Contributions in Comparative Colonial Studies – serie

In settler societies, some conflicts have roots that are both ethnic and colonial in nature. These are conflicts between an indigenous ethnic group and groups and between an ethnic group and groups of settlers who have been transplanted to a territory by a colonial power as part of a colonizing effort. This study examines the role that liberal parties have played and can play in recent conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Typically, such parties reject the conventional wisdom of the settler population regarding the nature of the conflict. They also reject the radical thinking of the liberation movements and offer, instead, a third alternative. Mitchell hopes that this study will provide useful information for current liberal parties in Central and Eastern Europe and Israel.Ultimately, many of the liberal party's ideas are adopted by the main settler parties, allowing for a resolution of the conflict, generally through a compromise between the liberal and indigenous positions. However, before such resolution can occur, the liberals must achieve an electoral breakthrough that gives them a minimum of between five and ten percent of votes; they must also obtain significant stable representation in parliament. Liberal leadership must be innovative, offering new solutions that depart from the conventional wisdom of both sides. Mitchell provides the most detailed account yet published on the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. He also includes extensive information on the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba of 1986 and analysis of the electoral fortunes of the Progressive Federal Party in South Africa.

In post-colonial countries such as Guyana, the legacy of colonialism and its influence on policing and society is of crucial significance in developing an explanation for police violence and police-caused homicide. Mars applies a contextual approach, grounded in the conflict theoretical perspective, to explain and understand variations in police violence over time, and she extends her study to include the social, political, and legal structure in which such actions are embedded. Her findings support the notion that police violence is a function of decades of coercive state rule under British colonialism, as well as the state's legitimization of violence in police work.In this first study on police violence and homicide in Guyana, Mars presents and analyzes data covering a 14-year period. She also provides comparative and descriptive information on the use of excessive and deadly force by the police, and, in addition, discusses laws relating to such incidents. Mars finds little support for the community violence hypothesis in reference to Guyana and concludes instead that the level of violence in the community and the everyday dangers of police work does not significantly influence the rates of police-caused homicide in that country.

A scholarly and engaging study, this history of Swaziland, by an author who spent many years in the kingdom, presents a vivid account of the interplay of politics and personalities along the passage to post-colonial independence. From the early stages of Swazi occupation of the present-day kingdom to the accession of Sobhuza II as king in 1921, this book traces problems in consolidating leadership under the Dlamini chieftaincy and examines the infuence of Boer and British settlers, and of mining and commercial interests, on Swazi culture and governance. It recounts the story of a thriving small nation that sought to maintain traditional customs and institutions in the face of a powerful European presence.Each of the sixteen chapters concentrates on an aspect of political history that has influenced the character of the present-day kingdom, and much of the material, especially after 1900, has not been utilized in previous studies. The introduction looks at Swazi experience in a contemporary context, evaluating historic forces that have made for stability in a rapidly changing world. Other sections detail the Swazi reaction to European-controlled neighboring states (the Transvaal, Natal, and Mozambique), the tensions introduced by successive Boer and British policies, the Swazi detachment during two external wars (1899-1902 and 1914-1918), and widespread concerns about colonialism and self-governance following World War I.

Utilizing contemporary accounts of India, China, Siam and the Levant, this study provides rich detail about these exotic lands and explores the priorities that shaped and motivated these bold envoys and chroniclers. Ames and Love offer a fascinating look at the symbiotic nature of cross-cultural interaction between France and the major trading regions of the Indian Ocean basin during the 17th century. During this period of intense French interest in the rich trade and cultures of the region, Louis XIV and his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert in particular were concerned with encouraging French travelers, both clerical and lay, to explore and document these lands. Among the accounts included here are those of François Bernier, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, and François Pyrard.Because these accounts reflect as much about the structures and priorities of France as they do about the cultures they describe, Ames and Love hope their analysis bridges the gap between studies on early modern France and those on the major Asiatic countries of the same period. Their findings challenge the current thinking in the study of early modern France by demonstrating that overseas expansion to Asia was of considerable importance and interest to all segments of French society. Specialists in traditional internal French history will find much in this study of European expansion to complement and supplement their research.

