Wages of Indian and European Employees on the Kolar  Goldfields, India, 1900-40*
 

            *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 137.
 

The Vengeance of Brigadier-General Neill, 1857*
         After trial and condemnation, all prisoners found guilty of having taken part in the murder of the European women and children, were to be taken into the slaughter-house by Major Bruce’s méhter police, and there made to crouch down, and with their mouths lick clean a square foot of the blood-soaked floor before being taken to the gallows and hanged.  This order was carried out in my presence as regards the three wretches who were hanged that morning.  The dried blood on the floor was first moistened with water, and the lash of the warder was applied till the wretches kneeled down and cleaned their square foot of flooring.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 59.
 

Five Rules to Regulate Foreigners, China 1759*
        Eager to minimize the impact of foreign ideas and concepts on Chinese culture and society, Imperial authorities created the nucleus of what became known as the Treaty Port system in the 14th-15th centuries.  Although applied equally to all non-Chinese merchants hoping to do business in China, beginning in the 16th century European merchants found the restrictions of the Treaty Port system especially galling and continually tried to infiltrate additional ports.   In response the Chinese government issued the following set of regulations.

         Since foreigners are outside the sphere of civilization, there is no need for them to have any contact with our people other than business transactions, whenever they come to China for trade purposes . . . .The following rules, in the judgement of your humble servant, are both simple and practical enough to be adopted.  They are presented here for Your Majesty’s consideration.
         1.  Foreigners should never be allowed to stay at Canton during the winter.
         Canton being the capital of a province, is too important a place to allow foreigners to stay there on a permanent basis, since permanent residence will enable them to spy on our activities.  From now on, when a foreign trader arrives at Canton, the Co-hong merchants should sell all of his goods as quickly as possible, pay him immediately . . . so that he can return home . . . .
         2.  While in Canton, foreigners should be ordered to reside in Co-hong headquarters so that their conduct can be carefully observed and strictly regulated.....These foreigners often become drunk and commit breaches of the peace; sometimes they also visit houses of prostitution.  Their behavior in this regard is of course extremely improper.
         . . . . Among the foreigners the British are the most violent and are prone to recreate incidents.

         *Source: Bonnie Smith, Imperialism: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 25
 

The Chinese Perspective on International Trade, 1793*
         AN IMPERIAL EDICT TO THE KING OF ENGLAND: You, O King, are so inclined toward our civilization that you have sent a special envoy across the seas to bring to our Court memorial of congratulations on the occasion of my birthday and to present your native products as an expression of your thoughtfulness.  On perusing your memorial, so simply worded and sincerely conceived, I am impressed by your genuine respectfulness and friendliness and greatly pleased.
         As to the request made in your memorial, O King, to send one of your nationals to stay at the Celestial Court to take care of your country’s trade with China, this is not in harmony with the state system of our dynasty and will definitely not be permitted.  Traditionally people of the European nations who wished to render some service under the Celestial Court have been permitted to come to the capital.  But after their arrival they are obliged to wear Chinese court costumes, are placed in a certain residence, and are never allowed to return to their own countries.  This is the established rule of the Celestial Dynasty with which presumably you, O King are familiar.  Now you, O King, wish to send one of your nationals to live in the capital, but he is not like the Europeans, who come to Peking as Chinese employees, live there and never return home again, nor can he be allowed to go and come and maintain any correspondence.  This is indeed a useless undertaking.
         Moreover the territory under the control of the Celestial court is very large and wide.
         The Celestial Court has pacified and possessed the territory within the four seas.  Its sole aim is to do its utmost to achieve good government and to manage political affairs, attaching no value to strange jewels and precious objects.  The various articles presented by you, O King, this time are accepted by my special order to the office in charge of such functions in consideration of the offerings have come from a long distance with sincere good wishes.  As a matter of fact, the virtue and prestige of the Celestial Dynasty having spread far and wide, the kings of the myriad nations come by land and sea with all sorts of precious things.  Consequently there is nothing we lack, as your principal envoy and others have themselves observed.  We have never set much store on strange or ingenious objects, nor do we need any more of your country’s
manufactures. . . .

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 32.
 

Chinese Views of the Opium Trade*
         British efforts to find a way out of the trade restrictions imposed by the Treaty Port system eventually led to the expansion of the opium trade with disastrous results for China.  Chinese bureaucrats were well aware of the dangers of the opium trade, both in terms of increased social and economic problems.

         At the beginning, opium smoking was confined to the fops of wealthy families who took up the habit as a form of conspicuous consumption; even they knew that they should not indulge in it to the greatest extreme.  Later, people of all social strata - from government officials and members of the gentry to craftsmen, merchants, entertainers, and servants, and even women, Buddhist monks and nuns, and Taoist priests - took up the habit and openly bought and equipped themselves with smoking instruments.  Even in the center of our dynasty - the nation’s capital and its surrounding areas - some of the inhabitants have also been contaminated by this dreadful poison.
         The inflow of opium from foreign countries has steadily increased in recent years . . . . Conspiring with sea patrol and coast guards [whom they bribe], unscrupulous merchants at Canton use such small boats as “sneaking dragons” and “fast crabs” to ship silver out and bring opium in.  From the third to the eleventh year of Taokuang [1823-31] the annual outflow of silver amounted to more than 17 million taels.  From the eleventh to the fourteenth year [1831-34] it reached more than 20 million taels, and since the fourteenth year [1834] it has been more than 30 million taels.  Large as they are, these figures do not cover the import of opium in other ports such as those in Fukien, Chekiang, Shantung, and Tiensin, which amounts to tens of thousands if taels per year.
         Thus we are using the financial resources of China to fill up the bottomless hole in foreign countries.

         *Source: Bonnie Smith, Imperialism: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 35-36
 

The Treaty of Nanking, 1842*
         At the end of the first Opium War Britain forced the Chinese to accede to the Treaty of Nanking which not only imposed heavy fines to recompense the British for their presumed financial losses during the conflict, but also completely destroyed the restrictions of the Treaty Port system and opened China up to increased foreign exploitation.

