Archives of Empire: Volume I. From The East India Company to the Suez Canal / Edition 1

by Barbara Harlow

Overview

A rich collection of primary materials, the multivolume Archives of Empire provides a documentary history of nineteenth-century British imperialism from the Indian subcontinent to the Suez Canal to southernmost Africa. Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter have carefully selected a diverse range of texts that track the debates over imperialism in the ranks of the military, the corridors of political power, the lobbies of missionary organizations, the halls of royal geographic and ethnographic societies, the boardrooms of trading companies, the editorial offices of major newspapers, and far-flung parts of the empire itself. Focusing on a particular region and historical period, each volume in Archives of Empire is organized into sections preceded by brief introductions. Documents including mercantile company charters, parliamentary records, explorers' accounts, and political cartoons are complemented by timelines, maps, and bibligraphies. Unique resources for teachers and students, these books reveal the complexities of nineteenth-century colonialism and emphasize its enduring relevance to the "global markets" of the twenty-first century.

Tracing the beginnings of the British colonial enterprise in South Asia and the Middle East, From the Company to the Canal brings together key texts from the era of the privately owned British East India Company through the crises that led to the company's takeover by the Crown in 1858. It ends with the momentous opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. Government proclamations, military reports, and newspaper articles are included here alongside pieces by Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Benjamin Disraeli, and many others. A number of documents chronicle arguments between mercantilists and free trade advocates over the competing interests of the nation and the East India Company. Others provide accounts of imperial crises-including the trial of Warren Hastings, the Indian Rebellion (Sepoy Mutiny), and the Arabi Uprising-that highlight the human, political, and economic costs of imperial domination and control.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822331643
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	12/31/2003
Series:	Archives of Empire , #1
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	832
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.65(d)

About the Author

Barbara Harlow is Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin.

Mia Carter is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas, Austin. They are coeditors of Imperialism and Orientalism: A Documentary Sourcebook.

Read an Excerpt

Archives of Empire

From the East India Company to the Suez Canal

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By Barbara Harlow

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2003 Barbara Harlow
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780822331766

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Chapter One

COMPANY TO CANAL, 1757-1869

INTRODUCTION Adventure Capitalism: Mercantilism, Militarism, and the British East India Company MIA CARTER

From its inception at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the British East India Company combined military and commercial methods of institutional organization and administration; what began as a corporate enterprise soon evolved into a massively armed colonial empire. The Company's history is characterized by intrigue, national and personal ambition, double-dealing, and even kidnapping and hostage-taking as means of insuring successful treaty negotiations. Great Britain's knowledge of Indian trade was itself acquired by an act of piracy on the high seas when Sir Francis Drake captured five Portuguese vessels containing treasures of the East and detailed documents on trade routes and procedures. The Company also financed itself for a number of years by illegally importing opium to China; Chinese resistance to England's drug trade led to the OpiumWars (1839-1842, 1856-1860) and Britain's seizure of Hong Kong. The East India Company was also used by English families as a disciplinary institution for incorrigible sons. "Naughty" Robert Clive, a delinquent and leader of a protection racket at home, was sent to India to improve himself; he earned a knighthood for his military and administrative services on the Company's behalf. Clive eventually became a British national hero and one of the leading and most-celebrated icons of British imperial masculine identity.

Early on in the Company's history, aggressive protection of its monopoly status was one of the corporation's chief aims. Free trade was discouraged and eventually outlawed. Private competitors were either eliminated, like Captain Kidd, who was executed for piracy in 1701, or incorporated, like Thomas "Diamond" Pitt, an interloper who had individually obtained trading rights from Indian rulers. On his return to England, Pitt was tried, fined, and then hired as a senior administrator by the Company; the former rogue eventually became the governor of Fort St. George. Critics of the Company were not always critics of colonialism per se; often those voicing displeasure were protesting the monopolistic policies and practices and the Company's unchecked and extensive military powers, which, some argued, usurped the powers of the king and Crown. Others objected to the enhancement of the individual fortunes of the nabobs-the Company's newly made millionaires-maintaining that the Company's profits should enrich the kingdom and the state instead. Those who were critical of the Company's policies of annexation, land settlement, and seizure argued that native communities and traditions were being debased; a nation, as Karl Marx and others argued, was being destroyed.

