This is a history of a region and its people during a period of profound change. It seeks to describe and analyse the impact of Turco-Egyptian colonial rule (1821–85) on the Northern Sudan with particular reference to the peasants and traders among the Ja'aliyyīn people of the Shendi region. It will also to some extent be concerned with other groups such as the Shāyqiyya and the Danāgla, who were both neighbours of and settlers among the Ja'aliyyīn, and with whom the latter both cooperated and competed at home or in the diaspora.

According to the 1956 census, this region (roughly between 16½ and 18° latitude in the Nile Valley, i.e. between the Sixth Cataract and the Atbara River) contained about 300,000 people, including the population of Shendi town (11,031). By the early 1980s the population of the town had grown to around 20,000. Emigration from the rural areas is widespread and tends to keep the population growth in these areas down. The region's population figures from the early nineteenth century can only be guessed at, but it seems reasonable to assume a population figure of 40,000 to 50,000.