Abstract
Though normal conditions returned around 1840, the balance of power in the broader region had been fundamentally changed because the mega-drought had created the conditions for the Egyptian conquest of the ARSL. Pastoralist communities, which had historically been able to flexibly maneuver in ways that allowed them to maintain their autonomy, were unable on their own to mount an effective resistance to Egypt’s imperial expansion because they were no longer a unified front. Traditional pastoral leaders and the Islamic new religious elites were locked in a power struggle, which Egyptian officials manipulated to their advantage. Egyptian officials turned both groups against their own followers by offering to protect their privilege in exchange for their collaboration in extracting as much tribute as possible from the already suffering population.
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- 1.
Popper, The Cairo Nilometer, 174–178.
- 2.
Paul, A History of the Beja Tribes of the Sudan; Hjort af Ornäs and Dahl, Responsible Man, 32.
- 3.
Paul, A History of the Beja Tribes of the Sudan, 100.
- 4.
Owen, ‘The Hadendowa,’ 193. Though this plan failed, the remnants of the dam were not cleared. Thus, they permanently altered the course of the river and the area of the delta into which it drained. Secretary of the Kassala Cotton Company to the Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, UK, 18 January 1924 CIVSEC 2/8/32 National Records Office, Khartoum (NRO).
- 5.
Owen, ‘The Hadendowa,’ 193.
- 6.
Owen, ‘The Hadendowa,’ 195.
- 7.
Paul, ‘Notes on the Beni Amer,’ 226.
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Ibid.
- 9.
Owen, ‘The Hadendowa,’ 193.
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Muhammad Mahmoud, ‘Sufism and Islamism in the Sudan,’ in African Islam and Islam in Africa: Encounters between Sufis and Islamists, Eva Evers Rosander and David Westerlund, eds. (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1997), 170.
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Samuel Baker, The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia and the Sword Hunters of the Hamran Arabs, 3rd edition (London: Macmillan and Co, 1868), 73–74.
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Memoria sulla tribù Ad Sciaraf [n.d. June 1892]. Posizione 4/3 Archivio Storico Diplomatico Ministero Africa Italiana, Rome (ASDMAI).
- 13.
William Ochsenwald, ‘The Financial Basis of Ottoman Rule in the Hijaz 1840–1877,’ in Nationalism in a Non-Nation State: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, William W. Haddad and William Ochsenwald, eds. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977), 134–135.
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Hassan Dafalla, The Nubian Exodus (London: C Hurst & Co, 1975), 21.
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Hill, Egypt in the Sudan, 60–61.
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Charles-Xavier Rochet d’Héricourt, Second Voyage sur les Deux Rives de la Mer Rouge Dans le Pays des Adels et le Royaume de Choa (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1846), 179–180.
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Colette Dubois, Djibouti 1888–1967: Héritage ou frustration? (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), 50.
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Bahru Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia 1855–1991, 2nd edition (Oxford: James Currey, 2001), 31.
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Zewde, A History of Modern Ethiopia, 39–40.
- 20.
Jonathan A. Grant, Rulers, Guns, and Money: The Global Arms Trade in the Age of Imperialism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 47–48.
- 21.
For a thorough retelling of this campaign, see Volker Matthies, The Siege of Magdala: The British Empire Against the Emperor of Ethiopia, translated by Steven Rendall (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2012).
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K. V. Ram, Anglo-Ethiopian Relations 1869 to 1906: A Study of British Policy in Ethiopia (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 2009), 4–8.
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Paul, A History of the Beja Tribes of the Sudan, 101–102.
- 24.
Paul, A History of the Beja Tribes of the Sudan, 101.
- 25.
Memorandum by Major Chermside Respecting the Situation of Affairs at Suakin and the Proposed Measures to be Taken to Open the Berber Road, 29 March 1884 FO407/61/61. NA.
- 26.
P. M. Holt, The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881–1898: A Study of the Origins, Development and Overthrow, 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 82.
- 27.
Il Capitano Boari to il Governatore della Colonia Eritrea, 11 March 1891, The Nakfa Documents, 272–286.
- 28.
Intelligence Branch, War Department, Great Britain, Report on the Egyptian Provinces of the Sudan, Red Sea and Equator (1884), 40. Sudan Archive Durham (SAD).
- 29.
Turko-Egyptian officials also used Massawa to establish claims to territory on the African littoral of the Gulf of Aden . In 1867, Khedive Ismail sent an agent from Massawa to Barbara to settle a dispute between Somali factions. Similar missions over the next five years strengthened the Turko-Egyptian presence on the Somali coast and laid the groundwork for a permanent occupation. In 1873, several hundred Turko-Egyptian troops landed at Barbara and constructed a permanent fort. Military officers subsequently used Barbara as a base to extend control over Bulhar. In July 1875, Turko-Egyptian diplomatic efforts led to the Ottoman Porte ceding Zayla, which had previously been ruled from Yemen, to the Khedive. As Turko-Egyptian officials were establishing a claim to the coast up to Ras Hafun, officials were also extending Turko-Egyptian rule into the interior. In June 1872, Werner Munzinger, who had recently appointed governor of Massawa, sent troops to permanently occupy Keren and Senheit. At the start of 1874, Munzinger traveled to Barbara, where he met with Somali elites from the interior and compelled them to submit to Turko-Egyptian protection. The following year, a Turko-Egyptian force conquered Harrar, the strategic center of trade and Islamic learning in the interior. This expansionist campaign only came to a halt in 1875, after an expedition led by Muzinger to take the port of Tajoura and two other expeditions into the Ethiopian highlands were defeated. R. J. Gavin, Aden under British Rule, 1839–1967 (London: C Hurst and Co, 1975), 148; A. W. M. Egyptian Claim to Sovereignty over the Somali Coast (No. 1). 26 February 1876 IOR L/PS/20/MEMO41 British Library, London (BL); Stephen Longrigg, A Short History of Eritrea, reprint of the 1945 edition (Eastport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974), 106–108.
