Relations With Indigenous People 1890-1914 Flashcards
• In the 1890s, political opposition to British rule grew amongst the educated Indian professional classes
• An outlet for protest was founded in the emergence of the growth of nationalist newspapers
• Both Bal Tilak, editor of Kesari, and Shivram Paranjee, founder of Kaal (in 1898) were imprisoned for stirring up hostilities
• Tilak was the first leader of the Indian independence movement, and was known as ‘the father of the Indian unrest’. He formed a close alliance with many Indian National Congress leaders and Tilak was accused of
inciting the murder of a medical officer
• The popularity of Kaal led to Pranjee’s arrest for sedition in 1908. He served 19 months imprisonment and hard labour – released in 1910. The British authorities banned the paper and confiscated his writings
• The Abhinar Bharat (Young Indian) organisation, founded by brothers Vinayak and Ganesh Damodar Savarkar in 1903, became the home for several hundred revolutionaries and political activists. Vinayak wrote regular newsletters to his counterparts in India as well as carrying out revolutionary propaganda in London. It established branches in several parts of India and carried out assassinations of British officials, including the district magistrate, Arthur Jackson, and a London based military advisor, Lieutenant-Colonel Curzon-Wyllie in 1909. Vinayak was charged with the Jackson murder and imprisoned in 1910. The society was formally disbanded in1952.
• The partition of Bengal prompted the most vociferous opposition
• Tilak was at the forefront of a swadeshi, or self-sufficiency, a campaign designed to undermine British rule
• Petitions, protests and public boycotts of British goods took place
• The 6-year campaign was successful in as much as Bengal was reunited in 1911. Its methods and principles greatly influenced the later campaigns of Gandhi
What were the challenges to British rule in British somaliland?
o Sayyid Hassan, a self-styled Somali religious warrior known as the ‘Mad Mullah’ by the British, was typical of those who saw it as their duty to resist British rule
o He built a force of c20 000 Dervish forces, armed with weapons from the Ottoman Empire, with the aim to halt Ethiopian, Italian and British gains in Somalia
o From c1900, his forces mounted raids on British Somaliland, antagonising local communities o To counter him, the British conducted joint military action with Ethiopia’s Emperor Menelik,Malthough without conclusive success
o The Dervish secured a somewhat hollow victory over the outnumbered British ‘camel constabulary’
at the Battle of Dal Madoba in August 1913 and were never fully suppressed until after WW1
What were the challenges to British rule in Zanzibar?
o British control was challenged briefly by Khalid bin Barghash who assumed power in 1896 following the suspicious death of the pro-British Hamound
o Khlahid commanded 3000 men but he quickly fled following heavy bombardment from the British. The challenge lasted less than 2 days.
What were the challenges to British rule in west Africa?
o In 1898, the British governor of Sierra Leone, Colonel Cardew, introduced a new sever tax on
dwellings, known as the ‘hut tax’ and also insisted that local chiefs organise their followers to maintain roads
o These demands were met with resistance, one in the northern area of the Temne, led by Bai Bureh and the other in the southern area by the Mende, led by Momoh Jah
o Cardew responded militarily and eventually deployed a ‘scorched earth’ policy, which involved setting fire to entire villages, farms, and crops
o This tactic secured surrender from Cardew’s primary adversary, Chief Bai Burch, in November 189, although 100s had been killed in the process
o Despite the British government’s plea for leniency, Cardew had 96 of the chief warriors hanged
What were the challenges to British rule in the Sudan?
o Kitchener conquered the Egyptian Sudan – culminating in the Battle of Omdurman and the fall of Khartoum in 1898
o Many of the Sudanese did welcome the downfall of the Mahdist regime, which had severely damaged the Sudanese economy and see a population decline of 50% through famine, disease, persecution, and warfare. However, the arrival of the British meant little more than exchanging one oppressor for another
o It took Britain more than 30 years to subdue the tribes in South Sudan. Britain attempted to create a modern government, introduce new penal codes, establish land tenure rules and a system of taxation for the first time in Sudan which incensed the Sudanese people. Tribes refused to renounce their customs and pay taxation; inter-tribal feuds persisted, bringing down the heavy hand of British law
o A total of 33 punitive expeditions were mounted to force tribesmen to accept the new order and rebellious natives were often brutally treated
o There were further Mahdist uprisings in 1900, 1902-3, 1904 and 1908. A series of swift public hangings accompanies the last as the British sought to make an example of the rebels – not even affording them a trial
o The region did, however, experience considerable economic development in the hands of the British, particularly in the Nile valley. Telegraph and railway lines were extended to like key areas in northern Sudan and port Sudan opened in 1906, as the country’s principal outlet to the sea. In 1911, a joint government/private initiative set up the Gezira Scheme to provide high-quality cotton for British textile industry and there were also improvements in irrigation schemes
To what extent were indigenous people a threat to British rule by 1914?
