Dr Joseph Snyder

Southeast Missouri State University

Bio

Joseph M. Snyder is Associate Professor of History at Southeast Missouri State University. His research interests include British imperialism, the Sudan, and East Africa. He has published on social development in British Sudan, the influence of the Fabian Society on British colonial development in Africa, and literary criticism of the British Empire. His current book project examines Fabianised colonial development projects in Kenya, Uganda, and Sudan.

Soldiers of the Nile: Sudanese Agency, Imperial Strategy, and the Dongola Expedition

Abstract

This paper reexamines the 1896 Dongola Expedition, the opening campaign of the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan, by situating it within the intersecting geopolitical, economic, and imperial interests that shaped British intervention. It argues that the expedition’s success depended on Sudanese soldiers, whose role has often been marginalized in British-centered accounts. The study recasts Dongola as both an imperial campaign and a significant episode in the history of Sudanese military participation in the imperial enterprise.