History of the British Empire
The Victorian politician Sir John Seeley wrote
in 1882: "We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world
in a fit of absence of mind." He was alluding to the somewhat haphazard
way that it appeared Britain had come to dominate a significant portion
of the globe. In Seeley's time, at the height of the British Empire, it
could truly be said that the sun never set on the British Empire.
Britain's overseas holdings and interests
amounted to a vastly larger land (and sea) empire than had ever before
been seen in the world. But this empire did not reflect a grand military
design, like that of Macedonia's Alexander the Great in the ancient world,
or the failed imperial vision of a Napoleon; rather, it was acquired through
a national obsession with increasing commerce. In a sense, it was the first
capitalist empire. The pursuit of trade brought British overseas merchants
into conflict with other imperial powers, notably (in the Renaissance)
with Spain and Portugal. British success in opening trading possibilities
led to further economic adventuring and economic hegemony, creating a vested
interest in the stability of key trading areas.
Both adventuring and hegemony required greater
degrees of military intervention to protect trade routes, British citizens,
and specific markets. A military presence, once established, tended to
become a permanency, and the presence of British citizens in foreign countries
further increased the national interest in the stability of those countries.
Finally, hegemonic concerns resulted in the imposition of varying degrees
of civil government on the British model in overseas colonies.
There were, of course, other interests at
stake as well. The first British colonies were settler colonies, made up
of transplanted Britons, which served as an escape valve for those former
agricultural workers dislocated by domestic economic and social revolutions,
skilled craftsmen seeking new opportunities, and religious dissidents.
Religious conversion of the heathen became a factor in later expansion
into non-settler colonies (primarily those in tropical climates, which
proved uncongenial to British workers). And there was an often sincere
desire to export the benefits of European culture, in particular the forms
of civil government and education, to "the heathen."
Among the first British colonies were those
that later formed the United States, and foremost among these was Virginia
(est. 1617), where the cultivation of tobacco, previously unknown in Europe,
proved a boon to the British economy. Virginia contributed enormous amounts
of revenue to the crown; James states that duties on tobacco amounted to
£421,000 pounds in the two-year period between 1699 and 1701 - one-fifth
of all customs revenue during that period (7). Further north, the British
colony of Massachusetts was initially less successful but persisted because
of religious impulses among the Puritan colonists.
The unfortunate fact that the new colonies
were already occupied required a certain degree of moral contortion to
justify continued expansion. A religious argument based on the biblical
account of Adam being given dominion over the earth helped; it was argued
by pious Britons and other Europeans that God had given the world to mankind
to be used, and the existing populations of the new lands had demonstrated
their unwillingness or inability to make them yield to their fullest extent.
This position, originally formulated for the Americas, would later be extended
to settler colonies in Australia and to the non-settler colonies in Africa
(James 12). (As an aside, I would also note that similar arguments crop
up, for instance, in disputes between Israel and the Palestinians over
lands in the Middle East, as well as in other disagreements over land use.)
Britain also developed economic interests in
the West Indies. The first British settlement was in Barbados (est. 1627),
which struggled at first until the possibilities of the sugar trade became
apparent. The sugar economy led to other West Indian colonies, but the
climate of the region made it unattractive to British settlers; even indentured
servants and deportees lacked the physical stamina needed, so the slave
trade was introduced to provide an appropriate labor force (the local population
having already been devastated as a result of being the first point of
contact with European civilization). Sugar was not completely refined in
the West Indies during the colonial period -- the British forbade it so
as to keep economically valuable refining industry at home. But molasses
produced from sugar cane was the base for making rum, which quickly became
a staple in trade. Slaves and later free workers were dependent for subsistence
on food imported from North America, since so much land was given to sugar
production. Thus was set up a triangular trade involving Britain, the west
coast of Africa, and the Caribbean and North American colonies. Britain
was well under way to a massive Atlantic trade empire.
The need to protect the triangular trade brought
the British Navy into the service of mercantile interests, and required
the acquisition of a base of operations in the Caribbean. This was accomplished
by the capture of Kingston, Jamaica, from the Spanish in 1655 and the subsequent
development of the large island as a sugar economy. Jamaica provided important
harbors for British merchantmen and naval vessels, as well as a significant
supply of raw materials.