ARTICLE II
         His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees, that British Subjects, with their families and establishments, shall be allowed to reside, for the purpose of carrying on their Mercantile pursuits, without molestation or restraint at the Cities and Towns of Canton, Amoy, Foo-chow-fu, Ningpo, and Shanghai . . . .

ARTICLE III
         It being obviously necessary and desirable, that British Subjects should have some Port whereat they may careen [keel to one side] and refit their ships, when required, and keep Stores for that purpose, his Majesty the Emperor of China cedes to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., the Island of Hong Kong, to be possessed in perpetuity by Her Britannic Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors, and to be governed by such Laws and Regulations as Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain, etc., shall see fit to direct.

ARTICLE IV
         The Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Six Millions of Dollars as the value of Opium which was delivered up at Canton in the month of March 1839. . . .

ARTICLE V
         The Government of China having compelled the British Merchants trading at Canton to deal exclusively with certain Chinese Merchants called Hong Merchants (or Cohong) who had been licensed by the Chinese Government for that purpose, the Emperor of China agrees to abolish that practice in future at all Ports where British Merchants may reside, and to permit them to carry on their mercantile transactions with whatever persons they please. . . .

ARTICLE VI
         The Government of Her Britannic Majesty having been obliged to send out an Expedition to demand and obtain redress for the violent and unjust Proceedings of the Chinese High Authorities towards Her Britannic Majesty’s Officer and Subjects, the Emperor of China agrees to pay the sum of Twelve Millions of Dollars on account of the Expenses incurred . . . .

ARTICLE X
         His Majesty the Emperor of China agrees to establish at all the Ports which are by the 2nd Article of this Treaty to be thrown open for the resort of British Merchants, a fair and regular Tariff of Export and Import Customs and other Dues, which Tariff shall be publicly notified and promulgated [proclaimed] for general information . . . .

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 32-33.
 

Li-Hung-Chang on the “Method of Self-Strengthening,” 1872*

         The Westerners particularly  rely upon the excellence and efficacy of their guns, cannon, and steamships, and so they can overrun China.  The bow and spear, small guns, and native-made cannon which have hitherto been used by China cannot resist their rifles, which have their bullets fed from the rear opening.  The sailing boats, rowboats, and the gunboats which have been hitherto employed cannot oppose their steam-engin warships.  Therefore, we are controlled by the Westerners.
         To live today and still say ‘reject the barbarians’ and ‘drive them out of our territory’ is certainly superficial and absurd talk.  Even though we wish to preserve the peace and to protect our territory, we cannot preserve and protect them unless we have the right weapons. . . .
         The method of self-strengthening lies in learning what they can do, and in taking over what they rely upon.  Moreover, their possession of guns, cannon, and steamships began only within the last hundred years or so, and their progress has been so fast that their influence has spread into China.  If we can really and thoroughly understand their methods - and the more we learn, the more improve - and promote them further and further, can we not expect that after a century or so we can reject the barbarians and stand on our own feet?

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 110.
 

The ‘Culture System’ in the Priangan District, Java, 1835*
         The forced cultivation of indigo was introduced in the Priangan in 1830.  And in 1835 I was charged with the inspection of the factories in this residency in order to determine whether the sorry state of affairs pictured by the Resident Holmberg de Beckfelt was not exaggerated..... The following extract from my report of 29 January 1835 is indicative of the situation of these poor peasants:

 Truly their situation is lamentable and really miserable.  What else can one expect?  On
 the roads as well as in the plantations one does not meet people but only walking
 skeletons , which drag themselves with great difficulty from one place to another, often
 dying in the process . . . .  Some of the labourers who work in the plantations are in such a
 state of exhaustion that they have eaten from the food which is given to them as an
 advance payment for the produce to be delivered later.

European Racism:  Count de Gobineau on the “Inequality of  Human Races (1853-55)”*
         I have been able to distinguish on physiological grounds alone, three great and clearly marked types, the black, the yellow, and the white. . . .
         The negroid variety is the lowest, and stands at the foot of the ladder.  The animal character, that appears in the shape of the pelvis, is stamped on the negro from birth, and foreshadows his destiny.  His intellect will always move within a very narrow circle.  He is not however a mere brute, for behind his low receding brow, in the middle of his skull, we can see signs of a powerful energy, however crude its objects.  If his mental faculties are dull or even non-existent, he often has an intensity of desire and so of will, which may be called terrible.  Many of his senses, especially taste and smell, are developed to an extent unknown to the other two races.
         The very strength of his sensations is the most striking proof of his inferiority.  All food is good in his eyes, nothing disgusts or repels him . . . . It is the same with odours; his inordinate desires are satisfied with all, however coarse or even horrible.  To these qualities may be added an instability and capriciousness of feeling that cannot be tied down to any single object, and which, so far as he is concerned, do away with all distinctions of good and evil.  We might even say that the violence with which he pursues the object that has aroused his senses and inflamed his desires is a guarantee of the desires being soon satisfied and the object forgotten . . . .
         The yellow race is the exact opposite fo this type.  The skull points forward, not backward.  The forehead is wide and bony, often high and projecting.  The shape of the face is triangular, the nose and chin showing none of the coarse protuberances that mark the negro.  there is further a general proneness to obesity, which, though not confined to the yellow type, is found there more frequently than in the others.  The yellow man has little physical energy, and is inclined to apathy, he commits non e fo the strange excess so common among negroes.  His desires are feeble, his will-power rather obstinate than violent; his longing for material pleasures, though constant, is kept within bounds.  A rare glutton by nature, he shows more discrimination in his choice of food.  He tends to mediocrity in everything; he understands easily enough anything not too deep or sublime.  He has a love of utility and a respect for order, and knows the value of a certain amount of freedom.  He is practical, in the narrowest sense of the word, He does not dream or theorize, he invents little. . . .
         We come now to the white peoples.  These are gifted with reflective energy, or rather with an energetic intelligence.  They have a feeling for utility, but in a sense far wider and higher, more courageous and ideal, than the yellow races; a perseverance that takes account of obstacles and ultimately finds a means of over-coming them; a greater physical power, an extraordinary instinct for order, not merely as a guarantee of peace and tranquility, but as an indispensable means of self-preservation.  At the same time, they have a remarkable, and even extreme, love of liberty, and are openly hostile to the formalism under which the Chinese are glad to vegetate, as well as to the strict despotism which is the only way of governing the negro.
 Such is the lesson of history.  It shows us that all civilizations derive from the white race, that none can exist without its help and that a society is great and brilliant only so far as it preserves the blood of the noble group that created it, provided that this group itself belongs to the most illustrious branch of our species.