Following her defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain shifted her colonial focus to her Protectorate in northern Morocco. When Spanish conscripts began to fight and to die by the thousands, political fallout forced the government to create a new unit of professional soldiers. This unit would serve the dual function of providing fighting men for Moroccan service, while sparing the lives of conscripted men. Under its founder, José Millán Astray, and his deputy, Francisco Franco, the Spanish Foreign Legion would quickly become the spearhead for Spain's army in Africa. This is the story of the creation, organization, and combat role of the Legion in its formative years from 1919 to 1927.Based upon archival sources in Madrid, Segovia, and Ceuta, this is the first and most complete history in English or Spanish of the early years of the Spanish Foreign Legion. The unit was instrumental in crushing Abd-el-Krim's rebellion against Spanish colonial authority. When the Riffians annihilated the army of General Silvestre at Annual in 1921 and were poised to attack the Spanish enclave of Melilla, it was the arrival of the Legion that pacified its panic-stricken citizens. The force would be in the vanguard of all major offensives undertaken in recapturing the territory lost in 1921, and its amphibious landing at Alhucemas Bay in 1925 marked the beginning of the end for the Rif Rebellion.

Invidious distinctions on the basis of race and overt racism were central features in American colonial policy in the Philippines from 1898 to 1947, as America transported its domestic racial policy to the island colony. This collection by young Filipino scholars analyzes American colonialism and its impact on administration and attitudes in the Philippines through the prism of American racial tradition, a structural concept which refers to beliefs, attitudes, images, classifications, laws, and social customs that shape race relations and racial formation in multiracial and colonial societies. The dominance of this tradition was manifested in the wanton prerogatives of the U.S. Congress and others who helped to carry out colonial policy in the region.The Spanish flexible racial tradition had resulted in a system based on ethnicity and class as determinants of social and economic structure, while the rigid U.S. racial tradition assigned race the more dominant role. The cultural affinity between the early individual American administrators and the Filipino elite, however, meant that class-based distinctions in the islands were not broken up. Thus, the extreme elitist character of the Philippines' economy and society persisted and became impervious to the influences which in other Asian countries led to a progressive weakening of elite structures as the 20th century advanced.

Germans of various disciplines not only encouraged but actively framed a discourse that gendered India through voyeuristic descriptions of the male and female body. This study challenges the German's claim to an encounter with India projected on a spiritual plane of communion between kindred spirits and shows that such supposedly apolitical encounters are really strategies of domination. German participation in European Expansion can be perceived as collusion with the British imperialist administration inasmuch as it provided the latter with a justification for existing colonial rule and anticipated future colonial activity. Despite the optimism placed in the post of post-colonialism, the continued presence of European Orientalism can be felt in the late 20th century, hidden under the mantel of global capitalism.Although Germany did not colonize India territorially, Germans of various disciplines not only encouraged but actively framed a discourse that gendered India through voyeuristic descriptions of the male and female body. German orientalist experiences of Hindu India have typically been excluded from post-colonial debates concerning European expansion, but this study challenges the German's claim to an encounter with India projected on a spiritual plane of communion between kindred spirits and shows that such supposedly apolitical encounters are really strategies of domination. German participation can be perceived as collusion with the British imperialist administration inasmuch as it provided the latter with a justification for existing colonial rule and anticipated future colonial activity. Murti sheds light on the role that missionaries and women, two groups that have been ignored or glossed over until now, played in authorizing and strengthening the colonial discourse.The intertextual strategies adopted by the various partners in the colonialist dialog clearly show that German involvement in India was not a disinterested, academic venture. These writings also betray a bias against women that has not been regarded, until now, as a key issue in the literature discussing Orientalism. Missionaries often actively fostered the British colonial agenda, while women travelers, even those who traveled as a means of escaping patriarchal structures at home, invariably abetted the colonizer. Despite the optimism placed in the post of post-colonialism, Murti concludes that the continued presence of European Orientalism can be felt in the late 20th century, hidden under the mantel of global capitalism.

