Africa Journal of The International African Institute Volume 32 Issue 4 1962 (Doi 10.2307/1157439) Peter F. M. McLoughlin - Economic Development and The Heritage of Slavery in The Sudan Republic

International African Institute
Economic Development and the Heritage of Slavery in the Sudan Republic

Author(s): Peter F. M. McLoughlin
Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Oct., 1962), pp.
355-391
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1157439 .
Accessed: 16/06/2014 16:54
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Cambridge University Press and International African Institute are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
[355]
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE HERITAGE

OF SLAVERY IN THE SUDAN REPUBLIC'
PETER F. M. McLOUGHLIN
A. INTRODUCTION-GENERAL
THIS paper suggests that important economic problems in the Republic of the
Sudan (the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan untilindependence in 19 56) arise from attitudes
associated with the heritage of slavery. After briefly outlining the nature of indigenous
slavery, and the essential interrelatedness of its economic and social characteristics,
it uses primarily official documents to analyse the economic effects of slavery abolition
in the northern Sudan. Present-day economic ramifications of the slavery heritage
are then discussed.
The economist appraising the development of African nations is interested in
understanding values for two main reasons. He must advocate policies which dis-
courage most quickly attitudes resistant to increases in productivity, and promote,
as far as possible, those likely to contribute to the rapid introduction and use of more
efficient tools, techniques, and institutions. Political, tribal, and religious factors, as
well as the nature and availability of resources, all affect the speed and direction of
development, and long-term development for the greatest number occurs when
strongly entrenched resistances are most quickly broken down. Conversely, social
and economic change may defeat their own ends if the means of development en-
courage the survival of negative traditional values; though output rises initially, its
very increase may then create a network of interrelated resistances to further growth
and the rate of progress will decline. A Marxist might describe such development
as one containing the seeds of its own eventual destruction. Such is the situation in
northern Sudan.
Documents describing the more strongly centralized traditional African societies
almost invariably stress, in one way or another, their hierarchical nature. Status,
prestige, and power structures result from mutually interacting ethnic, social,
economic, political, and religious factors, whatever may be the type of society. Wars
and conquest and domination of one group by another, owing to superior arms,
numbers, or organization, have produced a wide range of status structures in African
societies. One characteristic common to them all appears to be that the lowest social
groups-normally in domestic slave or serf capacities-were economically involved
in work which the community considered both distasteful and dishonourable.
Regardless of how they were obtained (raiding, debt-bondage, pawning, born to
slavery, &c.), whatever the religion (pagan, Christian, or Islam in their many forms)
and the manumission customs (freedom obtained through own purchase, being the
grandchild of a slave, or the child of a free father and slave woman, or by the master's
religious obligation), the work of slaves was regarded as onerous and degrading.
Thus, though it took many forms, a close correlation has developed over the years
I We are
grateful to the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of California, Los
Angeles, for a grant towards the printing of this long article.

356 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE HERITAGE OF
between lowest social status, relativelyrestrictedfreedoms, dependenceupon some-
one of higher position for basic economic and social securities,and specificforms of
economic activity.
African policy-makers desiring maximum and increasing rates of economic
development are thus obliged to examine carefullytheir nation's cultural history.
Not to do so, or to neglect introspective findings, may prove economically dis-
astrousin the long run. Not only is such 'economicstatus'researchin its infancy,but
the conceptiontends to be suppressedwhen recognized.' Democracy', ' freedom',
and other avowed objectivesof egalitarianpolicy are incompatiblewith suggestions
of inherent social and economic inequality,particularlyif policy-makersthemselves
are imbued with the attitudes which supported slavery in pre-colonial Africa. If
the policy of economic developmentdemandsan increasein certaintypes of labour
which are traditionallyconsideredto be inferior and only for lower social groups,
who will perform them voluntarily? To engage in them is to lose social status,
simultaneouslyand automatically.Social objectives conflict directlywith economic.
Under these conditionsworkerstend to be personswhose parentsand grandparents
were culturally'out', or migrantgroups from other societies where that particular
form of labour was not regardedas dishonourable.
Europeanadministrativepolicies (of all kinds) in a given area resultedfrom two
interactingfactors-what the Europeanbroughtto the area,andwhat he found there.
Labourpolicy thereforedependedon (a) Europeansocio-economicgoals-particular
conceptions of what should be developed, who should do what work, and who
should benefit-and (b) local socio-economic conditions. Recruitment practices,
labour levies, taxationsystems, and other administrativemeasuresvariedin type and
degree over time dependingon changesin these two variables.Wage labourin some
regions provided relief from an historicallysanctionedsocial inferiority.If enough
persons sought this form of economic manumission,then the need for compulsion
was obviously lessened (compulsionwould still be requiredif demandfor workers
was inordinatelyhigh, but not to the same degree). Where relativelyfew persons
came forward to perform work which was culturallydistasteful,then more severe
administrativemeasures,such as levies through chiefs, were introduced.These need
not have been direct pressures.Insufficientrural investment which forces labour
migrationis still standardbehaviour.The breadth,depth, and longevity of political,
religious, and other African-Europeanrelationshipshave been permanentlyaffected
by initial and succeedingEuropeanadministrationlabourpolicies. But these in turn
partly result from traditional values regarding labour, types of work, and who
performsthem-themselves products of the many and various forms of indigenous
labour patterns,particularlyforced servitude.
African nations are normally composed of a variety of cultures, ethnic groups,
religions, languages, political systems, and economic patterns. Certainregions of
heavy investment stand out as exceptionsto the normaleconomic conditions under
which most Africans live, and tend to be less culturallyclear-cut than the rural
regions of little investment which still have comparativelyinefficientproduction
tools and techniques.A given geographiczone of non-investmentis quite likely to
have severalpatternsof economic utilization,each a resultof its own specialcultural
and social adaptationsto that environment.

SLAVERY IN THE SUDAN REPUBLIC 357
A policy-making body planning national economic development is therefore
obliged to study a variety of value systems and their underlying economic institutions.
But it has the further duty of co-ordinating inter-group development. Should one
particular society be developed and not others? How will development affect inter-
group relationships economically, politically, socially-five, twenty, fifty years hence ?
The making of such rational and basic decisions demands social information which is
typically absent.
B. INTRODUCTION-SUDAN
It is felt that the institution of slavery and its attendant values, intrinsic to pre-
Anglo-Egyptian administration society, are still affecting economic and social atti-
tudes, and hence behaviour and productivity. If it can be shown that recent policy
for economic development is breaking down efficiency-resisting traditions, then such
policy and the engendered development are 'good'. Conversely, if it can be indicated
that both policy and economic results are reinforcing values which inhibit increasing
long-term efficiency, then they are 'bad'. While both occur, the latter outweighs the
former in northern Sudan.
The evidence clearly indicates that in Sudan (and elsewhere in Africa) it is these
traditional attitudes, based upon slavery, which now and increasingly influence the
pace and direction of economic development. This appraisal may be regarded as
a case study, not only of these socio-economic relationships, but also of the utility
of this approach to solving economic development problems. It also indicates how
closer examination of government reports, especially those of administration (political)
departments, may support like studies elsewhere. Certainly such official material has
its biases, omissions, and errors, particularly for the early years of European admi-
nistration, but they are recognizable and may be allowed for accordingly.
The northern two-thirds of the Republic of the Sudan encompasses the eastern
end of the Sudan geographic zone, a belt of savannah grassland, 3,500 miles wide
and 300-700 miles deep, which borders the southern edge of the Sahara and Libyan
deserts.' This was one of the most active slave-dealing regions in Africa, a natural
trans-continental highway which permitted violation by nomadic peoples (mostly but
not all Moslem) of the sedentary populations in the heavier rainfall areas to its south
and the mountain kingdoms across its width (mostly Negroid and Sudanic pagans).
As elsewhere in this underdeveloped zone south of the deserts, social groups of the
Republic of the Sudan have adapted to their varying physical environments. Camel
nomads occupy semi-desert regions immediately adjoining the deserts; rainland
farmers and cattle nomads are found in the heavier rainfall zones to the semi-desert's
south; and shifting (forest) agriculture and cattle-owning but sedentary populations
are located where rainfall is more reliable and heavier. There will tend to be some form
of irrigated agriculture wherever water sources are permanent, e.g. along the Nile
and its tributaries. Certain mountainous, heavier rainfall districts have highly
developed agricultural economies, though they may be in the middle of otherwise
fairly dry regions. Examples are the mountains of western Darfur (especially Jebel
Mara) and the Nuba Mountains in Kordofan Province.
I The nation's best geographical description is K. M. Barbour, The Republicof the Sudan-a RegionalGeo-
graphy,University of London Press, 1961.

There tend also to be correlations between type of economic endeavour and ethnic
group. Northern Sudan nomads, both camel and cattle, are heavily Arab and Arab
mixtures. Nomads who are not Arab, such as certain Hadendowa peoples, are never-
theless not 'blacks '-Negro, Negroid, or Sudanic. The northern riverain peoples
will be either Arab or Arab mixtures, though important exceptions occur, such as the
Nubians.
The main northern Sudan unifier is the Moslem faith.I Groups which are not
racially pure Arabs (through centuries of mixture with Sudanic Negro peoples) are still
Islamized. Sudanic and other northern peoples who were engulfed by Arab, Turkish,
and Egyptian civilizations tend to be heavily Islamized or have values which are
similar to those of Islamized peoples. Thus one may draw a firm cultural line across
the southern edge of the medium rainfall, cattle-nomadic, rainland cultivation area
which is also the division between Islam and non-Islam.2 Shifting cultivation and
animal-owning economies in the wetter and more heavily forested regions south of
this line tend to be populated with Nilotic, Sudanic, Hamitic, and Negroid pagans.
There are therefore mutually supporting economic, social, and religious reasons for
inter-group antipathies. Agriculture (especially forest, shifting agriculture), paganism,
dark skin colour (even heavier facial features), and use of poor Arabic, all tend to be
combined in mentally juxtaposed contrast to nomadism, Islam, lighter skin colour
(and sharper features), and use of good Arabic. Not all these conditions need be
present at any one time for any given group, however; overlaps and exceptions occur.
Heavily camel-nomadic non-Islamized Beja look down on Islamized farmers, not
necessarily because they are Muslims, but because they are farmers. The Baggara,
cattle-owning, originally Arab, nomadic tribes in the medium-rainfall central and west
central Sudan, have for centuries mixed extensively with Negroid and Sudanic
peoples-their darker colour and heavier features reflecting such admixtures.3 But
they scorn the agriculturalists, often ex-camel nomads of more pure Arab stock who
have been forced to farm because they lost their herds before the turn of the century
in inter-tribal and religious wars. These farming groups still look to the day when
they will have herds again.
On the other hand, such central and west Sudan farmers and nomads have less
orthodox religious attitudes, their Arabic is poor, and their standard of literacy low.
Sudan-Nile farming civilizations have a recorded history of centuries, practise their
I ' A common basis of Arabic race and language, and Pagans of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan', Moslem
and Islam, with their resulting unity of social and World,vol. xxxvi, no. 3, July 1946, pp. 252-60.
political ideas have fused the northern Sudan into
2 The tsetse
fly also provided an effective barrier
a single whole. The District Commissioner who is to the southward movement of savannah warriors
transferred from Berber to Bara, from Kassala to and nomads. Cf. Jean Boulnois and Boubou Hama,
Kordofan finds that he is dealing, in different local L'Empire de Gao- Histoire, Coutumeset Magie des
conditions, with the same kind of people, the same Sonrai,Paris: Librairied'Amerique et d'Orient, 1954,
mental outlook' (L. F. Nalder, 'The Two Sudans: p. 181. Commerce carried Islam through tsetse flies,
Some Aspects of the South ', article in J. A. de C. however.
3 Cf. K. M. Barbour, Peasant Agriculture in the
Hamilton, ed., TheAnglo-EgyptianSudanFrom Within,
London: Faber & Faber Limited, I935, pp. 94-95). Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Khartoum: University Col-
See also Saad ed Din Fawzi, 'Ethnic and Cultural lege, 1953, p. 17; W. J. Berry, ' The Arabs of Kor-
Pluralism in the Sudan ', article in Ethnicand Cultural dofan: a Study of Adaptation ', ScottishGeographical
Pluralism in Inter-tropicalCommunities,Report of the Magazine, vol. xliv, I928, p. 279; G. D. Lampen,
3oth Meetingheldin Lisbon, April, I9y7, of the Inter- ' The Baggara Tribes ', in J. A. de C. Hamilton (ed.),
nationalInstitute of Differing Civilizations, Bruxelles, The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan From Within, London:
I957, pp. 393-402; and Ruth McCreery, 'Moslems Faber & Faber, I935, p. 131.

religion more thoroughly, speak better Arabic, have cultured scholars, and consider
their sophistication superior to that of their non-riverain fellow Moslems. Riverain
landowners, and commercial, religious, and political leaders have supported over
a long period a class structure based on various forms of slave, serf, and bound
tenantry workers.' Agriculture as such is honourable, but to perform farm labour is
not. Traditionally, to own land was a prerequisite to independence, integrity, and
social citizenship. To perform menial labour on it precluded all three. The riverain
region has been historically the Sudan's dominating political, military, and admi-
nistrative hub. Though occasionally there have been important exceptions, what has
happened on the Nile normally affected surrounding peoples: the river has been the
physical and cultural avenue through which outsiders have conquered the Sudan.
Thus there has developed a series of mutually supporting and interacting social
and economic forces which has given the northern Sudanese a very clear bias against
most menial labour, and almost invariably against menial agricultural labour. The
route to higher social status has been historically to relieve oneself of performing
menial labour even on one's own land. This is combined with a concept of indepen-
dence which must not be violated by working for someone else. To do so is socially
humiliating. Thus the ultimate in socio-economic degradation is to work at some-
one else's agricultural labour.
Over the centuries, therefore, other peoples were subjugated to perform the
northern Sudan's menial and socially undesirable economic functions. The existence
of a fairly easy slave supply naturally reinforced the inclination not to do one's own
work. As elsewhere in Africa, three forms, or types, of slaving and slavery were
extant: the active raiding and capture of hostages; domestic slavery; and serfdom.
There is no argument about the nature and definition of slave raiding (either to get
slaves for oneself or for sale to someone else).2 But the considerable literature on
domestic slavery and serfdom indicates a range of sub-classifications and shades of
meaning.
Forms of servitude may be classified according to the type of work being done by
the indentured person, by the means of slave acquisition, by relating acquisition and
manumission processes to religious beliefs, and so on. Regardless of these various
factors, however, economically a domestic slave was attached very closely to a
master's household, and performed the socially degrading and routine economic
tasks. In addition, domestic slaves (particularly the men) would in all probability
be responsible for certain agricultural work. Here one comes up against concepts of
serfdom, a compulsory relationship more normally associated with some form of land-
holding and division of the proceeds of output.
It must be emphasized, however, that while certain forms of servitude have been
associated with Islamic civilization, they occur also in Christian and pagan societies.
Islamic doctrine, conceived and solidified for the most part centuries ago in an area
I The main riverain group which is the exception Organized tribal slave-hunts by Arab or Isla-
2
to this pattern is the Nubian. 'At the same time there mized nomads would often be rationalized as part
is a very remarkableabsence of theft and a readiness of the Holy War being carried to the Pagan. Nor-
to work unusual in the Sudan, both of which may be them Nigeria Fulani, for example, made slave-
attributed to the absence of a slave class . . .' hunting under this guise a standard dry-season
(W. D. C. L. Purves, 'Some Aspects of the Northern practice.
Province ', article in Hamilton (ed.), op. cit., p. 17I).