         *Source: Bonnie Smith, Imperialism: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 96-97.

Evelyn Baring, the Earl of Cromer’s Justification for the British Conquest of Egypt*
        Egypt is not the only country which has been brought to the verge of ruin by a persistent neglect of economic laws and by a reckless administration of the finances of the State. . . .
         Sir Alfred Lyall [a British official and Orientalist] once said to me: “Accuracy is abhorrent to the Oriental mind.  Every Anglo-Indian official should always remember that maxim.”  Want of accuracy, which easily degenerates into untruthfulness, is, in fact, the main characteristic of the Oriental mind.
         The European is a close reasoner; his statements of fact are devoid of ambiguity; he is a natural logician, albeit he may not have studied logic; he loves symmetry in all things; he is by nature skeptical and requires proof before he can accept the truth of any proposition; his trained intelligence works like a piece of mechanism.  The mind of the Oriental, on the other hand, like his picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in symmetry.  His reasoning is of the most slipshod description.  although the ancient Arabs acquired in a somewhat high degree the science of dialectics [logic], their descendants are singularly deficient in the logical faculty.  They are often incapable of drawing the most obvious conclusions from any simple premises of which they may admit the truth.  Endeavor to elicit a plain statement of facts from an ordinary Egyptian.  His explanation will generally be lengthy, and wanting in lucidity.  He will probably contradict himself half-a-dozen times before he has finished his story . . . .

         *Source: Bonnie Smith, Imperialism: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 39-41.

Alfred Milner: Why the White Man Must Rule, 1903*
        The white man must rule, because he is elevated by many, many steps above the black man; steps which it will take the latter centuries to climb, and which it is quite possible that the vast bulk of the black population may never be able to climb at all.  But then, if we justify, what I believe we all hold to, the necessity of the rule of the white man by his superior civilization, what does that involve?  Doe it involve an attempt to keep a black man always at the very low level of civilization at which he is today?   I believe you will all reject such an idea.  One of the strongest arguments why the white man must rule is because that is the only possible means of gradually raising the black man, not to our level of civilization - which it is doubtful whether he would ever attain - but up to a much higher level than that which he at present occupies. . . .

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 37.

Why I am proud of being an Englishwoman, 1909*
         The more I see fo the Colonies, the more I see of the world, the prouder I am of being an Englishwoman.  Our national characteristics of justice and honour and pluck and our sense of fair play have given us a power of colonization, a success where others fail, and a position in every quarter of the globe which no other nation can touch.  Nothing perhaps is more touching in our tropical Colonies than the way the natives trust in us and in our judgement.  We are the only pucka [genuine] white nation to the Malay, and nothing to their minds is beyond our power, from protecting them singlehanded against their enemies to healing them of every disease, including paralysis. . . .
         You meet exactly the same spirit among the African tribes.  They are all just like children in their absolute confidence in us, and great is our responsibility when we abuse their faith, which is just what, unfortunately, we do at times . . . .

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 54-55.
 

Edict of the Vietnamese Emperor Minh Mang, 1833*
        I, Minh - Mang, the king, speak thus.  For many years men from the Occident have been preaching the religion of Dato and deceiving the public, teaching them that there is a mansion of supreme bliss and a dungeon of dreadful misery.  They have no respect for the God Phat and no reverence for ancestors.  That is great blasphemy indeed.  Moreover, they build houses of worship where they receive a large number of people, without discriminating between the sexes, in order to educe the women and young girls; they also extract the pupils from the eyes of sick people.  Can anything more contrary to reason and custom be imagined?
         Last year we punished two villages steeped in this depraved doctrine.  In so doing we intended to make our will known, so that people would shun this crime and come to their
senses. . . .
         Thus we order all followers of this religion, from the mandarin to the least of the people, to abandon it sincerely, if they acknowledge and fear our power.  We wish the mandarins to check carefully to see if the Christians in their territory are prepared to obey our orders and to force them, in their presence, to trample the cross underfoot.  After this they are to pardon them for the time being.  As for the houses of worship and the houses of the priests , they must see that these are completely razed and, henceforth, if any of our subjects is known to be guilty of these abominable customs, he will be punished with the last degree of severity, so that this depraved religion may be extirpated . . .  .

SECRET ANNEX TO THE EDICT
         The religion of Jesus deserves all our hatred, but our foolish and stupid people throughout the kingdom embrace it en masse and without examination.  We must not allow this abuse to spread.  Therefore, we have deigned to post a paternal edict, to teach them they must correct themselves.
         The people who follow this doctrine blindly are nonetheless our people; they cannot be turned away from error in a moment .  If the law were followed strictly, it would require countless executions.  This measure would cost our people dear, and many who would be willing to mend their ways would be caught up in the proscription of the guilty.  Moreover, this matter should be handled with discretion, following the [Confucian] maxim, which states: “If you want to destroy a bad habit, do so with order and patience’. . . .
         We order all the tong doc and all others who govern:
         1.  Carefully to attend to the instruction of their inferiors, mandarins, soldiers, or
              populace, so that they may mend their ways and abandon this religion;
         2.  To obtain accurate information about the churches and homes of missionaries, and to
             destroy them without delay.
         3.  To arrest the missionaries, taking care, in doing so, to use guile rather than violence;
              if the missionaries are French, they should be sent promptly to the capital, under the
              pretext of being employed by us to translate letters.  If they are indigenous, you are to
              detain them in the headquarters of the province, so that they may not be in
              communication with the people and thus maintain them in error.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 119.
 

