Lado Enclave

Traditionally the home of the Lugbara people,^[1] the area became part of the Ottoman-Egyptian province of Equatoria, and was first visited by Europeans in 1841/42, becoming an ivory and slave trading centre.^[2] Lado, as part of the Bahr-el-Ghazal, came under the control of the British and in 1869 Sir Samuel Baker created an administration in the area, suppressed the slave trade and opened up the area to commerce.^[3]

Under the stipulations of the 1894 British-Congolese Treaty, signed on 12 May, the British leased the area to King Leopold II of the Belgians for the period of his lifetime.^[4] In exchange, Leopold agreed to cede a narrow strip of territory in eastern Congo between Lakes Albert and Tanganyika to be used as part of the Cape to Cairo railway. The enclave had an area of about 15,000 square miles (39,000 km²), a population of about 250,000 and had its capital at the town of Lado.

Similarly, the 1894 Franco-Congolese Treaty, signed on 14 August, ensured that the French accepted Leopold's ownership of Lado,^[5] but it was not until 1897 that Leopold II had the resources to marshall troops of the Congo Free State under Louis Napoléon Chaltin to physically take control of the enclave. Chaltin's forces reached the Nile at the town of Bedden in the enclave in February 1897 and defeated the Mahdists there in the Battle of Rejaf.^[6] This consolidated Léopold's claim to the Upper Nile, but Chaltin did not have the forces to do more, although he had been instructed to continue on towards Khartoum.^[7]

Another part of the Anglo-Congolese Treaty dictated that the whole of the Bahr-el-Ghazal (with the exception of the Lado Enclave) be ceded to the Congo State during the lifetime of King Leopold "and his successors."

By 1899, the British Government was claiming the Congo State had not fullilled its obligations of the Anglo-Congolese Treaty and therefore had no right to claim the Bahr-el-Ghazal. At the same time the Convention was signed the Congo State forces had occupied Redjaf, and by a tacit under- standing the State was permitted to re- main in occupation of the Lado Enclave. "The Bahr-el-Ghazal has never ceased to be British, and any extension of the sphere of influence of the Congo State beyond the limits of the Lado Enclave, with out the express sanction of the British Government. is a wholly unjustifiable, and indeed, filibustering proceeding.^[8]

The northernmost post was Kiro, on the west bank of the Nile a short distance above the British post at Mongalla. Edward Fothergill visited the Sudan around 1901, basing himself at Mongalla between Lado to the south and Kiro to the north, but on the east shore of the river. By his account "Kiro, the most northern station of the Congo on the Nile, is very pretty and clean. Lado, the second station, is prettier still". However, he said that although the buildings were well made, they were too closely crowded together.^[9]

The Lado Enclave was important to the Congo Free State as it included Rejaf, which was the terminus for boats on the Nile, as the rapids there proved a barrier to further travel.^[10] Rejaf was the seat of the Commander, the only European colonial official within the enclave, who were in place from 1897 to June 1910. Efforts were made to properly defend Lado against any possible incursion by another colonial power, with twelve heavy Krupp fort guns installed in November 1906.^[11]

There were also rumours of gold deposits in Lado which led to great interest in the region in the early years of the twentieth century.^[12]

On 10 June 1910, following Leopold’s death, the district officially became a province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, with British Army veteran Captain Chauncey Hugh Stigand appointed administrator.^[13] In 1912 the southern half of the Lado Enclave was ceded to Uganda, then a British protectorate.^[14] However, in reality, following Leopold's death and the susbsequent withdrawal of Belgian troops, British authorities neglected to administer the area, leaving the enclave to become a "no man's land".^[15] Ivory hunters moved in and shot almost all of an estimated herd of 2000 elephants resident in the enclave, netting the hunters large profits.^[15]

In 1912, renowned naturalist Dr Edgar Alexander Mearns travelled through the Enclave as part of his expedition through eastern Africa searching for new fauna, and reported a new subspecies of Temminck's courser within the Enclave.^[16]

Later Gondokoro, Kiro, Lado and Rejaf were abandoned by the Sudanese government, and no longer appear on modern maps.^[17]

Although the Lado Enclave was a small, remote area in central Africa, it captured the imagination of world leaders and authors, becoming a byword for an exotic region, and was used as a setting for their stories.

Lord Kitchener travelled to Lado for hunting, and shot a large white rhinoceros considered a "splendid trophy", with the horn being "some twenty seven inches long" and the rhinoceros standing six feet tall.^[18]

In his novel Elephant Song, Wilbur Smith refers to the slaughter of elephants in the Lado Enclave following the withdrawal of the Belgian colonial service in 1910,^[19] while the 1936 story "The Curse of Simba", refers to the Enclave as the possible locale of the legendary Elephants' graveyard.^[20]

Commandants of the Lado Enclave

1900 - Jan 1903 Gustave Ferdinand Joseph Renier (s.a.)

Jan 1903 - Aug 1903 Albéric Constantin Édouard Bruneel

Aug 1903 - Mar 1905 Henri Laurent Serexhe

Mar 1905 - Jan 1908 Guillaume Léopold Olaerts

Jan 1908 - Apr 1909 Léon Néstor Preud'homme

Apr 1909 - 1910 Alexis Bertrand

1910 - Jun 1910 Charles Eugène Édouard de Meulenaer

• Colonisation of the Congo
• Congo Crisis
• Belgian Colonial Empire

• Ascherson, N. (2001) The King Incorporated: Leopold II in the Age of Trusts, Granta Books. ISBN 1-86207-290-6.
• Canby, C. (1984) The Encyclopaedia of Historic Places, vol. 1., Mansell Publishing: London. ISBN 978-1-59339-837-8.
• Collins, R.O. (1960) "The transfer of the Lado Enclave to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1910", Zaïre: revue congolaise, Vol. 14, Issues 2-3.
• Degefu, G.T. (2003) The Nile: Historical, Legal and Developmental Perspectives, Trafford Publishing: Victoria. ISBN 1-4120-0056-4.
• Hill, R.L. (1967) A Biographical Dictionary of the Sudan (2nd Edition), Frank Cass and Company, Ltd: London.
• Hochschild, A. (1999) King Leopold's Ghost, Mariner Books. ISBN 0-618-00190-5.
• Middleton, J. (1971) "Colonial rule among the Lugbara" in Colonialism in Africa, 1870-1960, vol. 3., (ed. Turner, V.), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. ISBN 0521 07844 x.
• Pakenham, T. (1991) Scramble For Africa, Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-380-71999-1.
• Smith, W. (2011) Elephant Song, Pan Books: London. ISBN 978 0 330 46708 7.
• Taylor, A.J.P. (1950) "Prelude to Fashoda: The Question of the Upper Nile, 1894-5", The English Historical Review, Vol. 65, No. 254, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
• Wack, H.W. (1905) The Story of the Congo Free State: Social, Political, and Economic Aspects of the Belgian System of Government in Central Africa, G. P. Putnam's Sons: New York.

• WorldStatesmen: The Sudan

4°50′N 29°50′E / 4.833°N 29.833°E / 4.833; 29.833