whose economic and social conditions were not much dissimilar from the northern
Sudan, does not necessarily condone slavery. The economic conditions of deeply
Moslem and Arab regions are permissive to slavery, but the same is true for pagan
and Christian, for Bantu, Negro, and Hamite. And Islamic slavery theory and practice
are not necessarily identical. For example, doctrine precludes a Moslem enslaving
another Moslem under most conditions.' But there are numerous examples of this
happening. The Prophet carefully indicated progressive and non-socially disrupting
slave manumission directions. This is in complete contrast to Ethiopian church
ethos which actively supports such socio-economic divisions.2 Because this paper is
concerned with slavery in the strongly Islamic Sudan, this should in no way be taken
to mean that these are the only groups in the Sudan (or elsewhere) which have
featured (or still feature) such practices.
The form which slavery took in any given northern Sudan region and the various
reactions to its abolition, depended upon a number of conditions: (a) whether or not
it was a raiding or raided zone, or both; (b) whether the region bought, sold, or
transported slaves, or all three; (c) whether the people involved were Arab Moslem,
Arabicized and Islamized Sudanic and other peoples, or pagans, or any combination;
(d) whether the people were nomadic, partly nomadic and partly agriculturalist, or
entirely agriculturalist; (e) whether, if agriculturalist, the people were in riverain
irrigated regions or away from the rivers on extended rainland cultivations;
(f) whether the people involved were in cities and towns, or in rural areas.
Northern Sudanese obtained slaves from non-Moslem and non-Arab groups, some
in the northern Sudan itself, others from southern Sudan, still others extra-nationally.
There were several main slave-supply sources:
I. Sudanic people of the Nuba Mountains (Kordofan Province).
2. Sudanic people of western Sudan mountain districts (which in I916 became
Darfur Province).
3. Sudanic peoples in the central-eastern Sudan near the Ethiopian border.
4. Nilotic, Nilo-Hamitic, Negroid, and other southern Sudan peoples.
5. Abyssinia (now Ethiopia).
6. Belgian Congo, French Equatorial Africa, Kenya, Uganda (along the White
Nile and Bahr el 'Arab; through Bahr-el-Ghazal Province; and over several main
routes which entered north-western Sudan).
7. The pilgrimage from West Africa to Mecca.
Main slave-receivers may also be listed:
i. Nomads: (a) Central and western Sudan cattle (and some camel) Arab nomads;
(b) Hadendowa peoples in eastern Sudan.
2. Moslem agriculturalists along the Nile north of Khartoum to the Egyptian
border.
From the wealth of literature on this subject themselves to abolish a system so deeply rooted in
see, for example, the recently published policy pro- their social and economic structure; and one which
nouncements of Usuman dan Fodio, founder of is upheld by a powerful and barbaricchurch claim-
the Sokoto Sultanate (born c. 1754) in A. D. H. ing guardianship of the Mosaic Law and regard-
Bivar, 'A Manifesto of the Fulani Jihad ', Journalof ing slavery as an institution decreed by Jehovah'
African History, vol. ii, no. 2, I96I, pp. 235-43, esp. (E. W. Polson Neuman, 'Slavery in Abyssinia',
pp. 239-4I. ContemporaryReview, vol. cxlviii, December I935,
2 '. .. it is quite impossible for the Abyssinians p. 42).

SLAVERY IN THE SUDAN REPUBLIC 36I
3. Moslem agriculturalists along the White and Blue Niles south of Khartoum;
4. Urban Khartoum and Omdurman.
5. Outside Sudan: (a) slaves shipped to Arabia (pilgrimage was also used for this
purpose); (b) extended North Africa markets-Egypt, Tripoli, &c., even Palestine;'
(c) West Africa; slaves captured in Kordofan, Darfur, and south of the Bahr el 'Arab
would be passed to Northern Nigeria, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania.
There are no estimates of northern Sudan's population percentage in domestic
slave and serf capacities at the turn of the century when Anglo-Egyptian administra-
tion began. By inference from like societies elsewhere under equivalent socio-
economic conditions, it could have been an overall 20 to 30 per cent. Cattle nomadic
groups had a great number of household (particularly women) slaves, and others
(mainly men) performing their agricultural tasks, in all perhaps 40 per cent. of the
total society. Camel nomads would be one-twelfth to one-eighth slave peoples.2
Riverain farming communities would be one-sixth to one-quarter indentured groups,
and at least 5 to 20 per cent. of town and urban area populations were in slave
capacities.
Because slaves performed the bulk of all agricultural labour, Anglo-Egyptian
administrators had a difficult choice: either forcibly to abolish all slavery (and satisfy
their own ethical, moral, and perhaps religious values), or to experience immense
immediate and medium-run economic dislocations. This deliberation must be viewed
through administrators' eyes in I898-9. The northern Sudan was a chaos of deserted
and burned villages.3 Inter-tribal, inter-kingdom conflict had been standard activity
for centuries. During the latter part of the eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth
centuries, depredations under Turkish and Egyptian regimes became more organized
and concerted, and extended themselves into southern Sudan. Hundreds of thousands
of Sudanic, Negro, and other non-Moslem, non-Arab peoples were enslaved, some
remaining in northern Sudan, others sent elsewhere.4 Organized raiding depopulated
entire regions in both north and south. The last several decades of the nineteenth
century saw the rise of the Mahdiya; this period of bloodshed ended in Anglo-Egyp-
tian administration.5 The last twenty years of the nineteenth century are estimated
to have cost the northern Sudan approximately three-quarters of its population:
from an estimated 8 5 million before Dervish (Mahdist) rule to i-9 million in 1903.
Some 3*2 million perished through warfare and 3*4 million through attendant
diseases (see Appendix, Table i). From this social and economic desiccation the
Italian, French, and British reports to the Anti- annual military expeditions by 1839. See G. F. March,
Slavery Committee of the League of Nations detail ' Kordofan Province (Agriculture) ', in J. D. Tothill
slave incidence, sources, and social relationships. (ed.), Agriculturein theSudan,London: Oxford Uni-
2 For
thorough discussion of equivalent cattle and versity Press, 1948, p. 828.
camel nomad slavery across West African savannah 5 On southern slaving see especially Richard Gray,
areas, see J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in West A History of the SouthernSudan,I89-I889, London:
Africa, Oxford: Clarendon Press, I959. Oxford University Press, 196I; and Allan Moore-
3 One
turn-of-the-century traveller measured the head, The White Nile, New York: Harpers, I96I,
incidence of desolation by counting hyenas-see esp. part iii. Certain northern Sudan areas such as
Oscar T. Crosby,' Notes on a Journey from Zeita to Dar Fung have not yet recovered from Mahdiya
Khartoum', GeographicalJournal, vol. xviii, July- brigandage. See, for example, E. E. Evans-
December I90I, pp. 46-61. Pritchard, 'Ethnological Survey of the Sudan',
4 From the Nuba Mountains alone it was esti- article in Hamilton (ed.), op. cit., pp. 79-93, esp.
mated that 200,000 slaves had been captured in pp. 92-93.
Aa

administration had to reconstruct order and peace over i million square miles in an aura
of suspicion and animosity.
Anti-slavery procedures were adopted similar to those elsewhere in European-
administered Africa. Basic policy encouraged the gradual development of a wage-
labouring (from a slave-labouring) population.' But rapid transformation could be
effected only at the risk of alienation of Sudanese political and religious leaders,
drastic output reductions in agriculture and livestock, and a growing social problem
of released slaves inundating towns to form parasitic communities:
The Government had to choose between almost equally distasteful alternatives: the
temporarysanction of slavery or the immediateliberation of the slaves, the latter a course
which might bring economic ruin upon the country. Liberationwould have resultedin the
abandonmentof most of the cultivation along the riverbank,a loss of many of the flocks
and herdsof the nomad Arabsand the consequentdeathof thousandsof innocentindividuals
who, through no fault of their own, had been brought up under a social system that was
repugnantto Western ideas, but accepted as an indispensablecondition of their everyday
lives.... To have freed all the slaves would have meantletting loose upon society thousands
of men and women with no sense of social responsibility,who would have been a menace
to public securityand morals.2
Two inter-related administration policies were effected. Any slave was allowed to
leave his master if he chose, and the master had no legal recourse to force his return.
Many slaves had already fled during pre-Anglo-Egyptian administration fighting.
Simultaneously, through its regulations and day-to-day performance, the administra-
tion attempted to induce as many slaves as possible to remain with their masters,
providing they were content, and not ill treated.3 The other policy was to prevent
further enslavement and cut off the supply of new slaves. An Anti-Slavery Depart-
ment was established for this purpose (actually an extension of Egypt's Slavery
Department).
Stabilized civic conditions soon promoted population mobility on a scale hereto-
fore impossible.4 Administrators aimed to channel this movement into expanding
railway, building, utilities, and other employment. Public Works labour demands
attracted away even more of the scarce agricultural workers, most of whose employers
could not pay the rapidly increasing wages.5 A Central Labour Bureau was established
I One of the positive strong points of northern the Sudan', Anti-Slavery Reporter and Aborigine's
Sudan administratorpolicy was their abstention from Friend, ser. v, vol. xv, no. 2, July I925, p. 84.
forced or unpaid labour. See Odette Keun, 'A Fo- 4 Here and right across the Sudan Zone. See, for
reigner Looks at the British Sudan', The Nine- example, D. B. Mather, 'Migration in the Sudan',
teenthCentury,vol. cviii, no. 643, September 1930, GeographicalEssays on British Tropical Lands, Steel,
pp. 292-309. R. W., and Fisher, C. A. (eds.), London: George
2 H. C. Jackson, BehindtheModernSudan,London: Phillip & Son Ltd., 1956, pp. II5-43.
5 'The
Macmillan, 1953, pp. 93-94. Early general problems urgent nature of this (Public Works) de-
are also discussed in John Stone, Sudan Economic mand, coupled with the impetus given to private
Development,89y-191y3, Khartoum: Sudan Economic enterprise by the ensuing land boom, set up com-
Institute, 1955. petition and wages rose immediately to a rate that
3 Not all were in favour of this slow the native agriculturalist could not afford to pay.'
process. One
ex-administrator,P. R. W. Diggle, claimed that culti- Memorandum from Lieutenant-General Sir R. Vingate
vation would not cease, but 'even if I am wrong to Sir Eldon Gorst on the Finances,Administrationand
I do not believe that cultivation in the Northern Conditionof the Sudanfor Io08, Cairo, 1909, p. 70.
Sudan or anywhere else is worth all the misery and Socio-economic problems are naturally the main
cruelty that slavery involves '. See his 'Slavery in topics of early administration reports, both from

in 907 (based closely on the ex-slave registration system adopted earlier in Northern
Province-discussed later) which was relatively successful. Wage worker supply is
still difficult in 1962. But the problem of finding sufficient agricultural wage workers
is increasing. It has not been solved in sixty years' and administrators have constantly
suggested foreign labour importation (Indians, Chinese, even American Negroes).
Foreign labour is now, and has been from the turn of the century, the most productive
segment of the development wage labour force. Egyptians, Yemenese, Eritreans and
Abyssinians have all been imported for specific canal, dam, dock, railway, ginnery,
and other employment from time to time. The most numerous and important
foreigner is the Westerner, the primarily Moslemeconomic descendant of the slave,
discussed at more length later.2
It is proposed to detail the particular reactions to slavery abolition and slave raiding
in the following areas: (i) Central and west-central Sudan (Kordofan and Darfur).
(2) Northern Sudan, along the Nile north of Khartoum. (3) White Nile and Blue Nile
region south of Khartoum, and the Ethiopian border area (the old Provinces of
White Nile, Blue Nile, Fung, Sennar, and Gezira). (4) Eastern Sudan: Kassala,
Suakin and Red Sea Provinces. (5) Khartoum and Omdurman. Not all quotations
from official reports are given, only sufficient to indicate the economic effects of
abolition, and the tenacity of slave labour values. Most information and all statistics
are from official reports.3 Particularly for the early years a certain margin of error is
thus expected. There appears to be a general tendency among administrators to under-
estimate the extent and force of the slavery heritage on values and behaviour. Out-
right ignorance of Islamic law is also encountered; for example the I926 statement
that slavery was recognized under 'Mahometan [Mohammedan] law which ... in
its essence is immutable and cannot be abrogated'.4 True, perhaps, but the law
provides for slave manumission!
C. REGIONALDETAIL
i. Central, West-Central,and WesternSudan(Kordofanand Darfur)
In 193 5, only a generation ago,' three cases occurred of the kidnapping of negroid
children from Central Darfur by [these] Arabs. In only one case was it possible to
secure a conviction, although all but one of the kidnapped children were rescued '.5
This quotation summarizes the two main slavery features of this region-the tenacity
of the habit and the difficulties in securing evidence sufficient to punish the slavers.
Kordofan came under Anglo-Egyptian Government in 1900, and Darfur Province
Sudan (Wingate, 1904-14) and Cairo (the Consul- Sudan ', Journalof the ManchesterGeographicalSociety,
General of Egypt, from 1898 through 1920, reported vol. xxviii, 1912, p. 20.)
Egypt and Sudan together. From 1921 to I951-2 2 Omdurman residents are quoted in 1909 as
the Sudan reported directly to the Foreign Office). saying 'Allah took away our slaves, but sent us the
These Egyptian reports will be referred to as Egypt Fellata.' (Wingate,1909, p. 55.)
and the Sudan's as Sudan. 3 Appendix Tables 2 and 3 attempt to summarize
1 In spite of early optimists such as L. Emerson conviction and certain other slavery statistics of
Mather: ' The natives-both Arabs and Sudanese- Legal and Slavery Departments.
are not industrious, indeed they have never found 4 'Memorandum on Slavery in the Sudan', En-
the need to be so until British rule was firmly esta- closure 3 to Papers Relating to Slaveryin the Sudan,
blished, but there is no reason to doubt that they will London: H.M.S.O., Cmd. 2650 (Sudan no. i, 1926);
advance with the times and realize that work means Sudan Government Confidential Circular, p. 13.
s Sudan,
prosperity.' ('Five Weeks in the Anglo-Egyptian I935, p. II9.

in 1916 (the last Sudan area to be brought under such administration). During those
seventeen years, Darfur was led by Ali Dinar, though he did pay tribute to the Sudan
Government. Ali Dinar was killed during his First World War anti-Sudan revolt,
and Darfur became the Sudan's most western Province.
The region contains both camel and cattle nomadic groups, almost entirely Arab
and Moslem. The several primarily agricultural societies were mostly nomadic peoples
until nearly the end of the nineteenth century. During the Mahdiya, however, many
Arab nomads lost their herds, through warfare and disease, and had to become
farmers. Some have rebuilt livestock holdings, but the bulk are rainland farming still.
Because of continual (and forced) association of Moslems with non-Moslems, great
numbers of Sudanic peoples (mostly farmers) have been Islamized. While nomads had
been raiding sedentary peoples for centuries, Mohamed Ali's 1821 Kordofan con-
quest turned tribal and localized slaving into organized business, Egyptian envoys in
Kordofan accepting slaves in lieu of cash, grain, or cattle. Many were shipped over
the Dar el Arbain.I Over the years Arab cattle nomads have mixed with Sudanic slaves
and with Negroes captured south of their grazing areas (which extend to the Bahr
el 'Arab). But nomadic groups would also raid one another, not often to enslave
fellow Moslems, but to capture someone else's slaves. Slaves were used for herding
activities, as household menials, and as food producers, often remaining with cul-
tivations while their masters proceeded on the annual dry-season search for better
grazing and more reliable water-supplies. These nomads played an important role
in slave merchandizing, buying and selling within their own communities, from West
Africa, and stealing pilgrims. They passed slaves on to internal markets-Sudan cities
(especially Khartoum and Omdurman), White Nile and northern Nile regions-and
to Egypt and West Africa. They were jobbers.
Because domestic slavery was such an important economic ingredient (and slave
raiding one of the 'manly' diversions), the Anglo-Egyptian 1900 orders against
slavery at first went almost unheeded. In I901 it was reported that 'slave raids,
accompanied by bloodshed, still occasionally take place in the southern districts of
Kordofan and along the Bahr-el-Arab '.2 Such slaves were passed westwards, or east
to Abyssinia. Darfur groups (not yet under direct Anglo-Egyptian administration)
would also raid southwards and send captives to Gezira, Dongola Province, and
Tripoli.3
A 1902 report describes the state of affairs in the Nuba Mountains:
At the same time, a deplorablestate of internecineconflict between the Nuba Meks of the
various mountaindistrictshas been revealed,whilst these unfortunateblacksare in turn the
object of constant raids on the part of the Nomad Arabs, who carry off their women and
children into slavery.4
Jebel Om Heitan . . . The Howazmas raided and took some people, also burned their
crops.
Jebel Ghawai ... Howazmas raidedthem and prevented them cultivating; also captured
some of their people.
I This ' 40-day road ' is mentioned in numerous Desert ', Journalof the RoyalAfrica Society,vol. xxxv,
documents. It ran from Kubbe, near El Fasher, no. cxl, July 1936. 2 Egypt, I901, P. 33.
Darfur, to Asyut, Egypt (half-way between Wadi 3 Egypt, I902, p. 89.
Halfa and Cairo on the Nile). See the interesting map 4 Ibid., p. 92. A 'mek' is a chief. The officer
facing page 294 in R. A. Bagnold, 'The Libyan probably meant small tribal or hill groups.

