ABSTRACT
At the opening of the twentieth century King Leopold of Belgium and the Congo once again sought to exert his claims to the Bahr al-Ghazal and thereby drew the British into the Southern Sudan to dispute the King's claims by an effective and permanent occupation. The Sudanic-speaking peoples in the central Bahr al-Ghazal and the Shilluk and Bari along the Nile were the first to capitulate to British officers and accept their authority. To the Southern Sudanese there was no contradiction between his revolutionary tradition of resistance and his deeply rooted conservatism toward any alteration in his way of living and his customary institutions. The long period of pacification in the Southern Sudan clearly conditioned the form of European imperial rule, which in turn shaped the evolution of tribal society. Like most basic administrative decisions, Southern Policy was an attempt to clarify the confusion existing over British policy in the Southern Sudan.
