Lado_Enclave

Lado Enclave, a region of the upper Nile formerly administered by the Congo Free State, but since 1910 a province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It has an area of about 15,000 sq. m., and a population estimated at 250,000 and consisting of Bari, Madi, Kuku and other Nilotic Negroes. The enclave is bounded S.E. by the north-west shores of Albert Nyanza—as far south as the port of Mahagi—E. by the western bank of the Nile (Bahr-el-Jebel) to the point where the river is intersected by 5° 30′ N., which parallel forms its northern frontier from the Nile westward to 30° E. This meridian forms the west frontier to 4° N., the frontier thence being the Nile-Congo watershed to the point nearest to Mahagi and from that point direct to Albert Nyanza.

The country is a moderately elevated plateau sloping northward from the higher ground marking the Congo-Nile watershed. The plains are mostly covered with bush, with stretches of forest in the northern districts. Traversing the plateau are two parallel mountainous chains having a general north to south direction. One chain, the Kuku Mountains (average height 2000 ft.), approaches close to the Nile and presents, as seen from the river, several apparently isolated peaks. At other places these mountains form precipices which stretch in a continuous line like a huge wall. From Dufile in 3° 34′ N. to below the Bedden Rapids in 4° 40′ N. the bed of the Nile is much obstructed and the river throughout this reach is unnavigable (see Nile). Below the Bedden Rapids rises the conical hill of Rejaf, and north of that point the Nile valley becomes flat. Ranges of hill, however, are visible farther westwards, and a little north of 5° N. is Jebel Lado, a conspicuous mountain 2500 ft. high and some 12 m. distant from the Nile. It has given its name to the district, being the first hill seen from the Nile in the ascent of some 1000 m. from Khartum. On the river at Rejaf, at Lado, and at Kiro, 28 m. N. of Lado, are government stations and trading establishments. The western chain of hills has loftier peaks than those of Kuku, Jebel Loka being about 3000 ft. high. This western chain forms a secondary watershed separating the basin of the Yei, a large river, some 400 m. in length, which runs almost due north to join the Nile, from the other streams of the enclave, which have an easterly or north-easterly direction and join the Nile after comparatively short courses.

The northern part of the district was first visited by Europeans in 1841-1842, when the Nile was ascended by an expedition despatched by Mehemet Ali to the foot of the rapids at Bedden. The neighbouring posts of Gondokoro, on the east bank of the Nile, and Lado, soon became stations of the Khartum ivory and slave traders. After the discovery of Albert Nyanza by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864, the whole country was overrun by Arabs, Levantines, Turks and others, whose chief occupation was slave raiding. The region was claimed as part of the Egyptian Sudan, but it was not until the arrival of Sir Samuel Baker at Gondokoro in 1870 as governor of the equatorial provinces, that any effective control of the slave traders was attempted. Baker was succeeded by General C. G. Gordon, who established a separate administration for the Bahr-el-Ghazal. In 1878 Emin Pasha became governor of the Equatorial Province, a term henceforth confined to the region adjoining the main Nile above the Sobat confluence, and the region south of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province. (The whole of the Lado Enclave thus formed part of Emin’s old province.) Emin made his headquarters at Lado, whence he was driven in 1885 by the Mahdists. He then removed to Wadelai, a station farther south, but in 1889 the pasha, to whose aid H. M. Stanley had conducted an expedition from the Congo, evacuated the country and with Stanley made his way to the east coast. While the Mahdists remained in possession at Rejaf, Great Britain in virtue of her position in Uganda claimed the upper Nile region as within the British sphere; a claim admitted by Germany in 1890. In February 1894 the union jack was hoisted at Wadelai, while in May of the same year Great Britain granted to Leopold II., as sovereign of the Congo State, a lease of large areas lying west of the upper Nile inclusive of the Bahr-el-Ghazal and Fashoda. Pressed however by France, Leopold II. agreed to occupy only that part of the leased area east of 30° E. and south of 5° 30′ N., and in this manner the actual limits of the Lado Enclave, as it was thereafter called, were fixed. Congo State forces had penetrated to the Nile valley as early as 1891, but it was not until 1897, when on the 17th of February Commandant Chaltin inflicted a decisive defeat on the Mahdists at Rejaf, that their occupation of the Lado Enclave was assured. After the withdrawal of the French from Fashoda, Leopold II. revived (1899) his claim to the whole of the area, leased to him in 1894. In this claim he was unsuccessful, and the lease, by a new agreement made with Great Britain in 1906, was annulled (see Africa, § 5). The king however retained the enclave, with the stipulation that six months after the termination of his reign it should be handed over to the Anglo-Sudanese government (see Treaty Series, No. 4, 1906).

See Le Mouvement géographique (Brussels) passim, and especially articles in the 1910 issues.