British Empire Research Articles

De Kaapsche Kerk, the British Empire, slavery, and the discourses of good and evil

It is a well-known history that the Dutch church in South Africa’s Cape colony up until the early 19th century had readily accommodated the institution of slavery as commonly practiced within Cape Dutch society. Slavery was not seen as “good” but generally accepted as an unfortunate reality of life. Some groups of people, particularly those of non-European heritage, were seen within this colonist society as naturally predisposed for slavery. Biblical arguments regarding examples of the non-denunciation of slavery in both Old and New Testament scriptures could easily be mustered in defence of the institution against the rare voices protesting the practice. In that sense the Cape Church was not any different from most other Christian churches in colonial societies worldwide. Yet the Cape church also had some strong antislavery statements and advocates from within its ranks since at least the first half of the nineteenth century. As seen for example in Dreyer’s collection of documents under the title, “Die Kaapse Kerk en die Groot Trek”, several high placed church leaders opposed the migration of Dutch farmers from the Cape colony in the 1830s on the basis that the migration occurred in disobedience to British colonial legislation that were effectively seen as seeking to stamp out slavery and associated practices. The Dutch farmers tended to see the British Empire as an evil empire. The Cape Church leadership, to the contrary, which by then included a number of abolitionist Scottish pastors in its ranks viewed their emigrating members, at least initially, as being in rebellion not only against the civil rulers but also against the church, and they, albeit for the most part unsuccessfully, sought to dissuade the emigrants from abandoning their chosen paths. In the subsequent decades a number of Cape Church pastors sought contact with the migrants with the intent of bringing them back into the fold. This article presents the case of a noteworthy equalisation campaigner in this regard, Rev. D.P.M. Huet. Another episode occurred later in the 19th century in the mission fields associated with the Cape Church in central Africa, Nyasaland as it was known at the time. Again, it is a well-known story that some of the early Christian missionaries in these areas, most notably David Livingstone, confronted slave traders and agitated against the practice which was still rife throughout the region during much of the 19th century. Yet, as far as the Cape Church and Afrikaners more generally were concerned, historical accounts often suggest that particularly the northern Boers were more often themselves involved in the slave trade rather than acting against it. Yet, as this article will indicate the early missionary enterprise of the Cape Church in central Africa actively engaged in anti-slavery activities with a central character in this being missionary, William Hoppe Murray who served as leader of the mission in Nyasaland for a substantial period.The article finally discusses the case of De Kaapsche Kerk (the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape Colony) in relation to slavery and empire with reference to notions of good and evil.

Godmother-Governesses and Biracial Cinderellas: The Use of Fairy Tales in Dinah Mulock Craik’s The Half-Caste

Abstract In Dinah Mulock Craik’s short and largely unacknowledged novella, The Half-Caste (1851), the half-Indian heroine, Zillah La Poer, achieves what seems impossible for a young woman of color in mid-century imperial Britain, rising from an uneducated and ill-treated biracial ward to a rich heiress-turned-bride, all under the watchful guidance of the novella’s narrator and main character, governess Cassandra Pryor. Though Craik’s novella has resurfaced in recent years with the help of a Broadview edition in 2016, the scholarly work and historical material in the introduction and appendixes do not highlight the fairy-tale inspirations and obvious Cinderella motifs in Craik’s text. Craik’s novella is, at its core, a Cinderella story, as Cassandra becomes a nonmagical fairy godmother tasked with transforming Zillah into a respected British citizen. As such, this article seeks to bring attention to Craik’s little-known novella by situating it in a larger tradition of Victorian Cinderella stories, highlighting the way it creates an idealized image of civilized harmony between non-white colonized people and white British citizens via governess-led education.

