Welsh Sojourners in India: The East India Company,Networks and Patronage,c. 1760–1840

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, within the framework of imperial expansion and exploitation there were opportunities for individuals to acquire wealth and power. Several men grew wealthy in India through the opportunities afforded to them by the East India Company, with lucrative careers and the possibility of generating money through commerce and trade. Britain witnessed the return of several East Indians, or ‘nabobs’ as individuals who returned home with considerable wealth were called. Indeed, some of these nabobs succeeded in amassing sizeable fortunes during their time in the East. This article aims to address a neglected area in the historiography, by examining the experiences of Welshmen as sojourners in India. In comparison with Scotland in particular, but also England and Ireland, the Welsh dimension of the East India Company is under-researched. This article highlights the existence of networks of patronage in existence in Wales which facilitated the voyage out to India and the return home of men in the employ of the East India Company during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Networks were predominantly regional or familial, with family members supporting and sustaining loved ones during their time in India, and aiding them in their return home at the end of their sojourn in the East. The importance of letters in maintaining links with home is explored, not only as a method of relaying news, but also as a means for the sojourner to maintain an emotional link with home, and ultimately to lay the groundwork for a smooth transition home. How these Welshmen viewed themselves while out in India will be analysed, and the multi-layered nature of concepts of identity explored. Identity could be regional in focus, while some showed an awareness of a Welsh identity. Integration within the broader framework of the British East India Company is evident, as is the broader European community in the East.     

Redrawing the Boundary between India and Britain: The Succession Crisis at Zanzibar, 1870–1873

Abstract

WIDE-RANGING, STIMULATING, AND debatable interpretations of the enforced black diaspora from Africa to the New World are the hallmarks of all of these books, even though they differ in focus and are written by historians at various stages of their careers. Two books contain reflections on slavery and abolitionism by renowned historians of slavery, Gary B. Nash and David Brion Davis. Nash, in an elegant, slim volume (originally the Nathan I. Huggins lectures at Harvard University in 2oo4), returns to a theme he has addressed before, namely the reasons why the founding fathers did not eradicate the blot of slavery from the United States. He argues that action could, and should, have been taken. Davis offers a set of essays - some previously published, some appearing for the first time - that examine the inhumanity of slavery in North America, primarily in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but with a broader contextual and chronological canvas. Tlle three other books are revisions of doctoral dissertations. Eric Robert Taylor and Stephanie E. Smallwood are both concerned primarily with the Middle Passage as a crucial phase of the Adantic slave trade. In Taylor's case, the emphasis falls upon shipboard revolts by slaves during the crossing from Africa to America. Smallwood focuses on the process by which people from the Gold Coast were captured, transported, and fashioned into slaves in the English slave trade of the late seventeenth century. Robert Pierce Forbes's book brings the focus back to the United States and the significance of the Missouri Compromise (a set of congressional acts passed in 182o and 1821) for the political history of American slavery.     

Colonial knowledge and the military in India, 1780–1860

Military officers and surgeons played a critical role in the collection, analysis and dissemination of knowledge in colonial India. Yet the little attention to date that has been directed at scholars with military backgrounds has treated their army service as incidental to, rather than formative of, their contributions to knowledge of India. While not all were actively engaged in intellectual pursuits, a surprisingly large number of orientalists came from the army. In some cases, this can be attributed to the military's need for specific information. But such strictly utilitarian motives were not always at work; boredom, curiosity and professional aspirations encouraged officers and surgeons to take up scientific, literary and artistic activities. Military service also offered opportunities for travel, as well as technical training, which furthered such pursuits. Consequently, much of the colonial knowledge that was generated in the first century of colonial rule was tinged with military values and it was sometimes framed in language redolent of the army. This would in turn help to popularise certain readings of Indian society, particularly those which stressed the medieval and fragmented nature of Indian society. The boundaries between fact and fiction became blurred as romanticism came to influence British aesthetic, historical and scientific encounters with India.     