- 30.
Jonathan Miran, ‘Power without Pashas: The Anatomy of Na’ib Autonomy in Ottoman Eritrea (17th–19th C.),’ Eritrean Studies Review, 5:1 (2007): 33–44.
- 31.
Miran, ‘Power without Pashas,’ 47.
- 32.
Il Capitano Boari to il Governatore della Colonia Eritrea, 11 March 1891, The Nakfa Documents, 272–286.
- 33.
Ibid.
- 34.
‘Tributi’ [n.d.], The Nakfa Documents, 152.
- 35.
‘Tributi pagati dalla mudiria (provincia) di Massaua sotto gli Egiziani al tempo di Munzinger confrontati con quelli che si propongono’ [n.d. 1891], The Nakfa Documents, 287–288.
- 36.
Miran, ‘A Historical Overview of Islam in Eritrea,’ 186.
- 37.
Il Capitano Boari to il Governatore della Colonia Eritrea, 11 March 1891, The Nakfa Documents, 272–286.
- 38.
Memoria sulla tribù Ad Sciaraf [n.d. June 1892]. Posizione 4/3 ASDMAI.
- 39.
Hassan al-Aziz Ahmed, ‘Aspects of Sudan’s Foreign Trade During the 19th Century,’ Sudan Notes and Records, 55 (1974): 17; Roden, ‘The Twentieth Century Decline of Suakin,’ 4.
- 40.
Consual Reports. Suakin. Commercial, No. 82 (C4293, 1887), 2.
- 41.
Roden, ‘The Twentieth Century Decline of Suakin,’ 5.
- 42.
Markovitz, ‘Indian Merchant Networks Outside India,’ 27.
- 43.
A dhow is a masted boat with one or more lateen sails. For specific descriptions of the various types of dhows still in use in the SRSR in the second half of the twentieth century, see Hikoichi Yajima, The Arab Dhow Trade in the Indian Ocean: Preliminary Report (Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1976).
- 44.
Dhows were dependent on wind or human power and therefore did not have to factor in the cost of fuel into the price of transport. Further, dhows could charge lower fees because they minimized maintenance and staffing costs. In addition, shows did not require that goods be immediately offloaded at port . Therefore, merchants could avoid on shore storage fees. Hala Fattah, The Politics of Regional trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 1745–1900 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1997), 85. This was especially true for short-haul trips between Red Sea ports. The crews on board dhows had specialized knowledge of the navigable channels, barrier reefs, and sand shoals in the Red Sea. They could better navigate near the shore and could land goods at more ports and natural harbors than steamers. Dhows were even able to outrun and outmaneuver the steamers operated by the British Navy. Secretary to the Admiralty to Lister, 8 June 1881 FO84/1597. NA.
- 45.
This had been the case since the start of regular trade between India and Red Sea ports. Shipments of grain from India had a profound impact on the food culture of Western Arabia. Before the fourteenth century, rice was not typically eaten in the SRSR . The preferred grains were sorghum and wheat. In the seventeenth century, Indian rulers began sending shipments of rice to be distributed as charity to the caretakers of the Muslim holy sites. These gifts familiarized communities with rice and led to the development of a regular demand, which was subsequently met by regular commercial trade. Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans 1517–1683 (London and New York: I B Tauris & Co, 1994), 166.
- 46.
Ochsenwald, ‘The Financial Basis of Ottoman Rule in the Hijaz 1840–1877,’ 131–132.
- 47.
Muhammad al-Sha’afi, The Foreign Trade of Jeddah during the Ottoman Period, 1840–1916 (Saudi Arabia: King Saud University, 1985), 146–147.
- 48.
Karl Benjamin Klunzinger, Upper Egypt: Its People and Products (London: Blackie, 1878), 275.
- 49.
In September of that year, when officials in Baghdad suspended grain exports because they feared that there would be an insufficient yield to meet local needs because cultivators had been conscripted to fight in the Russo-Turkish war. Grain continued to be exported from Basra as contraband for the next few months. When food riots broke out on 1 December 1877, this contraband trade was blamed and effective police measures were put in place. Grain exports from Iraq were not resumed for over a decade. Fattah, The Politics of Regional trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 151–153.
- 50.
Istituto Agricolo Coloniale Italiano, L’Economia Eritrea: nel cinquatennio dell’occupazione di Assab (1882–1932) (Florence: Istituto Agricolo Coloniale Italiano, 1932), 48–49.
- 51.
In addition to domestic production, there were large workshops in Gondar and Adawa that were regionally renowned for producing a range of textiles of differing quality. Richard Pankhurst, Economic History of Ethiopia, 1800–1935 (Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie I University Press, 1968), 257–260.
- 52.
Johan A. Van Dijk, Taking the Waters; Soil and Water Conservation among Settling Beja Nomads in Eastern Sudan (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 1995), 75.
- 53.
Hjort af Ornäs and Dahl, Responsible Man, 33.
- 54.
Paul, A History of the Beja Tribes, 103.
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Serels, S. (2018). Divided and Conquered, 1840–1883. In: The Impoverishment of the African Red Sea Littoral, 1640–1945. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94165-3_3
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