page_title: Angelo Capato
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Angelo Capato / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS Challenger, pioneer of Oceanography. From NOAA archive. Public Domain. Image source publication information Report on the scientific results of the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-76 under the command of Captain George S. Nares, R.N., F.R.S. and the late Captain Frank Tourle Thomson, R.N./prepared under the superintendence of the late Sir C. Wyville Thompson, and now of John Murray; published by order of Her majesty's Government Library Call Number Q115.C4 NOAA source information http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/ships/ship3137.htm
context_page_description: Angelo Capato, born Angelos Helia Kapatos on the Ionian island of Cephalonia in western Greece, was the most eminent business magnate and "one of the most powerful persons" in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan at the beginning of the 20th century.
context_section_description: Capato hailed from a naval family on Cephalonia, which had been a British protectorate since 1815. Both his grandfather and his father participated in several military campaigns of the British Royal Navy. He left his home "while still a boy" and joined the British Navy at some point. He arrived in the Egyptian port town of Suez in 1870. Two years later he joined the crew of John Murray's Challenger expedition, a pioneering scientific mission in oceanography that went on until 1876. In 1882 he followed a British Nile exploration mission as a small merchant.
  In 1883, Capato arrived in the Sudanese port town of Suakin at the Red Sea as an agent of the Alexandria-based merchant house John Ross & Co. In 1884, while the indigenous Mahdist rebellion escalated in most of Sudan, he started supplying provisions to the British Army and Navy. After the fall of Khartoum in 1885 to the Mahdist forces, Suakin remained under British control and became an all the more strategically important outpost.
  
  In 1886, the partnership with Ross ended and Capato started his own enterprise. According to Antonis Chaldeos, who has written his PhD thesis about the history of the Greeks in Sudan, Capato in the same year obtained British citizenship. He became the main caterer of the Anglo-Egyptian forces, especially in fresh meat, set up a network of canteens, run by Greeks, and an ice factory. The business offered huge profits, but Capato also suffered heavy losses at times, especially due to animal diseases. At one point, he also recruited some 3.000 contract workers from Yemen for the British authorities in order to fortify Suakin: 
  "Capato parlayed supplying cattle into supplying men." 
  When an Anglo-Egyptian army under Herbert Kitchener started the reconquest of Sudan in 1896, Capato and other Greek merchants followed the invading forces from Wadi Halfa and again specialised in catering to the troops and officers. Once more, profit margins for supplying "highly-priced imports" were huge – as were the risks: after the defeat of the Mahdist regime in 1898 and the withdrawal of most of the foreign soldiers, Capato was left "with large stores of 'luxury products' that proved impossible to sell to Egyptian and Sudanese subalterns."
  While the Sudanese merchant class struggled to recover from the shock of the defeat, the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in 1899 opened vast business opportunities to foreign traders, mainly Greeks like Capato, Lebanese, and Syrians. Capato was especially well-positioned: he apparently not only spoke English and Arabic, but also nine local dialects. And according to Chaldeos, 
  "he was the closest partner of the government and General Commander itself."
  Thus, Capato quickly expanded his business activities beyond providing supplies to the colonial regime. In Khartoum, he became one of the "pioneers of construction." He got engaged in the trade with ivory from what was then Southern Sudan and Gum arabic from Kordofan. For this, he set up a network of trading posts across the country with Greek agents, who bought ivory and gum while also catering to colonial officials. One of the boats owned by Capato and used for transporting goods on the White Nile was named after his home-island Cephalonia.
  Soon his business activities expanded into the Congo Free State as well, where he also set up a network of Greek agents - thereby contributing to the creation of a Greek community in Congo which still exists today. Likewise it may be argued that he was one of the founding father's of the Greek community in South Sudan.
  At the same time, Capato owned hotels, started a publishing company for postcards (see header photo), and ran a service for fitting out Big-game hunting parties. In addition, "he acquired large estates in the Gezira and around Khartoum" for cotton cultivation. According to Chaldeos, he leased some 6,000 hectares, which yielded 100,000 pounds of cotton in 1907.
  
  For his manyfold business activities, Capato recruited large numbers of Greeks, preferably family members like his nephew Gerasimos Contomichalos, wh
caption: H.M.S. Challenger in 1874
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