Chamberlin says "Slavery shaped the West Indies"
(1). During the centuries-long slave trade, an estimated 4.6 million slaves
were imported to all parts of the Caribbean, slightly over a third to the
British and a similar amount to the French West Indies; this accounts for
almost half of all slaves brought to the Western Hemisphere. Large numbers
of imported slaves were required to compensate for large numbers of deaths.
Today about two-thirds of regional population consists of black descendants
of these slaves. Slavery, of course, required more moral contortions, especially
once the slaves were converted to Christianity. Arguments in favor of slavery
were not in short supply, and essentially followed the same logic as the
arguments for taking land away from indigenous peoples.
British involvement with the Far East began
with a desire to get rid of the middleman in the spice trade. The East
India Company was chartered in 1600 to pursue direct links with the East
Indies. In addition to the spice trade, the East India Company was spectacularly
successful at establishing an economic foothold on the Indian subcontinent
itself.
India had been the home to a continuous civilization
since about 3000 B.C., when the Harappan culture began to fluorish in the
Indus River valley in what is now Pakistan. It is believed by many scholars
today that Harappan culture contributed to the rise of Hindu society after
the subcontinent was invaded by Aryan peoples, although there are no written
records of Harappa itself. Hindu scriptures and civilization was well developed
before the time of Christ (major offshoots such as Buddhism itself precede
Christianity). Trade with Europe had occurred without significant interruption
since ancient times, primarily through Arab middlemen.
European colonial activity began with the
Portuguese, who captured Goa in 1510 and dominated the Inidan Ocean during
the 16th century. Protestant England and Netherlands challenged the Portuguese
monopoly (granted by the Pope). In 1659 the island of St. Helena in the
South Atlantic was occupied by the British to protect shipping lanes around
the Cape of Good Hope to the Far East, using the same strategy as that
which dictated the conquest and subsequent colonial development of Jamaica.
Other military interventions also became necessary to protect the interests
of the East India Company, which rapidly became identified with the interests
of Britain itself. Initially the Company operated trading posts, but as
the security of trade declined under conflicts between various Indian states,
these were transformed into fortified refuges, armed by company soldiers
and operating under English law. Beginning late in the 17th century, the
French also operated in India and the European rivals typically supported
opposing factions. Finally, British rule was instituted in India after
the Battle of Plassey in 1757, when East India Company troops defeated
poorly organized Indian troops.
English control moved inward from the sea,
first taking over South India and the Ganges Valley. Northeast India, Central
India, and Lower Burma were taken by 1830, and the Sind (modern Pakistan)
and the Punjab by 1849. British imperialism in India was motivated by the
demands of trade, by security demands (they were afraid Napoleon was going
to move into South India, Russia into Afghanistan), and the missionary
impulse - Evangelicals and non-religious Utilitarians sought to spread
religion and Western civilization into the region.
The initial period of company rule was marked
by extreme greed and exploitation, leading to government-imposed reforms
in William Pitt's India Act of 1784. After this, a professional civil service
(at first totally British, later incorporating some educated Indians as
well) was put into place, and company activities regulared; British justice
was established through a system of courts. Early plans had called for
educating Indian youth in Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, or Indian languages,
acquainting them with historical Indian languages; however, European educators
ended up teaching in English, which the Indians learned more rapidly than
Brits learned Indian languages, so that British culture was also transmitted
in educational institutions.
The slave trade was eliminated in British possessions
in 1807, and rumors of the emancipation of those slaves already held followed
immediately. This had numerous effects on theempire, notably stimulating
transmigration around the empire. Faced with perceived labor shortages,
planters in the West Indies began to import workers from British India
under five-year labor contracts. Most of these went to British Guiana,
Trinidad, and Jamaica, although they ended up in all parts of British West
Indies and some of the other islands as well. Thus began a significant
migration of native peoples from one part of the British Empire to another
-- as illustrated also by the presence of significant East Indian populations
in South and East Africa, as well as the large number of descendants of
former colonial subjects in England and the settler colonies of Australia,
New Zealand, and Canada.
Ironically, it is only around this time that
British imperial expansion began in Africa. Africa had emerged into Western
consciousness with the age of exploration, as the coast of western Africa
was gradually explored, and the southern tip of the continent was rounded
by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. At this time, the interest
in the continent was primarily as an obstacle to be negotiated en route
to the wealth of the Indies. In the northern part of the continent, Arab
Moslems had already penetrated by the tenth century, but since relations
between the Arab world and Europe were strained at best, little knowledge
of sub-Saharan Africa was available to the medieval West.
