DUHS Journal 2014, Vol.7

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Durham University History Society Journal 2014

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Volume Seven

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Editorial Board

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Ellie de la Bedoyere !

Alayna Kenney !

Claire Oxlade !

Holly Rowe !

Geraint Thomas !

Sophie Tulley !

Siena Morrell Editor in Chief

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CONTENTS -4Editor’s Introduction Siena Morrell

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-5Foreword: Presidential Address Matthew Williams

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Part One: Subject Articles

-9Was Louis IX a hindrance or a help to French kings in the late Middle Ages?

Jack Hepworth

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- 20 How complicit were elites in the attacks against the Jews during the Black Death?

Ellie de la Bedoyere

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- 34 Geography of internment and concepts of identity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England Stephanie Ballard

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- 48 How did British perceptions of sati evolve between 1757 and its abolition in 1829?

Matt Hoser

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- 65 Is it accurate to describe Egyptians as ‘colonised colonisers’ in the nineteenth century?

Will Vick

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- 78 Did Marx think of history as a historian or as a revolutionary?

Joshua Kaye

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- 90 Why were so many Victorians unsettled by evolutionary theories?

Victoria Cacchione

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- 100 How was British Monarchism sustained throughout the nineteenth century?

Hannah Fitzpatrick

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- 117 In what ways was geography imagined and constructed in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in relation to the Balkans?

Naomi Warin

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- 128 To what extent are Black Power and Red Power the politics of despair?

Jessica McDonald

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- 151 How important are clans to the conflict in Somalia?

Ismay Milford

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Part Two: Society Affairs ! ! !

- 163 About the DUHS Exec

- 166 About the Contributors




- 169 About the Editors

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Editor’s Introduction — Siena Morrell

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The production of this Journal marks the end of another incredibly successful year in the Durham University History Department. We are privileged to have been awarded the number one spot in the 2015 Complete University Guide rankings, beating Oxford, Cambridge and many others to the premier position. Of course, this comes as no surprise to us students fortunate enough to be educated at the most prestigious department in the country. Each day, we are taught by experts in their field, exposed to pioneering research, and surrounded by like-minded students. We are ambitious, driven, dynamic and passionate; hopefully this Journal provides a useful and engaging reflection of the outstanding calibre of the work produced by our peers.

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This year, the Executive Committee chose to launch the History Society Journal Award, in recognition of a submission which demonstrates originality in use and analysis of evidence, and clarity of writing. The recipient of the 2014 Award is Jack Hepworth, whose essay concerning Louis IX’s reign of France exhibits an exceptional command of the relevant concepts and an excellent communication of his ideas.

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I have been especially fortunate to be part of such a friendly and capable Executive Committee, without whom this year would have been neither so productive nor entertaining; and special thanks must go to my efficient Editorial Board. It has been a great privilege to read and consider an unprecedented number of submissions over the past months, but without the support and assistance of my team of Editors, the Journal would not nearly be of such a high standard.

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I leave the Journal in the capable hands of my successors, Jessica and Sophie; I have great faith that your innovative ideas will raise the ever-increasing standard of the Journal, and look forward to seeing what you produce. Best of luck to you both.

June 2014, Durham !4

Presidential Address — Matt Williams, DUHS President 2013-14

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Fellow historians, Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude for the support and hard work of my executive team this academic year. Their great energy and initiative has propelled the society to new heights of popularity and success.

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Our annual series of guest lectures was launched in spectacular fashion by the ever-engaging Dr. Ben Dodds, in the appropriately atmospheric setting of the medieval chapel of Durham Castle.

Thanks to the hard work of our Secretary James Callingham, the lectures covered a variety of periods and topics, ranging from Early Medieval historian Professor Peter Heather’s discussion of the conversion of Constantine, to a talk on historical fiction by Durham’s very own historian-come-historical novelist, Dr. John Clay.

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The annual society Hadrian’s Wall trip, organised by Vice-President Greg Mazgajczyk, was a great success as ever despite the cold. The trip, led by Dr. John Clay, visited Vindolanda, the Roman Army Museum and of course the wall itself: the very edge of the ancient empire. Greg has also been working to develop the society website and our social media pages.

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The highlight of Michaelmas term was being transported through time for a five course Elizabethan banquet at Lumley Castle. As baron for the evening I watched as our guests enjoyed the fantastic entertainment while attempting to consume their meals equipped only with a knife. Credit for this success must go to our brilliant Social Secretaries Hannah White and Natalie Walsh who also introduced new events, such as a Pirate Boat Party and a Christmas Downton Cocktail evening. This year also saw the introduction of the Robin Hood trip led by Dr. Ben Dodds in Epiphany term, !5

which explored the sites, such as the beautiful Fountains Abbey, associated with this infamous legend.

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Special thanks must go to our Treasurer, Ivan Yuen, whose skill in dealing with our various financial complexities and bureaucracy enabled our events to succeed. Publicity and Sponsorship Secretary, Holly Rowe, has been instrumental in promoting the society and achieved our first ever career open day with our sponsor Clifford Chance. Despite the inevitable train delays, the event was an amazing insight for our members into a career in a global law firm.

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Finally, I would like to congratulate Siena Morrell and her editorial team for their tireless work in the publication of this outstanding journal. For the first time, we have also introduced a prize for the best entry to recognise the quality of work contributed. Siena also took responsibility for our highly successful ‘I Love History’ tshirts, which received unprecedented demand.

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Being President of the Durham University History Society has been a great privilege and an unforgettable experience. Above all, it has been very rewarding to see the society grow, and become one of the largest and most active academic societies, due to the many firsts that we have introduced this year. I hope that this growth will continue next year with the reintroduction of the society’s very own academic conference and wish Hannah Fitzpatrick the very best of luck as Conference Co-ordinator. I will continue to support the society as Publicity and Sponsorship Secretary in the new exec and look forward to introducing new initiatives. To conclude, I would like to congratulate James as my successor and would again like to thank my exec for a fantastic year.

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June 2014, Durham

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Part One: Subject Articles

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Jack Hepworth

Was Louis IX a hindrance or a help to French kings in the late Middle Ages?

— Jack Hepworth

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The question of Louis IX’s legacy has divided historians of late medieval France, reflecting the complex and divergent consequences of Louis’s kingship for French monarchy and society in the late Middle Ages. Historians such as Joseph Strayer and William Chester Jordan have seen Louis IX’s kingship in positive terms as a watershed in French history which defined the French kingdom, consolidated the Capetian dynasty, and developed the royal bureaucracy.1 Scholars such as Colette Beaune and Elizabeth Brown, by contrast, have seen Louis’s reign as problematic for his successors, inhibiting the capacity of later kings to levy taxation and manipulate fiscal policy.2 As the historiography shows, Louis’s was a mixed legacy, which served to both help and hinder his successors in various ways.

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In some respects, developments during Louis’s reign (1226-1270) significantly aided later French monarchs. As far as territory was concerned, this period witnessed important gains for the French kingdom. Concluding the war with Aragon in 1258, the Treaty of Corbeil ensured that the French crown secured its control of Toulouse, thus enabling the crown to exert control over this

J. R. Strayer, ‘France: The Holy Land, The Chosen People, and the Most Christian King’, in T. K. Rabb & J. E. Siegel (eds.), Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of E. H. Harbison (Princeton, 1969), p. 5; W. C. Jordan, Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton, 1979), p.

217.

2 C. Beaune, The Birth of an Ideology: Myths and Symbols of Nation in Late-Medieval France (Berkeley, 1991), p. 103; E. A. R. Brown, ‘The Prince is Father of the King: The Character and Childhood of Philip the Fair of France’, Mediaeval Studies, 49 (1987), p. 326.

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hitherto troublesome hotbed of heresy.3 Meanwhile, Aragonese claims to territories in France were reduced to the lordship of Montpellier. Additionally, the peace with England, embodied in the Treaty of Paris (1259), curtailed Henry III’s claims to Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. In establishing that the Plantagenets’ only entitlement to Aquitaine came as vassals of the French crown, Louis secured implicit diplomatic superiority over the English crown.4

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The treaties of Corbeil and Paris served to expand and entrench the authority of the French crown in the south of the kingdom for the long-term, too. Louis’s successor, Philip III, was able to build on his father’s consolidation of the south by turning his attention to more northerly provinces, bringing the counties of Champagne and Brief into the royal domain.5 Moreover, Louis’s treaties set in motion a period of gradual French expansionism, with subsequent monarchs overseeing the establishment of direct crown control over Poitou, La Marche, Anjou, and Valois.6 These regions provided, for French monarchs from Philip IV to Philip VI, appanages of land which could be dispensed as gifts of patronage: either to consolidate the royal family’s wealth or to secure support from wealthy barons.

Indeed, by the start of the fourteenth century, Philip IV’s royal lawyers contended that the king himself held all the territories of his expanding kingdom by direct ownership.7 French monarchical

R. Fawtier, The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy and Nation, 987-1328 (Paris, 1958), p. 124.

4 Ibid., pp. 152-153.

5 D. Carpenter, ‘The Meetings of Kings Henry III and Louis IX’, in M. Prestwich, R. Britnell & R. Frame (eds.), Thirteenth-Century England: Proceedings of the Durham Conference 2003 (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 25.

6 M. Jones, ‘The Last Capetians and Early Valois Kings, 1314-1364’, in M. Jones (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume VI, c.1300-c.1415 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 409.

7 C. T. Wood, ‘The Mise of Amiens and Saint Louis’s Theory of Kingship’, French Historical Studies, 6 (1970), pp. 305-306.

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authority had retained its centralised emphasis whilst expanding significantly under Louis IX, a far cry from the more modest royal demesne of the early thirteenth century.

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More significantly, the nature of French monarchy changed under Louis, and the strength and reach of its administration developed immeasurably. At the heart of crown-controlled bureaucracy was Louis’s Great Ordinance (1254). The ordinance sought to eliminate corruption in local government, obliging all crown officials to swear an oath to uphold citizens’ civic rights. Transgressors of Louis’s code of conduct were liable to face prosecution in the king’s court,8 or spiritual sanctions, since many of the appointed enquêteurs were mendicant friars and clerics.9 The ordinance heralded a significant increase in the scale of crown influence and adjudication in local government.

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The expanding scope of royal government was reflected by the formation of local feudal councils, complete with urban representatives, in the 1250s.10 These councils strengthened the crown’s hand in the provinces against any potential threats of rebellion. In the seneschalsies of Beaucaire, Carcassonne, and Nîmes, for example, edicts were introduced (1254) to establish councils charged solely with the management of grain supplies.11 The councils could thus pre-empt food shortages, and thereby manage any potential flashpoint provoked by economic hardships in the localities.

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The monarchy itself came, after Louis’s reforms, to take an increasingly active role in the machinations of government. From primary documents, Strayer has estimated that over one-third of

M. W. Labarge, Saint Louis: The Life of Louis IX of France (London, 1968), p. 187.

9 G. Small, Late Medieval France (Basingstoke, 2009), p. 13.

10 J. Le Goff, Saint Louis (Notre Dame, 2009), pp. 534-538.

11 Ibid., p. 544.

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bureaucratic papers in the early fourteenth century were dealt with by the king personally.12 The Parlement de Paris, meanwhile, came to fulfil both judicial and legislative capacities for the centralised monarchy,13 and the growing power of the French monarchy in this period can be further attested to by the strict rules imposed by the crown upon seneschals and bailiffs, who were barred from giving or accepting ‘gifts’ of land or property.

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Corrupt seneschals such as Peter of Athies, seneschal of Beaucaire, 1239-1241, were rooted out by enquêteurs for exploiting their authority, and were swiftly removed from their positions.14 Despotism among seneschals and bailiffs was emasculated, too, with royal officials regularly moved from one locality to another to prevent local seneschals building up bases of patronage and acquiring excessive power in any one region. This royal initiative of rotating its localised officers operated successfully into the fourteenth century: no fewer than thirteen different officers served as seneschal of Meaux, 1319-1342, for instance.15

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The success of the crown’s pro-active government in areas far from the kingdom’s centre can be clearly seen in the military recruiting drive launched by Philip V (1317). Philip was able to raise a national military force after issuing ordinances which applied to the entire realm,16 an achievement emblematic of the successes bequeathed to his successors by Louis IX’s reforms of government and administration. In sum, the strength and scope of the French monarchy can be seen to have grown through the policies and reforms of Louis IX. J. R. Strayer, ‘Philip the Fair: A Constitutional King’, American Historical Review, 62 (1956), p. 24.

13 M. Keen, The Penguin History of Medieval Europe (Harmondsworth, 1991), pp. 201-202.

14 Labarge, Saint Louis, p. 180.

15 Jones, ‘The Last Capetians and Early Valois Kings’, p. 409.

16 E. Hallam & J. Everard, Capetian France, 987-1328 (Harlow, 2001), p. 377.

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The corollary to this strengthening of the French monarchy was the legitimacy given to the Capetian dynasty by Louis’s pious conduct and posthumous canonisation (1297). Contemporary exempla proclaimed Louis’s status as the ‘Most Christian King’ with reference to his legendary acts of alms-giving, institutionalising monarchical charity through the newly-created royal role of aumônier (1260).17 The saintly image of Louis was carried by hagiographical portraits, not least in the work of Guillaume de Chartres, whose story De vita et actibus told of the king’s miraculous recovery of a lost Prayer Book during his incarceration on crusade.18

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The image of Louis as a pious crusader held great currency in contemporary France, as the controversy between Philip IV and Pope Boniface VIII showed. Louis had retained his connections with the crusader states long after returning home from the Levant in 1254, funding garrisons for the protection of Christianity,19 and securing the allegiance of the French church in the process.

Decades later, in 1294, Cluny granted Philip IV additional tax revenues during his struggle with the Pope because Philip, as a direct descendant of Louis, was seen by the friars to be the “leader of the cause of God… [a] fighter for all of Christendom.” Equally, the lawyer Pierre Dubois made telling comment in his description of the French church as one of “habitual devotion” led by “the most Christian king.”20 St Louis’s death on crusade in Tunis (1270) had only served to embellish his pious reputation.

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As Elizabeth Hallam and Martin Kauffmann have suggested, Louis’s successors could invoke the saint’s name to legitimise their

Le Goff, Saint Louis, p. 530.

Beaune, Birth of an Ideology, p. 98.

19 W. C. Jordan, Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, 2002), p.

285.

20 Strayer, ‘France’, pp. 10-12.

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own rule.21 Simply by association to Louis, successors to the French throne could claim religious rectitude and a crucial upper hand in political disputes with the papacy. Even in 1438, Charles VII invoked the name of St Louis as a French symbol of piety in legitimising his Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438),22 aimed at limiting the capacity for papal intervention in the affairs of the French church. For Louis’s successors, then, the saint’s pious image was especially useful and malleable in elevating the status of the French church, and accentuating the prestige of the French monarchy moreover.

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As Beaune and Brown have argued, however, the reality of Louis IX’s legacy was far more problematic for subsequent kings of France than Strayer and Jordan might suggest. Just as Louis’s successors could manipulate his legacy for their own ends, equally nobles and clerics in France could reinvent Louis’s image to suit the purposes of their own polemic. Pope Boniface opposed Philip IV’s increase of clerical taxation on the grounds of historical precedent: namely, that St Louis, with his reputation for cautious taxation, would not have imposed such a levy.23 Indeed, Philip implicitly acknowledged the restricting influence of Louis’s legacy by resorting to ‘hidden’ taxes instead, such as the salt tax, imposed in 1314. Furthermore, the Norman Charter of Louis X (1316) went further in harking back to Louis IX’s cautiousness in fiscal matters, by affirming that “only the old taxes are to be collected, as they used to be in the time of King Louis [IX].”24 E. Hallam, ‘Philip the Fair and the Cult of St Louis’, in S. Mews (ed.), Religion and National Identity: Papers Read at the Nineteenth Summer Meeting and the Twentieth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (Oxford, 1982), p. 203; M. Kauffmann, ‘The Image of St Louis’, in A. J. Duggan (ed.), Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe (London, 1993), p. 267.

22 Beaune, Birth of an Ideology, p. 121.

23 Fawtier, Capetian Kings of France, p. 37.

24 Norman Charter (1216) quoted in Kauffmann, ‘Image of St Louis’, p. 268.

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The formation of the noble leagues (1314-1315) gives a clear indication of the problems of Louis’s legacy for subsequent French monarchs. Protesting against Philip IV’s frequent manipulations of the currency in order to raise funds, the nobility called for a return to the “good money of Louis IX.”25 It might even be contended that John II, in 1360, was politically obliged to introduce his ordinance for ‘strong money’ by the demands of the nobility, who craved a return to the sort of monetary stability that their elders had enjoyed during Louis’s reign. The nobility, then, could adopt the ‘cult of Louis’ in order to wrest concessions from the monarchy.

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Louis IX himself had anticipated the political pressures that he would bequeath to his successors. His ‘teachings’ of 1267 to his son, the future Philip III, were incorporated into works such as Joinville’s Life of St Louis (1308-1309). Louis’s lessons impressed upon Philip the need for prudent taxation, ‘good’ government, and fair justice, whilst Joinville alluded to the weight of Louis’s legacy with his warning that those “who will not follow [Louis IX] in good works… [will suffer] great dishonour.”26

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The fear of dishonour troubled Philip IV in a particularly pronounced manner. His will of 1297 belied a troubled conscience: Saint Louis’s grandson proposed full restitution for those who had suffered through his devaluation of the currency.27 The shadow of Louis’s legacy did not end there, either: Louis X, in 1315, gave way to pressure from the nobility by conceding the Charte aux Normands to quell the protestations of Norman nobles, clerics, and

Jones, ‘The Last Capetians and Early Valois Kings’, pp. 416-417.

J. Joinville quoted in M. R. B. Shaw (trans.), Chronicles of the Crusades (Harmondsworth, 1963), p. 351.

27 E. A. R. Brown, ‘Royal Salvation and the Needs of State in Late Capetian France’, in W. C. Jordan, B. McNab & T. F. Ruiz (eds.), Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton, 1976), pp. 370-371.

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townsmen.28 The nature of the charter, waiving taxes and guaranteeing due course of law for protesters, had a distinctly Louisian flavour.

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As late as 1484, the deputies of the Estates-General dismissed the possibility of levying a tax after the death of King Louis XI, since St Louis would “only have collected taxes when it was absolutely necessary.”29 Over two hundred years after his death, the norms of St Louis’s kingship remained the political barometer against which the acceptability of French kings’ conduct was measured.

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That Philip IV, no great warrior himself, felt compelled to erect a statue commemorating his part in the Battle of Mons-en-Pévèle (1304)30 suggests that Philip felt his grandfather’s image weighing heavily upon him. Louis’s successors had little option but to accept the mantle of ‘most Christian king’ from Louis IX. The ‘cult of Louis’ profoundly shaped and restricted the politics of subsequent French kings.

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Of course, as Strayer and Jordan have shown, Louis’s kingship and cult did witness some important advances in monarchical government whilst lending a gloss of legitimacy to the French crown in the late Middle Ages. Strayer has, however, tended towards a teleological perspective of Louis’s kingship marking the dawn of the modern, bureaucratic state.31 In truth, the legacies of St Louis’s reign are far more complex and problematic than that.

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As Beaune and Brown have contended, the cult of St Louis was a flexible phenomenon in late-medieval France. Louis’s legacy could be subverted by nobles for their own ends in late-medieval France, often corroding the power of a monarchy whose conduct became Jones, ‘The Last Capetians and Early Valois Kings’, pp. 398-399.

Beaune, Birth of an Ideology, p. 113.

30 Brown, ‘The Prince is Father of the King’, p. 286.

31 Strayer, ‘France’, p. 5.

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broadly restricted to certain Louisian codes. As such, by the late fourteenth century the French crown ruled over a far greater territory than it had done at Louis IX’s accession to the throne; but St Louis’s cult ultimately served to impose severe restrictions on monarchical conduct. Subsequent monarchs were measured against the policies of ‘good King Louis’, whose legacies often hindered French kings throughout the late Middle Ages.

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Bibliography

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Beaune, C., The Birth of an Ideology: Myths and Symbols of Nation in Late-Medieval France (Berkeley, 1991).

Brown, E. A. R., ‘The Prince is Father of the King: The Character and Childhood of Philip the Fair of France’, Mediaeval Studies, 49 (1987), pp. 282-334.

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Brown, E. A. R., ‘Royal Salvation and the Needs of State in Late Capetian France’, in Jordan, W. C., McNab, B. & Ruiz, T. F. (eds.), Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton, 1976), pp. 365-386.

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Carpenter, D., ‘The Meetings of Kings Henry III and Louis IX’, in Prestwich, M., Britnell, R. & Frame, R. (eds.), ThirteenthCentury England: Proceedings of the Durham Conference 2003 (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 1-30.

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Fawtier, R., The Capetian Kings of France: Monarchy and Nation, 987-1328 (Paris, 1958).

Le Goff, J., Saint Louis (Notre Dame, 2009).

Hallam, E., ‘Philip the Fair and the Cult of St Louis’, in Mews, S. (ed.), Religion and National Identity: Papers Read at the Nineteenth Summer Meeting and the Twentieth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (Oxford, 1982), pp. 201-214.

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Hallam, E. & Everard, J., Capetian France, 987-1328 (Harlow, 2001).

Jones, M., ‘The Last Capetians and Early Valois Kings, 1314-1364’, in Jones, M. (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History:Volume VI, c.1300-c.1415 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 388-421.

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Jordan, W. C., Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton, 1979).

Jordan, W. C., Europe in the High Middle Ages (London, 2002).

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Kauffmann, M., ‘The Image of St Louis’, in Duggan, A. J. (ed.), Kings and Kingship in Medieval Europe (London, 1993), pp.

265-286.

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Keen, M., The Penguin History of Medieval Europe (Harmondsworth, 1991).

Labarge, M. W., Saint Louis: The Life of Louis IX of France (London, 1968).

Shaw, M. R. B. (trans.), Chronicles of the Crusades (Harmondsworth, 1963).

Small, G., Late Medieval France (Basingstoke, 2009).

Strayer, J. R., ‘France: The Holy Land, The Chosen People, and the Most Christian King’, in Rabb, T. K. & Siegel, J. E. (eds.), Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of E. H. Harbison (Princeton, 1969), pp. 3-16.

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Strayer, J. R., ‘Philip the Fair: A Constitutional King’, American Historical Review, 62 (1956), pp. 18-32.

Wood, C. T., ‘The Mise of Amiens and Saint Louis’s Theory of Kingship’, French Historical Studies, 6 (1970), pp. 300-310.

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How complicit were elites in the attacks against the Jews during the Black Death?

— Ellie de la Bedoyere

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Cohn recently redrew historians’ attention to the social character of the instigators of the Jewish persecutions during the Black Death, and in doing so split the scholarship in two. Cohn states that “[there] were [no] reports of ‘the populares’ actually whipping up anti-Jewish hysteria...or initiating the massacres...Instead, either patrician elites or the nobility first circulated the rumours."1 Cohn directly challenges established assumptions about the mob’s role as the “mob of murderers”2 and the elites’ as “above the fray”3 purported by historians such as Shirk, Girard, and Foa arguing that these conclusions are “hypothetical, [and] often based on unexamined assumptions."4 This sharp divide between these scholars, ruling that the elites were either ‘instigators’ or ‘protectors’, offers a warped view of the elites’ role in attacks against the Jews. The premise of the question, in asking ‘how’, rather than ‘were the elites at all’, complicit in the attacks against the Jews, acknowledges the fact that the elites were involved in these attacks; it is just a matter of determining to what extent they were involved.

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In reaching his conclusions, Cohn makes a number of “unexamined assumptions” of his own.5 The best example of this is Cohn’s use of

S. K. Cohn, ‘The Black Death and the burning of the Jews’, Past and Present, 196 (2007), p. 20.

2 R. Girard, trans. Y. Freccero, The Scapegoat (London, 1986), p. 12.

3 Cohn, ‘The Black Death and the burning of the Jews’, p. 17.

4 Ibid., p. 4.

5 Ibid.

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the Strassburg letters, which form a large basis of his thesis.1 Certainly, the letters are the best evidence of an elite-led conspiracy against the Jews since their correspondence appears to be an exclusively elite attempt to compile evidence against the Jews as well poisoners, and thus justify their persecution across the region surrounding Strassburg.2 However, Cohn does not investigate what might have preceded these responses or prompted an inquiry in the first place, such as popular pressure, nor the possible underlying agendas of these letters, such as appearing in control or defending their actions. The likelihood that popular demand for Jewish persecutions preceded official persecution of the Jews is reduced by the timings of these letters. Conrad von Winterthur only wrote his inquiry to his neighbours in the August of 1348, whilst the town of Lausanne did not respond until November and others waited until the beginning of 1349.3 If the first known attack on Jews was in the spring of 1348, then persecution was rife by the time of these responses and is likely to have preceded officiated, ‘elite-led’ processes of accusation.4 Moreover, something must have prompted the officials of Strassburg to write to their neighbouring cities, most likely responding to the “all sorts of rumours” that are “flying about," as referred to by Cologne.5 On the basis of Cohn’s strongest evidence, it appears that elites were responding to attacks against the Jews, rather than initiating the violence.

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Instead, their incorporation of persecution into an administered process was a way of maintaining control; rather than initiating persecution, they were containing it. The city of Cologne certainly 1 The

Strassburg letters extracted in R. Horrox, (ed.), The Black Death (Manchester, 1994), pp. 210-220.

2 Ibid., pp. 210-11.

3 Letter from Lausanne to Strassburg extracted in Ibid., p. 211.

4 J. Aberth, From the Brink of Apocalypse: Confronting Famine,War, Plague and Death in the Later Middle Ages (New York and London, 2001), p. 139.

5 Letter from Cologne to Strassburg extracted in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 219.

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believed there was a pressing need for control, advising their neighbours to “proceed sensibly and cautiously."6 Although Cohn is right in that Cologne’s fear of “whip[ping] up a popular revolt” by leaving “the rage which the common people feel against the Jews... [un]checked”7 was still “hypothetical”8 in this case, it was certainly a reality for Lord Mayor, Peter Swarber, who was forced to burn his Jews in “the face of the clamour of the mob."9 Admittedly, in this case, his noblemen had joined the general populace in their attack of the Jews; however, as the chronicle states, his councillors were first “terrified” into changing their stance after the councillor’s palace was mobbed.10 Considering that this mob rule took place in Cologne’s neighbouring city of Basel, and in the same month (January 1349) that Cologne responded to Strassburg, Cologne’s fears should be taken more seriously by Cohn. Clearly, the impetus for persecution originated from below.

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Lehmann agrees that the elites were focused on control, but, like Cohn, argues that they instigated the persecutions in order to gain this control: “in attempting to explain the causes of the crisis, the local authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical, pointed to the Jewish minority as the scapegoat.”11 Excluding the confessions recorded in the Strassburg archives, only one elite, the canon of Constance, directly and personally professes his anti-Semitism and perpetuates the accusations against the Jews: “And blessed be God who confounded the ungodly who were plotting the extinction of

Ibid., p. 220.

Ibid.

8 Cohn, ‘The Black Death and the burning of the Jews’, p. 20.

9 Mathias of Neuenburg extracted in Aberth, From the Brink of Apocalypse, p. 151.

10 Ibid.

11 Hartmut Lehmann, ‘The Jewish Minority and the Christian Majority in Early Modern Central Europe’ in R. Po-Chia Hsia and H. Lehmann, eds., In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (Cambridge, 1955), p. 306.

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his church.”12 However, even in this case, the canon is clearly fuelled by religious hatred for the Jews and is not attempting to control the populace by perpetuating rumours. Instead, elites attempted to maintain control by emphasising individual sin and divine retribution. For example, King Edward III wrote to his bishops to ask them to admonish their parishioners for their sins, fearing the “sinfulness and pride constantly increasing in the people” and their lack of “fear and penitence."13 Similarly, Pope Clement VI was angered by the people’s scapegoating, “numerous Christians are blaming the plague with which God provoked by their sins, has afflicted the Christian people, on poisoning carried out by the Jews.”14 Whether Edward III is afraid of losing control or of God’s future reprisals, it is clear that both authorities publicly emphasised the importance of internal penitence and admonished the populace’ search for external retribution.

!

Both accounts highlight the perils for authorities in encouraging scapegoating over the Christian and individual responsibility for the plague. By encouraging the people to blame external factors, secular and ecclesiastical authorities were relinquishing control to violence and hysteria. For example, the flagellants were violent groups who played on the hysteria of the crowd, encouraging the murder of Jews and self-flagellation.15 The Church condemned this movement, partly because it threatened the Church hierarchy, causing the Pope to issue a papal bull against them in 1349.16 Furthermore, secular authorities soon lost any toleration they once had, banning them from their towns and cities because their Heinrich Truchess von Diessenhoven, canon of Constance extracted in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 208.

13 Edward III extracted in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 117.

14 Mandate of Clement VI concerning the Jews July 5th 1348 extracted in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 221.

15 David Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (Massachusetts, 1997), p. 68.

16 Anna Foa, The Jews of Europe after the Black Death (London, 2000), p. 15.

12

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infectious emotionalism provoked further violence and undermined their control.17 Authorities did not choose to endorse the accusations of Jews, but resorted to it, capitulating to popular demand.