The East India Company Act, 1773 initiated the restructuring of the Company by instituting a supervisory council that provided a system of checks and balances. The act also limited the colonial Administration's ability to wage war and negotiate treaties and allowed Company employees to be tried at home in His Majesty's Court for offenses made in India, a change that would dramatically avect the future of Governor-General Warren Hastings. Despite progressive legal and administrative reforms, disparaging assessments of the native rulers continued and were expansively represented and broadly disseminated. Native rulers were depicted as cruel despots, self-indulgent sex addicts, and spoiled and effeminate children; the Indian people were frequently depicted as people in desperate need of rescue from their own amoral, corrupt, and insensitive leaders. Charges of native misgovernment and mismanagement became the rationale for the ongoing seizure of Indian territories. The reformers' assessments of native rulers' tyrannical despotism and their wide-ranging descriptions of the underdeveloped Indian character or nature supported the representation of the British Administration as a mission of charity, compassion, civilization, and uplift.

Expansionism and increased involvement in the colony's domestic politics engaged the Company in political theory and governmental practice; India was used as a laboratory for imperialistic rule, international economics, and colonial administration. Company improvements included the expansion of the Indian rail, telegraph, and postal systems, all of which served both administrative and military aims. For example, the rail system was used to provide famine relief and to ease and improve the transportation of military staff and supplies; the telegraph system was used to observe famine conditions and to improve military and surveillance operations. Many reformers, like James Mill and Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, believed the English were destined to rule India; they would develop ideal systems of government with the aim of leading the Indians away from despotism and toward democracy. The Government of India Act, 1833 transferred the Company to the Crown and exemplified the new administrative focus on the direct government of India.

This section on the British East India Company also contains subsections on some of the crises of the Company's rule: the revolt of Tipu Sultan; the cases of alleged forms of Eastern (Tipu Sultan) and Western (Warren Hastings) despotism; and the British campaigns to reform the Indian practices of thuggee and sati/suttee.

Chronology of Events

1600 Establishment of the East India Company 1757 Battle at Plassey 1769 Foundation of the Royal Academy 1775 Beginning of the American War of Independence 1776 Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations published 1789 Fall of the Bastille 1788-1795 Impeachment proceedings against Warren Hastings 1767-1799 Anglo-Mysore Wars 1792 Treaty of Seringapatam 1798 Battle of Seringapatam 1798 Battle of the Nile 1804 Napoleon made emperor 1813 Emendation of East India Company Charter allowing missionary work in India 1815 Napoleon defeated at Waterloo 1829 Suttee (sati) officially outlawed by Sir William Bentinck 1830 Thuggee outlawed 1832 First Reform Act 1833 Abolition of slavery throughout British Empire 1837 Accession of Queen Victoria 1843 Annexation of Sindh 1849 Annexation of Punjab 1851 Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace 1853 Annexation of Nagpur 1853 Indian Civil Service opens to competition 1854-1856 Crimean War 1856 Annexation of Oudh (Oude) 1857 Indian Uprising/Sepoy Mutiny 1858 Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India 1858 Suez Canal debated in the House of Commons 1858 Universal Company of the Maritime Suez Canal founded 1864 Riots on the isthmus of the Suez Canal 1869 Suez Canal inauguration

Governors and Governors-General of India

Governors of the Presidency of Fort William

1758 Robert Clive 1760 John Holwell 1760 Henry Vansittart 1764 John Spencer 1765 Lord Clive 1767 Henry Verelst 1769 John Cartier 1772 Warren Hastings

Governors-General of Bengal (with authority over Madras and Bombay)

1774-1785 Warren Hastings 1785-1786 Sir John Macpherson 1786-1793 Lord Cornwallis 1793-1798 Lieutenant-General Sir Alured Clarke 1798-1805 Lord Mornington (Lord Richard Wellesley) 1805 Lord Cornwallis 1805-1807 Sir George Barlow 1807-1813 Lord Minto 1813-1823 Lord Moira (Lord Hastings) 1823 John Adam 1823-1828 Lord Amherst 1828-1834 Lord William Bentinck

Viceroys and Governors-General of India

1833-1835 Lord William Bentinck 1835-1836 Sir Charles Metcalfe 1836-1842 Lord Auckland 1842-1844 Lord Ellenborough 1844-1848 Sir Henry Hardinge (Lord Hardinge) 1848-1856 Lord Dalhousie 1856-1868 Lord Canning

Newabs of Bengal

1740-1756 Alivardi Khan 1756-1757 Seraja-daula 1757-1760 Mir Jafar Khan 1760-1763 Mir Kasim Khan 1763-1765 Mir Jafar Khan (restored) 1765-1766 Najm-ud-daula 1766-1770 Saif-ud-daula

Excerpt from With Clive in India G. A. HENTY

[G. A. (George Alfred) Henty (1832-1902) was a prolific author of travel and sensational adventure novels for boys; he also wrote for boys' magazines, including A Boy's Own and The Union Jack. Henty specialized in fictionalized accounts of imperial wars, including novels on the Battle of Waterloo, the Greek and Italian Wars of Independence, the Afghan and Burmese Wars, and the American Civil War. His significant and related titles include In Times of Peril: A Tale of India (1881) and At the Point of the Bayonet: A Tale of the Mahratta War (1901).]

