Sudanese people

“ The Government officials, civil and military, who are responsible for this task, and the Egyptian and Sudanese who have worked with and under them, and as directed by them, have a claim upon all civilized mankind which should be heartily admitted. It would be a crime not to go on with the work, a work which the inhabitants themselves are helpless to perform, unless under firm and wise guidance from outside. I have met people who had some doubt as to whether the Sudan would pay. ”

“ It is rather amusing to think that the people of Cairo are quite oblivious that in 1884 their revenue will fall to one-half, and that the country will need more troops to keep it quiet. Seven-eighths of the population of the Sudan are slaves, and the loss of revenue in 1889 (the date fixed for the liberation of the slaves in Egypt’s outlying territories) will be more than two-thirds, if it is ever carried out.”
SUDANESE MAIDEN.
Gordon, leaving Shakka in April, went by Kalaka, Dara, El Fasher, to Kolkol, which he reached on 26th May; here he relieved the garrison, and returned to El Fasher. ”

“ The entrance of England into Egypt, after the building of the Suez Canal, stirred up eventually revolt in the Sudan, for political, economic, and religious reasons. Led by a Sudanese Negro, Mohammed Ahmad, who claimed to be the Messiah (Mahdi) , the Sudan arose in revolt in 1881, determined to resist a hated religion, foreign rule, and interference with their chief commerce, the trade in slaves. The Sudan was soon aflame, and the able mulatto general, Osman Digna, aided by revolt among the heathen Dinka, drove Egypt and England out of the Sudan for sixteen years. ”

“ The third attempt at state building arose on the Guinea coast in Benin and Yoruba. It never got much beyond a federation of large industrial cities. Its expansion toward the Congo valley was probably a prime cause of the original Bantu movements to the southeast. Toward the north and northeast, on the other hand, these city-states met the Sudanese armed with the new imperial Mohammedan idea. Just as Latin Rome gave the imperial idea to the Nordic races, so Islam brought this idea to the Sudan. ”

“ About this period Mehemet Ali leased from the sultan of Turkey the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa, and by this means got into his hands all the trade routes of the eastern Sudan. The pasha of Egypt practically monopolized the trade of the country except that in slaves, which became a vast “industry,” the lands inhabited by negro tribes on the borders of the conquered territories being raided annually for the purpose. From the negro population the army was so largely recruited that in a few years the only non-Sudanese in it were officers. The Egyptian rule proved harmful to the country. ”

“ When Egypt governed the Sudan, it was from the Bahr el Ghazal Provinces that they recruited the men for the Sudanese battalions, who had come either of their own free-will or had been forcibly impressed. Owing to the climate and plenteous rainfall, the country is more highly cultivated than any portion of the Nile valley lying between Kowa and Reggaf. Besides, the majority of the tribes who inhabit these districts are, owing to internal dissensions, incapable of uniting, and would thus rather facilitate than retard the advance of any foreign power wishing to make itself master of the province. ”

“ In the south-west of the Bahr-el-Ghazal are the Bongos and other tribes, and along the Nile-Congo water-parting are the A-Zande or Niam-Niam, a comparatively light-coloured race. (All the tribes mentioned are separately noticed.)
Social Conditions.—In contrast with the Egyptians, a most industrious race, the Sudanese tribes, both Arab and negro, are as a general rule indolent. Where wants are few and simple, where houses need not be built nor clothes worn to keep out the cold, there is little stimulus to exertion. ”

“ The Khalifa, appeased and flattered, now said, "Well, try and find out the truth."
"My name is Olivier Pain," said the stranger, whom I had now told to talk in French, "and I am a Frenchman. Since I was quite a boy I was interested in the Sudan, and sympathised with its people; it is not only I, but all my compatriots, who feel the same. In Europe there are nations with whom we are at feud; one of these is the English nation which has now settled in Egypt, and one of whose generals, Gordon, is now commanding in Khartum. ”