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Although Cohn misleadingly accuses the elites of instigating accusations against the Jews, he is right to redress the part played by elites. There is a general perception within the scholarship that the elite were entirely removed from the “outbursts of mass hysteria, spontaneous and uncontrollable mob violence."18 Girard purports that this violence was only permitted by an “extreme loss of social order."19 Shirk illustrates Girard and Foa’s impression of events, painting a picture of the struggling protector, King Pedro IV, failing in the face of this chaos to protect the Jews despite his “best efforts."20 These established impressions are drawn from chronicles like that of Boccaccio, who encapsulates this idea of authority against mob in his vivid account of the breakdown of social order: “In the face of so much affliction and misery, all respect for the laws of God and man had virtually broken down...”21 Although there certainly was a loss of order, as evidenced by limited officials in Shirk’s case study of Aragon, and attacks against the Jews were instigated by the mob (as already discussed), this excessive emphasis on the loss of control and elites as the protector misrepresents what became a cooperative relationship between the elites and their peoples in attacks against the Jews.22 In fact, elites such as Pedro IV were the exception in the same way that elites who instigated attacks on Jews were the exception: there are only a few cases recorded in the chronicles of

Aberth, From the Brink of Apocalypse, p. 119.

Foa, The Jews of Europe after the Black Death, p. 13.

19 Girard, The Scapegoat, p. 12.

20 M. V. Shirk, ‘The Black Death in Aragon, 1348-1351’, Journal of Medieval History, 7 (1981), p. 363.

21 Giovanni Boccaccio extracted in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 29.

22 Shirk, ‘The Black Death in Aragon, 1348-1351’, p. 360.

17 18

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elites actively taking a stance against popular demand to protect their Jews. Even in the exceptional cases, like that of Pedro IV, they were eventually forced to comply with popular demand and allow the persecution of Jews. Consequently, no (secular) elite was entirely removed from Girard’s “mob of murderers."23 In this way, the static definition of the mob as a law breaking, irrational, unregulated mass is an illusion: to some extent, the mob was controlled, regulated and rationalised, the inevitable by-product of the elites’ complicity in the persecutions.

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In complying with popular demand, the elites turned accusations of well poisoning into a rational accusation and a legitimate reason to persecute the Jews. There is a tendency amongst Black Death scholars, such as Girard and Cohen, to dismiss attacks against the Jews as “irrational fantasies”24 or attribute them to the fact that “public opinion was overexcited and ready to accept the most absurd rumours.”25 Girard developed this into a theory of society’s need to place blame and find a ‘scapegoat’ resulting in a conscious “blindness."26 However, starting in Savoy in September 1348 and spreading rapidly across Europe, the accusations and persecutions of Jews were incorporated into an official process, and thus given real legitimacy. Moreover, the nature of the confessions gave structure and detail to the accusations, specifying the size and nature of the physical evidence, “poison derived from a basilisk” “about the size of the egg."27 Alongside this, the confessions often repeated each other: in both confessions of Savoy and Lausanne, the truth of the confession is emphasised as the Jew held

Girard, The Scapegoat, p. 12.

M. R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994), p. 172.

25 Girard, The Scapegoat, p. 6.

26 Ibid., p. 2.

27 Letter from Savoy to Strassburg extracted in Horrox, The Black Death, pp. 212-3.

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“unvaryingly”28 to his story or “voluntarily and without torture maintained the truth of his confession”29 and repeat that these interrogations were carried out by “due legal process”30 and “under our seals."31 The detail, structure and repetition of these confessions certainly made a convincing case for the guilt of the Jews. Therefore, in taking ownership of accusing and persecuting the Jews, the elites rationalised attacks against the Jews.

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Even before complying with popular demand, the elites indirectly guided violence towards the Jews by allowing human agency to be a plausible explanation for the plague. Guy de Chauliac, Henry Lamme and Megenberg, three learned men, all believed that the plague was not spread by poisoners, but could not deny that scientifically the accusations could be true.32 Lamme wrote in the fifteenth century, but even by this point, the power of the rumour and the mystical nature of poison forces him to admit that it was a scientifically plausible explanation for the plague.33 This, combined with convincing confessions elicited by elites, gave what would have been seen as conclusive evidence for the culprits of the plague. On top of this, the elites could not offer sufficient religious or scientific explanations. Scientific explanations only offered preventative measures rather than curative ones, by regulating life through the six non-naturals, while the Church emphasised individual sin and repentance.34 In the same way the flagellants filled a niche that the Letter from Lausanne to Strassburg extracted in Ibid., p. 211.

Letter from Savoy to Strassburg extracted in Ibid., p. 212.

30 Ibid., p. 213.

31 Letter from Lausanne to Strassburg extracted in Ibid., p. 211.

32 S. Guerchberg, ‘The controversy over the alleged sowers of the Black Death in the contemporary treatises on plague’ in S. Thrupp, ed., Change in medieval society: Europe north of the Alps, 1050-1500 (London, 1965), pp. 214-6.

33 Ibid.

34 J. Arrizabalaga, ‘Facing the Black Death: perceptions and reactions of university medical practitioners’ in L. Garcia-Ballester et al., eds., Practical medicine from Salerno in the Black Death, p. 273.

28 29

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Church failed to fill, Alfonso de Cordoba’s Epistola et regiment de pestilentia offered a curative solution by murdering the wicked men who caused the plague.35 It is clear that elites did not only underwrite attacks against the Jews, but they also facilitated them: firstly by allowing accusations against Jews to be scientifically plausible; secondly, by failing to offer official structures within which to cope with the mortality.

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There are certainly grounds within the chronicles for Cohen and Girard’s impression of an irrational populace: King Pedro IV describes the population as at “a fever pitch”36 while the Takkanoth of Barcelona does not even regard the accusation of well poisoning as a cause for the “bad behaviour of the common people," instead argues that Jews were blamed for the “sins of Jacob."37 However, Girard and Cohen’s impressions rely on those of elites, who either like Pedro IV were dismissive and separate from the violent mob, or who wished to separate themselves from the violent mob.38 Similarly, the Jewish chronicle was written in 1354 perhaps when poisoning accusations had largely faded or been dismissed to the extent that religious hatred was seen as the underlying cause of attacks on Jews.39 Unfortunately there are no chronicles written by the illiterate, making it impossible to ascertain the extent to which the populace hunted the Jews on the basis of well poisoning.

Nevertheless, the pan-European nature of the movement, the spread of these accusations and the fact that in Strassburg all buckets of wells were hidden indicates that, rational or irrational, the general populace certainly believed the Jews were poisoning wells.40 Moreover, there is no debating that the attacks were

Ibid., p. 286.

King Pedro IV of Aragon extracted in Aberth, From the Brink of Apocalypse, p. 143.

37 Takkanoth of Barcelona extracted in Ibid., p. 145.

38 King Pedro IV of Aragon extracted in Ibid., p. 142.

39 Takkanoth of Barcelona extracted in Ibid., p. 145.

40 Mathias of Neuenburg extracted in Ibid., p. 152.

35 36

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“fever[ed]”41 and mob led; it was only that the elites had substantiated and rationalised this fever which drove the attacks.

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It is quite clear that even in 1350, well poisoning was not an ‘irrational’ belief, but legitimate and apparently evidenced. This is well demonstrated by the account of Konrad of Megenberg, who according to Aberth, was “perhaps the most balanced and rational medieval author to comment on the pogroms," and yet is forced to tackle the accusations against the Jews seriously.42 Rather than dismiss the accusations against the Jews as “absurd," Konrad tentatively suggests that the accusations “cannot be totally and sufficiently maintained” and gives his rationale for this inclusion.43 He appears compelled to adjust his tone to his readership, qualifying his reasoning by occasionally backtracking “although the Jewish people are justly detected by us Christians...” and remarking after his argument “with all due respect to whoever is expressing it."44 His tentativeness is important. It illustrates that, even when he was writing in 1350, the majority of the population accepted the Jews as a plausible cause for the great mortality. Moreover, his references to the ‘fact’ that Jews were “justly” accused and finding of physical evidence, “many sacks," directly links to the official details of the accusations and the process by which they were justly accused.45 Megenberg asserts that the elites made the accusations against the Jews long lasting and hard to refute even in 1350, thus significantly perpetuating attacks.

These confessions served to perpetuate the spread of persecution in two other ways. Ginzburg emphasises that confession allowed the accusations to rapidly spread across Europe by offering elites a

King Pedro IV of Aragon extracted in Ibid., p. 142.

Aberth, From the Brink of Apocalypse, p. 155.

43 Konrad of Megenberg ‘Concerning the mortality in Germany’ extracted in Ibid., p. 157.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., pp. 156-8.

41 42

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model of official persecution on which to draw upon.46 Firstly, for example, Amadeus VI of Savoy purchased a copy of the trial records in Dauphine for one gold florin after a mob in his precinct had killed its Jews and, on the 10th of August, replicated this investigation. 47Ginzburg fails to draw out the significance of this: these confessions clearly served a wider purpose than merely legitimising persecution in the eyes of the mob; they also legitimised it in the eyes of the elites. This is not to say that these elites necessarily believed these rumours, but Amadeus VI was given the tool with which to incorporate mob violence within a legal framework and thus gain control of an unavoidable situation, the persecution of the Jews. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, these confessions either created or endorsed the possibility of wider conspiracies and the need for collective punishment. The Jew interrogated in Savoy apparently confessed to knowing that the instructions for poisoning which he had received had been replicated in “many others to various places, a long way away, but he does not know to whom they were addressed."48 Not only does this suggest a wider conspiracy that is organised from above and is compromised of “many," but also whose culprits and next victims are completely unknown. Therefore, in seeking to control mob fears, they both served to rationalise fears by providing evidence and further irrationalise fears by creating more imaginary, unknown terrors. The elites do not just officialise attacks against the Jews, but widen the targets and spread of these attacks.

!

It is necessary to look beyond the Black Death to realise the elites’ wider complicity in the initial identification of Jews as the victims of attack. In this case, the elites were not merely complicit, but entirely responsible for dividing Jews from the cultural mainstream and

C. Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath (London, 1990), p. 67.

47 Ibid.

48 Letter from Savoy to Strassburg extracted in Horrox, The Black Death, p. 212.

46

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making them the obvious target for such attacks.49 Foa argues that attacks against the Jews were an expression of “the centuries-old attempt to define the role of the Jewish presence in Christian society” that was only catalysed by the Black Death, rather than created.50 Girard disagrees, arguing that “an extreme loss of social order," or in other words, the circumstances created by the Black Death, was the defining reason for attacks against the Jews.51 Actually, as Foa alludes to, it is that very order which was responsible for identifying the Jews as the outsider and vulnerable target in the first place. These relationships regularly fluctuated, representing the competition between the paradoxical elements within their respective relationships with Jews. Whilst ecclesiastical elites balanced their desire to protect Christians from the corrupting influence of Jews with the need to ensure the survival of Jews to fulfil the biblical prophecy about Jesus’ return, the secular elites balanced their economic need for Jews with a mixture of religious hatred and indifference.52 Consequently the Jews, except for in certain circumstances, could not rely on the protection by their elites in the face of any crisis nearing the fatal extent of the Black Death. Their legal and religious status, combined with a reluctantly protective elite meant that Jews became, and were even indirectly encouraged, as the obvious target for attacks.

!

The mob provided the rage and fear that initiated attacks and rumours against the Jews and that fuelled the violence during the height of the plague. However, this mob were not driving against obstinate elites, determined to defend their Jews, but instead an elite willing to comply with mob violence by rapidly incorporating it into a structured, officiated processes. This is not to say that the elites were entirely in control of this violence, nor is it to say that all elites were equally compliant; simply, that elites became partners in Herlihy, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West, p. 64.

Foa, The Jews of Europe after the Black Death, p. 8 51 Girard, The Scapegoat, p. 12.

52 Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, p. 38.

49 50

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this violence. The elites’ role was a responsive one: they reacted to their deteriorating control and in doing so legitimised the populace’s fears and shaped the hatred behind these attacks into rational, irrefutable accusations against the Jews. Consequently, the mob, an apparently irrational, unruly, disorganised entity were redefined by the elites as the defenders of Christianity. This is not hyperbole: by legalising such violence and extracting ‘confessions’, the elites established that attacks against the Jews were a rational, necessary defence against Christianity’s enemies. The extent to the elites’ complicity can be seen in the unrivalled momentum of the Jewish persecutions: although it is difficult to judge what the scope of these persecutions would have been like without active endorsement from above, it is hard to imagine that without such clear, focused and evidenced accusations against the Jews, the attacks would have spread quite so rapidly or quite so far.

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Bibliography

!

Aberth, J., From the Brink of Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague and Death in the Later Middle Ages (New York and London, 2001).

!

Arrizabalaga, J., ‘Facing the Black Death: perceptions and reactions of university medical practitioners’ in García-Ballester, L., French, R., Arrizabalaga, J., and Cunningham, A., eds., Practical medicine from Salerno to the Black Death (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 237-88.

! ! !

Cohen, M. R., Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994).

Cohn, Samuel K., ‘The Black Death and the burning of the Jews’, Past and Present, 196 (2007), pp. 3-36.

Cohn, Samuel K., ‘Popular Insurrection and the Black Death: A Comparative Perspective’, in Dyer, Christopher, Coss, Peter, and Wickham, Chris, (eds.), Hilton, Rodney, Middle Ages (Past and Present Supplement no. 2, Oxford, 2007).

! ! ! ! ! !

Cohn, Samuel K., The Pursuit of the Millennium (London, 1957).

Edwards, J., The Jews in western Europe 1400-1700 (Manchester, 1994).

Foa, Anna, The Jews of Europe after the Black Death (London, 2000).

Ginzburg, C., Ecstasies: deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath (London, 1990).

Girard, R. trans. Freccero, Y., The Scapegoat (London, 1986).

Guerchberg, S., ‘The controversy over the alleged sowers of the Black Death in the contemporary treatises on plague’ in S. Thrupp, ed., Change in medieval society: Europe north of the Alps, 1050-1500 (London, 1965), pp. 208-24.

! !

Herlihy, David, The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (Massachusetts, 1997).

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Horrox, R., (ed.), The Black Death (Manchester, 1994).

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Hsia, R. Po-Chia and Lehmann, H., eds., In and out of the ghetto: Jewish-Gentile relations in late medieval and early modern Germany (Cambridge, 1955).

! ! ! ! !

Hsia, R. Po-Chia, The myth of ritual murder: Jews and magic in Reformation Germany (New Haven and London, 1988).

MacKay, A., ‘Popular movements and pogroms in fifteenth-century Castile’, Past and Present, 55 (1972), pp. 33-67.

Nelkin, D., and Gilman, S., ‘Placing the blame for devastating disease’, Social Research, 55 (1988), pp. 361-78.

Nirenberg, D., Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1996).

Poliakov, Leon, The History of Anti-Semitism, Vol. 1, From Roman Times to the Court Jews (1955), trans. Richard Howard (London, 1974).

! ! ! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

Shirk, M. V., ‘The Black Death in Aragon, 1348-1351’, Journal of Medieval History, 7 (1981), pp. 357-67.

Wolff, P., ‘The 1391 pogrom in Spain: social crisis or not?’, Past and Present, 50 (1971), pp. 4-18.

Ziegler, P., The Black Death (Harmondsworth, 1970).

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Stephanie Ballard

Geography of Internment and Concepts of Identity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England — Stephanie Ballard

!!

Studies that examine early modern English burial practices to elucidate contemporary concepts of identity have increased over the past thirty years.1 Such studies have been stimulated by French historian Philippe Ariès, who first suggested a relationship between these two topics in his pivotal work The Hour of Our Death.2 English historians quickly followed his lead: three years after Ariès, Clare Gittings published her study on burial and identity in early modern England. Gittings asserted that the presence of modern burial customs during this period implied that contemporary society was individualistic.3 Annia Cherryson, Zoë Crossland, and Sarah Tarlow analyse data from funerary archaeology and argue that a sense of individualism characterised early modern English identities.4 Both the works of Gittings, and Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow propose that English society abandoned its traditional collectivism at the beginning of the early modern period in favour of adopting new, individualistic mindsets.5 These authors also join several scholars who suggest that western concepts of identity have become increasingly individualistic over time, eventually culminating in the

Ralph Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480-1750 (Oxford, 1998), p. 1.

2 Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (London, 1981), p. xvi.

3 Clare Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England (London, 1984), pp. 9-10.

4 Annia Cherryson, Zoë Crossland, and Sarah Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place: The Archaeology of Death and Burial in Post-Medieval Britain and Ireland (Leicester, 2012), pp. 14-18.

5 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 7-17; Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, pp. 12-13.

1

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deep-seated sense of individualism that characterises modern-day society.1

!

However, other historians have presented evidence that contradicts this view. Both David Cressy and Ralph Houlbrooke note that family graves existed in early modern England, demonstrating that one’s familial relationships affected his or her self-image.2 In addition, Vanessa Harding’s study on burial practices in London argues that one’s sense of community greatly affected his or her identity.3

!

Indeed, even a portion of Gittings’ evidence suggested that people did not view themselves as autonomous individuals who lacked defining connections to their families and communities. Gittings mentions two men in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England who died away from home and left large sums of money to have their bodies transported back to their parishes.4 This implies that the men wanted to be buried in locations that reflected their identities as members of their home parishes. In addition, they were willing to go to great lengths to obtain their desired burial locations.5 Theories that categorise early modern concepts of identity as ‘individualistic’ do not account for such occurrences.6 For more on individualism see Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual; Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place; Ariès, The Hour of Our Death; Alan Macfarlane, The Origins of English Individualism: The Family, Property and Social Transition (Oxford, 1979); John Jefferies Martin, Myths of Renaissance Individualism (Hampshire, 2004).

2 David Cressy, Birth, Marriage & Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997), pp. 460-473; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, p. 338.

3 Vanessa Harding, The Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1500-1670 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 46-47.

4 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 169-170.

5 Ibid.

6 Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, p. 13; Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 9-10.

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Rather, these instances suggest that parishioners recognised themselves as members of larger parochial communities.

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An examination of sixteenth and seventeenth-century English burial patterns illuminates the concepts of identity that are at the centre of this debate. It reveals that identity continued to be characterised by a strong sense of one’s place within larger institutions, namely one’s parish, family, and religion.

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Before beginning this analysis, it is important to define several terms. ‘Geography of internment’ refers to the spatial distribution of graves within a given location, such as a parish.7 The term ‘relative identity’ denotes one’s identity in relation to others.8 It implies that one possesses a certain identity based on his or her relationships with other people and the institutions to which he or she belongs. For example, a man would recognise himself as a ‘husband’ and a ‘Protestant’ because of his familial relationship with his wife and his religious relationship with the Protestant Church, respectively.9 It is also important to note that some of the works discussed here consider the entire early modern period.10 However, it is still valid to engage them in a discussion limited to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries because changes in burial practices and concepts of identity are relatively slow.11 Therefore, if certain concepts of identity characterised the early modern period, they would be present in the first two-thirds of the period. Any major shifts that occurred at the end of the period would have been

Cressy, Birth, Marriage & Death, p. 456.

Michael Mascuch, ‘Social Mobility and Middling Self-Identity: The Ethos of British Autobiographers, 1600-1750’, Social History, 20 (1995), p. 55.

9 Ibid.

10 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual; Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place; Lucinda M. Becker, Death and the Early Modern Englishwoman (Hampshire, 2003).

11 Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, p. xvi.

7 8

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slow to develop and one would find evidence of these developments in the preceding two centuries.

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One issue that scholars have previously addressed is the spatial relationship between parish churches and graves. Gittings, and Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow assert that a decline in church and churchyard burials during the early modern period reveals a breakdown of the community identity that once had united parishioners.12 Gittings notes that this breakdown was the result of an increase in individualism, which recognised the person as irreplaceable. People actively shunned the dead in order to avoid thinking about their own impending deaths or their loved ones’ deaths. Burials in the church were ‘prohibited’ and the communal aspect of death and burial disappeared.13 Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow assert that the availability of new, extra-parochial cemeteries caused people to abandon traditional church and churchyard burial.14 Since most parishioners had been buried in or near their local churches since the early Middle Ages, a decline in parochial burial indeed would have reflected a monumental shift in society.15 However, other historians argue that internment patterns did not drastically change during the early modern period. Rather, the majority of parishioners continued to be buried in their parish churches and churchyards.16

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An examination of the arguments made by Gittings, and Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow reveals their inaccuracies. There

Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 9-14; Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, p. 81.

13 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 13-15.

14 Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, p.

102.

15 Ibid., p. 81.

16 Cressy, Birth, Marriage & Death, pp. 460-468; Ralph Houlbrooke, ‘Introduction’, in Ralph Houlbrooke (ed.), Death, Ritual, and Bereavement (London, 1989), pp. 22-23.

12

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is no evidence that parishes ‘prohibited’ burial in churches.17 In fact, intramural burial continued until at least the mid-nineteenth century.18 In addition, these authors overemphasise and only partially analyse extra-parochial burial patterns.19 They do not recognise that extra-parochial internments were occasional exceptions to the general practice of intra-parochial burial. In London, parishes established extra-parochial cemeteries because their intra-parochial burial grounds had become congested with generations of dead parishioners. This did cause some parishioners to be buried far away from their parish churches.20 The change, however, was not welcome. Many parishioners explicitly stated that they wanted to be buried in their old parish churchyards as opposed to the new ones. Opposition was so strong that parishes were forced to raise their prices for old church and churchyard burials and lower prices for internments in their new churchyards. Despite high prices and limitations on space, people continued to request burial in old churchyards and churchwardens satisfied these requests.21 As a result, the majority of the people whom a parish initially interred in its new churchyard were poor parishioners and victims of disease.

It was only after old churches and churchyards had reached their absolute capacities that other parishioners allowed themselves to be buried in the new churchyards.22

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This indicates that parishioners defined themselves as members of their larger parochial communities. They wanted to be buried alongside deceased members of their communities and those who Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, p. 13.

Julian Litten, The English Way of Death, p. 211.

19 Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, pp.

81-103; Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 9-17.

20 Vanessa Harding, ‘‘And one more may be laid there’: The Location of Burials in Early Modern London’, London Journal, 14 (1989), pp. 112-118.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.; Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, pp. 87-88.

17 18

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would die in the future.23 If they had possessed individualistic senses of self, they would not have been so fervently opposed to being buried in a new location. Individualism hinges on the idea that each person is a separate, autonomous being. It does not honour the community relationships that parishioners evidently sought to preserve with their burial locations.24 For one with an individualistic concept of identity, being buried in a new churchyard would have been attractive. It would have been less expensive and still would have been in hallowed ground. Instead, internment patterns reveal a clear resistance to spaces that physically separated the dead from the parochial communities of which they had been a part.25

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One can also examine the geography of internment within parishes to determine contemporary concepts of identity. Parish communities were stratified by familial wealth and occupation. In rural areas, the landed gentry and wealthy yeomanry occupied the top rungs while poorer yeomen, labourers, and those without landed wealth inhabited the levels below. This hierarchy was similar in cities with merchants and professional men replacing the yeomanry.26 When a parishioner died, he or she was buried in a location that reflected the social position he or she had possessed in life.27 The church was reserved for members of the parish’s elite.

The most distinguished elite were buried near the high and side altars. The lesser elite were interred in the aisles, near the doors,

Harding, ‘And one more may be laid there’, pp. 113-118.

Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, p. 13.

25 Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 95-97.

26 Keith Wrightson, English Society: 1580-1680 (London, 1982), pp.

23-31.

27 Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 46-47.

23 24

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and in other parts of the building.28 Most parishioners were buried in parish churchyards that were adjacent to churches.29 Churchyards were also stratified according to social position. The more well-to-do were buried on the churchyard’s south side or as close to the church as possible.30 The poor and more marginal members of society were usually interred on the churchyard’s north side.31 The result was a physical community of the dead that reflected the conceptual community of the living.32

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While the medieval notion of relative sanctity might have affected burial locations, it alone cannot account for this pattern of internment. The pre-Reformation Church taught that sanctity emanated from certain locations, such as high and side altars, becoming weaker the farther one moved from these places.33 Parishioners also believed that being buried near one of these locations would help them get to Heaven.34 However, if relative sanctity had been the only factor in choosing one’s burial place, then internment would have been stratified by death year as opposed to social status. Space around the high and side altars would have been filled first, with each person vying for his or her space near these holy places. Only after these spaces had been filled would people have chosen to be buried elsewhere in the church and churchyard. One would also expect to see a change in burial patterns after the Reformation, which abolished the idea of relative Peter Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford, 2002), p. 288; Will Coster, ‘A microcosm of community: burial, space and society in Chester, 1598 to 1633’, in Will Coster and Andrew Spicer (eds.), Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 124-125.

29 Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 46-48.

30 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, p. 331.

31 R. A. Houston, Punishing the Dead? Suicide, Lordship, and Community in Britain, 1500-1830 (Oxford, 2010), p. 189.

32 Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 46-47.

33 Coster, ‘A microcosm of community’, pp. 124-125.

34 Litten, The English Way of Death, p. 200.

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sanctity. No such change occurred, suggesting that some other factor underlined sixteenth and seventeenth century burial patterns.35

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The social stratification that is evident in church and churchyard burials suggests that deep-seated concepts of collective and relative identity shaped this internment pattern.36 The majority of parishioners were buried in and around their churches, demonstrating that they all shared a collective identity as Christians.37 It also suggests that they understood themselves as members of their parishes’ societies, since local churches acted as the parishes’ social centres.38 Those who had been the most influential in the parish — high office holders and other members of the landed gentry — were buried in the church, the theoretical centre of the parish.39 From there, burials fanned outwards into the churchyard, where parishioners of the lower orders were buried according to their social statuses. This intricate pattern reveals that people recognised and internalised their relative positions within society.40 Even in death, the wealthier yeoman knew his place because he was less socially esteemed than the knight but socially superior to the labourer. He chose his place of internment, as his ancestors had done since at least the early Middle Ages, based on his relative identity within his community. Therefore, parishioners identified themselves as members of stratified communities as opposed to as individuals devoid of defining relationships.41

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Cressy, Birth, Marriage & Death, pp. 460.

Ibid.; Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 46-47.

37 Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead, p. 1.

38 Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 46-47.

39 Ibid.; Wrightson, English Society, pp. 23-31.

40 Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 46-47.

41 Ibid., pp. 172-173; Harding, ‘And one more may be laid there’, p.

113.

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In addition, burial patterns reveal that the majority of parishioners were buried alongside their family members.42 This indicates that one’s relative identity within his or her family was also an integral part of his or her self-image. People had requested internment near their family members since the early Middle Ages.43 Family graves usually contained the members of one nuclear family, consisting of a husband, a wife, and their children.44 These groupings occurred both within the church and in the churchyard.45 This demonstrates that people recognised both their places within their parochial societies and also their identities as members of particular families.

Adults without the normal nuclear ties, those who had never married and thus had no spouses or children with whom to share their burial spaces, were interred with their parents.46 This reveals that even unmarried adults did not see themselves as separate entities, as simply independent women or men. Instead they were daughters and sons, bound to their closest nuclear relatives by significant familial relationships. Remarried women’s identities were also defined by their relationships. They requested internment next to their first husbands, demonstrating that they regarded themselves as wives.47

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Burial patterns that were specific to the elite also display strong senses of familial identity. One location in which members of the elite were often buried was underneath their families’ pews.48 Elite families occupied their pews for many generations, making them Cressy, Birth, Marriage & Death, pp. 461-462; Harding, The Dead and the Living, p. 62.

43 Ian Forrest, ‘The Politics of Burial in Late Medieval Hereford’, English Historical Review, 125 (2010), pp. 1135-1136.

44 Ralph Houlbrooke, The English Family 1450-1700 (Essex, 1984), p. 18; Cressy, Birth, Marriage & Death, p. 462.

45 Harding, ‘And one more may be laid there’, pp. 114-116; Harding, The Dead and the Living, p. 62.

46 Becker, Death and the Early Modern Englishwoman, pp. 136-137.

47 Ibid.

48 Coster, ‘A microcosm of community’, pp. 130-135.

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tangible symbols of familial identity and continuity. Burial beneath one’s family’s pew reflected one’s identity as a member of a wellestablished family that was wealthy enough to occupy a pew in the church. It recognised the person’s place in a long sequential line of family members who had occupied, and would occupy, that pew.49

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Elite families also built burial vaults. Vaults were larger, more elaborate versions of the family graves that lower members of society established.50 There were three types of vaults: dynastic vaults, family vaults, and brick-lined vaults. The first type contained one’s nuclear family, his or her ancestors, and eventually his or her descendants. These vaults were the most expensive and were used by noble families.51 Members of the lesser landed gentry built the second type of vault, which was usually three coffins wide and had a curved brick ceiling. Families stacked coffins on top of one another to make room for extended family members’ remains. Members of the professional classes built the third type, which were one coffin wide and lined with brick.52 Each of these vaults usually contained only one nuclear family. All three types of vaults were built by a member of the family that was to be interred inside. This suggests a strong desire to maintain familial identity after death.53

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While these family groupings typically existed within the church/ churchyard dichotomy, exceptions to this rule reveal that familial identity was more integral to one’s self-image than any notion of individuality. David Cressy notes that once a family had “established its spot,” members tended to request burial in that place rather than seeking out new, more elite positions for themselves.54 For instance, Sir Richard Browne chose to be interred Ibid.

Litten, The English Way of Death, p. 211.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid., pp. 211-212.

54 Cressy, Birth, Marriage & Death, p. 462.

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in his parish’s churchyard rather than inside the church. This was because although he had become a knight, Browne’s ancestors had been of lower social status and had been buried in the churchyard.

Thus, he chose to be interred alongside his family members instead of in a location that reflected his individual social position.55 Browne’s choice — and the general tendency for people to have been buried alongside their family members — reveals that people did not regard themselves as autonomous individuals who were defined by their own wealth, statuses, successes, or failures. Rather, they acquired large portions of their identities from their families and their positions within their families.56

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Therefore, an analysis of sixteenth and seventeenth century English burial patterns reveals that there was no monumental shift towards individualism during this period. People continued to define themselves, and be defined, according to their relative positions within their families and parochial societies.57 It also demonstrates how detrimental it is to approach moments in history as precursors to modern-day occurrences or phenomena. Such studies actively search for the beginning of something at the expense of understanding events within their own historical contexts.58 They miss out on what was actually happening by trying to create a smooth chronological narrative.

