British attitudes to empire
plans for the Caribbean, he had just re introduced slavery in 1802. However, there was far more strategic advantage boom slavery gave to the British economy than the economic loss for France. Abolition was the result of changing attitudes among the British people of all classes forcing parliament to take action on moral grounds where it arguably harmed economic development. The Missionary movement was another area where morality and Empire collided. Missionary societies dispatched missions to many British colonies, particularly African, with varying degrees of success. The movement itself was vast, in 1821 it had a collective income of £250,000 122 a year and by 1848 a single society, the Church Missionary Society, had over 100 stations and 350 missionaries. Its aim was to bring Christianity and civilization to the colonized through ordaining priests and giving medical supplies and housing to the local population. The effects of the missionaries on the Empire are hard to quantify but in some cases it did in fact make the Empire more peaceful. Unfortunately for the missionaries this was not because of a peaceful Christian message, but rather that any colonial subject who converted then became an ally of the colonizers. John Darwin writes that ‘Britain’s true interest lay in fringing its borders with independent black nations sharing a common Christianity’. 123 This is a far cry from the traditional view of missionaries being dependent on the goodwill of merchants and accomplishing little, in some cases it seems the reverse may have been true. These changes in attitudes from migration to missionaries and abolition were able to make an impact because of the particular way the British Empire was run. John Darwin suggests that the British Empire was not an Empire at all; instead it was a ‘world system’. 124 This is because governmental power over the Empire was never hegemonic; consisting instead of some states ruled through sovereignty but others merely through spheres of influence. As decisions to expand were made by ‘men on
the spot’ establishing bridgeheads, men such as Cecil Rohdes who founded Rhodesia in 1889, and later supported by the government, individual motivations and opinions played a disproportionately large role in how the Empire was run. This becomes clear when an imperialist from the origins of the British Empire is compared to an imperialist from the 19 th Century, in this case the examples are Henry Morgan and James Brooke. If we look at the very origins of empire, well documented by Ferguson, we see what were essentially were pirates such as Henry Morgan. In 1663 Morgan sailed to the Spanish outpost of Gran Grenada in Nicaragua in order to raid the raid the town; having plundered for 16 hours they released their prisoners and sailed away. This proved so successful before long a whole industry developed around these buccaneers stealing from the Spanish ships and outposts and it is easy to see why: with one raid on Portobelo in 1668 taking 250,000 pieces of eight; so many they became legal tender in Jamaica! 125 The British government realized that these buccaneers could be used to wage private warfare on the Spanish empire. Therefore they granted ‘privateer’ status and a governmental license to Morgan and his contemporaries. This was not an unusual reaction from governments at this time and privateer warfare would be used throughout the age of sail. However, what is remarkable is what Henry Morgan did with his profits, buying land in Jamaica and growing sugar cane. Growing sugar cane soon became as profitable as plundering the Spanish but with fewer risks leading to the British crown in 1670 committing thousands of pounds to fortify Port Royal; creating Britain’s first colony. For economic historians this is the story of imperial expansion, private individuals making money and then having their conquests codified by the government. In the Victorian era we see in many cases a different kind of imperialist beginning to emerge. One such man was James Brooke whose dynasty would later become known as ‘The White Rajahs of Sarawak’. Described in Robert Payne’s biography as a man who ‘looked like a romantic hero and behaved like
122 Darwin, John The Empire Project 2009 p. 44 123 Darwin, John The Empire Project 2009 p. 47 124 Darwin, John The Empire Project Preface I
125 Ferguson, Niall Empire 2004 p. 2
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