The complex story of the rise and fall of the colored class in Jamaican politics is examined in this important contribution to the history of the Caribbean.

This collection of original historical essays sheds new light on the French colonial experience and the African reaction to it and breaks new ground by looking at both sides of the colonial equation. Editor G. Wesley Johnson believes that a double impact characterized French colonial rule in Africa during the first six decades of the twentieth century. The contributors, selected for their long experience with France or French-speaking Africa, examine nine thematic areas--the economy, the military, elites, education, art, architecture, literature, race relations and prejudice, and politics--to see if and how reciprocal impact was felt. Finally, Johnson considers the utility of double impact as a concept for understanding France and French colonial society, Africa and its colonial society, and the colonial period which enmeshed the two cultures as a whole.

Inspired by her own contact with Africa, Caroline Oliver has written biographies of five intrepid women who traveled through the interior of Africa during colonial times. Two were explorers. Alexine Tinne led her own expedition up the Bahr el Ghazal tributary of the Nile. The second sketch traces the expeditions of Florence Baker who accompanied her husband on two hazardous journeys to the lake regions of Central Africa. Oliver portrays Mary Kingsley, an intellectual who walked alone through the West African forests doing ethnographic research. The closing biographies are of two missionaries; Mary Slessor, who became the first female magistrate of the Okon district of Calabar, and Mother Kevin, who established many schools throughout East Africa. Oliver brings to her writing the special enthusiasm gained from having seen the African backgrounds in which these women lived and worked.

This innovative volume explores the essential similarity of imperialist ideologies in Britain and France from 1890 to 1940. These nations attempted to sell the concept of empire to their respective peoples as a means of overcoming pressing internal problems. The author documents the development of imperialist ideology in both countries, analyzes its methods of propagation, and assesses its popular appeal. Beginning with the 1890s, when factions in both countries espoused a remarkably similar vision of empire, August traces the numerous manifestations of official ideology through the First World War and into the ensuing period of promised recovery and national regeneration.

This contributed volume explores the relationship between imperialism, railways, and informal empire. Contributors account for the origins of main lines in several independent and self-governing countries. The essays reflect on the imperial and anti-imperial effects of railways, whose rails traced the divergent paths of expanding capitalism, imperial strategy, and modernizing nationalism. The reader is thereby offered an opportunity of seeing the slippery notion of informal empire in operation, and of testing its validity. The railway has often been studied from the standpoint of imperialism; this book makes a beginning with studying imperialism from the standpoint of the railway.Following the book's introduction, which explains the imperial model considered in each chapter case study, the book opens with essays on railway imperialism in Canada, South Africa, Central Africa, Argentina, Mexico, the Indian States, Thailand, Russia and China. The last essay, written by Ronald E. Robinson, ties the book together with an engaging analysis of railway imperialism. This book should appeal to researchers and students interested in the history of imperialism and the history of railways.

Welch discusses the special difficulties of ruling Egypt, such as the anomalous administration, foreign interference, and national dissent, as well as the men who ruled and their perceptions of those they governed. Despite the many complexities that defined the scope of their work, British officials were able to accomplish a great deal during Cromer's tenure, a tenure which began by announcing its end and ended by proclaiming a new beginning. The many aspects of this crucial period in Anglo-Egyptian history are considered in the light of the long-term objectives of Cromer and his men, the nationalist response, and the general decline that occured toward the end of his tenure when the occupation was nearly complete. By the time of Cromer's departure, new circumstances cast a long shadow across the future of the occupation and threatened to undermine the achievements of Anglo-Egyptians.

This book provides a detailed examination of the role played by the Sudan Political Service in Anglo-Egyptian relations from the end of the Second World War, when Egypt formally demanded revision of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, through the conclusion of an Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Sudan in 1953 in the aftermath of the Egyptian Revolution, and up to Sudanese independence in January 1956, on the eve of the Suez Crisis.Drawing on official documents and private papers, this study challenges conventional interpretations of British policy toward the Sudan and Egypt in this period, and it concludes that both the British Labour Government and its Conservative successor were prepared to make major concessions to Egypt in the Sudan in exchange for an acceptable treaty of alliance that would guarantee British access to the strategic Suez Canal Zone. It was the Sudan Government, the colonial administration dominated by British expatriate administrators, that stymied all efforts to achieve Anglo-Egyptian agreement at the expense of the Service's own plans for a fully-independent Sudanese state. This book will be of interest to researchers of British colonialism and modern Middle Eastern and African history.

