British Colonial Violence in Perak, Sierra Leone and the Sudan

British Colonial Violence in Perak, Sierra Leone and the Sudan Michelle Gordon Royal Holloway, University of London PhD August 2017 1 Declaration of Authorship I, Michelle Gordon, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: Date: 2 Abstract This thesis explores three cases of British colonial violence which occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century: the Perak War (1875-1876); the Hut Tax Revolt in Sierra Leone (1898-9) and the Anglo-Egyptian War of Reconquest in the Sudan (1896-99). The decision-making processes that led to atrocities being committed are explored, including the importance of communication between London and the periphery and the significance of individual colonial administrators in outbreaks of violence. The ways in which racial prejudices, the advocacy of a British ‘civilising mission’ and British racial ‘superiority’ informed colonial administrators’ decisions on the ground are considered. The thesis examines methods of extreme violence that were routinely utilised throughout the British Empire and include: the use of ‘divide and rule’ tactics; looting; a disregard for international standards of warfare; the use of collective reprisals on civilians and scorched earth policies; starvation tactics on the enemy as well as the wider population. Furthermore, the relevance of British colonial violence within a wider context of European warfare and the genocidal violence of the first half of the twentieth century is examined. There has been a neglect of British colonial atrocities within the historiography of colonial violence and this study demonstrates the ways in which a consideration of instances of British colonial violence can tell us much about the dynamics of extreme violence. The thesis is divided into five sections; first it considers the place of colonial violence within the historiography of the British Empire and genocide studies; the three case studies follow and the final chapter provides an analysis of the thesis’ findings and discusses its relevance for our understanding of both European and colonial violence, thereby placing colonial violence within a wider framework of extreme European violence. 3 Acknowledgements Firstly, my great thanks and appreciation go to my PhD supervisor, Dan Stone whose guidance, support and encouragement have been invaluable. Throughout this process he has repeatedly challenged my ideas and ways of thinking about history and violence and I am immensely grateful for his commitment to this thesis. I also extend my thanks to the academic and administrative staff at Royal Holloway’s Department of History for their support, as well as the opportunity to teach; in particular I would like to thank Helen Graham, Rudolf Muhs and Zoë Laidlaw. I would also like to thank in particular Becky Jinks, Rebecca Wennberg and Claire Kennan for our many PhD-led discussions, as well as their friendship and support. Furthermore, I am particularly grateful to those who gave me the chance to present my research findings to a wider audience: I would especially like to thank Tom Lawson for his encouragement, as well as Donald Bloxham, Philip Dwyer, Lyndall Ryan, Amanda Nettlebeck, Elizabeth Kolsky and Lisa Pine. I am also very grateful to Valeska Huber for taking the time to read through a draft chapter. My thanks extend to the staff at the numerous libraries and archives that I have visited and particularly to Christina Wu for the archival research she undertook on my behalf in Singapore. Completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the financial assistance of the Reid Research Scholarship and the Friendly Hand Charitable Trust; for this support I am immensely grateful. Last but not least I would like to thank my family and my friends (both here and in Germany) for their support and encouragement. To Darren and our beautiful sons, my love and thanks for your support, understanding, and belief in me. 4 For J and R 5 Table of Contents Introduction 7 Chapter 1. The Place of British Colonial Violence within the History of the British Empire 27 Map of the Malay Peninsula 50 Chapter 2. A ‘Little War’ in Perak: British Intervention, 1875-6 51 Map of Sierra Leone 95 Chapter 3. British Suppression of the Hut Tax War in Sierra Leone, 1898-9 96 Map of Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan 143 Chapter 4. The British Reconquest of the Sudan, 1896-99 144 Chapter 5. Conclusion: The Dynamics of British Colonial Violence 195 Bibliography 236 6 Introduction We can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a dead load which by itself time will bury in oblivion.1 This study considers incidents of colonial violence and examines the nature of colonial warfare in the British Empire, focusing specifically on the second half of the nineteenth century, therefore within the period of ‘new imperialism’. This thesis