Egyptians conflated Nubian, Sudanese, and Ethiopian identities in racial terms

Evidence

But black people fell into a different and much vaguer category. Whether they were Nubian or Sudanese, a single identity was projected onto them: that of al-barbarï, or the Nubian, whose color, customs, and accent Egyptian writers sketched out in numerous essays, dialogues, and stories. It is impor- tant to note here the distinction between Nubians and Sudanese. In the nineteenth century, the native homelands of Nubians extended from Upper Egypt to the northern Sudan, in the Wadi Halfa-Dongola region. Many Nubians did not speak Arabic at home, and they picked up what vocabulary they could when working in the cities of Egypt. Many Sudanese from the North came to Cairo as native speakers of Arabic. It was rare indeed for such a distinction to be made, so that in the work of most Egyptian writers of the period it is hard to find a Sudanese eloquent in spoken classical Arabic. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 311 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Egyptian writers collapsed Nubian and Sudanese into one racial type. (similarity 0.94)
• Nineteenth-century Egyptians collapsed Nubians and Sudanese into one ‘barbari’ identity (similarity 0.93)
• Egyptian law drew conscription boundaries by Nubian versus Sudanese parentage (similarity 0.89)
• Egyptian colonial courts and press conflated Nubian, Sudanese, and Ethiopian identities (similarity 0.88)
• Nubians and Sudanese differed linguistically but Egyptians erased the difference. (similarity 0.86)
• Egyptian writers ranked Sudanese tribes on a racial scale of savagery. (similarity 0.86)
• Egyptian writers framed Egyptian rule as a civilizing force over a wild Sudan (similarity 0.85)
• Egyptian intellectuals increasingly racialized identity against African societies (similarity 0.85)
• The Sudan’s ethnic divisions outweighed its religious and linguistic ties to Egypt (similarity 0.85)
• In Egypt, blackness contradicted claims to indigenous identity despite cultural fluency (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian identity was tied to Arabic fluency, which black slaves lacked. (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian nationalists actively used European race discourse to frame views on Sudan (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian racial constructions of blackness hardened mid-century. (similarity 0.84)
• Nineteenth-century Egyptian usage labeled Sudanese people Nubian rather than Berber (similarity 0.84)
• Egyptian writers blended medieval Black stereotypes with imported European power terminology (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Egyptian writers erased the Nubian-Sudanese distinction under one stereotype #expands (0.75) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 311