In this first comparative study of Chinese and Zimbabwean railway experiences, Gao examines the role played by technological progress in generating significant social change. His principal concern is with indigenous people whose efforts to meet this technological advance has been neglected or underestimated.Gao shows how different cultural traditions, political situations, and individual interests create an attractive variety of local responses to the challenges and opportunities afforded by technology. He not only describes the final consequences of railway development, but emphasizes the dynamic process by which indigenous people first derived, then gradually lost, most of the gains from modern transport advances. In addition, Gao explores a number of permanent impacts of railways on the two areas, including demographic and structural changes, and divisions of race and class. An intriguing study for researchers and students of imperialism, and Chinese and African history.

Following her defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898, Spain shifted her colonial focus to her Protectorate in northern Morocco. When Spanish conscripts began to fight and to die by the thousands, political fallout forced the government to create a new unit of professional soldiers. This unit would serve the dual function of providing fighting men for Moroccan service, while sparing the lives of conscripted men. Under its founder, José Millán Astray, and his deputy, Francisco Franco, the Spanish Foreign Legion would quickly become the spearhead for Spain's army in Africa. This is the story of the creation, organization, and combat role of the Legion in its formative years from 1919 to 1927.Based upon archival sources in Madrid, Segovia, and Ceuta, this is the first and most complete history in English or Spanish of the early years of the Spanish Foreign Legion. The unit was instrumental in crushing Abd-el-Krim's rebellion against Spanish colonial authority. When the Riffians annihilated the army of General Silvestre at Annual in 1921 and were poised to attack the Spanish enclave of Melilla, it was the arrival of the Legion that pacified its panic-stricken citizens. The force would be in the vanguard of all major offensives undertaken in recapturing the territory lost in 1921, and its amphibious landing at Alhucemas Bay in 1925 marked the beginning of the end for the Rif Rebellion.

Invidious distinctions on the basis of race and overt racism were central features in American colonial policy in the Philippines from 1898 to 1947, as America transported its domestic racial policy to the island colony. This collection by young Filipino scholars analyzes American colonialism and its impact on administration and attitudes in the Philippines through the prism of American racial tradition, a structural concept which refers to beliefs, attitudes, images, classifications, laws, and social customs that shape race relations and racial formation in multiracial and colonial societies. The dominance of this tradition was manifested in the wanton prerogatives of the U.S. Congress and others who helped to carry out colonial policy in the region.The Spanish flexible racial tradition had resulted in a system based on ethnicity and class as determinants of social and economic structure, while the rigid U.S. racial tradition assigned race the more dominant role. The cultural affinity between the early individual American administrators and the Filipino elite, however, meant that class-based distinctions in the islands were not broken up. Thus, the extreme elitist character of the Philippines' economy and society persisted and became impervious to the influences which in other Asian countries led to a progressive weakening of elite structures as the 20th century advanced.

In the relations between colonial European traders and the Indians of the southern backcountry, trade was a powerful manipulative tool used by both sides in their attempts to control each other. This anthropological and sociological study examines how European traders sought out native women as cultural instructors, translators, and sexual companions. The network of native women, fur traders, and colonial diplomats functioned as an invisible social, political, and economic web throughout the backcountry. Although this web was an integral part of the colonial struggle for the region, it is often overlooked or ignored in conventional histories.Women played a key role in this system of economic exchange. They benefitted materially from this arrangement, while the traders enjoyed increased political power as a result of the cohabitation. These Anglo-Indian unions helped to impose Euroamerican values on native societies, and, in part, the women functioned as unofficial diplomats for their people. Colonial governments hoped that the efforts of these frontier traders would impose stability on the tribes, but the profit-seeking of many such traders often resulted in bloody conflict instead.

