The Contradictions of “Civilizing” Consumption: Colonial Wine and Race in Britain’s Nineteenth-Century Imperial Project

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article will consider the discourse of wine as a “civilizing tool” in Britain’s imperial project, specifically in South Australia and Cape Colony. Historically, wine was recollected as a symbol of Greco-Roman civility, reified as the lifeblood of Christ, romanticized as the superiority of Southern European regions, and reimagined as a promoter of nineteenth-century Victorian sensibility. Beyond moral “improvement,” wine was also seen as a method to improve physical health. The vine was depicted as a safe, stable, and highly civilized enterprise, with far-reaching consequences. In the violent spaces of wine farms and colonial canteens, this intersected with racialized conceptions of colonized persons needing to be “improved” (and ultimately, controlled) through wine consumption. The networks which connected the global temperance movement often crossed with colonial conversations on race, health, and consumption. The interest in policing consumption of indigenous populations combined with a cultural of paying workers in alcohol, illustrated that along racial lines, accessibility to this desired state of “civilization” was unattainable.