In the six years between 1848 and 1854, between the revolutions that broke out in the imperial capitals of Europe in 1848 and the inter-imperial war that began in the Crimea in March 1854, the incidence of rebellion and resistance intensified in many parts of the Empire. In February 1848 the monarchy was overthrown in France, and radical uprisings took place in other European cities. The repercussions were felt throughout the colonial world, as the apparent fragility of government in the imperial heartland became apparent to those resisting colonial rule.
By the middle of the year, from Ireland to Ceylon, rebels took their cue from events in Paris, while in the Punjab the Sikhs embarked on their final resistance to the imposition of British rule, culminating in their great victory at Chilianwala in 1849 (see p. 351-2). British interventions in the Muslim provinces that now form Pakistan led to the establishment of a new imperial borderland in the mountains east of Afghanistan, and from the 1850s onwards the so-called North-West Frontier of India became a scene of epic confrontation. A succession of Muslim tribal chieftains presented a continuing challenge to the Empire throughout the nineteenth century and on into the Empire’s final years - and beyond. To the west of India, in the so-called North-East Frontier territories, the Naga tribesmen presented a comparable and enduring threat.
Elsewhere in Asia, the Burmese rebelled in what became known as the Second Burmese War, while along the shores of Sarawak, the local ‘pirates’ resisted the encroachments of James Brooke, culminating in the brutal massacre at Batang Marau in 1849 (see p. 375-6) that reached the ears of attentive MPs in London, already concerned about the prolonged period of martial law in Ceylon.
In Africa, the continuing struggle with the breakaway Boer settlers beyond the frontiers of Cape Colony was a significant feature of this period, as well as the revived and final episodes of Xhosa resistance by Maqoma and Sandile in 1851. In West Africa, opposition emerged to the steady advance of British traders and naval gunboats, often cloaked in their apparently humanitarian ambition to end the slave trade.
At this same moment, in the middle of the nineteenth century, a fresh crisis blew up in the Empire’s policing and prison system, similar to the problems that had arisen some seventy years earlier that had seen the development of the Australian gulag. In the 1780s the British had only to consider the fate of British convicts; in 1850, the entire Empire needed prison space.
Trouble began in 1848, when the settlers in Tasmania heard rumours that their island was to become the sole receptacle for the criminals of the Empire. The convict population there had already increased rapidly in the 1840s to more than 30,000 - nearly half the population. A convict cargo ship, the Ratcliff, sailed from Portsmouth into the Tasmanian harbour of Hobart with 248 male prisoners on board in November 1848. A group of influential local citizens presented a petition to the governor requesting an end to any further shipments, but no action was taken.
Convicts continued to arrive in ever-greater numbers. Some twenty ships with prisoners on board arrived at Hobart in 1849, sailing from different parts of the Empire: ‘six from Ireland, with 884 male and 555 female prisoners; three from England, with 33 male and 313 females; flve from New Zealand, with 16 males; two from Adelaide, with 23 males; one from Sydney, with 5; one from Port Philip, with 10; and two from India, with 21’ - a grand total of 1,860 convicts.1 So great was the outrage in Hobart that the London authorities began to take note. The transport of imperial convicts to Tasmania was brought to an end in 1853, although convict ships continued to sail to Australia until 1868.
Britain had other convict gulags where local people sought an end to these trans-shipments. Singapore, like Penang and Malacca, had been used for years as a workhouse for prisoners from India and China, and cheap convict labour lay at the root of the prosperity of these colonial outposts. Some 1,500 Indian convicts were working in Singapore in 1845, some employed in building up-country police stations. Convicts from China were less well received by the local authorities, since they could more easily defect and disappear into the population, but they continued to arrive.
In January 1848, one event in particular drew attention to the convict drama. A British passenger vessel, the General Wood, had sailed from Hong Kong to Singapore with ninety-three Chinese convicts on board, and then, within sight of their destination, the convicts rebelled. The ship was seized by the prisoners, and they killed the captain. The European passengers were held hostage, and the ship set course for China. The freedom of the rebels was brief, for their ship ran aground. They were recaptured and sent back to Singapore, and again put on trial.
Yet the scandal was sufficient to oil the wheels of protest, both in Singapore and in London. The transport of Chinese convicts was stopped in 1856, while Indian convicts ceased to be sent to Singapore after 1860.
In the light of the continuing resistance to empire, fresh doubts were expressed in Britain at mid-century about its purpose and utility. A handful of Radical MPs in the House of Commons were the chief critics of empire, but their arguments were stoutly rejected by Henry Earl Grey, the politician in charge of the Colonial Office since 1846 and the author of an influential account of his stewardship. In his book, The Colonial Policy of Lord Russell’s Administration, published in 1853, Grey placed particular emphasis on the need for Britain to spread the benefits of Christianity throughout the world. ‘The authority of the British Crown is at this moment the most powerful instrument, under Providence, of maintaining peace and order in many extensive regions of the earth, and thereby assists in difiusing amongst millions of the human race the blessings of Christianity and civilisation.’ Yet the increasing activity of British missionaries and evangelical soldiers aroused considerable opposition, notably in the colonial territories that were already beholden to Islam.
Grey believed firmly in the imperial mission. If Britain was to abandon its colonies, he argued, the West Indies would see ‘a fearful war of colour’, and so too would Ceylon. The ‘most hopeless anarchy’ would result, even in New Zealand. The African slave trade would revive.
Without its empire, Grey foresaw an even gloomier prospect for Britain itself: it would see the ‘annihilation of lucrative branches’ of its commerce, ‘which now creates the means of paying for British goods consumed daily in larger quantities by the numerous and various populations now emerging from barbarism under our protection.’ Grey’s Christian mission to bring peace and order was closely linked to the expansion of British commerce.
World History
