Mutinies and Ethnicity

2021 ◽  
pp. 214-307
Author(s):  
Keith Grint
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
The West ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
Foreign Labour ◽  
Contemporary Situation ◽  
The Military

The complexity of the causes of mutinies are captured in this chapter that focuses upon the role of ethnicity. Starting with the British West India Regiment in 1801, we examine the importance of the slave trade in supporting the recruitment to the British Army in the West Indies and consider how the ‘alternatives’ of slavery or forced recruitment are not regarded as alternatives by many ex-slaves. The chapter then moves on to the largest event to rock the early British Empire, the ‘mutiny’ or ‘1st War of Independence’ in India between 1857 and 1858. The nomenclature is a signal of the meaning of the events for different actors involved, and this ambiguity runs into the Curragh ‘Incident’ that has all the hallmarks of a mutiny, except it is staged by the military establishment not by the military subordinates. And if the British thought 1858 was the last time they would see Indian soldiers or sailors mutinying against them, they were wrong: in Singapore in 1915 and then in the Royal India Navy in 1946, the British Empire is forced to look at itself—but chooses not to. Finally, we consider the way British Foreign Labour Battalions were treated in France, compared to the treatment meted out to domestic units, and then consider the role of racism in the Port Chicago mutiny of 1944 which has echoes of the contemporary situation in the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.

Edmund Burke and the British Empire in the West Indies

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
West Indian ◽  
Political Connection ◽  
The West ◽  
Plantation Economy ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
Important Addition ◽  
Personal Level

In the later eighteenth century the West Indian sugar islands were a source of conspicuous wealth for some individuals and an important addition to the resources of Great Britain. They were generally reckoned to be the most valuable of Britain’s imperial possessions, a view which Burke fully endorsed. This book examines his long involvement with the West Indies, at a personal level through the ambitions of his brother and some of his closest friends, as a politician and what contemporaries called ‘a man of business’ in the management of a great national asset and in trying to win the support of powerful West Indian interests for his political connection. He became a participant in debates about the ethics of enslavement and the slave trade. Burke deplored both slavery and the trade, but he recognized that the plantation economy of the West Indies depended on them and that therefore they played a crucial role in Britain’s immensely valuable Atlantic commerce. The policies that he advocated for the further development of the West Indian and African trades inevitably involved more enslaved Africans in the British Empire and on occasions he was drawn into implicitly endorsing the slave trade. Except for a few years from 1788 to 1791, Burke was not prepared to countenance immediate abolition of the trade, but he did devise a comprehensive plan for reforming both it and the institution of slavery, that in the very long term would make both redundant.

“The lungs of a ship”: Ventilation, acclimatization, and labor in the maritime environment, 1740–1800

2021 ◽  
pp. 007327532110464
Author(s):  
Paul E Sampson
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Medical Discourse ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
The West ◽  
Transatlantic Slave Trade ◽  
Tropical Environments ◽  
Slave Ships ◽  
Maritime Environment

This article examines the connection between projects for shipboard ventilation and the shifting medical discourse about acclimatization in the British Empire during the eighteenth century. I argue that the design, use, and disuse of a class of shipboard “ventilators” proposed by natural philosopher Stephen Hales helps us to trace changing ideas about the ability of European bodies to acclimate, or “season,” to tropical environments. These ventilating machines appealed to British administrators because they represented an embodiment of providential and enlightened ideas that validated the expansion of overseas empire. In addition, they promised to increase labor efficiency by reducing the mortality and misery experienced by the sailors and enslaved people during long sea voyages. As skepticism about acclimatization grew in response to stubbornly high mortality rates in the West Indies, Hales’ ventilators fell out of favor – a development underscored by their dismissal as a potential solution for the appalling conditions found in the transatlantic slave trade. By examining ventilators’ nearly fifty-year career in naval and slave ships, this article will show the role of technology and the shipboard environment in the transition from enlightened optimism about acclimatization toward later attitudes of racial and environmental essentialism.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
P. J. Marshall
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
West Indian ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Political ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Management

Burke’s involvement with the West Indies has attracted little attention. Yet it is a topic that throws important light on his views on the British Empire as a whole and on his work as a political ‘man of business’, as well as raising questions about the extent of his humanitarian sympathies, in this case for enslaved Africans. Burke could be a fierce critic of imperial abuses, but he had high ideals for what the empire ought to be and was willing to take a full part both in shaping policy for the empire and in seeking imperial opportunities for advancement for his family and friends. The Introduction outlines the development of Burke’s concern for the West Indies from the pursuit of personal advantage for his connections, to the political management of West Indian interests, and ultimately to participating in the great public debate on slavery and the slave trade.

Introduction

Almost Home ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruma Chopra
Keyword(s):  
Nova Scotia ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
British Empire ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
The West ◽  
Circuitous Route ◽  
Nova Scotian

This chapter sets the context for the Maroon relocations to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. It describes the reconfiguration of the British Empire in the aftermath of the American Revolution, and the importance the British placed on colonizing under-populated zones with loyal subjects. It explores the importance of laborers and settlers—voluntary and involuntary, white and black—for the security of faraway settlements. Second, it examines how the growing abolition movement in England affected the West Indies and shaped utopian visions for Sierra Leone. Last, it explores how the Maroons survived slavery, and benefited from abolitionism and an expanding British Empire. Three successive ex-slave migrations – of the London poor in 1787, of the Nova Scotian loyalists in 1792, and of the Jamaican Maroons in 1800 –established British claims in West Africa. This work describes the circuitous route taken by the last group of free blacks who entered West Africa before the end of the slave trade in 1807.

