ABSTRACT
The his tory of the Nilotes, in the sense of their diseovery and exploration and the beginning of documented knowledge eoneerning them, begins as late as the early 19th century.
The Egyptians invaded the Sudan in 1821 at the command of Mohammed Mi Pasha who sent his son, Ismail, south from Egypt into the Sudan so that, through conquest, these regions might provide the Egyptians with soldiers, slaves and wealth. The period of Egyptian maladministration whieh followed the eonquest was marked by extortion and rapine. Most of the Nilotic trihes were too far south to feel the full brunt of the evils which ensued, but slave raids oceurred and heavy taxation was extorted from the less inaccessible tribes. By 1850 the trade monopoly, which had at first been exercised by the government, was allowed to lapse and Arab traders from the northern distriets were enabled to obtain, for a consideration, coneessions to proeure slaves by whatever n~ans they pleased. ßy 1869 the power of the slave traders had become so great that they were practically independent kings. A number of efforts were :nade at reform, notab1y by Sir Samual Baker who, in 1869, was made Governor~nera1 of the Equatoria Provinees by the Khedive and was told to annexe the Nile basin southwards from Goodokoro. . He was sueceeded by Gordon in 1874. Between them they effected the opening of corrmunieations with the Great Lakes and Lganda.(I)
Thus it was that in the first half of the 19th eentury western eivilisation first eame into real eontaet with the Sudan. During this time there was a suecessiOll of great explorers; Speke and Grant, Marno, Sehweinfurth, Junker Schnitzer (Emin Pasha), Be I trame , Petheriek, Poneet, Baker and lleuglin and others, penetrate the region and a eertain amount of reliable information on the eharaeter of the various Upper Nile tribes began to be assimilated, although anthropologieal1y the value of their aeeounts is slight.
