a prestigious position at the time. He was subsequently sent to England for both his master's and Ph.D. studies. In the meantime, Abiem took up a job as an Administrative Officer while his appeal for scholarship was under review. Eighteen months after graduation, however, Abiem became a Teaching Assistant at his alma mater's History Department. He would later be sent to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in England, where he obtained an MPhil under the supervision of a renowned English historian, Professor Richard Gray. Upon completing his master's degree, Mark immediately enrolled for a Ph.D. program at the same university and, supervised, again, by Professor Gray. Dr. Gray would later remark that Abiem was, arguably, the best and brightest student that SOAS had ever had during the course of his time as a professor at SOAS. Unfortunately, while on his way from Khartoum to South Sudan as part of his Ph.D. fieldwork, Abiem fell in an ambush in which he was killed by "bandits," along with tens of others. Together with these other victims, the alleged culprits' hurried buried him in an unknown mass grave. His Ph.D. would later be awarded posthumously. 2 While this review is part memorial of Abiem's untimely departure, it is, more importantly, part commemorative celebration and appreciation of his magnificent contribution to the history of South Sudan's struggle for liberty and independence. The review specifically underscores Abiem's work on the Dinka "responses" to the British colonial rule in southern Sudan in the first half of the 20th century.
Bāsh-Būzūq and Artillery Men: Sudan, Eritrea and the Transnational Market for Military Work
Ordinary Sudan, 1504–2019: From Social History to Politics from Below, edited by Elena Vezzadini, Iris Seri-Hersch, Lucie Revilla, Anaël Poussier and Mahassin Abdul Jalil, Berlin-Boston, De Gruyter, 2023, vol. I, 237-264, 2023
2008
Sudan's modern history has been consumed by revolution and civil war. The country attracted international attention in the 1990s as a breeding ground of Islamist terrorism, and recently tensions between the prosperous center and the periphery, between the North and the South, have exploded in Darfur. In his latest book, Robert Collins, a frequent visitor to and veteran scholar of the region, traces Sudan's history across 200 years to show how many of the tragedies of today have been planted in its past. The story begins with the conquest of Muhammad ë Ali in 1821 and moves through the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium to independence in 1956. It then focuses on Sudanese rule in the post-independence years, when the fragile democracy established by the British collapsed under sectarian strife. It is these religious and ethnic divides, the author contends, in conjunction with failed leadership, that have prolonged and sustained the conflict in Sudan. The author is a forthright and engaging expositor and is not afraid to tackle some difficult themes. The book will make a singular and important contribution to the history of this ravaged country.