“The place I had long desired exceedingly to see…”: Olaudah Equiano’s England

2020 ◽  
pp. 13-19
Author(s):  
Gleb V. Aleksandrov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Black Atlantic ◽  
Olaudah Equiano ◽  
The West ◽  
African Heritage ◽  
Abolitionist Movement ◽  
European Culture

The essay examines the image of England in the The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, the autobiography of a former slave and a key figure of the early abolitionist movement. After being captured and enslaved in his early teenage years, Equiano was intimately familiar with both the life of slaves in the West Indies and in America, and the life of common Englishmen, as well as the life of wealthy and educated gentry. Equiano's book is undoubtedly rooted in the European literary tradition, but the author nevertheless attempted to maintain a connection with his African heritage, and his attitude towards European culture is to a certain degree that of an outsider. The issue of Equiano's complex identity, as well as his influence on the abolitionist movement has been thoroughly exam-ined and researched, but one aspect that remains consistently underrepresented is the imperial element. Equiano lived at the time when the idea of empire was already fairly articulated, and, while hailing from the “Black Atlantic” community, Equiano certainly was familiar with the British Empire and its institutions (which partially overlap with the Black Atlantic, but neither was the Black Atlantic com-munity completely within the British Empire, nor was the imperial experience limited to the Atlantic slave trade). Therefore, when addressing Equiano's iden-tity, it may be productive to examine its imperial element, as well as its African, European, and American components. This essay explores the image of England in Equiano's autobiography, including its imperial context, and Equiano's attitudes towards the Empire in general.

Slavery and Christianity in the British West Indies

1950 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Worthington Smith
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
British West Indies ◽  
The West ◽  
The Caribbean

Slavery in the British Empire was always centered in the British West Indies. To a greater degree than in the Southern Thirteen Colonies, economic life in the West Indies depended upon Negro slavery, and the population of the islands soon became predominantly Negro. With the loss of the Thirteen Colonies after 1775, slavery within the British Empire became almost entirely confined to the Caribbean colonies. Until the emancipation of the slaves in 1833, British eyes were focused upon the West Indies whenever slavery was mentioned.

Merchants of Fortune: Negotiating Spanish Neutrality in the American War of Independence

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-100
Author(s):  
Anna Brinkman
Keyword(s):  
West Indies ◽  
The Other ◽  
The West ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Fine Line ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
Bilateral Treaties ◽  
Crucial Part

Economic warfare, in the form of commerce predation, was a crucial part of Britain's strategy in the West Indies during the American War of Independence. The rebels relied on a flow of goods provided by Spanish, French, Dutch and British merchants which British warships and privateers tried to stem. Britain's peaceful relations with the other three powers in the region depended greatly on being perceived to justly conduct economic warfare without breaking maritime law or bilateral treaties. British strategy during the war, therefore, was a fine line between crippling the rebels through aggressive commerce predation without giving cause for grievance to the other regional powers. The war opened several commercial opportunities in the form of smuggling and privateering. Merchants intentionally blurred the boundaries between enemies and allies to suit a given commercial venture. These blurred boundaries in the Americas were problematic for British ministers and Admiralty officials entrusted with prosecuting the war. Maritime treaties and international law were constantly reinterpreted in an attempt to avoid ruptures with other colonial powers, achieve Britain's war aims, and lend credence to British policy.

4. A Constabulary Navy

2018 ◽  
pp. 34-44
Author(s):  
Craig L. Symonds
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
United States Navy ◽  
West Indies ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Southern Border

After 1820, the day-to-day duties of the United States Navy involved dealing with smugglers, pirates, and the illegal slave trade and so deploying the large ships of the line was deemed unnecessary. Also, the successful completion of treaties with both England and Spain demilitarized the Great Lakes and stabilized the country’s southern border, easing concerns about a future foreign war. ‘A constabulary navy: pirates, slavers, and manifest destiny (1820–1850)’ describes the peacetime navy activities carried out by small squadrons of sloops and schooners acting as a constabulary force on distant stations abroad, mainly in the Mediterranean, but also in the West Indies, off Africa, in the Pacific, off Brazil, and in the East.

Promises to Keep: French Canadians as Revolutionaries and Refugees, 1775–1800

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-82
Author(s):  
Patrick Lacroix
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Financial Constraints ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
French Canadians ◽  
Continental Army ◽  
War Of Independence ◽  
The Military ◽  
Made In

The Treaty of Paris of 1783 brought the American War of Independence to a formal end. But all was not resolved with the return of peace to North America. Loyalists had to build new lives in Canada and elsewhere across the British empire. Similarly, Canadians who had supported and fought for the revolutionary cause were no longer welcome in their ancestral homeland. After years of hardship in the ranks of the Continental Army, they remained south of the border. Both in and out of military service, Canadian soldiers and their families held the political and the military authorities of the United States to the lofty pledges they had made in 1775–1776. In response, despite acute financial constraints, American leaders sought to honor their word. Through varied forms of compensation, policymakers aimed to uphold the moral character of the young nation and to ensure that all those who sacrificed for liberty might reap the blessings of independence.

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