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Such studies, however, do not only obscure events of the past. They also distort the reality of the present. While Gittings, Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow would disagree, twenty-first century western society is no less collective than its sixteenth and seventeenth century English predecessors.59 The institutions from which we

Ibid., p. 465.

Ibid., pp. 461-462; Harding, The Dead and the Living, p. 62.

57 Harding, The Dead and the Living, pp. 46-47.

58 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, p. 14.

59 Ibid., pp. 8-9; Cherryson, Crossland, and Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place, p. 13.

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obtain our identities have changed: community, religion, and family have been replaced by beauty standards that show us how to look, education systems that teach us how to learn, and celebrity culture that tells us how to think. However, there are still strong pressures to conform to these institutions that would not exist in an individualistic society. Therefore, it is best to approach an issue, be it in the past or the present, with precise knowledge of its context and without an independent agenda that would distort the facts.

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Bibliography

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Alvesson, Mats, The Triumph of Emptiness: Consumption, Higher Education, and Work Organization (Oxford, 2013).

Ariès, Philippe, The Hour of Our Death, translated by Helen Weaver (London, 1981).

Becker, Lucinda M., Death and the Early Modern Englishwoman (Aldershot, 2003).

Cherryson, Annia, Zoë Crossland, and Sarah Tarlow, A Fine and Private Place: The Archaeology of Death and Burial in Postmedieval Britain and Ireland (Leicester, 2012).

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Chow, Jean, ‘Adolescents’ perceptions of popular teen magazines’, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 48 (2004), pp. 132-139.

Coster, Will, ‘A microcosm of community: burial, space and society in Chester, 1598 to 1633’, in Coster, Will, and Andrew Spicer (eds.), Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 124-143.

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Cressy, David, Birth, Marriage & Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford: 1997).

Forrest, Ian, ‘The Politics of Burial in Late Medieval Hereford’, English Historical Review, 125 (2010), pp. 1110-1138.

Gittings, Clare, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England (London, 1984).

Harding, Vanessa, ‘And one more may be laid there’: The Location of Burials in Early Modern London’, London Journal, 14 (1989), pp. 112-129.

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Harding, Vanessa, The Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1500-1670 (Cambridge, 2002).

Holmes, Su and Sean Redmond, ‘Introduction: understanding celebrity culture’, in Holmes, Su, and Sean Redmond (eds.), Framing Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity Culture (Oxon, 2006), pp. 1-17.

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Houlbrooke, Ralph, The English Family 1450-1700 (London, 1984).

Houlbrooke, Ralph, ‘Introduction’, in Houlbrooke, Ralph (ed.), Death, Ritual, and Bereavement (London, 1989), pp. 1-24.

Houlbrooke, Ralph, Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480-1750 (Oxford, 1998).

Houston, R. A., Punishing the Dead? Suicide, Lordship, and Community in Britain, 1500- 1830 (Oxford, 2010).

Litten, Julian, The English Way of Death: The Common Funeral Since 1450 (London, 1991).

Macfarlane, Alan, The Origins of English Individualism: The Family, Property and Social Transition (Oxford, 1978).

Marshall, Peter, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford, 2002).

Martin, John Jefferies, Myths of Renaissance Individualism (Basingstoke, 2006).

Mascuch, Michael, ‘Social Mobility and Middling Self Identity: The Ethos of British Autobiographers, 1600-1750’, Social History, 20 (1995), pp. 45-61.

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Wrightson, Keith, English Society: 1580-1680 (London, 1982).

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How did British perceptions of sati evolve between 1757 and its abolition in 1829?

— Matt Hoser

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“The red pile blazes – let the bride ascend, And lay her head upon her husband’s heart, Now in perfect unison to blend – No more to part.”

What is most curious about Letitia Elizabeth Landon’s poem, “A Suttee," is that such a peaceful image of serene self-immolation was produced amidst the typically racist, pejorative views of most Britons at the turn of the nineteenth century.1 Traditionally, historians have placed such views in the Orientalist sphere of the 1760s-80s, seeing alternative views such as Landon’s as typical of an anomalous period in an otherwise stark narrative of British disgust of Hindu customs, with a minority of preservationist Britons arguing against the overwhelmingly Anglicist, evangelical push for abolition. Whilst this view does illuminate the dramatic change in policy that occurred in the first decades of the 1800s, it ignores both the intellectual origins of such debate, and the nuanced continuities present throughout this period. In order to explore the complexities of British ideas about sati, one must first understand Indian beliefs about the practice. Thereafter, one can turn to the initial European impressions of sati, before evaluating the so-called ‘Orientalist’ phase of British rule, which was greatly influenced by the views of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith.

Finally, and most importantly, this paper will examine the ways in which European ideas of gender and progress, as well as changing evangelical, legal and indigenous pressures on the ground, helped accelerate the abolitionist cause. What emerges is a most curious Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-1838), “A Suttee," quoted in full in Lizbeth Goodman, Literature and Gender (New York, 1996), p.

267.

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symbiosis: Orientalism may have been overwhelmed by the Anglicist cause in the early nineteenth century, but was still drawn upon within the framework of utilitarian policies, particularly by justifying abolition along Hindu scriptural lines. British rule thus vacillated between an initially obtuse lack of knowledge and the subsequent understanding of Hindu culture, before combining the two tendencies with utilitarian, evangelical, and Anglicist policies.

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Given its existence in Hindu culture for over two millennia before British rule, sati deserves assessment on its own terms.2 In fact, even the name sati is Anglicised, originally being that of the goddess of marital felicity, into whom the immolated woman symbolically turns, and also closely tied to the concept of sati-stri, the perfectly devoted wife.3 Mostly amongst the upper castes, sati showed how the Hindu wife was “ontologically bonded” to her husband through the eternal marital union of vivahasamskara, and chose to burn on his pyre not only to ensure unity in Boykonto (Visnu’s paradise),4 but also because, as the Orientalist Henry Thomas Colebrooke noted, “No other effectual duty is known from virtuous women at any time after her husband’s death.”5 Chris Bayly sees this as the reason for the extreme degradation of widows in Indian society,

Sir Percival Griffiths, The British Impact on India (London, 1965).

Shirley Firth, Dying, Death and Bereavement in a British Hindu Community (Leuven, 1997), p. 146.

4 Also known as samskāra, the ‘lovers’ paradise’. This point has caused quite some debate over the meaning of sati in modern Hinduism, given that more mainstream belief today generally focuses on reincarnation according to the karma of the deceased, which would mean that a woman would almost certainly exist separately from her husband after death (Werner Menski, ‘Sati: A Review Article’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 61, No. 1 (1998), p. 79).

5 Paul B. Courtright, quoted in Menski, ‘Sati’, p. 75; Henry Thomas Colebrooke, quoted in Griffiths, The British Impact, p. 218.

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which often resulted in a life of penury and social exclusion: they are “perceived almost literally to be part of her husband’s body… her presence in a household raised questions of pollution; she is in effect, in a ‘liminal’ and dangerous state."6 Sati not only brought beatification for the widow, however, as it also acted as a purifying “fire bath” (agnisnān), sanctifying several generations of maternal and paternal ancestors for both husband and wife, and providing absolution and heavenly bliss for the couple.7 As one pundit stated in 1805, “as a snake-catcher drags a snake from his hole, so does a woman who burns herself, draw her husband out of hell; and she afterwards resides with him in heaven.”8

!

Despite this host of spiritual rewards, and the urging of Brahmins, hardly any Hindu women actually committed sati. In fact, for the period when records were kept, 1813-29, despite notable increases due to British authorisation of regulated satis, on average only 581 satis occurred per annum in a Bengali population of over 57 million.

Equally infinitesimal were the statistics for Madras, where 40 incidences per annum occurred in a province of 15 million.

However, despite clearly not being prevalent even amongst widows (one in 430 Bengali widows chose sati), Jörg Fisch makes the valid point that all Indians would have either witnessed it or heard a firsthand account, since one sati occurred each year in a typical town of

Christopher A. Bayly, ‘From ritual to ceremony: death ritual and society in Hindu North India since 1600’ in Joachim Whalley (ed.), Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death (London, 1981), p. 175.

7 Catherine Weinberger-Thomas, Ashes of Immortality: widowburning in India (trans. Jeffrey Mehlman & David Gordon White, Chicago, 1999), p. 43; Griffiths, The British Impact, p. 218.

8 Lata Mani, ‘Production of an Official Discourse on "Sati" in Early Nineteenth Century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 21, No. 17 (Apr. 26, 1986), p. WS37.

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100,000, or one every twenty years in 5,000-strong villages.9 Whilst these statistics are admittedly imprecise, they do show how, especially since “people flocked together from all quarters to witness the spectacle," sati was very much a fixture in the Indian religious customs and collective consciousness.10

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The contrast between the rare, holy, and privileged place of sati in Hindu custom and the earliest European encounters with widowburning could not have been more pronounced. Sixteenth and seventeenth century merchants and explorers such as Ludovico di Varthema and Pietro della Valle fleetingly observed, and subsequently condemned, what they saw as depraved Hindu customs.11 Such vivid descriptions of nakedness, idolatry, child marriage, and of course sati, soon established what John Marriott calls, “a stock repertoire of customs and traits that came to define Indianness for European readers."12 This “superficial familiarity” was also “idiosyncratic and highly personalised:” Nicholas Withington, for example, observed that if a woman resisted, “her Mother and Father will take her and bynde her, and throwe her into the fyre, and burne her per force," ignoring the obvious similarities with European witch-hunts.13 Similarly, Johann Albrecht von

All statistics from Jörg Fisch, Immolating Women: a global history of widow burning from ancient times to the present (Delhi, 2005), pp.

236-40.

10 Abbé J.A. Dubois (commenting on a sati in Puddupettah, Tanjore), quoted in Griffiths, The British Impact, p. 220.

11 Robin Jared Lewis, ‘Comment: Sati and the Nineteenth Century British Self’ in John Stratton Hawley, Sati, The Blessing and The Curse: the burning of wives in India (Oxford, 1994), p. 72.

12 John Marriott, The Other Empire: Metropolis, India and Progress in the Colonial Imagination (Manchester, 2003), p. 59.

13 Marriott, The Other Empire, pp. 59-60; Pompa Banerjee, Burning Women:Widows,Witches, and Early Modern European Travelers in India (New York, 2003).

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Mandelslo insisted, without any proof, that all satis must have been drugged by evil Brahmins.14 But, whilst Dorothy Figueira notes that Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Goethe used sati as a self-critical tool with which to attack the oppression of religion in Europe, British views were to veer towards more respectful, Orientalist tendencies due to the closer contact of early colonial rule.15

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While the first few decades of British presence in India certainly lacked ringing endorsements of sati, they did witness the emergence of less dismissive approaches. The East India Company, more concerned with generating profits for its controlling shareholders than the welfare and daily life of their subjects, took a noninterventionist approach to Indian culture and religion from the outset, despite the view of many Company officials that sati was “barbarous."16 Furthermore, it was clear that, unlike its colonies in Africa, the British could not simply discard local history, religion, customs, and law, which were clearly complex and deeply rooted in indigenous society. Instead, many British sought to understand Indian culture and Hinduism on its own terms, led by William Jones, whose establishment of the Asiatic Society and translation of the Laws of Manu shed much light onto the history and meaning of such sati. Colebrooke’s Digest on Hindu Laws and Charles Wilkins’ translation of the Bhagavad Gita did likewise, but the most prominent Orientalist in Britain was almost certainly Edmund Burke, who ironically agreed with Warren Hastings, erstwhile Norbert Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator of Sati, 1757-84’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Fall, 2008), p. 25.

15 Dorothy M. Figueira, ‘Die Flambierte Frau: Sati in European Culture’ in John Stratton Hawley, Sati, The Blessing and The Curse: the burning of wives in India (Oxford, 1994), pp. 60-1, 66-8.

16 Weinberger-Thomas, Ashes of Immortality, p. 40; John Henry Grose an East India Company official, quoted in Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, p. 25.

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governor-general and later Burke’s courtroom nemesis, on the policy of ruling Hindus according to Hindu law and Muslims according to Islamic law.17 The influence of this greater understanding of Hinduism was evident in a far greater number of admiring perspectives, as the sati was sometimes seen as a pure figure transcending death: “an ideal of conjugal fidelity, the selfsacrifice of a bereaved widow who selflessly braved the flames."18 Thus emerged such views as in Landon’s poem: “…her head upon her husband’s heart, now in perfect unison to blend – no more to part."19

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This understanding, and in particular Burke’s deep sympathy for the Indian people, reflected his appreciation of the work of David Hume and Adam Smith, for whom sympathy was the key to moral judgment.20 Taking on the form of rational enquiry, Orientalist observations of sati, informed as they were of the custom’s meanings and motivations, tended to be less swift to dismiss, instead opting for a more distanced, balanced perspective.21 Newspaper articles and eyewitness accounts generally described the scene, reporting the actions of Brahmins, relatives, and the widow herself, but rarely condemned the practice unequivocally.22 Whilst drugging and coercion by Brahmins and relatives were often reported, equally common were instances were, as occurred in 1777 Azumabad, reports noted, “it was intirely [sic] a voluntary act, and Lata Mani, Contentious Traditions: the debate on sati in colonial India (London, 1998), p. 16.

18 Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge, 1994), p.

98.

19 Landon, “A Suttee," quoted in Goodman, Literature and Gender, p. 267.

20 Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, NJ, 2008), p. 59; Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’. In this sense, sympathy is more similar to the modern word empathy.

21 Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, pp. 22, 26.

22 Mani, Contentious Traditions, pp. 172-3.

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she was as much in her sense as ever she was in her life."23 The readership of Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) was evident in John Zephaniah Holwell’s appeal to his readers to put aside British “tenets and customs," reflecting the appeal of Smith’s ‘Impartial Spectator’, an “altogether candid and equitable” observer who could identify and place to one side his own biases.24

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However, the first decades of British rule in India by no means excluded the feelings of horrified fascination typical of traveller accounts. Even Norbert Schürer, arguing for a distinct period of impartial British observation between 1757 and 1780, admits the reprinting of earlier travel accounts throughout this period, as well as the omission of more balanced evaluations when journals were published in Britain.25 Sati remained a gruesome spectacle, and the “equitable” nature of its description in no way lessened its appeal to the “English obsession with death as a spectacle," nor the way in which the distant British public viewed Indian treatment of women, on the whole.26 Also, much of the work of the orientalists extended past Schürer’s postulated time period, such as the Laws of Manu (1794) and Colebrooke’s Digest (1798). Thus, whilst the first three decades of British influence in the subcontinent clearly saw the zenith of Smithian approaches to sati and interest in the religious meaning of the ceremony, ideas from before this period permeated throughout. As such, a rigid time frame like that proposed by Schürer ignores the fluidity and co-existence of pejorative and Orientalist mores alike.

!

‘An Authentic Account of Burning of a Gentoo Woman, at her Own Request, at Azumabad’, published by the Annual Report (1977), quoted in Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, p. 27.

24 John Zephaniah Holwell, quoted in Ibid, p. 23; Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (sixth edition, London, 1790), p. 98.

Accessed online on 20 March, 2014 from: http://www.ibiblio.org/ ml/libri/s/SmithA_MoralSentiments_p.pdf.

25 Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, p. 26.

26 Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, p. 96.

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There were, however, two powerful forces for change that proved hugely influential in outlawing sati: evangelicalism and utilitarianism. With the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792 and the Church Missionary Society seven years later, the British religious lobbies became incredibly influential, as was shown by the mass support for the abolition of slavery in 1807.27 A similar campaign of leaflets, petitions, articles, and debates subsequently filled British public space with emotive images and descriptions of sati, and it was iconic anti-slaver William Wilberforce who most vigorously argued in parliament for evangelicals to be permitted into India, stressing the “family, fireside evils” that evangelism would eradicate.28 Evangelicals saw sati both as a means and an end: its denunciation strengthened their calls for mission education and the purifying influence of imposed Christian morality, whilst also helping extinguish one of the main superstitions that such missionary influence sought so eradicate. Accordingly, they penned vivid, derogatory tracts that filtered back to Britain en masse, helping obscure the more balanced perspectives of the Orientalists – some of whom had even compared the sati to a Christian martyr – through complete dismissal of Hindu “backwardness."29 This “irreconcilable antagonism” removed female agency from the act, instead portraying Hinduism as a degraded form of pure religion, oppressive and inhumane in the extreme.30

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Religious influence, and quite possibly the lack of moral reform in India after several decades of British rule, also meant that secular accounts were increasingly abhorrent of sati, decrying the “infernal Catherine Hall, ‘Of Gender and Empire: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century’ in Philippa Levine (ed.), Gender and Empire (Oxford, 2007), pp. 53-4.

28 Hall, ‘Of Gender and Empire’, pp. 53-4; Lewis, ‘Comment: Sati’, p. 73.

29 Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, p. 26.

30 Griffiths, The British Impact, p. 217.

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cruelties” of sati, which was seen as a “horrid, unnatural ceremony."31 Demonstrated amply by this harsher tone and onesided nature of British accounts, as well as in the more violent, primitive images of sati (see Figure 3), by the early nineteenth century the British “strategic location," to use Edward Said’s term regarding one’s self-identification with the East or West, had been shifted irrevocably towards the latter, with eyewitness accounts stressing their rational, Christian morality in trying to save widows.32 Likewise, the sexualisation of the sati, often previously depicted with exposed shoulder and legs, largely disappeared, replaced simply with the “horrid screams," or the trance-like passivity, of the expiring ‘victim’.33 British spectators thus no longer even feigned impartiality, excluding British figures from images of sati and typecasting ‘the Other’ as morally repugnant, rather than mysteriously alluring.34

!

The main reason for this increasingly skewed perception of sati was the intellectual heritage of the Scottish Enlightenment, which longterm British interaction with India shaped into extreme ideas of Oriental incivility. Most significantly, John Millar’s Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771) and Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments agreed that the ennoblement or degradation of women was a clear indication of the “polishedness” or “rudeness” of any given civilisation, inspiring such influential utilitarian thinkers as James Mill to condemn sati as one of “the most contemptible, or the most

Philip Stanhope, Genuine Memoirs of Asiaticus (1784), and William Hurd, New Universal History (1780), both quoted in Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, p. 38.

32 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1978), p. 20.

33 Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, pp. 31, 38.

34 Griffiths, The British Impact, p. 217.

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abominable rites."35 And as British exposure to sati was increased through evangelical campaigning, the belief that India and its women were passive, indolent, and degraded became rife in the British mind-set, particularly due to stereotypical images of the greedy, manipulative Brahmin and relatives forcing a sati onto the fire.36 Likewise, British observers, both first-hand and more commonly indirect, remained horrified by the “mangled condition” of victims, with “almost every inch of skin on her body burnt off… breasts dreadfully torn…skin hanging from them in threads."37 According to Sir Percival Griffiths, sati “taught the average Englishman disrespect for the Hindu way of life and thought.

Whatever the other evidence might be, he would not regard as civilised a people who burned widows alive.”38 In an era when the administration relied increasingly on Indian government officials, the Calcutta Review summed up the “grotesque and horrible incongruities” that would have arisen, had sati remained legal:

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“Imagine…the native Justices of the Peace for the town of Calcutta stating their inability to attend a discussion on the waterworks of the metropolis because they wished to follow the widow of one of their number to her husband’s pile…”39

John Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of the Ranks; or, An Inquiry into the Circumstances which give rise to Influence and Authority in Different Members of Society (ed. and intro. Aaron Garrett, Indianapolis, 2006). Accessed online on 20 2014 from: http:// oll.libertyfund.org/titles/millar-the-origin-of-the-distinction-ofranks; James Mill, A History of British India, Volume 1 (third edition, London, 1826), p. 362. Accessed on 20 March 2014 from: http:// oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-the-history-of-british-india-vol-1.

36 Hall, ‘Of Gender and Empire’, p. 53.

37 Letter to the editor of the Bombay Courier, written by ‘A Decided Enemy to Suttees’, 29 September 1823, quoted in WeinbergerThomas, Ashes of Immortality, pp. 203-4.

38 Griffiths, The British Impact, p. 225.

39 The Calcutta Review (1867), quoted in Ibid.

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The increasing consensus on the depravity of sati, so far removed from the impartial observation of earlier times, was transplanted into government policy by the rise of utilitarian legal reform in India. Mill’s History of British India (1817), a moralising, culturally reductive explanation of Indian moral decay, social profligacy, and cultural degeneration, was echoed by Charles Trevelyan and even religious figures such as Reverend E. Storrow, who argued that Indian disunity was due to their lack of respect for women, and was also hugely influential for British policymakers in the nineteenth century.40 Eric Stokes famously argued that the utilitarian thought of Mill, his son John Stuart Mill, and most prominently Jeremy Bentham drove a generation of Haileybury-educated colonial officials to codify the law of India, including abolishing sati.41 James Mill’s influence on Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general in 1829, was inherent in the latter’s cryptic comment to Mill, “I am going to British India…but…it is you that will be governorgeneral.”42 With Mill and other utilitarians so prominent in the minds of key reformers like Bentinck, it is unsurprising that Hindu law was increasingly codified, regulated, and ultimately shorn of its most controversial practices.

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***

Despite this clear influence of evangelical activism and utilitarian thought on British public and official opinion on sati, one must also consider indigenous factors, and the residual presence of Orientalist values. Firstly, the way in which reform was enacted, and arguably the reason for the lengthy period of legalised sati, lay with persistent religious non-interference and respect for pundits’ legal definitions.

Lata Mani has argued that this represents a continuation of

Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (Cambridge, 1996), p.

13; Michael S. Dodson, Orientalism, Empire, and National Culture: India 1770-1880 (New York, 2007), p. 3.

41 Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1989).

42 Ibid., p. 51.

40

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Orientalist tendencies, as discourse on sati was not bound to a dichotomous framework of impatient Anglicist modernisers and staunch Orientalists, but rather a combination of the two, whereby utilitarians worked with Hindu law.43 As such, the ‘salvation’ of the Indians represented for reformers not a Christianisation of India, but rather, “a recuperation of authenticity and purity, a vigorous protection of the weak and subordinated aspects of culture against their corrupt manipulations by the strong and dominant."44 Mani’s convincing argument, which highlights on British consultation of pundits and selection of which opinions to accept, is echoed by Andrea Major, who argues that the eighteenth century, as well as the beginning of the nineteenth, represented a period of transition during which the British had to work with the native culture in order to understand and govern it properly.45 This is far more convincing that the view of Schürer, whose idea of a clearly defined period of impartiality and subsequent ignorance of Hindu religion ignores residual Orientalism.46

!

Furthermore, many Indians, including those who in 1828 formed the Brahmo Samaj, a reformed Hindu movement led by Rammohun Roy, supported this more culturally attuned approach, whilst also pushing for reform of sati.47 Whilst the scope of this essay does not permit full analysis of these movements, the likes of Roy, Vidyasagar, and Swami Dayananda helped the British gain indigenous support for sati reform, if perhaps not its total abolition, by spreading the self-critical view that Hinduism had long been an aberration from the “spirit of the sastras."48 Their rational method Mani, ‘Production of an Official Discourse’, pp. WS32, WS39.

Lata Mani, ‘Contentious Traditions: the Debate on Sati in Colonial India’, Cultural Critique, No. 7, The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse II (Autumn, 1987), p. 122.

45 Andrea Major, Pious Flames: European Encounters with Sati (Delhi, 2006), p. 71.

46 Schürer, ‘The Impartial Spectator’, p. 20.

47 Weinberger-Thomas, Ashes of Immortality, p. 41.

48 Forbes, Women in Modern India, pp. 16-7.

43 44

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most likely reflected the influence of Western education on the first generation of British-Indian subjects, as Roy advocated interpretation of scripture that was, “measured by reason and shown to be free of contradiction and functioning to uphold a beneficial social order.”49 Such a similar outlook to utilitarian policymakers proves that the British animosity to sati was not unique to European audiences, casting doubt on dichotomous theories of Anglicism and Orientalism.50

! !

***

The horror that sati aroused in the British imagination cannot be denied. Epitomising the degrading, barbaric practices of ‘savage’ cultures, and contradicting early British views of Indian meekness and sophistication, the salvation of India’s victimised widows was in many ways the archetypal ‘civilising mission’. However, polarised notions of British discourse over sati oversimplify the fluid nature of its existence until 1829. The mystified yet disgusted accounts of early travellers simultaneously aroused Orientalist interests and sealed its final judgment, establishing stereotypes that seeped into later years. The Orientalist experience of sati was so short-lived because of the pervasive ideas of what constituted civility for the British, which ultimately excluded impartial spectators from the colonial policy agenda. With growing evangelical influence saturating the British imagination with stereotypical, pejorative, and shocking accounts, and rising utilitarian urges to codify the laws of India in accordance with the morals of Millar, Smith, and Mill, the effective elimination of romanticised and sexualised views of sati was in many ways symptomatic of a time of change in British society. However, lingering Orientalist respect for Hindu law and culture remained influential, showing that whilst sati undoubtedly

Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge, 1993), p. 32.

50 Forbes, Women in Modern India, pp. 16-7.

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offended British ideas of civilisation, its importance to the majority of Indian subjects was never totally ignored.

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Bibliography

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Banerjee, P., Burning Women: Widows, Witches, and Early Modern European Travelers in India (New York, 2003).

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Bayly, C. A., ‘From ritual to ceremony: death ritual and society in Hindu North India since 1600’ in Joachim Whalley (ed.), Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death (London, 1981), pp. 154-186.

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Dodson, M. S., Orientalism, Empire, and National Culture: India 1770-1880 (New York, 2007).

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Figueira, D. M., ‘Die Flambierte Frau: Sati in European Culture’ in John Stratton Hawley, Sati, The Blessing and The Curse: the burning of wives in India (Oxford, 1994), pp. 55-71.

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Firth, S., Dying, Death and Bereavement in a British Hindu Community (Leuven, 1997).

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Fisch, J., Immolating Women: a global history of widow burning from ancient times to the present (Delhi, 2005).

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Forbes, G., Women in Modern India (Cambridge, 1996).

Goodman, L., Literature and Gender (New York, 1996).

Griffiths, P., The British impact on India (London, 1965).

Hall, C., ‘Of Gender and Empire: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century’ in Levine, P. (ed.), Gender and Empire (Oxford, 2007), pp. 46-76.

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Jones, K. W., Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (Cambridge, 1993).

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Lewis, R. J., ‘Comment: Sati and the Nineteenth Century British Self’ in Hawley, J. S., Sati, The Blessing and The Curse: the burning of wives in India (Oxford, 1994), pp. 72-8.

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Major, A., Pious Flames: European Encounters with Sati (Delhi, 2006).

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Mani, L., Contentious Traditions: the debate on sati in colonial India (London, 1998).

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Mani, L., ‘Contentious Traditions: the Debate on Sati in Colonial India’, Cultural Critique, No. 7, The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse II (Autumn, 1987), pp. 119-156.

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Mani, L., ‘Production of an Official Discourse on "Sati" in Early Nineteenth Century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 21, No. 17 (Apr. 26, 1986), pp. WS32-WS40.

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Marriott, J., The Other Empire: Metropolis, India and Progress in the Colonial Imagination (Manchester, 2003).

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Menski, W., ‘Sati: A Review Article’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 61, No. 1 (1998), pp. 74-81.

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Metcalf, T. R., Ideologies of the Raj (Cambridge, 1994).

Mill, J., A History of British India, Volume 1 (third edition, London, 1826), p. 362. Accessed on 20 March 2014 from: http:// oll.libertyfund.org/titles/mill-the-history-of-british-india-vol-1.

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Millar, J., The Origin of the Distinction of the Ranks; or, An Inquiry into the Circumstances which give rise to Influence and Authority in Different Members of Society (ed. and intro. Garrett, A., Indianapolis, 2006). Accessed online on March 20, 2014 from:

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http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/millar-the-origin-of-thedistinction-of-ranks.

Pitts, J., A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, NJ, 2008).

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Said, E., Orientalism (New York, 1978).

Schürer, N., ‘The Impartial Spectator of Sati, 1757-84’, EighteenthCentury Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Fall, 2008), pp. 19-44.

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Smith, A., The Theory of Moral Sentiments (sixth edition, London, 1790). Accessed online on March 20, 2014 from: http:// www.ibiblio.org/ml/libri/s/SmithA_MoralSentiments_p.pdf.

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Weinberger-Thomas, C., Ashes of Immortality: widow-burning in India (trans. Mehlman, J. & White, D. C., Chicago, 1999).

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Is it accurate to describe Egyptians as ‘colonised colonisers’ in the nineteenth century?

— William Vick

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It is hardly surprising that the discourse surrounding the concept of colonialism in modern historiography is highly charged, when the often painful memories of colonial experiences remain prominent in the collective consciousness. In colonised regions from China to Argentina, it has proven politically expedient to construct a unifying historical narrative of victimhood – often one defined against the European colonial powers, including the Ottoman Empire – that sidesteps or undermines the possibility that they too have committed colonial acts. The concept of a ‘colonised coloniser’, first proposed by Eve Troutt Powell in 1995,1 is often difficult to define historiographically, since it fits into neither narrative of nation-asperpetrator or nation-as-victim. Egyptian historians from ‘Abd alRahmān al-Rāfi’ī to ‘Abd al-Azīm Ramadān have been quick to deny ideas of Egyptian colonisation, either by describing it as the simple unification of a natural territorial unit (a conclusion, which, of course, has major modern-day implications), or as an act of benevolent pacification and administration rather than oppressive rule.2 Hence, Egypt can present itself uncompromisingly as a victim of colonial oppression, a story that ties in neatly with modern rhetorics of Egyptian nationalism and anti-Westernism in the Middle East. Yet, the benevolence defence employed by Ramadān is strikingly reminiscent of contemporary defences of European colonialism; and, however valid these may be, they have only ever served to justify colonialism, not to deny it. ‘Colonialism’ and

Eve Troutt Powell, Colonized colonizers: Egyptian nationalists and the issue of the Sudan, 1875-1919 (PhD thesis; Ann Arbor, 1999).

