British Colonial Office Research Articles

Unequal Treaty in Practice: A Story about Article 23 of the Treaty of Tientsin

Abstract Despite the wealth of research on cross-border activities between China proper and Hong Kong, little has been discussed about the ‘civil fugitives’ who fled from one side to the other during Hong Kong’s early colonial period. Chinese debtors who absconded to China created jurisdictional problems for Hong Kong. The addition of Article 23 in the Treaty of Tientsin was an attempt to solve this issue, and this article explores what the discussions on Article 23, particularly those from 1905 to 1907 among British colonial officials and diplomatic agents, reveal about the characteristics of colonial jurisdiction under international law. In this case, colonial jurisdiction was limited solely to the territory of Hong Kong. Proposals to amend Article 23 attempted to remove the territorial barrier and establish personal jurisdiction for the colonial government in Hong Kong, similar to extraterritorial rights in Qing China.

Understanding the Intellectual Approaches of the Archaeology of ‘Rōhaṇa’ from the 1840s to 1960s: A Literature Review

The archaeology of Rōhaṇa entails a focus on comprehending ‘Rōhaṇa’ from material perspectives. Originating in the mid-19th century CE, this approach evolved with diverse theoretical, methodological, and technological dimensions in alignment with the scholarly context of its time. This paper constitutes an investigation into the available sources explaining the progression of archaeological studies on Rōhaṇa from the 1840s to the 1960s, highlighting the contributions of individuals often identified as British Colonial Officers, Antiquarians, and Archaeologists. While extant research has predominantly centred on elucidating Rōhaṇa, it has overlooked an exploration of the intellectual practices of the scholars involved. Consequently, this paper aims to comprehend the intellectual approaches employed in existing scholarly works on Rōhaṇa. This study uses qualitative methods in secondary research to analyse sources such as published accounts and reports by British officers, archaeological field reports and other significant studies by local scholars. Examining the methodologies, findings, and conclusions of these selected studies reveals their collective contribution to the intellectual understanding of Rōhaṇa from a material perspective. In conclusion, antiquarian methods initially identified Rōhaṇa as the southern administrative division, with Māgama serving as its capital. Subsequently, archaeological initiatives expanded this knowledge through field methods, providing insights into regional settlement patterns. Over time, inquiries into the historicity of Rōhaṇa emerged, evolving the understanding of this region by the mid-20th century.

Retaining Chinese Indentured Labour in Interwar British and French Pacific colonies

ABSTRACT British attempts to reform or close down the indentured labour system as it applied to Chinese labourers across the British empire were carried out on an ad hoc basis, one colony at a time. In the southwest Pacific islands indentured labour recruitment was retained into the 1930s and beyond. Between 1920 and 1953 thousands of Chinese workers suffered under penal clauses for labour offences and endured harsh conditions on contracts that often extended beyond five years. This article investigates the means by which colonial authorities in Hong Kong and the southwest Pacific were able to maintain the indentured labour system despite the British Colonial Office preference for abolition. It compares government correspondence, labour contracts and ordinances from Nauru under British-Australian mandate, Western Samoa under New Zealand mandate, and the Anglo-French Condominium of New Hebrides (Vanuatu). It demonstrates that Chinese indentured labourers were retained with only minor changes to their contracts, put in place for the most part so that colonial administrators could avoid national and international censure.

Julian Huxley and a biological approach to education in British East Africa during the interwar era

ABSTRACT During the 1930s there was a significant shift in the debate about African colonial education. Above all, somewhat discreetly hidden behind the formal language of the educational documents, is the question of the challenge presented to the traditional literary/religious missionary curriculum, or even to the adaptationist debate about African education, by the emergence of public polemic relating to the relevance of secular science education which explored issues of economic development, social welfare and social hygiene. This took place in the context of new understandings of issues like population growth, human heredity, evolution, health, eugenics and the challenges presented by the race doctrines of the fascist powers in Europe. Such issues were often hidden behind the rhetoric of “relevance” to family and community health and welfare, ecological best practices, and economic prosperity. This paper seeks to explore the first major initiative by the British Colonial Office relating to the reshaping of the African colonial school curriculum between 1929 and 1933. This attempted to extend developments relating to the extension of science education in general, and “a biological approach to education” in particular, to an educational context that had been dominated by Christian missionary education. It examines the processes by which such policy came to be initiated. It also raises obliquely broader questions relating to the linkages between social reform, eugenics, ideology and colonialism and in doing so attempts to add to the existing historiography on colonial education by referring to aspects of educational reform which seem to have been previously neglected.