The need for labor in the American colonies
caused traders from western Europe to turn to the west coast of Africa
as a source of slaves. Much of the slave trade was conducted by African
peoples who brought captive enemies from the interior to the coast to meet
the European slavers; however, there were also direct slave raids by Europeans.
Colonization of the continent developed at different times in different
places, in response to trade needs and other motivations. South Africa
was the first settled, because of its equable climate and early familiarity
- a trade station at the Cape of Good Hope was established to service traders
going from Europe to India.
Trade missions for slaves in West Africa were
followed by trade for ivory and other tropical products; mission work soon
followed. As had happened in India, European traders initially established
trading posts along the coasts, allowing native merchants to bring goods
from the interior to them. In part this reflected the severe health risks
of the West African interior (white settlement in more congenial African
climates such as South Africa had begun significantly earlier). Tropical
diseases such as malaria wiped out white visitors who had much less immunity
than the native populations. Still, British explorers entered the interior
of West Africa in 1794 when Mungo Park was sent to map the Niger - he failed
in two expeditions, but other British subsequently traced the river from
its source to the delta. Gradually, explorers began to fill in the great
blank space that Conrad's Marlow saw on his maps of Africa.
Missions also expanded into the interior,
often ahead of trade; British missionaries became active in Nigeria as
early as the 1840s, originally in area between Lagos and Ibadan. The British
ban on the slave trade in 1807 also began increasing governmental involvement
in Nigeria as the British attempted to stamp out persistent slave traders
in the region. By mid-century, British troops were neeeded to mediate trade
disputes between Africans and Europeans -- generally operating in favor
of the latter group. In October of 1879, the British Navy bombarded the
Nigerian city of Onitsha on the banks of the Niger. The two-day siege ended
with a land expedition that completely devastated the town. Military interventions
were also called for to protect missionaries, who were not always respectful
of existing religious traditions and sometimes provoked attacks.
About the same time that Europeans began to move into sub-Saharan Africa, they also came to dominate Arab North Africa, either in the form of direct colonial rule or strong co-optation of local rulers. Despite their proximity to Europe, Arab and Berber states in North Africa had remained independent of European colonization until the 19th century - the pirates of the Barbary Coast which the U.S. Navy fought in the early years of the 19th century were Berbers. But as Europe began to extend its reach ever further during the 19th century, various Arab countries fell under colonial rule. The French and British contested Egypt, to control routes to the valuable colonies in South Asia and the Far East; the Ottoman Empire, the last great Islamic empire, forced the French out, but British trade and British military soon established a quasi-colonial relationship with Egypt, which remained nominally independent but heavily invested with English officialdom. The Sudan, south of Egypt, was the site of major colonial wars during the late 19th century. The Arab countries of the Maghreb (western North Africa) came under French rule, which was only overthrown after bloody conflicts in the 1950s and ‘60s.
Meanwhile, in Asia the British colony was experiencing
difficulties. Uprisings by various groups in the Ganges valley and central
India resulted in a full-scale war in 1857 and 1858, called the Sepoy Mutiny
by British historians. Traditionally, the revolt was believed to have been
triggered by introduction of a new Enfield rifle that required the tips
of the cartridges to be bitten off before loading, although other factors
were undoubtedly involved. The cartridges were reputedly smeared with either
cow or pig fat, or both, offending both Hindu and Moslem religions. The
war was fierce and filled with atrocities on both sides, but the British
prevailed because they were able to get reinforcements from England and
from non-rebelling areas of India. This war, however, established a "Great
Divide" in colonial history: the Crown took over direct rule, ending the
role of the East India Company, and the last Mughal Emperor was formally
deposed. However, many Indian princes retained autonomy to at least a limited
extent; this simplified British rule of an immense area.
By late in the 19th century, the world map
was largely painted British red. And for the British, even the "independent"
portions of the world came to appear to be tributaries to Britain's economy.
Here is the British economist Jevons in 1865:
Third world colonies began to get free in 20th
century - British declared the aim of self-government for India in 1919,
granted independence in 1947. Egypt, a protectorate, was granted semi-independent
status in 1922 but did not become free of British presence until after
WWII (and European interventions continued, for instance with the Suez
crisis of 1956). African colonies (except South Africa, which was already
autonomous as a settler colony) got independence in '60s - so too did most
of the Caribbean colonies. National independence movements began with the
founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885, to work for pan-Indian
nationalism in the face of increasing British involvement in Indian political
life.
