Equatoria
For the Astrometrical device, please refer to: Equatorium |
Location of Equatoria province in Sudan |
Equatoria (
Al-Istiwa'iyah in
Arabic) began as a province of
Egypt, located in the extreme south of present-day
Sudan along the upper reaches of the
White Nile. It was an idealistic effort to create a model state in the interior of
Africa that never consisted of more than a handful of adventurers and soldiers in isolated outposts.
Equatoria was established by
Samuel Baker in
1870.
Charles George Gordon took over as Governor in
1874, followed by
Emin Pasha in
1878. The
Mahdist Revolt of the
1880s finally put an end to the pretense, and Equatoria ceased to exist as an Egyptian oupost in
1889. Important settlements in Equatoria included
Lado,
Gondokoro,
Dufile and
Wadelai. The last two are in the part of Equatoria that is now in
Uganda.
Under
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, most of Equatoria became one of the eight original provinces. The state of
Bahr al Ghazal was split from Equatoria in
1948. In
1976, Equatoria was further split into the states of
East and
West Equatoria. The region has been troubled with violence during both the
First and
Second Sudanese Civil Wars, as well as the anti-Ugandan insurgencies based in Sudan, such as the
Lord's Resistance Army and
West Nile Bank Front.
* R. Gray,
A History of the Southern Sudan, 1839-1889 (London, 1961)
*
Iain R. Smith :
The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition 1886-1890,
Oxford University Press, 1972