Women Exclusion in Nigerian Politics: A Historical Re-Evaluation

The systemic exclusion of women and minority groups in Nigeria’s politics have contributed to the underdevelopment crisis in the country. Starting from the 1954 elections, the women remained underrepresented in both elective and appointive positions. At independence in 1960, the trend continued as the nationalists struggled to undo the damages of colonialism. It is regrettable to note, that, while the women played significant roles in the decolonization and nation-building process, however, their rights for equal representation were systemically undermined in a supposedly secular country where equality should be a fundamental principle shaping the society. Numerous studies in this field agree that women are potential asset in nation-building and as such must be given the opportunity to contribute to that process. This accounts for why women rank highest among the unemployed persons in the country, they are the least considered when distributing power or during allocation of political positions, and for more than fifty years in Nigeria, women have remained the most vulnerable in the country, often ranking highest in the poverty index annually. Based on the foregoing, the paper sought to critically re-evaluate the historical trajectories of women exclusion in Nigeria’s politics to reposition the women and minority groups as principal actors in the political development of the country. It argued that, the system of exclusive governance was not an indigenous idea, but a colonial legacy which took practical expression in the Indirect Rule policy of the British. Data used for this study were collected through the qualitative method, which allowed for the use of secondary and primary sources. Secondary data used include books and journal articles. While primary materials were gathered using newspapers, official memos, recorded interviews and videos. The combination of primary and secondary data provided a balanced analysis of the phenomenon being studied. A theory of exclusion informed the theoretical argument of the paper, which holds that when individuals or groups in a society are denied their rights, it results to resistance, protests or conflicts that could potentially destabilize the nation. Consequently, the paper found that Nigeria’s political development has continued to suffer unprecedented setback due largely for the failures of successive regimes to adopt inclusive governance, which supports equal participation in politics. It concluded that, the racial discrimination of the British colonial officials rubbed-off on Nigerian political class who could not revert to the morals that govern the traditional African society in the pre-colonial time; built on communal living and inclusiveness.

Post-colonial Counter-memory in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi: (Re)membering the Demonized Hero and Subverting the Colonial Discourse

This paper examines how Kenyan novelist and playwright Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Zimbabwean playwright Micere Githae-Mugo have embarked on a dramatic counter-discursive project through their play The Trial of Dedan Kimathi (1976). The researchers argue that the play was intended to subvert the many colonial historical accounts about the figure of Kimathi and the Mau Mau revolutionary anticolonial movement. Drawing upon post-colonial criticism, this paper demonstrates how the playwrights use the heroic fictional character of Kimathi to counteract several historical and fictional colonial and contemporary postcolonial accounts about this controversial freedom fighter. Then, the paper goes on to examine the role of Ian Henderson (the British colonial police officer who participated in the manhunt for Kimathi and succeeded in capturing him in 1957) as a fictional character in the play. While many studies have demonstrated that The Trial of Dedan Kimathi re-writes the colonial history about Kimathi and the Mau Mau movement in Kenya, which was maintained by Ian Henderson and many other colonial writers, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge; previous studies have not presented a comparative examination of both figures of Henderson, i.e., the historical figure and the fictional one. Here, the researchers explain how through the inclusion of the character of Henderson as the antagonist of the play, the dramatists subvert Henderson’s actual written accounts about Kimathi and the Kenyan national movement.