2 Gabriel R. Warburg, ‘The Turco-Egyptian Sudan: A Recent Historiographical Controversy’, Die Welt des Islams, New Series, 31 (1991), pp. 200-206.

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‘colonisation’ seem to be defined as much by who did it and when as by what ‘it’ actually entails.

!

To answer this question usefully, then, we will require a stringent, universal definition of colonialism and colonisation; we can then test this against Ottoman actions in Egypt, and Egyptian actions further along the Nile Valley. Note that Egypt’s interventions in Arabia will not be examined here, nor will the period after 1880 under British domination since, barring a few years overlap, Egypt can hardly be described as a ‘colonised coloniser’ once it had lost control of Sudan to the Mahdiyya.

!

Ronald J. Horvath, writing in 1972, gave the following schema of colonialism and related phenomena:

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“1. Domination is the control by individuals or groups over the territory and/or the behaviour of other individuals or groups.

2. Intergroup domination is the domination process in a culturally heterogeneous society …

3. Colonialism is that form of intergroup domination in which settlers in significant number migrate permanently to the colony from the colonising power.”3

Horvath further defines imperialism as the form of intergroup domination without significant population movement. We can contrast this with Jürgen Osterhammel’s 1997 definition:

!

“Colonialism is a relationship of domination between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonised people are made and implemented by colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that

Ronald J. Horvath, ‘A Definition of Colonialism’, Current Anthropology, 13 (1972), p. 50.

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are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonised population, the colonisers are convinced of their own authority and of their ordained mandate to rule.”4

The subtle differences between these definitions of colonialism are indicative of the nebulosity of the term; most significantly there is a clear contradiction on the degree of population movement that entailed. In fact, Osterhammel’s definition is closer to what Horvath labels as ‘imperialism’. Accounting for this irreconcilable distinction, however, we can nonetheless test the situation in nineteenth-century Egypt and Sudan against these definitions.

!

Classic summaries of the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha in Egypt tend to emphasise the degree to which he withdrew from Ottoman influence, suiting his popular role as the “founder of modern Egypt."5 P. J. Vatikiotis suggests, “he practically detached Egypt from Turkey."6 True, the viceroy was largely independent of Ottoman control, apart from remaining subject to an annual tribute, foreign policy restrictions, and the Ottoman army levy; insofar as it was separate from the Egyptian state, the Ottoman state certainly now played little part in the daily lives of Egyptian citizens.7 But more recent historiography has brought the nationalist credentials of Muhammad Ali and his successors into question. Ehud Toledano, for example, concludes that although the “entrenchment of dynastic order in Egypt meant growing political independence from the Ottoman government … in social and Jürgen Osterhammel, Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (Princeton, 2005), pp. 16-17.

5 Peter M. Holt, ‘Egypt and the Nile Valley’, in John E. Flint (ed.), The Cambridge History of Africa,Volume 5: c. 1790-c.1870 (Cambridge, 1976), p. 22.

6 P. J. Vatikiotis, The History of Modern Egypt: From Muhammad Ali to Mubarak (Baltimore, 1991), p. 49.

7 Ehud R. Toledano, State and society in mid-nineteenth-century Egypt (Cambridge, 1990), p. 11.

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cultural terms, Egypt remained very much within the Ottoman orbit.”8

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This can in part be explained by the nature of the changes to elite social structures in Egypt that occurred in this period. While ‘Egyptianization’ did occur to some limited degree, and increasing numbers of native Egyptians were admitted to the elite group, it is hardly accurate to suggest that Muhammad Ali and his successors replaced an old Turkish elite with a new Egyptian one. Muhammad Ali himself was, of course, Turco-Albanian. Indeed, M. Abir suggests that “[t]rue to his class, he despised the Egyptians.”9 It is possible that nationalistic Egyptian historians are partly at fault here for transliterating the names of rulers such as Muhammad Ali (or, as he called himself, Mehmed Ali) and thereby exaggerating their Egyptian identity. As Toledano writes in his criticism of Afaf Lufti al-Sayyid Marsot’s recent work, by transliterating into Arabic the names of all prominent Egyptians in the Ottoman era, she “Egyptianizes” everyone who set foot in Egypt and distorts the deeply Ottoman character of the province.10

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Far from becoming a unified nation under Muhammad Ali, then, Egyptian society remained largely heterogeneous. Although he rose to power by channelling resentment against both Ottoman and Mamluk overlords,11 during his reign he largely retained a nonEgyptian elite. There is some disagreement on exactly how best to characterise this elite – Toledano describes it as “OttomanEgyptian," Abir as “Turko-Albanian-Circassian,"12 Holt as “Turco8 Toledano,

State and society, p. 249.

M. Abir, ‘Modernisation, Reaction, and Muhammad Ali’s ‘Empire’’, Middle Eastern Studies, 13 (1977), p. 295.

10 Toledano, ‘Review Article: Mehmet Ali Paşa or Muhammad Ali Basha? An Historiographic Appraisal in the Wake of a Recent Book’, Middle Eastern Studies, 21 (1985), p. 156.

11 Vatikiotis, The History of Modern Egypt, p. 51.

12 Toledano, State and society, p. 250; Abir, ‘Modernisation’, p. 295; Holt, ‘Egypt and the Nile Valley’, p. 29.

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Circassian” and Bjørkelo further includes Kurds and Greeks13 – but clearly the maintenance of some Ottoman or foreign character is assumed. Contemporary perceptions are particularly revealing: while elites referred to themselves as Mısırlı (or ‘Egyptians’), they were labelled by non-elites as ‘Othmānlī or Atrāk (‘Ottomans’ or ‘Turks’); non-elites were, in turn, abnā’ al-balad, or people of the land.14 And, in 1824, the leader of a peasant uprising proclaimed he would end the suffering of “the Egyptian people” against Muhammad Ali.15 Along with the linguistic divide between Ottoman and Egyptian speakers, these identities clearly demonstrate a cultural heterogeneity in society akin to that necessary in Horvath’s definition of colonialism. That is not to say that non-elites defined themselves strongly by their Egyptianness against the Atrāk; as Jankowski has demonstrated, Islamic or Ottoman identities were far more powerful throughout Egyptian society up until the 1910s, with the exception of a brief period in the 1860s and 1870s.16 So even if the non-elites recognised the Ottoman character of the elite, they did not resent this strongly enough to create their own Egyptian identity and delegitimise the Ottoman rule on this basis, as they later did against the British.

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Yet the elites’ self-identification as Mısırlı is in itself fascinating in that it is distinct from any kind of foreign identity such as Ottoman, Albanian, or Circassian; in a sense, the new Egyptian elite saw themselves as a group territorially attached to the same area as native Egyptians, yet socially and culturally distinct. If colonialism requires a “foreign” presence (as Osterhammel suggests), what do we make of a situation where the colonisers do not see themselves as “foreign," but the colonised see them as such?

Anders Bjørkelo, Prelude to the Mahdiyya: Peasants and Traders in the Shendi Region, 1821-1885 (Cambridge, 1989), p. 34.

14 Toledano, State and society, p. 250.

15 Holt, ‘Egypt and the Nile Valley’, p. 30.

16 James Jankowski, ‘Ottomanism and Arabism in Egypt, 1860-1914’, The Muslim World, 70 (1980), p. 229.

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There is evidence of increasing Egyptian native entry into the Ottomanised elite over the course of the nineteenth century; the division between these groups was far from formalised or particularly polarised. Educational and military reforms (particularly conscription of the fallahin from the 1830s) allowed more non-elite Egyptians to gain significant influence within the state and army, thereby diluting Ottoman hegemony into a more all-encompassing (and increasingly Westernised) urban effendiyya culture.17 But whether Istanbul, London or Paris was the focus of cultural aspiration for these effendiyya, it took until the rise of Egyptian nationalism in the 1910s for Cairo to be seen in this light;18 even the Turkish name of the effendiyya is to a degree indicative of its essentially Ottoman outlook or perception.19 Thus, even if more Egyptians were able to enter and subconsciously influence the nature of the elite, in doing so they largely adopted its cultural norms and values, that is, a sense of Ottomanness or orientation towards Constantinople that transcended the boundaries of Cairo and Egypt. The new Egyptian elite perceived itself as no less differentiated from the fallahin as the old elite. Even if social changes meant a greater geographical identification with Egypt that perhaps opened up the possibility of cultural Egyptianization in the future, for now political circumstances ensured that ‘cultural compromise’, while perhaps not vehemently rejected by the effendiyya, was also not an appealing possibility.

Indeed it might be fairer to suggest that fallahin culture, rather than being overtly rejected, was simply ignored by the elites.

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It is undeniable that the effendiyya have never formed a large percentage of the Egyptian population. Nor did population

Michael Eppel, ‘Note about the term Effendiyya in the History of the Middle East’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 41 (2009), p. 535.

18 Jankowski, ‘Ottomanism and Arabism’, pp. 227-8.

19 Toledano, State and society, pp. 250-1.

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movement ever occur in significant amounts between Turkey and Egypt, so we cannot suggest that colonisation occurred between the Ottoman centre and Egypt under Horvath’s definition (though it could be described as imperialism). Osterhammel’s model more closely reflects the situation in Egypt, though as we have seen there are a number of subtleties in the identities of Egyptian social groups that clearly indicate that ‘colonialism’ here is not perfectly comparable to that conducted by European groups in, say, Latin America and India.

!

The situation in modern Sudan and South Sudan was, of course, radically different in the nineteenth century, and Muhammad Ali’s conquest of this area between 1813 and 1818 clearly removes any doubt we could have about the spatial aspect of colonialism in this area. It is worth noting that this conquest was undertaken without Ottoman involvement. Although, as Hassan Ahmed Ibrahim stresses, it was undertaken by the Ottoman-Egyptian elite that we have encountered above rather than the native Egyptians majority: hence the prevalent description of this era as the Turkiyya in Sudan (although, of course, this still does not accurately describe the ethnic make-up of the government).20 Whilst Arabic-speaking Egyptians nonetheless formed a part (and a growing part) of the Sudanese elite, they rarely rose beyond medium-level posts in government offices and the army; and Ibrahim suggests that, like in Egypt, these Egyptians “were despised” by the Ottoman groups in charge.21 However, with only a few exceptions where cooperation with local tribes was found useful (such as the Sha’iqiyya in the north),22 these were rarely native Sudanese, and administrators Ibrahim, ‘The Egyptian empire, 1805-1885’, in M. W. Daly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt,Volume 2: Modern Egypt from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 1998), p. 204.

21 Ibrahim, ‘The Strategy, Responses and Legacy of the First Imperialist Era in the Sudan 1820-1885’, The Muslim World, 91 (2001), p. 210.

22 Gabriel Warburg, Islam, Sectarianism and Politics in Sudan since the Mahdiyya (London , 2003), p. 7.

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were continually brought in from Egypt or elsewhere rather than home-grown.23 Later in the century, Europeans were also imported for administration purposes; the advent of Mahdist independence in 1881 largely precluded the Egyptianisation of the elite that took place in the lower Nile.

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That “the fundamental decisions of affecting the lives of the colonised people [were] made and implemented by colonial rulers” in the Sudan is also evident, both through the Turkiyya’s policy of exploitation and, of course, the flourishing slave trade.24 Ottoman demands on Egypt were relatively limited, at only an annual tribute and military levy. The Turkiyya, on the other hand, placed a state monopoly on a majority of Sudanese goods and even imported cattle into the lower Nile despite frequent raids that rendered this process largely impractical.25 For the black populations of modern South Sudan and the Nuba Hills, of course, slavery was rife, at least until the conscription of Egyptian fallahin in 1838. For both Arabicised and non-Arab Sudanese groups, there is evidence of dissent to this newfound oppression: several revolts took place, most notably that of 1822 in which Isma’il Pasha was killed, while enslaved blacks sometimes went as far as to commit suicide in order rather than be enslaved.26 Arguments that Egyptian rule was largely benevolent in the Sudan (however accurate or otherwise) are irrelevant here; through these systems of slavery and state monopolisation, the Turkiyya authorities intervened significantly in everyday life in the Sudan and it difficult to argue that, at least in these cases, these were conducted far more in the interests of Cairo than anywhere in the upper Nile.

!

Shamil Jeppie, Constructing a colony on the Nile, circa 1820-1870 (Phd thesis; Princeton, 1996), pp. 259-60.

24 Osterhammel, Colonialism, pp. 16-17.

25 Ibrahim, ‘The Egyptian empire’, p. 207.

26 Ibid., p. 206.

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There is likewise evidence of a cultural divide between the elite and local populations in Sudan over the crucial issue of which form of Islam to adhere to. While much of Sudanese social life, including education and health, had previously revolved around the fuqara holy men, often of fiki sufi schools, the Turkiyya attempted to replace this with the more orthodox Azharite ulama imported from Cairo. However loyalty to the fuqara was reinforced by opposition to the imposed ulama, and this attempt to impose orthodox culture on Sudan largely failed. So in this key sphere of Islamic sectarianism, again we can see a clear lack of ‘cultural compromise’ between the Turkiyya and its subjects. Even the foundation of Khartoum as a new administrative centre is indicative of the extent to which the Ottoman-Egyptian invaders sought to remap the landscape of power in the Sudan, and discard the previous one.27

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So, while we must once again discount Horvath’s definition of colonialism since there was no large-scale population movement between Egypt and the Sudan, there is a much stronger case under Osterhammel’s definition that colonisation did take place in that area. The policy of the Turkiyya in the Sudan does seem to be one very much focused on exploitation of natural and human resources, with much less cultural diffusion or tolerance than took place between Ottomans and Egyptians in the lower Nile (it is perhaps unsurprising then that the Mahdiyya attracted such a range of popular support from across Sudan and South Sudan).

!

Ultimately, whether colonisation took place in Egypt and/or the Sudan depends on exactly what we mean by ‘colonisation’ or ‘colonialism’, and how tightly or loosely we define these terms. It is difficult enough to find much in common between European colonisation in the Americas in the 1500s and in Africa in the 1880s, certainly in terms of demographic movement on which both

Jeppie, ‘The work of conquest and violence’, paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Sudan Studies, Durham, 2000, p. 2.

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Horvath and Osterhammel’s definitions of colonialism rely; indeed, it might appear that each of those definitions is based primarily on those cases respectively. When we add in types of neo-colonialism and other forms of colonialism that do not require the involvement of the state or political authority, it becomes nearly impossible to give a coherent definition of colonisation except something as vague as any sort of social domination conducted by foreigners at all. And, as we have seen in Egypt, perceptions of ‘foreignness’ differ: in this case, the majority or non-elite population clearly identified the political elite as foreign (whether ‘Ottoman’ or ‘Turkish’), but the same elite saw themselves as strongly attached to the geographical concept of Egypt as any other social group.

!

The situation in the Sudan is even more complicated as a result of these conflicting identities. Here, the Ottoman-Egyptian elite that saw itself as Egyptian but was not seen as such by the Egyptian majority engaged in wide-scale exploitation of the Sudan and the Sudanese. While this is quite clearly an instance of colonialism under Osterhammel’s definition, can we describe it as ‘Egyptian’ colonialism? If we do, this belies the social and cultural gulf between native Egyptians or fallahin and the Ottoman/Mısırlı elite, despite the considerable extent to which the elite did culturally Egyptianise during this period. But then, describing it as Ottoman colonialism undermines the fact that the impetus for this colonialism came almost entirely from within Egypt, and that it was driven by the Egyptian polity. Terms such as ‘Turkiyya’ and Turkish are even more misleading since they entirely fail to represent the variety of ethnic groups that constituted the elite.

!

So, the admittedly clunky term ‘Ottoman-Egyptian’ is perhaps the most appropriate (or least inappropriate) to use when describing the complex, multi-ethnic social class that undertook colonial or colonial-esque actions in both Egypt and the Sudan; although the crucial distinction between ‘Ottoman-Egyptian’ and the ‘Egyptian’ non-elite or fallahin must be retained. Both Egyptians and Sudanese were subject to similar colonial measures: slavery, of

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course, was perhaps the most intrusive taking place in the south, but the fact that Muhammad Ali introduced the conscription of the Egyptian peasantry precisely because slavery of the black Sudanese was proving insufficient to his needs indicates that these two processes were seen as essentially interchangeable from his elite perspective. That the Ottoman-Egyptian elite saw themselves as Mısırlı, and therefore do not entirely fulfil the spatial criteria of colonialism, of course adds a further layer of complexity to this picture, but that they engaged in a process of social domination similar to that of colonialism is undeniable.

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In this case then, it is more accurate to depict an overarching Ottoman-Egyptian elite class, separated politically though only slightly culturally from the elite within the rest of the Ottoman Empire, that colonised both Egypt and Sudan in this period. True, Egyptians were incorporated into the Sudanese administration and economy to a limited extent, but overall Ottoman-Egyptian domination was maintained, and the conscription in Egypt shows that in general, Egyptians were subject to Ottoman-Egyptian interests no less than the Sudanese. The implication of all this is, of course, that there were no ‘colonised colonisers’ in this period. The Ottoman-Egyptian class were themselves not colonised by any greater power (at least until the arrival of the British, the role of whom would require further analysis), and the Egyptian role in colonising the Sudan was limited and always subordinate to the Ottoman-Egyptians. Certainly, Egyptian historians attempting to bolster Muhammad Ali’s nationalist credentials have sought to identify the Ottoman-Egyptian and Egyptian groups, something which Western scholars have, rightly, debunked. However, based on the models of colonialism in Egypt and the Sudan outlined above, it might be more useful and effective to portray Egyptians, along with Sudanese, as victims of this international elite, and thereby avert the need to defend themselves for colonial actions in the Sudan which they, as a social grouping, did not necessarily commit.

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Bibliography

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Abir, M., ‘Modernisation, Reaction, and Muhammad Ali’s ‘Empire’’, Middle Eastern Studies, 13 (1977), p. 295-313.

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Bjørkelo, Anders, Prelude to the Mahdiyya: Peasants and Traders in the Shendi Region, 1821-1885 (Cambridge, 1989).

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Eppel, Michael, ‘Note about the term Effendiyya in the History of the Middle East’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 41 (2009), pp. 535-539.

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Holt, Peter M., ‘Egypt and the Nile Valley’, in John E. Flint (ed.), The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 5: c. 1790-c.1870 (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 12-50.

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Horvath, Ronald J., ‘A Definition of Colonialism’, Current Anthropology, 13 (1972), pp. 45-57.

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Ibrahim, Hassan Ahmed, ‘The Egyptian empire, 1805-1885’, in M. W. Daly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Egypt, Volume 2: Modern Egypt from 1517 to the End of the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 198-216.

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Ibrahim, ‘The Strategy, Responses and Legacy of the First Imperialist Era in the Sudan 1820-1885’, The Muslim World, 91 (2001).

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Jankowski, James, ‘Ottomanism and Arabism in Egypt, 1860-1914’, The Muslim World, 70 (1980), pp. 226-259.

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Jeppie, Shamil, Constructing a colony on the Nile, circa 1820-1870 (Phd thesis; Princeton, 1996).

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Jeppie, Shamil, ‘The work of conquest and violence’, paper presented at the 5th International Conference on Sudan

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Studies, Durham, 2000 [Available at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/ justin.willies/jeppie.htm].

Osterhammel, Jürgen, Colonialism: A Theoretical Over view (Princeton, 2005).

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Powell, Eve Troutt, Colonized colonizers: Egyptian nationalists and the issue of the Sudan, 1875-1919 (PhD thesis; Ann Arbor, 1999).

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Toledano, ‘Review Article: Mehmet Ali Paşa or Muhammad Ali Basha? An Historiographic Appraisal in the Wake of a Recent Book’, Middle Eastern Studies, 21 (1985), p. 141-159.

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Toledano, Ehud R., State and society in mid-nineteenth-century Egypt (Cambridge, 1990).

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Vatikiotis, P. J., The History of Modern Egypt: From Muhammad Ali to Mubarak (Baltimore, 1991).

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Warburg, Gabriel R., ‘The Turco-Egyptian Sudan: A Recent Historiographical Controversy’, Die Welt des Islams, New Series, 31 (1991), pp. 193-215.

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Warburg, Gabriel R., Islam, Sectarianism and Politics in Sudan since the Mahdiyya (London, 2003).

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Did Marx Think of History as an Historian or as a Revolutionary?

— Joshua Kaye

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There is a propensity in modern historiography to separate Marx as a theorist from his object of enquiry and to situate him in a realm of “privileged spectatorship.”1 The question of this paper itself conforms to this historiographical trend, presupposing that Marx would “think” of history – fashioning conceptual theories – rather than considering him to “practise” history – impressing his theories upon it. The premise of this question therefore lies in testing its paradigmatic antithesis of “historian” versus “revolutionary,” by trialling it on all facets of “history:” history as a narrative, as a general discipline, as a collation of characters and as a revolutionary tool, with particular though not exclusive emphasis on The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. A detailed analysis concludes that Marx did not treat history as a research tool confined within its own intellectual constraints2 but re-cast it into his own mould. Thus Marx approached history as a “revolutionary historian,” not in the sense of a convenient amalgamation of the question’s criteria, but as a historian who did not just “think” of history but “practised” it.

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Krieger posits that Marx’s approach to “history” was one of improvisation; that “political traditions and institutions do not fit into a simple scheme of economic interpretation” so “to comprehend both ... [Marx] synthesise[d] them using the concept

Ghisalberti Giosue, “Tragedy and Repetition in Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louise Bonaparte,” Clio 26:4 (1997), pp.

411-25.

2 François Furet, Marx and the French Revolution (1988), p. 52.

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of class-struggle.”3 This assumes that Marx’s theory was trying to accommodate “history,” when “history” was actually forced to comply with his model. Scholars should desist from dismissing the multiplicity of Marx’s hypotheses on the Terror in The German Ideology as contradictions engendered by his accommodation of history.4 Inversely, it is by virtue of his “class struggle” philosophy that Marx can initially cast the Terror as the incarnation of bourgeois interests and liberalism, and then characterise the Robespierrist dictatorship as proletarian.5 His conceptual model allows him to arbitrarily reduce political forms to their class content,6 revolutionising historical events by mediating their presentation through his historical paradigm: “History is translated into theory and it is the latter that then becomes [a new] historical reality.”7

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Marx’s template of “historical necessity” is another wielded from his arsenal, this time refashioning an accepted Proletarian defeat into a vital stage towards inevitable fulfilment: “what succumbed in these defeats was ... the allusions, conceptions, projects, from which the revolutionary party before ... could not be freed, not by the victory of February, but only by a series of defeats.”8 Marx’s application of his own historical logic sees him revolutionise the narrative of regression into one of counter-revolution: “the revolution ... is still journeying through purgatory.”9 Similarly, Marx L. Krieger, ‘Marx and Engels as historians’ in Bob Jessop with Charlie Malcolm-Brown (eds.) Karl Marx's social and political thought: critical assessments vol. II social class and class conflict (1990), p. 4.

4 François Furet, Marx and the French Revolution (1988), p. 39.

5 Ibid, p. 41.

6 Ibid.

7 Martin E. Spencer, ‘Marx on the State: the events in France between 1848-1850’, Theory and Society 7 (1979), p. 183.

8 Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850 (1952), p.

27.

9 Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, VII. 3

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modifies the Second Empire into an efficacious phase of historical evolution, imposing his own “correct” historical meaning: “the parody of imperialism was necessary to free the mass of the French Nation from the weight of tradition.”10 Ultimately, “the historical reality is absorbed by the theoretical reality of the paradigmatic analysis,”11 and Marx revolutionises the historical landscape by redefining it with his own model.

Although built upon a materialist mode of analysis,12 the nature of the template Marx impressed upon “history” was often conditioned by his own circumstances. His practice of “history” in Class Struggles is clearly infused with his “revolutionary optimism in Spring 1850”13 as he depicts the proletariat escaping from ephemeral illusions to achieve their own materialist class consciousness.14 Moss contends that Brumaire was spared from this “revolutionising” as Marx “regarded the developing constitutional crisis in France with irony and detachment;”15 essentially that Marx just “thought” of history. Moss’s myopic thesis has overlooked the fact that Marx’s subsequent disenchantment with the failed revolution actually manifests itself onto Brumaire’s pages, “revolutionising” the events delineated in Class Struggles. The commitment of workers to socialism after June changes from an “intellectual victory” to an appeasement of the petty bourgeoisie;16 the crises of January and March are no longer squandered opportunities, but are remapped onto the historical timeline as

Ibid.

Spencer, ‘Marx on the State’, p. 184.

12 Bernard H. Moss, ‘Marx and Engels on French Social Democracy: Historians or Revolutionaries?’, Journal of the History of Ideas 46:4 (1985), p. 557.

13 Ibid, p. 540.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid, p. 552.

16 Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, cited by ibid, p. 554-555.

10 11

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“rehearsals for Napoleon’s coup d’etat.”17 As Marx subscribes to the Communist League from 1850, the social democracy he endorsed in the Communist Manifesto is now criticised in Brumaire for mollifying the proletariat.18 The historical narrative then is revolutionised by Marx in correlation with the circumstantial nature of his political life.19

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This paper must not neglect to qualify why Marx’s schematising of history is the practice of a “revolutionary historian,” rather than just a “revolutionary.” Many scholars opt for the latter, seeing Marx as manacled to his paradigms and therefore compromising historical objectivity: “cast[ing] what disturbs his vision in the marginalised role of the parasite.”20 LaCapra’s contention ignores the fact that Marx’s socio-economic template facilitated objectivity by challenging the autonomy of politics in history.21 Marx also eschews accusations that he inherently “marginalised” political factors, by allowing for the reality of ideal motives in political behaviour:22 “one must not get the narrow-minded notion that the petty bourgeoisie ... wishes to enforce an egoistic class interest.”23 Marx’s schematising also helped “history” as a discipline, overturning the despondency that followed the dismantling of Hegel’s theories, when “belief in the possibility of stating valid principles binding upon all was gradually abandoned.”24 Some scholars allege that this was not revolutionary, brandishing theories of Tocqueville and von Marx, Brumaire, cited by ibid.

Marx, Brumaire, cited by ibid, p. 555.

19 Ibid, p. 557.

20 Dominick LaCapra ‘Reading Marx: The Case of The Eighteenth Brumaire’, in idem, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (1987), p. 280.

21 Krieger, ‘Marx and Engels as historians’ in Jessop and MalcolmBrown (eds.) Marx's Social and Political Thought, p. 56.

22 Spencer, ‘Marx on the State’, p. 174 23 Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, III. 24 George Lichtheim, Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study (1961), p. 33.

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Stein who claim, like Marx, that historical movement was predicated on class struggle.25 These blinkered refutes fail to acknowledge how both men remained fettered to political historiography: Tocqueville paid lip service to social elements but prioritised ethical, and thus political, factors and von Stein’s dissecting of France into socialist and industrialist camps, implied that historical development rested upon political parity.26 Thus, Marx’s elevation of socio-economic activity was entirely revolutionary, providing “an absolute principle to subsume the multiplicity ... of the historical discipline,”27 and resurrecting the “possibility” that the totality of the world could be comprehended.28 Unlike Esquiros or Louis Blanc, Marx now had the perspective to parallel the illusion of 1793 with that of 1789 and see Bonaparte reigniting the Robespierrist Terror in a different guise.29

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Marx’s infamous aphorism can be read as an insight into his historical approach: “men make their own history ... but under circumstances ... given and transmitted from the past.” Marx ensures that he retains his classification as a “historian,” by recognising that his call for revolution is limited by objective constraints30 or “circumstances.” Yet, by locating himself within a “tradition defined by earlier writings,”31 he also implies that he will revolutionise them; he too will “make [his] own history.” The most niggling of these “earlier writings” for Marx was Hegel’s: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear ... twice. He forgot to add: the first time as Krieger, ‘Marx and Engels as historians’ in Jessop and MalcolmBrown (eds.) Marx's Social and Political Thought, p. 55 26 Ibid, p. 56.

27 Ibid, p. 67.

28 Lichtheim, Marxism, p. 35.

29 Furet, Marx and the French Revolution, p. 29.

30 Ibid, p. 50.

31 John Paul Riquelme, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Karl Marx as Symbolic Action’, History and Theory 19:1 (1980), p. 58.

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tragedy, the second time as farce.”32 Marx litters his work with such counterpoints to Hegel: in the initial paragraph of The Communist Manifesto, Marx opts for the word “spectre” as a concerted “burlesque replacement” of the Hegelian “spirit.” In his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy, Marx attacks Hegel’s notion that the state dominates civil society.33

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LaCapra conforms to the assumptions of current scholarship in seeing Marx’s economically determined theory as neglecting human activity: “the actors of the revolution are rarely mentioned.”34 LaCapra’s thesis is not unfounded: Marx’s preface to Capital pivots around “the natural laws of capitalist production”35 and his prelude to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy of 1859, foregrounds “the contradictions of material life.”36 However, this cradled supposition is shattered by Brumaire, which not only “thinks” about human activity but “revolutionises” history about it in another manifestation of Marx’s exorcism of “earlier writings.”

Indeed, Marx comments on characters in Hugo’s Napoleon the Little and Proudhon’s Coup d’État in the preface to Brumaire,37 creating a perspective to pit his approach against theirs.38 Marx appears to jeopardise his exorcism however, painting Napoleon’s actions as the elevated material of tragedy, pandering to Hugo’s theory of the heroic individual driving history, and also casts Louis as acting in low farce, following Proudhon’s negation of the autonomy of Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, I. Christopher Pierson, The Marx Reader (1997), p. 7.

34 LaCapra cited by Ghisalberti Giosue, “Tragedy and Repetition in Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louise Bonaparte,” Clio 26:4 (1997).