THE CONGO ATROCITIES*
         A biographer of Leopold II, King of the Belgians, cites testimony of eyewitnesses to the horrible cruelties practiced in the Congo Free State . . .

         Senator Picard . . . traveled in the Congo Free State.  Here are his impressions: “The inhabitants have disappeared.  Their homes have been burned; huge heaps of ashes amid neglected palm-hedges and devastated abandoned fields.  Inhuman floggings, murders, plundering, and carryings-off . . . . .”  And: “The people flee into the wild or seek protection in French or Portugese territory.”  Near Stanley Pool on the caravan road he notices: “A continual succession of blacks, carrying loads upon their heads; worn-out beasts of burden, with projecting joints, wasted features, and staring eyes, perpetually trying to keep afoot despite their exhaustion.  By thousands they pass, in the service of the State, handed over by the chiefs, whose slaves they are and who rob them of their wages.  They totter along the road, with bent knees and protruding bellies, crawling with vermin, a dreadful procession across hill and dale, dying from exhaustion by the wayside, or often succumbing even should they reach home after their wanderings”. . . .
         Here are extracts from the reports of a commission which traveled through the whole State, compiled from the declarations of eye-witnesses . . . .” “Within the territories of the Abir, the chief Isekifasu of Bolima was murdered, his wife and children being eaten by the cannibal guards; the houses of the natives were decorated with the intestines, the liver and the heart of the murdered . . . . The successor of the murdered chief . . . attended by twenty witnesses, comes and lays a hundred and ten twigs upon the table, each of them signifying a murder for rubber. . . . The soldiers had shown him the corpses of his people saying: “Now you will bring us rubber!”

         *Source: T. Walter Wallbank, Contemporary Africa (New York: Van Nostrand Co., Inc 1956), pp. 110-113.
 

American Missionary Report on the Situation in the Belgian Congo*
            Each town in the district is forced to bring a certain quantity [of rubber] to the headquarters of the commissaire [agent] every Sunday.  It is collected by force.  The soldiers drive the people into the bush.  If they will not go they are shot down, and their left hands cut off and taken as trophies to the commissaire . . . . The commissaire is paid a commission of about 1d.  a pound upon all the rubber he gets.  It is therefore to his interest to get as much as he can . . . .
         Let me give an incident to show how this unrighteous trade affects the people.  One day a State corporal, who was in charge of the post of Lolifa, was going round the town collecting rubber.  Meeting a poor woman whose husband was away fishing, he said, “Where is your husband?”  She answered, “It is ready for you,” whereupon he said, “You lie,” and lifting his gun, shot her dead.  Shortly afterwards the husband returned , and was told of the murder of his wife.  He went straight to the corporal, taking with him his rubber, and asked why he had shot his wife.  The wretched man then raised his gun and killed the corporal.  The soldiers ran away to the headquarters of the State and made misrepresentations of the case, with the result that the commissaire sent a large force to support the authority of the soldiers; the town was looted, burned, and many people killed and wounded . . . . .

         *Source: Bonnie Smith, Imperialism: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 60.
 

French repression in Vietnam, 1930-33*

         The hysterical repression that followed these native demonstrations led to great cruelties.  Mass arrests took place, and torture, according to press reports, was widely applied . . . . According to Andre Viollis . . . . the methods also included: Deprivation of food, bastinado [caning on soles of feet], pins driven under the nails, half-hanging, deprivation of water, pincers on the temples, (to force the eyes outward) and a number of others that are not printable.  One may be quoted: “With a razor blade, to cut the skin of the legs in long furrows, to fill the wound with cotton and then burn the cotton”....
         The infantry, chiefly of the Foreign Legin and the Colonial Legion, was even more destructive [than the air attach].  The accounts of the brutalities are far from pleasant reading. . . .  But since some of the Legionaries were charged with an excess of zeal later at a trial at Hanoi in June 1933, it is possible to extract certain portions of the record that will show on whom lies the responsibility for this behaviour.  The extracts are taken from La Franche-Indochine and deal with the hearing of June 12:
         . . . . Lieutenant Lemoanne: I received the orders of Commandant Lambert to kill all prisoners.  On occasion I captured Communists in Flagrante delicto [red-handed] and executed them forthwith.
         Captain Doucin: Precise instructions were given in confidential message 280 of 8/10/30, ordering the execution of every communist caught in flagrante delicto......I am well aware that bloody deeds were done.  But who were shot?  Communists!  Well, I don’t think enough were shot.  That’s my opinion......
         The accused were acquitted.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 60.

Sir Malcolm Darling’s First Case, c. 1905*
         With the New Year real work began.  I now hd my own Court and with it my first case.  A letter describes the scene.  ‘I sit on a dais screened by a railing from the touch of the vulgar. . . .  My Munshi [secretary], who fortunately speaks English, without which justice would be at a standstill, sits on my right.  I am as a babe in his arms.  It is fearful to think of the power he wields.’  My chaprassi [sergeant-at-arms], a stout fellow of six feet two, stands in the body of the Court, and with eyes fixed dog-like upon my face, he tries to penetrate my every thought that an order may be carried out almost before it is given.  ‘Now the complainant enters, with hands folded beseechingly on his breast.  My first duty is to take down his statement.  This he makes in Punjabi, of which I know not one word, but the Munshi does, God bless him.’ He translates it into Urdu.  Even so, I am not much the wiser, but gradually it begins to dawn on me that the man has quarreled with a neighbour about a rope taken from a well which they own in common.  The neighbour, he says, gave him ‘three heavy blows’.  ‘Any marks?’ I ask.  Whereupon ‘he strips his upper half (not very much to come off) and reveals a great tawny trunk with two little spots like pin pricks.’  Applying a wise provision of the law, I dismissed the complaint as frivolous.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 72.
 

