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Answer

Who colonized Sudan?

North Africa — the powers that ruled Sudan, the dates, and what independence did and did not change.

In short

Who colonized Sudan?

Britain and Egypt jointly, as the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium from 1899 — after Kitchener's reconquest — until independence on 1 January 1956.

Omdurman in 1898 is the clearest demonstration of the technological gap that made the Scramble possible: repeating rifles and Maxim guns against massed infantry.

World map showing imperial possessions and spheres of rule in 1914
A world map of imperial possessions in 1914, offered as global context only. It is a single snapshot: countries that became independent earlier, later occupations, disputed borders and differences between colonies and protectorates require the chronology below.Source — Wikimedia Commons

How rule changed in Sudan

These periods describe different governing arrangements. The presence of a trading company, a military occupation and direct colonial government are not interchangeable; the notes preserve those distinctions where the record identifies them.

Political chronology

Rulers, periods and governing arrangements

PeriodRuler or administrationContext
before 1885Funj, Darfur sultanates; Turco-Egyptian rule from 1821See the chronology and context below.
1885–1898Mahdist StateSee the chronology and context below.
1899–1956Anglo-Egyptian SudanSee the chronology and context below.

Periods may overlap where control differed by territory. A national independence date does not imply that every enclave or dependency changed status on that day.

At a glance

Key facts

Colonising powers
Britain, Egypt
Independence
1 January 1956
Omdurman
About 12,000 Sudanese dead against roughly 50 British and Egyptian
Southern Policy
North and south governed as separate units, restricting movement between them
Consequence
Civil war from 1955; South Sudan's separation in 2011

Chronology

Key dates

  1. 1885

    Fall of Khartoum to the Mahdist forces.

  2. 1898

    Omdurman: machine guns against massed infantry; around 12,000 Sudanese killed.

  3. 1899

    Condominium established.

  4. 1920s

    Southern Policy administers north and south separately.

  5. 1956

    Independence, with civil war already beginning.

Context

What the record shows

Britain then administered northern and southern Sudan as separate territories for three decades and joined them at independence, a decision at the root of the civil wars that followed.

Questions

Frequently asked

Who colonised Sudan?
Britain and Egypt jointly, as the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium from 1899 to 1956, though Britain held effective control.
What was the Southern Policy?
A British administrative policy from the 1920s that governed southern Sudan separately from the north and restricted contact between them, deepening the division that fuelled later civil wars.
When did Sudan become independent?
1 January 1956.

Read on

Related in the archive

References

Sources — colonial Sudan

  1. [1]Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Seville, 1552).
  2. [2]Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  3. [3]Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America (Monthly Review Press, 1971; English 1973).
  4. [4]Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost (Houghton Mifflin, 1998).
  5. [5]Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa (Random House, 1991).
  6. [6]Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (Hurst, 2017).
  7. [7]Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Henry Holt, 2005).
  8. [8]Alfred W. McCoy, Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Wisconsin, 2009).
  9. [9]Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019).
  10. [10]Jürgen Zimmerer, "The birth of the Ostland out of the spirit of colonialism", Patterns of Prejudice 39:2 (2005), on the German South-West Africa → Holocaust lineage.
  11. [11]Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Bogle-L'Ouverture, 1972).
  12. [12]Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (1867), Chapter 31 ("Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist").

All works cited in good faith for documentary, educational and critical use. Errors and omissions: contact the archive.