Jesuit Rings of Metals Other Than Brass

Abstract

Jesuit rings are usually described as made of brass, but an occasional reference to silver rings appears in the literature. A re-examination of the information on silver rings indicates that some of the identifications as silver were mistaken while others may actually refer to white metal.     

Introduction: Biographies Between Spheres of Empire

ABSTRACT

Biographical research offers a promising approach to the study of empire, imperialism and colonialism. The careers and life stories of individuals and generations show particularly clearly the disruptions and constraints, but also the new possibilities and mobilities, that were created by colonial rule. This special issue focuses on practices and experiences of boundary crossing in imperial and colonial history. It explores how ‘ordinary’ individuals and groups navigated between the different imperial spaces and spheres into which they were categorised according to the ideologies and regulations of the well-ordered colonial world. Africa offers particularly interesting cases for studying these issues because, first, it was a field of particularly rigid colonial distinctions and, second, different colonial empires overlapped and competed there with particular intensity. This introduction outlines briefly the relevance of biographical research for new approaches in imperial, colonial and African history, and highlights the major themes of the five articles comprising this special issue. It is argued that these new biographical approaches tell us much not only about life in Africa on the eve of and under colonial rule, but also more generally about both the power and the permeability of imperial domination and of colonial categories.     

Obscenity,Moral Contagion and Masculinity: Hijras in Public Space in Colonial North India

Abstract:

In the 1850s, the British “discovered” a community of transgender eunuch performers, the hijras, and legislated for their surveillance and control under the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) in 1871. This article examines how the British dealt with transgender colonial subjects and the implications for our understanding of colonial masculinities. In particular, I analyse colonial attempts to erase hijras as a visible socio-cultural category and gender identity in public space through the prohibition of their performances and feminine dress. This case study demonstrates, first, how masculinity intersected with a broad range of colonial projects, agendas and anxieties. Focusing on the problematic presence of cross-dressing and performing hijras in public space, I examine how colonial attempts to order public space and reinforce political borders dovetailed with discourses of masculinity, obscenity and contagion. Second, I argue that attempts to discipline masculinity and obscenity were uneven in practice, meaning the CTA had varying localised impacts upon hijras. The lack of interest of some British officials in regulating hijras, inadequate policing resources, and pragmatic compromises opened up gaps in surveillance that hijras grasped and expanded, frustrating colonial attempts to transform their bodies and behaviours.     

Negotiating German colonial heritage in Berlin’s Afrikanisches Viertel

Abstract

Conceptualising heritage as a contested process of past-based meaning production in the present, this paper analyses the ongoing dispute over street names in Berlin’s Afrikanisches Viertel. In 1899, Berlin named two of its newly-built streets Togo Street and Cameroon Street. Togo and Cameroon had been proclaimed the first German colonies in 1884. By 1958, 22 Berlin streets had been named after African regions that had been colonised by the German Empire or after German colonial protagonists. In 2004, several NGOs called for the renaming of some of these streets, igniting a fierce dispute over the heritage status of the German colonial past. Drawing on guided interviews and document analyses, we analyse this debate on three levels, showing how the NGOs and their claims have been marginalised on each level. While the level of agency can be traced back to the different positioning of the actors in the political field, the levels of temporality and spatiality belong to the realm of ideas about the world and one’s place in it. By exploring the authoritative power of traditional notions of permanence, and of place and space, this paper seeks to bring temporality and spatiality into the focus of those studying heritage-making practices.     

David Meetom: Interpreting,Power and the Risks of Intermediation in the Initial Phase of German Colonial Rule in Cameroon

ABSTRACT

David Meetom, a Duala subchief, was an important interpreter in the coastal region of Cameroon at the beginning of German rule, which was shaped by colonial officials’ lack of language skills, the colonial state’s low level of institutionalisation, its necessity to rely on intermediaries, and tensions within Duala society. In this circumstances, new opportunities opened up to those who had knowledge of a colonial language. The article examines Meetom’s actions as an interpreter, broker and intermediary between colonial and African languages, authorities and interests. It covers his actions from his informal participation in negotiations between African and German authorities, to his work as official government interpreter, to a trial in which he was accused of having exceeded his authority before finally being shot fleeing German authorities. For Meetom, the consequences of his intermediary position veered between being personally advantageous and disadvantageous. His work held potential for conflict, both with the colonial government and with the Duala or other African groups in the region. Meetom’s life serves to illustrate how interpreters facilitated and controlled contact between colonisers and Africans and proves the distinction between the colonisers and the colonised which underlay the concept of colonial rule as having been surprisingly fragile.     

