Problems of British Empire in the 18th Century: A Research Agenda

                    Problems of British Empire in the 18^th Century: A Research Agenda

 

       For the readings of this week, they mainly discuss the British identity, imperial authority, imperial governance, the imperialism and the antislavery movement. Recognizing the tension was inescapable between the thirteen colonies in North American and the Great Britain, Edmund Burke hoped it could be conciliated in terms of the same rights of the colonial Americans as the Englishmen endowed by the ancient constitution and custom and tradition of the Great Britain; Assuming “no single British perspective” on how the British subjects in the North America changed their self-identity to be American, Stephen Conway discusses the British perceptions to the Americans from fellow-nations to foreigners;[1] Concerning the emancipation of the slaves in the age of the American Revolution, Christopher L. Brown discusses how the antislavery movement was entwined with attempts to bolster metropolitan authority of the British Empire and why the vision was failed by the unfavorable results of the American War of Independence; Presuming the empire studies “without the concept of imperialism” is implausible, C.A. Bayly examines the global imperialism from the 1760 to 1830, advocates a theory of imperialism to approach the imperial history and warns imperial historians to pay more attention to the “non-European empire building and those changes in the societies of the dominated peoples which facilitated or impeded the creation of European empires,” especially on the state-building and resistance;[2] Intrigued by the stories of captivities of the overseas British, Linda Colley interprets the Britishness in a centrifugal way. Arguing the attitudes of the British toward the British Empire was changed in the first two decades of George III’s reign, P. J. Marshall traces the ideological contribution to the ordering of empire.

As we can see from above, in the age of the American Revolution, the imperial authority was challenged. Accompanying with this tendency, the British changed their perception to the North Americans from the British subjects to the American and wanted to readjust its imperial governance policies in India and North America in order to maintain its imperial authority. In this paper, rather than discuss all the issues covered in the reading materials for this week, I am going to discuss the British Identity and the imperial authority for the future research on the British Empire in the 18^th century. 

       How did the British define their British identity in the 18^th century, especially in the age of the American Revolution? Burke argued that the Americans had the same rights of the Englishmen according to the ancient constitution in the British history and the British tradition and customs. Burke did not agree with the statement that the British Empire should tax the colonies by force, rather he supported the conciliation between them and advocated to “establish the equity and justice of a taxation of America by grant, and not by imposition; to mark the legal competency of the colony assemblies for the support of their government in peace, and for public aids in time of war; to acknowledge that this legal competency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise, and that experience has shown the benefit of their grants, and the futility of parliamentary taxation, as a method of supply.”[3] Like Burke, Conway discusses how the British changed their perception to the colonial Americans from the fellow-nationals to foreigners. Conway points out, “it was perhaps above all the broadening of the war from 1778 that persuaded most Britons to look at the Americans in a different light,” because the Britons realized the “apparent weakness of American loyalism were sufficient to convince some Britons that the Americans had to be regarded as an enemy, much like any other” and the Americans should be “treated and regarded as belligerents rather than rebels.”[4] Conway helps us to understand the British perceptions of the Americans from the British side. He argues that the British changed their perceptions of the colonial Americans from the “fellow-nationals” to “foreigners,” but these two categories are imposed on them rather than what the Britons thought in the age of the American Revolution. Colley narratives the stories of captivities in India and Afganistan, and assumes that through the narratives of the captivity, the captives accompanying with the overseas expansion of the British Empire can help the British to define their British identity. 

For Burke, Conway and Colley, all of them discussed the British identity. For Burke, it was Englishmen; for Conway, the British perceived the identity of the North Americans was changing; for Colley, following Edward Said’s discursive analysis of the Oriental and the Occidental, by interpreting the British formed their Britishness through war against the France and Catholics, she simplifies the terminology of Britishness in a binary way in her Britons: Forging a Nation 1707-1837.[5] For Burke, Conway, as well as Colley, identity is a binary term. While in fact, identity could be contested, processul and changeable rather than static, stable and unchangable. Moreover, for the 18^th century merchants, as well as the overseas captives of the British Empire, they were “the citizen of the world,” they probably had their own cosmopolitanism toward the world rather than just a British Identity, although this identity was also important for most of the overseas British. Identity is a very useful category for Conway and Colley to do their research, but perhaps their definitions of the British Identity are oversimplified. 

For the future research on the British perceptions on the colonial Americans, historians should pay more attention to these issues: how the British perceived the North Americans and how their perceptions were changed. As for the future research on the imperial identity, I think, historians should examine what’s the British identity mean to the north Americans and the overseas British, rather than adopt a simplified definition of the British identity.

       In the age of the American Revolution, the imperial governance and authority of the Great Britain was also encountered problems. Noticing the East Indian Company was misusing power in India, Burke advocated the replacement of East India Company directors by a government commission to run India. Arguing the empire study without the imperialism is implausible, Bayly advocates historians pay more attention to the non-European national-building and resistance. Put the British concepts of emancipation into the imperial history and connected with the imperial governance and reform together, Brown traces the moral commitment and public sentiment which provide the energy for the abolitionism in the age of American Revolution. 

According to him, “the British government lacked a compelling political or economic reason to abolish colonial slavery” and the “ministers placed a priority on securing, sustaining, and, if possible, extending the West Indian plantation economy” rather than abolished the slavery system, which finally caused the failure of the first scheme of emancipation.[6] Interpreting the antislavery moment in the framework of the imperial history, Brown broadens our understanding of the imperial governance, as well as the abolitionism at that time. Like Brown, noticing the paradoxical relations of the British Parliament and the Crown over the issue of the imperial authority, Eliga H. Gould puts the American Revolution in the framework of the imperial history and traces the making of the Parliament’s imperial authority in the age of the American Revolution.[7] Brown and Gould’s researches are both very provocative and original, which could greatly help us to renew our understanding of the abolitionism, the American Revolution and the imperial authority. As far as I am concerned, their perspective and scope are very illuminative. 

For the future research, if historians could combine the imperial ideologies of the British Empire and the imperial governance together, and do their historical studies from the perspective of the imperial history, they can help us to know more about the British history, as well as the American Revolution.

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[1] Stephen Conway, "From Fellow Nationals to Foreigners: British Perceptions of the Americans, circa. 1739-1783," The William and Mary Quarterly, 59, 1 (2002), 66.

[2] C.A. Bayly, "The First Age of Global Imperialism," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 26, 2 (1998) 29, 41.

[3] Burke, “Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies,” in Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Edmund Burke (Penguin Books, 1999), 269-270.

[4] Conway, ibid, 100.

[5] See Linda Colley, Britons: Forging a Nation: 1707-1837 (Yale University Press, 1992).

[6] Brown, ibid, 305.

[7] Eliga H. Gould, “Liberty and Modernity: The American Revolution and the Making of Parliament’s Imperial History,” in Jack P. Greene ed., Exclusionary Empire: English Liberty Overseas 1600-1900 (Cambridge: 2010), 112-131.