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The Internationalization of Trusteeship

William Bain

in Between Anarchy and Society: Trusteeship and the Obligations of Power

Examines the internationalization of trusteeship as it arose in the context of British colonial administration in Africa, the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, and the experience of the Congo Free ... More

Examines the internationalization of trusteeship as it arose in the context of British colonial administration in Africa, the Berlin and Brussels Conferences, and the experience of the Congo Free State. It is out of these experiences and events that the idea of trusteeship emerges as a recognized and accepted practice of international society. The chapter has five sections: the first discusses British attitudes towards Africa; the second looks at Lord Lugard's ‘dual mandate’ principle of colonial administration—the proposal that the exploitation of Africa's natural wealth should reciprocally benefit the industrial classes of Europe and the native population of Africa; the third discusses the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 and the Brussels Conference of 1890; the fourth describes trusteeship in relation to the Congo Free State. The fifth section of the chapter points out the progression from the idea of trusteeship in the East India Company's dominion in India—in which the improvement of native peoples would come about rapidly and result in institutional forms and practices that closely resembled those in Europe—to a new incrementalist approach in which societies and people were thought of as occupying different rungs on a progressive ‘ladder of civilization’, and, depending on their stage of development on this ladder, were suited to different forms of constitution.Less

India, 1818–1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism

D. A. Washbrook

in The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century

India was subjected to a battery of changes aimed at drawing it more closely under the authority of Britain and converting its culture and institutions to Western and Anglicist norms and forms. Its ... More

India was subjected to a battery of changes aimed at drawing it more closely under the authority of Britain and converting its culture and institutions to Western and Anglicist norms and forms. Its social economy became increasingly agrarian and peasant-based. It addresses the following question: why and how did British rule itself affect the imperatives towards the reconstruction of a traditional India? The received historiography has been guilty of too eclectic an approach to the discourse(s) of colonialism, and also of overemphasizing the significance of discourse (and texts) at the expense of analyses of both institutional practice and politico-economic context. The economics of backwardness is elaborated. Next, it deals with the traditionalization of Indian society. The contradictions continued after the Mutiny, although taking on different forms. Technological transformation increased in intensity. These developments enabled Indian primary products to finally find outlets on world markets. After the Mutiny, the Westernizing and Orientalizing propensities of colonial rule still remained in tension, although as the century advanced a new element also began to enter their relationship.Less

“Where the Devil Has He Been?”

Harlow Robinson

in Lewis Milestone: Life and Films

This chapter covers Milestone’s life until his death in 1980. During this time he directed two high-profile features. Warner Brothers’ Ocean’s Eleven, a widely-imitated heist movie set in the Las ... More

This chapter covers Milestone’s life until his death in 1980. During this time he directed two high-profile features. Warner Brothers’ Ocean’s Eleven, a widely-imitated heist movie set in the Las Vegas casinos, starred the celebrated and notorious “Rat Pack” led by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, as a group of army buddies out to make a fast buck. Milestone next took over from fired director Carol Reed MGM’s expensive blockbuster epic Mutiny on the Bounty, shot under difficult conditions in Tahiti, along with its difficult star, Marlon Brando. Warner Brothers then hired Milestone to direct PT-109, about John Kennedy, but fired him after a month. In his last years Milestone directed a few episodes for television, but found TV work unsatisfying.Less

Syed Ahmad Khan

B. R. Nanda

in Gandhi: Pan-Islamism, Imperialism and Nationalism in India

This chapter discusses Syed Ahmad Khan, whose family was closely connected to the Mughal court. The chapter begins with a section on Khan’s childhood and his decision to accept a job in the East ... More

This chapter discusses Syed Ahmad Khan, whose family was closely connected to the Mughal court. The chapter begins with a section on Khan’s childhood and his decision to accept a job in the East India Company, a decision protested by his family members. It then looks at the start of his official career as an apprentice in the court of the Sadr Amin at Delhi, and how he became a Sadr Amin in less than twenty years. It describes Khan as pro-British, and narrates his successful efforts to negotiate the release of the British officers and their families who were posted in Bijnor. The chapter also studies the Mutiny of 1857 and Khan’s role in bridging the gap between the Indian Muslims and the British government.Less

Chilean Anticommunism

James Lockhart

in Chile, the CIA and the Cold War: A Transatlantic Perspective

This chapter evaluates the rise of social conflict in Chile from the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth. It presents Chile's labor movement, the Chilean Communist Party, Chile's ... More

