The British Colonial Press Coverage of the Indian Rebellion of 1857-8 and Its Relationship to Local Concerns

The British Colonial Press Coverage of the Indian Rebellion of 1857-8 and its Relationship to Local Concerns. Ralph Stewart Loch A thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy January, 2018 Abstract The purpose of this thesis is to examine the many aspects of identity, in the varied colonies and settlements of the British Empire. It achieves this through investigating the impact that the Indian Rebellion of 1857-8 had on perceived localised issues of identity, interests and the lands that they inhabited. It uses the colonial press copy on one of the Empire’s primary news events, the Rebellion, as source material. Much of the literature on the imperial press covers later periods during which the telegraph system was in place, news agencies were fully developed, and efficient mass printing presses had cut production costs. The newspaper had become a consumer item, as a consequence of the removal of taxes. The existing surveys of the press reaction to the Rebellion concern specific issues or are limited in location and number of journals utilised. Each of the four substantive chapters of this thesis analyse different aspects of identity, by taking specific issues and relating them to colonies or the groups that inhabited them. In the first chapter the island of Ireland is used to examine the issues of religion and ethnicity followed by the divisions those created. The second chapter focuses on at settler colonies and their desire to establish a place and position in the empire by contributing men, material and finances. For this set of concerns British North America, the Cape Colony and Australia were the examples. The Straits Settlements and Burma are also used as locations, in which the European population was seeking to replace East India Company rule with that of the British state. The third chapter uses as an example the colonies of British North America to examine the divided loyalties in settler colonies. The fourth employs several colonies with plantation economies to look at the need for labour and the threat that Indian labour, free or convict, might present. In the final chapter empire wide copy was utilised to compare and to contrast the two visions of the combatants, both European and Indian, and aspects of them to determine if a cross-imperial viewpoint was arrived at, or whether these were local views made homogeneous by the types of people who expressed them. Contents Abstract Contents Introduction: 1 Histography 2 Contribution of Thesis 19 Sources and Methodology 22 Chapter Outlines and Arguments 26 Chapter 1: The Rebellion and the Imperial Press, Background and Context. 33 The Origins of the Rebellion 35 The East India Company in India 37 The Nature of Company Rule 40 The Unfolding of the Rebellion 44 Kanpur (Cawnpore) 47 Lucknow 49 The Revolution in Communications and the Press 52 Conclusion 61 Chapter 2: Ireland: division, religion, and ethnicity. 62 Ireland: A land of division 64 Irish Sepoys 68 The Sepoy Press 71 The Irish in India 76 ‘English misrule of India’ 84 Atrocities 85 Coloniser and Colony 89 Conclusion 95 Chapter 3: Settled Colonies and Company Lands: Place and Position in the Empire. 99 Raising a regiment: British North America 100 Troops and material: Cape Colony 104 Managing local threats: on the Cape frontier 109 Financial aid: Australia 112 Time for a change: The Straits Settlements 113 Conclusion 120 Chapter 4: British North America: Settler Colonies and Loyalties Divided. 121 British North America and Internal Conflicts 122 The Francophone and Irish press of British North America 132 British North America and its neighbour to the South 137 Conclusion 145 Chapter 5: The search for labour: opportunity and threat. 146 The Need for Labour 147 Existing plantations: Trinidad and British Guiana 150 Seeking labour: Mauritius and Southern Africa 156 Convict lands: The Straits Settlements and Burma 162 ‘Convict colony’: Australia 171 Conclusion 174 Chapter 6: Representing the Combatants: The General and Specific. 177 Imagining the British 177 Imagining the Rebel 181 The Indian: Not a Simple Stereotype 186 ‘The wretch’ Nana Sahib: The death of innocents 189 The Good Indian 194 Religion 195 Horror Stories 199 Rape Stories 205 Conclusion 209 Conclusion: 210 Bibliography: 215 Newspapers 215 State Papers and Statistics 220 Books and Articles 220 Introduction In the middle of the nineteenth century, the British Empire was a scattered body of disparate settlements, largely united by a common administrative language and an often tenuous or antagonistic link to the ‘mother country’. Their purposes varied as much as their political and ethnic formats. Some were predominately European in population, with a small indigenous population; in others, Europeans were outnumbered by the native population; and in others there was a diversity of ethnicity in the make-up of the dominant European population. In format, they varied from quasi-European societies with substantial self-government, through plantation dominated economies, to small trading settlements under the control of commercial entities. All these differences to some extent affected how their populations viewed themselves and others as well as how they were administered. These settlements were governed, in the most part, in collaboration with their inhabitants, both European and indigenous, in order to ensure a peaceful and effective exercise of power. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the British state had sought to decrease its land forces, relying on the navy to defend its domestic and international interests. The army became, in part, a colonial gendarmerie to put down -in the last resort- rebellions with exemplary force, as a deterrent to others. This policy had generally proved effective until 1857. The ultimate fear was that a number of rebellions would erupt at the same time, stretching the military system globally, to breaking point. What those living in these territories would commonly refer to as the ‘Indian Mutiny’ would affect all parts of this Empire. For some, it would generate fear. For others, it would highlight existing concerns. It would present opportunity to some, vindicate the established prejudices of others, and create ideological parallels for those seeking them. Through their newspapers, colonists could express their sentiments about this momentous event. These opinions were often coloured by the circumstances of each individual settlement, making newspaper reports which were ostensibly Indian1 in topic, but domestic in meaning. This resulted in views of 1 The inexact term ‘India’ will be used to describe the territory of present day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and sections of Afghanistan, but not those East India Company possessions in South East Asia such 1 the Rebellion that would be filtered through local events and concerns throughout the Empire. This thesis will examine these developing features of identity throughout the British Empire, using the colonial press as a medium for analysing opinion and the Rebellion as the focal point. This will be accomplished by looking at its impact on selected political issues and the ways in which matters of identity, interests and location affected perceptions of them. Each of the first four chapters will analyse different aspects of this; how the native populations were viewed; how they were perceived by the outside world; their views of others involved in the Empire; and how these in turn viewed themselves. The final chapter will compare and contrast the two visions of the combatants, European and Indian, in the Rebellion to determine if a cross-imperial viewpoint was arrived at, or whether these were local views, made homogeneous by the types of people who expressed them. This thesis will pay particular attention to the latter and will provide a variety of colonial points of view, which were alive with the hopes and worries, the tolerances and prejudices, of those who saw what was happening elsewhere and applied it to their own situations. A clear commonality emerges from these vignettes of opinion. Whilst the perspectives of those writing for or corresponding with the colonial press were often depicted as Empire- wide or in global terms, their opinions always crystallised down to the local. It becomes apparent that after an initial reaction of concern and horror regarding what was transpiring in India, the common focus of the colonial press reporting these events shifted to highlight domestic issues, utilising the Rebellion as an analogue for local concerns. Historiography This thesis focuses both on the Rebellion, its nature, those who took part in it and how it was used as an analogue for local or regional issues. It also includes a consideration of the newspaper industry of the mid 1800s; how it was developing and how far it needed to as the Straits Settlements, which will be treated as separate entities. ‘Indian’ will be used to broadly describe their inhabitants. The contemporary spelling of the names of settlements in the subcontinent will be used. The term ‘East India Company’ will be used to describe the 1600 English foundation. 2 travel to become what it was by the end of the century. The following is a synopsis of the literature on both those subjects. The general histography of the Rebellion, the East India Company, and the wider Empire in this period is extensive, often representing as much the concerns of the period in which they were written, as the events themselves. This is particularly apparent in the histories written in the few decades after the event. General histories of the Empire provide useful overviews of the Rebellion and its position in the history and development of what became loosely the British Empire.2 Surveys of the other rebellions and conflicts of this period exist in Brown’s Resistance and Rebellion and David’s Victoria’s Wars.3 These help to provide context for the ways in which such conflicts were handled or mishandled by the authorities.

Load more