Jebel Kownma ... Howazma and Talodi Arabs raided them and captured I90 of their
people two months ago.
Jebel Tera Mandi . .. The Howazma and Talodi Arabs raided and captured ten
people.I
The writer, Major O'Connell, suggested that 'if we cannot have posts at various
places, I think we ought to take away all their horses, as on foot the Nuba is as good
a man'.2 This was not done. A Captain McMurdo appears pessimistic in I904:
'... No information which I have received leads me to suppose that Slave Traffic has
increased in Kordofan. On the other hand, I doubt there being any great decrease.
The riverain Arabs certainly carry on their trade.'3 Seventeen persons were arrested
and sixteen of these convicted on slavery charges in i905.4
But by I905 the nomadic tribes' material conditions were improving. Herds were
noticeably on the increase:
But it is to be fearedthat many of them are forced to change their habits from their being
unable to obtain a supply of slaves, on whose labour they were formerly dependent for
almost everything, the simple method of raiding being no longer feasible with impunity.
At the same time it is to be noted that the areacultivatedby the Baggaratribes has increased
enormously this year and most of the labour is done by the Arabs themselves. I mention
this to show the absurdity of the statement made from time to time that Arabs cannot
perform agriculturallabour.5
One of the immediate effects of European administered civic stability (here and
elsewhere in Sudan and Africa) was to increase the demand for slaves. While it is
true that long-run economic expansion of opportunity was, and is, the economic
means of abolishing the slavery status, the initial opening up of transportation routes,
organization of cash markets for produced and collected products, and the like, had
the effect of increasing the demand for labour. Land and livestock owners needed
even more labour to take advantage of these expanding economic opportunities.
If such labour had traditionally been slave labour, then this enlarging economic
framework was a force prolonging slave raiding, debt-bondage, child-sale, and the
other forms of slave acquisition. A severe economic depression had this same effect,
in that people would pawn children and themselves to obtain food or cash, though
one finds little record of this in Sudan.
A serious Tolodi Arab uprising took place in 1906, one of many shows of resent-
ment. Two basic and related reasons were (a) dissatisfaction with the forced pro-
hibition of their raiding the Nuba for slaves, and (b) that they had to return the
z20 Nuba women and children they had stolen in I90 .6 This was all the more
galling as Nuba were still raiding one another for adult slaves, and selling on
the Arab market their own unprotected people such as orphans, widows, and other
destitutes.7
As a partial description of the confused and constantly moving I906 situation,
Major Ravenscroft is quoted:
After the battle of Omdurman(I898), before Kordofan was reoccupied,many Arabs and
I Egypt, 1902, p. 97. 4 Wingate, 905, p. 104. 5 Ibid., p. III.

2 Ibid. 6
Egypt, I906, p. II8.
3 Egypt, I904, p. I33. 7 Ibid., p. I31.

Sudanese,when returningto their old homes, were capturedby Nubas and Kababish,and
are still their slaves or concubines. These people cannot be got hold of as they are hiding
away in the hills.
Gallabas(travelling merchants),many of them tradersin salt, first of all barterfor the
slaves, sell them to ... Arabs of WesternKordofan (Kababish,Kawahla,and Magnin)who
detain them till they learn Arabic, and then pass them north gradually,the eventual goal
being often Mecca.
Arab horsemen (Howazmas, Messeria, and Homr) kidnap Nubas while cultivating, or
with flocks out grazing, and pass them later east to the river, and on across the Ghezireh.'
This Arab resentment was understood by the administration ...
. . . To expect a brave, war-like, and war-loving people to give up their old habits, and
surrenderwhat they regard as their right, much less to give up their property without a
struggle, is manifestly to expect the impossible.
There is much more hope for the future development of such a race than for a people
who accept every change with passive docility.... It is to be hoped that people who think
that enough is not done in this province to oppress slaverywill now realizethat the matter
is not so easy or simple in practiceas it is in theory.... The Baggaraand other tribes are
short of slaves, and both feel and resent the loss.2
While the Messeria3 appeared to adjust rapidly to the 'no-new-slaves' economy-
crops improved, and herds increased rapidly-' the Hawazma are the most idle, and
the Homr the poorest and most troublesome'.4 The attitudes of leaders contributed
to the pace of readjustment in that energetic Nazirs encouraged production increases.
But many nomads spurned agriculture, and found 'peace, when continued year after
year, rather a bore than otherwise '.5 Slaves were still being imported into this region
from West Africa, through the Congo and northwards through Kafia-Kingi and
Kabalugu in Bahr-el-Ghazal Province.6
By 1912 administrative measures were decidedly reducing the frequency and
severity of slave dealing. A certain amount was still going on in Kordofan, especially
among the Homr, but a government post was established in Dar Homr in 19 which
helped a great deal.7 And punishment of convicted slave dealers was enough to make
a man hesitant:
There is no doubt still a certainamount of abduction for the purposes of forced labour
in the Province, especiallyamong the nomad Arabs of the southwest and northwest of the
Province, but, owing to the heavy sentencesinflicted, it is not common.8
By the First World War even many of the slaves who had stayed with their
masters (particularly men) were striking out on their own, establishing farms,
building up herds, and picking their own gum arabic. Some moved to the Nuba
I economic and labour problems see, for example, Ian
Egypt, 1906, p. 131.
2
Ibid., p. 143. On Tolodi Arab thievery and Cunnison, 'The Social Role of Cattle ', SudanJournal
slave dealing see Wingate, I906, p. 672 (Kordofan of VeterinaryScienceand Animal Husbandry,vol. i,
Province). no. I, March I960, pp. 8-25. Cattle-owning Arab
3 A fine three-century historical summary of this tribes across the Sudan Zone have similar problems
tribe's economics is K. D. D. Henderson, 'A Note of adjustment to agriculture and wage labour.
on the Migration of the Messiria Tribe into South 5 Wingate, I907, p. 317.
West Kordofan ', SudanNotes and Records,vol. xxii, 6 Egypt, I907, p. 59.
part I, I939, pp. 49-77- 7 Wingate, I910, p. 335.
4 Wingate,I906, p. 677. For present-day Baggara 8 Wingate,19I2, vol. i, p. I75.

Mountains, not only for their rocky security, but because a great number had origi-
nally come from there. This left the nomad Arabs with continually fewer hands to
crop and herd-there was no labour for hire.'
When Darfur came under direct Sudan administration in I916, a new set of
problems arose:
In Darfur and Western Kordofan traces remain of the domestic slaverywhich was pre-
valent under the rule of Ali Dinar. When Darfur was conquered and Ali Dinar killed,
a great number of slaves, principallywomen, were cast adrift, and in the confusion which
ensued before the countrybegan to settle down underour administrationtherewas a general
scramblefor the possession of these masterlessslaves, both inside Darfurand in the remoter
parts of WesternKordofan when bands of Arabswent across the borderto try to get a por-
tion of the loot. The slaves settled down willingly in new homes, but there has resulted
a certainamount of internaltrafficwhich is not yet eradicated.The matteris being thoroughly
dealt with and there is no doubt that cases will soon be as rare in that region as in other
parts of the Soudan.2
In I9I9 Darfur had nineteen convictions on more serious slavery cases: in 1920
this had dropped to fourteen.3 In Kordofan the average number of convictions
during 1920-2 was twenty-two, dropping to an annual average of four during the
three years I925-7.4 In 193 there were three convictions,5 and one in I935.6
A 1934 report commented on this sporadic slave-dealing:
The continuation of investigation and preventive work has resulted in the discovery of
a few cases of kidnapping, mainly among the nomad tribes of the Western Sudan. The
personsinvolved in these caseshave been punishedunderthe Penal Code. In some instances,
it was found that the actual abduction had taken place outside Sudan territory. In these
cases, also, prosecutions were directed against any native of the Sudan who had failed to
help in the pursuit and apprehensionof known kidnappers,or who was suspected of con-
cealing knowledge of the whereaboutsof kidnappedpersons.... The cooperation of tribal
authoritieswas again enlisted for the suppressionof this type of case.7
2. Northern Sudan,alongthe Nile northof Khartoumto the Egyptianborder

Historically this riverain economy based agricultural production on slave and serf
utilization, though an equal number of slaves, mainly women, were assigned house-
hold duties. The extent of each family's cultivation was often determined, where land
and water were otherwise plentiful, by the number of slaves which the householder
could maintain. This would often run from 20 to 200 slaves.8 Many slaves absconded
after i898, went to towns, returned to their central or southern Sudan homelands,
joined the army, or found Public Works employment. It went hard with landowners:
I Wingate,1913, p. 187. sheikhs, and government food and other support.
2 See Communications of 7 March 1936, Document no.
Egyp, 920, p. 134.
3 Ibid.,
p. I27. C.C.E.E. 105, para. 7; of 5 December I936, Docu-
4 Sudan, 1927, p. III. ment no. C.C.E.E. I57 (i), paras. 3 and 4; of I5 Feb-
S Sudan, 1931, p. 127. ruary 1938, Document no. C.C.E.E. 196, para. 2.
6 Sudan, I935, p. II9. This last contained the comment that ' there is ...
7 Communication, dated 15 April I935, from the evidence of the increasing realization by nomad
Government of the Sudan to the Secretary-General Arabs that friendliness with their darker brethren
of the League of Nations, Document no. C.C.E.E. 60, is beneficial, and that slave labour is not economic'.
para. 5. Reports to the League detailed the settle- This is only twenty-five years ago.
ment of released Kordofan slaves into their own 8 See especially Wingate,I907, . i88 (Berber Pro,
villages, their administration under their own vince) for details.

'. . . the feudal families of the Arab tribes found their serf households dwindling
and themselves unfit for manual labour on the land '.' Even children were working
prematurely to make up for the deserted labour force. And it was the presence of
slaves doing the work at home which permitted adult male migration to Egypt and
elsewhere to seek household and commercial employment.
The area was heavily involved in the slave traffic, passing slaves on to Egypt, Red
Sea ports for shipment to Arabia, and so on. In the middle and latter nineteenth
century, organized groups would hunt slaves along the Dinder and Rahad rivers to
the Ethiopian border,2 and in southern and western Sudan. Because it has been
a slave-based economy for at least three millennia it is somewhat naive to assume that
the values associated with this form of labour have disappeared in two generations.
Though ' much lip service is paid to Western ideas of social reform . . . there is
practically no indigenous movement aiming at effecting anything '.3
The first official report of Colonel Jackson, Mudir of Berber, in 1899, comments
that ' the habit of depending on slave labour, which has so long been part of the
custom of the country, is gradually being eradicated, and people realize that they must
depend upon their own industry'.4 This was premature optimism, as by I 904 it was
necessary to establish a registration system for all ' Sudanese Blacks ' in Dongola
Province, which 'makes their abduction difficult '. By I908 it was reported that
the Berber labour supply was generally sufficient, 'crime has diminished, and there
have been no slavery cases .6 And by 1909 the registration system seems to have stabi-
lized Berber labour markets:
It is a most remarkablething that since the system has been adopted of only registered
men being acceptedfor work on Government works, the number of runawayservantshas
fallen off in the most marked manner. During the last four months there have only been
about four cases which have come to light.7
But the success of the registration system was not universal, as the 910o Halfa report
indicates:
The registrationof labourersreferredto in last year'sreporthas not proved an unqualified
success. Muggaddamswill not produce their gang-books for private employers to make
entries therein, and the labourersthemselves likewise invariablyneglect to get their books
made up. The private employer of labour naturallydoes not trouble himself about doing
this, and it entirely depends upon Muggaddamsand labourers themselves whether their
books are to show any record of their work or not. The gang-book and labourers'registra-
tion are, in fact, more in the natureof identificationcardsthan anythingelse, and presumably
now that a registrationhas been introduced of all 'blacks ' throughout the Sudan-who
are not landowners-this is the only purpose that they are requiredto serve.8
It was a habit in riverain Sudan to use the slave as a cash-seeker:
. . Often he is allowed to go away, or he is sent away, to seek more profitablework.
I C. B. Tracey and J. W. Hewison,' Northern Pro- in Post-War Sudan,London: World Dominion Press,
vince (Agriculture)', in J. D. Tothill (ed.), op. cit., 1949, p. I2.
p. 737. 4 Egypt, I899, p. 60 (Berber Province).
2 The 1820's Turkish occupation of this region, 5 Wingate,I904, p. 56.
and its suppression of intertribal wars, allowed cer- 6 Egypt, 1908, p. 70 (Berber Province).
tain groups such as the Jaalin to expand their slave- 7 Wingate,1909, p. 625 (Berber Province).
raiding. 8 Wingate,I910, p. 244 (Halfa Province).
3 J. Spencer Trimingham, The Christian Church

