Gladstone and Jamaica

1959 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Knaplund
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Political Life ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Old Irish ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Irish Question ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Clear Statement

Early in his political life the famous British statesman, W. E. Gladstone, had close contact with colonial problems. His maiden speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1833, was a defense of his father against charges that slaves were mistreated on the Gladstone plantations in Demerara; his first government post was that of Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Colonies; before the end of the 1830's he had served on many committees which studied questions relating to the colonies; and in 1846 he was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. In 1835 and again in 1849 he drafted pamphlets on the British colonial empire; by mid-nineteenth century he was a leading advocate of colonial self-government; and his speech “Our Colonies” at Chester, November 12, 1855 (published as a pamphlet), was a clear statement of his creed that “ freedom and voluntaryism ” should govern the relationship between Britain and the overseas portions of the British Empire. While in later years noncolonial issues received most of his attention, he never abandoned his faith in freedom as the basic remedy for intra-imperial problems. In the closing years of his political career he fought magnificently but vainly to apply that principle of freedom (which had stilled colonial discontent) to the age-old Irish question.

Textualisation of the Domestic Self: Hildagonda Duckitt’s Autobiographical Cookbook

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Crous ◽  
Alan Murdoch
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
British Empire ◽  
White Women ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Intended Audience ◽  
The Media ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

Hilda’s Diary of a Cape Housekeeper (1902), by Hildagonda Duckitt, is an example of culinary literature and essentially a diary of life in the Cape at the time (one that includes recipes, notes on gardening, etc.). This text is investigated in this article with the aim of examining the responsibilities of women with respect to food, food preparation and the kitchen, the depiction of men with respect to food, its preparation and the eating thereof, and the influence of class and the ethnicity of the author’s intended audience. The article notes how these responsibilities have changed over time, particularly with regard to their content and appearance, as well as discusses the relationship between cookbooks and men. Cookbooks have become a mainstream subject of academic study, of popular culture and the media, not least of all for the insights that they provide about gender (especially in terms of the division of labour), ethnicity and culture, and while they have traditionally been aimed at white women, this is no longer always the case. Such gender issues are the primary focus of this article. The context of the book, namely South Africa under British colonial rule during the late 1800s and early 1900s, is also considered in order to shed light on the questions of ethnicity and culture. Duckitt’s affinity for the British Empire is explored, as well as her views about the indigenous people of South Africa, their roles with respect to food, and their place in the colonial home. Lastly, the article takes stock of Duckitt’s voracious appetite for new knowledge and its production, despite the patriarchy of the time.

Protecting Slaves and Aborigines

2018 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Twomey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Common Law ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Commissions Of Inquiry ◽  
British Colonial

The historiography on protection in the nineteenth-century British Empire often assumes that British humanitarians were the progenitors of protection schemes. In contrast, this article argues that the position of Protector or Guardian for slaves and Indigenous peoples in the British Empire drew on Spanish, Dutch, and French legal precedents. The legal protections and slave codes operative in these European colonies are compared to British colonial territories, where there was no imperial slave code and no clear status of slaves at common law. Drawing on debates in the House of Commons, Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry, and the published work of abolitionists and anti-slavery societies, the article examines how the pressure for amelioration in the British Empire coincided with the acquisition of new colonies that offered ready-made models for slave protection. British reformers combined their calls for greater protection for slaves with their extant knowledge of European protective regimes.

H. H. Stevens and the Chinese: The Transition to Conservative Government and the Management of Controls on Chinese Immigration to Canada, 1900-1914

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 175-189
Author(s):  
Julie F. Gilmour
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Immigration Control ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Canadian Immigration ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Member Of Parliament ◽  
Ideological Context ◽  
At Home

This article uses the political life of H. H. Stevens, a Vancouver businessman, Conservative member of parliament, and anti-Asian activist to examine the nature of the relationship between the institutions of Canadian immigration control and the political and ideological context of the time. It shows how the transition from Liberal to Conservative government after the Canadian election of 1911 provides an opportunity to examine the importance of individual and party choices in the implementation of immigration regulations. It becomes clear that the policies of control were subject to a certain amount of improvisation on the part of those responsible for implementing the system and allowed those who had strong opinions to harden the line against Chinese immigration. Further, the article reveals how differences in Liberal and Conservative attitudes on Chinese immigration are clearly not merely differences in racial outlook, but rather differences in individuals’ material position at home and their political calculations in the larger context of the British Empire.

Policing the British Empire on the Bund: The Origin of the Sikh Police Unit in Shanghai

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Cao Yin
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Imperial History ◽  
Municipal Police ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
Modern Shanghai

Red-turbaned Sikh policemen have long been viewed as symbols of the cosmopolitan feature of modern Shanghai. However, the origin of the Sikh police unit in the Shanghai Municipal Police has not been seriously investigated. This article argues that the circulation of police officers, policing knowledge, and information in the British colonial network and the circulation of the idea of taking Hong Kong as the reference point amongst Shanghailanders from the 1850s to the 1880s played important role in the establishment of the Sikh police force in the International Settlement of Shanghai. Furthermore, by highlighting the translocal connections and interactions amongst British colonies and settlements, this study tries to break the metropole-colony binary in imperial history studies.

