British Settlement Research Articles

‘Rugged Masculinity: British Settler Colonial Soldiers in the Boer War’

‘Rugged Masculinity: British Settler Colonial Soldiers in the Boer War’

United Albany Brethren benefit society

In the last century friendly "societies" offered men a form of insurance by the establishment of common funds from which payments could be made to members in time of sickness or other troubles; they also offered convivial activity and good fellowship at meetings. The United Albany Brethren Benefit Society was a Grahamstown example of these societies. It was founded by British settlers in 1828, and came to occupy a special position in the city and surrounding areas as one of the earliest local institutions and one closely identified with the history of Grahamstown and the Albany settlement. Skilled artisans made up the bulk of the membership, though some went on to positions of considerable importance. The Society survived all the problems of the 19th century but seems to have succumbed finally to the upheavals of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

Pre-Independence Kenya in Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o’s Trilogy: A Postcolonial Reading of Weep Not, Child, The River Between and A Grain of Wheat

Colonization is one of the most topical issues in the African Literature of the sixties. Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o like many other African intellectuals, restores and exalts the African past not only for the enlightenment of the Africans’ detractors (the settlers) but, above all, for the education of his own people (the Kikuyu). His trilogy made of Weep not, Child, The River Between and A Grain of Wheat is surely appropriate space in which pre-independence Kenya are depicted. As a hierophant of his times, Ngũgĩ shows, how the Kikuyu community, taken as the microcosm of any other people under a colonial power, collapsed with its exposure to the West and cracked with the pressure of an alien force embodied by the British settlers. They lost the precious values that held them together: family life, human dignity but above all, their ancestral land. Ngũgĩ, as a writer in a new nation, appeals this dehumanized people to an awareness in order to understand the real meaning of ‘uhuru’ (independence) and the sacrifices made to achieve it. Yet, he suggests them some necessary strategies for reaching this goal.

What is ‘indigenising the academy’ and why attempt it?

We will share some thoughts on what ‘indigenising the academy’ might mean, and why we might attempt it. We come at these questions from our different yet intertwined identities, experiences and lines of intellectual inquiry. Te Kawehau is of Ngāti Hau and Ngāpuhi tribal groups. Her indigenous ancestors arrived in Aotearoa about 1000 years ago. Alison is a Pākehāl her English settler ancestors came as colonists in the 1850s.

Nothing outside of the text in Aotearoa New Zealand

One of the longer-term effects of poststructuralism and its principles, in particular deconstruction, has been to direct fresh attention to reading as an ethical practice. A re-focus on the ethical responsibility of the reader is part of a large, historic process of moving beyond ‘structuralism’ – a name for the formerly-dominant paradigm of the academic disciplines, which embedded false ideas based on sexism, racism, and scientism in the heart of philosophical theory. We will consider how ethics applies to reading in our local milieu; a nation founded on a bilateral relationship between British settlers and iwi Māori, which was inscribed in 1840 in a national treaty, the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We read everything we see around us as part of a system of meanings determined by local histories and cultures. What does it mean to be ‘read’ as a Māori, a Pacific, or a Pākehā/White person in the local educational contexts of university and school, and what are the implications of different (cultural) forms of reading in a complex community?

The development of Maltese English

AbstractThere has been a more or less constant presence of the English language in the Maltese islands since British settlement began to establish itself during the 1800s. The necessity of accommodating foreign rulers or visitors fuelled a well‐established linguistic dexterity in the islanders, who are documented to have used what came to be designated as Maltese amongst themselves, alongside any other languages necessary with anyone else. Today, fluency in at least Maltese and English remains the preferred linguistic scenario, and both are generally considered necessary to be able to get involved in Maltese society.

Must Every Golem Die?

Abstract Settler-colonial projects often produce states that eventually turn against the purposes of those who created them. We see this in the American and Boer revolts against the British and the sabotage by British settlers in Ireland and French settlers in Algeria of efforts to integrate the native populations of those territories into the British and French states. We see it also in the relationship between the objectives of European states and Zionists to end antisemitism by exporting the Jewish problem to the Middle East and in Israel’s increasingly pariah status on the world stage and the global increase in antisemitism—both accelerated by Israel’s ferocious response to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad attacks in October 2023. In the Jewish tradition this is the story of the golem—the legendary creature conjured by rabbinic skill and divine power to protect the Jews from their enemies in sixteenth-century Prague. At first successful, the golem became increasingly wild and eventually was put to death by the rabbi who created him out of fear for the welfare of the Jewish community itself. But not all golems must die. The key is to recognize they are not tied to their original purposes and can thus be transformed.