Adrift in the Andaman Sea: 
Law, Archipelagos and the Making of Maritime Sovereignty

Abstract This essay focuses on the long history of archipelagic formations in the Bay of Bengal as sites of legal experimentation. This history is often narrated beginning with convict transportation and the permanent occupation of the Andaman Islands as a British penal settlement in 1857 and the violent erasure of indigenous cultures that followed it. This essay focuses instead on the hundred years preceding it where the English East India Company experimented with abandoning jurisdiction over the lesser-known islands off the Bengal and Burma coasts and people who lived on them, despite being in the position of a territorial sovereign. These experimentations were recorded most eloquently in legal and administrative records about crime - which included, for example, how assault and “river dacoity” on the deltaic islands of the Sunderbans in lower Bengal were to be dealt with and how men convicted of murder on the islands off the Tenasserim coast in southern Burma were to be prosecuted. In each case, prompted by tensions between the Company and the British Crown, policing and prosecution were abandoned, but this escaped public attention as it took place on the empire’s maritime edges. Although jurisdictional claims were central to the expansionist aims of the British empire in the nineteenth century around the Indian Ocean, these instances offer an alternate account of sovereignty, one where assertions and abandonments were both critical to the making of empires.

“Politics Are Quite Beneath the Concern of the Average Billjim”: Politics and the First World War Anzacs, 1914–1918

The politics of Australia during First World War have been analysed in depth by many scholars, but little attention has been paid to the politics of the soldiers of the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Though often assumed to have been not interested in politics, this article demonstrates that they engaged in politics at multiple levels. They were concerned about decision making and power relationships within the AIF, in international circles and within the British empire. They were also active on a range of domestic political issues, particularly around volunteering and conscription, but also with other federal, state, and local issues. They engaged in the politics of shaping the “digger” legacy. Pre‐war ideologies, particularly on class issues and religion, were influential in shaping soldier political engagement and responses. Far from being political innocents, the Anzacs showed themselves to be interested and active in a range of political arenas.

Between abolition and opium: civility and force across Asian and Caribbean British imperialisms

ABSTRACT This paper explores the relationship between Britian’s abolition of slavery in its Caribbean colonies in 1838 and its instigation of the First Opium War with China in 1840. In so doing, it works against the occlusion of this relationship in the study of British imperialism despite the centrality of these events to the birth of global systems of free trade and free labour. It draws on the parliamentary debates and correspondence of British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston to analyze Britain’s negotiation of anti-slavery efforts with Haiti and its trade of Indian opium with China. It argues that these negotiations position British masculine civility against less-civilized foreign others in ways that legitimate the use of maritime force. This logic of imperial civility produces contradictory effects by demanding an end to the brutality of African enslavement while condoning the devastation of Asian opium addiction enacted in the name of free trade.

Encountering ‘the Most Remarkable Army of All Times’: Inter-Allied Relations and Military Hierarchies in Macedonia During the First World War

The Allied soldiers who served in Macedonia during the First World War fought as part of a diverse multinational force without parallel in any other theatre of the war, comprising troops from Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Serbia and Greece, as well as contingents from across the British and French colonial empires. Although the high-level interallied disputes between generals and politicians in conducting the campaign are well-studied, less clear is how those on the ground navigated the challenges of coalition warfare. This article draws on material from several different contingents to reconstruct the dynamics of interallied relations in Macedonia.

Eutrophicated: Tracking colonial histories of phosphate matter and the Plantationocene inheritances of the River Wye

This article examines the River Wye in the southwest UK as a political ecology marked by relations of colonial inheritance. A controversial case of contemporary British river pollution, the Wye is suffering from increasingly dramatic eutrophication events, with nutrient pollution from mineral phosphate fertilisers used in industrial agriculture causing algal blooms that destroy the river's ecology. This paper complicates dominant framings of the Wye's eutrophication as a local event and future crisis, instead arguing that eutrophication is structured by over a century of colonial histories of phosphate. Motivated by recent debates in geography and other cognate disciplines on decolonial ecology and the Plantationocene that point to the colonial origins of ecological crisis, this paper develops a theoretical framework of inheritance/transmission to articulate the situated histories of violence and dispossession shaping phosphate matter. It then empirically tracks the phosphate inheritances of the Wye by analysing the archives of the British Phosphate Commissioners (1873–1983), a 20th century governmental company that procured fertiliser for the British Empire by intensively mining phosphates on the Pacific Islands of Nauru and Banaba. Through this archive emerges a history in which, on a national and local level, the Wye is connected to the people, corporations, and institutions responsible for the emergence of the mineral phosphates industry that has spread ecological devastation across the globe. Through theoretically and empirically examining the Wye's phosphate inheritances, this paper foregrounds ethical obligations to think systematically and historically about phosphates as a prerequisite for bringing about deep structural changes needed to repair phosphate's harms.