The making of the Heart of the World: representation and the Kogi

Abstract

The Kogi of Colombia's Sierra Nevada have maintained a culture isolated from colonial contact since 1600. Living in the ‘Heart of the World’ they call themselves ‘Elder Brother’. They consider themselves the world's caretakers and the keepers of a traditional knowledge long since lost by the invasive and destructive colonizing ‘Younger Brother’. An invitation from a BBC filmmaker to provide a medium for the Kogi to contact the outside world was accepted. The result was a film that the Kogi planned and devised to warn Younger Brother to stop his destructive behaviour.     

From commodity to money: The rise of silver coinage around the Ancient Mediterranean (sixth–first centuries bce)

The reasons why the Western Mediterranean, especially Carthage and Rome, resisted monetization relative to the Eastern Mediterranean are still unclear. We address this question by combining lead (Pb) and silver (Ag) isotope abundances in silver coinage from the Aegean, Magna Graecia, Carthage and Roman Republic. The clear relationships observed between ¹⁰⁹Ag/¹⁰⁷Ag and ²⁰⁸Pb/²⁰⁶Pb reflect the mixing of silver ores or silver objects with Pb metal used for cupellation. The combined analysis of Ag and Pb isotopes reveals important information about the technology of smelting. The Greek world extracted Ag and Pb from associated ores, whereas, on the Iberian Peninsula, Carthaginians and Republican‐era Romans applied Phoenician cupellation techniques and added exotic Pb to Pb‐poor Ag ores. Massive Ag recupellation is observed in Rome during the Second Punic War. After defeating the Carthaginians and the Macedonians in the late second century bce , the Romans brought together the efficient, millennium‐old techniques of silver extraction of the Phoenicians, who considered this metal a simple commodity, with the monetization of the economy introduced by the Greeks.     

On the Margins of Colonialism: Contact Zones in the Aru Islands

ABSTRACT

The Aru Islands are situated at the eastern end of the Indian Ocean, in the southern Moluccas. They are also one of the easternmost places in the world where Islam and Christianity gained a (limited) foothold in the early-modern period, and marked the outer reach of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The present article discusses Western-Arunese relations in the seventeenth century in terms of economic exchange and political networks. Although Aru society was stateless and relatively egalitarian and eluded strong colonial control up to the late colonial period, it was still a source of natural products, such as pearls, birds-of-paradise, turtle-shells, destined for luxury consumption in Asia and Europe. Aru society was thus positioned in a global economic network while leaving it largely ungoverned. Colonial archival data yield important information about the indigenous responses to European attempts to control the flow of goods. They both support Roy Ellen’s claim that the economic flows in eastern Indonesia extended beyond the control of VOC, and provide parallels to James Scott’s thesis of state-avoidance among the ethnic minorities in mainland Southeast Asia.     

Islam and the Dutch in the East Indies: Oppression or Opportunity?

ABSTRACT

Dutch colonial ambitions in the East Indies had to contend with Islam, and this contention intensified as colonisation progressed and Islamisation deepened. The Dutch made pragmatic alliances with Muslim leaders and sultans in pursuit of trade dominance and profits. This, combined with protestant reformation in the Netherlands, allowed for significant religious freedom in the East Indies. The Dutch did proselytize Christianity, with most success in the Outer Islands to the east, mostly because of an absence of a major established religion in those areas. They favoured coexistence over religious wars. In order to improve the lives of locals, Islamic movements were permitted to establish enduring institutions. In the early twentieth century, this included the two largest Muslims groups in the world, the traditionalist Nahdlatul Ulama and the reformist Muhammadiyah, which coincided with the emergence of political Islam in the form of the Islamic Traders Party. These formed important socio-religious structures that influenced political thought and modern state institutions, including the state ideology, the Pancasila, and the constitution, which obliged the state to accommodate religion.     

‘I Felt Connected to a Past World’: A Survey of Visitors to Colonial Archaeological Sites Conserved In Situ in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

While there is extensive international literature on the technology and techniques of archaeological conservation and preservation in situ, there has been only limited discussion of the meanings of the places created and the responses they evoke in visitors. Experience in Australia and New Zealand over the past decade suggests that the conservation of colonial archaeological remains is today seen as a far more desirable option, whereas previously many would have suggested that this kind of conservation was only appropriate in ‘old world’ places like Greece and Italy; and that the archaeology of the colonial period was not old enough to be of value. This paper discusses a recent survey of visitors to colonial archaeological sites which reveals some of the ways in which these archaeological remains are experienced, valued, and understood, and gives some clues as to why conservation in situ is an expanding genre of heritage in this region. The visitors surveyed value colonial archaeological sites conserved in situ for the link they provide to place, locality, and memory; for the feeling of connection with the past they evoke; and for the experience they provide of intimacy with material relics from the past. This emphasis on the affective qualities of archaeological remains raises some issues in the post-colonial context, as it tends to reinforce received narratives of identity and history, and relies on the ‘European’ antiquarian appreciation of ruins — making the urban environment more like Europe by creating evidence of similar historical layering.     