The search for a promised land: three settlement plans, three agents, and three handbooks for Icelandic migrant-settlers from 1875

ABSTRACT The nineteenth century was a time of mass migration from Europe to North America, and in the last quarter of the century, Icelanders joined the flow of European settlers. Icelanders were one of the last European peoples in this period to start sailing west, between 1870 and 1914; but, one in every five Icelanders moved to North America. This article looks at three handbooks for prospective Icelandic migrant-settlers – all published in 1875 – and the settlement plans they promoted (in Nova Scotia, today’s Manitoba, and Alaska), to analyse the information presented to prospective settlers, especially depictions of land and its inhabitants. While the texts, written or translated by three Icelandic immigration agents, vary greatly in their scope and tone, all perceive Icelanders as desirable settlers, suitable for advancing the goals of settler colonialism, and portray the areas as terra nullius, minimizing perceived Indigenous presence in the places marked for European settlement. The texts show that prospective Icelandic emigrants reading these booklets were aware that they contributed to and benefited from Indigenous dispossession, and that Icelanders and other ‘ethnic’ migrant-settlers in British settler colonies should be considered in settler colonial studies, as settler colonialism and migration policy are intimately linked.

Settlement growth and military conflict in early colonial New England 1620–1700

Property rights are secure, and violence over land can be attenuated when the treatment and delineation of the property are consistent, stable, and interpreted similarly by each party. In the absence of a mutual understanding of property rights, land-use stability becomes strained as the area of contested land between two rival parties expands—when one party (or group) is perceived as asymmetrically and rapidly accumulating land at another’s expense. While relations between Algonquian tribes and English settlers were generally peaceful in the first half of the 17th century, subsequent colonial growth accelerated and lead to violent conflict. The latter half of the 17th century experienced some of the most devastating conflicts during early colonial American development—beginning with Pequot’s War, peaking during King Philip’s War, and ending with a European proxy war in North America during King William’s War. Using probate data for 72 settlements in New England to measure the growth of farmers as a proxy for colonial territorial growth, I find a general pattern that English settlements with higher rates of population and territorial growth experienced more violent conflict during King Philip’s War. The same relationship between territorial growth and violent conflict was not as strong for wars that preceded and succeeded King Philip’s War.

Hyperincarceration and human rights abuses of First Nations children in juvenile detention in Queensland and the Northern Territory

ABSTRACT Hyperincarceration of First Nations peoples (both children in juvenile detention and adults in prisons) is a feature common to British settler colonial states. This article focuses on hyperincarceration of one population sub-group in one settler colonial state: children in Australian juvenile detention facilities. The treatment of First Nations children in Australian juvenile detention violates a number of Treaty obligations to which Australia has voluntarily committed. The article will focus on the treatment in two Australian jurisdictions – the Northern Territory and Queensland – where there have been high-profile instances of mistreatment that have garnered international and national attention and criticism. The treatment in these jurisdictions demonstrates the inconsistency between the international human rights law requirements and current legislation and policy. It argues that mistreatment that violates human rights law is directly contributed to by the hyperincarceration of First Nations children in juvenile detention, which is on a worsening trajectory.

Containing the ‘Suspect’ Other: Perpetuating Colonial Spaces Through a Global Counterterrorism Regime in Nairobi

ABSTRACT Global counterterrorism has deeply influenced urban arrangements in cities across the world, so too in Nairobi. After the Westgate attack in 2013, new modes of security governance have appeared and actively changed neighbourhoods in the capital. These new urban security arrangements build on and perpetuate, however, existing security dispositifs in the city rooted in British settler colonialism. This article therefore discusses how global counterterrorism structures manifest in and sustain racialised local security arrangements, investigating the role of spatiality within counterterrorism narratives. Taking the case of the postcolonial city of Nairobi, the article explores the two neighbourhoods of Karen and Eastleigh where security arrangements manifest in distinct ways, namely through safeguarding affluent communities from the ‘suspect’ Other who needs to be surveilled and policed. To that end, two historical security systems are embedded in urban space: Private security guarding in Karen and Nyumba Kumi in Eastleigh. The authors hence critically analyse how space governs communities, shapes subjectivities and contributes to sustaining racialised violence in the postcolonial city of Nairobi.

