British occupation shifted the slavery debate to question Egyptian fitness for self-rule

Evidence

While the `Uräbï rebellion leaders claimed to be stamping out the slave trade in the Sudan, the government was receiving news that the Mahdï was gaining control of more and more territories. There was little they could actually do in the face of increasing British military pressure and the political atmosphere of intense suspicion and fear being fomented by Khedive Tawfïq. Months later, their stated efforts to wipe out both slavery and the slave trade were completely laid to rest by the British occupation of Egypt. This made the British more directly responsible for the issue of slavery, and changed the terms of the debate. Now the British linked the issue of slavery to Egyptian independence, and nationalists had to prove their capacity for self-government within the context of Egypt’s long history of enslaving Sudanese and Nubians. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 672

Months later, their stated efforts to wipe out both slavery and the slave trade were completely laid to rest by the British occupation of Egypt. This made the British more directly responsible for the issue of slavery, and changed the terms of the debate. Now the British linked the issue of slavery to Egyptian independence, and nationalists had to prove their capacity for self-government within the context of Egypt’s long history of enslaving Sudanese and Nubians. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 672

Categorization

• XREF: This connects the reader’s Egypt-vs-Sudan comparative coloniality project to the way metropole-imposed abolition became a yardstick for civilizational capacity — a recurring pattern in colonial discourse studies (compare Said, and the civilizing-mission literature).
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the reader’s core comparative interest: here British occupation of Egypt is the pivot that redistributes responsibility for Sudan’s slavery onto the British and reframes it as a test of Egyptian self-government.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 672