This chapter evaluates the rise of social conflict in Chile from the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth. It presents Chile's labor movement, the Chilean Communist Party, Chile's conservatives, Chile's professional officer corps, and the Ibáñez dictatorship as the earliest expression of Cold War struggles in Chile. It connects the Chilean Communist Party to the Comintern's South American Bureau and the Soviet Union. It explains why the dictatorship broke relations with the Soviet Union and suppressed the communist party in 1927. And it reviews the nature of United States perceptions and involvement in these events.Less

Introduction

Matt Perry

in The Global Challenge of Peace: 1919 as a Contested Threshold to a New World Order

The introduction makes the case that 1919 is an exceptional year and that there is a need to re-examine this year as a contest threshold of peace that neither of the two traditional historiographical ... More

The introduction makes the case that 1919 is an exceptional year and that there is a need to re-examine this year as a contest threshold of peace that neither of the two traditional historiographical approaches—the high political approach centred on Versailles peace-making nor the challenge of labour—adequately capture. The introduction surveys new trends in the historical literature and makes the case for the profound distinctiveness of this year both in terms of the chosen themselves of the book namely global contestation from below along gender, class and colour lines and in wider contexts as well not least in the worlds of science, the arts and epidemiologically in terms of the ‘Spanish Flu’.Less

The 1919 Mutinies in the French Armed Forces: Colonialism, Ethnicity and the Remaking of the French Left

Matt Perry

in The Global Challenge of Peace: 1919 as a Contested Threshold to a New World Order

1919 was a global moment of both the remaking of empire, not least the French empire, and a powerful contentious surge from below in metropolitan as well as colonial settings. During the Great War, ... More

1919 was a global moment of both the remaking of empire, not least the French empire, and a powerful contentious surge from below in metropolitan as well as colonial settings. During the Great War, the French Empire drew on what General Mangin called the ‘la force noire’ of colonial labour and troops to fill the factories and the trenches. As the war continued in the East after Armistice with Allied intervention against the fledgling Soviet Republic, a wave of army and naval mutinies undermined French efforts to topple the new regime. Using mutineer testimony, this paper considers their attitudes to class, military authority and ethnicity. This neglected imperial and colonial dimension of the revolt complicates our understanding of events that became the foundation myth of the French Communist Party, 'glorious hours' in which French military service personnel apparently fraternised with Russian workers in the spirit of internationalism. Not only was there a mutiny of colonial troops themselves in Siberia but also the French military authorities instrumentalised ethnic divisions to suppress the mutinies. Viewed more broadly, this French connection with the Russian Revolution was crucial to the remaking of the French left, feeding into the Congress of Tours the following year, and setting terms of debate for the left’s relationship with the colonial question.Less

C. L. R. James, the Mass Strike of 1919 in Colonial Trinidad and The Case for West Indian Self-Government

Christian Høgsbjerg

in The Global Challenge of Peace: 1919 as a Contested Threshold to a New World Order

In colonial Trinidad in 1919 rising industrial turmoil culminated in a rolling mass strike that would shake this outpost of the British Empire to its foundations. Though often located as an ... More

In colonial Trinidad in 1919 rising industrial turmoil culminated in a rolling mass strike that would shake this outpost of the British Empire to its foundations. Though often located as an important part of Trinidadian or at best Caribbean labour history—a precursor to the powerful wave of labour rebellions that swept the Anglophone colonial Caribbean in the 1930s—Christian Hogsbjerg’s chapter situates the strike through the prism of colonial, transnational and global labour history. In the strike's aftermath, the social democratic Trinidad Workingmen’s Association grew into a mass organization led by the charismatic Captain Arthur Andrew Cipriani. Hogsbjerg explores how this mass nationalist working-class movement attracted the attention of the young writer and teacher C.L.R. James, who would become a leading anti-colonialist thinker, writing a biography of Cipriani, later abridged and published as The Case for West Indian Self-Government (1933). Yet this text strangely overlooked the strike of 1919, being only with James's turn to Marxism in the 1930s that he came to appreciate the strike’s full historical significance. In 1937, James would publish his pioneering socialist history of the Communist International, World Revolution, which articulates James's evolving understanding of 1919 as a global year of revolutionary contestation.Less

The Soldier¹ and the System: Three War Novels of the 1950s Era

Milton A. Cohen

in Axis/Axes to Grind: Political Slants in American World War II Novels, 1945-1975

A distinctive theme in the culture of the 1950s was conformity to the “system” versus rebellion against it. This chapter studies three quintessentially “50s” war novels that feature this theme: ... More

