Cercle (French colonial) would still fall under the Indigénat. The "Lamine Guèye law" of 7 April 1946 formally extended citizenship across the empire, indigènes included. Third, the law of 20 September 1947 removed the two tier court system and mandated equal access to public employment. Reduced to a political subdivision roughly equivalent to a French department and stripped of the personal power of the Cercle Commander system, the Cercle name retained enough imperial connotations to be changed by most nations upon independence to Departments or Sub-Prefectures. Mali is the only nation in Sub-Saharan Africa to retain the name Cercle for its second level
Slavery in Sudan kingdoms' fall in 1504, the Ottomans conquered most of Nubia, while the Funj conquered much of modern day Sudan from Darfur to Khartoum ; the Funj began to use slaves in the army in the reign of Badi III (r. 1692-1711). Later, Egyptian slavers began raiding modern South Sudan. In particular, the ruler Muhammad Ali of Egypt attempted to build up an army of Southern Sudanese slaves with the aid of the Nubian slavers. Attempts to ban slavery were later attempted by colonial British authorities in 1899, after they conquered the region. According to British explorer (and abolitionist) Samuel Baker,