Under such circumstanceshe is allowed to keep part of his earnings,sometimes half, some-
times more.'
The records indicate that adjustment gradually continued from this first disturbing
decade and by I932 the Dongola Provincial Report included the following:
Cultivationis now being carriedon without being dependentupon domestic serf labour.
This changeover, which has taken about a generation to effect, has been brought about
without any economic dislocation. The Sudanesethemselves have either drifted away and
found employment elsewhere or have fitted themselves into local conditions by working
on the land for a part-shareof the crops. Inevitably some have collected in the more impor-
tant centres, but without becoming a menace to law and order.2
Referring particularly to this northern Nile region, the Sudan Government

informed the League of Nations in 1936 that
It is not easy for the domestic slave to acquire,save rarelyby purchase,registeredland or
date-trees,but then most of such registerableproperty has been registered before Govern-
ment policy and action with regardto slaverywas fully operative. They do acquirerights in
cultivable land, which will lead eventually to prescriptivepossession, and they do acquire
possession of animalsand other movable property,where twenty or even ten yearsago they
would have had nothing but the usufruct of their master's property at best. Those who
continue to live propertylessin their masters'families do so on rather better terms and a
ratherhigher standardof living than formerly, their safeguardbeing their knowledge, and
their masters'knowledge, of the ease with which the serf can leave the masterif discontented.
It is no longer the masteronly who has the whip-hand... .3
3. White Nile and Blue Nile regionsouth of Khartoum,and the Ethiopian borderarea
(old Provincesof White Nile, Blue Nile, Fung, Sennar,and Ghezireh)
This region's slavery and adjustment to abolition has two aspects, one internal
to Sudan, and the other in relation to Abyssinia (now Ethiopia-the old title will
be used to remain consistent with early Administration reports).4 Between the
White Nile and the foot of the Abyssinian Mountains is a medium to light rainfall
areapeopled by severely' mixed' Arab, Sudanic, and other nomads and agriculturalists.
As in northern Nile districts, slaves were the bulk of the farming labour force-
reactions to abolition were practically identical. But the eastern foot-hill edge was
raided from several directions: by Arab nomads from Kordofan; by groups from
northern Nile regions and Khartoum-Omdurman;5 and by organized slave parties
from Abyssinia who 'would descend in parties of oo-200z'.6 This latter raiding
I Louis C. West,' Dongola Province of the Anglo- chaps. 2 and 20.
Egyptian Sudan', Geographical Review, vol. v, 5 An 1899 traveller comments on Beni Shangul
January-June I918, p. 30. District that '... The district... was inhabited by
2 Sudan,
1932, p. I4 (Dongola Province). black races.... Control was apparently in the hands
3 Communication, dated 5 December I936, op. of a few families of Sudan Arabs (Jaalin) who had
cit., para. Ii. established themselves there in the time of the old
4 Literature on Ethiopia also describes this Sudan Egyptian Government. What I did not realize at the
slavery relationship, not only in this specific area, time was that these men ... were nothing more than
but also among the camel nomadic tribes which are slave raiders' (Charles Gwynn, ' The Frontiers of
common to Ethiopia (including Eritrea) and Sudan. Abyssinia ', Journal of the Royal Africa Society,vol.
See in particular Margery Perham, The Government of xxxvi, no. cxliii, April I937, p. 153).
Ethiopia, London: Faber & Faber, 1948, especially 6 Egypt, 902, p. 89 (Blue Nile Province).

was difficult to stop both because of its remoteness, and because the Abyssinian
authorities were not particularly co-operative.
The Mudir of Sennar reported in 190I that ninety-one slaves were officially freed
in that year, and there were nine convictions.' Because the slaving habit was as
deeply entrenched here as elsewhere, securing evidence sufficient to convict was
often impossible. A recurring problem was that ' you get the murder of anticipated
witnesses '.2 Abyssinian border police patrols attempted to prevent raiding and
smuggling. Mr. Gorrings, Slavery Department Inspector, comments in I903:
I am strongly in favour of paying my men good rewards on captures. For there is no
denying the fact that the majority of the natives, certainly south of Wad Medani, are in
favour of slavery and their sympathyis with the slave-traders.3
One of the main forces activating slaving was the relative cheapness of slave
(compared with free) labour:
As regardsthe relativecost of slave and free labour, I am informed that, on the Abyssi-
nian frontier,a strong lad of 5 yearsold can be purchasedfor LE 12, that he can be main-
tained for about LE 2/8/- a year, and that a hired man would cost about LE 7/4/- a year.
If these figuresare correct, the cost of free labour-supposing the amount of work done by
the slave and the free man to be the same-is considerablyin excess of that of slave labour.4
Because of their 'convenient' location, certain tribes such as the ' Borun ' would
be raided from across the border with greater frequency than others.
It is pitiable to read of the devastation wrought by Ibrahim Wad Mahoud among the
Borun people. In the sphere which he raided,there are no children left, the proportion of
adults is about seven men to one woman, and the villages were devoid of sheep, goats,
poultry and cattle.5
In I904 this Ibrahim Wad Mahoud, one of the most important raid-organizers, was
caught and executed: sixteen others were convicted under the slavery laws.6 Anuak
suffered similar depredations. After a trip up the Sobat and Baro rivers to Gambela
at the foot of the Abyssinian Mountains, the inspector wrote: 'All along this portion
of the frontier slave-trading is carried on with all its attendant horrors.'7 Abyssinian
raiders killed 113 persons and carried off I5o women and children from Abu Gilud
village in I906. These captives were later returned by the authorities.8 In 1907 the
'Borun' people of Jebel Boraia were 'again attacked from across the border, and
women and children carried off '.
The riverain Arab found it difficult to adjust to slaveless shaduf and saqiya agri-
culture.10 There is considerable evidence that during the first few such years total
agricultural production dropped, though it is naturally difficult to separate 'normal'
crop failure due to locusts, drought, &c., from those decreases associated with reduced
I Egypt, 190I, p. 71 (Sennar Province). 7 Egypt, 1905, p. I4I (Blue Nile Province).
2 Egypt, I904, p. 133 (Blue Nile Province). 8
Egypt, 1906, p. i 8 (Blue Nile Province).
3
Egypt, 1903, p. 90 (Blue Nile Province)-for a 9 Egypt, 1907, p. 49 (Blue Nile Province).
brief history of the Slavery Department, see Sudan, IOA shaduf is a hand-operated hanging bucket for
I922, p. 65. lifting water. The counter-balancing weight is typi-
4 Egypt, I903, p. 91 (Blue Nile Province). cally clay. A saqiya is the Persian water wheel, nor-
5 Egypt, 1904, p. 33 (Blue Nile Province). mally turned by animal power. Such primitive agri-
6 Ibid., cultural equipment demanded numerous workers.
p. I34.

labour supply and the disinclination of landowners to work.I A I906 report on a White
Nile, more nomadic, Arab group stresses a similar theme:
They [Beni Gerar] are less dependent on slavery, and the impossibilityof obtaining slave
labour has forced them to recognize that personal manuallabour, even if they still think it
somewhat derogatory,is necessaryto their prosperity.12
Administration reports throughout I 907-9, from all relevant Districts and Provinces,
highlight these readjustment problems. The reader should be reminded that it was
primarily these groups which received Gezira Scheme tenancies in the 920o's.
It is no longer possible to ignore the fact that thereis a strong feeling of discontentamong
the Arabs at the loss of their Sudaneseservants. This undoubtedlyhits them very hard, as,
apart from domestic discomfort, it greatly reduces the area which they can bring under
cultivation. Hired labour is scanty and too expensive for their pockets. Any feeling which
may exist against the Government, where it is not inspired by mere religious fanaticism,is
due to this cause more than to any other.3
The Abyssinian traffic was still active in 1912:
It would appearthat there is an extensive trafficin slaves between Arabs from the Sudan
and Sheikh Khogali El Hassan and other Abyssinian subjects. The Kenana and Rizeigat
seem to be the principaloffenders,and in most of the feriks of the nomad Arabs new slaves
are to be found, but unless caught red-handedit is almost impossible to obtain sufficient
evidence to secure a conviction.4
In spite of extended efforts, the trade continued to flourish in the late I920's.
Abyssinian areas adjoining Sudan were controlled by petty chiefs of Arab descent,
who had 'reduced the older negroid population to a state of serfdom'.5 These chiefs'
families would inhabit separate regions, including Sudan Districts, in order to carry
out their operations more effectively. Sheikh Khogali el Hassan was active for two
decades, aided by his wife, Sitt Amma, who resided in Fung Province. She was even-
tually arrested and convicted in I928. Slaves would be passed primarily from the
Watawit country in Abyssinia across to the White Nile Arabs and even farther to
Kordofan and Darfur. A concerted White Nile Province campaign in I928 almost
tripled the number of convictions from 263 in I927 to 653 in I928.6 The I929 White
Nile Province Report contained the statement that 'the intensive campaign against
the slave trade from Abyssinia has been brought to a successful conclusion'.7 The
issue of freedom-papers continued in White Nile and Fung Provinces.8 Ex-slave
villages were established, many being Abyssinian refugees who had fled from ' high
taxation and cruelty'9 in their own country. In Fung Province alone, approximately
' See Wingate, 1905, p. 25 (Blue Nile Province). also have been a reluctance to go officially on record
2 Wingate,I906, p. 740 (White Nile Province). that one had been a slave. On the other hand, a
3
Wingate,I908, pp. 487-8 (Blue Nile Province). heavy issue might be attributed, as it was in Moslem
4 Wingate, I912, p. 245 (Sennar Province); Per- Nigera, to the fact that a certificate was more impor-
ham, op. cit., pp. 326-7, gives interesting details tant than a bare declaration in a 'white man's law'
on Sheikh Khogali El Hassan. (Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery, Report
5 Sudan, I928, p. 17(Blue Nile Province). of the Second[I9g$] Session,League of Nations Docu-
6 Sudan, 1928, p. 84 (Blue Nile Province). ment no. CI59. M. II3. I935. VI, p. 28).
7 Sudan, 1929, p. 133 (White Nile Province). 9 Sudan,1933, p. I09 (Fung Province). Authorities
8 'Freedom-papers' were certificates making in Kenya's Northern Frontier and Turkana Pro-
freedom official. The fact that any domestic or other vinces in 1933 had to issue rifles to selected tribesmen
slave could obtain such documentation at will un- in defence against Ethiopian raiders (1935 League of
doubtedly reduced the number issued. There may Nations Slavery Committee Report, op. cit., p. 23).

200 freedom-papers were issued annually between I928 and I933. Though Kurmuk
became a centre of escaping slaves and serfs, it was reported that they, and the
resettled slaves in White Nile Province, were 'living among, and in amity with,
their former Arab masters '.'
In 1932 some 6o0 Anuak raiders from the Gila area of Abyssinia killed 27 Beir
men and captured 27 women, 5 children, and 800 head of cattle; the Beir villages
were some 50 miles inside the Sudan border. This raid was the subject of protracted
correspondence between the two governments, and over the next few years most of
the damage, as far as possible, was made good.2 In 1933 252 freedom-papers were
issued in Fung Province, 227 to Ethiopian refugees.3 Slaves were settled in Gezira
villages, as well as in Fung Province, often assisted with non-recoverable government
loans. Raids took place until 1938, and the issue of freedom-papers continued.
Second World War hostilities between Sudan and Italian forces and the Sudan Defence
Force occupation of many border districts reduced raiding.4
4. Eastern Sudan-Kassala, Suakin, Red Sea Provinces

Stretching eastwards from the Nile to the Red Sea ports, this region was highly
involved in slave-dealing. As well as being active participants in slave-trading on
their own behalf, these nomadic peoples were an important link in the movement of
slaves from riverain areas and east-central Sudan to the ports (including the traffic
from Abyssinia). As these sources of supply dried up, so too did this region's slave-
dealing. Early anti-slaving activity was concentrated here. When Egypt's Slavery
Department was extended to the Sudan in 901, an English inspector was immediately
posted at Khartoum, and
... the countrybetween Berberand Kassala[will be] constantlypatrolledby a portion of the
camel corps, whilst another portion, whose headquarterswill be at Suakin, will deal with
the country lying between that port and Kassala.5
In I900 the nomads were 'constantly buying and selling amongst themselves '.6
In the same year Kassala's Governor reported that eleven persons were convicted
under the Penal Code and 'fifty three slaves have been released ',7 and in Suakin
district I 3 convictions and 66 freedom-papers had been issued by the Administration
and 129 freedom-papers by the Slavery Department.7 But the freed slaves '. . . once
they feel themselves free, do not readily take to work, although labour is much in
demand '.8 Side-effects of the slavery heritage were obvious in I901 when a census
was attempted:
The black population of Gedaref has increased by immigration, but I do not trust the
returns,as these people are very shy and suspicious when questioned as to their numbers,
owing to their dread of being handed over to the Arabs as servants.9
I Sudan, 1929, p. I33 (White Nile Province). owners, as late as I955.' (C. W. W. Greenidge,
2
Papers ConcerningRaidsfrom Ethiopian Territory Slavery, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958,
into the Anglo-EgyptianSudan, London: H.M.S.O., p. 202.) I found no Sudan documentation of this,
Foreign Office, Cmd. 4153 (Ethiopia no. i), I932. though rumour indicated the continuation of
3 Communication (to the League of Nations) dated 'refugee' flow.
x6 April I934, op. cit., para. 3. 5 Egypt, I898, p. 41.
4 'There are, moreover, the well-authenticated 6 7 Ibid.
Egypt, 1900, p. 78.
stories of slaves escaping from the Province of 8 Ibid., p. 79.
Wallega in Ethiopia into the Sudan, pursued by their 9 Egypt, 1901, p. 74.

As elsewhere in Sudan (especially Kordofan and Darfur) the need to cover vast
areas with poor transportation and communication facilities hindered anti-slavery
enforcement:
In the easternSoudan, a certainamount of kidnappingis still going on, and the extent of
the country to be guarded is so great that it is very difficult to put an entire stop to this
practice. From Kassala to the Red Sea, there is a continuous range of rugged mountains,
inhabited by the Gemaleb tribe, who are very old offenders, and the facility with which
they can harbour slaves encouragesthe kidnappingtraffic.I
Post-9o04 reports hardly comment on the slavery situation, except that in 1931:
In the course of searchesfor armsa newly-kidnappedboy was discoveredwith his master.
The absence of any other trace of slaveryin raidswhich surprisedabout one-sixth of a once
notorious tribe confirms the belief that, save for an occasional deal with an Abyssinian
poaching party, the trafficis practicallydead.2
5. Khartoumand Omdurman
Frequent comments on the slave trade in this urban complex are found in both
official and non-official literature. Apart from the numerous slaves in more wealthy
merchant and agriculturalist households, these cities organized slave raids into other
Sudan regions, particularly the south. In addition, slave-buying from West Africa,
Kordofan-Darfur, and Abyssinia was co-ordinated from these centres. The market
would be not only within the cities but along the Nile's northern reaches, Mecca,
and North Africa. In the fifty years preceding Anglo-Egyptian administration, 'the
whole river valley (White Nile) from the Uganda border northwards became parcelled
out among various groups of slave hunters employed by wealthy native merchants
in Khartoum and elsewhere'.3 In 1899 forty-seven persons were 'brought to justice
for kidnapping, buying and selling slaves',4 and it is remarked in 904 that '. . . it is
very probable that in Omdurman there is a considerable remnant of the old slave-
trading community who do not lose a chance of trafficking whenever possible'.5
Here, as with the deeply Moslem northern riverain Sudan, children quickly became
slave substitutes. Lt.-Col. Stanton writes in I907:
The great difficultyis to get them to let children complete their studies. As soon as a
father thinks his child has learnedenough to enable him to earn money he wants to remove
him from school. At a meeting lately held in Omdurman,a queer objection was made to
the boys being taught stone cutting. On inquiry I find that anything to do with stone is
considered a work only fit for slaves, while carpenteringand blacksmith'swork is consi-
dered highly honourable.I pointed out the fallacy of this supposition, but, although they
agreed for the time, I have not been able to remove the superstition against this form of
industry.6
This and kindred 'superstitions' are still very much part of the Sudanese value
system.7
' Egypt, 1904, p. I33. 2 Sudan, 1931, p. ii8. administration) into the Sudan. For the total picture
3 J. Stevenson-Hamilton, 'The Dinka Country the reader is again referred to Allan Moorehead,
East of the Bahr-el-Gebel ', Geographical Journal,vol. op. cit. 4 Egypt, 1899, p. 53.
lvi, no. 5, November 1920, p. 390. In fact it is not 5 Egypt, 1904, p. 133.
unrealistic to state that anti-slavery sentiment was a 6 Egypt, 1907, pp. 64-65 (Khartoum Province).
major factor in bringing Britain (through Egyptian 7 'To take a minor example, we tried to get a