Copra World: Coconuts,Plantations and Cooperatives in German Samoa

ABSTRACT

Since the mid-19th century, the copra trade has created challenges and opportunities for Pacific Islanders, including Samoans. In the wake of formal annexation in 1900, German colonial officials tried repeatedly to force Samoans to work on foreign plantations for wages. In this article, I argue that Samoans resisted these demands in two major ways. On the one hand, the overwhelming majority of Samoans continued subsistence agriculture that offered greater control over their lives. On the other hand, Samoans selectively adapted to new economic circumstances. Occasionally, Samoans engaged in wage labour on Euro-American plantations to earn the cash needed for imported goods, government taxes and church donations. To circumvent the monopolistic practices of Euro-American traders, Samoans also founded copra cooperatives. These ultimately folded under coercion, but not without creating a crucial legacy for future anti-colonial resistance. In Samoa’s world of copra, sweetness and colonial power were tightly bound together.     

A history of the African people

Abstract

Colonialism entailed numerous changes in Swazi socio-economic configurations, including a growing recourse to waged employment. Yet little is known about the dynamics that drove indigenous Swazi women to work for wages. This article argues that colonial policy, by adversely impacting areas of production involving Swazi people, drove women to seek wage employment. Moreover, this was not a smooth process, but a contested issue. Swazi men, chiefs, the monarchy and colonial administrators all attempted to frustrate female participation in wage employment. In spite of such barriers, as oral interviews with mid-twentieth century working women show, women continued to take up wage employment, and eventually secured the implicit support of colonial administrators in the service of the colonial economy.     

Origins of Pacific Islands labourers in Fiji

Abstract

The administration of criminal justice in the period 1875–1900 had very different effects on men and women in three separate arenas: colonial towns, plantations and areas subject to chiefly control. In the towns of Levuka and Suva, men were the main concern of the courts; women rarely came before the courts and were almost never imprisoned. On the plantations, British magistrates dealt mainly with alleged breaches of the labour ordinances, with the result that women were prosecuted on an equal basis with men. The gender balance of criminal prosecutions was also closer to equal in the Fijian Provincial Courts, but the nature of the crimes charged against women was totally different from that in the other two spheres of colonial administration, the main concern being breaches of the traditional moral code. Understanding the segmented nature of the judicial system sheds further light on the workings of indirect rule in Fiji and suggests comparisons with colonial administrations in Africa.     

The history of silver refining in New Spain, 16c to 18c: back to the basics

The refining of silver ores in New Spain was defined by the chemical nature of the silver ore. Argentiferous galena (lead sulphide) could only be refined by smelting (36% silver produced), irrespective of silver content, and amalgamation (64%) could only be applied to the silver sulphide ores. Both processes were transferred from Europe, but amalgamation was transformed by local expertise from a recipe of limited application to an industrial-scale solution for refining sulphidic silver ores. Its implementation shaped the environmental history of colonial silver refining in the New World. Mercury was consumed mainly through its chemical conversion into calomel, with minimal emissions of volatile mercury. Waste silt and liquid mercury in the soil and waterways were its main legacy. Smelting created a greater impact on the environment of New Spain, via lead in lead fumes as the main heavy metal issued to the air, and its depletion of woodlands. This article argues that a technical analysis of period refining practices in New Spain reorients our understanding of Spain’s imperial relations with its New World colonies, of the role of local knowledge in a global economy of silver production, and of environmental issues in colonial history. It thus speaks to the problem of unpacking the complex web of relations that composed early European imperialism, in which were enmeshed commodities such as silver, cotton and sugar.     