CHAPTER I LEAVING HOME

A lady in deep mourning was sitting crying bitterly by a fire in small lodgings in the town of Yarmouth. Beside her stood a tall lad of sixteen. He was slight in build, but his schoolfellows knew that Charlie Marryat's muscles were as firm and hard as those of any boy in the school. In all sports requiring activity and endurance rather than weight and strength he was always conspicuous. Not one in the school could compete with him in long-distance running, and when he was one of the hares there was but little chance for the hounds. He was a capital swimmer and one of the best boxers in the school. He had a reputation for being a leader in every mischievous prank; but he was honourable and manly, would scorn to shelter himself under the semblance of a lie, and was a prime favourite with his masters as well as his schoolfellows. His mother bewailed the frequency with which he returned home with blackened eyes and bruised face; for between Dr. Willet's school and the fisher lads of Yarmouth there was a standing feud, whose origin dated so far back that none of those now at school could trace it. Consequently fierce fights often took place in the narrow rows, and sometimes the fisher boys would be driven back on to the broad quay shaded by trees, by the river, and there being reinforced from the craft along the side would reassume the offensive and drive their opponents back into the main street.

It was but six months since Charlie had lost his father, who was the officer in command at the coast-guard station, and his scanty pension was now all that remained for the support of his widow and children. His mother had talked his future prospects over many times with Charlie. The latter was willing to do anything, but could suggest nothing. His father had but little naval interest, and had for years been employed on coast-guard service. Charlie agreed that although he should have liked of all things to go to sea, it was useless to think of it now, for he was past the age at which he could have entered as a midshipman. The matter had been talked over four years before with his father; but the latter had pointed out that a life in the navy without interest is in most cases a very hard one. If a chance of distinguishing himself happened promotion would follow; but if not, he might be for years on shore, starving on half-pay and waiting in vain for an appointment, while officers with more luck and better interest went over his head.

Other professions had been discussed but nothing determined upon, when Lieutenant Marryat suddenly died. Charlie, although an only son, was not an only child, as he had two sisters both younger than himself. After a few months of effort Mrs. Marryat found that the utmost she could hope to do with her scanty income was to maintain herself and daughters and to educate them until they should reach an age when they could earn their own living as governesses, but that Charlie's keep and education were beyond her resources. She had, therefore, very reluctantly written to an uncle whom she had not seen for many years; her family having objected very strongly to her marriage with a penniless lieutenant in the navy. She informed him of the loss of her husband, and that although her income was sufficient to maintain herself and her daughters, she was most anxious to start her son, who was now sixteen, in life, and therefore begged him to use his influence to obtain for him a situation of some sort. The letter which she now held in her hand was the answer to the appeal.

"My dear Niece," it began,-"Since you, by your own foolish conduct and opposition to all our wishes, separated yourself from your family and went your own way in life, I have heard little of you, as the death of your parents so shortly afterwards deprived me of all sources of information. I regret to hear of the loss which you have suffered. I have already taken the necessary steps to carry out your wishes. I yesterday dined with a friend who is one of the directors of the Hon. East India Company, and at my request he has kindly placed a writership in the Company at your son's service. He will have to come up to London to see the board next week, and will probably have to embark for India a fortnight later. I shall be glad if he will take up his abode with me during the intervening time. I shall be glad also if you will favour me with a statement of your income and expenses, with such details as you may think necessary. I inclose four five-pound bank-notes, in order that your son may obtain such garments as may be immediately needful for his appearance before the board of directors and for his journey to London. I remain, my dear niece, yours sincerely "Joshua Tufton."

"It is cruel," Mrs. Marryat sobbed-"cruel to take you away from us and send you to India, where you will most likely die of fever, or be killed by a tiger, or stabbed by one of those horrid natives, in a fortnight."

"Not so bad as that, mother, I hope," Charlie said sympathizingly, although he could not repress a smile; "other people have managed to live out there and have come back safe."

"Yes," Mrs. Marryat said sobbing; "I know how you will come back. A little, yellow, shrivelled up old man with no liver, and a dreadful temper, and a black servant. I know what it will be."

