Bodies of the Weak: The Circulation of the Indigenous Dead in the British World, 1780-1880 By Joost Van Eynde A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (History) in the University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Susan Juster, Chair Professor Clement C. Hawes Professor Joel Howell Professor Martin S. Pernick Cover illustration: “Group of Officers in command of Streatfield’s Fingoes and Kafir trophies” From: F.N. Streatfeild, Kafirland: A Ten Months’ Campaign (London: 1879), frontis piece. Joost Van Eynde [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-3609-5692 © Joost Van Eynde 2018 To my mom (1959-2011), who fell ill and passed away when I had just begun this journey: Thank you for your unconditional love and support. To my wife, Sofie, and our two children, Jack and Olivia: Thank you for never doubting me and for being tough on me when I did. i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Like the indigenous bodies that circulate through its pages, this dissertation has traveled a long way. It came into its own only during the final three years of graduate school, when a bout of self-doubt compelled me to question whether I was “made” for historical research. There were then, and still are, good reasons to doubt myself. I started graduate school at the University of Michigan in 2011. The first two years of course work exposed me to the methods and potential of historical research that my earlier training in linguistics and American Studies had only begun to broach. Part of being “new” to history meant that my curiosity was easily swayed. I applied to the Rackham School for Graduate Studies at Michigan with a plan to study the religious history of the American colonies. Now, seven years later, I am submitting a dissertation that can best be read as a history of scientific collecting in the British World of the nineteenth century. In a way, this move from the spiritual to the secular, from faith to science, reflects the journey of the indigenous bodies I describe in these pages. But the switch remains a latent source of discomfort and insecurity. Despite these doubts, the result of that journey appears in the following pages. And, I owe a debt of gratitude to the many teachers, colleagues and friends I have encountered along the way. First and foremost, I thank my committee chair Professor Susan Juster. She has been with me since the very beginning, challenging me as a new graduate student and guiding me as a doctoral candidate. She has, for better or worse, accommodated my capacious interests and stuck with me when I decided to change course. I also thank the members of my dissertation ii committee, Professors Clement C. Hawes and Martin S. Pernick, who have shown me how to be a humble and generous historian. They, too, stayed the course when I veered this way, then that. Their help and support have been instrumental in honing my argument. Professor Joel Howell deserves a special mention here. He joined the committee late, and I thank him for his commitment. I also thank my fellow graduate students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who through their relentless questions and advice made this dissertation better than I could have hoped for. A few friends never lost faith, and I owe them a debt I can never repay. My family has been there for me from the beginning. My wife, Sofie, has sacrificed too much to mention here, and I cannot thank her enough for embarking on this adventure with me. She was tough on me when I was ready to quit. She was comforting when I felt like pining away. And, she still loves me, even after all this. My son, Jack, who was born in the US, and my daughter, Olivia, have been a constant source of inspiration and humility for me. Caring for them as infants during the first few years of their lives has taught me how to keep functioning with only a few hours of sleep in between waking moments – a skill I came to appreciate as I was writing this dissertation. But their innocence and humor have also helped me keep an eye out for the lighter things in life, to see the comic side of serious subjects. This, I believe, shines through in some parts of the dissertation. They have encouraged me to remain humble, to question my own certainties, but most of all, they have shown me that there is life beyond this work and when to move on. Thank you! Boechout, Belgium, 26 July 2018 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIST OF FIGURES v LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS viii ABSTRACT ix Introduction: History in the Flesh 1 CHAPTER One: The Indigenous Body Lost 37 Two: Bone Circuits 88 Three: Bodies of the Weak 148 Four: “The Zeal of Travellers” 206 Five: British Head Taking in South Africa, 1781-1879 271 Conclusion: A Bone to Pick with Colonialism 319 BIBLIOGRAPHY 338 iv LIST OF FIGURES Fig. Page 0.1 “Imperial Federation Map of the World Showing the Extent of the British 11 Empire in 1886.” From: Supplement to The Graphic Magazine (24 July 1886). 