Colonization+and+History

Before the Christian calendar, Sudan had been split up into the Northern and Southern sections. The South being largely nomadic tribes and the North being a part of Egypt. In the year 640 Islam had shown up in Egypt and by the year 651 it started pushing South, meeting heavy resistance by the Makuria, the native religion of Sudan. Around the year 970 Sudan had steadily become an Islamic nation. Makuria fully collapsed in the fourteenth century. In 1820, Northern Sudan was unified by the Ottomans, known as Turkiyah or “Turkish regime.” During this time British missionaries traveled from Kenya (modern day) to the Sudd in an attempt to convert the natives to Christianity. 1881, a religious leader named Muhammad ibn Abdalla proclaimed himself “Mahdi” (guided one) and began a unifying war in Western and central Sudan. His followers were called Ansars, which became the Umma Party of modern Sudan. The Mahdi led a nationalists rebellion in Khartoum on January 1885. The governor-general of Sudan, British Major-General Charles George Gordon and 50,000 Khartoum inhabitants were massacred. The Mahdi died in June the same year and was followed by Khalifa Abdullah. In the year 1898 the British-Egyptian force led by Lord Kitchener halted the fighting and Sudan was proclaimed to be a condominium under the administration said to be both Egyptian and British. 1892, Belgian expeditions started to claim parts of Southern Sudan known as Lado Enclaves, which officially became a part of the Belgian Congo. The United Kingdom and Belgium agreed in 1896 that upon King Leopold II death, the enclave would be turned over to the British. King Leopold II died in 1910. France slowly started claiming areas in Sudan and by 1896 had a strong administration, and planned on annexing the areas into the French West Africa. The Fashoda incident developed between France and the United Kingdom over these areas: Bahr el Ghazal, and the Western Upper Nile. In 1899 France ceded the land to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The North and South Sudan provinces were separately administered, but still a part of the same condominium. In the early 1920’s the British passed the Closed Districts Ordinances, causing travel and trade between the two sections of Sudan to be much more difficult. For example, Passports and permits were required. The South had 8 official languages: English, Dinka, Bari, Nuer, Latuko, Shilluk, Azande, and Pari. The North had 2: Arabic and English. Islam was discouraged in the south, because of the Christians missionaries there. The British administration was largely focused on improving the infrastructure of the North, and left the South to their own devices. Britain promoted the power of Sayyid Ali al-Mirghani, Khatmiyya sect head, and Sayyid Abd al-Rahman, Ansar sect head, to help establish British Authority in the North. The Ansar sect became the Umma party, and Khatmiyya became the Democratic Unionist Party.