Law Versus Custom in British India*
        As a young officer, I was once called on to inquire into a case of murder and to prosecute it before the Court of Session.  It was as clear a case as ever had been.  The murder was cruel, nd the eye-witnesses were beyond suspicion.  There were two assessors [jurors], and both of them returned a verdict of ‘not guilty’.  The Judge differing from the assessors sentenced the Brahman accused to death, and he paid the penalty.  Some time afterwards, one of the assessors came to visit me.  He was fairly influential landowner, and himself a Brahman, well educated in the vernacular, but without knowledge of English.  I asked him how he could find a verdict so contrary to the evidence, and he frankly said to me in the most friendly way, ‘I could not possibly find a verdict which would lead to the death of a Brahman.  You know that it is grievous sin for any Hindu to cause the death of a Brahman; and it does not matter whether you do it with your own hand or indirectly by the hand of another.’  ‘But’, I said, ‘it is a serious thing for you to betray the trust which is reposed in you by the Government on behalf of the public; and you cannot help regarding this as most blameworthy failure of duty.’
         He replied with some emotion, ‘It is you really who are to blame.  You are not ignorant of our views in this matter.  Why, then, should you put us in a position where we might be called upon, as I was on that occasion, to choose between the sin of saying what I believed to be untrue, and the infinitely awful sin of causing the death of a Brahman?’  The strong feeling with which my old friend spoke to me on the subject made a great impression on my mind, and I have often thought that we do not know, or at all events do not fully consider, what grievous injury we inflict on the people of India by forcing on them customs and duties which are altogether inconsistent with their traditions and beliefs.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 82.
 

Life in the International Settlement, Shanghai, c. 1889*
         . . . Apart from this business activity, which only requires our attention now and again, we spend our time in the way of life which is usual here, which must be described as on the whole exceedingly monotonous . . . . the comparatively few Europeans who live here have no one else to turn to but themselves in their social intercourse . . . . and thus as a rule each day goes by like all the others.  In the early morning an hour or two is spent at work, and in the afternoon, when the heat permits, one can play lawn tennis with the few ladies in the colony, and it is possible to take a ride later on . . . to the settlement racecourse, which lies in the open country and is completely without shade.  Toward mid-day one meets the other men in the club for whisky and soda, and to hear the gossip of the town, and in the evening there will be a game of billiards or skittles in the same place . . . . Since the ‘real’ work is usually restricted for Europeans, as in most places overseas, to a few days in the week, that is, to the days round about the arrival and departure of the mail steamer, they have an extraordinary amount of free time left at their disposal, which in the absence of any opportunity for intellectual amusement, tends largely to be spent in entertaining and being entertained at extraordinarily opulent dinners and suppers.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 13-14.
 
 

General Dyer’s Evidence Before the Hunter Commission of  Enquiry into the Punjab
            ‘disturbances’, 1919*

         Q.  When you heard of the contemplated meeting and 12-40 you made up your mind that if the meeting was going to be held you would go and fire?
         A.  When I heard that they were coming and collecting I did not at first believe that they were coming, but if they were coming to defy my authority, and really to meet after all I had done that morning, I had made up my mind that I would fire immediately in order to save the military situation. . . .
         Q.  Supposing the passage was sufficient to allow the armoured cars to go in would you have opened fire with the machine-guns?
         A.  I think, probably, yes
         Q.  In that case the casualties would have been very much higher?
         A.  Yes. . . .
         Q.  I gather generally from what you put in your report that your idea in taking this action was really to strike terror?  That is what you say.  It was no longer a question of dispersing the crowd but one of producing a sufficient moral effect.
         A.  If they disobeyed my orders it showed that there was complete defiance of law, that there was something much more serious behind it than I imagined, that therefore these were rebels, and I must not treat them with gloves on.  They had come to fight if they defied me, and I was going to give them a lesson.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 59.
 
 

Sita Ram Pandey’s First Meeting with and Englishman,  1814*
         After bathing, and eating the morning meal, my uncle put on full regimentals and went to pay his respects to the Adjutant sahib, and Commanding Officer.  He took me with him, I was rather dreading this because I had never yet seen a sahib and imagined they were terrible to look on and of great stature - at least seven feet tall! . . . . In the villages of my country the most extraordinary ideas existed about them, and any one who had chanced to see a sahib told the most curious stories.  In fact nothing was to farfetched to be believed.  It was said that they were born from an egg which grew on a tree . . . .  Had a memsahib come suddenly into some of our villages, she would, if young and handsome, have been considered to be some kind of fairy, and would probably have been worshiped . . . .  It is therefore hardly surprising that I should have been so terrified at the prospect of seeing a sahib for the first time in my life.
         I remember once, when I was attending a fair at the Taj Mahal in Agra, an old woman said she had always believed that sahibs came form eggs which grew on a tree; but that morning she had seen a sahib with a fairy by his side.  The fairy was covered with feathers of the most beautiful colours, her face was as with as milk, and the sahib had to keep his hand on her shoulders to prevent her from flying away . . . .  I am not so ignorant now, of course, but I would have believed it when first I arrived at Agra. . . .
         We went to the Adjutant’s house . . . . He was on the verandah, with a long stick, measuring young men who were recruits.  He was very young, not as tall as myself, and had no whiskers nor moustache.  His face was quite smooth and looked more like a woman’s than a man’s.  This was the first sahib I had ever seen, and he did not fill me with much awe. I did not believe he could be much of a warrior with a face as smooth as that since among us it is considered a disgrace to be clean-shaven; in fact a smooth-faced soldier is usually the butt for many jokes.

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 57.

BRITISH NATIVE POLICY IN EAST AFRICA, 1923*
         Following World War I, the British settlers in Kenya were aroused over proposals to give Indians the vote in a general electorate, restricted by a common educational and property test.  The settlers threatened open revolt.  In reply the British Government issued a white paper withdrawing the Indian proposals but also enunciating the doctrine that the interests of the native population much be paramount.  This is a famous statement of colonial policy.