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE HERITAGE OF
Urban discontent with slavery abolition was as vociferous as elsewhere, and for
similar reasons:
A good deal of land has gone out of cultivationas a consequenceof the slaves having left
to find more remunerativeemploymentin the Railwaysor Works Department.The people
own that they are contented and happy, with this one bar, that now their children have to
work where formerlytheir slaves did all that was required.So long however as the taxation
is kept light and they can affordto pay the same with moderateease they consider that the
benefits bestowed on them by the Government balancethe great drawbackof losing their
slaves.
6. The Pilgrimage
No extended mention has yet been made of the Mecca Pilgrimage as a vehicle
through which slaves from West Africa, and those acquired in Sudan, were moved
both to Sudan markets and to Arabia. As with regional slavery references selectively
quoted earlier, official document notations regarding this traffic are legion. Such
slaving is another example of the 'non-enslavement of fellow Muslims' dictum not
being applied, as most of these slaves were Moslem (though rarely of pure Arab
stock, and therefore less ' pure ').
Less easy to detect and eradicate than the raiding and plundering variety, this more
subtle slaving was combated in several ways:
... the system by which all travellersfrom the west must be in possession of a pass from
their countryof origin showing the numbersof the partyand the relationshipto one another,
coupled with the organizationof the SlaveryPolice in Darfur on the western frontier, and
on the Red Sea littoral and the Abyssinianfrontier on the east, is undoubtedly a deterrent
to those who might otherwise engage in this traffic.
The ordinarypolice force of the country deals with many cases that occur in the interior,
but it would be almost impossible for them to carry out this special work of checking
attemptsto use the Soudanas a slave route between West Africa and Arabia.2
The most typical trafficwhich this registration system was designed to prevent was
that of a pilgrim family selling their children or young dependants in Mecca, or
perhaps in Suakin, Port Sudan, or Jedda. French and British administrations of the
several Sudan Zone countries co-operated in this registration process. Pilgrims also
go through quarantine controls at exit and entry points, and secure a deposit with the
authorities against their return. These measures have made the practice more difficult
since discrepancies in numbers are more easily located. But, because the pilgrim needed
income while en route,the kidnapping and selling of slaves was a normal method of
obtaining it:
... as the FellataSheik is usuallyin league with the local natives, it is very difficultto detect
these transactions,or stop them.
simple form of metal-work (using tin) into the tion in the Sudan', OverseaQuarterly, vol. i, no. 2,
schools. We trained teachers and got tools supplied June I958, p. 5I-reprint of a lecture published in
to the schools, and we stuck at it, I think, for five RuralLife, March I958 (produced by Department of
years. But it never caught on. There was too much Education in Tropical Areas, University of London,
public prejudice against tinsmiths and even though Institute of Education).)
we introduced new designs we could never over- ' Wingate,1908, p. 556 (Khartoum Province).
come it.' (V. L. Griffiths,' An Experiment in Educa- 2
Egypt, 1914-19, p. 123.

The confidence of a young man or girl is obtained, he or she is persuadedto go to his
host's farm or house: on the way he is knocked on the head, and before morning he finds
himself on a camel miles away from anybody but Bedawin: again bogus claims for lost
relativesare made and by forged evidence proved before Egyptian officialsor even in some
cases before an unsuspecting European: all sorts of dodges are resorted to to cover trans-
actions which are, in essence, pure slave dealings.I
D. SUMMARY OF PRESENT-DAY EFFECTS
How does this value heritage affect economic activity in I962? Across northern
Sudan, foreign labour (particularly Westerners-discussed in more detail below) has
filled most wage jobs. And between Sudanese groups historical relationships con-
tinue. In western and west-central Sudan, Nuba and Southerners (Dinka and Shilluk
especially) still work for cattle nomads, tending food cultivations and, more recently,
working at rainland short-staple cotton production.2 Though they are wage labourers,
not slaves or serfs, social relationships appear unchanged: they are still regarded as
culturally inferior.3 But the economic effect has been to stimulate trade between
these groups along the Bahr el Arab and in the Nuba mountains. Southerners will
normally take part of their wages in both grain and cattle, as well as cash and manu-
factured goods. The net effects are positive, stimulating movements of wage workers
out of the Nuba Mountains and the south, and redistributing gradually increasing
incomes (between groups and geographically).4
In northern, riverain Sudan, the absence of slaves, increasing per capita shortage
of irrigable land, gradual diminution of the size of family plots (through hereditary
division), and the expansion of commercial, household, teaching, and white-collar
employment opportunities in the Three Towns and Gezira, have meant that an
increasing percentage of a rather parasitic land-owning and commercial community
has been forced and able to move elsewhere.5 Roughly half of this region's cash
I R. H. Palmer,
Reporton a Journeyfrom Maidugari, 5 Here again official and non-official literature
Nigeria to Jeddahin Arabia, London: Colonial Office, historically support these patterns. Population den-
African (West) no. I072, August 1919, p. 15. sity in this riparian strip was recently estimated at
2 (. . it is no
exaggeration to say that most of the 428 persons per square mile: '. .. although this does
cattle-owning tribes regard cultivating as unpleasant, not equal the 495 persons to the square mile of over-
degrading work, which within living memory was populated Egypt, there is some foundation for the
performed by slaves bought with the wealth derived opinion that the Northern Province is uneconomic
from their cattle.' (S. C. J. Bennett, E. R. John, and and should be regarded only as a reservoir to populate
J. W. Hewison, 'Animal Husbandry', article in J. D. less densely settled parts of the Sudan.' (E. F. Aglen,
Tothill (ed.), op. cit., p. 65I.) 'The Economic Limitations to Future Develop-
3 These traditional
relationships still apply right ment', article in Food and Societyin the Sudan-Pro-
across the Sudan Zone wherever Baqqara (Baggara) ceedingsof ther9a3 Conference of the PhilosophicalSociety
dwell. 'Most inhabit fixed villages during the rainy of the Sudan,Khartoum, I955, p. 272.) But Norther-
season where cultivation is done by Negro serfs and ners resist moving to otherwise available rainland
clients' (J. Spencer Trimingham, Islamin WestAfrica, farming central clay plains regions because a heavy
op. cit., p. I7). percentage of the population in those areas is Wes-
4 Administration and Agricultural Department terner or Sudanic-'Blacks '. See, for example,
District and Province monthly and annual reports K. M. Barbour, Khor El Atshan, A Geographical
document this worker pattern thoroughly. See also Accountof a Schemeof AgriculturalDevelopmentin the
R. C. Colvin, AgriculturalSurveyof the Nuba AMoun- CentralSudan,Khartoum: Gordon Memorial College,
tains, Khartoum: Ministry of Agriculture, I939, 1951, p. 10.
esp. p. II.

income is remitted to it from its cooking and clerking 'expatriates'.' This is not to
say that all traces of slavery are gone: they are not, but now take the form of binding
land-rents, credit controls over renters, and other almost feudal financial and social
obligations.2 As in nomadic western and west-central societies, it is estimated that
perhaps 20 per cent. of the region's population is still performing some kind of forced
labour, not the least part being female children and grandchildren of female household
slaves.
Evidence of current economic effects of the slavery heritage is less abundant for
eastern Sudan nomads. For at least 4,000 years the Beja (Bisharin, Hadendowa, Amarar,
Beni Amer, and others) have occupied north-east and eastern Sudan and parts of
Eritrea, have been moved through a series of pagan, Christian, pseudo-Christian, and
Moslem faiths, and have a social structure which reflects strict political, ethnic, and
occupational divisions.3 Serf populations normally had more rights than slaves.
Socio-economic stratifications were extremely complex, particularly among the Beni
Amer, and several recent studies indicate that these still exist.4 The logic of the situa-
tion would also suggest that it is the serf and slave groups who entered railway and
dock construction wage employment in the past, who are now engaged in Port
Sudan dock and warehouse work, and cotton-picking in the Gash and Tokar flood-
irrigated deltas. Wage employment has become economic manumission.5
But it is in the Gezira Scheme that the slavery heritage is affecting economic
development most adversely, both because development effort is concentrated there,
and because rising incomes permit realization of the economic and social goals of
traditional values. This short paper cannot describe with justice the social and
economic scope of this gravity-flow irrigation economy, identified by the area irri-
gated from the Sennar dam which spans the Blue Nile 250 miles south of the Three
Towns. The land so utilized is the upside-down 'V' created by the junction of the
White and Blue Niles (' Gezira' is equivalent to 'island '). It totals i million
feddans (just under 2,000 square miles).6 The Manaqil Extension, another 830,000
feddans (thus almost doubling the size of the total unit), will use an enlarged Sennar
I The writer's Ph.D dissertation was entitled The Notes and Records,vol. xxvi, part I, 1945, pp. 51-94;
Methodology of Regionalizingand Distributing African A. Paul, ' Notes on the Beni Amer ', SudanNotes and
Income:the Sudan.The nation was divided into nine Records,vol. xxi, part i, I950, pp. 223-45.
economic regions and Census and National Income s For effects of economic change on Beja peoples
Accounts data (based on administrative partitions see, for example, D. Newbold, 'The Beja Tribes of
-Districts and Provinces) reoriented to describe the Red Sea Hinterland', article in J. A. de C.
these more homogeneous policy-making units. Hamilton (ed.), The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan From
Socio-economic group (and per capita) output and Within, op. cit., pp. 140-64; C. G. and B. Z. Selig-
expenditure profiles, and regional labour force man, ' Note on the History and Present Condition
incomes, were computed. It is hoped that these more of the Beni Amer (Southern Beja) ', SudanNotes and
useful economic statistics will be published in the Records,vol. xiii, part i, I930, pp. 83-97. For Port
not too distant future. Sudan Beja socio-economic patterns see B. A. Lewis,
2 Cf. W. K.
Campbell, Reporton Cooperative Possibi- Reportof a SocialSurveyof Deim El Arab and the Beja
lities in the Sudan, Khartoum: Sudan Government, Stevedoresof Port Sudan,Khartoum: Ministry of the
1946; M. W. Wilmington, 'Aspects of Money- Interior, Lands Department, I954. Lewis (p. 19) felt
lending in Northern Sudan', Middle East Journal, that poverty drove many to port employment be-
vol. ix, no. 2, spring I955, pp. 139-46. cause 89 per cent. had no animals back home. The
3 A concise
history is A. Paul, A History of the fact of poverty I agree with, but suggest that they
Beja Tribes of the Sudan, Cambridge University had no traditional wealth because they were in slave
Press, I954. or serf capacities. Herd-owners rarely enter wage
4 Detailed slave and serf material
may be found in employment-they do not need to.
6 One feddan =
S. F. Nadel, 'Notes on Beni Amer Society'. Sudan 10o38acres = 0-420 hectares.

dam system but will rely primarily on a new Blue Nile dam now almost completed
at Er Roseires near the Ethiopian border. The first several thousand Extension
tenancies are already operating and the entire project is scheduled for completion in
I963. Thus, potential cotton and grain output, exports, government income, income
generated within the economy, and employment will all be markedly increased and
in many instances doubled in a few years.
Officially opened in I925, the Gezira has been the core of Sudan's economic
development. Its exported long-staple cotton and cotton seed provide roughly three-
quarters of the foreign exchange which permits importation of the nation's develop-
ment tools, most of its skilled and technical manpower, manufactured consumer
goods, and certain essential foods (e.g. sugar). As goes Gezira, so goes Sudan.I
Gezira (in I956) contained 7-I per cent. of the nation's population but produced
8 i per cent. of the national income-64 per cent. of the region's output (by value)
was farm products. Some 56 per cent. of all Gezira spending emanated from Govern-
ment, and this amount was 76*7 per cent. of all Government expenditure. Average
per capita income was approximately 37I and average labour force member annual
income ?232. These are second highest of any of the Sudan's nine economic regions,
the only region higher being the Three Towns urban complex (Khartoum, Khartoum
North, and Omdurman) with I 10 and ?315 respectively. These must be compared
with national average figures of ?28 per capita and ?75 per labour force member.
The Gezira has the highest agriculturalincome in the nation (the Gash and Tokar
flood-irrigated cotton-growing areas have per capita and labour force member
average incomes of ?41 and ?III respectively).2
There are approximately 3I,000 official tenants, which Manaqil will expand offi-
cially to 5o,ooo in several years. But there are in fact nearly 5o,ooo already, owing to
tenancy-splitting. While the typical tenant has approximately 40 feddans, these have
been parcelled out (privately) into plots of 20, Io, and 5 feddans. In some cases, how-
ever, combination has effected much larger tenancies managed by often absentee
tenants. Each tenant is responsible for providing the wage labour necessary to sow,
weed, and pick his crop. Theoretically, such wage workers should only be needed
to perform tasks with which the tenant and his family are physically unable to cope,
especially during extra-busy weeding and picking periods. But deeply ingrained social
attitudes vitiate such economics-tenants employ labour to the limit of their income
because agricultural labour is 'slave labour' and socially demeaning.
The Scheme had to transform the Moslem nomad, semi-nomad, and rainland farmer
into a tenant. He had heretofore been geared to traditional modes of economic
behaviour, and accustomed to clear-cut social and economic relationships wherein
respective duties and obligations were historically defined, and' the tradition of slave
labour for agricultural purposes had been well established for several generations '.3
' The Gezira is the social laboratory of the 2 Data from dissertation, op. cit.; tenancy, labour
Sudan: ithas been said that "what fails in the Gezira force, and other Gezira statistics which follow are
must be regarded as a general failure; what succeeds from standard Gezira Board or Department of
there may be a widespread success ".' (W. E. Styler, Statistics publications unless otherwise noted.
'Adult Education in the Sudan', African Affairs, 3 C. W. Beer, 'The Social and Administrative
vol. lvi, no. 225, October I957, p. 291.) If this is the Effects of Large-scalePlanned Agricultural Develop-
case, the ensuing comments will indicate clear ment', Journalof African Administration,vol. v, no. 3,
grounds for economic pessimism. July 1953, p. 114. ' I existe en effet dans la vall6e
Bb

