The Nuer Conquest: The Structure and Development of an Expansionist System

During the period from about 1818 to 1890 the Nuer increased their territorial domain fourfold. Their displacement of the Dinka (and Anuak) represents one of the most prominent instances of tribal imperialism contained in the ethnographic record. The primary objective of this study is to resolve the mystery of this sudden expansion and to provide answers to the four central questions posed by the conquest: 1) the proximate and underlying causes of Nuer territorial appropriation; 2) the means by which this was accomplished, and particularly the nature of the decisive Nuer advantage that enabled them to so readily displace neighbouring groups; 3) the developmental process of divergence from a common stock that eventuated in Nuer hegemony (and entailed significant structural changes); 4) the factors that account for Nuer, rather than Dinka, development of both the impetus to territorial acquisition and the capacity to bring this about.