Former Sudanese slaves endured chronic employment insecurity after manumission

Evidence

Sa´id, however, remembers the terrible journey with the slave dealers more vividly than he does any kindnesses from his former masters. But Bakhïta makes one point on which they both agree, that it is confusing and difficult to parcel themselves out to different households, to work for one household one month and another the next. Slavery is not better than freedom, she admits, but the uncertainty of independent living is intolerable. Sa´id agrees that the employment situation of former slaves is dire, and he tells Bakhïta that he thinks the government should take responsibility for them and give every manumitted slave a plot of land from royal estates and the necessary machinery and tools. After all, he says, the government used them to cultivate a lot of land, year after year, and also conscripted many soldiers out of the Sudan. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 683