Science, Race Relations and Resistance: Britain, 1870-1914 PDF
Preview Science, Race Relations and Resistance: Britain, 1870-1914
ggeenneerraall eeddiittoorr JJoohhnn MM.. MMaaccKKeennzziiee WWhheenn tthhee ‘S‘Sttuuddiieess i nin I mImpepreirailailsimsm’ s’ esreireise ws awsa fso ufonudnedde md omreo trhe atnh atwn etnwteyn-fityv-efi yveea ryse aagrso ,a egmo,p ehmaspihs awsaiss wlaaids ulapiodn utphoen c otnhve icctoinonvi cthtiaotn ‘ imthpaet r‘iiamlispmer iaasl iasm cu altsu raa lc uphlteunroalm pehneonno hmaedn aosn s ihgandi fiacsa nsitg annifi ecfafenctt aonn ethffee cdto moni ntahnet daosm onin tahnet sausb oonrd tihnea tseu sboocrideitnieast’e. Wsoictihe tmieos’r.e W thiathn mnionreet yt hbaono ksse vpeunbtlyis hboedo,k tsh pisu brelimshaeinds, tthhies prreimmaei ncos ntcheer npr oimf teh ceo snecreiersn. oCfr tohses- dseisrcieips.l iCnaroryss w-doisrcki phlains ainryd eweodr akp hpaesa riendd eceodv earpinpge atrheed fcuolvl esrpiencg- the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers trum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much much else. Moreover, the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and Aelmsee. rMicoarne iomvepre, rtihalei ssmer,i easn dh apsa ratliwcualyasr lwy iwsheelcdo tmo epsr ethseen stu cbommispsairoanti ovfe bwoookrks ionn tEhuesroe paeraenas a. nTdh eA fmasecrii-- ncaanti oimn pweirtiha liimsmp,e rainadli spmar,t iicnu allalr liyts waseplceocmts,e ss htohwe ss unbom siigssni oonf aobf abtoinogk,s a innd t thheisse s aerreieass .w Tihlle c foansctiinnuatei oton lweaitdh t ihme pweariya liins men, cionu arlalg iitns ga sthpeec wtsi,d sehsot wposs nsiob sleig rna nogf ea boaf tsitnugd, iaensd i nth tihse s fiereileds. w‘Sitlul dcioenst iinn uIme tpoe rleiaaldis tmhe’ iws afyu lilny eonrgcaonuirca ginin igt st hdee vweliodpesmt epnots,s aiblwlea ryasn sgeee kofi nsgtu tdoi ebse iant tthhee ficuetldti.n ‘gS teuddgiee,s r iens pIomnpdeirniga ltiosm th’ ei sl aftuelslyt ionrtgearneisct sin o ift ssc dheovlealrosp amnden tth, ea lnweaeydss soefe tkhiinsg e tvoe br-ee axtp tahned icnugt tairnega e odfg sec, hreoslpaorsnhdiipn.g to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this ever-expanding area of scholarship. Ending British rule in Africa Science, race relations and resistance Polsgrove_All.indd 1 17/06/2009 15:30 SELECTED TITLES AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES RACE AND EMPIRE Eugenics in colonial Kenya Chloe Campbell ENDING BRITISH RULE IN AFRICA Writers in a common cause Carol Polsgrove MARTIAL RACES The military, race and masculinity in British imperial culture, 1857–1914 Heather Streets CHILD, NATIoN, RACE AND EMPIRE Child rescue discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850–1915 Shurlee Swain and Margot Hillel ‘THE BETTER CLASS’ oF INDIANS Social rank, Imperial identity, and South Asians in Britain 1858–1914 Martin Wainwright Science, race relations and resistance BRITAIN, 1870–1914 Douglas Lorimer MANCHESTER UNIvERSITy PRESS Manchester and New york distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan Copyright © Douglas Lorimer 2013 The right of Douglas Lorimer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by MANCHESTER UNIvERSITy PRESS oXFoRD RoAD, MANCHESTER M13 9NR, UK and RooM 400, 175 FIFTH AvENUE, NEW yoRK, Ny 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by PALGRAvE MACMILLAN, 175 FIFTH AvENUE, NEW yoRK, Ny 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC PRESS, UNIvERSITy oF BRITISH CoLUMBIA, 2029 WEST MALL, vANCoUvER, BC, CANADA v6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 0 7190 3357 5 hardback First published 2013 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any exter- nal or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset in Trump Medieval by Special Edition Pre-Press Services www.special-edition.co.uk CoNTENTS General editor’s introduction—vii Acknowledgements—ix Abbreviations—xi Part I: Introduction 1 Rethinking victorian racism 3 2 Imperial contradictions: assimilation and separate development 17 Part II: Science and race 3 From institutional foundations to applied anthropology, 1871–1914 59 4 Race, popular science and empire 108 Part III: The language of race relations 5 From colour prejudice to race relations 163 6 The colour question: ‘The greatest difficulty in the British Empire’ (1900–14) 208 Part IV: Resistance 7 Resistance: initiatives and obstacles, 1870–1914 255 8 Conclusion 314 Select bibliography—322 Index—337 gENERAL EDIToR’S INTRoDuCTIoN Few issues in modern history have a greater purchase on contempo- rary concerns and attitudes than the questions surrounding race and racism. The very words raise problems of definition even before we develop the analyses relating to the historical dynamic through which these concepts have been framed, reframed, and endlessly discussed, notably by Europeans and by their dispersed populations in the ‘neo- Europes’ in the Americas, Australasia and enclaves elsewhere. Even if imperialism and colonialism do not have a wholly exclusive connec- tion with matters of race, it is certainly the case that it was through the lens of imperial relationships, both in the sphere of rule (so-called ‘dependent’ empire) and in the sphere of settlement by white migrants from Europe, that they were debated and modified. In being so, a whole range of disciplines were called in as providing evidence, including most notably ethnography and anthropology, as well as archaeology, geography, climatology, anatomy, anthropometry, biology, eugenics, psychology, and in modern times sociology, history and genetics. To say that these questions are broadly based and richly textured is to deliver something of an understatement. In this book, Douglas Lorimer brings to bear knowledge and insights that stem from almost a lifetime of study in the field. He examines the striking changes that took place in debates about race in the course of the nineteenth century, and the manner in which the twen- tieth century saw further significant developments in the field, before modern medical understanding put paid to many of the myths that had surrounded these questions. In the course of British imperial rule, a whole succession of policies, sometimes applied, sometimes merely