Slavery and Enslavement in Funj and Darfur Sultantes

Abstract

The single document that deals with slavery and enslavement in the Funj society dates back to 1754; it is part of the Sheikh Khojali documents.¹ According to Spaulding and Abu Salim,² that means it was written about 280 years after the establishment of the Black Sultanate, and three decades after the very first document issued by the sultans of Funj, dated 1724. Following this document in importance are the books of the traveler Krump from 1701,³ James Bruce from 1771⁴ and J. L. Burckhardt from 1819.⁵ Their observations and impressions cover a good deal of the eighteenth century and two decades of the nineteenth-century. All of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries remain in the dark, with no coverage by travelers to illuminate that period. The documented history of slavery and enslavement started after al-Tunisi and Burckhardt, in the documents of al-Turkiyya, al-Mahdiyya, and the Condominium era through 1936, which include the memorandum by the Civil Secretary, dated May 8, 1936.