Welsh missionaries and British imperialism: The Empire of Clouds in north-east India

337 Pages·2012·13.107 MB·English

by  Andrew J. May

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General editor: John M. MacKenzie
In 1841 the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Foreign Missionary Society sent its
first missionary to evangelise amongst the tribal peoples of the Khasi Hills
of north-east India. As a history of the Welsh as agents of imperialism, this
book follows Thomas Jones from rural Wales to Cherrapunji, the wettest
place on earth and now one of the most Christianised parts of India. As
colonised colonisers, the Welsh were to have a profound impact on the
language, culture and beliefs of the Khasi people. As well as being a study
of the early decades of missionary intervention, this book also foregrounds
The Empire of Clouds in
broader political, scientific, racial and military ideologies that mobilised the
Khasi Hills into an interconnected network of imperial control.
north-east India
In exploring the localised actions and relationships of controversial
missionary Thomas Jones and his fellow workers, the book also provides
alternative and surprising readings of the role of the individual in defining
the limits of freedom and the rule of law on an imperial frontier. The
themes of this meticulously researched history are universal: crises of
authority, the loneliness of geographical isolation, sexual scandal and rivalry,
a n d r e w J . M a y
greed and exploitation, personal and institutional dogma, and individual and
group morality. This book makes a significant contribution in orienting the
scholarship of imperialism to a much-neglected corner of India, and will
appeal to students of the British imperial experience more broadly.
Andrew J. May is Associate Professor of History in the School of Historical and
Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne

Cover image: ‘The table-land and station of Churra, with the jheels, course of the Soormah River, and M
Tipperah Hills in the extreme distance, looking South’, in Hooker’s Himalayan journals, volume 2,
Figure X, p. 277. a
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general editor John M. MacKenzie
When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded
more than twenty-fi ve years ago, emphasis was laid upon
the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenom-
enon had as signifi cant an effect on the dominant as on
the subordinate societies’. With more than ninety books
published, this remains the prime concern of the series.
Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the
full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining
aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and
the environment, language and literature, migration and
patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has
always wished to present comparative work on European
and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the
submission of books in these areas. The fascination with
imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating,
and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging
the widest possible range of studies in the fi eld. ‘Studies
in Imperialism’ is fully organic in its development, always
seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest
interests of scholars and the needs of this ever-expanding
area of scholarship.
Welsh missionaries and British imperialism
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Welsh missionaries and
British imperialism