Historical height measurement consistency: Evidence from colonial Trinidad

Economists have used historical heights as markers of health, living standards, and long-run development. Although possible selection bias has been debated, height measurement error is less studied. I analyze novel administrative data of male Indian indentured laborers with repeated measurements of adult height to answer an important underlying question of precision. Laborers were measured by British colonial officials on departure in India and again several years later when opting to return to India. I find no height differences for men who had attained full height in India. Younger men continued to grow even into their twenties. A caste subgroup analysis finds mostly similar results. This paper provides some of the first evidence showing height consistency in repeated measurements of adult heights.

A History of Exploitation of the Colonised in Northern Nigeria During the Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919

The 1918 influenza pandemic was a devastating event that killed millions of people around the world. In Northern Nigeria, the pandemic was particularly deadly, and the British colonial administration's response to the crisis was characterised by exploitation and neglect. This article examines a variety of historical sources, including letters, memoirs, and reports written by British colonial officials in Northern Nigeria during the pandemic. The study adopts the theory of dependency. The article finds that the colonial government exploited the colonised people of Northern Nigeria during the pandemic. The article argues that the colonial government's exploitation during the pandemic was a clear example of their disregard for the lives and well-being of the people they governed. It also argues that the pandemic provides a valuable lens through which to examine the ways in which colonial powers prioritised their own interests over the well-being of those they ruled during times of crisis. The article concludes by calling for further research on the exploitation of the colonised during the influenza pandemic and other historical crises.

Towards a cosmopolitan worldview: investigating the process of de-bordering through Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s In Dependence

ABSTRACT Postcolonialism has brought forth the atrocities, violence and exploitations perpetrated by imperialism; it has also created borders between colonisers and colonised. With the passage of time and subsequent changes in the global socio-political scenario, the ‘skeptical school’ of postcolonial thoughts seems to have failed in providing any new direction towards the new conditions. In contrast, cosmopolitan theorists recognize the human connection and communication across borders, made possible after colonial dominance, as an opportunity to establish a new global political order. Unlike conservative postcolonial thinkers, cosmopolitans advocate for a global society based on human solidarity, compassion, equality, and de-bordering. Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s novel, In Dependence (2019), portrays Tayo, a young Nigerian, and Venessa, the daughter of a retired British colonial officer, as the main protagonists. The novel illustrates how the characters, through their struggles and experiences, gradually acquire a cosmopolitan attitude towards life in their quest for peace and stability. This study analyses the novel from a cosmopolitan perspective by juxtaposing the different mentalities of the characters and reflecting upon the novel’s focus on de-bordering to establish a global society based on universal brotherhood and peace.

Marine Product Economy in Terengganu during the Administration of Sultan Muhammad Syah II 1918-1920

This study aims at identifying the economic development that focused on marine products during the administration of Sultan Muhammad Syah II in Terengganu from 1918-1920. During this period, the state of Terengganu showed an auspicious economic development of seafood. The sea product economy includes dried fish, anchovies, budu, belacan, and pickled fish. Qualitative research methods are used based on primary sources such as annual reports, telegrams, correspondence, memoranda, and official reports obtained from the Terengganu Government Secretary's Office, the Terengganu Badariah Palace Office, the Land and Mines Commissioner's Office, and the British Colonial Office, which are analysed using a historical approach. Secondary sources are also used to strengthen the data and research findings, including books, journals, encyclopedias, and theses. The study's findings show the sea product economy to be the leading economy among the Malay community in Terengganu. Seafood products became an essential source of economic strength for the community and state of Terengganu during the administration of Sultan Muhammad Syah II from 1918-1920. This is because marine products are the main export commodity of Terengganu compared to other export commodities, based on the quantity and value of exports every year. The conclusion from the study explains that, although Sultan Muhammad Syah II ruled Terengganu for a period of fewer than two years, from November 26, 1918, to May 11, 1920, His Majesty Sultan Muhammad Syah II placed great importance on the economic development of the community in improving the standard of living and income of the community, most of whom were involved in the sea product economy. The export commodity of many marine products is to meet the needs of the local and foreign markets. Terengganu's Big Boat for trading activities also boosted the seafood economy in Terengganu. This proves that Terengganu is a state rich in marine resources, which have thereby become the highest export commodity product.