Ironically, British rule motivated the abandonment
(or at least easing) of local nationalisms and the formation of a sense
of commonality among the Indians. This would recur in other British colonies
where disparate peoples had been yoked together; however, the existing
ethnic fault lines continue to create conflicts in the postcolonial nations
that derived from these colonies. The Indian National Congress intitially
sought to achieve Indianization of the civil service and administration,
and to secure Indian civil rights. However, British repression of Congress
was frequent, and many leaders were jailed repeatedly, leading to some
more aggressive offshoots.
While Congress aspired to represent all Indians,
its constituency was initially middle class Indians, and it had few Moslem
adherents. During the later part of the 19th century, Moslems began to
organize themselves as a separate community to protect their rights as
a minority. This was in part the result of British policy, which sought
to use different groups against each other to prevent unified action against
the British. To some extent, the British favored the Moslem minority, so
that Moslems were afraid of Hindu reaction in the event of independence.
Again, similar tactics were employed in other multi-ethnic colonies.
Moslem identity was also established by Hindu
intolerance of the religion and the failure of Congress to incorporate
Moslem participation. The Moslem group created their own pro-indepencence
group, the All-India Muslim League, which sometimes worked with Congress
but often worked at odds. Following World War I, which was initially supported
by Indians but became unpopular as the attrition rate climbed and especially
after the Ottoman Empire joined the war, since this required divided loyalty
for Indian Moslems, the British proposed reforms that enfranchised more
Indians and turned over additional responsibilities to India. As early
as 1919, the British committed themselves to eventual Indian independence,
but proposed a gradual devolution. But the reforms were less than Congress
had been seeking, and the party denounced them, refusing to cooperate.
This non-cooperation was one of the strategies of Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma
= Great Soul), who sought both self-government and self-reliance and equality
for all - he worked to include Moslems as well as Hindus, untouchables
as well as Brahmans. It was under Gandhi that Congress became a more all-encompassing
party, not just one of the Hindu middle class. Throughout the 1920s and
'30s, Gandhi organized mass acts of civil disobedience, cancelling them
if the Indian participants turned to violence, but constantly putting pressure
on the British. The worst case of British violence against the Indians
took place in 1919 in Amritsar, when a British general ordered his troops
to fire on a peaceful assembly of Indians, killing 300 and wounding 1200.
During WWII, India was a major base of British
military activity. The war stimulated some aspects of Indian economy, but
also led to 2 million deaths from starvation in Bengal because of the loss
of Burmese rice. Congress opposed the war and Congress leaders, including
Gandhi, were imprisoned. During this same period, the Moslem League began
to press for the creation of a separate Moslem state, further complicating
the move toward independence which the British were prepared now to grant.
After the war, the British wanted to get rid of India rapidly. The initial
plan was for a government representing all of India as it was during British
rule. However, the Moslems insisted on having their own coutnry, and Jawaharlal
Nehru, the leader of Congress, decided that partition was inevitable and
acceded to this condition (against Gandhi's advice).
Independence for both India and Pakistan was
scheduled to come at midnight on August 14, 1947. Independence was accompanied
by massive relocations and violence as Hindus and Moslems fled to the appropriate
states. British provinces were allowed to choose whether to affiliate with
India or Pakistan, according to popular votes. The Indian principalities
were encouraged to align themselves with one or the other as well. As it
turned out, Pakistan was composed of two parts, 1000 miles apart, with
India in the center. Conflict between the two countries was inevitable,
in part because some areas (e.g., Kashmir) remained in dispute.
Once the process of de-colonization had begun,
it moved rapidly, with other Asian colonies following India and Pakistan
into independence, then African and Caribbean colonies. Sometimes, the
move to independence was accompanied by anti-British violence, as in the
Mau-Mau guerilla war in Kenya; in other cases, the transition was accomplished
peacefully as far as the British were concerned, although festering ethnic
conflicts in the new states often led to continued internal violence, most
spectacularly in the Biafran War in Nigeria in the 1960s.
Partial list of sources: This lecture relies heavily on Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1994). Other sources include: J. Edward Chamberlin, Come Back to Me My Language: Poetry and the West Indies (1993).
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