Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- General introduction
- Part One FROM ZARIBA TO MERKAZ: THE CREATION OF THE NODAL STATE FRONTIER, c. 1840–1920
- Part Two FROM MAKAMA TO MEJLIS: THE MAKING OF CHIEFSHIP AND THE LOCAL STATE, 1920s–1950s
- 3 Constituting the urban frontier: chiefship and the colonial labour economy, 1920s–1940s
- 4 Claiming rights and guarantees: chiefs' courts and state justice, c. 1900–1956
- 5 Containing the frontier: the tensions of territorial chiefdoms, 1930s–1950s
- 6 Uncertainty on the urban frontier: chiefs and the politics of Sudanese independence, 1946–1958
- Part Three FROM MALAKIYA TO MEDINA: THE FLUCTUATING EXPANSION OF THE URBAN FRONTIER, c. 1956–2010
- Conclusion
- Interviews
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastern African Studiues
3 - Constituting the urban frontier: chiefship and the colonial labour economy, 1920s–1940s
from Part Two - FROM MAKAMA TO MEJLIS: THE MAKING OF CHIEFSHIP AND THE LOCAL STATE, 1920s–1950s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- General introduction
- Part One FROM ZARIBA TO MERKAZ: THE CREATION OF THE NODAL STATE FRONTIER, c. 1840–1920
- Part Two FROM MAKAMA TO MEJLIS: THE MAKING OF CHIEFSHIP AND THE LOCAL STATE, 1920s–1950s
- 3 Constituting the urban frontier: chiefship and the colonial labour economy, 1920s–1940s
- 4 Claiming rights and guarantees: chiefs' courts and state justice, c. 1900–1956
- 5 Containing the frontier: the tensions of territorial chiefdoms, 1930s–1950s
- 6 Uncertainty on the urban frontier: chiefs and the politics of Sudanese independence, 1946–1958
- Part Three FROM MALAKIYA TO MEDINA: THE FLUCTUATING EXPANSION OF THE URBAN FRONTIER, c. 1956–2010
- Conclusion
- Interviews
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastern African Studiues
Summary
In 2006, a very elderly Bari man, a former mechanic, recalled being moved when still a small child in the late 1920s to make way for the building of the new provincial headquarters of Juba. He stated that the chief at the time, Gaddum, had been made chief because he knew more Arabic than the rest of the people, and that he was responsible for conscripting labour for the government.
People at that time did not know government affairs… A chief of long ago was not good: he would beat people, so the people were very much afraid of him. Now people are good; they know laws. But at that time, if you were a brave person, you were beaten for nothing; actually there was no law. And people were forced to work without being paid; working on the roads for no money.
Knowledge of Arabic and ‘government affairs’ had often been converted into chiefship in the early years of the Condominium by individuals like Gaddum. For this interviewee, and for many others, the enduring memory of such chiefship was its coercion of labour and its arbitrary force. In general the documentary records and oral histories similarly emphasise the forced extraction of labour as the most obvious feature of colonial rule in southern Sudan, and as the primary function of chiefs, together with the often associated collection of tax.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Dealing with Government in South SudanHistories of Chiefship, Community and State, pp. 65 - 86Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013