Owing and Owning: Zubayr Pasha, Slavery, and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Sudan

<p>The Mahdist revolt provides a quandary: why did Africans revolt against imperialism in defense of slavery? This study approaches the issue by analyzing the life of Zubayr Pasha, most well-known of Sudanese slave-traders in the decades leading to the Mahdist Revolt. What I found in interviews with him, parliamentary debates over him, articles about him, and proclamations concerning him, was that the emotional responses to his story show different perspectives on the processes of overlapping imperialisms, voluntary slavery, and a host of integrated issues. To himself he was a trader, a businessman working within the letter of the law; to others he symbolized either native brutality or realpolitik. The implications of this work are a new understanding of slavery and imperialism as more subtle and more related concepts than they are usually given credit for, making the Mahdist revolt less mysterious.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Berman, Zachary S

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Simon Davis

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Timothy Alborn
• Elena Frangakis-Syrett

• African History
• European History
• History
• Islamic World and Near East History

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1779

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-2798