Late Colonial Empire

Question 1

Wendy Webster, 2018

Answer 1

tries to cast the history of world war as an imperial history, the war was an imperial war drawing troops in from across the colonies

Question 2

Paul Gilroy, 2004

Answer 2

argues WW2 in British culture serves as a reassuring myth about national collectivity, myths of WW2 are white-washed in British culture in opposition to multiculturalism and frame multiculturalism as something unnatural that was forced upon Britain after the war

Question 3

Philippa Levine, 2013

Answer 3

argues although Britain’s Empire was largest after WWI, it was not growth but contraction which characterised the British Empire in the 20th century

in an era where western imperial powers were embracing more democratic forms of government, the profound lack of indigenous representation in the majority of the colonies looked very out of step

this era saw a rise of nationalism, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate governments and increasing challenges to the validity of British colonial rule

Question 4

Anna Spry Rush, 2011

Answer 4

highlights how West Indians willingly signed up to contribute to the war effort in the First and Second World Wars even though there was no conscription in the West Indies

Question 5

James Belich, 2009

Answer 5

described this migration as ‘a settler revolution’ which created the ‘Anglo-world’

Question 6

white settler migration to dominions

Answer 6

1880 to 1914 about 250,000 people emigrated from the UK to non-European destinations each year

Question 7

dominion resisting WWI conscription

Answer 7

1914 around 11,000 Boer soldiers in South Africa mutinied against order to serve in the war
conscription in Canada was also resisted especially among French Canadians who did not identify with British cause
Australia twice rejected the order of conscription and only sent a volunteer army

Question 8

India and reaction to war and British government

Answer 8

India sent 100,000 troops to fight in France alone in WWI

Indian National Congress boycotts the legislative assembly after WWI in protests of the British government’s false promises of self-government

in 1939 India was drafted into the war and in protest the Indian National Congress leaders all resign from their posts in government

Question 9

1919 Amritsar Massacre

Answer 9

protest against oppression of British government in India, British military commander ordered his men to fire on protesting crowd killing 380 Indians and injuring thousands more

Question 10

Imperial War Conference 1917

Answer 10

dominion leaders used their leverage they had gained from playing a crucial role in the war effort in attempts to force Britain to recognise dominions as autonomous nations within the commonwealth

Question 11

1926 Balfour Declaration

Answer 11

dominions “are autonomous countries within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the crown”

Question 12

1931 Statute of Westminster

Answer 12

ruled “no law hereafter made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to any of the said dominions…” this created the modern commonwealth that we know today

Question 13

John Buchan, 1907

Answer 13

defined British imperialness as “the Empire…is more than a mere alliance - it is a family partnership… There is a bond of blood”

Question 14

Reginald Coupland, 1936

Answer 14

a professor of colonial history at Oxford University, defined trusteeship as “a genuine determination to help the native people to acquire the capacity in the course of time to govern and protect themselves”

Question 15

Letter to Jamaican Times from a West Indian in 1914

Answer 15

“we as loyal citizens, for the love we hold for the British flag, should be so patriotically inspired to stand beside her if need be”

Question 16

C. L. R. James, ‘Case for West Indian Self-Government’ 1932

Answer 16

argues West Indies have all the necessary cultural and political pre-requisite for self rule, he exposes the hypocrisy of colonial rule, the bad manners, injustice, tyranny and treachery of crown colony rule
he turns the rhetoric of the empire back on itself, all the justifications for empire become weaponised and used by the colonised people to demand concessions and reforms

Question 17

C. L. R. James, 1932, British culture

Answer 17

highlights how Caribbean people were raised in British culture, language and schools to expose how race functions as a limit of Britishness, he argues if the British Empire was to live up to its own rhetoric of family and progress then it needed to remove the racial barrier

Question 18

British West Indian working in Panama in 1927

Answer 18

wrote to the local paper saying “Intelligent West Indians do no forget their duty to the Empire…but they have also not forgotten that they are a coloured people” he lists the many injustices and mistreatments against non-white imperial subjects “If we are loyal to the Empire, we must first be loyal to ourselves… Intelligent West Indians need not cover themselves in the Union Jack to prove their nationality…We are British at heart, British in culture”