Colonial Australia,the 1887 Colonial Conference,and the Struggle for Imperial Unity

ABSTRACT

For historians interested in the settler colonial world, one of Professor John Darwin’s most important interventions has been to argue for the reintegration of the dominions into the wider history of the British empire. In re-engaging with the history of Britain’s white settler colonies in North America, Australasia, and South Africa, Darwin’s work has sought to emphasize the place of the dominions in relation to the rise and fall of the British world system, as well as their value as vantage points from which to consider imperial and global history more generally. In this regard, Darwin’s systemic approach has encouraged a more dynamic conception of ‘British world’ history – one deeply embedded in a series of overlapping imperial, regional, and international contexts. This article focuses on a particular moment in imperial history where some of the internal dynamics of the late-Victorian British world system, and the changing place of the settler colonies within it, were brought into sharp relief: the 1887 Colonial Conference. It argues that we might look to the conference as a valuable window onto the impact of Anglo-Australian relations upon the wider struggle for imperial unity in the 1880s.     

Emancipation and captivity in the British Empire

ABSTRACT

The end of colonial slavery in the British empire, in 1834, was one of the landmark achievements of British imperial liberalism. Emancipation policies, however, were designed to recapture emancipated people; the end of slavery was the beginning of a new kind of captivity to global capitalism and the discipline of wage labour.     

Entre destellos se desvanece una devoción: la imagen de oro de la Asunción,patrona de la catedral metropolitana de México

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze representations of the Assumption of the Virgin, patroness of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral in New Spain. In 1610, a superb golden figure of the Assunta was acquired and located in a silver tabernacle by the new main altarpiece, which was dedicated in 1673. In the eighteenth century, this altarpiece was substituted with a new one designed by Jerónimo de Balbás, where the golden statue was eventually relocated. Since the Assunta has generally been overlooked in colonial historiography, I intend to answer the following questions: What were the aesthetic and symbolic values, based upon the theological ideas at the time in the Spanish and Catholic worlds, guiding the representation of Mary in this golden image? What was its agency in relationship to materiality, form, and usage in liturgical contexts and religious festivals?     

Tales of Two Fijis: early 1960s Japanese travel writing by Kanetaka Kaoru and Kita Morio

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses impressions of Fiji in 1961, recorded by two well-known Japanese travel writers: travel journalist Kanetaka Kaoru and writer Kita Morio. Their comments on ethnic Fijians' attitudes to work and on encounters with a variety of Indigenous Fijians, including ratu (hereditary chiefs), made the observed people ‘others' informing the travellers' views on post-war colonial Fiji in an era when little was known about Fiji in Japan. Differing views on colonialism underpinned the two authors' views. At the time, Kita and Kanetaka revised but replicated the assumptions of pre-war Japanese writing about Nanyō (the South Seas) and of Western travelogues on the Pacific Islands. While Kita passed blunt and prejudiced judgements, he demonstrated an awareness of colonialism's adverse effects and of concerns also felt by the colonial administration about the place of Indigenous Fijians in the modern world. Kanetaka, seemingly without awareness of her latent prejudice, praised Fiji as a near-perfect colony that benefitted from colonialism.     

Averting ‘Irresponsible Nationalism’

ABSTRACT

Historians of politics in colonial Fiji highlight the contrast between Indian leaders' challenge to European dominance and Fijian chiefs' alignment with European political leaders in defence of colonial rule and against a perceived ‘Indian threat’. While this was the major political divide, its emphasis has neglected a moment of disaffection on the part of the leading chiefs that perhaps had the potential to provoke a challenge to the colonial order. The upset of the established pattern of political relations between Fijian leaders and the colonial government on the eve of the Pacific War, involving some unity with Indian leaders in the Legislative Council, influenced a Fijian policy change that shaped the development of Indigenous Fijian leadership and its quest for state power as British rule drew to an end. This paper suggests that Ratu Sukuna's Fijian Administration, established at the end of the war, be understood not simply as the last, and paradoxically the strongest, stage of colonial indirect rule, but more significantly as both an institutionalised expression and containment of a Fijian nationalist potential, initially energised by a tension in government – Fijian relations that, in part, reflected a white racialism in both official and unofficial attitudes and practices.     

A Communist Party in New Caledonia (1941–1948)

During and immediately after the Second World War, in common with all French colonies, New Caledonia experienced intense political upheaval. It is little known that both the political awakening of the native people and the successful questioning of colonial authority by immigrant Asian workers had their origins in a political movement with communist sympathies. Led by strong and colour personalities - Jeanne Tunica y Casas, Florindo Paladini, Vincent Bouquet, Henri Naisseline, Henri Lemonnier - the Caledonian Communist Party, which had regular contacts with its Australian and French counterparts, knew how to present the first Kanak political claims and to set up an embryonic political organisation by and for Kanaks. The present article recounts this forgotten page of New Caledonian history: forgotton because the Christian missions, allied with the colonial administration, were quick to nip in the bud what appeared to be too radical a questioning of the established order.