Neoliberal imperialism

This essay approaches the neoliberal tradition of thought through the lens of liberal imperialism. Seeking to bring scholarship on the history of neoliberal ideas together with research on liberal defences of empire, I show that the neoliberal tradition of thought contains a number of formal, explicit, and systematic defences of (European) colonialism. In the first section of the essay, I contextualise neoliberal imperialism by showing that many prominent early neoliberals had close ties to the British Colonial Office. I then offer a close reading of two highly influential instances of the neoliberal defence of empire. The first was articulated between the 1930s and 1940s by Herbert Frankel, who saw colonisation as a form of civilisational improvement that places a heavy ethical and political burden on the coloniser. The second was articulated by Lewis Gann and Peter Duignan between the 1960s and 1970s. In contrast to Frankel’s civilisational justification of colonialism, Gann and Duignan articulated a more dispassionate cost-benefit argument, claiming that colonialism’s advantages outweigh its disadvantages. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of this shift from a civilisational to a consequentialist frame both for the neoliberal tradition and for liberal imperialist discourse at large.

The Nightmare Island: Representations of St. Barthélemy in Swedish Novels

The Nightmare Island: Representations of St. Barthélemy in Swedish Novels

Colonial Scholars and Anti‐Colonial Agents: Politics of Academic Knowledge Production Between the West Indies and London in the Mid‐20thCentury

AbstractThis paper analyses the socio‐spatial entanglement of West Indian anti‐colonial knowledge production in the mid‐20thcentury existingbetweenLondon and the Caribbean. This is interpreted as a case of the paradoxical politics of academic knowledge production in that British imperial policies that were constraining knowledge production in the West Indies were also seen as facilitating anti‐colonial awareness and work in London by West Indian actors. Research demonstrating the importance of the metropole as a meeting place for global anti‐colonial actors is complemented by shifting the focus to the entangled spacebetweenLondon and the West Indies. This article comparatively analyses the academic politics of the British Colonial Office – a spatial dislocation of knowledge production away from the West Indies – and its perception and challenge by Caribbean intellectuals who were temporarily based in London. The analysis builds on contributions by C.L.R. James and S. Wynter and their reflections on the institutionalisation of research in the West Indies and their experiences in London. Overall, I emphasise a relational and symmetrising analysis of knowledge production in imperial contexts that accounts for the entanglement of imperial politics in the metropole and the colonies, and the perception and potential use of these political entanglements by actors in and from colonial contexts.

High Hopes, Lost Illusions: General Islamic Congress in Jerusalem (1931)

The significance of the research topic is due to the relevance of the problem of the caliphate in the social and political life of the modern Arab-Muslim world. The purpose of this research project is to analyze the causes and consequences of the emergence of caliphate movements, which were the reaction of the Muslim world to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the liquidation of the institution of the caliphate in 1924 by the republican leadership of Turkey. At the same time, the authors focus on the General Islamic Congress in Jerusalem (1931) as a concrete example of the socio-political discussions of Muslims about the unity of the Ummah and the future fate of the caliphate. Based on the materials of historical sources, the authors identified contradictions in the diversity of ideological and value views of the caliphatists in the main areas of Islamic world - in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, analyzed methodological, spiritual and political obstacles that stood in the way of the ideologists of caliphatism by the example of contradictions in the activities of the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini (c. 1895-1974), who advocated the independent statehood of Arab Palestine, and the leader of Indian Muslims Shaukat Ali (1873-1938), who advocated the internationalization of the cause of the revival of the caliphate. The authors prove that “Islamic internationalism” in the 1930s began to acquire more and more national, ethno-culturally conditioned forms, which was due to the distrust of caliphatism on the part of the British colonial officials and the political elites of Turkey and Egypt in the geopolitical conditions that changed after the First World War. In addition, the importance of studying higher Muslim education for the characterization of the political, value, religious and philosophical positions of the caliphists and their opponents is revealed.