35 Karl Marx, Capital cited by Christopher Pierson, The Marx Reader (1997), p. 12.

36 Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy of 1859 cited by Krieger, ‘Marx and Engels as historians’ in Jessop and Malcolm-Brown (eds.) Marx's Social and Political Thought, p. 64.

37 Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Preface.

38 Riquelme, ‘Brumaire as Symbolic Action’, p. 68.

32 33

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human action in a history determined by prior events.39 Any scholar lulled into this Marxist bait must recognise that such a compromise would leave a work that was “dichotomous rather than dialectical,”40 undermining Marx’s freedom to “make [his] own history.” Therefore Marx ultimately subverts these historians, debunking the myth of Napoleon by levelling the uncle to the status of his nephew: “when the imperial mantle finally falls on the shoulders of Louis Bonaparte, the bronze statue of Napoleon will come crashing down.”41 Brumaire therefore sees “the antithetical uncle and nephew, 1799 and 1851 ... opposed approaches to history ... all combined in the white light of Marx's comic perspective.”42 With the ghosts of Hegel, Hugo and Proudhon exorcised by revolutionising their works, Marx can write his “own history”: “Brumaire is part of [this] declaration of independence.”43 For Giosue, Marx shows trepidation about the past, as he presents a bourgeoisie shackled to history which “weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living”44 and writes in a letter to Ruge that the philistine world of Germany “had to remain ... far behind the French Revolution.”45 Giosue must remove his blinkers and notice that Marx supplants these ideas later in Brumaire and The German Ideology. In the former, he confirms that for early revolutionaries “the awakening of the dead ... served the purpose of glorifying the

Ibid, p. 69.

Ibid.

41 Marx, Brumaire, VII. 42 Pierson, The Marx Reader, p. 7.

43 L.C. Groopman, ‘A Re-reading of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, Journal of European Studies, 12:2 (1982), p. 114.

44 Marx, Brumaire, I. 45 Letter to Ruge cited by Jerrold Seigel, ‘Politics, Memory, Illusion: Marx and the French Revolution’, in Furet and Ozouf (eds.) in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture Vol. 3, p. 626.

39 40

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new struggles.”46 In the latter, he ties together French and German paths he had separated, lauding the German burghers who “have now got almost as far as the French bourgeoisie of 1789”47 and seeing in the ancien régime a model for German emancipation.”

That Marx can so liberally revise his opinions is itself a testament to his control over the past, in contrast to the bourgeoisie. This control means he can create the radical breach capable of revolutionising “history” in its future manifestations, as he does in seeing the future of the German revolution in French “history.” Marx also earns his label as a “historian” here. By showing how revolutions are spawned from historical precedents, he shows “history ... [as] the midwife of revolutions,”48 thereby preserving “the preeminent historical dignity of the idea of revolutions.”49

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Seigel implies that Marx’s “revolutionary” association of the German and French Revolutions is simply mutton dressed as lamb, as this idea had already been formulated.50 Hegel in Phenomenology had asserted that the French Revolution’s contradictions would be resolved when it passed “into another land of self-conscious spirit” and Heine had connected this to Germany, seeing the German Revolution as “a drama compared to which the French Revolution will seem but an innocent idyll.”51 However, Marx did not just toe this pre-existing line, as Seigel implies, but revolutionised the purely theoretical status of these idealist schemes into instruments of revolution: “History ... culminated not in the intellectual contemplation of the past, but in the deliberate shaping of the Marx, Brumaire, I. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow, 1968), pp.213-214.

48 Inversion of François Furet’s “revolutions ... are the midwives of history," Marx and The French Revolution (1988), p. 4.

49 Ibid, p. 11.

50 Jerrold Seigel, ‘Politics, Memory, Illusion: Marx and the French Revolution’, in Furet and Ozouf (eds.) The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture Vol. 3, p. 626.

51 Ibid, p. 626.

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future.”52 To execute this transformation from theory to practice, Marx provided the proletariat: “only in the proletariat can it [a philosophical nation] discover the active agent of its emancipation.”53 Marx had truly revolutionised “history” by gifting it a practical manifestation, earmarking “an end of philosophy – in the traditional sense of the term – by ‘realising’ its aims.”54

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Lichthein sidesteps the historiographical tendency to pigeon-hole Marx as a “revolutionary” or a “historian”: “the sociologist in him could have discovered ample ground for discarding the idea of total freedom; ... to have done so would have meant abandoning the central energising concept which ... turned ... Marx into a revolutionary.”55 Yet, Lichthein clearly cannot help but identify a tension between the two, an inherently short-sighted assertion considering the revolutionary “energising concept” was exactly what defined Marx in his study as a “historian:” (to tweak LaCapra’s thesis), “Marx does not simply provide an ... analytic explanation of [history]; he also offers a robust critique of [history] and ... tries to effect a change in the larger [discipline’s] context.”56 He does not indulge in “privileged spectatorship” but reupholsters the fabric of history: the historical narrative by squeezing it into paradigms, the discipline by modifying Hegel, Hugo and Proudhon’s ideas, entrenched character assumptions about the Napoleons and the limited theoretical incarnations of “history.” As he chastises Feuerbach for “regard[ing] the theoretical attitudes as the only genuinely human attitude,” scholars can hear Marx screaming retorts to the question’s implication that he would simply “think” of history. Indeed he essentially gifts scholars the answer to Lichtheim, Marxism, p. 40.

Marx, Early Writings, pp. 415-6 cited by Furet, Marx and the French Revolution, p.10.

54 Lichtheim, Marxism, p. 55.

55 Ibid, p. 36.

56 LaCapra ‘Reading Marx: The Case of The Eighteenth Brumaire’, in idem, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language, p.

290.

52 53

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defining his historical approach, as he takes issue with philosophers who do not act, who “have only interpreted the world; ... the point is to change it.” If Marx hereby urges the blurring of boundaries between practice as a “revolutionary” and as an intellectual, it would be artificial for us not to credit him as a “revolutionary historian.”

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Bibliography

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Marx, Karl, The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850 (1952).

Marx, Karl, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,VII transl. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18thbrumaire/.

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Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. The German Ideology (Moscow, 1968).

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Marx, Karl. Theses on Feuerbach transl. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/ theses.htm

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Giosue, Ghisalberti, ‘Tragedy and Repetition in Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louise Bonaparte’, Clio 26:4 (1997), pp.411-25.

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Groopman, L.C., ‘A Re-reading of Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, Journal of European Studies, 12:2 (1982).

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Furet, François, Marx and the French Revolution (1988).

Krieger, L., ‘Marx and Engels as historians’ in Bob Jessop with Charlie Malcolm-Brown (eds.) Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought: Critical Assessments Vol. II: Social Class and Class Conflict (1990).

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LaCapra, Dominick, ‘Reading Marx: The Case of The Eighteenth Brumaire’, in idem, Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (1987).

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Lichtheim, George, Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study (1961).

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Moss, Bernard H., ‘Marx and Engels on French Social Democracy: Historians or Revolutionaries?’, Journal of the History of Ideas 46:4 (1985).

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Pierson, Christopher, The Marx Reader (1997).

Riquelme, John Paul, ‘The Eighteenth Brumaire of Karl Marx as Symbolic Action’, History and Theory 19:1 (1980).

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Seigel, Jerrold. ‘Politics, Memory, Illusion: Marx and the French Revolution’, in Furet and Ozouf (eds.) in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture Vol. 3.

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Spencer, Martin E., ‘Marx on the State: the events in France between 1848-1850’, Theory and Society 7 (1979).

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Sperber, Jonathan, Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life (2013).

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Why were so many Victorians unsettled by evolutionary theories?

— Victoria Cacchione

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Since Galileo, scientists have questioned theological doctrine concerning Earth’s creation and place in the universe. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many theories on the topic of creation surfaced. In the late eighteenth century, William Paley introduced a theory that became known as Paleyism. This hypothesis connected science and religion arguing that nature’s existence proved God’s presence in the world.1 Following this in the early nineteenth century, the geologist Charles Lyell suggested the idea of Uniformitarianism. This theory connected the beliefs of creationism with the emerging understanding of the world’s longevity. It did so through the idea that as species became extinct some form of metaphysical force replaced them with new ones.2 Then, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin proposed his theory of Natural Selection, which effectively contradicted the previous theories. He suggested that species evolved as variations of previous species, not as unique beings.3

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Those most vocal in their responses to the evolution theories included scientists and theologians. The emergence of the various theories directly impacted scientists and clerics as they either legitimized or struck down the beliefs of these two groups. Charles Darwin’s explanation of evolution greatly deviated from popular belief of God’s role in creation leading to one of the most Charles Coulston Gillispie, Genesis and Geology: A Study in the Relations of Scientific Thought, Natural Theology and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850 (New York, 1951), p. 3.

2 Ernst Mayr, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991), p.

16.

3 Darwin, On the Origin of Species, p. 6.

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prominent debates among scientists and theologians in the nineteenth century. Thus, his theory acted as a catalyst for the paradigm shift that occurred within scientific and religious ideology regarding evolution as illustrated through Adam Sedgwick’s clear opposition to Darwin, the Oxford Debate of 1860, and Frederick Temple’s contribution to Essays and Reviews in 1861.

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Before Charles Darwin published his work on Natural Selection, many scientists and theologians presented their own hypotheses on the origins of the earth. Two of the main theories that preceded Darwin’s include Uniformitarianism and Paleyism. As Robert Young argues in Darwin’s Metaphor, early evolutionists such as Charles Lyell and William Paley sought to make their theories compatible with nature, man, and God.4 Therefore, each sought to explain the existence of fossils and other anomalies in ways that did not detract from God’s role in the creation of the earth.

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Central to the debate on evolution is the question of how science relates to religion. William Paley’s belief in the principle of natural theology conveniently reconciled the two realms. As Charles Coulston Gillispie discusses in Genesis and Geology, Paleyism relied strongly on Divine Providence and God’s role in creation.5 To support his theory of natural theology, Paley emphasized the design of nature pointing to evidence of God’s will. This allowed him to ignore historical and geological accounts of Earth’s origins.6

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A second influential theory, Uniformitarianism, relied heavily on geological evidence as well as religious principles. The founder, Charles Lyell, also believed that God created all species and sought to connect his findings with his religious views.7 The theory of Uniformitarianism, as Walter Cannon relates, presented the idea Ibid., p.10.

Gillispie, Genesis and Geology, p. 219.

6 Ibid., p. 39.

7 Mayr, One Long Argument, p. 12.

4 5

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that the Earth experienced an unlimited number of recurring stages.8 Lyell believed a divine force filled the gaps created in nature during these phases, effectively maintaining a connection between creationism and his scientific deductions.9

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While these two theories constituted the leading scientific beliefs of the nineteenth century, a third theory based on economics slightly mirrors Darwin’s ideas on evolution. As the number of factories began to rapidly increase throughout England, the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society impacted the food production.

Reverend Thomas Malthus addressed this issue in his Essay on the Principle of Population. In his essay, Malthus argued that the growing population would impede the balance of nature as God would not provide enough food to feed everyone.10

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Malthus strengthened his argument with mathematical evidence, stating that the population would increase twice as fast as the nation’s food supply. This work affected scientists, especially natural theologians, as it conflicted with their strict belief in God’s benevolence and presence in nature.11 These three theories closely relate to Darwin’s theory of evolution because his notions rejected the principles of natural theology while expanding on some aspects of both Uniformitarianism and the laws of population.

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When Charles Darwin published On the Origins of Species in 1859, he entered into an ongoing discussion of Earth’s origins and evolution. However, the ideas he presented in this work sparked a major debate among scientists and theologians. His theories included variation under domestication, variation under nature,

8 Walter

F. Cannon, “The Impact of Uniformitarianism,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 105 (1961), p. 301.

9 Mayr, One Long Argument, p. 16.

10 Gillispie, Genesis and Geology, p. 2.

11 Ibid.

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struggle for existence, Natural Selection, and laws of variation.12 These theories taken together generated major conflict among scientists as well as between them and the clergy.

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One of Darwin’s main goals in On the Origins of Species was to clarify the means of modification and co-adaptation. Therefore, he investigates the differences in the alterations that occur depending on the circumstances beginning with observing domesticated species, both plants and animals.13 From this study, Darwin concludes that, “the accumulative action of Selection… is by far the predominant Power.”14 Such a belief gives humans the control over the development of species, not God. Darwin defends his conclusions in Origins stating, “a naturalist…might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species.”15 However, scientists clinging to the idea of natural theology and theologians were outraged that his work diminished the role of God.

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Next, Darwin focuses on the variations within species that appear in nature. Prefacing this section of his work, Darwin states, “generally the term [species] includes the unknown element of a distinct act of creation.”16 From this definition, one assumes Darwin is making the link to the theological explanation that God created all species. However, this chapter emphasizes the important role nature itself plays in the adaptation of species. Darwin distinguishes between species and the varieties that appear in nature, the latter being a subgroup of the original. Following this, Darwin explores the theory of struggle for existence and introduces the idea of survival of the fittest. When discussing this concept, he references Malthus’ law on population to illustrate the rapid Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 3.

Ibid., p. 7.

14 Ibid., p. 36.

15 Ibid., p. 6.

16 Ibid., p. 37.

12 13

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increase in species. Darwin goes on to state, “the vigorous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.”17 These strong and healthy members of any species determine which attributes continue to be passed on to the next generation, leading to Darwin’s well-known theory of Natural Selection.

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Darwin defines his theory of Natural Selection as, “preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations.”18 He credits nature with choosing to retain the useful traits of a certain species to descend to the next generation, while discarding the unnecessary ones. The selection process occurs when a population experiences a drastic change in the environment. Those best equipped to handle their new surroundings survive while those without successful traits die out.19 Thus, the composition of a species is constantly adapting. Darwin expands on his belief of Natural Selection in the following chapter with further analysis of his laws of variation as a whole. He manages to relate all forms and methods of modification to the idea of Natural Selection, asserting that the modifications allow for creatures to be in competition with one another, and only the best adapted survive.20

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Ultimately, Darwin’s arguments in On the Origins of Species focus on the importance of the role of Natural Selection and the theory of descent with modification. Nature determines which traits allow beings to survive leading to a change within the genetic composition of a species, which then gets passed down to the next generation. Nowhere in his reasoning does Darwin attempt to reconcile his ideas with the role of God. Some intellectuals of the time, including Anglican priest, Charles Kingsley, attempted to merge Darwin’s theories with religious beliefs. Kingsley defended Darwin’s theories stating, “We know of old that God was so wise Ibid., p. 62.

Ibid., p. 63.

19 Ibid., p. 64.

20 Ibid., p. 128.

17 18

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that he could make all things; but, behold, he is so much wiser than even that, that he can make all things make themselves.”21 However, to many others his theories continued to conflict with already existing principles that better conformed to the religious beliefs of the nineteenth century.

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The most outspoken of Darwin’s opponents was none other than his own professor, Adam Sedgwick. According to Gertrude Himmelfarb, Sedgwick, a professor of Geology at Cambridge and an Anglican, believed in the moral and metaphysical aspects of nature.22 In a letter to Darwin following his initial reading of On the Origins of Species, Sedgwick attacked Darwin’s theory. Sedgwick accused Darwin of attempting to discredit the role of the metaphysical laws of nature within science, as Darwin chose to focus on the impact of man and the concrete aspects of nature (i.e. genetics, mutations visible over time) rather than God as the main creator.23 In an article published in The Spectator, Sedgwick also accused Darwin of deducing his opinions from a single false premise. This response to Darwin’s theory resonated with many in the religious community. Those who concurred with Sedgwick’s disapproval of Darwin’s theories did so for many reasons. Some worried about what Darwin’s beliefs implied about the civilisation of man.24 Others feared that notions such as Darwin’s would detract from God’s role in controlling the material world.25

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Further illustrating the conflict between science and religion is the debate between Archbishop Samuel Wilberforce and emerging scientist, Thomas Henry Huxley that occurred on July 30, 1860. As

John Dillenberger, Protestant Thought and Natural Science (Garden City, New York, 1960), 233.

22 Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Chicago, 1962), p. 269.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid., p. 271.

25 Gillispie, Genesis and Geology, p. 227.

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J. Vernon Jensen articulates in his article, ‘Return to the Wilberforce-Huxley Debate’, the confrontation between Wilberforce and Huxley began when each received the opportunity to respond to Professor John William Draper’s paper that discussed Darwin’s theories. Wilberforce spoke first and immediately attacked Darwin’s beliefs on the evolution of species, asking Huxley directly, “whether he would prefer a monkey for his grandfather or his grandmother.”26 Huxley calmly responded he preferred an ape to an ignorant man and continued to defend Darwin’s theories. As one eyewitness remembered, “he maintained that it was the best explanation of the origin of species which had yet been offered.”27

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This debate between Wilberforce and Huxley not only highlights the conflicting views of religion and new scientific ideology, it also exemplifies the emerging paradigm shift occurring within the scientific realm. Among scientists, the dispute manifested between younger scientists who supported Darwin and older, more conservative scientists who clung to the idea of natural theology.

Darwin himself acknowledged that his theory would only be accepted once the new generation of scientists replaced the older generation.28 Because each side claimed the victory in this debate, the Wilberforce-Huxley debate illustrates the beginning of this shift towards the acceptance of Darwin’s theory. Each side received adequate support for their arguments showing that the intellectual community as well as the public slowly began to embrace this new ideology.

J. Vernon Jensen, “Return to the Wilberforce-Huxley Debate,” British Journal for the History of Science, 21 (1988), p. 166.

27 The Evening Star, “One eyewitness reported that Huxley developed his contention with the following analogy: ‘Belated on a roadless common in a dark night, if a lantern were offered to me, should I refuse it because it shed imperfect light? I think not – I think not,’” 2 July, p. 3. As see in “Return to the Wilberforce – Huxley Debate, “ by J. Vernon Jensen in British Journal of History of Science, 21(1988), p. 168.

28 Jensen, “Return to the Wilberforce-Huxley Debate,” p. 174.

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Only a year after this important debate, a collection of articles of biblical criticism entitled Essays and Reviews was published. This work further encouraged the shift in ideology towards evolutionary theories based more on scientific laws than religious beliefs, as John Durant argues in his essay “Darwinism and Divinity.” In particular, Frederick Temple’s ‘The Education of the World’ espouses a message of acceptance of and respect for the truth.29 Within his argument, Temple reconciles Darwin’s theories with natural theology stating, “He (God) did not make the things, we may say; no, but He made them make themselves.”30 This statement indicates a movement towards a more progressive viewpoint in understanding evolutionary theory.

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While many evolutionary theories appeared before and during the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin’s theory on evolution created the greatest unrest amongst the intellectual community, particularly among biologists, geologists, and theologians. His theory expanded and enhanced the changing views of evolution, beginning with Lyell’s geological explanation of Uniformitarianism that encouraged Darwin to explore the evolution of species further. His ideas challenged the beliefs of those of the older generation taught to reconcile their scientific findings with religious teachings. These same scholars refused to acknowledge the credibility of the newer generation’s concepts that separated science and religion. Darwin’s theory of evolution, particularly Natural Selection, proved to be the main catalyst for the shift from natural theology to evolution as the dominant principle in scientific thought from the late nineteenth century onwards.

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29 30

John Durant, ed., Darwinism and Divinity (Oxford, 1985), p. 19.

Ibid., p. 20.

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Bibliography

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“One eyewitness reported that Huxley developed his contention with the following analogy: ‘Belated on a roadless common in a dark night, if a lantern were offered to me, should I refuse it because it shed imperfect light? I think not – I think not,’” The Evening Star, 2 July, p. 3

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Darwin, Charles, On the Origin of Species (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2008)

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Dillenberger, John, Protestant Thought and Natural Science (Doubleday & Company, Inc.: Garden City, New York, 1960)

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Durant, John, (ed.), Darwinism and Divinity: Essays on Evolution and Religious Belief (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1985)

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Gillispie, Charles Coulston, Genesis and Geology (Harper Torchbooks: New York, 1951)

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Golby, J.M., (ed.), Culture and Society in Britain, 1850-1890 (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1988)

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Himmelfarb, Gertrude, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Elephant Paperbacks: Chicago, 1962)

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Hull, David L., “Deconstructing Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Context” Journal of the History of Biology, 38 (2005) pp.

137-152

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Jensen, J. Vernon. “Return to the Wilberforce-Huxley Debate” British Journal for the History of Science, 21 (1988) pp. 161-179

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Mayr, Ernst, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1991)

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Young, Robert M., Darwin’s Metaphor (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1985)

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How was British Monarchism Sustained Throughout the Nineteenth-Century?

— Hannah Fitzpatrick

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Popular monarchism had a lot to contend with in the nineteenth centur y. Britain witnessed political turmoil, revolution, republicanism and the overthrow of monarchies across Europe. The children of George III were highly unpopular, the colonies were lost, the Crown was opposed to popular reform, and Victoria continued to interfere in politics before disappearing on the death of Albert. However, Bagehot’s classic The English Constitution (1867) dedicates an entire chapter to the monarchy, and portrays a vigorously healthy institution at the heart of national sentiment.1 The historiography of why royalist sentiment was so continually sustained, despite circumstances, is complex. The most popular theory, of the development of a ‘welfare monarchy’, has been proposed by Frank Prochaska. He suggests that the British royal family were able to escape overthrow by embracing charitable and social causes.2 Nevertheless, recent historiography stresses the importance of a full contextual appreciation of monarchy.

Prochaska’s argument can be developed by synthesising royal philanthropy with a deeper consideration of other nuances and contributing factors of contemporary monarchy. With this, the historian can go a long way to fully explaining the continued success of the British royal family. David Cannadine has established ten contextual criteria for the examination of royal ritual and ceremonial in modern Britain. He examines aspects from the attitude of the media to the condition of the capital city, and employs each of these features to reach a conclusion. In keeping with the idea that you must explore all aspects of monarchy to truly

1 Walter

Bagehot, The English Constitution (London, 1867), p. 82.

Frank Prochaska, Royal Bounty: The Making of a Welfare Monarchy, (Yale, 1995).

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understand it, these ten features can be transfigured and expanded in order to examine the survival of the institution.3 These criteria thus provide an excellent framework for the consideration of how the British monarchy managed to survive and prosper in a period of dramatic upheaval.

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Cannadine’s first contextual criterion is that of the monarch's intrinsic political power - the extent to which the king or queen could truly influence civic life.4 After the French Revolution damaged monarchism, rendering it vulnerable to an industrialised, enfranchised world, the institution of monarchy was on shaky ground. Many other European monarchies collapsed, as they no longer had any apparent philosophical or political meaning. The first part of the nineteenth century saw the monarchy lose a great deal of its political powers. The Reform Act and Catholic emancipation greatly weakened its control over the Commons; the Regency weakened the involvement of the sovereign in political affairs; and George IV gave up the traditional prerogative of the monarch to choose a Prime Ministerial successor in 1827. The monarch, according to Bagehot, only had three ‘real’ rights by 1867 – the right to be consulted, the right to encourage and the right to warn.5 However, Victoria actually had great influence in politics, despite Bagehot and other s confidently declar ing her unemployment. Frank Hardie goes so far as to say that “there can seldom have been a better political secret!”6 Despite ostensibly ‘retiring’ from public life, the Queen was still politically active until the end of her reign. As late as 1892, she denied Labordere a position in the Cabinet, viewing him to be too radical for

David Cannadine, (1983) in Hobsbawm and Ranger (ed.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), p. 103.

4 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 106.

5 Bagehot, The English Constitution, p. 111.

6 Frank Hardie, The Political Influence of the British Monarchy 1865-1952 (London, 1970), p. 1.

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government.7 All things considered, there is a great deal to be said for Bagehot’s theory rather than the reported the constitutional history of the monarchy. Accurately, Cannon finds that the extent of royal powers has been underestimated.8 Nairn goes even further, pithily describing Bagehot’s theory as “a bit of self-congratulatory twaddle."9 However, when the monarchy became publicly disassociated with the cut and thrust of politics, it was somehow rendered acceptable to partake in charity, and so loss of political power can be seen as the birth of the ‘welfare monarchy’. The monarchy’s support for charitable causes and voluntary endeavours allowed it to remain its position in society long after its original political role was extinguished. By identifying itself with worthy, ‘moral’ causes, the monarchy could stand above political – especially parliamentary – conflict and appear much more in touch with civil society. The weakening of royal political power also helped to disarm the traditional radical argument against the monarch, as there simply was no longer any absolute or quasi-absolute sovereign to argue against. All in all, as Cannon suggests, if it had not lost its political powers the British monarchy would “certainly have perished.”10 Political disengagement, or the illusion of it, helped sustain pro-monarchical sentiment.

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Cannadine’s second contextual factor is the personality and specific characteristics of the monarch, and how people viewed them.11 For the purposes of further argument, combining this second aspect with his third factor – a consideration of the socioeconomic state of the country – can reveal much about nineteenth-century monarchism and ‘welfare monarchy’. It is a universal truism that

John Cannon, The Stenton Lecture 1986: The Modern British Monarchy: a study in adaptation (Reading, 1986), pp. 12-13.

8 Ibid., p. 17.

9 Marilyn Morris, The British Monarchy and the French Revolution (Yale, 1998), p. 4.

10 Cannon, The Stenton Lecture, p. 4.

11 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 106.

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people will always feel more sympathy towards an institution that they feel accurately represents, cares for, and reacts to their personal and social circumstances. The ability of the nineteenthcentury monarchy to adapt to the nineteenth-century world, despite being swathed in tradition, was remarkable. The nineteenth century saw mass industrialisation and urbanisation, the emergence of a truly ‘modern’ middle-class demographic and new bourgeois culture. As a general rule, nineteenth-century Britain was serious, moralistic and restrained compared to its Hanoverian predecessor.

Moreover, the years 1760-1820 saw a massive increase in the number of charitable and voluntary organisations. Prochaska quotes Charles Greville, who claimed, “we are just now overrun with philanthropy."12 There was widespread social concern like never before. In line with this, royal dedication to good works rather than aristocratic debauchery enamoured the public with the institution. Ian Bradley quotes Prince Albert on the purpose of monarchy in a new age of political ‘unemployment’ – “to be the headship of philanthropy."13 The monarchy had traditionally been associated with charity and good works, notably in ceremonies such as the distribution of Maundy money and the touching for the king’s evil. Prochaska argues that this limited tradition of infrequent voluntarism was particularly transformed by the development of the idea of nobility. Whereas Tudor and Stuart monarchs wished to seem masculine, powerful, and distant, the idea of noblesse oblige instead emphasised the monarch as humble servant of the people.14 Meanwhile, at a time of weakening political power, acts of charity created dependent and grateful subjects, an update of the patronage model of medieval royal government.15

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Ibid., p. 1.

Ian Bradley, God Save the Queen: The Spiritual Dimension of Monarchy (London, 2002) p. 121.

14 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 5-7.

15 Ibid. p.7.

12 13

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Bradley argues that the rise in monarchical feeling in the reign of George III can be put down to his “earnestness, conscientious exercise of his duties and absolute propriety."16 The king and his wife led a simple, fruitful and faithful family life, appealing firmly to the dominant middle of society. George is also thought to have donated at least £14,000 a year to charitable causes, and was the patron of nine charitable institutions.17 William Wilberforce, commenting at the time, said that such work “softened the glare of royalty and confirmed attachment to the throne."18 The reign of George IV saw a hiatus in this dedication to voluntary enterprise, as dissolute living rather than charity became more associated with royal behaviour. Tellingly, Cannadine describes George III’s children the “most unloved royal generation in English history."19 Nevertheless, the reigns of George III’s two eldest sons still saw the shaky development of the ‘welfare monarchy’ and this did continue to have an impact on monarchical sentiment. Although Queen Caroline was not so well known for her involvement in voluntary activities, she was still the patron of charities such as the Royal Jennerian Society, and attended public lectures on social issues.20 Purdue’s article on Queen Adelaide argues that her welldocumented involvement in philanthropy made the monarchy “more acceptable” and helped its progression from risky Hanoverianism to the “serene security” of the Victorian age.21

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Queen Victoria, meanwhile, had a strict and sheltered upbringing according to the ‘Kensington System’. Peter Gordon and Denis Bradley, God Save the Queen, p. 116.

Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 12-3.

18 Ibid. p.36.

19 Cannadine in Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, p. 109.

20 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 23.

21 A.W. Purdue, ‘Queen Adelaide: Malign Influence or Consort Maligned?’ in Clarissa Campbell Orr (ed.), Queenship in Britain 1660-1837: Royal Patronage, court culture and dynastic politics (Manchester, 2002) p. 267.

16 17

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Lawton's study of Victoria's childhood suggests that this Protestant and moralistic upbringing firmly influenced the Queen’s charitable adult conduct.22 On discovering that she was to be Queen, Victoria is commonly supposed to have exclaimed “I will be good." Such anecdotes reinforced the public opinion that the young princess was the antithesis of her unpopular uncles. Victoria was also deliberately exposed to the social life of Britain, visiting towns, cities, slums, the opera, and hospitals.23 Victoria married Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840, and his influence on the state of nineteenth-century monarchism was undoubtedly significant. Historians disagree whether the Prince was a royalist nuisance, whose ‘Germanism’ held the monarchy back, or an enlightened philanthropist who brought the institution into a new age. He certainly brought both the drive of an unemployed and clever prince, and the fierce Lutheran values of his homeland, and dedicated himself to the improvement of the nation. Cannadine uses the term ‘Balmorality’ to sum up the royal couple’s attitude to their roles and the Crown.24 Victoria conducted a Bible class for the children of her staff at Buckingham Palace, visited poor tenants at Balmoral and she and Albert were patrons of countless charities. This spread to their children - even the dissolute Prince of Wales was carrying out nearly fifty philanthropic engagements a year by the 1890s.25 Cannadine’s response to Prochaska in 1995 notes that, in a time of political unemployment, “doing good was just about the only thing left for him – apart from doing bad."26

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In keeping with an examination of personal characteristics of monarchy and representation of the populace, much has been said of the role of gender in nineteenth-century monarchism. As well as

Peter Gordon and Denis Lawton, Royal Education: Past, Present and Future (London, 1999) p. 140.