THE EMPIRE OF CLOUDS IN
-
NORTH EAST INDIA
Andrew J. May
MANCHESTER
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Manchester
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Copyright © Andrew J. May 2012
The right of Andrew J. May to be identifi ed 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
ALTRINCHAM STREET, MANCHESTER M1 7JA, UK
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
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 8035 7 hardback
First published 2012
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For Karla and Rhys
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Pan aethum gyntaf ar fwrdd y ‘Jamaica,’ yr oeddwn yn methu peidio
gofyn, ‘Ai i’r farn ai ynte i India yr ei di a mi, dywed?’
When I fi rst went on board the ‘Jamaica’ I could not refrain from asking,
‘Will you take me to judgement or to India, I wonder?’
Thomas Jones, Y Drysorfa, Supplement, December 1840, p. 388
When India unvisited becomes India visited – when the ideal gives place
to the real, and we see and feel, with our waking senses, clearly and pal-
pably, what before we had only dimly dreamt, how many vain delusions
are dispersed – how many idle phantoms of the brain plunged headlong
into the limbo of vanity.
Calcutta Review, January–June 1845, p. 71
When once unfair infl uence obtains among the tribunals of any country,
it is idle to enquire to what extent it may proceed; its limits will only be
bounded by the limits of the power to corrupt and intimidate, the wish to
screen or revenge; the infl uence, in short, of power or gold from the pos-
session of a power, so irrationally gigantic, so wholly uncontrollable, so
little responsible, how few human minds are capable of escaping without
contamination; while therefore we blame the outrages into which it has
led its possessors, the criminality should be laid less on the culprits than
the system that corrupts them.
W.H.M. Sweetland to A.J.M. Mills, Commissioner of the Government
of India in A.J.M. Mills, Report on the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, 1853
(Shillong, 1901), p. 88
But there is no good unmixed with evil or no evil unmixed with good.
Babu Hiranmoy Mukerji of Muktagachha to Chief Secretary of
the Government of Bengal in R.D. Oldham, Report on the Great
Earthquake of 12th June 1897 (Calcutta, 1899), p. 22
Here they are – dear dead far-away people from whom I have my being,
and whose blood fl ows in my veins for a brief space.
T.H. Lewin in T.H. Lewin (ed.), The Lewin Letters: A Selection from the
Correspondence & Diaries of an English Family 1756–1884, volume 1
(London, 1909), p. v
People always look most alike when we know them least.
Inga Clendinnen, Dancing with Strangers (Melbourne, 2003), p. 18
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CONTENTS
List of fi gures ix
Acknowledgements xi
List of abbreviations xiv
Glossary xv
General editor’s introduction xvii
Prologue xx
Introduction 1
Part I Preparations
1 Some kind of preacher 13
2 Voyaging: two places at once 33
3 Networks and precursors 48
Part II The fl ag on the mountain
4 Drawing the frontier 63
5 The tranquillity of the borders 78
6 The richest collections 95
7 Creatures of a day: Christian soldiers 114
Part III The work on the hills
8 The banner of the cross 131
9 Cultural transactions: the letter and the gift 154
10 Intimacy and transgression 173
Part IV The borderlands of law and belief
11 The pen and the sabre 199
12 The refulgent cross and the heathen carnival 222
13 The country is ours 248
[ vii ]
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CONTENTS
Conclusion 268
Epilogue 280
Bibliography 287
Index 305
[ viii ]
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LIST OF FIGURES
1 Map of the Khasi Hills. xxiv
2 Plate from H. Walters, ‘Journey across the Pandua Hills,
near Sylhet, in Bengal’, Asiatic Researches, 17 (1832). 91
3 ‘Cane suspension bridge over the Témshang River, in
the Khássia Hills’. Lithographed by C. Koch, printed
in oil-colours by W. Loeillot, Berlin, original aquarelle
by Hermann de Schlagintweit, November 1855, in H.
Schlagintweit, A. Schlagintweit, et al., Results of a
Scientifi c Mission to India and High Asia, Undertaken
Between the Years 1854 and 1858, by Order of the Court
of Directors of the Honourable East India Company.
Atlas (Leipzig and London, 1861), part 1, plate 5. © The
British Library Board, Shelfmark 1899.a.8. 107
4 Henry Yule, ‘Portrait of unidentifi ed civilian seated on a
chair’, 30 January 1841, © The British Library Board, IOR
Prints & Drawings WD1607. 117
5 Anonymous, ‘The Sanatarium at Chirra Poonjee’, 1832,
© The British Library Board, IOR Prints & Drawings WD
492. 125
6 Henry Yule, ‘Survey of part of the Cossya Hills, copied
in the Offi ce of the Surveyor General of India from the
original, Calcutta 9 March 1843’, © The British Library
Board, IOR Map Collection, X/2188/1. 146
7 Henry Yule, ‘My house in Kasea Hills 1841–2’, © The
British Library Board, IOR Prints & Drawings WD22. 149
8 Thomas Jones I, ‘Missionary to northern India for the
Welsh Missionary Society’, by permission of Llyfrgell
Genedlaethol Cyrmu/The National Library of Wales. 161
9 Pencil sketch of the mission station at Cherrapunji based
on a sketch by the Reverend Daniel Jones, Department
of Pictures and Maps, National Library of Wales,
PG1229/2772, CMA/1/G12, by permission of Llyfrgell
Genedlaethol Cyrmu/The National Library of Wales. 189
10 The Reverend William and Mary Lewis with U Larsing,
PG3455/60, NLW Photo Album 1331, by permission of
Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cyrmu/The National Library of
Wales. 233
[ ix ]
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