Egyptian state-building projects transformed Khartoum into a colonial administrative city by 1838

Evidence

The Sudan constituted another, crucial aspect of the bridge being constructed by al-Tahtawï in the service of Muhammad Alï and his successors. In the middle of the nineteenth century, Egyptian rule in the Sudan was changing.After twelve years (1826–1838) of effective administration on the part of Khurshid Pasha (the hikimdar of the Sudan, who Muhammad Alï had encouraged to make the expedition that eventually was completed by Selim Qapudan), Khartoum had transformed into a city: an international community of merchants had settled there, as had the consuls of European governments; permanent barracks for the military had been constructed and dockyards built along the Nile. By 1842, the Egyptian administration extended to the ports of Suakin and Massawa, thus reaching as far as the Red Sea coast, and, thanks to Selim Qapudan, a route was opened up to the southern Sudan along the White Nile. During the last years of Muhammad Alï’s reign, the administration in the Sudan tottered from the viceroy’s increasingly confused orders (as Holt and Daly point out, Muhammad Alï had become senile at this late point in his life). His son Muhammad Said Pasha, who became viceroy in 1854, almost gave up completely on the Sudan, before changing his mind and seeking ways to integrate the administration of this vast territory more closely with Cairo. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 225