The Emergence of a Sudanic State: Dar Masalit, 1874-1905

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Periodical article

Title:	The Emergence of a Sudanic State: Dar Masalit, 1874-1905
Author:	Kapteijns, Lidwien
Year:	1983
Periodical:	International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:	16
Issue:	4
Pages:	601-613
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sudan
Subjects:	history Dar Masalit polity colonialism History and Exploration nationalism
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/218268
Abstract:	This paper analyzes the emergence of a small Sudanic state, the Masalit Sultanate of western Dar Fur (Sudan), in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It briefly surveys the (regional) political events which made the rise of the state possible, and discusses the ways in which the Masalit sultans, following the pattern of the defunct Dar Fur Sultanate (1650-1874), organized and consolidated their state from within. The study of the Masalit Sultanate yields detailed information about Sudanic institutions whose function and importance in the older sultanates of the Dar Fur/Wadai region are still unclear. The institutions of long-distance trade and slavery in Dar Masalit have been analyzed elsewhere. The main burden of the present paper is to show that agricultural produce, extracted from the commoners in kind, through regular taxation and ad hoc demands by fief-holding members of the nobility, formed the main sustenance of the state. Notes.