         Primarily, Kenya is an African territory, and His Majesty’s Government think it necessary definitely to record their considered opinion that the interests of the African natives must be paramount, and that if, and when, those interests and the interests of the immigrant races should conflict, the former should prevail.  Obviously the interests of the other communities, European, Indian, or Arab, must severally be safeguarded.  Whatever the circumstances in which members of these communities have entered Kenya, there will be no drastic action or reversal measures already introduced....the result of which might be to destroy or impair the existing interests of those who have already settled in Kenya.  but in the administration of Kenya His Majesty’s Government regard themselves as exercising a trust on behalf of the African population, and they are unable to delegate or share this trust, the objective of which may e defined as the protection and advancement of the native races. . . . . But there can be no room for doubt that it is the mission of Great Britain to work continuously for the training and education of the Africans towards a higher intellectual, moral and economic level than that which they had reached when the Crown assumed the responsibility for the administration of this territory.

         *Source: T. Walter Wallbank, Contemporary Africa (New York: Van Nostrand Co., Inc 1956), pp. 118-119.
 

Mohatma Gandhi’s Call for Non-Violent Resistance, 1941*
         Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi began the practice of law in South Africa in 1893, where he remained for twenty-one years working on behalf of lower-class Hindu immigrants.  On his return to India in 1914, applying the methods he had learned in South Africa to India in 1914,to the Indian home-rule movement, he called for resistance to British imperialism by “sour force” and “non-cooperation.”  This later developed into a general campaign of “civil disobedience,” or “non-violent non-cooperation.” Following is Gandhi’s conception of spiritual non-cooperation (satyagraha).

         The term Satyagraha . . . means holding on to truth . . . . In the application of Satyagraha I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent; but he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy....And patience means self-suffering.  So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on one’s self. . . .
         It is a force that may be used by individuals as well as by communities.  It may be used as well in political as in domestic affairs . . . . This force is to violence, and therefore to all tyranny, all injustice, what light is to darkness.  In politics, its use is based upon the immutable maxim that Government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed.
         And therefore the struggle on behalf of the people mostly consists in opposing error in the shape of unjust laws.  When you have failed to bring the error home to the law-giver by way of petitions and the like, the only remedies open to you, if you do not wish to submit to error, are to compel him to yield to you either by physical force or by suffering in your own person, by inviting the penalty for the breach of his laws.  Hence Satyagraha largely appears to the public as Civil Disobedience or Civil Resistance.  It is civil in the sense that it is not criminal.

         *Source: Louis L. Snyder, The Imperialism Reader (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co, Inc., 1962), pp. 417-418.
 
 

THE BRAZZAVILLE CONFERENCE ON FRENCH  COLONIAL POLICY, 1944*

Political Organization of the French Colonies . . . .
         1.  It is desirable and even indispensable that the colonies be represented in the future Assembly whose task will be to draw up the new Constitution of France.
         2.  It is indispensable to ensure that the colonies be represented in the central government in Metropolitan France in a much more comprehensive and much more effective manner than in the past. . . .
         Internal Political Organization of the Colonies - the chiefs of the colonies must exercise as much initiative as possible in their internal administration.  With this in view bodies of political expression must be created which will provide them with a perfectly balanced and legitimate system toward the European administration as well ad toward the native population.
         It is consequently suggested that the existing consultative bodies be abolished and replaced:

         In the first place, by Councils of subdivision and Regional Councils, composed of native notables and availing themselves, whenever possible, of the framework provided by existing traditional institutions.
         Secondly, by representative Assemblies, composed partly of Europeans, partly of natives.
 The members of these bodies would be elected by universal suffrage wherever and whenever this would be practicable. . . .

The Mau Mau Terror in Kenya, 1952*
         The following is a British explanation of the nature and origins of the Mau Mau in Kenya.

         The Government and people of Kenya are faced with a challenge to law, order and progress not form the Africans of Kenya as a whole, but from the Mau Mau, an organization within one tribe, the Kikuyu, but strongly opposed by a large and growing proportion of the Kikuyu themselves.  The first duty of the Government is to restore law and order, to apprehend and punish those guilty of the many and bestial crimes committed by the Mau Mau against Africans and others alike, and of organizing the Mau Mau movement itself. . . .
         The exact nature and origin of the Mau Mau movement are in some respects obscure.  It is almost entirely a Kikuyu movement, and it appears to derive from certain peculiarities of the Kikuyu tradition and tribal organization.  this tradition is permeated with witchcraft, which has always played a very important part in Kikuyu tribal customs, particularly in relations to the use of land.  It has indeed been suggested that the Mau Mau movement represents, in part, a last effort by witch-doctors to retain their influence in face of the advance of education and civilization.  Furthermore, traditionally, tribal custom in the Kikuyu has forbidden military age-groups to engage in most forms of agriculture, these being left to women, children and old men.
         The East African tribes have adapted themselves with varying degrees of success to the disappearance of tribal warfare as a normal practice, but in none has difficulty with the younger age groups been quite as acute as among the Kikuyu . . . . The problem of young and able-bodied men and insufficient socially sanctioned employment, subject to the disturbing influence of an urban civilization and meretricious attractions of urban life, is one to which an answer is still being sought in many parts of the world . . . .
         These factors have been recognized and skillfully exploited by ambitious men, and for that reason the Government of Kenya is bound to root out ringleaders who have sought to turn the situation to their own personal advantage. . . . There is in fact in the Mau Mau a strong element exclusive nationalism, based not on racial and national pride, but on envy and hate.  This basis is demonstrated in the extreme ruthlessness sometimes shown towards Kikuyu themselves, who have been by far the most numerous victims of the Mau Mau.
         There is no evidence that communism or Communist agents have had any direct or indirect part in the organization or direction of the Mau Mau itself, or its activities. . . .
         One of the most obvious facets of the Mau Mau organization is that it is violently anti-European, and much play is made in its propaganda with the existence of the so-called “White Highlands.”  The main problem confronting African farmers is in fact not so much an absolute shortage of land (much of the land in the Reserves is not being cultivated to full productivity) but the necessity of carrying out the difficult transfer from a primitive shifting subsistence agriculture to a much more productive system of fixed agriculture, which is essential if higher standards of living are to be achieved...Great efforts have been made by the Government to teach new methods and many Africans have taken full advantage of them, not only as regards food crops for consumption but also as regards export crops, such as tea, coffee, and pyrethrum . . . . Advances have taken place int eh Kikuyu reserve as elsewhere, but the Mau Mau leaders have among other things stirred up opposition to improve agriculture and have gone so far as to incite people to destroy contour terraces and other improvement works.  In this respect the Mau Mau movement resembles that of the loom-breakers at the time of the Industrial Revolution in England, and stands in the way of the economic advance of the Kikuyu people - and of all Africans in Kenya.

