The idea of "race" played an increasing role in nineteenth-century British colonial thought. For most of the nineteenth century, John Crawfurd towered over British colonial policy in South-East Asia, being not only a colonial administrator, journalist and professional lobbyist, but also one of the key racial theorists in the British Empire. He approached colonialism as a radical liberal, proposing universal voting for all races in British colonies and believing all races should have equal legal rights. Yet at the same time, he also believed that races represented distinct species of people, who were unrelated. This book charts the development of Crawfurd’s ideas, from the brief but dramatic period of British rule in Java, to his political campaigns against James Brooke and British rule in Borneo. Central to Crawfurd’s political battles were the debates he had with his contemporaries, such as Stamford Raffles and William Marsden, over the importance of race and his broader challenge to universal ideas of history, which questioned the racial unity of humanity. The book taps into little explored manuscripts, newspapers and writings to uncover the complexity of a leading nineteenth-century political and racial thinker whose actions and ideas provide a new view of British liberal, colonial and racial thought.
This collection of essays collects the leading scholars on British colonial thought in Southeast Asia to consider the question: what was the relationship between liberalism and the British Empire in Southeast Asia? The empire builders in Southeast Asia: Lord Minto, William Farquhar, John Leyden, Thomas Stamford Raffles, and John Crawfurd - to name a few - were fervent believers in a liberal free trade order in Southeast Asia. Many recent studies of British imperialism, and European imperialism more generally, have addressed how the anti-imperialist tradition of Eighteenth century liberalism was increasingly intertwined with the discourses of empire, freedom, race and economics in the nineteenth century. This collection extends those studies to look at the impact of liberalism on. British colonialism in Southeast Asia and early nineteenth century Southeast Asia we see some of the first attempts at developing multicultural democracies within the colonies, experiments in free trade and attempts to use free trade to prevent war and colonisation.
Negotiating Abolition: The Antislavery Project in the British Straits Settlements, 1786-1843 explores how sex and gender complicated the enforcement of colonial anti-slavery policies in the region, the challenges local officials faced in identifying slave populations, and how European reclassification of slave labor to systems of indenture or 'free' labor created a new illicit trade for women and girls to the Straits Settlements of Southeast Asia. Through a history of early-19th century slavery and abolition in this often overlooked region in British imperial history, Herzog bridges a historiographical gap between colonial and modern slave systems. She discusses the dynamic intersectionality between perceptions of race, class, gender, and civilization within the Straits and how this informed behavior and policy regarding slavery, abolition, and prostitution within the settlement. This book provides an important new perspective for scholars of slavery interested in Southeast Asia, British imperialism in the Indian Ocean world and Asia, the East India Company in the Straits, and gender and sexuality in the context of empire.
A Shared Turn : Opium and the Rise of Prohibition -- The Different Lives of Southeast Asia's Opium Monopolies -- "Morally Wrecked" in British Burma, 1870s-1890s -- Fiscal Dependency in British Malaya, 1890s-1920s -- Disastrous Abundance in French Indochina, 1920s-1940s -- Colonial Legacies.
This comparative study of piracy and maritime violence provides a fresh understanding of European overseas expansion and colonisation in Asia. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This book explores the place of China and the Chinese during the age of imperialism. Focusing not only on the state but also on the vitality of Chinese culture and the Chinese diaspora, it examines the seeming contradictions of a period in which China came under immense pressure from imperial expansion while remaining a major political, cultural and demographic force in its own right. Where histories of China commonly highlight episodes of conflict and subjugation in China’s relations with the West, the contributions to this volume explore the complex spaces where empires and their peoples did not merely collide but also became entangled.
As Cyprus experienced British imperial rule between 1878 and 1960, Greek and Turkish nationalism on the island developed at different times and at different speeds. Relations between Turkish Cypriots and the British on the one hand, and Greek Cypriots and the British on the other, were often asymmetrical with the Muslim community undergoing an enormous change in terms of national/ethnic identity and class characteristics. Turkish Cypriot nationalism developed belatedly as a militant nationalist and anti-Enosis movement. This book explores the relationship between the emergence of Turkish national identity and British colonial rule in the 1920s and 1930s.