Emirs in London: Subaltern Travel and Nigeria’s Modernity By Moses Ochonu

Reviewed by: Emirs in London: Subaltern Travel and Nigeria's Modernity by Moses Ochonu Oliver Coates Emirs in London: Subaltern Travel and Nigeria's Modernity BY MOSES OCHONU Indiana UP, 2022. 390 pp. ISBN 9780253059154 paper. Emirs in London: Subaltern Travel and Nigeria's Modernity explores the history of traveling northern Nigerian aristocrats within the British Empire. Although Ochonu's major study is focused on Nigerian visitors to the United Kingdom, its focus is far [End Page 194] broader. Ochonu is concerned with the ways in which northern travelers interpreted and appropriated British culture for Nigerian audiences and the degree in which some Emirs were able to use British patronage to undertake parallel visits, typically performing the hajj during their "official" visit to England. The result is a geographically and textually complex study focusing on African understandings of Britain. Ochonu recounts the "imperial adventures of African tourists and sightseers in Britain" (5), but his analysis reveals how these are inseparable from the crafted texts in which they are transmitted. These promote the teller as much as they rejoice in imparting their tale. Within the texts, one can find "the magical appeal of wonder" (8), yet this too presents more than meets the eye, as travelers adopted longer-term Hausa cultural understandings of the magical and the unseen to represent not only novel metropolitan experiences, but also their own status and exceptionality as purveyors of otherwise unavailable facts and experiences. Northern Nigerian travelers were engaging in cross-cultural translation. Ochonu locates his study at the meeting-point of literatures on colonial travel (47) as well as "imperial courtship," or British colonial officials' patronage of African aristocrats whom they deemed to be "loyal" and conservative influences within northern Nigerian society (11). These northern aristocrats and their entourage belong, Ochonu argues, to a category of "subaltern travel" (12), which was reliant on colonial power to schedule tours and grant diplomatic passage but able to critique and challenge aspects of this asymmetrical world. While Ochonu's travelers had the ability to pen captivating tales about their travels, they were not immune from censure within northern Nigeria, for all their social status. Revealingly, Ochonu quotes Abubakar Gumi's criticism of traveling Emirs as betraying those ordinary Muslims who looked to such aristocrats for religious leadership (47). Ochonu draws on a rich and largely unexplored Hausa language sourcebase. Emirs in London unfolds at a time when the written language was undergoing major changes; particularly, the transition from use of the ajami script using Arabic letters to its Roman counterpart. During the 1930s and 1940s, the British promoted the dissemination of printed Romanized Hausa via several institutions and publications, including the Northern Nigerian Literature Bureau based in Tukur Tukur outside of Zaria (55), subsequently the Gaskiya Corporation (61), as well as the development of a pioneering Roman Hausa newspaper Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo ("Truth Is Worth More Than A Penny") during World War Two (60). A war on Roman illiteracy was declared, including a Yaki da Jahilci ("war against ignorance") (66), which turned literacy into a "commodity desirable for everyone" but above all as a marker of education and social status (67). Some northerners remained unenthusiastic about Romanized Hausa "boko" or book-learning and instead chose to turn to "learned men" when they wished to engage with colonial ideas (67). Nonetheless, the corporation subsequently published several key Hausa travelogues, such as Abubakar Imam's Tafiya Mabudin Ilimi and Muhammadu Ndayako's Tafiyan Etsu Nupe Ingila (64). Imam's Tafiya Mabudin Ilimi, an account of his visit to London as part of a key West African journalistic delegation in 1943, was based on a diary he kept. It includes episodes recounting his survival of a Nazi aerial raid on the maritime [End Page 195] convoy between West Africa and London and Imam's interactions with his fellow journalists, including prominent Nigerian nationalist and newspaperman Nnamdi Azikiwe (70, 74). Ochonu reads Tafiya Mabudin Ilimi as a "cultural project designed to satisfy the growing aesthetic and cultural appetites" of northern Nigeria's Hausa readerships (70). The narrative presents a "casual, folksy . . . style," which draws on "folkloric template[s]" found in Hausa oral culture (70) and uses "several rhetorical devices," "imagery...