proposed, were developed to attempt to cope with the racial questions that faced colonial rulers and settlers at every turn. Some of these policies contrasted ideas like assimilation and separate development. others were concerned with planning across a spectrum from the extreme notion of the predicted evolutionary disappearance of some peoples, to an acceptance by whites of the inevitability, as they saw it, of colour prejudice, and on to a desire for the necessary amelioration of ‘race relations’. Such debates had a very real basis in discussions of the supposedly varied ‘races’ of Europe, even of the British and Hibernian Isles, as derived from historic patterns of migration and the alleged characteristics of different ethnicities. ‘Race’ was a concept which very much embraced different forms of ‘whiteness’, as well as peoples of [ vii ] general editor’s introduction supposedly contrasting skin colours on a variety of continents. These debates were expressed in many different formats and loca- tions. Lorimer analyses scientific societies and the development of an institutionalised professional science in the later nineteenth century, as well as the many different books and popular publications through which such ideas were communicated to a wider public. Moreover, many concepts (such as social Darwinism) permeated aspects of popular culture, in exhibitions, shows, museums (where the connec- tions with natural history could be profound), the theatre, photography and other visual representations, among others. In all of these, racial ideas were carried through a linguistic lexicon (or sets of visual tropes) which themselves underwent much expansion and modification. This language of race passed from the realm of what may be described as amateur and quasi-scientific theorists to politicians, administrators, academics, theologians and practitioners of modern scientific and medical disciplines. Moreover, racial dogmas (themselves always mal- leable) inevitably aroused resistance, and the forms and content of such oppositional movements also have to be understood. As Lorimer makes clear, the language of the emerging concept of ‘race relations’ owed much to the continuing traditions of the prominent anti-slavery movement, while much of the resistance to harder racial ideas was led by persons of colour resident in the United Kingdom. In all of this, the early twentieth century was something of a transition period, a water- shed between the ideas and writings of the Enlightenment and post- Enlightenment eras and the rapid advances of the modern sciences. Throughout all of this discussion, as Lorimer cautions, we have to be wary of reading current perceptions and obsessions back into victorian and Edwardian times. But of course questions of race continued to be live issues, not least in discriminatory politics, right through the twentieth century, pro- ducing endless debate, political tensions and diplomatic controversy up to the period of decolonisation and after, in such places as the southern United States, apartheid South Africa, and the former colo- nies of settlement. Although contexts change dramatically, neverthe- less questions of race are still with us. There are also many matters of mutual racial attitudes as between the peoples of the world generally. They, however, must be the subject of other studies. As it is, this work will surely take its place as a landmark study in Western attitudes to race, as was the case with Lorimer’s earlier book Colour, Class and the Victorians. John M. MacKenzie [ viii ] ACkNowLEDgEmENTS The exploration of the three constituent elements of this narrative of racism – science and race, the language of race relations, and histori- cally limited forms of resistance – has been a lengthy process during which I have had the good fortune to make frequent visits to archives and libraries in the United Kingdom. This research would not have been possible without funds from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Wilfrid Laurier University. In locating and studying a range of not necessarily readily available sources, librar- ians and archivists at the following institutions have been unstinting in their assistance: the National Archive, the British Library includ- ing the Additional Manuscript collection and the newspaper library at Colindale, Rhodes House Library, oxford, with its indispensable anti- slavery papers, Friends House Library, London, for the Anti-Caste and information on the Impey family, the London School of Economics for the Morel Papers, Imperial College for the Huxley Papers, University College, London, for the Galton Papers and records relating to Profes- sor A. H. Keane, the Royal Anthropological Institute for its archival records, and librarians at Wilfrid Laurier University for assistance in obtaining sources not readily available locally. As this research developed, I received encouragement and helpful suggestions from colleagues with an interest in the theme of racism and race relations. Before my fellow historians at the universities of Guelph, Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier I floated various trial balloons at our annual Tri-University history conferences. Some of these ideas proved of sufficient interest to become papers presented at conferences in the United Kingdom and Canada. In particular, my project gained appreciably from the support and suggestions of the following schol- ars, conference conveners and editors: Phillip Buckner, Ian Duffield, Gretchen Gerzina, Jagdish Gundara, Brian Kelly, Bernard Lightman, Paul Rich, Charles Swaisland and Shearer West. I also had the good fortune to work at Wilfrid Laurier University with John Laband and Richard Fuke, two scholars of related histories in the late nineteenth century. As I slowly came to realise that South Africa had an impor- tant place in the narrative, John with great patience and understand- ing answered my novice’s queries about its rich and complex history. Dick Fuke and I have had a thirty-year conversation about British and American history post-1865. He also read the manuscript and offered helpful observations. I also benefited from a most patient editor, John [[ iixx ]]
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