page_title: Mongalla, South Sudan
section_title: Early colonial period
hierarchical_section_title: Mongalla, South Sudan / History and politics / Early colonial period
caption_attribution_description: [Theodore Roosevelt, three-quarter length portrait, standing next to dead elephant, holding gun, probably in Africa] / Edward Van Altena, N.Y.C.
context_page_description: Mongalla or Mangalla is a community in Jubek State in South Sudan, on the east side of the Bahr al Jebel or White Nile river. It lies about 75 km by road northeast of Juba. The towns of Terekeka and Bor lie downstream, north of Mongalla.
  During the colonial era, Mongalla was capital of Mongalla Province, which reached south to Uganda and east towards Ethiopia. On 7 December 1917 the last of the northern Sudanese troops were withdrawn from Mongalla, replaced by Equatorial troops. These southern and at least nominally Christian troops remained the only permanent garrison of the town and province until their mutiny in August 1955. Mongalla and the surrounding province was then absorbed into Equatoria Province in 1956. The town was taken and retaken more than once during the Second Sudanese Civil War.
  An experimental station was established to grow sugar at Mongalla in the 1950s, and there were plans to establish commercial operations. However, after independence in 1956 the Khartoum government shifted the sugar project to the north, where it is grown under much less favorable conditions with heavy irrigation.
context_section_description: After the final defeat of the Caliphate (Khalifa) by the British under General Herbert Kitchener in 1898, the Nile up to the Uganda border became part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. An expedition upriver from Omdurman (Ondurman) arrived in December 1900. The post that had been established at Kiro was transferred to Mongalla in April 1901 since Kiro was claimed to be in Belgian territory.
  During 1904 posts were established where needed in the Mongalla districts to suppress the activities of "Abyssinian brigands who infested the country".
  Until 1906 Mongalla province was part of the Upper Nile province, after which it became a separate administration.
  The first governor was Angus Cameron, appointed in January 1906.
  A party from the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) arrived the same month, but decided it was not suitable for a base and instead located the mission downstream at Bor.
  The colonial administration opposed efforts by the CMS to convert the Bari people of Mongalla. The missionaries interpreted this as due to the influence of Islam in weakening the spiritual ideals of the officials. Cameron desired to avoid friction with the Muslims who had undertaken most of the work of building and servicing the new provincial capital.
  In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt visited the province. Before his arrival, Governor R.C.R. Owen informed Governor General Sir Reginald Wingate that everything would be done for the former president of the United States, but also pointed out that his troops had not even one donkey.
  Roosevelt's expedition reached Mongalla at the end of February, coming from the Belgian Congo via the Lado Enclave. He was impressed by the Egyptian and Sudanese troops, but when visiting a native dance he commented on the lack of middle-aged men, a result of the Mahdist wars that had ended over ten years ago.
  In June 1910 the British Sudanese forces took over the Lado Enclave from the Belgians, becoming part of the province of Mongalla. The Anglican and Roman Catholic missionaries requested that Sunday be retained as a sabbath at Lado, as it had been under the Belgians, rather than changed to Friday as it had in the rest of the Sudan. However, Governor Owen opposed retaining Sunday; he felt that the more "bigoted" Muslims in the army would object to working on Friday, and noted that all recruits to the army were instructed in the Muslim religion.
  A few months later, however, Owen proposed creation of an Equatorial battalion composed entirely of southerners. This force would be taught to follow English commands and the Christian faith, which would, over time, unite with Uganda and would prevent spread of the Muslim faith farther south. He was against Islam on the basis that it "may at any time break out into a wave of fanaticism". Owen's plan was approved by Wingate.
  Wingate said "...we must remember that the bulk of the inhabitants ... are not Moslems (Muslims) at all, that the whole of Uganda has accepted Chritianity almost without a murmur, and that furthermore English is a very much easier language to learn than Arabic...".
  In 1913, the government increased restrictions on private travel and immigrants, which meant anybody arriving in Mongalla and wishing to go north from the Uganda or the Belgian Congo could be examined for sleeping sickness by a medical officer. The maximum punishment for any breach of the new regulations was a £10 fine or a 6-month prison sentence.
  On 7 December 1917 the last of the northern Sudanese troops were withdrawn from Mongalla, replaced by Equatorial troops. These southern and at least nominally Christian troops remained the only permanent garrison of the town and province until their mutiny in August 1955.
  When Hasan Sharif, son of Khalifa Muhammad Sahif, was exiled to Mongalla in 1915 after taking place in a conspiracy in Omdurman, Governor Owen said "...I told him he is lucky to come and see this part of Sudan for nothing, when tourists pay hundreds of pounds ... I fear he doesn't see the joke...".
  Owen retired in 1918.
  Major Cecil Stephen Northcote succeeded him as Governor of Mongala f
caption: Theodore Roosevelt on Safari
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