         *Source: Louis L. Snyder, The Imperialism Reader (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co, Inc., 1962), pp. 501-503.
 
 

Grover Clark Details the Fallacies of Imperialism, 1936*
         In 1936, Grover Clark, an American scholar, investigated the available statistical material on colonial holdings in the preceding half century in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, and came to the conclusion that the three main arguments for holding colonies were fallacies.

         For the eight decades preceding the new drive for colonies which started in the 1880's, the governments as such spent considerably more on expansion than they received directly from it.  These losses ultimately fell on the taxpayers.  But private interests were making good profits on trade with the overseas territories, and the governmental expenditures were much less than they came to be later.  Perhaps the private profits roughly equaled the governments’ losses.  In any case, between 1800 and 1880, the balance for the people as a whole in the colony-holding countries was not large on either the debit or the credit side of the ledger.
         Since 1880, however, the cash costs to the countries which have used force to get or keep control of colonies unquestionably have been very substantially more than any possible cash profits derived from the trade with the territories controlled......
         The three main arguments for possessing colonies turn out to be three great fallacies - and they are seen to be dangerous as well as costly fallacies when account is taken of the results of the struggle for colonies not only or even primarily in cash but in lives lost, in wars caused, and in the pyramided hatreds which so gravely threaten new wars . . . .

The Population Fallacy
         The evidence showing the fallacy of the claim that colonies provide important outlets for population is . . . devastatingly
clear . . . .
         In 1913, twenty years after Germany got most of her colonies, there were fewer than 20,000 Germans of all occupations in all the German colonies.  This is considerably less than half the number of Germans living in 1930 in the Bronx Borough of New York City . . . .
         Between 1865 and 1924, over 17,000 more Hollanders entered the Netherlands from the Dutch colonies than left for these colonies, even though the Netherlands is one of the most thickly settled countries in the world . . . .
         In 1930 the number of foreign born whites living in New York City was more than seven times the total of the European emigrants who have settled permanently in Africa in the past century: 300,000.
         There are more foreign born whites living in the state of New Hampshire than all the Europeans who have gone to stay in Asia during the past fifty years.
         In the face of such a record the absurdity of claiming that politically controlled colonies have been important as outlets for population is too obvious to need further discussion . . . . .

The Trade Fallacy
         The trade and costs record is even more discouraging than the migration record, for those who say that colonies are necessary . . . .
          In the last twenty years that Germany had colonies, 1894 to 1913, the trade with all of them, including Kiaochao, was 972 million marks.  In the same period, the colonial expenses, not including those for Kiaochao, was 1,002 million marks.  The colonial trade was less than 0.4 per cent of her total trade . . . .
         The British records also show that overseas territories have cost more than they have been worth in trade . . . .

The Raw Materials Fallacy
         The argument that political control is necessary to secure raw materials has no more foundation in fact than the other two chief arguments for taking colonies . . . .
         The record of the changes in the production of the essential raw materials shows conclusively that if ever political control of sources gave the controlling nations anything like a monopoly advantage, that time has passed.  The development of substitutes and of new sources of supply has increased the competition in production to the point where an attempt to maintain monopoly prices for foreigners as against nationals is doomed to failure from the start.  Competition will increase, no decrease.

         *Source: Louis L. Snyder, The Imperialism Reader (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co, Inc., 1962), pp. 165-167.
 

  Casement's Report*
           Roger Casement reported on conditions in the Belgian Congo in the summer of 1903, directly criticizing Belgian administration and its use of slave labor.  His report caused a storm of controversy and eventually led to the creation of an international commission to formally investigate Belgian colonial rule.  The commission visited the Congo the following year and corroborated each of Casement's accusations.

         [While in the Upper Congo Casement reported that] the officer in command of G district, at the head of a band of soldiers passed through a portion of the district wherein the natives, unaccustomed to the duties expected of them, had been backward in sending both goats and fowls.

         The results of this expedition .... was [sic] that in fourteen small villages traversed seventeen persons disappeared.  Sixteen of those whose names were given to me were killed by the soldiers, and their bodies recovered by their friends,  and one was reported as missing.  Of those killed, eleven were men, three women and one a boy child of five years.  Ten persons were tied up and taken away as prisoners, but were released on payment of sixteen goats by their friends....

        "[Casement also related complaints about harvesting rubber, quoting a chief who told him that] it used to take ten days to ...[fill the rubber quota] - we were always in the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens.  Then we starved.  Wild beasts - the leopards killed some of us while we were working away in the forest and others got lost or died from exposure and starvation and we begged the white men to leave us alone, saying that we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said:  "Go.  You are only beasts yourselves, you are only nyama (meat)."  We tried, always further into the forest, and when we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us.  Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with rope round their necks and bodies and taken away.  The white men sometimes at the post did not know of the bad things that the soldiers did to us, but it was the white men who sent the soldiers to punish us for not bringing in enough rubber"

        Question:  "How do you know it was the white men themselves who ordered these cruel things to be done to you?  These things must have been done without the white men's knowledge by the black soldiers."

        Answer:  "The white men told their soldiers:  'you kill only women; you cannot kill men.'  So then the soldiers when they killed us' (here P.P. who was answering stopped and hesitated, and then pointing to the private parts of my bulldog-it was lying asleep at my feet) 'then they cut off those things and took them to the white men, who said:  (It is true, you have killed men).'" 
 