In post-colonial countries such as Guyana, the legacy of colonialism and its influence on policing and society is of crucial significance in developing an explanation for police violence and police-caused homicide. Mars applies a contextual approach, grounded in the conflict theoretical perspective, to explain and understand variations in police violence over time, and she extends her study to include the social, political, and legal structure in which such actions are embedded. Her findings support the notion that police violence is a function of decades of coercive state rule under British colonialism, as well as the state's legitimization of violence in police work.In this first study on police violence and homicide in Guyana, Mars presents and analyzes data covering a 14-year period. She also provides comparative and descriptive information on the use of excessive and deadly force by the police, and, in addition, discusses laws relating to such incidents. Mars finds little support for the community violence hypothesis in reference to Guyana and concludes instead that the level of violence in the community and the everyday dangers of police work does not significantly influence the rates of police-caused homicide in that country.

Based on data from Nigeria's Igbo, this book examines the roles of the native and the foreign, English-style justice systems in the administration of law and justice in Nigeria. Okereafoezeke looks at the nature of colonially imposed justice in Nigeria and the relationship between informal and formal justice in the country through the use of case studies. He concludes that the imposed English-style justice system is incapable of dealing with Nigeria's social control problems because it does not anticipate and manage the wide range of issues that the native systems do. Thus, the focus of future social control should rightly be on the native system.Okereafoezeke considers three main aspects of justice in contemporary Igbo: Law Making, Law Application (Case Processing), and Enforcement of Judicial Decisions. For each of these areas, he includes discussion of methods, steps, and procedures followed. Findings demonstrate that Nigeria's native justice systems work exceedingly well, even in the very harsh British-imposed, Nigerian-sustained official climate. The study also offers recommendations for repositioning Nigeria's native justice systems for improved social control.

In settler societies, some conflicts have roots that are both ethnic and colonial in nature. These are conflicts between an indigenous ethnic group and groups and between an ethnic group and groups of settlers who have been transplanted to a territory by a colonial power as part of a colonizing effort. This study examines the role that liberal parties have played and can play in recent conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa. Typically, such parties reject the conventional wisdom of the settler population regarding the nature of the conflict. They also reject the radical thinking of the liberation movements and offer, instead, a third alternative. Mitchell hopes that this study will provide useful information for current liberal parties in Central and Eastern Europe and Israel.Ultimately, many of the liberal party's ideas are adopted by the main settler parties, allowing for a resolution of the conflict, generally through a compromise between the liberal and indigenous positions. However, before such resolution can occur, the liberals must achieve an electoral breakthrough that gives them a minimum of between five and ten percent of votes; they must also obtain significant stable representation in parliament. Liberal leadership must be innovative, offering new solutions that depart from the conventional wisdom of both sides. Mitchell provides the most detailed account yet published on the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. He also includes extensive information on the KwaZulu/Natal Indaba of 1986 and analysis of the electoral fortunes of the Progressive Federal Party in South Africa.

The role of the police force was central in the politics and social life of Egypt during the British occupation between 1882 and 1914. Egyptians initially resisted British encroachment into the sphere of autonomy that had been reserved to them in police matters. However, preferring indirect rule to overt manifestations of power that would be signified by the use of the army, the British used the issue of reform to tighten their hold on Egypt by means of the police. This study applies modern criminological theory to examine the attendant political repression, torture, corruption, and rising crime that soon followed.Instead of the more professional and community-oriented police force exemplified by the bobbies in England, the British opted for a militarized Egyptian police force, better suited to the repression of political dissent than of ordinary crime. Tollefson seeks to account for rising crime in Egypt, which Lord Cromer, the British Consul-General between 1883 and 1907, referred to as Egypt's worst problem during his tenure. Under British control, defects in the police such as low pay, harsh discipline, and maltreatment of suspects persisted, and ordinary crime increased. This work confirms what students of colonial policing have come to appreciate; the police performed key security and social maintenance roles in colonial and quasi-colonial situations.