Plymouth Colony: Narratives of English Settlement and Native Resistance from the Mayflower to King Philip's War ed. by Lisa Brooks and Kelly Wisecup (review)

Plymouth Colony: Narratives of English Settlement and Native Resistance from the Mayflower to King Philip's War ed. by Lisa Brooks and Kelly Wisecup (review)

Indigenous American Fishing Traditions at the First Spanish Capital of La Florida: Santa Elena (1566–1587 CE), South Carolina, USA

Few studies of post-Columbian animal economies in the Americas elaborate on the influence of traditional Indigenous knowledge on colonial economies. A vertebrate collection from Santa Elena (1566–87 CE, South Carolina, USA), the original Spanish capital of La Florida, offers the opportunity to examine that influence at the first European-sponsored capital north of Mexico. Santa Elena’s animal economy was the product of dynamic interactions among multiple actors, merging preexisting traditional Indigenous practices, particularly traditional fishing practices, with Eurasian animal husbandry to produce a new cultural form. A suite of wild vertebrates long used by Indigenous Americans living on the southeastern North Atlantic coast contributes 87% of Santa Elena’s noncommensal individuals and 63% of the noncommensal biomass. Examples of this strategy are found in vertebrate collections from subsequent Spanish and British settlements. This suggests the extent to which colonists at the Spanish-sponsored colony adopted some Indigenous animal-use practices, especially those related to fishing, and the speed with which this occurred. The new cultural form persisted into the nineteenth century and continues to characterize local cuisines.

Imperial migration states

ABSTRACT In the past decade, theorising about migration policy has rapidly included more states beyond Western Europe or North America. Expanding the temporal and geographical range of conventional cases destabilises reification of the nation-state and challenges Eurocentric conceptions of sovereignty. By reexamining British settler colonies, alongside the United States, I develop an Imperial Migration State concept to characterise macro-historical shifts as built upon a scaffolding of race and racism. Analysing transitions from imperial to postcolonial polities, furthermore, sheds light on how countries continue to use ostensibly non-racist yet discriminatory restrictions in their exclusionary immigration policies. Efforts to excise racist underpinnings in immigration policies require a more subtle understanding of where and when innovations emerged, and then whether or why such policies diffuse.

Uninhabited Islands in the Bay of Bengal, Penang, Singapore and Botany Bay: What Did Terra Nullius Mean in British Colonial Thinking?

Enlightenment colonial actors never used the term ‘terra nullius’, they used the phrase ‘uninhabited land or island’. In the 1780s, uninhabited did not mean nobody lived there, but rather signified a land without a sovereign. This article contrasts British East India Company deliberations on the habitation of islands in the Eastern Indian Ocean, with the discussions on habitation in Botany Bay prior to 1788. Between 1778 and 1786, there were proposals for British settlements in the Nicobar Islands, Andaman Islands, Junk Ceylon and Penang. The people who lived on these islands were not considered the inhabitants. Instead, the British looked at the relationship between people on the islands and mainland Asian sovereigns to determine who inhabited these islands. A retrospective discourse developed that Penang and Singapore were uninhabited prior to the British arrival. This discourse was part of plans to end legal pluralism in the settlements and assert colonial sovereignty.

Three Questions About the Early British Port of Singapore, c.1819–1830

ABSTRACT This article examines the evolution of trade policies in early British Singapore from its founding in 1819 to about 1830. By focusing on this timeframe, it aims to shed light on the important shifts that occurred during this formative period. The article addresses three issues that are key to understanding the trajectory of early British Singapore. First, it explores the reasons behind the dissolution of the original power- and revenue-sharing arrangements between the British, the Temenggong, and Sultan Hussain by 1824. By investigating the reasons behind this termination, the article seeks to uncover the power struggles that (re-) shaped early governance in Singapore. Second, the article examines the roles played by traditional Malay commercial conventions and practices. As a result, a more multi-faceted understanding emerges of Singapore's commercial and cultural origins. Finally, the article investigates the driving forces behind the establishment of British Singapore as a free port supported by free trade. By exploring the motivation, timing and debates about policy, the article provides insights into the economic and political factors that propelled Singapore’s rise as a trading hub. The conclusions in this article offer a thought-provoking reassessment and reframing of Singapore’s early development as a port and British settlement.

Holocaust refugees’ experiences in, out of and nowhere in Africa

ABSTRACT Eppelsheimer’s article examines Holocaust refugees’ experiences in colonial Kenya. It draws attention to the autobiographical novels of German Jewish author Stefanie Zweig, as well as testimonies and memoirs of former Holocaust refugees who had fled to Kenya, and asks if and how refugees’ own experiences of racial persecution informed their responses to colonial racism. This article illustrates how Zweig responded in aesthetic terms to her experience in colonial spaces. It does so by examining autobiographical aspects of Zweig’s writings, highlighting the author’s upbringing in multiple cultures, literary traditions and languages, and discussing Zweig’s novels in the contexts of white British settler writing about Kenya, as well as the German ‘Africa-novel’­—both of which have shaped the images and perspectives of Kenya among millions of readers. It examines such European colonialist perspectives and discourses in literary texts as well as testimonies. In so doing, it questions whether a text like Nowhere in Africa, which is about the experiences of a German Jewish refugee family in Kenya, contributes to the silencing of African voices and the obscuring of African history by colonial historiography and literature.

