British officials dismissed Egyptians’ anti-slavery professions as hypocrisy

Evidence

But even rebels against the system were distrusted by both current and former British officials. Few believed in the existence of the public opinion that Uräbï and his associates claimed to be spokesmen for, and even fewer thought that any Egyptian could oppose so old and intrinsic an institution. Samuel Baker, the famous explorer who had earlier been hired by Khedive Ismäïl to abolish slavery in the regions of the southern Sudan, responded publicly to the appeal that Blunt had sent to the Anti-Slavery Society, asserting that `Uräbï and the other nationalists were as involved as any Turco-Circassian in their hypocrisy over eliminating slavery in Egyptian society. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 671