0.2 Olaus Worm’s cabinet of curiosities in Denmark. From: Olaus Worm, 17 Museum Wormianum seu Historia rerum Rariorum (Leyden, 1655), s.p. 0.3 Etching of an anatomy theater at the University of Leyden, c. 1610. Source: 18 1875,0814.738, AN436286001, British Library. 0.4 “View of the Museum.” (1828-1834). From: RCSSC/P 316, Special 20 Collections, Royal College of Surgeons of London. 0.5 “The Hunterian Museum.” From: RCSSC/P 316, Special Collections, Royal 20 College of Surgeons of London. 1.1 “Awful Changes. Man Found only in a Fossil State - Reappearance of 50 Ichthyosauri.” By Henry De la Beche (1830). From: Francis Trevelyan Buckland, Curiosities of Natural History, 4 vols. (London, 1857-75). 2.1 Woman cleaning skulls in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, at 95 Lincoln Inn’s Fields, before 1941. From: RCS-PH/00022, Royal College of Surgeon of England. 2.2 Thomas Henry Huxley as a newly commissioned sailor on the eve of his 117 departure with the HMS Rattlesnake in 1846. From: Sketch by T. H. Huxley, Family Correspondence, Archives, Imperial College, London, reproduced in Adrian Desmond, Huxley: From Devil’s Disciple to Evolution’s High Priest (Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1997), fig. 6. 3.1 “The Juju, or Sacrifice House, Grand Bonny River.” From: Richard F. 165 Burton, Wanderings in West Africa, From Liverpool to Fernando Po (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1863), vol. 2, opposite title page 3.2 “A Kubu Man and Woman, Sketched in the Village of Rotta-Raina.” From: 179 Henry Ogg Forbes, A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago; A Narrative of Travel and Exploration from 1878 to 1883 (New York, Harper & brothers, 1885), 234. 4.1 Skull of a Sinhalese chief. “Plate III.” From: John Davy, An Account of the 233 Interior of Ceylon and of its Inhabitants, with Travels in that Island (London: Longhorn, Hurst, Rees and Brown, 1821), plate III, between 110-1. v 4.2 “The Grey Hospital; King Williamstown.” From: Henderson, Pioneer, 245 between 134-5. 5.1 British soldiers posing with indigenous skulls near Gwili-Gwili in the 294 Amathole mountains, 1878. From: F.N. Streatfeild, Kafirland: A Ten Months’ Campaign (London: 1879), frontis piece. vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page 2.1 Chronological Distribution of Human Remains per Decade before 1890. 97 The chart shows the total number of human remains in anthropological collections before 1890, including the collections at the Hunterian Museum, the British Museum/Natural History Museum, Royal Army Munitions Collection (pre-1833) and the Royal Anthropological Institute (pre-1879). 2.2 Geographic Distribution of Human Remains per Decade before 1890. The 100 chart shows the total number of human remains in anthropological collections before 1890, including the collections at the Hunterian Museum, the British Museum/Natural History Museum, Royal Army Munitions Collection (pre-1833) and the Royal Anthropological Institute (pre-1879). 4.1 Distribution for place of birth for sample. 215 4.2 Social background of collecting men in sample, based on profession of 217 father 4.3 Level of education, including number of individuals with a medical degree 218 (MD) for sample. 4.4 Occupation of collectors at the time of collecting for sample. 222 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS APL Auckland Public Library, Auckland, New Zealand. NHM Natural History Museum, London, England. RCS Royal College of Surgeons, London, England. WL Wellcome Library, London, England. N. a., Catalogue N. a., Catalogue of Preparations, &c. in Morbid, Natural, and Comparative Anatomy, contained in the Museum of the Army Medical Department, Fort Pitt, Chatham (London: Printed by Richard Taylor, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1833). Owen, Catalogue Richard Owen, Descriptive Catalogue of the Osteological Series Contained in the Museum, 2 vols. (London: Taylor and Francis, 1853). Flower, Catalogue Willian H. Flower, Catalogue of the specimens illustrating the osteology and dentition of vertebrated animals, recent and extinct: contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (London: Royal College of Surgeons of England,1879-84). Stewart, Catalogue William Henry Flower and Charles Stewart, eds., Catalogue of the specimens illustrating the osteology and dentition of vertebrated animals, recent and extinct, contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Part 1: Homo Sapiens, Linn., 2nd. edition (London: Royal College of Surgeon of England, 1907). viii ABSTRACT Bodies of the Weak tells the intimate history of the encounter between British collectors, indigenous bodies, and the people to whom they belonged in the British World between 1780 and 1880.