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Book chapter | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Sudanese military slavery from the eighteenth to the twentieth century |
Author: | Johnson, D.H. |
Book title: | Slavery and other forms of unfree labour / ed. by Léonie J. Archer. - London [etc.]: Routledge |
Year: | 1988 |
Pages: | 142-156 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Sudan |
Subjects: | slavery armed forces |
Abstract: | This chapter looks at Sudanese military slavery as it developed in the Nile valley in what is now the Republic of the Sudan, and traces how it radiated from there into parts of East Africa and the Central Sudan during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. It suggests some reasons why military slavery, as an institution, underwent a vigorous expansion, just at that point when it was disappearing in most of the Muslim world. The chapter also demonstrates how a comprehensive study of Sudanese military slavery can contribute to an understanding of African slavery in general, and of the political and social structures and relations which were established in many countries during the colonial period. It explores the nature of the 'martial race' syndrome (the combination of marginality and dependency which made some areas ideal suppliers of so-called martial races), the fostered distinctiveness of the slave soldier, and the ethnic ambiguity surrounding military slave communities (the 'Nubi' factor). Ref. |