23 Ibid. p. 143.

24 David Cannadine, History in Our Time (London, 1998) p. 5.

25 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 83.

26 Cannadine, History in Our Time, p. 28.

22

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the development of the concept of constitutional monarchy, historians such as Clarissa Campbell-Orr argue that the nineteenthcentury monarchy saw a shift towards “feminisation." There was a decided decline of the traditional ‘masculine' values of war making, politics and courtly pomp. Orr argues that instead, ‘‘‘feminine values’ associated with philanthropy moved to the forefront” in the period between 1760 and 1837.27 The role of Queen Consorts has been seen as particularly important in the inauguration of this shift, as women such as Charlotte of Meckenburg-Strelitz and Adelaide of Saxe-Meningen focused royal attention on charitable enterprise.

Dorothy Thompson’s socialist and feminist study of nineteenthcentury monarchism argues that women effectively ‘saved’ the Hanoverians.28 She also accurately views Victoria’s gender as a European exceptionalism that contributed to the monarchy’s survival.29 Moreover, as Thompson further argues, this link between monarchism and feminisation became much easier when Albert died.30 As a great – and now singular - figure of matriarchal majesty, Victoria became, as in the words of one Victorian minister, “the nursing-mother of a Christian population."31 As mother-queen of her people, involved in charitable enterprises and politically ‘powerless’, Victoria developed the image of a popular loving and benevolent parent. Developing the idea of the Queen as a matriarch, Bagehot tellingly placed importance on the notion of a family on the throne, with their intelligible actions appealing to common human – especially female - nature.32 This was a development of Hanoverian monarchy, as Prochaska argues that George III’s voluntary activities meant that his subjects saw him as a “kindly parent," and contemporary sources frequently refer to the

Clarissa Campbell Orr, Queenship in Britain, p. 4.

Cannadine, History in Our Time, p. 42.

29 Ibid., p. 46.

30 Cannadine, History in Our Time, p. 45.

31 Bradley, God Save the Queen, p. 130.

32 Bagehot, The English Constitution, p. 85.

27 28

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king as ‘father’.33 The public saw his quietly domestic court, and the court of Queen Victoria, as paragons of the sentimentalised social ideal. This helped shift public opinion towards sympathetic monarchism – the royal family, rather than a group of disparate and dissolute individuals, became our family, a family representative of the nation.

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Moving away from personality and representation, Cannadine’s fourth contextual aspect of royal ritual involves the examination of the role of the media.34 The expansion of the newspaper and mass media in this period shed a great deal of light on the royal family. In particular, photography and mass printing can be seen as crucial through their wide distribution of royalist images. Various images of the Queen ensconced in domestic bliss, surrounded by her husband and children in the most normal of family settings, were widely distributed. As Plunkett argues, the public success of the ‘welfare monarchy’ was greatly dependent on such exposure of ordinary, bourgeois family life.35 Richard Williams argues that a focus on the trivialities of family and private life in the media was highly beneficial for monarchical feeling, as it obscured more serious issues and saved the monarchy from more in-depth public discussion.36 Williams stresses the crucial contemporary importance of newspapers, which exploded after the abolition of stamp duties and the paper tax in the mid-century.37 Although primarily with a middle-class readership, these provide a wealth of source material.

Williams suggests that monarchism was not nearly as strong as historiography has stressed. He argues that the crown remained “contentious” long into the late century, and we should not take Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 11.

Ibid. p. 106.

35 Andrezj Olechnowicz (ed.), The Monarchy and the British Nation 1780 to the Present (London, 2007) p. 31.

36 Richard Williams, The Contentious Crown: Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria (London, 1997) p.

222.

37 Ibid. p. 3.

33 34

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“gush literature” that suggests otherwise too seriously.38 However, his study only measures public opinion so far as is suggested by contemporary newspapers, and Williams explicitly ignores the illustrations and photography associated with these texts. Whatever the true state of public opinion, the overwhelming sentiment of the mainstream media cannot be seen as anything except decidedly royalist.

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Cannadine’s fifth contextual factor relates to contemporary technology and fashion.39 The role of the monarch and the sustainment of monarchism in the nineteenth century were highly influenced by the development of transport and mass production methods. Improved roads, trains and steamboats could take the monarch further and quicker than ever before. Following Perry Black’s psychological examination of nineteenth-century monarchy, such technology can be considered key, as monarchism was sustained mainly because the Crown was so much more visible.40 The development of the ‘welfare monarchy’ was greatly aided by transport in particular. Rather than confined to her capital or a few select country homes, the Queen was free to open hospitals in Manchester, visit the poor at Balmoral and have tea with a sailor's widow in Southampton, all in the same week. The step-up in the number of engagements and royal patronages in this period was just one effect of a developed transport system. It also allowed people to travel to London for major royal events, lining the streets for Jubilees, royal wedding processions and the trooping of the colour.

When persuaded to attend the Thanksgiving service for the Prince of Wales in 1872, Victoria was stunned by the numbers of people on the streets, many of whom had travelled from outside London.

Without a developed transport system, these people would not have been able to attend.

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Ibid. p. 1.

Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 106.

40 Ibid., p. 17.

38 39

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Cannadine’s sixth contextual aspect of royal ceremony relates to the ‘self-image’ of the nation-state in question.41 Two major international events of the early century can be seen as having a significant impact on both Britain's self-image and its monarchical feeling. Marilyn Morris argues that the French Revolution was the greatest single influence on nineteenth-century British monarchy, as it forced Britain to “band together," and unify in royalist sentiment to protect the Crown.42 Meanwhile, Linda Colley is quite explicit in her belief that the loss of the American colonies had a more determined effect on nineteenth-century monarchism. She states that the “royal face lift” that can be observed in the century came from “that mood of introspection which followed the defeat in the American war."43 George III was exalted to the status of a representative, British icon. The monarchy became an institution upon which nationalist sentiment was heaped in reaction to the disappointment of America. This popular idea of nationalist monarchy was developed further after the death of Albert. While he had been a popular figure, Albert's death was influential in the sustainment of ‘nationalist’ monarchism. As Williams argues, it removed the alien ‘Germanic’ element of the British monarchy and allowed for greater expansion of nationalist and imperialist sentiment.44 His death also made the Crown more immediately female, although this is an element with Williams does not particularly consider. However, the years after Albert’s death saw the Victorian age’s greatest brush with anti-monarchism, as the Queen retired from public life. Absent from public view, antimonarchist sentiment simmered in the streets and 84 Republicanism clubs were founded in the three years between 1871 and 1874.45 However, if we take Bagehot’s argument that Victorian people could crucially imagine the concept of a monarch much Ibid., p. 106-7.

Morris, British Monarchy and the French Revolution.

43 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 10.

44 Williams, The Contentious Crown, p. 6.

45 Gordon and Lawton, Royal Education p. 9.

41 42

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more easily than they could imagine a republic, then the Crown never seems to have been in too much threat.46 While less visible, the Monarchy was still an everyday, recognisable force in public life.

Meanwhile, republican causes were suspiciously European, complex, run by a confusing cross-section of classes and had no clear political plan. Quite simply, it was hard to imagine then compared to the image of a sad, dwindling Queen locked up in Balmoral. While unpopular, monarchists were still ahead of their radical counterparts.

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Cannadine’s seventh contextual feature of his ritual thesis involves exploring the condition of the capital city, the key location of modern royal ceremonial.47 This feature is less applicable to an examination of nineteenth-century monarchism as a whole, but it is still worth considering the place of the Court in London society. It had ceased to be the social hub of the capital in the early eighteenth century, and a position at Court no longer held the value it had previously. This was part and parcel with the monarchy’s declining political powers and the wider movements of urbanisation and embourgeoisement. The Court declined as a place of theatrical splendour, with the elaborate levees consigned to the past, and the home of the royal family started to appear much more normal, even bourgeois. Under Victoria, the Court became a place of quiet evenings playing bridge and reading aloud to each other. The newly simplistic and domestic style of the court helped endear the royal family to the people, when the rest of the aristocracy seemed distant and out of touch with the harsh realities of an industrialised world.

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The eighth contextual aspect of Cannadine’s examination of ritual relates to the personal attitudes and politics of the key players of ceremony – the writers of liturgy, composers of music, and

46 47

Bagehot, The English Constitution, p. 82.

Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 107.

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choreographers of ceremony.48 In the same way, both the ‘welfare monarchy’ and sustained monarchism as a whole had a great deal to do with the work of individuals. Cannon argues that the activities of royal advisors were crucial in public relations work during the nineteenth century. He particularly credits Private Secretaries, notably Sir Herbert Taylor, Charles Grey and Henry Ponsonby, as well as figures such as Baron Stockmar and Lord Melbourne.49 Before her marriage, Victoria’s affairs were heavily influenced by her first Prime Minister. Writing two to three letters a day to the elderly statesmen, the young Queen was profoundly influenced by Melbourne's suggestions.50 However, she was decidedly more sympathetic to the poor than he was, and here Cannon’s argument that individuals were highly crucial becomes harder to sustain. In an 1872 letter to her eldest daughter, Victoria declared that she had a “very strong feeling” in relation to the poor, and considered their condition “very alarming."51 However these sympathies were greatly influenced by Baron Stockmar, a key royal friend and advisor. He advised the royal couple to correct the moral faults of George III’s sons, and educate their royal children to be aware of “the appalling poverty and wretchedness of many among the labouring classes."52 His message that such “practical morality” would help the welfare of “both sovereign and people” shows that the German Secretary was all too aware of the mutual benefits of ‘welfare monarchy’.53

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Cannadine’s ninth contextual aspect relates to how ceremony and ritual were enacted, whether with majesty and royal spectacle or less impressive fanfare.54 His essay on the development of ritual in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries suggests that Ibid.

John Cannon, The Stenton Lecture 1986, p. 15-6.

50 Gordon and Lawton, Royal Education, p. 147-8.

51 Ibid., p. 150.

52 Ibid., p. 154.

53 Gordon and Lawton, Royal Education, p. 154.

54 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 107.

48 49

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nineteenth-century monarchism was mainly sustained by the “invention of ceremonial tradition." Treating rituals as cultural forms, and cultural forms as texts, Cannadine traces a professionalisation of royal ceremony and the development of ‘archaic’ rituals from the 1870s onwards.55 Certainly, we can see a greater number of royal rituals, increased public attendance at Jubilees and popular acclamation of the Queen on the events of her birthdays and anniversaries. Moreover, the period of Victoria’s reign most associated with anti-monarchical feeling, the 1870s, was also the period in which she was least involved in royal rituals and there was no development of ceremony. The episode associated with her emergence from isolation is the 1872 thanksgiving ceremony for the recovery of the Prince of Wales from typhoid fever. An invention of Gladstone, the ceremony drew vast crowds and acclamation in the streets, and press coverage of the royal family improved virtually overnight. However, Prochaska argues that Victoria’s isolation and lack of involvement in ritual after the death of Albert should not be dwelled upon. While the queen may have declined to open parliament and conduct imperial appointments, she was still opening hospitals, hearing reports of the poor and donating money to orphanages. The ‘welfare monarchy’ was still working in the background, perhaps explaining why the institution seemed to recover so quickly.

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Cannadine’s final contextual aspect is that of the commercial exploitation of the rituals of monarchy.56 The technological improvements of the nineteenth century also included vast development in mass production methods. Royal memorabilia was a fast growing business and can be found from the beginning of the century, although only entered its heyday in the 1850s. Beakers, mugs, medals, plates and even novelty bustles were produced to celebrate or commemorate royal events and individuals. If the

Cannadine in Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, p. 121-2.

56 Prochaska, Royal Bounty, p. 107.

55

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production levels and consumption of such items is taken as indicative of monarchical feeling, then the historian can trace a growing royalist spirit. The Queen’s Golden Jubilee saw the production of more commemorative medals than had been in total produced for all four previous “great royal events."57 Moreover, Thomas Richards’s study of Victorian commodity culture explains how the Queen’s image became so popular that it was widely used on material goods in an effort to lure consumers.58 The development in consumer goods and the use of royal images allowed the monarchy into every home, and can be seen as one reason why monarchism was sustained. In terms of the ‘welfare monarchy’, royal charitable engagements were often immortalised with commemorative pieces for the crowds purchase afterwards.

When placed in the home, these items would serve as continuous reminders of the sacrificial role of the monarch in the civic life of the nation. Given the powerful cultural and social force behind the monarch’s activities, such a reminder certainly would have helped sustain monarchical sentiment.

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Nineteenth-century monarchism was thus sustained by a whole plethora of contextual factors. Of crucial importance were the loss of mainstream political power, and the subsequent development of ‘welfare monarchy’. The extent to which these two factors sustained monarchism cannot be underestimated. While the monarch remained influential behind the scenes, the Crown carved out a new role for itself, whether consciously or not. It became a paternalistic and benevolent ‘national family’, concerned only with the welfare of its people. Reacting to the industrialised and increasingly modern world of nineteenth-century Britain, the monarchy was flexible enough to sustain royalist sentiment even through difficult periods such as the 1870s. Moreover, Cannadine’s

Cannadine in Hobsbawm and Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, p. 137.

58 Thomas Richards, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England (Stanford, 1990) p. 102.

57

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argument that invented ritual contributed to the resurgence in monarchism at the end of the century has a great deal of merit, and provides a more specific look at why the British royal family managed to survive. The role of the media, commercial elements, technological improvements and the dedicated work of key individuals were also all important in sustaining popular royalist sentiment. They enabled the royal family to become a seemingly ubiquitous presence in everyday life. The British population and the political establishment also bolstered and sustained monarchism with a strong nationalist reaction to European and American revolutions. Becoming a symbol of supreme ‘Britishness’, the monarch and by extension the royal family as a whole became a patriotic icon. By the end of the nineteenth century, there was no real risk from the Republican agitations that continued to threaten the continent. The British monarchy was secure in its total transition from masculine political force to benevolent and feminised ‘welfare family’.

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Bibliography

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Bagehot, Walter, The English Constitution (London, 1867).

Bradley, Ian, God Save the Queen: The Spiritual Dimension of Monarchy (London, 2002).

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Campbell Orr, Clarissa, (ed.), Queenship in Britain 1660-1837: Royal Patronage, Court Culture and Dynastic Politics (Manchester, 2002).

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Cannadine, David, History in Our Time (London, 1998).

Cannon, John, The Stenton Lecture 1986: The Modern British Monarchy: a study in adaptation (Reading, 1986).

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Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (Yale, 1992).

Gordon, Peter and Lawton, Denis, Royal Education: Past, Present and Future (London, 1999).

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Hardie, Frank, The Political Influence of the British Monarchy 1865-1952 (London, 1970).

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Harrison, J.F.C., Early Victorian Britain: 1832-51 (London, 1990).

Kent, Christopher, 'Review: Royal Bounty: The Making of a Welfare Monarchy by Frank Prochaska', Victorian Studies, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Winter, 1997), pp. 330-332.

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Morris, Marilyn, The British Monarchy and the French Revolution (Yale, 1998).

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Nairn, Tom, The Enchanted Glass: Britain and its Monarchy (London, 1988).

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Olechnowicz, Andrezj (ed.), The Monarchy and the British Nation 1780 to the Present (London, 2007).

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Prochaska, Frank, Royal Bounty: The Making of a Welfare Monarchy (Yale, 1995).

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Richards, Thomas, The Commodity Culture of Victorian England (Stanford, 1990).

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Strachey, Lytton, Queen Victoria (London, 1921).

Williams, Richard, The Contentious Crown: Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria (London, 1997).

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In what ways was geography imagined and constructed in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries?

Discuss in relation to the Balkans.

— Naomi Warin

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The concept of ‘imagined geographies’ originates in Edward Said’s work, Orientalism. He describes a “fictional reality” created in the imaginations of Westerners by which they fabricate “a familiar space which is ‘ours’ and an unfamiliar space beyond ‘ours’ which is ‘theirs’."1 This essay will apply Said’s concept to the region of the Balkans, considering the geographies that have been imagined both

by Western Europeans and by the Balkan peoples themselves. The ‘imagined geographies’ of the region will then be compared to its ‘constructed geographies’, in order to demonstrate the existence of a link. The concept of ‘constructed geographies’ is defined as the demarcation of physical borders. The essay will focus on the period 1878-1918, since both the beginning and end points of this period are characterised by major reshaping of borders in the region. A demonstration of how approaches to border creation had changed between 1878 and 1918 will confirm the effect that changing ‘imagined geographies’ had on ‘constructed geographies’.

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Western Europeans have imagined the whole of Eastern Europe as inferior long before 1878, but a discourse of particular backwardness emerged in relation to the Balkans during the nineteenth century.2 The headmaster of Rugby School, Thomas Arnold, wrote in 1838 that the eastern coast of the Adriatic was “one of those ill-fated portions of the Earth which, though placed in immediate contact with civilisation, have remained perpetually

Edward W. Said, Orientalism (London, 2003), p. 54.

Gerard Delanty, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (Basingstoke, 1995), pp. 48-9.

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barbarian."3 However, despite this long-term inference of backwardness, ideas of Balkan inferiority became more pronounced among Western Europeans during the 1880s and until the outbreak of the First World War. This was largely due to the establishment of the Orient Express, which ran between Western Europe and the Balkans from 1883 onwards, prompting a rise in Balkan discourse in Western Europe. Even the name of the Orient Express evoked connotations of mysteriousness and difference, as did its advertising slogan, which described it as “the Magic Carpet of the East."4 However, it was the writing of Western Europeans who visited the Balkans that really facilitated a more popular discourse of backwardness. In Britain, travel writing had a vast audience and became the literature of choice after novels.5 Hammond comments that travel writing can be ‘a medium for the worst kind of racism and cultural supremacism’ and certainly this is evident in Balkan travel writing of the period.6 William Miller’s Travels and Politics in the Near East (1898) includes references to “weird-looking aborigines," a “lack of law and order” and a “reign of anarchy."7 Such discourse shaped the ‘imagined geographies’ of Western Europeans, instilling a sense of superiority over the savage and backward people they read about.

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However, there was a marked change in attitude during and after the First World War as the vilification of the Balkans gave way to a more respectful tone. When trying to persuade the region to side with the Allies it seemed inappropriate to continue the derogatory Božidar Jezernik, Wild Europe: The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travellers (London, 2004), p. 25.

4 Ibid., p. 34.

5 Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York, 1997), p. 89.

6 Andrew Hammond, ‘An Introduction to Four Centuries of Balkan Travel’ in Andrew Hammond (ed.), Through Another Europe: An Anthology of Travel Writing on the Balkans (Oxford, 2009), p. x.

7 Andrew Hammond, ‘The Uses of Balkanism: Representation and Power in British Travel Writing, 1850-1914’, Slavonic and East European Review 82/3 (2004), p. 620.

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discourse. Furthermore, when Balkan countries such as Serbia took up arms against the Austrians and Germans, the Allies adopted a complimentary discourse, referencing honour and bravery.8 For example, Chivers Davies witnessed an enemy bombardment of Belgrade and wrote: “the Serbs held them back magnificently until the next day. … Such a few against so many, yet how they fought!”9 Such an altered discourse seems astonishing considering the condescension so common only a few years before. Yet temporal changes in perception are to be expected, especially during an event as significant as the First World War.

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The First World War transformed the ‘imagined geographies’ of Western Europeans, although previous ideas and misconceptions remained in Western European consciousness, to some extent. A case in point is the ‘imagined geography’ of the Balkans as a region of violence. The growth of press culture coincided with a time of turbulence on the Balkan Peninsula so more and more Western Europeans came to imagine the Balkans as a violent region. Marin argues that human preoccupation with political instability and war creates an unbalanced view of regions like the Balkans, since their more positive and peaceful aspects are ignored.10 Certainly this was the case during the Balkan wars (1913-14), which captivated the Western European press and contrasted sharply with the peace movement taking place in the so-called ‘civilised world’.11 However, the act which established an irrevocable link between the Balkans and violence was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914, popularly considered as the catalyst of the First World War. Todorova calls this event the “original sin” of the Balkans, so Hammond, Through Another Europe, p. 77.

Eleanor Chivers Davies, ‘from A Farmer in Serbia’ in Andrew Hammond (ed.), Through Another Europe: An Anthology of Travel Writing on the Balkans (Oxford, 2009), p. 89.

10 Irina Marin, Contested Frontiers in the Balkans: Ottoman and Habsburg Rivalries in Eastern Europe (London, 2012), p. 2.

11 Maria Todorova, ‘The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention’ in Slavic Review 53/2 (1994), pp. 455-6.

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irreversibly did it tarnish their image.12 A discourse of the Balkans as a place of violence consequently developed; an ‘imagined geography’ in which South-East Europe was inhabited by savages fighting amongst themselves. The coexistence of this ‘imagined geography’ of violence alongside one of honour and bravery may seem paradoxical, but it is indicative both of the military focus of the post-war years and the complex nature of the human imagination.

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The dialogue of savagery links Western European views of the Balkans to Western European views of the colonies.13 In this sense, the ‘imagined geographies’ of the Balkans were simply adapted versions of pre-existing ‘imagined geographies’ relating to the colonies, with ideas of backwardness and barbarity simply transferred. Since the Balkans were a white, European, Christian people, the derogatory Balkan discourse was a convenient, politically correct outlet which would have been inappropriate towards colonial nations.14 More significant, however, is the motivation of Western Europeans for establishing such dialogues of backwardness. Often, the creation of a national history is connected to ‘others’, against which a country can be portrayed as superior.15 Certainly this is true of the Balkan discourse created by the Western Europeans. As Todorova describes, “the Balkans have served as a repository of negative characteristics against which a positive and self-congratulatory image of the ‘European’ and the ‘West’ has been constructed."16 An understanding of the Balkans as the European ‘Other’ clarifies the reasons for imposed associations with violence, 12 Todorova,

Imagining the Balkans, pp. 118-9.

Hammond, ‘Introduction’, pp. xi-xii.

14 Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, p. 188.

15 Tibor Frank and Frank Hadler, ‘Nations, Borders and the Historical Profession: On the Complexity of Historiographical Overlaps in Europe’ in Tibor Frank and Frank Hadler (eds.), Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts: Overlapping National Histories in Modern Europe (New York, 2011), p. 5.

16 Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, p. 188.

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barbarity and ignorance. Compared with such apparent backwardness, Western European nations appear as the height of civility. In this sense, the ‘imagined geographies’ of the Balkans were created in order to improve Western European citizens’ perceptions of their own nations.

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The discourse of backwardness established in Western Europe raises interesting questions about the ‘imagined geographies’ of people within the Balkans. Did Western perceptions of the Balkans reach the ears of the Balkan people themselves and, if so, were their own perceptions of the region altered by what they heard? The work of British traveller and writer, Mary Edith Durham, is useful when considering these questions. She was a famous non-conformist of the period who identified strongly with the Balkans and particularly Albania. Her refusal to yield to the popular discourse of Balkan backwardness give her accounts an objectivity not offered by most Western travellers.17 From her encounters with Balkan people, it is clear that they were aware of the Western stereotypes attributed to them, with one telling her that “you think in England you are civilised, and can teach us."18 This quotation reveals a certain bemusement and resentment towards the arrogance of the Western European attitude, which is supported by other views Durham encountered. For example, a Balkan man asked her to “explain us to the new Consul. He does not understand us. … We do not like him."19 These opinions demonstrate that, further to being aware of Western European views of the Balkans, this awareness shaped unfavourable Balkan opinions of Western Europe. In this sense, ‘imagined geographies’ were not simply established by Western Europeans in a one-way process. Rather, an exchange occurred, in which Western ideas about the Balkans influenced Balkan ideas about Western Europe.

Ibid., pp. 120-1.

Mary Edith Durham, The Burden of the Balkans (Gloucester, 2008), p. 231.

19 Ibid., p. 1.

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As to whether Western perspectives altered the Balkans’ selfperception, the scarcity of evidence makes it difficult to reach a definite conclusion. Occasional Balkan echoes of the Western discourse of backwardness and barbarity appear in Durham’s account. For example, an Albanian talks of “ignorant savages” in the villages. While this supports the notion that Western dialogue resonated with some Balkan people, it more significantly reflects the universal need to identify ‘an Other’ in society. Just as the Western Europeans used the idea of backwardness in the Balkans to define a more positive view of themselves, this Albanian man compares himself favourably to those in the villages.20 Such an awareness of variety and difference among the Balkan people is a further prominent theme in Durham’s book. While the ‘imagined geographies’ of Western Europeans tended to label the Balkans as a homogeneous mass, the Balkan people retained their awareness of divisions within the region. An Albanian told Durham of his hatred for Servians, a former name for residents of Serbia. When questioned about the origins of this hatred, the man responds: “we are born like that. It is in our blood."21 In this sense, people within the Balkans had not been influenced by the ‘imagined geographies’ of Western Europeans. If the West imagined a map of block colour, in which the Balkans were all one, the Balkan people themselves saw a patchwork of different colours, representing different groups within the region. Divisions between the Balkan people included not only ethnicity, although that was important, but also religion.

Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Judaism were all represented resulting in a mélange of cultures, religions and ethnicities within the region.22 This coexistence of different peoples was reflected by the multi-faceted identity the Balkan people recognised in themselves.

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Ibid., p. 161.

Ibid., p. 7.

22 Delanty, Inventing Europe, pp. 48-53.

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The final section of this essay will demonstrate that ‘imagined geographies’ influenced the construction and modification of official borders in the Balkans. The defined period begins and ends with major reshaping of borders. In 1878 the Treaty of Berlin resulted in autonomy for Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Romania while 1918 saw the creation of Yugoslavia, the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. By focusing on these two major events as case studies, it will be possible to determine whether approaches to physical border creation changed as ‘imagined geographies’ altered over time.

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In 1978, the process of border delineation was very much imposed on the Balkan nations by the Western Europeans. The Treaty of Berlin was the result of a decision-making process conducted by the major European powers on behalf of smaller nations involved.23 This puppet-master style of politics was influenced by the ‘imagined geographies’ of the Western Europeans. Their notions of superiority and civility prompted them to intervene in the nationbuilding of a region they believed to be backward and therefore incapable of arranging its own affairs. As for the Balkan people themselves, Mazower suggests that they resented the dominance of the great powers, as is exemplified by public intolerance of leaders deemed overly subservient to Western nations. Alexander Obrenović, for example, was murdered by the Serbian army in 1903 for being too Austrophile.24 Such antipathy towards the Western powers is indicative of the Balkan people’s awareness of the negative discourse created in relation to them. ‘Imagined geographies’ therefore affected not only the borders constructed by the Western European powers, but also influenced the Balkan people’s reactions to these newly imposed borders.

!

Charles Jelavich and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920 (Seattle, 1977), pp. 155-6.

24 Mark Mazower, The Balkans: A Short History (New York, 2000), pp. 96-7.

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Forty years later, when Yugoslavia was created in 1918, Western European attitudes towards the Balkan nations had changed. The war had demonstrated a more respectable side to the Balkans, causing the Western Europeans to redefine their perspectives. For example, Woodrow Wilson’s declaration of support for the principle of self-determination, which is the right of a nation to decide its own sovereignty, reflects changing attitudes to nation-building and the right to intervene.25 In practice, the ‘Big Four’ of the United States, Britain, France and Italy still had the final say over territorial changes in a grand plan known as ‘New Europe’. However, the details of this plan were decided in consultation with representatives from the countries involved, public figures such as historians, diplomats and politicians.26 The new ‘imagined geography’ of a more respectable Balkans meant that the Balkan people were now invited to take part in the decision-making process by improving, although not completely eliminating, the top-down structure of border creation in the past. In the case of Yugoslavia, for example, a Yugoslav Committee was set up which incorporated representatives from Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.27 In this sense, it is clear that increased respect for the Balkan nations resulted in them having more say in their region’s nation building, thus demonstrating that changing ‘imagined geographies’ translate into changing ‘constructed geographies’.

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This essay has sought not only to describe ‘imagined’ and ‘constructed’ geographies relating to the Balkans, but also to emphasise their interconnected nature. The ‘imagined’ geographies considered had genuine effects on approaches to state-building in the Balkans. It is therefore natural that, as perceptions of the Balkans shifted, levels of Western European intervention were also

Jelavich and Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, pp. 298-9.

26 Marin, Contested Frontiers in the Balkans, p. 106.

27 Jelavich and Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, pp. 300-1.

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revised. While this has by no means been a conclusive study of the topic, definite trends have been identified which demonstrate that ‘imagined’ geographies have a practical impact on the ‘constructed’ geographies of nationhood. It would be interesting to take this study further to see whether the Balkan model can be applied to other regions and periods.

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Bibliography

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Chivers Davies, Eleanor, ‘from A Farmer in Serbia’ in Hammond, Andrew (ed.), Through Another Europe: An Anthology of Travel Writing on the Balkans (Oxford, 2009), pp. 84-90

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Delanty, Gerard, Inventing Europe: Idea, Identity, Reality (Basingstoke, 1995)

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Durham, Mary Edith, The Burden of the Balkans (Gloucester, 2008)

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Frank, Tibor and Hadler, Frank, ‘Nations, Borders and the Historical Profession: On the Complexity of Historiographical Overlaps in Europe’ in Frank, Tibor and Hadler, Frank (eds.), Disputed Territories and Shared Pasts: Overlapping National Histories in Modern Europe (New York, 2011), pp. 1-13

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Hammond, Andrew, ‘An Introduction to Four Centuries of Balkan Travel’ in Hammond, Andrew (ed.), Through Another Europe: An Anthology of Travel Writing on the Balkans (Oxford, 2009), pp. vii-xxii

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Hammond, Andrew, ‘The Uses of Balkanism: Representation and Power in British Travel Writing, 1850-1914’, Slavonic and East European Review 82/3 (2004), pp. 601-24

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Jelavich, Charles and Jelavich, Barbara, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920 (Seattle, 1977)

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Jezernik, Božidar, Wild Europe: The Balkans in the Gaze of Western Travellers (London, 2004)

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Marin, Irina, Contested Frontiers in the Balkans: Ottoman and Habsburg Rivalries in Eastern Europe (London, 2012)

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Mazower, Mark, The Balkans: A Short History (New York, 2000)

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Said, Edward W., Orientalism (London, 2003) Todorova, Maria, Imagining the Balkans (New York, 1997) Todorova, Maria, ‘The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention’, Slavic Review 53/2 (1994), pp. 453-82

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To what extent are Black Power and Red Power the politics of despair?