“ Hence the union of these two elements, imperious pastor superimposed upon peaceful tiller, has made the only stable governments among savage and semi-civilized races.1097 The politically invertebrate peoples of dark Africa have secured the back-bone to erect states only from nomad conquerors. The history of the Sudan cannot be understood apart from a knowledge of the Sahara and its peoples. All the Sudanese states were formed by invaders from the northern desert, Hamitic or Semitic. ”

“ The Sudanese kingdoms of the Sudan resisted the power of the Mameluke beys in Egypt, and later the power of the Turks until the nineteenth century, when the Sudan was made nominally a part of Egypt. Continuous upheaval, war, and conquest had by this time done their work, and little of ancient Ethiopian culture survived except the slave trade. ”

“ The Sudan, though geographically in Central Africa, belongs to the Mediterranean civilisation. The great empires of the Niger, Melle and Songhai, the Fulani Empire of Sokoto, the Emirates of Kano and Katsina, and the Empire of Bornu, were all products of contact with the north. Commercially and culturally, the Sudan faced north with its back against an impenetrable belt of tropical forest inhabited by savage negro tribes, through whose dripping and steaming jungles there was little or no access to the sea. ”

“ The Arab-speaking and Mahommedan population found their religion and language respected, and from the first showed a marked desire to profit by the new order. To the negroes of the southern Sudan, who were exceedingly suspicious of all strangers—whom hitherto they had known almost exclusively as slave-raiders—the very elements of civilization had, in most cases, to be taught. In these pagan regions the Sudan government encouraged the work of missionary societies, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, while discouraging propaganda work among the Moslems. ”

“ Years must elapse before the Sudan can recover from the results of its abandonment to Dervish tyranny; but it is to be hoped and may be confidently expected, that in course of time, under just and upright government, the Sudan may be restored to prosperity; and the great battle of September will be remembered as having established peace, without which prosperity would have been impossible; and from which thousands of misguided and wretched people will reap the benefits of civilization." E. S. Wortley, With the Sirdar (Scribner's Magazine, January, 1899) . EGYPT: A. D. 1898. ”

“ If this reading of history be accepted, the people of the Central Sudan will be described as a mixed race recently forced into an Arab mould and in varying degrees modified by Arab blood. And we may prophesy that future researches will prove the other elements in this race to be akin to the other races on its borders, to the Nubians and Begas on the north, to the Negroes, Gallas, Abyssinians, etc., on the south and south-east. ”

“ Following their usual colonial policy, the British are governing the Sudan as far as possible through the natives. They respect the native religions and the native language, therefore the instruction in this part of the college is altogether in Arabic. The students write all their exercises in Arabic and take their dictation in that tongue. Along with other subjects the students are taught the Koran and the Koranic law—and they are well grounded in the Mohammedan religion, especially as it bears upon the government of the people. ”

“ But civilization has no room for him and his like, and his inevitable fate opens the way of progress and happiness to the negro tribes.
The future of the negro Sudan is only a part of that obscure and difficult problem common to a large part of Africa, the eventual future and destiny of the negro races. The establishment of peace and security of life and liberty is only the first essential preliminary to any consideration of the question. It will not be settled in a few decades, perhaps it will not in a few centuries. Far different is the case of the Arab Sudan. ”

“ In the middle of Africa, between the lands just mentioned and the powers advancing from east, south, and west, lies the former Egyptian Sudan, now under the rule of the Khalifa Abdullahi, the despotic head of the Mahdists. No European can venture to cross the limits of this land, cut off from civilisation, extending in the south along the Nile to Reggaf, and east to west from Kassala to near Wadai; death, or lifelong captivity, would be his lot. ”

“ Cut off from North Africa by the Sahara desert, the inhabitants, who belong in the main to the negro family proper, are thought to have received their earliest civilization from the East. Arab influence and the Moslem religion began to be felt in the western Sudan as early as the 9th century and had taken deep root by the end of the 11th. The existence of native Christian states in Nubia hindered for some centuries the spread of Islam in the eastern Sudan, and throughout the country some tribes have remained pagan. ”