This time Charlie could not help laughing. "That's looking too far ahead altogether, mother. You take the two extremes. If I don't die in a fortnight I am to live to be a shrivelled old man. I'd rather take a happy medium, and look forward to coming back before my liver is all gone, or my temper all destroyed, with lots of money to make you and the girls comfortable. There is only one thing, I wish it had been a cadetship instead of a writership."

"That is my only comfort," Mrs. Marryat said. "If it had been a cadetship I should have written to say that I would not let you go. It is bad enough as it is; but if you had had to fight, I could not have borne it."

Charlie did his best to console his mother by telling her how every one who went to India made fortunes, and how he should be sure to come back with plenty of money, and that when the girls grew up he should be able to find rich husbands for them; and at last he succeeded in getting her to look at matters in a less gloomy light. "And I'm sure, mother," he said, "uncle means most kindly. He sends twenty pounds, you see, and says that that is for immediate necessities; so I have no doubt he means to help to get my outfit, or at any rate to advance money which I can repay him out of my salary. The letter is rather stiff and business-like, of course, but I suppose that's his way; and you see he asks about your income, so perhaps he means to help for the girls' education. I should go away very happy if I knew that you would be able to get on comfortably. Of course it's a long way off, mother, and I should have liked to stay at home to be a help to you and the girls; but one can't have all one wishes. As far as I am concerned myself, I would rather go out as a writer there, where I shall see strange sights and a strange country, than be stuck all my life at a desk in London."

The remainder of Charlie's stay in London passed most pleasantly. They visited all the sights of town, Mr. Tufton performing what he called his duty with an air of protest, but showing a general thoughtfulness and desire to please his visitors, which was very apparent even when he grunted and grumbled the most.

On the evening before he started he called Charlie down into his counting-house.

Continues...

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xix

General Introduction: Readings in Imperialism and Orientalism xxi

Volume Introduction: From the Company to the Canal 1

I. COMPANY TO CANAL, 1757-1869


INTRODUCTION: Adventure Capitalism: Mercantilism, Militarism, and the British East India Company 13

Chronology of Events 16

List of the Governors and Governors-General of India 17

List of the Newabs of Bengal 18

India under Cornwallis (1792) [map] 19

India under Wellesley (1799) [map] 19

India under Hastings (1832) [map] 20

India under Dalhousie (1856) [map] 20

G.A. (George Alfred) Henty, Excerpt from With Clive in India (n.d.) 21

“Agreement between the Nabob Nudjum-ul-Dowlah and the Company, 12 August 1765” 25

Anonymous, An Inquiry into the Rights of the East India Company of Making War and Peace (1772) 27

East India Company Act, 1773 31

James Mill, “The Constitution of the East India Company” (1817) 39

James Mill, Letter to Durmont (1819) 47

John Stuart Mill. Excerpt from Autobiography (1873) 48

Government of India Act, 1833 49

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Lord Clive” (1840) 59

Samuel Lucas, “The Spoliation of Oude” (1857) 72

Sir Arthur Wellesley, “Memorandum on Marquess Wellesley’s Government of India” (1806) 81

II. ORIENTAL DEPOTISM

INTRODUCTON: Oriental Despotisms and Political Economies 89

Baron de Montesquieu, “Distinctive Properties of a Despotic Government” (1746) 92

Baron de Montesquieu, Excerpts from Persian Letters (1721) 92

Adam Smith, “America and the East Indies” (1776) 95

Robert Orme, “Of the Government and People of Indostan” (1782) 107

John Stuart Mill, Excerpt from The Principles of Political Economy (1848) 111

John Stuart Mill, Excerpt from “Considerations on Representative Government” (1861) 113

Karl Marx, “On Imperialism in India” (1853) 117

III. THE IMPEACHMENT OF WARREN HASTINGS

INTRODUCTION: Warren Hastings: Naughty Nabob or National Hero? 131

Warren Hastings, “Warren Hastings to the Court of General Directors, 11 November 1773” 135

Warren Hastings, Excerpt from Memoirs Relative to the State of India (1786) 137

Edmund Burke, “Edmund Burke on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 15-19 February 1788” 143

Westminister Hall during the trial of Warren Hastings (1788) [illustration] 146

Fanny Burney, Diary Selections (1788) 155

Edmund Burke, “From the Third Day of Edmund Burke’s Speech Opening the Impeachment, 18 February 1788” 160

Warren Hastings, “From the Address of Warren Hastings in His Defence, 2 June 1791” 163