Mountbatten and India, 1948–64

This article brings to light Lord Mountbatten's continuing links with India after 1948 - a neglected aspect of his life and career. It probes his involvement and influence in Indian affairs through his personal relationships and professional experience. In doing so, it presents Mountbatten as the personification of the change in Indo-British ties from those of empire to dominion and beyond. On the three key issues of Hyderabad, arms sales, and Kashmir, this article evaluates his role as a ‘friend of India’ in the West as well as a conduit for the British government(s) of the day to reach out to Nehru. Considering the scope and limits of ‘influence of friendship, it shows that Mountbatten remained characteristically involved in India after his departure and this was appreciated by both Nehru and his British counterparts. Mountbatten epitomised the old ties, which continued to bind India to Britain, after the empire and through the Commonwealth. His views were offered and sought; how much they influenced remains a matter of emphasis, but that he was involved cannot be denied. The weakening of Mountbatten's involvement and influence after Jawaharlal Nehru's death in 1964 represented the wider, generational weakening of Indo-British association.     

Cotton,climate and colonialism in Dharwar,western India, 1840–1880

Focussing on the cotton improvement projects in Dharwar, western India, that exemplified the modernising aims of colonial agriculture in nineteenth-century India, this article interrogates the architecture of cotton imperialism in the colonised world through the conceptual lens of political ecology. In particular, it brings to the fore the crucial dimension of climate both as an element in colonial thinking and planning, and as a dynamic force impacting on the cultivation of transplanted American cotton. The climate of Dharwar was not quite what the cotton authorities had constructed it to be, and it was, moreover, undergoing change due to the impact of regional deforestation. Furthermore, the article shows how this failure to come to terms with local climate conditions and changes was symptomatic of a broader failure to consider the overall agricultural livelihoods of peasant cultivators. Apart from a brief period when prices were artificially high, peasants much preferred growing the accustomed indigenous cotton rather than the new exotic variety. In turn, cotton was less of a priority than the production of millet food crops. By exploring the ways in which climatic conditions interacted with the economic, social and technological processes of cotton production in Dharwar, this article highlights why American cotton cultivation failed to meet colonial expectations during this period while also revealing the fragile architectural edifice of colonial power.     

Time,temporality, and woman–child relations

This is the second in a series of Viewpoints about a symposium on the intersections and antagonisms between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This article traces the various ways in which time and temporality were mobilised in symposium papers and discussions and considers the implications for efforts to conceptualise woman–child relations. In conclusion, the potentials and risks of focusing on temporality when theorising relations between those positioned as women and those positioned as children are considered.     

Jews in Italy between Integration and Assimilation, 1861–1938

The history of Italian Jews from 1861 to 1938 is often viewed as the period in which they totally assimilated into the Italian nation. This article, however, argues that rather than their assimilation it was a period of their integration into Italian society. Various approaches to this question are presented, including a review of the literature, with a view to reconsidering the relationship between Jewish culture and Italian culture, or rather non-Jewish culture. Italian Jewish history is shown not to be separated from, but to be “internal” to Italian social, cultural, and political history—part of the dynamic process of change that occurred during this period not only in Italy but throughout Europe.     

Armour in England, 1325–99

A dramatic change in the personal armour of the knightly classes occurred across the whole of Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century: the addition of plate armour on top of the mail defences that had been worn since the time of the Roman empire. This change is documented in England by the series of monumental effigies and brasses, as well as a very few surviving examples. The story is supplemented by documentary records, especially those of the armoury at the Tower of London, which shed new light on the equipment of the English armies of the first half of the Hundred Years War.     

The Archaeological Survey of India and Communal Violence in Post‐independence India

This article argues that that the discipline of archaeology as practised by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) significantly contributed to communal violence in post‐Independence India. The essay investigates several legacies handed down from the colonial ASI to the post‐Independence ASI, with a goal of explaining the contribution of archaeology to the ongoing disturbances at Ayodhyā in Uttar Pradesh. The colonial ASI was marked by four characteristics: it was a monument‐based archaeology based on geographical surveys, literary traditions and Orientalist scholarship. These four characteristics combined to form a traditionalist, location‐driven excavation agenda that privileged specific holy sites in the post‐Partition era, sustaining the violent disagreements between Hindu and Islamic populations of India and Pakistan.