— Jessica McDonald

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On 16 June 1966, Carmichael Stokely, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, first introduced the slogan, ‘Black Power’. Speaking at the March Against Freedom in Mississippi, Stokely took to the stage and declared that, “the only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin’ us is to take over. What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!”1 Later that year, the Native American activist, Vine Deloria Jr., first coined the term, ‘Red Power’, before Clyde Warrior, known as the founder of Red Power, announced during a news broadcast in 1967, that the National Congress of American Indians would start an uprising that “would make Kenya’s Mau Mau look like a Sunday school picnic.”2

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The growing militancy seen among both African-American and Native American activists during the 1960s is known, respectively, as the Black and Red Power movements. Both were rooted in a rising cultural and ethnic pride, and a new determination to no longer be ashamed of, nor disconnected from, one’s heritage. The decentralised and segmented nature of both movements allowed for them to be claimed by nationalists and integrationists alike, and in their most basic form, they represented a growing call, from both communities, demanding more autonomy and power over their lives. However, it is important to note that these were two very separate movements, each one having been shaped around a history Peniel E. Joseph, ‘Introduction: Toward a Historiography of the Black Power Movement’, in Peniel E. Joseph (eds.), The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era (New York, 2006), p. 2.

2 Langston, Donna Hightower, ‘American Indian Women’s Activism in the 1960s and 1970s’, Hypatia, 18/2 (2003), p. 117.

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and culture unique to the African-American and Native American communities.

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The aim of this essay is to uncover the extent to which these movements represented the politics of despair. This term is best understood as being the actions of a last resort- and as such, often an emotional, negative and chaotic outburst. Understood in this way, this essay shall argue that both the Black and Red Power movements were in fact a highly positive, empowering and enlightening development for their respective communities; this derived not from ties of despair and hate, but on kinship, pride and hope.

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On November 14, 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. declared, “we must never feel that the Black Power slogan sprang forth full-grown from the head of some philosophical Zeus. It was born from the wombs of despair and disappointment. Black Power is a cry of pain.”3 With a similar sentiment, journalist and historian, Alvin M. Josephy Jr., wrote in 1971 that, “manifestations of Red Power were a sign that the Indian pot was boiling, and the lid was rattling loudly. Indian desperation was no longer being repressed.”4 The Black and Red Power movements, for some contemporaries at least, very clearly represented the politics of despair, created by an emotional outburst of anger and desperation; to their non-violent counterparts, this was thus understood as dangerous, chaotic and damaging.

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Initially, the historiography of the Black Power movement mirrored this contemporary view. Many historians framed Black Power as “an abrupt rupture with the non-violent and integrationist vision of

‘MLK Speech at SCLC Staff Retreat: 14 November 1966’, The King Center http://www.thekingcenter.org [Accessed 20 March 2014].

4 Alvin M. Josephy Jr., The American Indians Fight for Freedom (Winter Park, 1971), p. 244.

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Martin Luther King.”5 Scholars saw the movement not only as a failure, but also ultimately as harmful to the more respectable civil rights movement.6 More recently, however, new scholarship working under the subfield of ‘Black Power Studies’ and led in large part by the historian, Peniel E. Joseph, has started to reassess the movement and begun to “demystify, complicate, and intellectually engage demonized, dismissed, and over looked actors and struggles” of the movement.7 This new work has not only challenged the previous geography of Black Power, which placed it as a predominately Northern phenomenon, but has also dramatically challenged the traditional Black Power period between 1966 and 1975. Historians such as Komozi Woodard and Timothy Tyson have instead depicted what they call a “long Black Power movement," extending the chronology both prior to the 1960s and past the mid 1970s.8

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The historiography of the Red Power movement has moved in a similar direction. The famed Standing Rock Sioux political theorist, Vine Deloria Jr., wrote in 1974 that instead of understanding “the protest [of the late 1960s and early 1970s] as a continuing struggle of Indians, the media characterized them as a new development thereby missing the entire point of the protest.”9 This was reflected in early scholarship, which framed the movement as mainly urban Simon Wendt, “We are going to fight fire with fire”: Black power in the South’, in Peniel E. Joseph (eds.), Neighborhood Rebels: Black Power at the Local Level (New York, 2010), p. 132.

6 See, for example, Todd Gitlin, The Sixties:Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: 1989), and Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (New York, 1985).

7 Peniel E. Joseph, ‘The Black Power Movement: A State of the Field’, The Journal of American History, 96/3 (2009), p. 752.

8 Komozi Woodard, A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics (London, 1999), and Timothy B. Tyson, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F.Williams and the Roots of Black Power (London, 1999).

9 Laurence M. Hauptman, The Iroquois Struggle for Survival:World War II to Red Power (New York, 1986), p. 205.

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and within a time period beginning with the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969 and ending with the Longest Walk in 1978.10 More recent studies have shown that American Indian activism began long before the 1960s, with roots that stretched back “to the first encounter between European explorers and the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica in 1492.”11 Furthermore, case studies such as Stephen Kent Amerman’s, which focuses on Indian political activism within an urban high school, have helped to provide a more nuanced and in depth understanding of the Red Power movement; focus thus moved “beyond the most well-known and well-studied aspects of 1960s and 1970s Indian activism.”12

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Scholarship of both Red and Black Power has uncovered long histories of resistance and activism within both communities. Alvin M. Josephy Jr. rightly said of the Red Power activists that, “in substance their message is no different from what it has been for decades, but it is more challenging and insistent.”13 Sitting Bull, a Tribal Chief and Holy man of the Tenton Sioux tribe, who was born in 1831 and died in 1890, wrote, “no white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.”14 His words See, for example, Josephy Jr., Fight for Freedom (Winter Park, 1971) and Troy Johnson, Joane Nagel and Duane Champagne (eds.), American Indian Activism: Alcatraz to the Longest Walk (Urbana, 1997).

11 Troy R. Johnson, Red Power: The Native American Civil Rights Movement (New York, 2007), p. 10. See also, Daniel M. Cobb, and Loretta Fowler (eds.) Beyond Red Power: American Indian Politics and Activism Since 1900 (Santa Fe, 2007).

12 Stephen Kent Amerman, ‘"Let's Get in and Fight!": American Indian Political Activism in an Urban Public School System, 1973’, American Indian Quarterly, 27/3 (2003), p. 608. See also, Bradley G. Shreve, Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Council and the Origins of Native Activism (Norman, 2011) and Sherry L. Smith, Hippies, Indians, and the Fight for Red Power (Oxford, 2012).

13 Josephy Jr, Freedom, p. 17.

14 Kent Nerburn and Louise Mengelkoch (eds.), Native American Wisdom (Novato, 1991), p. 74.

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highlight the long history of forced assimilation that Native Americans have faced under the United States government, and remind one of their “unique history of continued resistance and conflict over land and resources.”15 Written over a century later, the words of the American Indian Movement member, Birgil Kills Straight, of the Oglala Lakota Nation, echoes the same fiery militant rhetoric and passion of Sitting Bull: “AIM is the new warrior class of the century, bound by the bond of the drum, who vote with our bodies instead of our mouths.”16

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The Red Power movement did not simply arise out of an emotional outburst in Native American communities in the 1960s; rather, it had deep roots in long-standing traditions of resistance to nonIndian control and power. When the activist, LaNada Boyer, a member of Alcatraz Island Council, was asked why she had joined the Red Power movement, she replied, “it is a lifelong thing. It is hard to say that you just jumped into it or joined it. It comes from way back, from the reservation. It’s something that you have grown up with.”17

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Similar observations can be seen in the Black Power movement.

Initially, some contemporaries and modern scholars pitted Black Power as the civil rights movement’s ‘evil twin’; focusing only on the violent rhetoric of activists, such as Eldridge Cleaver, they saw it as “the figurative and literal embodiment of black rage, anger, and disappointment with the ineffective and glacial peace of civil rights.”18 However, this allowed for a glorified view of the civil rights movement and gave little credit to the long history of resistance and self-defence practiced by African-Americans. From Langston, ‘Women’s Activism’, p. 115.

Dennis Banks and Richard Erdoes, Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement (Norman, 2004), p. 58 17 Troy R. Johnson, The Occupation of Alcatraz Island: Indian SelfDetermination and the Rise of Indian Activism (Chicago, 1996), p.

104.

18 Joseph, Rebels, p. 1.

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the ‘day-to-day’ acts of resistance found in the earlier slave communities, to the self-defence practiced in the Jim Crow South, African-Americans had never sat by idly when faced with white supremacy and oppression.19

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The story of Robert F. Williams illustrates the complex relationship between the civil rights movement and the Black Power movement and shows how the two were “far from being mutually exclusive” and in fact “paralleled and intersected with one another.”20 Williams was born in 1925, in Monroe, North Carolina. Growing up in the South, he had seen first hand the injustices and violence African-Americans faced on a daily basis. As an adult, Williams joined his local NAACP chapter and was elected president in 1957.

Williams undertook a recruitment drive, with the chapter soon having over two hundred members, making up “a well-armed and disciplined fighting unit” that protected the local community and civil rights activists.21 Williams advocated armed self-reliance, stating that “nonviolence is a very potent weapon when the opponent is civilized, but nonviolence is no repellent for a sadist.”22

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For people like Williams, who were facing extreme racist violence on a daily basis, non-violence tended to be regarded “as a pragmatic tactic, not as a philosophical imperative.”23 His story illustrates how “armed self-reliance operated side by side in the South… in tension and in tandem with the compelling moral example of non-violent direct action.”24 Even Martin Luther King Jr., the icon of the non-violent protest movement, received armed See, James Oakes, ‘The Political Significance of Slave Resistance’, History Workshop, 22/ Special American Issue (1986), pp. 89-107 and Tyson, Radio Free Dixie (London, 1999).

20 Joseph, Rebels, p. 2.

21 Ibid., p. 550.

22 Ibid., p. 561.

23 Simon Wendt, The Spirit and the Shotgun: Armed Resistance and the Struggle for Civil Rights (Gainsville, 2006), p. 1.

24 Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, p. 308.

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protection during the early days of his involvement.25 Historian Timothy B. Tyson concludes that well before 1966 and Carmichael’s chants of ‘Black Power’, “virtually all the elements that we associate with [the movement] were already present in the small towns and rural communities of the South where the civil rights movement was born.”26 By understanding the use of armed self-defence and its important role alongside the civil rights movement, one can challenge the idea that Black Power was the politics of despair, representing “an aberrant, directionless expression of rage”; it can instead be identified as an outcome of the long and complex history of African-American resistance.27

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A further challenge to the politics of despair concept is the ethnic consciousness and cultural pride that both movements nurtured within their communities. As Peniel E. Joseph has rightly pointed out, the Black Power movement “was more than a series of shootouts, race riots, and provocative sound bites.”28 In fact, both movements found an expressive outlet in the arts; the Black Arts Movement, known as “the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept," saw playwrights, artists, novelists and songwriters actively engage with themes of racial pride, black culture and militant protest.29 LeRoi Jones was one of the leading figures of the movement, who in 1964 founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/ School (BARTS) in Harlem as “an alternative community center, school and performance space based on the evolving principles of

Simon Wendt, “We are going to Fight Fire with Fire”: Black Power in the South’, in Joseph, Rebels, p. 132.

26 Tyson, Radio Free Dixie, p. 308.

27 William L. Van DeBurg, New Day In Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture (London, 1992), p.15.

28 Peniel E. Joseph, Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama (New York, 2010), p. 31.

29 Larry Neal, ‘The Black Arts Movement’ University of Illinois: Modern American Poetry http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/ blackarts/documents.htm [Accessed 23 March 2014].

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Black Power and Black Consciousness.”30 In 1967, Martin Luther King wrote that Black Power was “a philosophy nourished solely on despair… a slogan that cannot be implemented into a program”; yet, following the opening of BARTS, a further eight hundred or more black theatres and cultural centres were set up across the United States, inspiring a cultural revolution of self-discovery, pride and ethnic consciousness within African-American communities.31

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LeRoi Jones’ next project, the Committee for Unified Newark helps to demonstrate how Black Power subsequently harnessed this revival of African-American culture to provide a structural underpinning for its political ambitions. Founded in 1968, the CFUN comprised three groups: a theatre troupe, a self-defence group and a political strand that focussed on obtaining black political power. The CFUN’s multi-faceted approach proved successful, and in 1970, Kenneth Gibson was elected to office in Newark, becoming the first black mayor of a north-eastern city.32 The Black Arts movement and the cultural revival it spawned played an important role in helping to unite African-Americans and achieve political power.

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The Red Power movement also fostered a cultural revival among its own people. The 1950s had seen a major shift in Native American communities, as the government’s relocation programmes saw many Indians move away from the reservations and into the cities.

By the early 1960s, nearly two-thirds of the Indian population were living in urban environments, cut off from their tribes and traditional cultures. Banding together, these urban Native Americans opened Indian centres at which to socialise, thus Lisa Gail Collins and Margo Crawford (eds.), New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement (Newark, 2006) p. 275.

31 Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (New York, 1967), p. 46.

32 Daniel Matlin, ‘“Lift up Yr Self!” Reinterpreting Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Black Power, and the Uplift Tradition’, The Journal of American History, 93/1 (2006), p. 105.

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creating pan-Indian identities and organisations.33 In an unexpected consequence of the urban relocation programmes, a new inter-tribalism arose and protest groups, such as the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC), founded in 1961, were born. While the group was made up of predominately urban Native Americans, the NIYC often held meetings on the reservations and included the use of traditional drum ceremonies and tribal songs.34 One NIYC leader recalled, “it was a major source of encouragement and hope to have a Ponca from Oklahoma, a Paiute from Nevada, a Tuscarora from New York, a Flathead from Montana, a Navajo from New Mexico, a Mohawk from Michigan… offering to fight for [our] cause.”35 The NIYC made activism “part of the larger intertribal fight to preserve Native Culture, uphold treaty rights, push for selfdetermination, and promote tribal sovereignty," and their protests, such as the 1964 Washington state Fish-Ins, paved the way for future intertribal activism in the years that followed.36

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Due to the Native Americans’ specific issues relating to land and treaty claims, much of their activism revolved around the occupation of famous landmarks across the country. These protests, however, were not the politics of despair; in fact, they were quite the opposite. Peter Blue Cloud, a Mohawk Indian and Alcatraz activist, recalled, “there was little hate or anger in our hearts, for the very thought of a lasting unity kept us whole and in harmony with life.”37 The occupations also took on a festive air, celebrating Indian culture and tradition. Richard Oakes, also a Mohawk Indian and early student leader on Alcatraz Island, remembered, “we did a lot of singing in those days… the songs of friendship, the songs of Johnson, Alcatraz Island, p. xi.

Langston, ‘Women’s Activism’, p. 116.

35 Bradley G. Shreve, ‘“From Immemorial”: The Fish-In Movement and the Rise of Intertribal Activism’, Pacific Historical Review, 78/3 (2009), p. 406.

36 Ibid., p. 405.

37 Peter Blue Cloud (eds.), Alcatraz is not an Island: By Indians of All Tribes (Berkeley, 1972), p. 13.

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understanding… It was beautiful to behold and beautiful to listen to.”38

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This focus on culture and the revival of traditional practices by activists was especially apparent at the Pine Ridge Reservation, the site of the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation. The American Indian Movement (AIM) had started the protest; founded in 1968, AIM was a particularly militant division of the Red Power movement and originally formed to monitor police violence against Native Americans in towns and cities.39 Using similar tactics to the African-American Black Panther Party, AIM’s “militant rhetoric, audacious confrontational strategies, and larger-than-life personalities” helped the movement gain widespread media attention; the group were often called to reservations to help raise awareness when various injustices were being ignored.40

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During these visits they often directly and indirectly fostered the revival of traditional ceremonies and practices, both participating in and providing the resources for them.41 During their time at the Pine Ridge Reservation, AIM helped to reduce the more commercial aspects of rituals, such as the sun dance, to return focus to its more religious elements.42 AIM activist, Russell Means, recalled twenty years after his involvement with the Wounded Knee occupation, “the part I am most proud of is one, Wounded Knee was and is the catalyst for the rebirth of our self-dignity and pride in being Indians… We are much prouder, much more responsible and much more hopeful.”43 Johnson, Alcatraz Island, p. 100.

Banks, Ojibwa Warrior, p. 61 40 Cobb, Beyond Red Power, p. x.

41 Phillip D. Roos, Dowell H. Smith, Stephen Langley and James McDonald, ‘The Impact of the American Indian Movement on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation’, Phylon, 41/1 (1980), p. 96 42 Ibid., p. 97.

43 Joane Nagel, American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture (New York, 1996), p. 173.

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Joane Nagel has reasoned that the Red Power movement “served as a powerful mechanism in the construction and reconstruction of Native American community and culture.” For Nagel, the movement was not only shaped by culture, which provided “the identities, symbols, rhetoric, grievances [and] tactics," but also created and transformed cultural forms and practices “by reconstructing, reframing and replacing the very identities, symbols, rhetoric, grievances, tactics and organizational vehicles that the movement earlier used to spread its message, recruit participants and influence social change.”44 A direct outgrowth of the Red Power movement was not only “a major artistic revival," but also the raising of ethnic consciousness and pride.45

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Both movements, consciously and unconsciously, created a cultural renaissance among African-American and Native American people.

From the Black Arts movement in Harlem, to the revival of ceremonial practices on the reservations, Black and Red Power acted as the catalyst for the rebirth of African-American and Native American pride in their culture and ethnicity. This outpouring of creativity and the revival of traditional practices redefine earlier treatments of the Black and Red Power movement, which saw them as representing a bleak descent into pessimism and disillusion.

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Another significant aspect of both the Red and Black Power movements was their focus on education and community programs.

During a speech in 1964, Malcolm X stated that “education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self-respect.”46 Malcolm later went on to Ibid., p. 176.

Hauptman, The Iroquois, p. 233.

46 ‘Malcolm X’s Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity – 1964’ Black Past: An Online Reference Guide to African American Past http://www.blackpast.org [Accessed 20 March 2014] 44 45

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criticise public schools for failing to teach African-American children about both their history and their culture. Native Americans faced a similar issue, with one child recalling, “it was a pretty big textbook on American history, but I think there were only about two sentences on Indians in the whole book.”47 Empowered with a renewed sense of cultural pride, both African and Native Americans began to demand the reform of the education institutions that for far too long had allowed their children to become alienated and ignored.

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In 1971, the Onondaga tribe – part of the Iroquois nation – kept their children out of school in order to highlight their educational concerns: “the Onondagas were reacting to the extremely high drop-out rates among Indian students, the lack of cultural enrichment programs including language instruction, and their limited voice in school district policy.”48 Two years later, the Indians of East High School in Phoenix, Arizona, facing similar issues, stated: “it became clear to us that it would be necessary to apply force to the school system before it would change.”49 Favouring a tactic of direct action, they not only gained media coverage of their plight, but also ultimately achieved their aims. Protester Diane Daychild wrote that during this period, political activity “was sort of bubbling.”50 Both protests saw positive outcomes; the Onondaga activism helped to push through a new state philosophy on Indian education, which declared that it now recognised “that these people prefer to retain their specific tribal cultural identities and life styles and that they wish to exercise the prerogatives of adopting only those components of the dominant American culture that meet their needs.”51 In Phoenix, the school board increased its Native American teachers from two to eighteen and hired a Director of Amerman, ‘"Let's Get in and Fight!”’, p. 607.

Hauptman, The Iroquois, p. 220.

49 Amerman, ‘"Let's Get in and Fight!”’, p. 618.

50 Ibid., p. 609.

51 Hauptman, The Iroquois, p. 221.

47 48

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Indian Education, whose role was to ensure that Native Indians had more direct input.52

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Similar protests led by African-Americans also contributed to positive change for their communities. In 1966, James Garret founded the first black student union at San Francisco state University, which focused on both political activism and the promotion of black cultural expression.53 Many others followed and these in turn helped to pave the way for the creation of programmes of black studies.54 Education was just one of the demands Black Power activists made, with the Black Panther Party declaring in 1966 that “we want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.”55 A member of the party, Elaine Brown, recalled, “that if they could get food, that maybe they would want clothing, maybe they’d want housing, maybe they’d want land and maybe they would ultimately want some abstract thing called freedom.”56

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Founded in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, the Black Panther Party’s political and cultural program was “one of the most visible articulations of Black Power ideology.”57 Adorned in black leather jackets, tilted berets and with a fiery militant rhetoric, the Panthers immediately captured the attention of the national media.

However, reports often manipulated and misunderstood the Black Power message. Their obsession with the Panthers’ macho façade often meant that “little attention was given to making the precise Amerman, ‘"Let's Get in and Fight!”’, p. 629.

DeBurg, Babylon, p. 71.

54 Amy A. Ongiri, Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the Search for a Black Aesthetic (Charlottesville, 2010), p. 1.

55 Yohuru Williams, “Some Abstract Thing Called Freedom”: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Legacy of the Black Panther Party’, OAH Magazine of History, 22/3 (2008), p. 19.

56 Williams, ‘“Freedom”’, p. 16.

57 Ongiri, Spectacular Blackness, p. 17.

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53 Van

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nature of the militants grievances clear or evaluating the specific programs they developed… Popular understanding of the movement was distorted. Black Power was trivialized.”58

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David Hilliard, a BPP member, wrote that the group was “probably the most misunderstood organization of the civil rights movement… you know about our imagery and our guns… but you don’t know about the [community] projects.”59 The projects Hilliard makes reference to included free breakfasts for children, health clinics, legal aid, housing assistance, free food programmes, school tutoring, free clothing and liberation schools, to name but a few.60 Once again, Red and Black Power can be understood as being based upon ideas of empowerment, not despair. Both movements inspired and actively participated in the reforming of education and the creation of important community programmes.

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The power movements were able to penetrate a wide variety of areas in the lives of African and Indian people; in part, this was due to their inclusive nature, which saw it embrace nationalists, integrationists, students, and even feminists.61 This last aspect is particularly important, as both movements, especially the Black Power movement, often saw its macho façade obscure “the complexity of the party’s official stance on gender politics and the serious nature of its dialogue with and engagement in issues of gender parity.”62 Black women were heavily involved with the Black Power movement and could be found running community based projects and filling leadership positions. Their engagement with the movement “spurred a fiery independence that led to the emergence

58 Van

DeBurg, Babylon, p. 13. p. 18.

60 David Hilliard (eds.), The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs (Albuquerque, 2008), p.vii.

61 Joseph, Dark Days, p. 20.

62 Ongiri, Spectacular Blackness, p. 21.

59 Williams, ‘“Freedom”’,

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and expansion of black radical feminism.”63 Effectively challenging misogyny from within the movement, their involvement led to the BPP aligning itself with both the female and gay liberation movements.

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Similarly, Native American women played a central role within the Red Power movement, even carrying arms during protests, such as the fish-ins; Ramona Bennett stated at the time “we are armed and prepared to defend our rights with our lives. If anyone lays a hand on that net, they are going to get shot…we’re serious. There are no blanks in our guns.”64 It was also women elders who devised the infamous Wounded Knee occupation in 1973; while men held most of the public roles, it was women who made up the majority of activists at the event.65 Rather than the politics of despair, both Red and Black Power offered African and Native women a unique chance to be heard and actively participate in the protests. This in turn offered a positive opportunity to challenge both gendered stereotypes and male domination.

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The Red and Black Power movements also had a ripple effect that extended beyond the United States’ borders. Judson L. Jefferies stated, “few can deny that the Black power movement heightened the consciousness of other oppressed peoples throughout the world.”66 Both movements felt a deep connection to other colonised people and in 1975, AIM began to broaden its focus by supporting a more universal native peoples’ rights agenda.

Eventually, AIM created the International Indian Treaty Council,

Rhonda Y. Williams, ‘Black Women and Black Power’, OAH Magazine of History, 22/3 (2008), p. 23.

64 Langston, ‘Women’s Activism’, p. 122.

65 Ibid., p. 114.

66 Judson L. Jefferies (eds.), Black Power In the Belly of the Beast (Chicago, 2006), p. 308.

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which specialised in protecting the treaty rights of indigenous and aboriginal people around the world.67 The Black and Red Power movements were also a force for good within their own communities back home, empowering people politically and instilling in them a renewed pride in their heritage.

They also helped to reform an education system that was failing both African and Native children, in addition to spurring on women to challenge gender norms and fight male misogyny. Also important, is the use of armed-defence within the power movements; crucially, it was not the result of a violent and emotional outburst, but a technique that had been used throughout history in their resistance against white domination.

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Contemporaries at the time, and scholars since, have been guilty of allowing the power movements’ fiery militant rhetoric and focus on armed self-defence to obscure their important political, social and cultural aspects. Peniel E. Joseph notes that during this period, the majority of blacks “were still referred to as Negroes, were ashamed of their natural hair texture and loathed association with the African continent," yet Black Power helped “to reimagine the possibilities… for black identity.”68 Similarly for isolated urban Native Americans, the Red Power movement helped to create a pan-Indianism, which renewed their ethnic consciousness and sense of belonging. These feelings were echoed on the reservations too, with Vine Deloria Jr., stating that “with this movement has come a realisation that the tribe must stand before history and reclaim its political and cultural identity and independence.”69

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By understanding Red and Black Power not as the politics of despair, but as the politics of empowerment, self-determination,

Nagel, Ethnic Renewal, p. 175.

Joseph, Dark Days, p. 31.

69 Vine Deloria Jr., Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence (New York, 1974), p. 250.

67 68

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and cultural pride, one can liberate the African and Indian past from its despair; the long history of hope and determination on which Red and Black Power were founded can instead be celebrated. While there is no doubt that many African and Native Americans faced incredible hardships during this period, it was not their despair that founded the power movements. It was their faith and courage that they could, as a people, lift themselves up and obtain the power they needed to change their lives for the better.

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Bibliography Books Blue Cloud, Peter (eds.), Alcatraz is not an Island: By Indians of All Tribes (Berkeley, 1972).

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Carson, Clayborne, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (London, 1981).

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Cobb, Daniel M., and Loretta Fowler (eds.) Beyond Red Power: American Indian Politics and Activism Since 1900 (Santa Fe, 2007).

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Collins Lisa Gail, and Margo Crawford (eds.), New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement (Newark, 2006).

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Conyers Jr., James L., Engines of the Black Power Movement: Essays on the Influence of Civil Rights Actions, Arts, and Islam (London, 2007).

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Deloria Jr., Vine, Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence (New York, 1974).

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Guillory, Monique and Richard C. Green (eds.), Soul: Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure (New York, 1998).

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Hauptman, Laurence M., The Iroquois Struggle for Survival: World War II to Red Power (New York, 1986).

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Hilliard, David (eds.), The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs (Albuquerque, 2008).

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Jefferies, Judson L. (eds.), Black Power In the Belly of the Beast (Chicago, 2006).

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Johnson, Troy, Joane Nagel and Duane Champagne (eds.), American Indian Activism: Alcatraz to the Longest Walk (Urbana, 1997).

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Johnson, Troy R., The Occupation of Alcatraz Island: Indian SelfDetermination and the Rise of Indian Activism (Chicago, 1996).

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Johnson, Troy R., Red Power: The Native American Civil Rights Movement (New York, 2007).

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Josephy Jr., Alvin M., The American Indians Fight for Freedom (Winter Park, 1971).

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Joseph, Peniel E. (eds.), The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era (New York, 2006).

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Joseph, Peniel E., Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama (New York, 2010).

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Joseph, Peniel E. (eds.), Neighborhood Rebels: Black Power at the Local Level (New York, 2010).

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King Jr., Martin Luther, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (New York, 1967).

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Nagel, Joane, American Indian Ethnic Renewal: Red Power and the Resurgence of Identity and Culture (New York, 1996).

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Nerburn, Kent and Louise Mengelkoch (eds.), Native American Wisdom (Novato, 1991).

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Ogbar, Jeffrey O. G., Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (London, 2004).

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Ongiri, Amy A., Spectacular Blackness: The Cultural Politics of the Black Power Movement and the Search for a Black Aesthetic (Charlottesville, 2010).

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Ryan, Selwyn and Taimoon Stewart (eds.), The Black Power Revolution: 1970, A Retrospective (St. Augustine, 1995).

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Shoemaker, Nancy, American Indians (Oxford, 2001).

Shreve, Bradley G., Red Power Rising: The National Indian Youth Council and the Origins of Native Activism (Norman, 2011).

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Slate, Nico (eds.), Black Power Beyond Borders: The Global Dimensions of the Black Power Movement (New York, 2012).

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Smith, Sherry L., Hippies, Indians, and the Fight for Red Power (Oxford, 2012).

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Smith, Paul Chaat, and Robert Allen Warrior, Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee (New York, 1996).

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Ture, Kwame and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation (New York, 1992).

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Tyson, Timothy B., Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (London, 1999).

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Van DeBurg, William L., New Day In Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture (London, 1992).

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Wendt, Simon, The Spirit and the Shotgun: Armed Resistance and the Struggle for Civil Rights (Gainsville, 2006).

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Woodard, Komozi, A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics (London, 1999).

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Articles Altbach, Philip G., “Black Power” and the US Civil Rights Movement’, Economic and Political Weekly, 1/6 (1966), pp.