Evolution of Codified Criminal Laws in India: A Voyage from Colonialization to Decolonization

This research paper delves into the profound evaluation of criminal laws in Bharat from the Vedic era to the decolonization of criminal statutes. The narrative begins with evaluating the criminal justice system from the Vedic ages to today's new decolonized criminal laws in India. The paper scrutinizes the various time duration for evaluation of criminal laws in Bharat: Before the Vedic era (Vedas (Rig, Yajur, Sāma, and Atharva), Shrutis, Puranas, and many more), During the Vedic era (Dharamshastra and Arthshastra), Mughal period, British colonial period, and Decolonialization of criminal laws in India. The various objectives behind the decolonization of new criminal laws include Eradication of Colonial-Era law, Offence against the state, Modernization of the criminal justice system, Strengthening Accountability and Rule of Law, and Democratizing the Law. Understanding the evaluation of laws from the colonial era to the decolonization of criminal laws, importing critical legal changes brought under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and Bharatiya Sakshya Act (BSA) in 2023, this study closely observes the backdrop, what inspires the law to launch such amendments and what subtleties result in these alterations. This historical analysis is taken up first that describes the colonial legacy of India's legal system, and how relics of archaic legislations are part of its system even today. With this background, the exam is placed against a backdrop of rising crime and changing characteristics of criminal behaviors occasioned by new technological breakthroughs that require all-around changes. The paper scrutinizes the supreme provisions of the BNSS towards replacing the archaic Code of Criminal Procedure, the BNS which is poised to replace the Indian Penal Code, and the BSA which is to replace the Evidence Act. This report will appraise the major changes in the number of sections that are incorporated into the new schemes, record digitalization, and the inevitable drift towards forensic science and collection of evidence.

Constituting the Body of State: Paper, Parchment, and Political Thought in the Age of the American Revolution

Abstract This essay considers the material and visual cultural dynamics through which the modern state emerged during the Age of Revolutions in the Atlantic world. It centres upon the emergent rhetoric of the ‘written constitution’ in Revolutionary North America and the new United States, arguing that this mode of constitution-making represented not the invention that many claimed it to be, but instead a revision of the relationship between document, statecraft and the body in early modern British empire that built upon seventeenth-century English critics of monarchical power. The continuities between the material substrates of empire and nation came to be masked by a rhetoric of disavowal that posited the US constitutional form as both an innovation and a template for the material entanglements of the modern state.

The Impact of the Anglo–Boer War on Russian Marxists before the October Revolution

ABSTRACT Various political movements in Russia followed the Anglo–Boer War of 1899–1902 (also known as the South African War). The reasons why the Russian Marxists, who later carried out the first socialist revolution in history, sympathised with the Boers and ignored the reactionary and exploitative nature of their regimes in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State remained unexplored. Russian Marxists were reluctant to join the mass pro-Boer effort. However, they participated in the pro-Boer campaign conducted by the Second International. Poorly informed about the oppression of Africans in the two republics, the social democrats regarded the Boers as freedom fighters whose experience deserved to be studied and applied to the confrontation with tsarist autocracy. Russian Marxists used information on Boer commando tactics and other aspects of the South African War for instruction, training, and dissemination of their ideas. They campaigned for an introduction of a militia in Russia and studied the methods and organisation of Boer military units. Although Russian Marxists had little in common with members of burgher commandos, lessons of the Boer resistance to British imperialism served the cause of a Russian revolution.

Historical expansion of tea plantations over 150years (1876-2023) in North Bengal, India.

The Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze agroforestry system has been a dominant driver of land transformation for over a century. However, most previous studies have not captured the dynamics of tea plantations since their inception. To address this research gap, this study investigates 150years (1876 to 2023) of tea area dynamics and two decades (2001-2022) of tree loss in the Bengal-Dooars region (Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts). Various data sources were employed, including Sentinel-2A imagery (10m), early twentieth century topographic maps at a 1:50,000 scale, and historical records from the British colonial period. Results revealed that the tea area expanded from 331 to 95,800ha (a 70% increase) during the study period. The 1-km grid-wise spatial analysis indicated that approximately 70% of the increase was attributed to the 60-90% and > 90% grid categories, signifying the expansion of large tea estates. Most tea gardens(TG) are sustained with trees, which can significantly contribute to carbon stock. Tree loss within and outside TG for 2001-2022 was analyzed using annual tree loss data at 30m from the Global Forest Watch (GFW) platform. Between 2001 and 2022, about 52.7% of tree loss was attributed to TG, although tea covers only 15.3% of the geographic area of the study region. Our findings highlight the historical expansion of tea plantations and their impact on natural land cover. We suggest that future studies address the mean age of TG along with tree fractions for improved carbon estimates.

Reconsidering ‘Sook Ching’ victimhood: A microhistory of Singapore’s Nishimura trial

Abstract This article highlights the cross-disciplinary methodological potential of Third World approaches to international law (TWAIL) and microhistory by studying the active and complex exercise of agency by victims in an understudied historical instance of post-war justice, namely, the Singapore ‘Sook Ching’ trial or Nishimura trial. This trial dealt with the arbitrary massacre of Chinese residents by the Japanese military during the Second World War. Using TWAIL and microhistory methods, this article analyses trial transcripts and archival material on the Nishimura trial, with a focus on the trial experiences of witnesses, survivors, and community representatives. By studying the Nishimura trial as mobilization and meaning-making opportunity, this microhistory draws attention to the exercise of social and political agency by the Chinese community under difficult post-war conditions and British colonial rule. Chinese community leaders represented the community as collectively victimized and united in the pursuit of post-war justice. However, a close analysis of trial transcripts reveals tensions within the community and the need for a more complex understanding of victimhood.

‘A window of the world’: itinerant silent cinemas in rural Australia

ABSTRACT Moving pictures connected even the most remote corners of the British Empire with its cultural and economic center. Between 1896 and 1916, transnational silent cinema shaped settler-colonial Australia’s relationship to the British Empire in tandem with the colonies’ move toward federation and political autonomy. Traveling exhibitors were key to this process, bringing moving pictures from the UK, Europe, and the US to Australians who lived outside major cities. This paper explores how itinerant silent cinema shows brought not just the pictures to rural Australian audiences, but also a sense of belonging to an imagined transnational community, through films from the UK, US, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. Between 1896 and 1905, exhibitors like Maurice Sestier and Wybert Reeve were instrumental in introducing cinema technology, while entertainers like J. C. Williamson, T.J. West, the Marvellous Corricks, and Ettie Wilmott helped maintain the popularity of the cinema in the mid-1900s, in part by incorporating films into variety shows. From around 1910, when permanent cinemas had been established in larger Australian towns, until at least 1914 but in some cases for much longer, itinerant exhibitors and vaudeville shows like Wilmott’s Electric Pictures kept remote rural communities supplied, albeit intermittently, with cinema experiences that connected them to a wider imagined community.

‘Why, it’s like Belgium!’: the Women’s International League in the Irish War of Independence 1919–1921

ABSTRACT This article demonstrates how the Women’s International League (WIL) dealt with the changing ideas of nationhood, internationalism, imperialism, and freedom when supporting the cause of Irish independence. Their actions included seeking to protect Britain’s good name while simultaneously criticising that very same nation for its war in Ireland. The ‘small nations’ rhetoric that had emerged during the First World War was used by British feminists to divorce the atrocities of the British Crown force, the Black and Tans, from the wider colonial experience of oppression. Comparing the occupation of Ireland in 1919–1921 to that of Belgium during the First World War enabled British internationalist-feminists to support the sovereignty of Ireland’s nationhood, without necessarily having to engage with the colonial dimension or history of the conflict. This entirely changed the parameters within which British feminists could show solidarity with the Irish republicans while still maintaining positive views of British imperialism and the empire.