Imagining the Sudan in British Film, 1925–53

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 334-354
Author(s):  
Zach Bates
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
The Relationship

Due to its status as a territory under the joint rule of Egypt and Britain, the Sudan occupied an awkward place in the British Empire. Because of this, it has not received much attention from scholars. In theory, it was not a colony, but, in practice, the Sudan was ruled primarily by British administrators and was the site of several developmental schemes, most of which concerned cotton-growing and harnessing the waters of the Nile. It was also the site of popular literature, travelogues and the most well-known of Alexander Korda's empire films. This article focuses on five British films –  Cotton Growing in the Sudan (c.1925), Stark Nature (1930), Stampede (1930), The Four Feathers (1939) and They Planted a Stone (1953) – that take the Sudan as their subject. It argues that each of these films shows an evolving and related discourse of the region that embraced several motifs: cooperation as the foundation of the relationship between the Sudanese and the British; Sudanese peoples in conflict with a sometimes hostile landscape and environment that the British could ‘tame’; and the British being in the Sudan in order to improve it and its people before leaving them to self-government. However, some of the films, especially The Four Feathers, subtly questioned and subverted the British presence in the Sudan and engaged with a number of the political questions not overtly mentioned in documentaries. The article, therefore, argues for a nuanced and complex picture of representations of the Sudan in British film from 1925 to 1953.

A Religious State (A Study of Hasyim Asyari and Muhammad Iqbal's Thought on the Relation of Religion, State and Nationalism)

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 226
Author(s):  
Arik Dwijayanto ◽  
Yusmicha Ulya Afif
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Early Generation ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Religion And State ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Diverse Cultures

<p><em>This article explores the concept of a religious state proposed by two Muslim leaders: Hasyim Asyari (1871-1947), an Indonesian Muslim leader and Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938), an Indian Muslim leader. Both of them represented the early generation when the emerging revolution for the independence of Indonesia (1945) from the Dutch colonialism and India-Pakistan (1947) from the British Imperialism. In doing so, they argued that the religious state is compatible with the plural nation that has diverse cultures, faiths, and ethnicities. They also argued that Islam as religion should involve the establishment of a nation-state. But under certain circumstances, they changed their thinking. Hasyim changed his thought that Islam in Indonesia should not be dominated by a single religion and state ideology. Hasyim regarded religiosity in Indonesia as vital in nation-building within a multi-religious society. While Iqbal changed from Indian loyalist to Islamist loyalist after he studied and lived in the West. The desire of Iqbal to establish the own state for the Indian Muslims separated from Hindus was first promulgated in 1930 when he was a President of the Muslim League. Iqbal expressed the hope of seeing Punjab, the North West province, Sind and Balukhistan being one in a single state, having self-government outside the British empire. In particular, the two Muslim leaders used religious legitimacy to establish political identity. By using historical approach (intellectual history), the relationship between religion, state, and nationalism based on the thinking of the two Muslim leaders can be concluded that Hasyim Asyari more prioritizes Islam as the ethical value to build state ideology and nationalism otherwise Muhammad Iqbal tends to make Islam as the main principle in establishment of state ideology and nationalism.</em></p><em>Keywords: Hasyim Asyari, Muhammad Iqbal, religion, state, nationalism.</em>

FOREIGN SERVANTS IN AN INDIAN PRINCELY STATE BHOPAL (19TH — EARLY 20TH CENTURIES)

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-163
Author(s):  
E. Yu. Vanina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Central India ◽  
High Status ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Princely State ◽  
Local Residents ◽  
British Colonial

Bhopal, one of the ‘princely states’ and vassals of the British Empire (Central India), enjoyed special favour with its sovereign. Throughout a century, it was ruled by four generations of women who gained themselves, in India and outside, the reputation of enlightened and benevolent monarchs. Archival documents and memoirs allow glancing at the hitherto hidden world of domestic servants who not only ensured the comfortable and luxurious life of the princely family, but its high status too, both for fellow Indians and for British colonial administrators. Among the numerous servants employed by the Bhopal rulers, freely hired local residents prevailed. However, the natives of some other countries, quite far from India, were conspicuous as well: the article highlights West Europeans, Georgians and Africans (“Ethiopians”). In the princely household, foreign servants performed various functions. While British butlers and Irish or German nannies and governesses demonstrated the ruling family` s “Westernized” lifestyle, Georgian maids and African lackeys showcased the affluence and might of the Bhopal queens. Some foreign servants came to Bhopal by force: the reputation of ‘progressive’ was no obstacle for the Bhopal queens to use slave labour. When such cases became public, the British authorities responded with mild reproaches: condemning slavery, they nevertheless loathed any discord with their trusted vassals.

scholarly journals The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–1865

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-636
Author(s):  
Noam Maggor
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
British Empire ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Regional Autonomy ◽  
Atlantic Trade ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
American Nation

Mark Peterson's The City-State of Boston is a formidable work of history—prodigiously researched, lucidly written, immense in scope, and yet scrupulously detailed. A meticulous history of New England over more than two centuries, the book argues that Boston and its hinterland emerged as a city-state, a “self-governing republic” that was committed first and foremost to its own regional autonomy (p. 6). Rather than as a British colonial outpost or the birthplace of the American Revolution—the site of a nationalist struggle for independence—the book recovers Boston's long-lost tradition as a “polity in its own right,” a fervently independent hub of Atlantic trade whose true identity placed it in tension with the overtures of both the British Empire and, later, the American nation-state (p. 631).

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