233-234.

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Amerman, Stephen Kent, "Let's Get in and Fight!": American Indian Political Activism in an Urban Public School System, 1973’, American Indian Quarterly, 27/3 (2003), pp. 607-638.

Banks, Dennis and Richard Erdoes, Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement (Norman, 2004).

Baringer, Sandra K., ‘Indian Activism and the American Indian Movement: A Bibliographical Essay’, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 21/4 (1997), pp. 217-250.

Berger, Dan, ‘Rescuing Civil Rights from Black Power’, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 3/1 (2009), pp. 1-27.

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Champagne, Duane, ‘Self-Determination and Activism Among American Indians in the United States, 1972-1997’, Cultural Survival Quarterly, 21/2 (1997), pp. 32-35.

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Duwors, Richard, ‘Documents from the Indian Fishing Rights Controversy in the Pacific Northwest’, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 99/2 (2008), pp. 55-65.

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Johnson, Troy, ‘The Occupation of Alcatraz Island: Roots of American Indian Activism’, Wicazo Sa Review, 10/2 (1994), pp. 63-79.

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Joseph, Peniel E., ‘The Black Power Movement: A State of the Field’, The Journal of American History, 96/3 (2009), pp.

751-776.

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Joseph, Peniel E., ‘Foreword: Reinterpreting the Black Power Movement’, OAH Magazine of History, 22/3 (2008), pp. 4-6.

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Kotlowski, Dean J., ‘Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and Beyond: The Nixon and Ford Administrations Respond to Native American Protest’, Pacific Historical Review, 72/2 (2003), pp. 201-227.

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Langston, Donna Hightower, ‘American Indian Women’s Activism in the 1960s and 1970s, Hypatia, 18/2 (2003), pp.

114-132.

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Matlin, Daniel, “Lift up Yr Self!” Reinterpreting Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Black Power, and the Uplift Tradition’, The Journal of American History, 93/1 (2006), pp. 91-116.

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Oakes, James, ‘The Political Significance of Slave Resistance’, History Workshop, 22/ Special American Issue (1986), pp.

89-107.

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Roos, Phillip D., Dowell H. Smith, Stephen Langley and James McDonald, ‘The Impact of the American Indian Movement on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation’, Phylon, 41/1 (1980), pp. 89-99.

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Shreve, Bradley G., “From Immemorial”: The Fish-In Movement and the Rise of Intertribal Activism’, Pacific Historical Review, 78/3 (2009), pp. 403-434.

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Tyson, Timothy B., 'Robert F. Williams: "Black Power," and the Roots of the African American Freedom Struggle', Journal of American History, 85/2 (1998), pp. 540-70.

Van Horne, Winston A., ‘The Concept of Black Power: Its Continued Relevance’, Journal of Black Studies, 37/3 (2007), pp. 365-389.

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Williams, Rhonda Y., ‘Black Women and Black Power’, OAH Magazine of History, 22/3 (2008), pp. 22-26.

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Williams, Yohuru, “Some Abstract Thing Called Freedom”: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Legacy of the Black Panther Party’, OAH Magazine of History, 22/3 (2008), pp.

16-21.

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Websites ‘Black Power’, The King Center http://www.thekingcenter.org [Accessed 19 March 2014].

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‘Documents from the Black Arts Movement’, University of Illinois: Modern American Poetry http://www.english.illinois.edu/ maps/blackarts/documents.htm [Accessed 23 March 2014].

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‘Malcolm X’s Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity – 1964’ Black Past: An Online Reference Guide to African American Past http:// www.blackpast.org [Accessed 20 March 2014]

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‘Newspapers, the Trail of Broken Treaties and the Politics of Media’, Framing Red Power http://www.framingredpower.org [Accessed 19 March 2014].

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‘Rights of Native Americans’, National Archives: Records of Rights http://recordsofrights.org [Accessed 19 March 2014].

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How important are clans to the conflict in Somalia? — Ismay Milford

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The ongoing conflict in Somalia has sometimes been viewed as an exception to the pattern of wars across Africa, largely on the basis of Somalia's ethnic homogeneity.1 And yet, media representations of a 'clan conflict' have precisely the same problems as those of 'ethnic war': they are reductive, anachronistic and conflate the form that the conflict takes with its cause. Nevertheless, academics too, notably Ioan Lewis, have traditionally posited Somalia's clan structure as inherently divisive.2 Clans certainly are important, necessary even, to understanding the conflict in Somalia, but only because certain actors have made them so. To argue this case I will consider three ways in which the meaning of 'clan' has evolved and reasons why the importance of clans cannot be taken at face value: firstly, the role of the state; secondly, the nature of rebels; and finally the role of external actors. If clans are to help solve Somalia's problems, we need to situate them in their historical context and take radically new approaches to understanding them, a fact that some recent scholarship is finally embracing.3

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Placing clan politics at the centre of Somalia's conflict allows the conduct of those in power to go unnoticed while ordinary people are blamed for their predicament. Scholars who resign to the idea that the state is inherently unworkable in Somalia are effectively discounting its agency in the conflict by suggesting that it was doomed from the outset.4 Post-colonial Somali governments may have faced many hurdles, but there was potential for the formation Mary Harper, Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith War and Hope in a Shattered State (London, 2012), pp. 14, 34.

2 Ioan Lewis, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society (London, 2008).

3 Notably Lidwien Kapteijns, to whom I will return.

4 Harper, Getting Somalia Wrong?, p. 4.

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of a stable and democratic state.5 The nationalist programme pursued in the years following independence witnessed significant successes, such as the 1974 literacy campaign, and Shermarke's cabinet was representative and democratic.6 However, as was the case in many newly independent African nations, power rapidly came to be seen as an easy means to personal enrichment through the control of resources – 1002 candidates from 62 parties stood for election in 1969.7 Seizing power following the 1969 coup d'Êtat, Siad Barre embraced the role as just this; rewarding supporters through patrimonial networks and nepotism that undermined any attempt at building national unity, while violently suppressing opposition by means of collective punishment because the stakes of the presidency were so high.8 Barre's natural supporters were, like him, of the Darod clan, while opposition generally came from other clans who felt under-represented; it is no surprise that this created hostility between clans, giving the impression of unfair clan-based advantages. On a local level neo-patrimonialism led to a shortage of resources throughout Somalia. It is generally agreed that the famine of 1991, the most lethal in Somali history, was neither

Catherine Besteman and Lee V. Cassanelli, 'Introduction: Politics and Production in Southern Somalia', in Catherine Besteman and Lee V. Cassanelli, The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The war behind the war (London, 2003/1996), p. 7.

6 Lidwien Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991 (Philadelphia, 2013), p. 3; Lewis, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland, p. 33; Lee N. Cassanelli, 'Explaining the Somali Crisis', in Besteman and Cassanelli, The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The war behind the war, p. 17.

7 Jennifer Morrison Taw, 'The Perils of Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Internal Conflicts: Somalia in the 1990s', Small Wars & Insurgencies, 15:2 (2004), p. 6.

8 Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia, p. 2; William Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa (Cambridge, 2011), p. 188.

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environmental nor unpreventable.9 This lack of a welfare 'safety net' meant, as Simons has mapped, that citizens had to rely on fixed identities, such as clans, for protection, so we see how the failure to distribute resources encouraged clanism.10 Barre's patrimonial politics directly exacerbated local grievances, one pertinent example being the 1975 law which saw the resettlement of central and north-eastern nomads onto the fertile land around the Jubba valley.

Supporters of Barre who had lost herds through drought were handed land-rights at the expense of the minority population already farming the land. These pastoralists were already marginalised by their Af-maay dialect (which was not understood by other Somalis), their lack of involvement in government and the fact that many were former slave descendants.11 Therefore clearly ethnic homogeneity is too simplistic a narrative. The new arrivals in the area undermined the authority of local elites:12 a 1988 study revealed that all landowners in the area were government officials, three-quarters of whom originated from elsewhere. Three-quarters of households reported fearing losing their land and livelihood to those with political connections.13 Cassanelli quite rightly argues that Somalia's conflict was essentially a struggle for land and resources,14 but it must be understood that the failure of distribution was a side-effect of the fact that the unpopular state could only prop itself up by rewarding clan-based loyalties.

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Cassanelli, 'Explaining the Somali Crisis', p. 15; Abdi Ismail Samatar, 'Destruction of State and Society in Somalia: Beyond the Tribal Convention', The Journal of Modern African Studies, 30: 4 (1992), p. 625.

10 Anna Simons, 'Democratisation and ethnic conflict: the kin connection', Nations and Nationalism, 3: 2 (1997), pp. 273-289.

11 Cassanelli, 'Explaining the Somali Crisis', p. 16; Lewis, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland, p. 4.

12 Cassanelli, 'Explaining the Somali Crisis', pp. 15, 21.

13 Study cited in Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa, p. 189.

14 Cassanelli, 'Explaining the Somali Crisis', pp. 23-24.

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However, it would be misleading to identify the state as the sole culprit in the conflict, considering the violence carried out against government officials. Rebel leaders were central actors in the 'clanicisation' of the conflict (although it must be remembered that, where democratic opposition and free speech were impossible, rebels had few options). Reno identifies Somalia as a key example of warlordism.15 Both the United Somali Congress (USC) and the Somali National Movement (SNM), as well as other opposition parties, were competitors for power who arguably wanted to reap the same benefits of government as did Barre: “all clans want what his clan had” one Somali businessman told.16 Their methods for inspiring support also fit the warlord model. As opposed to rallying support for a particular cause or proving their ability to rule, the USC played on popular grievances and existing structures. The Darod clan, not Barre's regime, was blamed for Somali suffering, supported by the idea of “one hundred years of Darod rule," a reference to the hierarchy of clans used by colonial powers.17 The grudges that many nomads felt towards the wealthy urban elite were mobilised and rebel leaders promised this wealth as reward for fighting.18 Kapteijns has recently explored the agency of discourse in the conflict, convincingly demonstrating how clan hate-narratives and conflict affect each other.19 Simply by talking in terms of clan, real and imagined grievances became clan issues, leading to clanbased violence, which in turned strengthened clan hostilities due to impunity. Hate-narratives were a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts – not naturally evolving but designed to justify violence.20 Ordinary people did kill in the name of their clan therefore clans must be Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa, p. 188.

Cited in Morrison Taw, 'The Perils of Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Internal Conflicts', p. 8.

17 Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia, pp. 199, 210.

18 Ibid., p. 199.

19 Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia; and Lidwien Kapteijns, 'I. M. Lewis and Somali Clanship: A Critique', Northeast African Studies, 11: 1, 2004-2010 (2011).

20 Kapteijns, 'I. M. Lewis and Somali Clanship', p. 233.

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taken seriously. But the mere existence of clans in no way engendered conflict; it is not unreasonable to suggest that in the absence of a clan network rebels could have mobilised any structure – dialect, religion, community. As Kaldor has noted, once a political project is based on identity, as opposed to an ideological cause, it demands the elimination of certain groups and becomes deadly.21 Somalis attest to the manipulation of clans, with some poetry talking about how their meaning has been “poisoned."22

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However, the model of warlord rebels is lacking with respect to developments during the 1990s. Following the declaration by the SNM of the independence, which was never officially recognised, of Somaliland in 1991, this region has witnessed relative stability,23 challenging the idea that state-building in Somalia is impossible. It boasts a constitutional government, and basic education, health, and legal services, and has held several democratic elections: it is a classic “state-in-waiting” conceived by the same rebel group who seemed to use warlord tactics.24 The other major problem with the warlord model is the role of Islam in Somalia. Islamist rebel groups have, since the 1990s, attracted followers on the basis of ideological Islam – rather than through promises of war spoils and manipulation of grievances and grudges – and with considerable success. Some even consider Islam as a potentially uniting force.25 With this in mind, Reno's models are not as distinct as he suggests.

Reno is right to emphasise the determining role of the state in the character of rebels but instead of understanding warlordism as a 'type' of rebel, we need to see it as the employment of particular tactics, recognising the enterprise of rebels in certain circumstances Mary Kaldor, cited in Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia, p.

200.

22 Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia, p. 69.

23 Mark Bradbury, Becoming Somaliland (London, 2008), p. 1.

24 Ibid., p. 4.

25 Harper, Getting Somalia Wrong?, pp. 11, 39; Abdalla Omar Mansur, 'The Nature of the Somali Clan System', in Ahmed, Ali Jimale (ed.), The Invention of Somalia (Lawrenceville, 1995), p. 118.

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and asking why the same rebels resort to warlordism (and the construction of clan hate-narratives) in others.

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Labelling Somalia as a 'clan conflict' also implies that it was contained within national boundaries, absolving responsibility from the outside world. In fact, international actors contributed both to laying the foundations for 'clanicisation' and to enabling conflict through aid. Samatar identifies the imposition of colonial rule on Somalia as a key turning point in the evolution of the meaning of clans.26 Both Italy and Britain utilised existing clan networks to implement their rule, rewarding loyal clans and punishing others collectively,27 just as colonial powers did with ethnicity elsewhere.

The Europeans obtusely felt they were using traditional structures that the Somali people understood. In reality, the blood-ties that they took to be clans were only one part of the whole meaning of clan, the other half being the Xeer, a set of rules and norms that ensured leaders had popular support.28 Traditionally, the subsistence economy meant that few were not engaged in production and there was no surplus to be competed over. But, with the commercialisation of the economy under colonial rule, the way clans worked was irreversibly altered.29 It is this dynamism that Lewis ignores, commenting that Somalia in the 1990s was the same as when European explorers arrived in the nineteenth century, only with spears replaced by bazookas.30 Certain elites took advantage of the system and it is no surprise that post-colonial rulers adopted similar methods of maintaining control. In addition, independence

Samatar, 'Destruction of State and Society in Somalia’, p. 631.

Kapteijns, Clan Cleansing in Somalia, p. 194; Kapteijns, 'I. M. Lewis and Somali Clanship', p. 1.

28 Samatar, 'Destruction of State and Society in Somalia’, pp. 630, 639.

29 Ibid., p. 639.

30 Lewis, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland, p. 77.

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created an 'end-of-hierarchy' moment where control over resources inevitably became a prize to be fought over.31

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Foreign influence did not end with independence. Within Africa, Ethiopia and Kenya provided bases and resources for rebels throughout the 1980s. Meanwhile, Barre was initially supported by Eastern bloc countries, but the Soviet Union's disavowal of the regime in 1977 saw the West harness its Cold War potential and the influx of foreign money soar: foreign aid (primarily from the United States and Italy) accounted for a staggering 57% of annual gross national product during the 1980s.32 It was a vital part of the economy, partly enabling, although not causing, Barre's patrimonial style of rule.33 Barre was fully capable of abusing the dire situation.

For example, he claimed that one million people in the Ogaden region were threatened by starvation when the true figure was less than half this number and the money he received was undoubtedly directed elsewhere.34 With the end of the Cold War Somalia was no longer of interest to the United States and little attempt was made to discover the roots of the problem.35 Even during the conflict's peak in the 1990s, when food aid and relief workers were sent into conflict zones to ‘alleviate symptoms’, this was not without consequence. Morrison has convincingly argued that humanitarian aid has been inherently interventionist and partial in all of Africa's conflicts, Somalia providing a case study.36 Simply by distributing Morrison Taw, 'The Perils of Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Internal Conflicts', p. 6.

32 Morrison Taw, 'The Perils of Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Internal Conflicts', p. 7; Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa, p. 188; Seth Kaplan, 'Rethinking State-building in a Failed State', The Washington Quarterly, 33:1 (2010), p. 83.

33 Morrison Taw, 'The Perils of Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Internal Conflicts', p. 11.

34 Ibid., p. 7.

35 Ibid., p. 11.

36 Morrison Taw, 'The Perils of Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Internal Conflicts', pp. 5, 15.

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supplies in one area aid workers implicitly supported certain clans.

As aid became a target for theft, guards were employed, but these were often working for warlords, enriched by foreign money.

Viewing the situation as simply one of security, the United States sent troops to Somalia, sealing the interventionist involvement of the West, and with the strengthening of Islam an unstable Somalia came to be seen as an Al-Qaeda breeding ground, especially post-9/11, attracting yet more US attention.37 Even the simple act of hiring interpreters means favouring certain clans.38 Aid did not cause conflict, but it was unavoidably impartial and exacerbated perceived grievances between clans, fuelling clan hate-narratives.

This somewhat disheartening observation, and the relative stability of Somaliland (recipient of almost no foreign aid or intervention), has led Harper to conclude that Somalis would be better left to “do things themselves,"39 and others to insist on a bottom-up approach that uses the 'traditional' Somali system.40 But these so-called traditional structures have been manipulated to the point of being unrecognisable, taking on, as has been emphasised throughout, new, lethal meanings. Humanitarian aid did and does save lives so cannot be easily dismissed, but its distribution under the illusion of neutrality was complicit in the development and continuation of conflict.

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Far from dismissing clans when thinking about conflict in Somalia, we need to pursue new ways of thinking about them in order to extricate the conflict from simplistic, Eurocentric narratives.

Kapteijns' exploration of clan discourse, as not only a tool used by state and rebel leaders but a decisive actor in the conflict, offers one direction for research. For some commentators Somalia's ethnic homogeneity means it cannot be thought of in the same terms as

Ibid., pp. 9-11.

Cassanelli, 'Explaining the Somali Crisis', p. 7.

39 Harper, Getting Somalia Wrong?, p. 201.

40 Kaplan, 'Rethinking State-building in a Failed State', p. 82.

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other African wars.41 And yet many factors in this conflict – a neopatrimonial state, excluded rebels with limited options, vulnerable populations, a detrimental colonial legacy, the unintended consequences of foreign aid – reoccur again and again when studying Africa. Instead of suggesting that Somalia is an exception, perhaps Somalia is cause for reassessment of how we think about ethnicity in Africa altogether.

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Bibliography

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Bradbury, Mark, Becoming Somaliland (London, 2008).

Besteman, Catherine and Lee V. Cassanelli, 'Introduction: Politics and Production in Southern Somalia', in Besteman, Catherine and Lee V. Cassanelli, The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The war behind the war (London, 2003/1996), pp.

3-12.

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Cassanelli, Lee N., 'Explaining the Somali Crisis', in Besteman, Catherine and Lee V. Cassanelli, The Struggle for Land in Southern Somalia: The war behind the war (London, 2003/1996), pp. 13-25.

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Harper, Mary, Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith War and Hope in a Shattered State (London, 2012).

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Kaplan, Seth, 'Rethinking State-building in a Failed State', The Washington Quarterly, 33:1 (2010), pp. 81-97.

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Kapteijns, Lidwien, 'I. M. Lewis and Somali Clanship: A Critique', Northeast African Studies, 11: 1, 2004-2010 (2011), pp. 1-23.

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Kapteijns, Lidwien, Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Legacy of 1991 (Philadelphia, 2013).

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Lewis, Ioan, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society (London, 2008).

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Mansur, Abdalla Omar, 'The Nature of the Somali Clan System', in Ahmed, Ali Jimale (ed.), The Invention of Somalia (Lawrenceville, 1995), pp. 117-134.

Morrison Taw, Jennifer, 'The Perils of Humanitarian Assistance in Armed Internal Conflicts: Somalia in the 1990s', Small Wars & Insurgencies, 15:2 (2004), pp. 5-19.

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Reno, William, Warfare in Independent Africa (Cambridge, 2011).

Samatar, Abdi Ismail, 'Destruction of State and Society in Somalia: Beyond the Tribal Convention', The Journal of Modern African Studies, 30: 4 (1992), pp 625-641.

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Simons, Anna, 'Democratisation and ethnic conflict: the kin connection', Nations and Nationalism, 3: 2 (1997), pp.

273-289.

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Part Two: Society Affairs

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About the History Society Executive Committee — 2013-2014

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Matt Williams, President Matt is in the final year of a phenomenal undergraduate History degree at Durham and will pursue an MSc in Marketing next year.

Since joining the DUHS he has been Social Secretary 2012/13, has had a fantastic experience as President 2013/14 and will continue his involvement in the society as Publicity and Sponsorship secretary next year. Matt has found his roles very rewarding and has greatly enjoyed working with this year’s amazing executive team to further expand the society. His fondest memories are being the baron of Lumley Castle for the evening and the many fascinating conversations with the speakers invited by the society.

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Greg Mazgajczyk,Vice-President Greg is in his final year of a degree in History and next year plans to study the Graduate Diploma in Law. He joined the exec in 2012 as Publicity and Sponsorship Secretary and held the position of Vice-President in 2013-14, and has had a fantastic two years.

Greg’s favourite moments include the traditional Vice-President’s trip (literally, when he slipped down a hill) to Hadrian’s Wall, sitting on the throne at the Lumley Castle Ball, and the many enjoyable and informative talks the Society has run.

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Ivan Yuen, Treasurer Having thoroughly enjoyed his two years on the DUHS exec, first as Journal Editor and subsequently as Treasurer, Ivan will be sad to leave this illustrious society and the historic city in which it thrives.

This year he particularly enjoyed going on the Hadrian's Wall Trip, and entertaining external speakers. He has met some wonderful people through being part of the society, and is grateful to the fantastic DUHS activities for reminding him of why, despite all the !163

late nights, deadlines and constant reading, he still loves history very dearly. He is hoping to join our sponsor and enter the world of law hereafter.

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James Callingham, Secretary James has thoroughly appreciated holding the position of Secretary this year. His principal responsibility has been the organisation of the Society’s academic talks throughout the year, which have proven well-attended and great fun. It has been an excellent opportunity to meet historians from around the country to discuss current affairs and history society gossip at the pre-talk dinners.

James also attended the Society’s excellent socials this year, and particularly enjoyed the perks of sitting on the Executive Committee table at the Lumley Castle Ball. James would like to thank everyone who attended the talks, and hopes that they found them equally useful and beneficial.

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Holly Rowe, Publicity and Sponsorship Secretary Holly is in her final year of a Joint Honours Modern Languages (French) and History degree. She has held the position of DUHS Publicity and Sponsorship secretary for the past year. In this role, she has been responsible for securing sponsorship, communicating with our sponsor, Clifford Chance, and publicising our academic and social events. One of her principal tasks was the organisation of an Open Day at the Clifford Chance London offices, and she has also been involved in the Journal Editorial Team. Holly is graduating from Durham in July, before starting work in affiliate marketing for an online retail company.

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Natalie Walsh and Hannah White, Social Secretaries Natalie and Hannah have particularly enjoyed sharing the role of DUHS Social Secretary. For Hannah, who enters her final year of a History and Politics degree, particular highlights of the year have been the Freshers’ Barbecue, which provided the newcomers a !164

chance to familiarise themselves with the Society and get to know one another; and the post-summative socials, which offered a great opportunity to relax after weeks spent in the library. Natalie, a second year historian, has appreciated the role as part of the Executive Committee, and the opportunity to meet other historians from different colleges through the social events. Without doubt, the most memorable event of the year was the Lumley Castle Ball and the feasting and dancing in the dungeon that the event entailed. After such a great experience this year, Hannah looks forward to taking on the role of Vice President next year, and Natalie wishes the best of luck to the incoming social secretaries.

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Siena Morrell, Journal Editor Siena has embraced her nosy tendencies as Editor of the History Society Journal, reading and editing over thirty excellent essays for no purpose other than her - admittedly nerdy - love of the job.

Siena has been privileged to collaborate with such an efficient and professional Editorial Team, and she has particularly enjoyed getting to know and working with the DUHS Executive Committee this year. She is heading off to Paris next year to perfect her language skills, but really intends to spend much of her time exploring patisseries. Siena’s plans for the future include undertaking a dissertation in European diplomatic history, and actively campaigning to sustain print culture.

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About the Contributors

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Jack Hepworth Jack is a second-year student from Preston, Lancashire, reading History at St John’s College, Durham. With diverse interests spanning kingship in late medieval Europe, the social and religious history of early modern Lancashire, and Anglo-Irish relations in the twentieth century, it is Jack’s vague intention to continue his studies in Durham until his first novel, a satirical work redrafted several times and subsequently consigned to its box-file just as often, is published. With characteristic pragmatism, he is preparing himself for a long wait.

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Stephanie Ballard Stephanie is a MA student from St. Cuthbert’s Society. She earned her BA in History from George Mason University where she wrote her dissertation on the politics and ideology behind the Romanov family’s captivity and execution. Despite this detour into modern history, she is primarily interested in early modern English society.

Her MA dissertation will analyse seventeenth-century apprentices’ burial locations in order to reveal contemporary aspects of youth culture, concepts of family and kinship networks.

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Matt Hoser Hailing from Sydney, Australia, Matt is a second year historian from Castle. Interested in the history of ideas, the concept of barbarism, and memory studies, he is keen to pursue postgraduate studies in history, but remains undecided as to what his speciality will become.

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William Vick Will is a member of St. Cuthbert’s Society who hopes to graduate in summer 2014 with a BA in History. His particular historical interests include nationalism and identity studies in medieval and !166

modern Europe, and he wrote his dissertation about contemporary Liverpudlian identity and its relationship with the difficult memory of Liverpool’s role in transatlantic slavery. He aims to undertake a postgraduate course in these subjects in the future, following a year of saving up and travelling in Central America.

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Joshua Kaye Josh is a third-year student, graduating from St. Aidan's College with a Joint Honours Degree in History and Classics. His dissertation covered both disciplines, answering scholars' 'incessant pleas' for a study into the impact of ancient political theory on the ideology and politics of the Tudor monarchy. If Josh could be any figure from history he would be Alexander the Great – only without the painful, alcohol-induced death.

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Victoria Cacchione Victoria is an exchange student from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and is a member of Hatfield College. She does a dual degree in archaeology and history, with a particular interest in colonial and early American history. If she were a figure from history, Victoria would be Abigail Adams, as she embodied strength, intelligence, and fortitude during one of the most trying times in American history.

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Hannah Fitzpatrick Hannah is a second-year student at Trevelyan College with a keen interest in Early Modern Britain, especially the social and cultural dynamics of monarchy after 1688. Accordingly, she is planning on basing her dissertation on the memoirs of John Hervey and Horace Walpole, both of whom were key figures at the Court of George II.

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Naomi Warin Naomi is a first year History student at Castle. She also takes a French module and hopes to study in Paris in her third year. Naomi is especially interested in modern world history and the history of international relations. If she were a figure from history, Naomi would like to have been Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester.

As leader of a rebellion against Henry III, he called one of the first English parliaments to consist of a franchise extended to the common man. Consequently, he might be viewed as one of the forefathers of English parliamentary democracy.

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Jessica Macdonald Jessica graduated from Queen Mary, University of London in 2012 with First-class honours in History. She is currently reading for a MA in Modern History at Ustinov College. Her dissertation “Homelessness in New York City: 1870-1920� aims to historicise a social issue that is just as relevant and prevalent today; focussing on how the homeless navigated the strict spaces imposed on them by federal and municipal government, in both life and death. Her research will examine not just the isolated institutions homeless persons were forced into, but also the city’s Potters Fields where many were anonymously laid to rest.

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Ismay Milford Ismay is a fourth year Combined Arts student, graduating this summer from St Cuthbert's Society. Her dissertation considered the integration of pied-noir French Algerians in the metropolitan following Algerian independence, a topic inspired by a year spent in France. Next year she hopes to study for an MA in History at Bristol University.

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About the Editors

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Ellie de la Bedoyere Ellie recently wrote her dissertation on the hidden relationship between the Russian and British secret police before the First World War. Having uncovered the prolific communication between the two police forces, she learned that the power of a little editing and a few omissions here and there could change a country’s history.

Indeed in this case it preserved Britain’s reputation as a place of liberalism and democracy for another century. During her time at Palatinate, Ellie learned that a little editing can push an article from safe to outrageous; a change of a few words can inspire fury and outrage. Just as it can change a country’s history or aggravate public opinion, a little editing can transform a jumble of thoughts into a first class essay. Therefore as she leaves the safety of the Durham bubble this year, her parting words of wisdom are merely to give your essay another read.

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Alayna Kenney Alayna is a first-year historian in Hild Bede. Her love of history derives in part from the fact that she lives next to the pond from which Henry VIII’s horse used to drink when he rode to see Anne Boleyn at Hever. Alongside juggling six modules of History, Alayna has played university lacrosse and college netball; and she is already very much looking forward to her second year at Durham.

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Claire Oxlade Claire is a fresher studying History. She is from Durham’s friendliest college, St. Mary’s, where she works as the manager of the Toastie Bar, is a cheerleader, and future Frep. Having dabbled in writing articles for The Bubble, Claire is very excited to be a part of the editing team for the DUHS Journal. As an enthusiastic member of Durham’s Baking Society, she is keen to become a food historian, which probably explains why she enjoyed the Lumley Castle Ball so much. !169

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Geraint Thomas Geraint is a finalist studying English Literature and History at St Chad’s college. His principal area of historical interest is Native American studies, specifically contemporary issues which affect Native communities such as cultural misappropriation, activism and inadequacies in the Indian Health Service. This last theme formed the basis of his dissertation; an examination of Native American reproductive health abuse in the late twentieth century, including the coerced sterilization campaign of the 1970s, its legacy upon Native trust, or rather mistrust, of the IHS and recent issues concerning contraceptive abuse. Studying History at Durham has been an amazingly formative experience for Geraint, both academically and socially, and studying at such a prestigious department with many renowned academics has truly been an honour. Next year he intends to continue my research into Native American literature, culture and history as he has secured a place on Durham English Department’s ‘Twentieth-Century Literature’ MA course.

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Sophie Tulley Sophie is about to complete her second year studying History. She has a keen interest in twentieth century American history, specifically with regards to evangelical Christianity and the American Right. This year, she has developed a new interest in cultural history through the study of film and art, which she hopes to pursue in her final year at Durham. She has thoroughly enjoyed reading the fascinating submissions for this year’s DUHS Journal.

She looks forward to her position as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal next year, alongside her good friend Jessica Ng.

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