Panel #5:

"Economy, History, and Foreign Presence"

The Problem of “control” in a Condominium - The Development of Sudan State Finances in Relation to the Influence of Egypt and British Imperial Powers, 1899-1936

Simon Mollan
History Department, University of Durham

This paper will explore the theme of Sudan in her regional context by examining how control over the finances of the Sudan Government became one of the key issues in determining who really exercised power between 1899-1936. The central argument that will be made in this paper is that at the beginning of the Condominium the Sudan Government was tightly controlled by external agencies, but that gradually - and certainly by 1931 - the Sudan Government itself was de facto in full financial control, though, paradoxically, legally she was not. This legal and technical muddle as to whom had the ultimate say in the affairs of Sudan can be traced back to the original Condominium Agreement of 1899 and the way in which the state was conceived of as an entity. An ongoing tension can be seen between the British Foreign Office, the Egyptian Government and the Sudan Government, and is analysed in this paper through the evolution and development of financial regulations (up to the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936) that laid out the framework for financial control. This in turn partly defined the reality of the political relationships between Egypt and Sudan, and Great Britain and Sudan, and the degree of political independence enjoyed by the domestic government. The reality of politics is that money matters: whomever controls budgets wields real power, and he who pays the piper, to some degree, calls the tune. The story that is revealed in this paper is the process of Sudan gradually developing a distinct administrative and financial separation from Egypt – a consequence, and an effect of, the problem of control in a country technically governed by two other countries.

“and we are in fact being ruled by a peddler” Conflicts Among the Merchant Elite in Central Kordofan 1877-78

David Decker

University of South Carolina Sumter

Throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a Nile Valley merchant diaspora had integrated itself within Kordofan. By the 1860’s this diaspora made up of Dangolawi, Ja’alin exercised firm control over the commercial operations in Kordofan and were steadily gaining political control as well. This paper examines the conflict which took place between two powerful merchants, Ilyas Um Brayr and Ahmad Dafalla, as each vied for power within the Turco-Egyptian administration of Kordofan.
Charles Gordon sparked the conflict between these two powerful merchants by appointing Ilyas Um Brayr governor of Kordofan. Ahmed Dafallah immediately moved to undermine the appointment by inciting political unrest among indigenous leaders. The political infighting eventually led to bloodshed as the two powerful merchants used local leaders and there followers to exert control on the ground. This episode indicates not only the inter-diaspora conflicts which existed but also points to simmering resentment on the part of local leaders to the growing control of merchants in the Turco-Egyptian administration of Kordofan.

Americans in the Sudan: Reflections on Missionary History in the Nile Valley

Heather J. Sharkey
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
University of Pennsylvania

American Presbyterian missionaries arrived in Khartoum in 1899, on the heels of the Anglo-Egyptian conquest, and proceeded to engage in active evangelical and social-service work during the next half century. These missionaries were not the first Americans to make careers in the country: that distinction goes to a few ex-Confederate Army officers who sought positions in the Turco-Egyptian military in the 1870s. Nevertheless, missionaries represented the first sustained presence of Americans in the Sudan decades before the country figured in U.S. government Cold War calculations. This paper reflects on the impact of American Presbyterian missionaries in the Nile Valley and on the long-term legacies of their work, not only in the southern Sudan, where they gained many converts, but also in the Muslim communities of the northern Sudan and Egypt.

Burgos, Westerners and Other Odds and Ends’; West African Migrants in the Gezira Scheme 1925-1956

Anna Clarkson
University of Durham, UK.

The early years of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in Sudan witnessed increasing numbers of West Africans moving east, into and through Sudan. The Gezira Scheme came to play a pivotal role in the lives of many of these people. By 1940, there were nearly 62,000 ‘Western’ labourers and 4,160 ‘Western’ tenants (19% of total tenants) working within the scheme. This paper examines some of the social implications of this immigration, and the resulting participation in the modern capitalist economy of a group who always continued to hold a ‘stranger status’ in the eyes of other Gezira inhabitants and the colonial government. Officials, under the twin demands of a central government relying for revenue on Gezira Scheme profits and a profit-seeking Syndicate, took a pragmatic perspective on the issue of labour requirements after the establishment of the scheme, thereby establishing a backdrop of government apathy and absence of measures of control over this transient population. This paper argues that West Africans were successful in exploiting their mobility and community ties in this free-market environment, and that early attitudes among ‘native’ Gezira tenants, of hardworking labourers were replaced by protectionist rhetoric during the Condominium period.

David Reubeni Revisited

Gabriel Warburg
Haifa University

As is known to many Sudanists David Ha-Reuveni visited the Funj Sultanate in 1523, claiming to be a Sharif on his way from Mecca to Italy (see S.Hillelson, "David Reubeni, An Early visitor to Sennar", SNR Vol. 16, 1933:55-66). The motives of this trip, as well as Reuveni's origin and death have remained somewhat of a puzzle, of which certain details, which were not available to Hilleson, are now known. In my presentation I intend to fill some of these gaps.