• In India, most of the threat was mild e.g. newspapers, however, there was some more active opposition.
• In other areas of the empire, there were some minor uprisings but they were largely dealt with effectively
• The indigenous people weren’t a major threat to Britain; Britain, concerned with the threat from Germany were unwilling to commit too many resources to Africa, but they were still able to contain the risings with these limited resources which suggests that they weren’t too much of a threat
What were the causes of the second Boer war?
-Political factors
-Economic factors
-Social factors
-Influence of Individuals
How were political factors a cause of the second Boer war?
o The Uitlanders were effectively denied the vote, despite the fact they paid taxes. Over 50 000 Britons were excluded from political rights despite the fact Boers who lived in Cape Colony were granted their political rights
o At the Bloemfontein Conference of May-June 1899, Milner demanded the Transvaal granted voting rights to the Uitlanders – Kruger refused
o Despite half-hearted attempts to compromise, both sides began mobilising troops
o In October 1899, Kruger issues an ultimatum, demanding a British withdrawal from the border of the
Boer republic- war broke out when the British stood firm
How were economic factors a cause of the second boer war?
o The Transvaal’s prestige and power had grown with the discovery of gold on the Rand in 18886
o It had extended its control over Swaziland by establishing its independent rail networks
o Both Rhodes and Chamberlain were worried that British dominance in South Africa was under threat and launched the Jamerson Raid in 1895
o High tariffs imposed by the Boers also irritated Rhodes and limited trade
How were social factors a cause of the second Boer war?
o Kruger’s success in securing a 4th term as the Transvaal president in 1898 reflected the Boer’s strong nationalist sentiment and resentment of British interference
o An English man, Tom Edgar was shot by a Transvaal policeman in December 1898 which prompted Uitlander outrage and pressure on the British government from the Uitlanders for firm action
How was the influence of individuals a cause of the second Boer war?
o Cecil Rhodes, the Prime Minister of Cape Colony 1890-96, had an overriding aim in South Africa to bring the Boer republics into a South African Federation
o Rhodes and Kruger were very hostile towards each other
o Chamberlain also supported the federation ideas
o Milner, the South African High Commissioner from 1897 encouraged the British to pursue a vigorous policy
What were the consequences or the second Boer war?
• The eventual victory in 1902 came at a cost
• Kitchener deployed a ‘scorched earth’ policy which involved incinerating Boer farms and livestock
• Boer families and black Africans were placed in concentration camps and endured horrendous conditions
there. Many perished as a result of malnutrition and disease
• By the end of the war, about 11500 people were living in these camps and many more had died in them
• The camps were not intended to cause deaths – it was more a result of contemporary medical/sanitation ignorance
• More than 16 000 British soldiers were also killed by disease, nearly 3x as many that had died from enemy action
• Humanitarians, left-wing liberals, and socialists thought the use of these camps was barbaric
• The war highlighted the shortcomings of the British army. It had been anticipated to last 3/4 months, to involve 75 000 troops and cost no more than £10m. Instead, it lasted the best part of 3 years, involved 400 000 troops and cost £230m. It also saw 22 000 British deaths, to just 6000 Boer troops
• It showed the vulnerability of Britain’s imperial control and perhaps made it more aware of its inability to inflict its will on other people without a cost
• Britain had had to call on troops from other parts of the Empire (mainly India) to maintain the fight and the danger of leaving other dependencies with adequate armed back up was grave
• In South Africa, the British had not been able to rely on their long-vaunted sea power
• The war’s short-comings dictated the drive for national efficiency and dampened the jingoism that had characterised the 1890s. Thereafter only conservatives still spoke out politically for imperialism
• It also prompted the Boers to develop a more distinctive ‘Afrikaner’ culture
• The Treaty of Vereening of May 1902 granted the Boers £3m compensation to restore their farms
• Milner also worked to integrate the economies of the British and Boer colonies, bringing them into a single customs union and amalgamating their railway systems
• The Transvaal was granted self-government in 1906, the Orange River Colony in 1907. However, in 1910 the parliaments of the Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony, as well as the people of Natal, agreed on the establishment of the Union of South Africa, as an independent Dominion within the British Empire
• However, this constitution allowed the states to retain their own voting policies: a compromise that was to store up trouble for the future
