UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI TRENTO Dottorato in Studi Umanistici - XXVIII Ciclo Indirizzo di Studi Storici Labour, Environment and Empire in the South Atlantic (1780-1860) Relatrice: Prof.ssa Sara Lorenzini Co-Relatrice: Prof.ssa Elena Dai Prà Candidato: Mattia Pessina A.A. 2014-2015 But then, I suppose we all are, in our own way, aren’t we? Bootmakers to Kings THE GOOD SHEPERD (USA, 2009 Table of contents List of abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... 5 List of tables .................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 6 The aim and structure of this thesis ............................................................................................... 7 Sources ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... 13 Chapter I - The historical and geographical context ...................................................................... 14 1.1 Historical Geography of the South Atlantic .......................................................................... 16 1.2 The South Atlantic Ocean ..................................................................................................... 18 1.3 The islands ............................................................................................................................. 19 1.4 Saint Helena, the island-fortress ............................................................................................ 21 1.5 The political context ............................................................................................................... 22 1.6 The Empire ............................................................................................................................. 24 1.7 The history of the islands ....................................................................................................... 38 1.8 The Empire, the South Atlantic and Saint Helena ................................................................ 41 Chapter II - Labour relations in the South Atlantic ...................................................................... 44 2.1 The historiographical context of slavery and slave trade ....................................................... 44 2.2 Evolution of slavery in the Empire between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries .......... 46 2.3 Slavery on Saint Helena: between two Oceans ...................................................................... 47 2.4 Slavery on Saint Helena: peculiarities and comparisons ....................................................... 49 2.5 Slavery on Saint Helena: the path to abolition ...................................................................... 57 2.6 Chinese indentured labourers on Saint Helena ..................................................................... 62 2.7 Emigration and creolisation in post-EIC Saint Helena ......................................................... 65 2.8 Slavery on Saint Helena in the wider context ....................................................................... 67 2.9 Labour relationships on Ascension and Tristan .................................................................... 69 2.10 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter III - Environment and environmentalism ....................................................................... 74 3.1 Islands and Empire ................................................................................................................ 74 3.2 The East India Company experiments on Saint Helena ........................................................ 76 3.3 The Crown rule and the case of Ascension ............................................................................ 82 3.4 Environment, authority and social control on Saint Helena ................................................. 86 3 3.5 Ascension and Tristan da Cunha ........................................................................................... 91 3.6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 105 Chapter IV - Evolutions in Colonial Government....................................................................... 108 4.1 Government and authority in the Empire: an overview ...................................................... 108 4.2 Government and authority under the East India Company (1658-1815) ........................... 111 4.3 Order and authority on Saint Helena during Napoleon Bonaparte’s captivity (1815-1821) .................................................................................................................................................... 116 4.4 After Bonaparte: continuity and evolution (1821-1837) ..................................................... 120 4.5 The struggle between Crown and Company until the 1833 Charter Act ............................ 121 4.6 The causes of the takeover .................................................................................................... 124 4.7 Social and demographic effects of the takeover on Saint Helena .......................................... 127 4.8 Saint Helena as a Crown Colony and its inhabitants (1837 onwards) ............................... 132 4.9 Ascension and the ‘Republic’ of Tristan .............................................................................. 145 4.10 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 150 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 153 Labour ........................................................................................................................................ 153 Environment .............................................................................................................................. 159 Empire ........................................................................................................................................ 165 The three transitions of Saint Helena ........................................................................................ 173 The case for the South Atlantic as a maritime system ............................................................... 177 The future awaits ....................................................................................................................... 179 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................... 181 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 189 Index ............................................................................................................................................. 215 This thesis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License 4 List of abbreviations CO: Colonial Office EIC: East India Company IOR: India Office Records IOW: Indian Ocean World SHA: Saint Helena Archives WO: War Office List of tables Table one: Chronological list of Saint Helena agricultural and industrial innovation ....... 77 Table two: Population and expenses of Saint Helena 1832-1882 ...................................... 129 . 5 Introduction And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dream of home CRISTOPHER COLUMBUS1 When in 2001 BBC brought television for the first time on the remote island of Tristan da Cunha, a German journalist present in the settlement started to complain vigorously about how this technological development would have destroyed the true ‘islandness’ of Tristan and of its inhabitants. The inhabitants of Tristan – apparently unconcerned about their loss of ‘islandness’ – decided to send the journalist immediately away from the island on the first cargo ship that stopped in the port2. On November 3rd 2011 the British Government finally decided to finance the construction of an airport on another remote island, that of Saint Helena. This long- awaited decision will see the island connected with direct flights from and to the Cape in 2016, when the RMS Saint Helena – the only ship that today connects the island with the rest of the world – will be decommissioned. I have been one of the last ‘lucky’ people that reached the island using boat, in a five-day long journey from South Africa. People will probably complain – like the German journalist on Tristan – of how this sudden technological step will destroy the ‘magic’ and the ‘mystique’ of this island. For sure the Helenians will be quite happy of this airport, making it easy for them to reach their relatives in the Cape or send a letter in a reasonable time. On September 15th 2015, almost two-hundred years after Napoleon Bonaparte arrived on Saint Helena, the first