        *Source: Louis L. Snyder, The Imperialism Reader (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co, Inc., 1962), pp. 253-255
 
 
 

 British Charter Granting Trade Rights in Niger Region to National African Company, 1886*
        Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith ....
         [W]heras the Petition . . . states that the Kings, Chiefs, and peoples of various territories in the basin of the River Niger, in Africa, fully recognizing after many years experience, the benefits accorded to their countries by their intercourse with the Company and their predecessors, have ceded the whole of their respective territories to the Company by various Acts of Cession [documents by which leaders surrendered their lands to imperialist agents] specified in the Schedule hereto . . . .
         And whereas the Petition further states that the condition of the natives inhabiting the aforesaid territories would be materially improved, and the development of such territories and those contiguous thereto, and the civilization of their peoples would be greatly advanced if We should thing fit to confer on the Company . . . Our Royal Charter . . . .
         1.  The said NATIONAL AFRICAN COMPANY, LIMITED . . . is hereby authorized and empowered to hold and retain the full benefit of the several Cessions . . . and all rights, interests, authorities, and powers of the purposes of government, preservation of public order, protection of the said territories, or otherwise of what nature or kind soever . . . .
         7.  The Company as such, or its Officers as such, shall not in any way interfere with the religion of any class or tribe of the people of its territories, or of any of the inhabitants thereof, except so far as may be necessary in the interests of humanity . . . .
         8.  In the administration of Justice by the Company to the peoples of its territories, or to any of the inhabitants thereof, careful regard shall always be had to the customs and laws of the class, or tribe, or nation to which the parties respectively belong . . . .
         12.  The Company is hereby further authorized and empowered, subject to the approval of Our Secretary of State, to acquire and take by purchase, cession, or other lawful means, other rights, interests, authorities, or powers of any kind or nature whatever, in, over, or affecting other territories, lands, or property in the region aforesaid, and to hold, use, enjoy, and exercise the same for the purposes of the Company. . . .

         *Source: Bonnie Smith, Imperialism: A History in Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 43-44.
 

The Miseries of a Gifted Javanese Student, c. 1890*
         The Hollanders laugh and make fun of our stupidity, but if we strive for enlightenment, then they assume a defiant attitude towards us.  What have I not suffered as a child at school through the ill will of the teachers and of many of my fellow pupils?  Not all of the teachers and pupils hated us.  Many loved us quite as much as the other children.  But it was hard for the teachers to give a native the highest mark, never mind how well it may have been deserved.
         I shall relate to you the history of a gifted and educated Javanese.  the boy had passed his examination, and was number one in one of the three principal high schools of Java. . .
         Everyone spoke Dutch to him, and he could express himself in that language with distinction.  Fresh from this environment, he went back to the house of his parents.  He thought it would be proper to pay his respects to the authorities of the place and he found himself in the presence of the Resident, who had heard of him, and here it was that my friend make a mistake.  He dared to address the great man in Dutch.
         The following morning notice of an appointment as clerk to a controleur in the mountains was sent to him. . . . After some years a new controleur or possibly assistant controleur came; then the measure of his misfortunes was made to overflow.  The new chief was a former schoolfellow, one who had never shone through his abilities.  The young man, who had led his classes in everything, must now creep upon the ground before the onetime dunce, and speak always high Javanese to him, while he himself was answered in bad Malay.  Can you understand the misery of a proud and independent spirit so humbled?  And how much strength of character it must have taken to endure that petty and annoying oppression?

         *Source:  Ian Copland, The Burden of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 133-134.

Cecil Rhodes Obtains a Concession from Lobengula and Lobengula's Response*

        In 1888 Rhodes sent 3 personal representatives to negotiate a mining concession with Lobenguela, King of the Matabele.  Once the concession was granted, Rhodes used it to obtain a charter for the British South Africa Company to develop the lands in question.

        Know all men ... that [Rhodes' representatives] have covenanted and agreed to pay me the sum of one hundred pounds sterling ... on the first day of every lunar month; and further, to deliver at my royal kraal one thousand Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles, together with one hundred thousand rounds of suitable ball cartridges and further to deliver on the Zambesi River a steamboat with guns suitable for defensive purposes, or in lieu of said steamboat, should I elect, to pay to me the sum of five hundred pounds sterling....  On the execution of these presents, I, Lo Bengula, King of Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and other adjoining territories do hereby grant and assign unto the said grantees the complete and exclusive charge over all metals and minerals situated and contained in my kingdoms together with full power to do all things that they may deem necessary to win and procure the same, and to hold, collect, and enjoy the profits and revenues, if any, derivable from the said metals and minerals... and whereas I have been much molested of late by divers persons seeking and desiring to obtain grants and concessions of land and mining rights in my territories, I do hereby authorize the said grantees to exclude from my kingdom all persons seeking land, metals, minerals, or mining rights therein, and I do hereby undertake to render them all such needful assistance as they may from time to time require for the exclusion of such persons, and to grant no concessions of land or mining rights without their consent and concurrence.  This given under my hand this thirtieth day of October, in the year of our Lord 1888 at my royal kraal.       

        When Lobenguela discovered that instead of granting mining rights to a limited piece of territory he had in fact been tricked out of both the mineral rights in his entire kingdom and the ability to exclude Europeans from his lands, he sent a formal protest to Queen Victoria dated April 23, 1889.  His protest, reproduced below, was essentially ignored.

        Some time ago a party of men came to my country....  They asked me for a place to dig for gold, and said they would give me certain things for the right to do so.  I told them to bring what they could give and I would show them what I would give.  A document was written and presented to me for signature.  I asked what it contained, and was told that in it were my words and the words of those men.  I put my hand to it.  About three months afterwards I heard from other sources that I had given by that document the right to all the minerals of my country.  I called a meeting of my Indunas..., and also of the white men and demanded a copy of the document.  It was proved to me that I had signed away the mineral rights of my whole country....  I have since had a meeting of my Indunas and they will not recognise the paper, as it contains neither my words nor the words of those who got it.   I write to you that you may know the truth about this thing.

       *Source: Louis L. Snyder, The Imperialism Reader (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co, Inc., 1962), pp. 218-220.