comprises of three case studies: the Perak War in Malaya (1875-6); the Hut Tax War in Sierra Leone (1898-9); the Anglo-Egyptian War of Reconquest in the Sudan (1896-99). In each instance, the British used a variety of methods to enforce and maintain their power in these regions. These methods included: the use of ‘divide and rule’ tactics; looting; a disregard for international standards of warfare; the use of collective reprisals on civilians and scorched earth policies; starvation tactics on the enemy as well as the wider population. Throughout, I will investigate issues that contributed to outbreaks of extreme violence, including Britain’s superiority complex, which led to an intricate web of contradictory policies and justifications for imperial oppression. There will be an exploration of the increasing influence of ‘scientific racism’ and the racial prejudices which accompanied the British imperial project and how these developments influenced the manner in which the ‘men on the spot’ dealt with indigenous populations. I will consider the role of these men in shaping events on the ground and the nature of the violence once hostilities broke out.2 This includes a consideration of communications between London and the periphery, which, I argue, are of importance in terms of understanding the decision-making processes that led to the use of more extreme tactics of violence. The part played by Britain’s military men in advocating and participating in extreme methods of violence is central to this thesis. I will also address the influence of politicians in the imperial metropole related to the use of extreme violence across the Empire to suppress indigenous opposition. Unfortunately, it has been too often the case that standard research to date on the British Empire persists in viewing its ‘positive’ elements without much mention of 1 Hannah Arendt, preface to the first edition, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1976 [1951]), ix. 2 On the role of the ‘man on the spot’ in colonial expansion see: Roger D. Long, The Man on the Spot: Essays on British Empire History (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995). 7 those who suffered.3 There has been, until recently, a marked reluctance amongst imperial historians to engage in discussions regarding the more negative aspects of empire, including the role of extreme violence and genocide. There are of course exceptions and V. G. Kiernan’s work is significant in this regard.4 The increasing willingness of historians to discuss colonial violence in the context of the British Empire marks the beginning of a much welcome shift in the historiography, but it remains the case that studies of empire and violence based on archival research are lacking. The attention that has been paid to British colonial campaigns is generally limited to traditional and, at times, ‘parochial’ military history.5 Examples of British colonial violence have often been studied in isolation, rather than within a consideration of the wider implications of the role of violence in the British Empire and studies tend to neglect the wider context and how these may be part of a broader pattern of both British and European colonial violence; examples include the suppression of the Indian ‘Mutiny’;6 the Morant Bay Rebellion;7 the Boer War;8 and the Amritsar Massacre.9 Scholars of counterinsurgency are examining the violence of the British Empire focusing on the Arab Revolt in Palestine in 1936-9, and the end of empire in Malaya 3 Also commented on by Mark Levene, ‘Empires, Native Peoples, and Genocide’, in A. Dirk Moses (ed.), Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History (New York: Berghahn, 2010 [2008]), 200, n9. 4 See: V. G. Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind: Black Man, Yellow Man, and White Man in the Age of Empire (London: The Cresset Library, 1988 [1969]); idem, European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 1815-1960 (London: Fontana and Leicester University Press, 1982); idem, Imperialism and Its Contradictions, edited by Harvey J. Kaye (London: Routledge, 1995). See also: Anthony Pagden, Peoples and Empires: Europeans and the Rest of the World, From Antiquity to the Present (London: Phoenix Press, 2002 [2001]); Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: Verso, 2001). On colonial warfare: Bruce Vandervort, Wars of Imperial Conquest in Africa 1830-1914 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998); J. A. de Moor and H. L. Wesseling (eds), Imperialism and War: Essays on Colonial Wars in Asia and Africa (Leiden: Brill, 1989). 5 See, Kim A. Wagner, ‘Seeing Like a Soldier: The Amritsar Massacre and the Politics of Military History’, in Martin Thomas and Gareth Curless (eds), Decolonization and Conflict: Colonial Comparisons and Legacies (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 23-37.

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