Abstract
The paper examines the expansion of West African migration eastwards into the Sudan along the Savanna Grassroad. By 1955West Africans comprised 6 % of the population and in some areas the figure exceeded 30 %. Their economic significance lay in their willingness to work hard as hired hands in agriculture—especially in cotton production, where they were crucial to the development of the Gezira Scheme during the Depression of the 1930s—and in their willingness to undertake menial tasks, disliked by Arab Sudanese, such as gum cleaning, sanitary services, water carrying, and portering. The easterly migration of West Africans (mainly from Chad and Nigeria) is connected largely with the pilgrimage to the Moslem holy places in Saudi Arabia, although some are economic migrants. Accordingly, West Africans have shown little inclination to assimilate into the host community. The large numbers recorded in the 1955-56 Sudan census as speaking West African languages at home and claiming non-Sudanese status, even when i...
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