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Warren Hastings” (1841) 166

IV. THE CASE OF TIPU SULTAN

INTRODUCTION: Tipu Sultan: Oriental Despot or National Hero? 171

G.A. Henty, Excerpts from The Tiger of Mysore (189?) 173

“Tippoo Sahib at the Lines of Travancore” (1789) [illustration] 174

Major Diram, “Treaties of Peace, and Review of the Consequences of War” (1793) 175

Selected Letters between Tipu and Company Governors-General, 1798-1799 180

Wilkie Collins, “Prologue: The Storming of Seringapatam, 1799” (1869) 195

V. ORIENTALISM

INTRODUCTION: Orientalism: The East as a Career 203

Mary Shelley, Excerpts from Frankenstein (1813/1831) 206

Benjamin Disraeli, Excerpt from Sibyl, or the Two Nations (1845) 208

Definitions from the Hobson-Jobson Dictionary 209

G.W.F. Hegel, “India” (1822) 219

William Jones, “A Discourse on the Institution of a Society for Inquiring into the History, Civil and Natural, the Antiquities, Arts, Sciences, and Literatures of Asia” (1784) 223

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Minute on Indian Education” (1835) 227

Max Muller, “The Aryan Section” (1876) 239

VI. LAWS AND ORDERS

INTRODUCTION: Ordering “Chaos”: Administering the Law 249

Robert Orme, “Of the Laws and Justice of Indostan” (1782) 251

Sir William Jones, Preface to “Institutes of Hindu Law: Or, the Ordinances of Menu” (1794) 261

Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Introductory Report upon the Indian Penal Code” (1837) 268

VII. THUGGEE/THAGI

INTRODUCTION: Decriminalizing the Landscape: Thugs and Poisoners 285

A thug “family tree” (1836) [illustration] 288

Thug depredations (1836) [map] 288

Thugs giving a demonstration of their method of strangulation (1855) [photo] 289

Captain William H. Sleeman, Excerpts from The Thugs or Phansigars of India: History of the Rise and Progress (1839) 297

Fanny Parks Parlby, “A Kutcherry or Kachahri” (1850) 307

Philip Meadows Taylor, “Thugs” (1877) 314

Philip Meadows Taylor, Excerpts from Confessions of a Thug (1837) 315

Captain William H. Sleeman, “Thug Approvers” (1833-1835?) 322

VIII. SUTTEE/SATI

INTRODUCTION: Sati/Suttee: Observances, Abolition, Observations 337

Colonel Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, “Suttee” [definition] (1903) 340

Lord William Bentinck, “Bentinck’s Minute on Sati, 8 November 1892” 350

Sati Regulation XVII, A.D. 1829 of the Bengal Code, 4 December 1829 361

“The Duties of a Faithful Widow,” from Digest of Hindi Law (n.d.) 364

Raja Ram Mohan Roy, “Petitions and Addresses on the Practice of Suttee (1818-1831)” 369

G.W.F. Hegel, On Sati (1822) 374

Charles Dickens, Death by Fire of Miss Havisham (1861) 375

Jules Verne, “Fogg Rescues a Sati” (1873) 377

Maspero Jingle [advertisement for Maspero Egyptian cigarettes] 379

Ernest Renan, On Suttee (1893) 380

Flora Annie Steel, “The Reformer’s Wife” (1933) 381

IX. THE INDIAN UPRISING/SEPOY MUTINY 1857-1858

INTRODUCTION: The “Asiatic Mystery”: The Sepoy Mutiny, Rebellion, or Revolt 391

Chronology of Events 396

Rulers and Rebels: Some Major Figures 397

Excerpts from The Who’s Who of Indian Martyrs (1969-1973) 400

“Portrait of Nana Sahib” [illustration] 402

“Sepoys, 1757” (1890) [illustration] 406

“Attack of the Mutineers on the Redan Battery at Lucknow, July 30, 1857” (n.d.) [illustration] 406

“The Asiatic Mystery. As Prepared by Sepoy D’Israeli” (1857) [illustration] 407

“Proclamation to the People of Oude on Its Annexati

Editorial Reviews

"Archives of Empire is a substantial and valuable project containing a generous sampling of key primary texts for understanding both the crucial events in and the debates around British imperialism in the nineteenth century."--David Lloyd, coeditor of The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital

"Archives of Empire offers a valuable and original intervention in contemporary studies of imperialism, providing a rich array of source material pertaining to the imperial project and the wide-ranging grounds for its critique."--Anne McClintock, author of Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest

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