Tamil Schools in the Federated Malay States under British Colonial Rule 1895-1941

In the time of British rule of the Federated Malay States (FMS) from 1895 to 1941, many Indians, especially the Tamils from South India, were brought in as labourers. Long-term Tamil primary schools were established to cater to their children's educational needs. This article presents a historical investigation of the development, challenges, and disparity faced by Tamil primary schools in the FMS between 1895-1941. The study employs thematic content analysis to study the primary and secondary historical sources. The findings report that four themes surrounding challenges and disparity emerged among Tamil schools in the FMS, namely building and equipment; subjects and syllabi; schoolteachers; and teacher training. The study underscores the development of Tamil schools in the FMS, the significant issues faced by the schools under British colonial rule, and the implications for children of Tamil migrants. Significantly, this study contributes new knowledge towards the history of education during British colonialism, emphasising the crucial role of Tamil schools in preserving language and culture and potentially shaping future research in this area.

Arrival of 12 Families of Karen in Andaman: Adaptation and Present Status of the Karen Community

The arrival of twelve Karen families in the Andaman Islands during the British colonial period marks a significant historical event in the cultural and demographic evolution of the region. The Karen, an indigenous group from Myanmar, faced immense challenges in adapting to a new environment, shaping their socio-economic practices, cultural traditions, and integration into the broader Andaman society. This research paper aims to explore the origins of the Karen migration, the factors influencing their adaptation in the Andaman Islands, and the present socio-economic and cultural status of the Karen community in contemporary times.

Sir William Burrell: An Artful Politician

This article discusses the political career of Sir William Burrell (1861–1958) as a Conservative party councillor for Glasgow's Exchange ward (1899–1906) and focuses on the years 1899–1901, in three overlapping arenas: the 1899 municipal elections in which Burrell began his career; Glasgow's civic and business status as the second city of the British empire; and the 1901 international exhibition. By examining Burrell as a skilful operator in all three contexts simultaneously, this article presents him for the first time not only as a powerful Glaswegian businessman who collected art, but also as an adroit politician who exploited both his business success and his curatorial expertise for the benefit of the Conservative and Liberal Unionist cause in the city. His administration and curation of the international exhibition in the new Kelvingrove galleries allowed the dominant Unionist group to present itself to millions of visitors. Burrell's art collection is thus demonstrated to be an important political source.

Emotional baggage: how objects created family across the nineteenth-century British empire

Emotional baggage: how objects created family across the nineteenth-century British empire

L’ENNUI DES SYRTES OR THE BOREDOM OF EMPIRES

The paper presents the phenomenon of boredom in Julien Gracq’s novel Le Rivage des Syrtes (The opposing shore). The book describes Orsenna, oligarchic city-state loosely based on Venetian republic and empire, which is in a state of phoney war with Farghestan, a mysterious country across the closed sea of Syrtes. The story, narrated by Aldo, young aristocrat assigned for civic duty on the outskirts of empire, depicts the collective mood of anxious anticipation and boredom of the citizens of Orsenna “waiting for barbarians.” The paper analyses Gracq’s novel as a literary illustration of the theories of civilization demise, primarily that of Oswald Spengler, and of the decadence state of society led by bored and languorous elite. In the article, I hypothesize that the demise of empires can be partially attribute to them being boring for their civic agents and subjects alike. The sense of meaninglessness and the feeling of interminable ennui seem to contribute to the attitude of carelessness in both these groups resulting in lack of loyalty and low morale. I suggest that Orsenna’s citizens suffer from societal existential boredom and that similar affliction might have been observed in late British Empire.

Colonial Racial Capitalism and Violence: Theorising the Relationship between Empire and Israeli Settler Colonialism

This article theorises the relationship between empire and Israeli settler colonialism through the interplay between violence and capital accumulation in colonial racial capitalism. It argues that Israel's genocidal violences of land theft is the means and grounds for Israeli and US imperial capital accumulation. This can be observed in the genocidal operation in the Gaza Strip. The first section contextualizes the genocide in the Gaza Strip within a larger structure of genocide. The section highlights the centrality of the conquest of land in the Zionist settler colonial project and how that appealed to the British empire in the early parts of the twentieth century. The second section examines why the US empire has actively participated in the genocide. States in the US imperial bloc essentially reduce the whole question of Palestine to a simple equation where Palestinian liberation does not equate with their own economic interests, while Israeli settler colonialism does. Though there exists a tension between imperial and settler colonial interests around the question of what kind of violence is preferable for capital accumulation, the article concludes by arguing that a transformation of the logics and systems of colonial racial capitalism cannot arise without activism and pressure from below on states and capitalist structures.