The Sudan under Turkish Rule

By 1820, the king of Sennar had become very weak, and Nubia was in an almost lawless state. Learning that the Nubians had very few guns, Egypt's new ruler, Muhammad Ali, invaded Sudan with an army that had cannons. With these, he easily conquered the country and joined it to Egypt. He founded the city of Khartoum, where the Blue and White Niles meet, and established a governor there to rule the Sudanese. Mohammed Ali's empire extended all the way to central Africa and included almost all the Nile Valley. It was the largest Nile empire ever created.

Engraving of the Egyptian army camped at Jebel Barkal in 1820 during its war of conquest in Sudan. After F. Cailliaud, 1826.

Mohammed Ali seized the throne of Egypt from the Mamlukes in a bloody coup and ruled as an independent king. In 1820 he conquered the Sudan and created an empire on the Nile that extended into Central Africa.

From James Grant, Cassell's History of the War in the Soudan. London: 1887.

During this time, European explorers and businessmen poured into the Sudan as never before. Explorers mapped many of the remotest parts of the Sudan and even found the sources of the Nile.

This period of Egyptian rule in Sudan is known as the "Turkiya", because officially, Egypt was part of the Turkish Empire. The Egyptians (called "Turks") treated the Sudanese brutally, overtaxed them, and took many slaves. By the 1880s the Sudanese were so unhappy that they were ready to revolt against their Egyptian masters.

Arab slavers in the Sudan in the nineteenth century.

From James Grant, Cassell's History of the War in the Soudan. London: 1887.

Ruined fort near El-Kurru, Sudan, built by the occupying armies of Egypt in the early nineteenth century.

Photo: T. Kendall.