A distinctive theme in the culture of the 1950s was conformity to the “system” versus rebellion against it. This chapter studies three quintessentially “50s” war novels that feature this theme: Jones’s From Here to Eternity, Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (published in 1961, but essentially a “50s” novel). As with novels about Black-White conflicts, the authors’ perspectives of these individual-vs.-system theme vary markedly. Jones sympathetically depicts an outsider’s rebellion by Private Prewitt against unjust treatment and an insider’s one by Sergeant Warden. Both characters reflect Jones’s own ambivalence about the Army. Wouk’s lower-level officers mutiny against the incompetent and paranoid Captain Queeg during a killer typhoon when their ship’s survival is at stake. Though the evidence supports the mutineers, Wouk seems to side with naval authority which punishes them. Heller depicts a self-serving power elite that profits from the war and avoids danger versus the lower-level officers, emblemized by Yossarian, who must fly an ever-increasing number of missions. The chapter clarifies misconceptions about the number of missions and about whether the “enemy” is an impersonal system or particular people. Heller’s complete sympathy for his belated rebel, Yossarian, anticipates (but differs from) anti-war themes of the later 1960s.Less

Constructing the Index of Arabs: Colonial Imaginaries in Southeast Asia

Nurfadzilah Yahaya

in Fluid Jurisdictions: Colonial Law and Arabs in Southeast Asia

This chapter elaborates the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War contributed to the nationalization of the Arab diaspora in the British and Dutch colonial imagination. ... More

This chapter elaborates the gradual dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War contributed to the nationalization of the Arab diaspora in the British and Dutch colonial imagination. It highlights a phenomenon which linked the diaspora to an Arab nation instead of the colonies in Southeast Asia where they had established themselves. As much as the surveillance was focused on Southeast Asia, the chapter reveals that the British interests in the Middle East, in the wake of the demise of the major imperial power in the region (the Ottomans), dictated the direction of surveillance policies. It outlines how the First World War formed a watershed moment in the history of British–Arab relations in Southeast Asia. The chapter also looks at how the strained wartime resources caused colonial officials to feel more vulnerable and isolated, leading them to cement their alliance with the Arab community. Ultimately, the chapter examines the constant attempts of the members of the Arab diaspora who continually tried to prove their utility and legitimacy to colonial authorities, culminating in 1915, in the wake of the Sepoy Mutiny in Singapore, in an alliance with the British of Muslims loyal to the king of England.Less

Conclusion: Postcolonial Transitions

Nurfadzilah Yahaya

in Fluid Jurisdictions: Colonial Law and Arabs in Southeast Asia

This chapter recounts how the members of the Arab diaspora attempted legal arbitrage under colonial rule. It analyses the members' expansion and modification of Islamic law, while at other times they ... More

This chapter recounts how the members of the Arab diaspora attempted legal arbitrage under colonial rule. It analyses the members' expansion and modification of Islamic law, while at other times they policed the boundaries of Islamic law even as mere translators. The chapter tells the story of the surprising involvement of the outsider — the Arab diaspora — in aiding colonialists to accumulate legislative power. The pace of change from the mid-nineteenth century onward was brisk, and the Arab diaspora capitalized on it while attempting to navigate uncertainty and risk. This chapter also investigates how Arab diaspora in Southeast Asia were able to influence the shape of law to a great extent. It takes a look on how concessions to Arabs in the Straits Settlements, in the form of the Mohamedan Marriage Ordinance, and their appointments as members of the Mohamedan Advisory Board after the Sepoy Mutiny subsequently tied them more closely to the British colonial government, along with the rest of the Muslim population in the colony.Less

Nice, Amiable People!

Andrew Glazzard

in The Case of Sherlock Holmes: Secrets and Lies in Conan Doyle's Detective Fiction

The Sign of Four was Conan Doyle’s second attempt at rewriting Wilkie Collins’s landmark detective novel The Moonstone. His fi rst, published between A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, was The ... More

The Sign of Four was Conan Doyle’s second attempt at rewriting Wilkie Collins’s landmark detective novel The Moonstone. His fi rst, published between A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, was The Mystery of Cloomber (1888), a short novel that Doyle later came to regard as mere apprentice work. It is certainly derivative: its setting in a coastal village in south-west Scotland is strongly redolent of Stevenson, with an atmosphere recalling that of some of Doyle’s favourites, such as ‘The Pavilion on the Links’ (1880). Technically, though, it follows Collins in its use of multiple narrators presenting their testimony, some of which takes the form of legalised witness statements and other official documents. But the influence of Collins is even more apparent in The Mystery of Cloomber’s characters, plot and orientalist tropes.Less

