EARLY HISTORY
Flashpoint for Conflict
Encouraging Hostility
Rise of the Jallaba
Vivid Memories
"My Cousin Mohamed" - poem
Seasonal Migration
Dawn of Abolition
Darfur
BEFORE INDEPENDENCE - 1900-1956
Pacification & Closed Districts
"Sudanisation"
AFTER INDEPENDENCE - 1956-1989
1956-1989
The First Civil War
Abyei - A Premonition?
A Ngok Dinka Song
"Islamic" Law
Civil War re-ignites
The SPLA
Loss of Moral Authority
Uprising
Slavery in the Sahel region of Africa is hundreds of years old, and Sudan was a very active participant in the slave trade until early this century. The south-western region of Bahr al-Ghazal was one of the most prominent centres of slave trading on the African continent in the late 19th century.
South-western Sudan, on the border with the Central African Republic, is divided by the Bahr-al-Arab and Bahr-al-Ghazal rivers into two zones. With followers of Islam in the north and of Christianity and traditional religions in the south, it is a microcosm of the way the country itself is divided. It has long been a flashpoint for conflicts, often spurred by competition for resources, and compounded by racial, religious and cultural differences.
For centuries northern Sudanese and Turco-Egyptian traders raided along the Nile, deep into Upper Nile, Equatoria and into the vast lands of Bahr al-Ghazal. Here African villagers were caught, beaten and roped together. Then they were walked and shipped great distances to be sold on as domestic servants, farm hands or concubines, in Northern Sudan, neighbouring countries like Egypt and Libya, or across the Red Sea.Top
ENCOURAGING
HOSTILITY
Raiding and hostage-taking, slave-like conditions and child trafficking
among rival Sudanese tribes existed before the arrival of invaders from
the north. From the niid-1800s, however, foreign traders encouraged hostile
tribal groups to raid each other for booty including ivory and slaves.
The Baggara, Muslim cattle-herders who regard them- selves as Arabs, penetrated
south into Bahr al-Ghazal, the land of the Dinka and other African, non-Arabised
tribes.Top
RISE OF THE
JALLABA
In the early 19th century, the "Jallaba", a group of northern Muslirn
traders mostly from the Ja'aliyyin and Danagla tribes of the Nile valley,
came in increasing numbers to southern Sudan, especially northern Bahr
al-Ghazal, which became an important source of slaves. The Jallaba made
their fortunes in the slave trade, although some also worked as boatmen
and soldiers. They sent the slaves overland to markets in the north, and
kept them in enclosures with thorny fences, called zaribas, en route. The
Jailaba prospered, and became a powerful and wealthy community - with vested
interests in slavery. To this day, Southerners sometimes refer to Northerners
as "Jallaba" as if, to them, the merchant class represents the entire society.
Top