‘Daisyfield in the crucible’: Afrikaners, education and poor whites in Southern Rhodesia, 1911–1948

ABSTRACT This article examines the history of Daisyfield School, an Afrikaner children's orphanage and school in Southern Rhodesia. The existence of an Afrikaner school in a self-consciously British settler colony represented a distinctive settler project within the settler state, one supported by the school’s transnational connections and one whose aims often conflicted with the state. These aims centred around the rehabilitation of poor white children, and we demonstrate how non-state institutions engaged in far-reaching interventions into the lives of children identified as poor whites. We also show how the children who were recipients of this treatment could resist it by crossing social and geographical boundaries. Challenges to Daisyfield’s regime produced a kind of solidarity between the school and state to suppress this challenge as the existence of poor whites threatened racial boundaries in the colony.

Importing Arcadia into 18th‐century Madras: Poetics of the contact zone and the politics of genre in Eyles Irwin's Saint Thomas's Mount

AbstractEyles Irwin (1751–1817), an East India Company official who spent much of his life in the British settlement of Fort St. George, Madras, was one of the earliest practitioners of anglophone belles lettres in the Indian subcontinent, and his writings predate the development of a robust culture of English‐language literary composition in the colony by quite a few years. The scant scholarly attention he has received belies his importance as an anticipator of the momentous literary‐historical processes that would transform India's public sphere in the 19th century. This essay offers a contextual reading of Saint Thomas's Mount (1774), his earliest extant poem, which is avowedly modelled on canonical English topographical poems like Alexander Pope's Windsor‐Forest (1713) and makes use of a host of neoclassical conventions, but which also differs from them in terms of the kind of landscape that is represented (Irwin's is a tropical landscape, with abundant mangoes, palms, and Oriental fauna, unlike Pope's pleasant, idyllic British park). However, Irwin's target readership being chiefly metropolitan, he contends with the difficulty of highlighting India's irreducible foreignness while simultaneously trying to ensure that readers in London do not find the Oriental descriptions too alien, incredible, and unrelatable. The authorial strategies he adopts to navigate this difficulty constitute the focus of the first part of the essay. The second (and final) part seeks to shed light on his hybrid, hyphenated identity as an Indian‐born Irish poet, and on his perception of himself as somehow fundamentally unlike those Britons who never ventured beyond the geographical confines of Europe, let alone setting down roots in places on the very fringes of the British empire. The affiliative bonds he forges with expatriate colonial officials living in and confronting the hardships of life in the monsoonal tropics mark him as a member of the steadily growing community of Anglo‐Indians in the Indian subcontinent. While noting the shifting connotations of the term ‘Anglo‐Indian’ in the 18th and 19th centuries, this essay will also examine the implications of identifying Irwin as a member of this initially amorphous but steadily growing community.

Colonisation and Its Impacts on Melbourne: A Historical Perspective on Urban Development

Prior to the World Wars, European and American empires implemented a colonial model of urban planning in the colonies and concessions under their control. This approach to urban planning was characterised by an imperialist ideology that sought to impose Western standards and values on the territories they governed. This essay explores the manifestation and impact of colonisation on Melbourne, Australia, from its establishment as a British settlement in 1835 to the present day. The essay focuses on the citys colonial background, the manifestation of colonisation in urban development through urban planning and landmark buildings, and the impact of colonisation on living habits, social structures, and cultural traditions. Melbournes colonial history is marked by the displacement and subjugation of indigenous peoples and the exploitation of natural resources for British economic gain. The enduring influence of colonialism is evident in the urban planning, architectural landmarks, and cultural practices of Melbourne city, and has left an indelible mark on its urban, social, and economic development. The legacy of colonialism is reflected in the enduring patterns of power, inequality, and exclusion that are embedded in the citys physical and social landscape. This legacy has also contributed to the persistence of cultural and social hierarchies, which continue to shape the citys urban fabric and its social and economic relations. Furthermore, the effects of colonialism can be observed in the citys built environment, including its urban morphology, architectural styles, and land use patterns, all of which reflect the values and ideologies of the colonial era.