British officials argued Egyptians were unfit to govern Sudan due to despotism

Evidence

Buying slaves was thus a benevolent mission of rescue, and buyers were civilizing agents for the wretched of the Sudan. The English editor of the Egyptian Gazette, a paper heavily subsidized by Lord Cromer, predictably rejected the claims of inherent mercy in the purchase of slaves and amplified the relationship of this argument to the larger issue on trial: which culture, British or Egyptian, was better equipped to control the Sudan itself? For the Gazette editor, Egyptian society was irrevocably tainted by Islamic despotism both publicly and privately, a factor that made Egyptians as incapable of gov- erning others as they were of managing their own political independence: “Surely it would not be safe to entrust persons with so slight a sense of moral and political responsibility with more power than they now have. They are clearly not yet educated up to the positions which they hold.These incidents, though ludicrous at first sight, warn us how unwise it would be to remove the authority which exposes and checks practices like these.” — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 712

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Core to the reader’s comparative coloniality goal: shows how the same anti-slavery argument performed opposite work — one side (Cromer’s paper) using it to deny Egypt empire over Sudan, the other side (Shawarbi’s lawyer) using it to cast Egyptian slave-buying as civilizing rescue.

Related

• Britain justified its empire by discrediting Egyptian authority over Sudan (similarity 0.92)
• Britain used anti-slavery claims to justify its empire over Egypt and Sudan (similarity 0.86)
• British officials used antislavery rhetoric to dismiss Egypt’s empire and justify their own (similarity 0.85)
• British antislavery ideology morally delegitimized Egypt’s own empire in the Sudan (similarity 0.84)
• European officers orchestrated the removal of Egyptian officials in Sudan (similarity 0.84)
• Egypt hired British officials to placate London abolitionists (similarity 0.83)
• Cromer treated slavery as socially respectable in Egypt and ignored the Anti-Slavery Society (similarity 0.83)
• Cromer deemed slavery practically respectable in Egyptian society (similarity 0.83)
• European administrators branded Egyptian governors in Sudan as despotic slave dealers. (similarity 0.83)
• Britain dismissed Egypt’s empire ambitions to justify its own colonial rule. (similarity 0.83)
• Egyptian independence hinged on proving moral compatibility with western Europe (similarity 0.83)
• British officials used women’s education as justification for Egyptian colonial rule (similarity 0.82)
• British administrators deemed Egyptians constitutionally incapable of opposing slavery (similarity 0.82)
• British occupation shifted the slavery debate to question Egyptian fitness for self-rule (similarity 0.82)
• British officials doubted Egyptian nationalists were sincere about abolishing slavery (similarity 0.81)