Land grants and marriage were paired as prerequisites for a freed Sudanese community

Evidence

It is also interesting how the dialogue treated gender roles. Sa´id states several times that, if only the government would provide them with the plots of land they deserve, then the Sudanese could marry each other and create the sort of family life he feels they deserve. The idea of marriage accompanies the suggestion of the Sudanese getting the chance to create their own community. While it would depend the investments of previous employers, this would be a community of individuals liberated from the homes of wealthy Egyptians and able to create their own. Several sentences later, Sa´id repeats the idea about the respectability of the Sudanese being able to marry and create homes with their women, “our sisters.” But Bakhïta has more trouble envisioning this kind of family setting, so rooted does her loyalty remain to her former mistress, to whom she was like a daughter. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 687

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the reader’s existing notes on how colonial and reformist projects tied land ownership to respectable household formation and social order.