Transportation across Intermediate States of Matter

Jacob Shell

in Transportation and Revolt: Pigeons, Mules, Canals, and the Vanishing Geographies of Subversive Mobility

The chapter links the topic of subversive transportation to a discussion of physical geography. Political regimes may perceive some geophysical settings as especially resistant to road-building ... More

The chapter links the topic of subversive transportation to a discussion of physical geography. Political regimes may perceive some geophysical settings as especially resistant to road-building projects. By extension, regimes may perceive (correctly, in many cases) that local forms of transportation whose niche is movement across these road-resistant geophysical zones must also hold a special value for subversive groups seeking mobility beyond the spaces of the state. As examples, the chapter discusses the use of elephants for transport across muddy rainforests; camels for transport across sandy deserts; and sled-dogs for transport across icy tundra and sea ice. Transport by carrier pigeon and watercraft are also briefly discussed. This discussion extends to many different places in the world: northern India, the uplands of Burma, central and east Africa, Australia, Siberia, and the canals and river docks of Shanghai.Less

An Identity Aloof: Baghdadi Jews of the Raj

Nathan Katz

in Who Are the Jews of India?

The Lal Dewal (Red Temple) is Pune's most famous landmark. Its steeple dominates much of the old British cantonment. The Mizrachi Jews acquired their Baghdadi identity via a series of encounters with ... More

The Lal Dewal (Red Temple) is Pune's most famous landmark. Its steeple dominates much of the old British cantonment. The Mizrachi Jews acquired their Baghdadi identity via a series of encounters with other groups, both Gentile and Jewish. Bene Israel significantly affected the Baghdadis. The Mutiny exploded deep tensions stemming from heavy-handed British rule and the Indians' furious sense of disenfranchisement. The poisoned atmosphere in the wake of the Mutiny made the Baghdadis' identity as middlemen untenable. During the twentieth century, English eclipsed Arabic as the mother language in most Baghdadi homes, led by the wealthy. Clothing and cuisine were expressions of identity among the Baghdadis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Norman Nahoum perceives deep cultural similarities between Indic and Judaic civilizations. Nahoum recognizes that his new, proud Indian-Jewish identity is “an absolute reversal of the thought that has been inculcated in our minds for years”.Less

God Protects Our Fatherland: Preached on the day of Humiliation and Prayer, as appointed by Her Majesty in Council to be held for the troubles in India

David Woolf Marks

in Jewish Preaching in Times of War, 1800 - 2001

This chapter presents a sermon unusual for David Woolf Marks, as a response to a specific historical event. The background to this address was the outbreak of violence on the Indian subcontinent in ... More

This chapter presents a sermon unusual for David Woolf Marks, as a response to a specific historical event. The background to this address was the outbreak of violence on the Indian subcontinent in May 1857, soon called the ‘Indian Mutiny’. The chapter compares the content of Marks' sermon to that of the Christian preachers of the day. Conversely, it shows how Marks emphasizes a theme that is understandably missing from the Christian preachers, who took it for granted: solidarity with Christian neighbours and the patriotism of the Jews of Britain. The other polemical thrust of the sermon is the reference to ‘whatever opinions we may entertain with respect to the causes which have produced this serious rebellion’. And throughout the text, there are passages that reveal the rhetorical power for which Marks was known.Less

The Treasures of Asia

Rudolph J. Vecoli and Francesco Durante

Donna R. Gabaccia (ed.)

in Oh Capitano!: Celso Cesare Moreno - Adventurer, Cheater, and Scoundrel on Four Continents

This chapter chronicles Celso Cesare Moreno's exploits in Asia, beginning with his decision to take to the sea like other Italian missionaries, explorers, and traders before him, such as Marco Polo ... More

This chapter chronicles Celso Cesare Moreno's exploits in Asia, beginning with his decision to take to the sea like other Italian missionaries, explorers, and traders before him, such as Marco Polo and Vasco da Gama. Moreno's initial zone of activity was the Mediterranean, but he later made his way to the Cape of Good Hope, the Horn of Africa, the Red Sea, and finally, India. Arriving in Calcutta in June 1859, Moreno became entangled in a bitter dispute with Giovanni Casella, a successful merchant, and Father Vincenzo Bruno, a missionary. The chapter also considers Moreno's role in the Sepoy Mutiny during his time in India; his “discovery” of Sumatra; his sojourn in China, where he became involved in the Taiping Rebellion; his failed attempt to convince the Italian government to establish a colony in Sumatra; his efforts to sell Sumatra to Napoleon III; and his travel to Indochina to explore scantly known regions, among other objectives.Less