The Egyptian Kingdom replaced the Ottomans in northern Sudan. Of course the British were also there but in the background. After the war, where Sudanese including the Hadendoa fuzzy wuzzies had helped fight off the Italians and Egypt was especially weak, it was a good time for the native Sudanese to make their case for a nation. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Naturally during the co dominion period, the postal service was left to the British. A dominion on the way to independence will show more of the local flavor of the place but still with a colonial perspective. So here we have a member of the Hadendoa tribe appearing on a stamp. The Hadendoa tribe is a mixed group with black African and Arab heritage. The wild hair that they process was what stood out about them to the British and what appears on this later stamp. The Hadendoa were the subject of the term Fuzzy-Wuzzies that Rudyard Kipling made famous. The Hadendoa do not feature on more modern Sudanese stamps. They did not win the power struggle post independence.
Todays stamp is issue A11, a 10 Milliemes/1 Piaster stamp issued by Sudan in 1951. This was while it was still under the co dominion of Egypt and Britain. It was a 17 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.
The Hadendoa (lion clan) was a nomadic tribe that were part of the old Christian Kingdom of Axum in eastern Sudan and Ethiopia. The tribe was gradually converted to Muslim mainly by intermarriage. The Muslims of Sudan thought that the Ottomans to the north were too lax in upholding Islam while the British to the south were preventing the conversion of Africans in southern Sudan. The Sudanese united under a Muslim cleric named Mohamad Ahmad who had proclaimed himself Mahdi. A Mahdi is a redeemer of the Islamic world. The uprising lasted 18 years before the British finally won. That is of course if you accept that winning in Sudan is being allowed to stay there.
After World War II, the group put down in the Mahdi uprising were elevated briefly by the British. The British were looking to leave Sudan while the Egyptians desired to stay and formally annex it. British efforts toward nation building included a plebiscite on the future of Sudan that supporters of Egypt boycotted. Thus the late days colonial government perhaps over represented the Hadendoa. The British had built a dam on the Nile river that had greatly increased the area of cultivated land and this was used to raise cotton for use in the then British textile industry. During this period the Monarchy in Egypt fell and the new government renewed efforts to influence Sudan with an eye toward merging the countries. When there was a second election to chose the post independence government, the pro Egyptian party won and became the dominant force in early post independence Sudan.
Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.