These relationships were based on an economic system no longer operating. He was
ignorant of modern technology, the intricate timing of processes, and the essential
interrelatedness of many small but equally important operations. He was unaccus-
tomed to receiving directions about practically every aspect of his economic (and
social) affairs, and entirely uneducated in the accounts and documentation implicit in
an integrated capitalized operation. To expect such a person (in Sudan or anywhere
else) to adjust into a modern agricultural factory overnight is patently unrealistic.
The attempt has been made to remould his attitudes to property-ownership, manual
and agricultural labour, employer-employee relationships, government, and orga-
nized agriculture (with its immobility implications) as a way of life.'
Gezira's co-ordinated economic patterns-communications and transport; shops,
markets, and housing; relatively well-dressed population; and its bustle-all provide
evidence that thirty-five years of concentrated investment and research have per-
formed economic miracles. But present-day ramifications of this earlier value system
are governing cumulatively the economic behaviour of tenants and most of the wage-
labour force. As incomes have risen it has become increasingly possible to finance
those social activities, those aspects of ostentation and conspicuous consumption,
which the (pre-Scheme and) present culture considers intrinsic to self-esteem and
social advancement. The most desired ingredient in this ambition pattern, now as in
the past, is relief from manual agricultural labour. This withdrawal of effort by both
tenants as profits rise, and most workers as total wage income expands, has resulted
in the economic fact that twice as many people (at far more than twice the cost) are
needed to produce the same bale of cotton or ton of grain as were required
twenty years ago.2 In other words, rising income levels, the result of several
decades of technical and other research and investment, are simultaneously the vehicle
through which a diminishing rate of increase in total and per capitaincome is effected.
Production (and therefore selling) costs are artificially swollen. Sudan cotton does
not have a world monopoly. As in so many raw-commodity markets, cotton is highly
price-competitive; the slightest price increase affects the sale of a considerable portion
of the crop.3
du Nil une tradition solide de contemption du tra- support gross output volume-number of workers
vail manuel en general et du travail du sol en parti- data:
culier, qui de tout temps a 6te r6serve a des esclaves. PickingSeason Pickersper Pickersper
Aussi les attributairesdu Gezira Scheme... n'ont-ils S.U.a 0ooKantarsb
(avg.)
pas cru devoir exercer eux-m6mes le metier d'agri- II
culteur.' (A. Hauser, 'Colons africains au Soudan', 1934-8 43
Le Mondenonchretien[nouvelle s6rie], no. 37, janvier- 1939-43 5'5 13
mars 1956, p. 7I.) 1944-8 7-0 I8
I The strong nomadic background shows itself I949-53 8'9 19
in many ways, including the constant attempt to (a) Ten feddans of cotton (part of tenancy fallow,
keep animals in entirely unsuitable places. While part in food and other crops, in any given year).
fodder is grown, fencing is practically absent. ' The (b) I kantar of cotton in Gezira is 3 IoI pounds
patriarchal tradition of flocks and herds as the of unginned cotton. For other commodities in
foundation of social position is still a living reality, other places the kantar has different pound-weight
and men invest their cotton profits in them regard- equivalents.
less of the economics of the situation.' (G. M. (G. M. Culwick, A Studyof theHumanFactorin the
Culwick, Diet in the Gezira Irrigated Area, Sudan, GeziraScheme,Barakat(Sudan), I958, para. 347. Type-
Khartoum: Sudan Government, Survey Department script used with her kind permission.)
Publication no. 304, I951, para. 65.) 3 The Sudan Government
increasingly attempts
2 Mrs. Culwick's to barter its cotton, not sell it on the open market-
carefully compiled sample data

SLAVERYIN THE SUDAN REPUBLIC 379
Approximately40 per cent. of the 200,000 person wage labourforce is domiciled
within the scheme. These workers secure year-roundemployment in agriculture,
with the GeziraBoard,the IrrigationDepartment,other officialagencies,andin town
and village commerce. Seasonalimmigrantsare the other 6o per cent. Half (of the
6o per cent.) are nomads from adjoining semi-desert and drier (more northern)
Central Clay Plains regions. The remainderare of two kinds-Sudanese farmers
(SudanicandArab)from Qoz Sandsand CentralClayPlainsdistricts;andWesterners.
This formergroup is growing in numbersas soil erosion, overcrowding,and declin-
ing productivityforce them into acquiringincome other than from their farms.Like
the nomad,they come to the schemeprimarilyfor food. Participationat all andlength
of stay in wage marketsare dependentupon the successof their own rainlandcrops,
the level of Gezira money wages (and real income in the form of grain), and the
strengthof the desireto returnhome. They may not arriveat all if rainsare satisfac-
tory, no locusts appear,and no bugs and diseasesconsume their food supply. Thus,
between the nomads and the reluctantfarmer, over half the picking wage-labour
force (on which the entire Schemedepends,not to mention nationaldevelopmentvia
government income and investment)is a fluctuatingvariable,and unpredictablein
terms of both appearanceand durationof stay.
This unreliabilitymakes the residentwage-worker'srole, and the Westerners',of
the utmost importance. Gezira Westernerscome from various places.' Some are
domiciledwithin the Scheme and are included in the above-mentioned40 per cent.
Others leave Qoz Sandsand CentralClayPlains rainlandcultivations,both east and
west, to earn the high picking wages. Others are on active pilgrimage from West
Africa to Mecca, and use Gezira (as well as cash cropping and Three Towns, Gash
and Tokarlabourmarkets)to obtaintravelmoney. Still others, classedas Westerners
in Censusand other officialmaterials,arefrom Darfur,eitherpushedout permanently
becauseof decliningfertilityand other factors, or on a one year or longer work trip
away from home to increaseincomes. The Westerneris more of an 'economic man'
than the typicalNorthern Sudanese,who regardsWesternersas the naturaleconomic
descendantsof the slaves. The Westernerincreasesincome by moving between wage
labour markets and cash cropping. He will undertaketasks which the Northern
Sudaneseeither cannot or will not perform-jobs such as canal cleaning which are
essentialto the Scheme'sprogress. The tenant's active propensityto hire labour up
to the limit of his income has found a willing co-operator,but it costs the tenantas
much as the Westernercan extract. He is the most efficient, durable,and reliable
memberof the Sudanwage-labourforce. Though in numbersless than a quarterof
Geziralabour supply, he is responsiblefor half of the wage-workeroutput. In spite
of the recognizedfact that without his performingcertaintasks no cotton would be
exported, anti-Westernerresentment reached the point where he was disallowed
the rising costs, and attendant lower profit margins in the Gezira', SudanNotes and Records,vol. xxxiii,
per ton, in fact explain the main forces which insist 1952, pp. 64-IIo; and D. B. Mather, ' Migration in
on producing more tons. the Sudan ', op. cit. It is important to recognize that
I Of the considerable Westerner literature see in the Westerner, though Moslem, is heavily Sudanic
particular Memorandum on the Immigrationand Distri- and Negroid, and from predominantly agricultural
butionof West Africans in theSudan,Khartoum: Sudan cultures. Farming is not dishonourable. Fifteen per
Government, n.d. (probably 1947); Isam Ahmed cent. of Sudan's population is Westerner, and 40-
Hassoun, ' " Westerner " Migration and Settlement o5 per cent. of its wage-labour force.

tenancy-holding in the mid-I95o's.' While they still have a few, the percentage of
Westerner-held tenancies is declining-new tenants are Northerners.
Thus the entire framework of economic development, the whole motivation of
past and present Sudan Governments in trying to promote commercialized agricul-
tural industries, has run directly up against one of the most deeply felt social values-
few want to be agriculturalists. The typical farmer, in Gezira and elsewhere, is more
interested in increasing his income for social reasons than as proof of his farming
ability. The number of workers he can hire is, per se, an indication of his importance.
The economic result is that he does less and less himself.
. . . With this tendency towards less and less personal work, the tenants complainthat
'The tenancy eats all the profits'. A period of plentiful money, culminating in a season
(1950-195 I) when the farmer'sdreamcame true and a bumper crop coincidedwith soaring
prices (the average amount paid out per S.U. was about LE 800) has intensifiedthe tradi-
tional attitude towards field work and emphasized the low status of the field labourer.2
... the word ' slave' is freely used shorn only of its connotation of ownership,for paying
wages does not of itself alter the social relationship.The trend is, of course, most marked
in the uppersocial economic levels, but these set the standardstowards which others strive.3
Another observer comments, on the peak demand for labour in weeding and picking
periods, that these
... automaticallyresult in an acute shortage of family-labornecessitatingan appeal to the
labor markets. The bigger the size of the farm, the more urgent the need for extraneous
help, the relative importance of the labor (of) the tenant's family simultaneouslysuffering
a proportionate minimization and devaluation. This increasing necessity for hired labor
actuallystimulatesthe social aversion to a personalpreoccupationwith tillage; an aversion
whose growth keeps pace with the pomp attendantupon the status of 'big landowner'.
The final result is for one completely to abstainfrom any tillage whatsoever. The growing
money-incomein prosperous cotton-yearsis therefore well matched by a steep increasein
the quantityof hired labor, an increasefar exceedingthe surplusin crops.4
Other economic effects of this value system relate to consumption habits, debt,
income redistribution, taxation, and labour shortages elsewhere in Sudan. The typical
tenant attempts to duplicate the consumption habits of those with higher incomes.
While this occurs in most societies, such copying almost invariably means more
'conspicuous consumption', more purchasing of goods and indulging in services to
satisfy social objectives, items which are irrelevant to higher physical living standards.
Diet and education are normally not improved, housing remains much the same,
Peak Westerner holdings were in 1946 just over 2 G. M.

Culwick, ' Social Change in the Gezira
3,000 tenancies (I2-5 per cent.). Westerners were Scheme', Civilisations,vol. v, no. 2, I955, p. I77.
given tenancies in the early days of the scheme as 3 G. M. Culwick, A
Studyof theHumanFactor..
not enough Northerners came forward, particularly op. cit., para. io8. See also E. A. Stanton, ' The
during the 1930's depression. It is not coincidental Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ', Journalof theAfrica Society,
that the demands to bar Westerners came in a prospe- vol. xi, no. 43, April I912, p. 263, for a similar
rous period, when tenant income was at its height. quotation.
In view of the Westerner's superior productivity, 4 G. H. Van Der Kolff, The Social
Aspects of the
disallowing his tenancy holding cannot be considered Gezira Projectin the Sudan, Khartoum, 1958, p. 8
as an economic (as against a political) decision. (mimeographed).

female drudgery is little relieved, and so on.' High-income years witness a consider-
able shift of transport, retail, and service resources to Gezira from Khartoum and
Omdurman. Low-income years disturb such patterns again-I have no wastage
measurements, but wastage there is.
Debt is another important economic aspect of this picture. The tenant goes into
debt (a) to attract and hold workers, and (b) to buy goods and services he feels
necessary to self-esteem. Workers go into debt to buy goods and services. Because
the tenant-employer insists on guaranteeing himself labour supplies, he advances
cash and goods to his workers, often a year ahead, binding them in every way pos-
sible through economic, social, and moral persuasion, so that he (and his family)
will not have to stoop to the work of weeding or picking. The tenant, therefore, is
simultaneously both debtor and creditor, and almost invariably unable (or inclined)
to keep records in either direction. This tenant-worker relationship cannot be called
serfdom or peonage, as there is no effective way in which the tenant can recover
unpaid worker debts, nothing to force the worker to reappear next season, and
nothing (except high wages) to prevent a worker leaving a particular employer mid-
way through the season-wages rise daily, almost frantically, as the season progresses
and picking and cleaning deadlines draw closer. Such advances, credit, and perquisites
are an unrecorded but essential part of the wage bill. For the Westerner and a great
number of the non-nomadic and resident workers, wages are cash, in advance when
possible, and often at contract or piece rates. But with the majority of workers,
particularly the White and Blue Nile nomads and their families, the relationship with
tenants is more traditionally oriented, the paterfamilias holding himself responsible
for accommodating, entertaining, feeding, &c., the hired family (and their animals).
Such workers are almost invariably less efficient than 'economic men' employees, but
must be hired in ever greater numbers per feddan and per ton for both social and
economic reasons: there are not enough 'economic men'.2 The few Westerner and
other 'economic men' tenants employ far fewer workers.3
Another important, and in many ways positive, economic effect of this value
system is that it redistributes income. A greater number of persons within the Scheme
receive a larger percentage of the region's total income. Income is diffused geographi-
cally as well, in that wage workers carry Gezira cash, food, and other products back
to their rural homes. Gezira has the most evenly distributed income of any of the
nine Sudan economic regions.4 This fact has implications on the volume and type of
I See in particular G. M. Culwick, Diet in the 2 'In

general... they [nomad picking workers] do
Gezira ..., op. cit., and her' Social Factors Affecting not like hard work; they are improvident, and their
Diet', article in Food and Societyin the Sudan . . ., necessaries few. Perhaps the most important problem
op. cit., pp. 173-212; Norah G. Spelman,' Women's of the Irrigation Scheme as a whole is not an engi-
Work in the Gezira, Sudan', OverseaEducation,vol. neering or an agricultural, but a psychological one.'
xxvi, no. 2, July I954, pp. 66-69; J. R. Hyslop, (A. R. Lambert, 'The Sudan Gezira, the Land and
'Egypt and the Sudan', ContemporaryReview, no. the People', GeographicalMagazine, vol. ix, no. i,
1030, October I95I, pp. 2o5-Io. On the I950/I 1939, pp. I42-3.)
bumper crop and soaring Gezira income, Hyslop 3 Reliable picking-labour and tenant statistics by
states (p. 208): '. . . This sudden access to wealth number, sex, tribe, size of tenancy, and so on, are
has created serious danger of inflation, for the now available. See in particular Surveyof Labour
Sudanese does not save money in banks, invest it, Conditionsin the Gezira, Khartoum: Sudan Govern-
buy insurance or houses on mortgage. He spends ment, Department of Statistics, Occasional Statistical
it on rich foods, drinks, gold bangles for his women- Paper no. i, September 1959.
folk.' 4 Clearly shown in the writer's dissertation.

consumer goods and services purchased, and through this on Government's indirect
tax revenue (increasing it). It also affects the demand for imported goods, putting
pressure in two directions simultaneously: on foreign exchange balances (an adverse
effect), and on the need to manufacture more consumer goods domestically (positive
effect on employment, productivity, and reduced pressure on foreign exchange
balances).
There are also important implications regarding direct personal taxation. The
Sudan Government, attempting to increase the volume of development revenue, is
considering such taxation.I In Gezira (as compared to the Three Towns, for example)
there are relatively fewer extremely high incomes, and relatively more middle-income
earners. Other factors are naturally relevant to considerations of personal income
taxation. It may very well be necessary to tax tenant income directly to reduce the
demand for 'extra' labour (assuming that a Government overwhelmingly composed
of persons with values similar to those of the tenants will do such a thing). This is
a pressing consideration. The serious shortage of wage labour owing to tenancy
expansion is increasingly aggravated (some say caused) by' surplus' labour on existing
tenancies-new Manaqil tenants are ex-Gezira labourers. These deliberations natu-
rally carry political implications. The writer's impression is that, while this entire
business of too much labour being demanded and used is clearly recognized, just as
clearly recognized is the cultural, social, and economic demarcation between 'ins'
and 'outs'-the present 'ins' being the past 'ins'; and the present 'outs' being the
past 'outs'. Economic development and rising incomes are not reducing these basic
historical antipathies-they are reinforcing them.2
This slavery value system also prejudices rising average output in the rainland
grain-growing districts. These medium-rainfall regions annually provide riverain,
urban, and nomadic Sudan with the bulk of its grain, and increasingly export greater
quantities. Moslem, northern, rainland employers (not Westerners) are as deeply
conscious of the degrading nature of 'slave' farming labour as their Gezira equiva-
lents. They too depend on Westerner labour. This problem was discussed in the 947
meetings of the Administrative Council for the Northern Sudan by Mustafa Effendi
Abu Ela:
It appearedfrom Mr. Macintosh's report that the majority of Sudanesefarmers in the
Gedaref area employed labour and did not cultivate for themselves. He traced this dislike
I Cf. Z. M. Kubinski, ' Indirect and Direct Taxa- pp. 42-43.) The concept of ' Kulak', Gezira style,
tion in an Export Economy: A Case Study of the is discussed in J. D. M. Versluys, 'The Gezira
Republic of the Sudan', Public Finance (Holland), Scheme in the Sudan and the Russian Kolkhoz: a
vol. xiv, nos. 3-4, 1959, pp. 316-43. Comparison of two Experiments ', EconomicDevelop-
2 Northern Sudanese
politicians and senior civil mentand CultureChange,vols. i and ii, 1954: no. I,
servants have a habit of talking their way around this pp. 32-59; no. 2, pp. 120-35; no. 3, pp. 216-35.
issue. It takes many forms, such as pride in develop- C. W. Beer raises the concept of tenants as Kulaks
ment funds spent in southern Sudan, and so on. in a consumption sense: '. . . Do they form a rich
A favourite claim is that in Gezira 'the evils of feu- "Kulak" class who by their standard of living
dalism have been liquidated' (Syed Hammed Tew- excite the envy of the less fortunate?' ('Social
fik, 'The Sudan Today', Pakistan Horizon, vol. viii, Development in the Gezira Scheme', African
no. i, March 1955, p. 297). Non-Sudanese do the Affairs, vol. liv, no. 214, January I955, p. 50).
same-' Imagine a country in Africa . . . without Northern Sudanese attitudes towards Westerners are
either a foreign or indigenous Kulak class . . perhaps the most indicative of this economics versus
(L. Silberman, 'State Socialism in the Sudan', politics split personality, discussed in the next foot-
Libertar(Johannesburg), vol. v, no. I I, October 1945, note.

