Who, When, and Why Colonized South Sudan?
South Sudan was colonized twice, the first time was by a collaboration of Egyptians and Turks, in 1821, when they invaded with the intentions of expanding the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish and Egyptians were interesting in variety of the natural resources including gold and timber. They were also interested in potential slaves, which lead to the Egyptians working with the people of North Sudan to raid the south, rounding up slaves. This resulted in millions of South Sudanese people being taken and forced into slavery. The Egyptians occupied South Sudan for 60 years, however they never established complete political control over the area.
British colonization was first introduced when missionaries traveled up through Sudan with ambitions to convert the local tribes to Christianity. This was in the 1880’s, which started the combine rule of the Egyptians and British. Shortly after this was established there was a revolt against the colonial powers that had occupied the state, lead by Muhammad Ahmad Al Mahdi, which defeated the British/Egyptian rule in 1885.
After facing defeat, the British/Egyptian power regains control of South Sudan, with the use of military campaigns lead by the British Lord Kitchener. At this time the North and South Sudan were administered as separate regions, due to the different religious desires and language and ethnic differences. The North and the South had always been different, so this system worked well when considering these factors. Britain focused more heavily on the infrastructure, economy, and political system in the North and South Sudan was left primarily as they had been prior to British rule. Then in 1946, Britain abruptly decided to rule North and South Sudan under one unified government. This left South Sudan as a minority as they did not have a large part in this new government and did not speak the official new government language, Arabic, one of the two official languages in the north. There were 800 government positions in the new, unified government, and only 4 of these positions were filled by a South Sudanese person.
After facing defeat, the British/Egyptian power regains control of South Sudan, with the use of military campaigns lead by the British Lord Kitchener. At this time the North and South Sudan were administered as separate regions, due to the different religious desires and language and ethnic differences. The North and the South had always been different, so this system worked well when considering these factors. Britain focused more heavily on the infrastructure, economy, and political system in the North and South Sudan was left primarily as they had been prior to British rule. Then in 1946, Britain abruptly decided to rule North and South Sudan under one unified government. This left South Sudan as a minority as they did not have a large part in this new government and did not speak the official new government language, Arabic, one of the two official languages in the north. There were 800 government positions in the new, unified government, and only 4 of these positions were filled by a South Sudanese person.
The Lasting Impact
The impact of colonization was immense as it lead to years of struggling and war for South Sudan. Focusing primarily on the North instead of the South created a minority, which would mean the people become a second class citizen within their own nation. This was not a problem until the British inconsiderately decided to combine the two countries, creating the second class citizen. If the British had not decided to do this, then Sudan as a whole could have avoided taking part in two brutal wars, which destabilized the nations and created many problems for them to address as a modern day nation.