Post-Colonial Experiences: Based on Abdulrazak Gurnah’s “Desertion” and Other Novels: Rewriting Cultural History

Shelley has once rightly stated that “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”, establishing the concept of a pen being mightier than the sword. The evolution of literary works has transcended beyond ages and phases of political and social developments, marking the birth of concepts like colonialism, post-colonialism, and neo-colonialism; Each having its own perspective and impact on the readers and the societies, post-colonialism took its stand at the zenith during the late 1970s, foraying its way into the sublime identities and efficacies of influencing the minds of the society. The current study is conducted as a critical review of the novel, Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah, one of the most controversial yet admired novelists from Zanzibar, Tanzania. The novel essentially opens in the backdrop of 1899 along the East African coast, wherein the story’s protagonist is a white stranger, sick and wounded, staggering and deserted in a small East African town. Later the stranger is taken to home by a local shop owner Hassan Ali, to have him taken care of by his family. However, with the news of the stranger staying with the Hassan Ali family, the British Colonial officers arrive to claim him. Contradictorily, before he can surrender himself to the British colonial officers, Martin Pearce, the stranger, falls madly in love with Hassan Ali’s sister, Rehanah. This paper provides a critical review of the agreements and disagreements surrounding the colonial and post-colonial experiences, concept building, and its influence on human feelings and social existences. Through the character of Martin Pearce, Gurnah wishes to represent his belief in ideating human feelings to know no boundaries. Martin’s intense love for Rehanah is a way of portraying the dissuasion of the writer to break the “glass ceiling” of colonialism and post-colonialism and think beyond the social barriers and shackles.

‘He has not been playing the game with us’: Paul Kirchhoff in imperial Britain

ABSTRACT The decision by the British Colonial Office to prohibit the German-born anthropologist Paul Kirchhoff from entering any empire African colony, including South Africa, created a diplomatic problem as well a nearly derailing a major research project, ‘the Changing African’, developed by the German linguist Diedrich Westermann, London School of Economics (LSE) anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and JR Oldham, secretary of the London-based International Institute of African Languages and Cultures (IIALC). This paper examines academic and political freedom, as well as the treatment of émigré scholars – those forced to leave for political and/or racial reasons –, in interwar imperial Britain and its colonies using Kirchhoff as a case study. It scrutinizes the role of government and its instrumentalities on the appointment of researchers, using political affiliation as a key factor; secondly, it investigates how quasi-academic institutions, such as the IIALC and the Australian National Research Council (ANRC) acquiesced to government demands. It also illuminates the transnational aspect of security services and the international reach of academic anthropology. Thirdly, it traces the impact such actions had on research project(s), that is, how research projects were modified considering a perceived or anticipated response by government and its instrumentalities in the colonies and dominions.

Iran in Motion: Mobility, Space, and the Trans-Iranian Railway

Iran in Motion: Mobility, Space, and the Trans-Iranian Railway

Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization: Literary Pre-figurations of the Postcolony

Space, Utopia and Indian Decolonization: Literary Pre-figurations of the Postcolony

Gold Coast Colony’s Northern Territories Protectorate Muslims on Haj: Passports and Repatriation Deposits, 1897-1950

Ghana had a census for the Muslim population in 2017 and 2021, a national census including Muslims. Two international airports were being constructed to render three international airports for Muslims to embark on planes at Accra, Cape Coast and Tamale for the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. This paper is situated in the north, where the Gold Coast colonial government wrote diplomatic letters for the dispersed Islamic people in the Northern Territories Protectorate who travelled on haj. In 1910, British colonial officers and the Gold Coast colonial government made policies that met the Saudi monarch’s requirement that Muslim pilgrims had to travel with British passports. During the colonial era, the Gold Coast colonial government allotted passports to Muslim pilgrims in the Northern Territories Protectorate from the Gold Coast and Nigeria and controlled the finances they deposited for repatriation during haj.