British officials presumed any black woman in an Egyptian household was a slave

Evidence

These pictographic ideas circulated unabated in 1894, particularly during the pashas’ trial, when Herbert Kitchener, the sirdär (commander) of Egypt, suggested that `Alï Pasha Sharïf’s harem be searched for three other slaves, “white women being identified by their hands and allowed to pass without being examined.” In the eyes of these British officials, the black hands and black skin of any woman living in an Egyptian household automatically signified a slave: thus black women in Egyptian homes could only have been brought there illegally, in a state of criminally imposed bondage. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 706

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader literature on how colonial racial categories predetermined legal interpretation of African bodies and domestic arrangements.
• QUESTION: How did this racialized equation of blackness with slavery in Egypt compare to similar colonial logics elsewhere in Africa?