Between 1914, when the Great War began, and 1924, when the Ottoman Caliphate ended, British and Indian officials and activists reformulated political ideas in the context of total war in the Middle East, Gandhian mass mobilisation, and the 1919 Amritsar massacre. Using discussions on travel, spatiality, and landscape as an entry point, The First World War, Anticolonialism and Imperial Authority in British India, 1914–1924 discusses the complex politics of late colonial India and the waning of imperial enthusiasm. This book presents a multifaceted picture of Indian politics at a time when total war and resurgent anticolonial activism were reshaping assumptions about state power, culture, and resistance.
Founded in Singapore in 1893, the Straits Philosophical Society was a society for the “critical discussion of questions in Philosophy, History, Theology, Literature, Science and Art”. Its membership was restricted to graduates of British and European universities, fellows of British or European learned societies and those with “distinguished merit in the opinion of the Society in any branch of knowledge”. Its closed-door meetings were an important gathering place for the educated elite of the colony, comprising colonial civil servants, soldiers, missionaries, businessmen, as well as prominent Straits Chinese members. Notable members included the botanist Henry Ridley, the missionary W.G. Shellabear and Straits Chinese reformers like Lim Boon Keng and Tan Teck Soon. Throughout its years of operation, the Society left behind a collection of papers presented by its members, the vast majority of which conformed to the Society’s founding rule that its geographical position should influence its work. This produced a large corpus of literature on colonial Malaya which provides important insights into the logic and dynamics of colonial thought in the period before the First World War. In reproducing a collection of these papers this volume highlights the role of the Society in the development of ideas of race, Malayness, colonial modernization, urban government and debates over the political and socio-economic future of the colony. By republishing these papers, The Straits Philosophical Society & Colonial Elites in Malaya seeks to contribute to the intellectual history of colonial and post-colonial Malaysia and Singapore, and to expand our understanding of the ways in which colonial thought has shaped governing systems of the past and present. "The editors of this thoughtful collection remind us how much Malaya’s past could be differently evaluated with generational change. A small collection of the papers had first been published when the British Empire was at the high point of imperial confidence. After two World Wars, in the face of an unforgiving anti-colonialism, most of the papers were forgotten and nearly lost. Reading them in the twenty-first century, we can see how many of the problems of race, identity and social order that were discussed a century ago are still with us. I recommend that the papers be read afresh. With this selection, the editors have done us a favour by inviting us to ask ourselves: Have we become wiser? Do we have better answers? For that, they deserve our thanks."--Wang Gungwu, University Professor, National University of Singapore "What a treasure Lim Teck Ghee has unearthed! To complement the dry official record of CO273 and the public pleading of the newspapers, we can now peer into the private passions and prejudices of the British (and some Chinese) elite at just the period they began to see themselves as architects of a new colonial social order. Their views were often well-informed, and ambitious to bring the latest theories to bear on Malaya. Robustly controversial, they were not politically correct even by the standards of the times. The editors deserve much praise and gratitude for having not only assembled these twenty-seven short papers but made them handily available to readers and provided an insightful introduction."-- Anthony Reid, Professor Emeritus, Australian National University
Outskirts of Empire: Studies in British Power Projection investigates the substructure of Britain’s interests in the Near East and beyond during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Essays address themes in British power projection in a geographically wide area encompassing parts of the Ottoman Empire, Morocco and Abyssinia, illuminating interlinking elements of Britain’s power and presence through commerce, religion, consular activity, expatriates, travel and exploration and technology. Through careful investigation of the interface of these themes the book develops a deeper sense of Britain’s presence in the Near East and contiguous areas and highlights the network of Britons who were required to sustain that presence.