of manuallabour to the fact that slaves had previously done this type of work, which was
therefore considered as menial.'
The Sudan Government has been attempting to increase grain production in under-
utilized rainland districts (especially near Gedaref) by establishing mechanized farms.
Apart from technical problems associated with machinery operation and main-
tenance, crop strains, and so on, the most important obstacle has been labour
shortage. A series of partnership arrangements-partly participating-partly working,
tenant-employee, and so on-have been attempted, but with limited success. The
local householder much prefers his own cultivation to becoming involved with (to
him) cumbersome, complicated, and onerous 'big-scheme' operations. When he is
a tenant, he will not work, but cannot get labourers !2
In addition, Gezira attracts away any otherwise available labour force. The fact
that so many 'extra' workers are absorbed in Gezira because of this value system
means a denudation of the labour of other Sudan regions. Development projects
initiated in deserving Sudan areas are prejudiced because the otherwise available
labour force is in Gezira. Even urban and industrial labour forces (since the Scheme
began) leave their ' secure' employment for the much higher, but seasonal, cotton-
picking wages. Such wages would not be so high (and hence so disruptive) if demand
for workers was not inordinately inflated.
E. CONCLUSION
I have no statistics to support the contention that there are some 200,000 domestic
slaves and serfs in northern Sudan. To quantify in I962 a group which was not mea-
sured in 1900 is obviously hardly possible with any accuracy. Legally, these conditions
of dependency have been banned for six decades. But in view of the continuance of
Advisory Councilfor the Northern Sudan, Proceed- which made this type of grain production (terus)
ings of the SeventhSession(heldat the Palace, Khartoum, more significant formerly than now is labour. Slaves
from the20thto the24thof May, r947),Khartoum: Sudan were widely employed on the rainlands by wealthy
Government, n.d. (1948?), para. 7298. Mr. Mac- landowners and the total area under cultivation was
intosh, Labour Officer, presented a report on agri- probably larger than it is today' (John R. Randell,
cultural labour shortages, and the essential role of 'El Gedid-a Blue Nile Gezira Village', SudanNotes
Westerners in achieved agricultural levels to that and Records,vol. xxxix, 1958, p. 31). Terus (Teras)
time. The entire discussion by these Northern Suda- are hand-made banks for catching rainwater.
nese leaders indicated clearly that, politically, the 2 Cf. R. G.
Laing, Mechanizationin Agriculturein
Westerner was considered a trouble-maker, disease- the Rainlandsof the Anglo-EgyptianSudan,I948-i9yi,
carrier, &c., and should be discouraged from Sudan Khartoum: Sudan Government, Survey Department
residence (pilgrimage passage only). But they agreed Publication no. 750, I953 (esp. pp. 7, 60); Reportof
that to the economy he was indispensable. It is the SorghumMission to Certain British African Terri-
interesting to notice that one of the Sudan's most tories, London: H.M.S.O., Colonial Office, Colonial
able leaders, Mekki Abbas, one-time head of the Advisory Council of Agriculture, Animal Health, and
Gezira Board, was a most outspoken anti-Westerner. Forestry, Publication no. 2, I95I (esp. pp. 20-21);
Even Sudanese social researchers studying Wester- and Working Party's Report on the MechanicalCrop
ners, such as Hassoun (op. cit.), tend to put the shoe ProductionScheme,Khartoum: Sudan Government,
on the wrong foot: '. . . Native tenants have been Survey Department Publication no. 922, 1954
persuadedby cheap labour offering itself to sacrifice (esp. p. i6). The reader is reminded of an earlier
a considerable portion of their profits to satisfy their comment that these rainland areas could be settled
disposition for slackness and vanity by sitting back by northern riverain surplus population, thus pro-
and employing casual labourers to do the work on viding more marketed grain, and seasonal labour
their tenancies . .' (p. 89-italics mine). There is no for Gezira, Gash, and mechanized schemes. But
doubt that rainland agricultural production suffered they will not move to be neighbours to groups they
when slaves were allowed to leave.' The other factor historically consider inferior.

the cultural, political, economic, and social factors which surrounded and supported
domestic slavery and serfdom systems, it cannot be assumed that these forms of
servitude have vanished completely. Patterns of life, culture, religion, and values
generally, are similar now to what they were sixty years ago for most Sudanese.
It would be necessary to illustrate with concrete examples that the economic and
cultural foundations on which the servitude systems rested have changed so mar-
kedly that domestic slavery and serfdom are no longer commensurate with the rest
of an altered value system.
To declare that this social phenomenon is extinct, and then find examples to prove
that it is not, is an incorrect analytical procedure. It assumes that the systems have
been legislated out of existence, which is not possible. It also assumes that all early
Administration measures were directed towards active abolition of the status of
slavery, which is equally incorrect. Such a declaration also violates the very essence
of the nature of social change. A society continues to function within a patterned and
cohesive system of values until such time as an insistent economic, political, or social
force necessitates alteration in that framework. This in turn gradually fosters new
attitudes and new values. The long process entails integrating the new concept with
other aspects of the social scene-it must be co-ordinated with the already existing
subtle and intricate webs of attitudes and opinions which function as tenuous and
unwritten regulators of activity. Though change is of course obvious in certain
heavy investment regions, the majority of Sudanese still live and work as their
grandparents did. The social institutions, the attitudes, the values, remain. In view
of the rather conservative nature of these institutions, their intrinsic ability to resist
the as yet relatively weak and inconstant stimuli to change, and the length of time
required to alter the value system, even in more dynamic societies, the theoretical
contention that slavery values are still strong seems entirely logical.
There are other African regions which have been subjected to far greater impact
from new ideas, techniques, and methods. These still have slaves, and concepts
supporting the continuation of a class of masters and a separate class of servants or
workers.I There is no reason to assume that Sudan society is different from other
African groups in this respect, nor an exception to the basic forces which have in the
past governed and still govern social change, in the Sudan or anywhere else. The
fact of slavery will be part of the past when economic and social systems have so
altered as to make the fact untenable; when the ideas of personal independence and
personal motivation, as distinct from the group's, are paramount; when levels of
education and sophistication are such that each person can view himself as an isolated
social unit whose wishes markedly affect his own economic and social fate.2
Most domestic slaves after the advent of organized Anglo-Egyptian administra-
tion were women and children. Effective and continuing formal education for women
is still practically non-existent-female ignorance is as relatively unchanged as the
I The writer is (slowly) attempting to document historical lethargy due to the slave-labour legacy
equivalent studies for the whole of Africa. Research could be remedied by a revision in the educational
undertaken over the last several years clearly indi- system (AdvisoryCouncilforthe NorthernSudan,Pro-
cates the universal nature of this slavery concept, ceedingsof the SecondSession(heldat the Palace, Khar-
and its pertinence to African economic development. toum, from the pth to the loth of December,1944),
2 The I944 Sudanese leader discussions Khartoum: Sudan Government, n.d. (1945 ?), paras.
regarding
Gezira tenants indicated that they thought that the 2214-17). No details were given.

culturaland social world in which they live. The child of a slave is a slave. A domes-
tic slave's female offspringwould have no reason to assumethat her life would not
be conductedon a similarpatternto that of her mother. She would fit into the net-
work of socialand economicrelationshipsas she found them. Have therebeen power-
ful enough forces at work to increaseher legal knowledge, her awarenessthat she
does not have to be like her mother and grandmother,that she can breakaway from
the accustomedpatternsshe grows up in; that by personalinitiative and self-deter-
mination she may assume a differentlife? Such questions raise doubts-the words
themselvesare probablynot even in her vocabulary.
It must be remembered,too, just what a domestic slave is, for the motivation to
abandonthe status probably does not come from the situation itself. This is not
a person who has no rights whatsoever, or one who can be treated with disdain
or contempt. As a rule, the domestic slave is responsiblefor performingthe more
mundane domestic and agriculturalduties which are essential to the household's
propermaintenanceandfunctioning.The domesticslave'sphysicalstandardof living
is not measurablylower than his master's,or that of his master's wives.I The fact
that the Administration,for economic reasons,did not enforcethe rule that a master
must rid himselfof his slaves,but adoptedinsteadthe policy of encouragingdomestic
slaves to stay on if they were not being ill treated,must certainlyhave retardedthe
slaveexodus.Personswho might have left at thattime, in the prevailingcircumstances
of doubt and insecurity,if persuadedto remain,might not have thought of leaving
when social conditionsbecamemore stable,civic peaceestablished,and theirparticu-
lar household'seconomic position more firm.That household,then and now, would
be more securein every respectthan an unknown and foreign outside world.
The effectsof the legacy of slaveryaremost obvious in those areaswhere economic
development is forcing structuraland social changes; where efficient systems and
machinesare bringing new social and economic problems.These are the cities and,
more especially,those regions where planned agriculturaldevelopment is in pro-
cess. But one must also include any region experiencingcontinuing economic and
social pressuresfrom the advent of cash crops, the increasingeffectsof labourmigra-
tion, andthe influencesof expandingsystemsof transport.Laboursituationsin which
the person who did the work was socially and economically dependent upon the
employer, bound by a network of social and other obligations, are graduallybeing
supplanted by more commercializedarrangementswhere the pre-arrangedand
mutuallyagreed-uponrewardfor the expenditureof labourpower is economic only,
either goods or cash. But it is slow.
Sudaneseeconomicdevelopmenthingesupon anincreasingsupplyof wage workers
in commercial,export-orientedagriculture.The historicalvalues attachedto agricul-
tural employment (slave's work) mean that typically most northern Sudanesewill
not do it unless forced. The bulk of the Sudan'sagriculturallabourhas traditionally
' Slaves generally speaking do not have a very and Records,vol. xxiii, part i, 1940, p. 183). ' One
bad time and do not object to being taken into a finds the ex-slave rearing his master's children and
town family, where they live in more comfortable marrying his own to them without occasioning more
surroundings than they would have in their native than a passing comment, and often from their appear-
land .. .' (W. E. Jennings-Bramley, 'Tales of the ance one would be hard put to it to say which was of
Wadai Slave Trade in the Nineties (told by Yunes slave blood and which of free' (G. D. Lampen, 'The
Bedris of the Majabra to the Author)', SudanNotes Baggara Tribes ', op. cit., p. 131).

been performed by non-Northern, non-Moslem, non-nomad Sudanese, or foreigners.
While these used to be slaves, such groups, now legally free agents, have not
been increasing rapidly enough for the requirements of an expanding investment
programme. Thus breaking down the value system connected with the slavery
heritage (to obtain more wage-workers in agriculture) has become one of the Sudan's
main economic problems. Because of this stigma, the Sudan Government's emphasis
on the growth and export of long-staple cotton is automatically encountering a highly
entrenched cultural resistance. Patterns of land allocation in the irrigated areas
(gravity-flow, flood, and pump schemes) and in mechanized grain districts, and a
tenantry with custodianship of the productive areas who employ workers to help
them, provide the basis for the increasing reinforcement of slavery attitudes. As
incomes rise (wages and profits), the supply of effort tends to fall. Demand for labour
rises simultaneously with a decrease in supply. This means a greater relative labour
'shortage' at lower levels of per capita output.
Policy measures to solve this labour supply problem might include taxing away
that part of tenant income which provides the ' extra ' demand for labour. This might
not only encounter political resistance, but also entail a reduction in incentives to
become a tenant for a Northern, Moslem Sudanese, since he is using the system as
a means to improve his status as defined in the traditional manner, a non-worker.
Why not let ' economic men' become the new tenants in the expansion areas, such as
Southerners, Westerners, and others ? This would not only reduce the labour cost in
each ton produced, but would also tend to distribute income back to those parts of
the Sudan where it is most badly needed. In addition, there is a tendency for these
groups (Westerners and Southerners) to establish colonies wherever they settle.
They become self-perpetuating, and provide their own labour supply, both by the
process of natural population growth and by the attraction to them of others entering
labour markets for the same reason-more income.
But it is also felt that a more constructive labour supply for the irrigated (and the
urban) areas would be encouraged by raising the living standards of the typical Qoz
Sands and Central Clay Plains rainland farmer. If some of his economic insecurities
were reduced (stabilized cash-crop prices, more secure water-supplies, more transport
and communications, reduced insect-infestations, and so on), he would be more will-
ing, as his level of economic and social awareness increases, to enter wage employ-
ment, not merely to maintain income if his own crops are insufficient, but to satisfy
a gradually rising level of wants. This is a mutually reinforcing process. The more
often he enters wage-labour markets and encounters ' civilization ', the more rapidly
does he become an ' economic man '. There are typically enough workers, at least to
date, for the non-agricultural investment which does take place. Another policy
measure might make non-agricultural investment relatively more important than at
the present level of some 10 per cent. of total development investment. While wage
labour is not popular in any case, it is agriculturalwage labour which carries the lowest
prestige.
But the Government is Moslem Sudanese, and perhaps automatically likely to
adopt policies which do not prejudice deeply felt cultural needs. The attempt is
being made to ' Islamize ' the Sudan; Arabic is being taught in all schools, and Islamic
values injected into non-Moslem cultures. The insistence upon Moslem, Northern

SLAVERYIN THE SUDAN REPUBLIC 387
Sudanesetenantsin the agriculturaldevelopmentschemesis per se an insistenceupon
reinforcingNorthernSudaneseconceptions of an ideal socio-economic system.This
meansperpetuationof mastersandservants,of elite and non-elite, of upperandlower
classes.' While this cannot automaticallybe condemned,it must be pointed out that
the economic base supporting class differencesmitigates against rapid economic
development and the maximizationof human resources.An outsider has no right
to suggest alterationsin a people's value system. But given the Sudan'spoverty, and
the overwhelmingproblems of raising these low living standards,this value system
means increasinglycostly and less rapideconomic change.
APPENDIX
TABLE I
Priorto DervishRule,LossesDuringDervishRule(byCause)
Sudan:EstimatedPopulation
and 190o Estimatesof Population
byProvince
Populo Approximate loss during