“ The once comparatively civilised Sudan is now occupied by a barbaric power hostile to both European and Ottoman influence. It blocks [625] the way from the central plateaus along the Nile valley to the Mediterranean; it seals up districts which were at one time fairly tranquil, and open to the influences of commerce and civilisation, while the various countries by which it is bordered are now being gradually opened up. Intercourse between them and the outside world is becoming easier; trade is pushing obstacles out of the way ”

“ There are 4 million who have been displaced from their homes. It's a terrible tragedy, what has taken place in Sudan. People are being sold into slavery in Sudan in large and significant numbers. It's one of the worst human rights situations that's crying out for redressing justice. And one of the reasons the President last night appointed the special humanitarian coordinator is to help bring more relief to the people who are suffering on the ground in Sudan, to coordinate the activities of the United States with various other bodies that are trying to bring relief to the people who need help. ”

“ But the last six years have wrought a great change in the prospects of the Sudan. It is still, and must remain, the key of Egypt, but it is no longer a mere conduit-pipe or line of communication to be guarded at all hazards. Under British administrators it is beginning to justify its existence on other grounds. Conquered for the sake of the Nile, it shows signs of bearing fruit of its own, like the vineyard that was dug over and over for the sake of its hidden treasure. ”

“ The tropical Sudan can never be a white man's country. Eventually it must depend very largely upon our being able to fill the lower ranks at least of the administration with trained natives. At present they are manned by Egyptians and Syrians. ”

“ Those who wish to study the present situation in the Sudan must not think of that country as it was in the days of Ismail Pasha, when the civilising influence was represented by the Egyptian Government, and when the various countries lying immediately beyond the Egyptian sphere were barbarous or Pagan states, in which Europeans were almost unknown, and the Arab slave-hunter had barely penetrated ”

“ In the Sudan, we have before us a terrible example of a nascent and somewhat crude civilisation suddenly shattered by wild, ignorant, and almost savage tribes who have built over the scattered remnants a form of government based, to some extent, on the lines they found existing, but from which they have eradicated almost every symbol of right, justice, and morality, and for which they have substituted a rule of injustice, ruthless barbarity, and immorality. ”

“ I am convinced that it is an entire mistake to regard the Mahdi as in any sense a religious leader; he personifies popular discontent. All the Sudanese are potential Mahdis, just as all the Egyptians are potential Arabis. The movement is not religious, but an outbreak of despair. Three times over I warned the late Khedive that it would be impossible to govern the Sudan on the old system after my appointment to the governor-generalship. ”

“ The human inhabitants of the Soudan would not, but for their vices and misfortunes, be disproportioned in numbers to the fauna or less happy. War, slavery, and oppression have, however, afflicted them until the total population of the whole country does not exceed at the most liberal estimate three million souls. The huge area contains many differences of climate and conditions, and these have produced peculiar and diverse breeds of men. The Soudanese are of many tribes, but two main races can be clearly distinguished: the aboriginal natives, and the Arab settlers. ”

“ When anything unusual happens in uncivilised countries, it is always considered by the natives as supernatural; and this was exactly the effect of Yusef Pasha's disaster on the credulous and superstitious minds of the Sudanese. For sixty years the country had been governed by the Turks and Egyptians. If the tribes refused to pay their taxes, they were invariably punished ”

“ The name “Sudan” is used throughout to indicate the country referred to by the Arab and early European geographers under this name, that is to say, the country inhabited by negroid people north of the purely negro zone and south of the Saharan deserts. The “Anglo-Egyptian Sudan” is more correctly described as the “Nilotic Sudan.”
[2] The geography of the Sahara as a whole is briefly treated in Le Sahara, by E. F. Gautier, Collection Payot, Paris, 1923, and with greater detail in Le Sahara, by H. Schirmer, Paris, 1893, but much recent work is not included in the latter. ”