Population Dervishrule
prior to o903
Province Dervishrule Disease Warfare Population
Bahr-el-ghazal . . .. i ,500,000 400,000 700,000 400,000
Berber . . . . . . 800,00,000 , 250,000 I00,000
Dongola . . . . . . 30,000 I I0,000 80,000 0o,0ooo
Ghezireh . . . . . 550,00 275,000 125,000 I50,000
Wadi-Halfa . . . . . 55,0ooo 2,000 13,000 30,000
Kassala . . . . . . 500,000 300,000 I20,000 80,ooo
Khartoum . . . . . 700,000 400,000 210,000 90,000
Kordofan . . . . . I,800,000 6oo,ooo 650,ooo 550,000
Sennar . . . . . oo,ooo 00,000 450,000 150,000
Suakin (town) . 20,000 4,000 5,500 10,500
Suakin (Arabs) . . . . . 300,000 I00,000 150,000 50,000
Kodah (Upper Nile Province) . . 900,000 300,000 450,000 150,000
Approximate total . . . . 8,525,ooo 3,451,000 3,203,500 1,870,500
Source: Egypt, I903, p. 79.
I .. but we must make sure that self-determina- that the Arab predatory instinct is not yet dead.'
tion for the north does not mean exploitation of the (Angus Gillian, 'The Sudan: Past, Present, and
south. When one hears even an educated Northerner Future', African Affairs, vol. xliii, no. 172, July
let slip, in an unguarded moment, the phrase "balad I944, p. I24.)
el abid"-the country of the slaves-one realizes

TABLE 2
Sudan:Number of PersonsArrested and Number Convictedin Slave Cases, 190o-I
Regions(Provinces)
Khartoum
Berber Kassala WhiteNile Bahr-el-ghazal
Dongola Suakin Blue Nile Nuba Mts. UpperNile
Year Halfa Red Sea Sennar Kordofan Mongalla Sudan
AI C2 A C A C A C A C A C
I905 .. .. I4 2 48 I3 17 I6 6 6 85 47
I906 .. .. 15 8 35 o 8 5 .... 68 23
1907 3 I 3 3 17 9 6 4 4 4 33 2I
1908 .. .. .. .. 25 3 .. 8 8 34 i
1909 4 4 I I 6 5 o 6 4 4 24 20
I9Io0 I.. .. 3 3 22 15 IO Io 36 28
191 .. .. 4 4 17 II 23 i6 I I 45 32
1912 .. .. .. 33 29 8 8 .. .. 41 37
1913 3 3 3 3 Io 7 8 6 4 4 28 23
Total II 8 40 31 194 90 112 76 37 37 394 242
I Number arrested. 2 Number convicted.

Source:Compiled from Legal Department Annual Reports, 1905-13 (typically attached to Wingate).Statistics
in this form beyond 1913 could not be located (if they exist).
TABLE 3
Sudan: Number of Slave Cases BroughtbeforeSudan GovernmentOffcials During Selected
Quartersfrom i Octoberi9io to 3o SeptemberI9r3
Regions(Provinces)
Berber White Nile Kassala
Dongola Blue Nile Red Sea
Quarter Year Halfa Sennar Suakin Sudan3
Ml F2 M F M F M F
4th I9I0 6i 8i 38 68 7 8 145 22i
1st I9I1 70 97 Ioi 76 17 2I 230 248
2nd 1911 107 i22 77 83 13 26 207 271
3rd 1911 89 I1o 35 24 4 7 I28 145
4th 1912 98 io6 34 52 13 I3 178 215
ist I9I3 72 IO8 59 69 22 i6 2I0 244
2nd I9I3 44 66 9? II3 I9 3I 247 276
3rd 19I3 69 63 II 3 i8 9 oI0 90
Totals 610 753 445 488 113 131 1480 I713
Males.
2 Females.
3 Sudan totals larger than sum of constituent Provincial statistics given as data for other Provinces either
not clear or not separately reported. I cannot explain the almost invariably greater female rates, unless they
were more often the ' fall-guys '?
Source:Compiled from Slavery Department Annual Reports, and typically attached to Wingate.These quarters
were chosen as others were either unobtainable, or did not contain Sudan-wide statistics. The difference
in coverage of these data and those of Table 2 is essentially that these are persons suspectedof slave
trading(dealt with by the Slavery Department), while data of Table 2 are arrests and convictions by regular
Police, Administration and Legal Departments for domesticslavery offences.

TABLE 4
SelectedList of RepatriatedSlaveswhotook Refugein the British Legation,Jedda (i93 0-7),

andwhoseInitialCaptureoccurred
in theRepublicof theSudan
Place and approximate Meansby whichbrought

Name date of enslavement to this country
Jamula Bint Muhammad Berber, 1892 Stolen with mother
Khairullah Ibn Qasam Dongola, I895 Stolen from his home
Saad Ibn Abdulkhair Tokar, 910o Stolen with parents
Maryam Bint Ash-Sheykh El Fasher, I890 Stolen when a child
Farajullah Khartoum, 1896 Stolen as a child
Khadija Bint Hasanain Suakin, I 9 Stolen by a Nigerian and brought to
Medina
Abdullah Ahmed ibn Bashir El Obeid, I890 Stolen and brought to the Hejaz via the
Farsan Islands
Saidi Bint Farajallah El Obeid, 1900 Brought to the Hejaz via Qunfidha
Mubarrak ibn Abdul Monin Sudan, 1878 Stolen and brought by sambuq via
Massawa to Qunfidha
Sa'dullah Ibn Abdurraham Kassala, I875 Taken by Tokar and Hitaim and then by
sambuq to Lith
Sa'ida Bint Huseyn Khartoum, 1924 Brought from Khartoum to coast, whence
by sambuq to Hejaz
Jaber Ibn Darraj Abu Anja Khartoum, 1892 Taken to Suakin, whence by sambuq to
Jedda
Said Ibn Bakhit Dongola, 900o Brought up the Nile to Omdurman,
whence to Port Sudan (Suakin ?) and by
sambuq to Jedda
Musa Ibn Nanlubi Nuba Mountains, 1892 Brought to Khartoum, Tokar, and sambuq
to Jedda
Jaber Ibn Idha Nuba Mountains, 1903 Sambuq to Lith
Ali ibn Adam Darfur, I900 Sambuq from Suakin
Saad Ibn Salem Omdurman, 1898 Brought with 35 other slaves to Tokar and
by sea to Jedda
Abdul Razzaq Ibn Bakhit Dongola, 1894 Sold at Berber, taken to Suakin, whence
by dhow to Jedda
Jabir Ibn Idha Nuba Mountains, 1904 Taken to Hitaim, whence by sambuq to
Lith
Abdullah Ibn Muhammad Khartoum, 1920 By dhow to north of Yanbu'
Saidi Bini Ali El Fasher, I894 Traded across the Sudan to Suakin,
whence by dhow to Jedda about
1904 (?)
Rihan Faraj Hadda, Arabia, born in Son of a Sudanese slave kidnapped from
slavery about 1916 the Sudan and sold at Hadda
Nasra ? Kidnapped from Dar Taken overland to Suakin and then by
Wadai about 1916 dhow to Jedda
Bakr Uzzeyn El Fasher, 1911 On death of her parents she was acquired
by a man who claimed to adopt her but
who sold her to another who brought
her to the Hejaz by dhow
Source:Comprehensive lists of all slave refugees reaching the Jedda British Legation were submitted as
Appendices to the Government of the United Kingdom's various reports to the Slavery Committee of the
League of Nations. The above highly selected list is taken from U.K. Government reports to the League,
League Documents nos. C. I89 (i). M. I45. 1936. VI and C. 188. M. I73. I937. VI. This is not all reported
from the Sudan, merely a sample which attempts to show variations of capture, route, and dates. West
African slaves were brought through Sudan on pilgrimage as late as I931.

Resume
LE DWVELOPPEMENT PICONOMIQUE ET L'H?RITAGE DE L'ESCLAVAGE
DANS LA RIIPUBLIQUE DU SOUDAN
LES economistes qui s'occupent du developpement des nations africainesreconnaissentde
plus en plus que des politiques economiques realistes devraient etre basees sur une estima-
tion approfondie des valeurs afin de prevenir les reactions a de telles politiques et de se
rendre compte des forces economiques susceptibles de creer le changement le plus rapide
en favorisant des attitudes positives et en rendant nulles celles qui resistent les impulsions
vers un rendement effectif. Les attitudes envers la participation de la main-d'ceuvre salariee
constituent un des aspects les plus importants de cette etude de valeurs.
Les nations africaines consacrent la plupart de leurs ressources economiques a la produc-
tion de denrees destinees a l'exportation dans un effort d'obtenir davantage d'importations.
Une penurie de la main-d'ceuvre est, par consequent, susceptible d'entraver le progres
dconomique. Cependant, l'entree africaine sur les marches de la main-d'oeuvre salariee est
associee, ici comme ailleurs, avec certaines attitudes envers le travail et le revenu (niveaux
et composition). Le travail agricole - notamment dans le projet pour la culture du coton
a fibre longue par irrigation dans le Gezira, qui regoit trois quarts des investissements a
titre de developpement - est considere comme culturellement indesirable dans le Soudan
septentrional, parce qu'il etait autrefois le travail des esclaves. Les tenanciers du Gezira et
d'autres Arabes musulmans du Soudan septentrional qui sont des employeurs prives (agri-
coles ou autres) subissent une perte de prestige et de position sociale s'ils s'abaissent a faire
du travail dans les champs ou d'autre travail manuel lorsqu'ils possedent les moyens pecu-
niaires d'employer d'autres personnes pour le faire.
Les ouvriers agricoles salaries d'une importance cruciale sont les peuples negroides du
Soudan, les groupes soudaniques provenant des nations de l'Afrique Occidentale (des
Occidentaux ostensiblement en cours de route d'un pelerinage a Mecca, qui ont besoin de
moyens pour payer les frais de voyage aller et retour, et qui souvent passent le reste de
leur vie dans le Soudan), et certains autres groupes non-arabes.Les Arabes nomades et
autres recolteurs saisonniersde coton ont egalement une importancepour le Gezira, bien
qu'ils soient loin d'etre aussi nombreux ou aussi capablesque les peuples soudaniques, et
qu'ils aient tendance a ne rester dans un emploi que le temps necessaire pour gagner la
somme visee. En d'autresmots, les meilleursouvriers salariesappartiennenta des groupes
ethniques similaires ou identiques a ceux qui etaient autrefois des esclaves. Une situation
mutuellement aggravante existe, par consequent, dans le marche de la main-d'ceuvre qui est
lie a des niveaux de revenus avec paiement en especes. Pendant les annees quand les recoltes,
les prix et les exportationssont satisfaisants,les revenus plus eleves des employeursprives
permettent une demande de main-d'ceuvre qui est augmentee d'une fagon disproportionnee.
Simultanement, parce que les salaires sont eleves, les nomades et les autres ouvriers arabes
obtiennent les sommes desirees rapidement et la main-d'ceuvre disponible diminue.
Actuellement, il faut deux fois le nombre d'ouvriers par unite de production et par exploita-
tion tenanciere moyenne en comparaison avec le nombre qui etait necessaire il y a deux
decades. L'accroissement des depenses par unite de production entraine des benefices par
tonne plus faibles, car les prix de vente sur le marche mondial n'ont pas augmente aussi
rapidement. Il en resulte que des efforts plus grands sont faits pour augmenter la production,
ce qui aggrave la situation de la main-d'ceuvre.
Utilisant principalement les archives officielles, on a pu demontrer les effets economiques
de l'abolition de l'esclavage par l'administration anglo-egyptienne parmi les groupes
soudaniques septentrionaux les plus importants. La documentation de cet arriere-plan

historique avait trois objectifs. Le premier en etait d'indiquer la continuite des valeurs et
des attitudes de la main-d'ceuvresalariee ayant des affiliationsd'esclavage- elles ont peu
change, et le developpement economique a renforce ces tendances negatives, retardant
ainsi le taux de la croissance. Un autre but etait de demontrerl'utilite pour les recherches
economiques de ces archives et rapports historiques locaux qui, jusqu'ici, ont ete a peine
recueillis. Le troisieme but etait de suggerer que l'histoire recente de la main-d'ceuvre
esclave dans le Soudan septentrional,pour autant qu'elle porte atteinte au developpement
economique actuel, et d'apressa documentationdans ces archivesadministrativesclassiques,
pourrait fournir un modele ou une etude de cas d'un phenomene socio-psychologique ou
culturel qui exerce une influence sensible sur le developpementeconomique dans la plupart
des regions africaines.
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS NUMBER

P. C. C. EVANS.Lecturer in Education, University of London Institute of Education; formerly Education
Officer, Kenya; late Chief Education Adviser, Government of Jamaica.
J. VANSINA. Associate Professor, Departments of Anthropology and History, State University of Wis-
consin, Madison; carried out fieldwork among the Kuba (Kasai, Kongo), Ruanda and Rundi as research
officer of IRSAC; author of Les Tribus Ba-Kubaet les peupladesapparentees(Ethnographic Survey), De la
traditionorale, Esquissede grammaireBushong,L't8volutiondu royaumerwandades originesa I9oo, and of various
papers on the Kuba, Rwanda, Rundi and the history of Central Africa.
JOANWESCOTT. Graduate Research Student, Department of Anthropology, University College, London;
at present engaged in writing up field material on the art and religion of the Yoruba; author, in collaboration
with P. Morton-Williams, of' The Symbolism and Ritual Context of the Yoruba Laba Shango' (ournal of the
Royal AnthropologicalInstitute,vol. 92, pt. i, I962) and other papers.
PETERF. M. McLOUGHLIN.Assistant Professor of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los
Angeles; sometime District Officer (Cadet), Lake Province Administration, Tanganyika; and Lecturer,
Department of Economics, University of Khartoum, 1959-60.


Africa Journal of The International African Institute Volume 32 Issue 4 1962 (Doi 10.2307/1157439) Peter F. M. McLoughlin - Economic Development and The Heritage of Slavery in The Sudan Republic

Загружено:

Сведения о документе

Оригинальное название

Авторское право

Доступные форматы

Поделиться этим документом

Поделиться или встроить документ

Параметры публикации

Этот документ был вам полезен?

Это неприемлемый материал?

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

Africa Journal of The International African Institute Volume 32 Issue 4 1962 (Doi 10.2307/1157439) Peter F. M. McLoughlin - Economic Development and The Heritage of Slavery in The Sudan Republic

Загружено:

Авторское право:

Доступные форматы

International African Institute

Economic Development and the Heritage of Slavery in the Sudan Republic

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE HERITAGE

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

graphy,University of London Press, 1961.

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

I Egypt, 1902, p. 97. 4 Wingate, 905, p. 104. 5 Ibid., p. III.

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

2. Northern Sudan,alongthe Nile northof Khartoumto the Egyptianborder

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

Referring particularly to this northern Nile region, the Sudan Government

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

4. Eastern Sudan-Kassala, Suakin, Red Sea Provinces

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

D. SUMMARY OF PRESENT-DAY EFFECTS

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

Peak Westerner holdings were in 1946 just over 2 G. M.

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

I See in particular G. M. Culwick, Diet in the 2 'In

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

Populo Approximate loss during

Source: Egypt, I903, p. 79.

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

I Number arrested. 2 Number convicted.

Totals 610 753 445 488 113 131 1480 I713

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

SelectedList of RepatriatedSlaveswhotook Refugein the British Legation,Jedda (i93 0-7),

Place and approximate Meansby whichbrought

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS NUMBER

This content downloaded from 185.44.77.34 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 16:54:08 PM

Вам также может понравиться