From central London, a huddle of harried clerks sent out an endless stream of dispatches that influenced the fate of the British empire. Alan Lester focuses on the year of 1838 to reveal how these city-bound bureaucrats managed to govern the world’s largest maritime empire

Opulent headquarters East India House in London, 1850. From inside this grand building, the East India Company directors oversaw the governance of India and its associated territories (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

<h4>Smuggling, subversion and slaughter</h4><h6>The events that dominated seven of Britain’s colonies in 1838</h6>1) Upper Canada Major rebellions that had begun in late 1837continued in 1838. US “Patriots” were crossing the border, hoping to unite with disaffected British settlers in Upper Canada and French-speaking rebels in Lower Canada to bring about another North American republic. Lord Durham arrived from Britain to propose a remedy in the form of the settlers’ democratic self-governance within the empire. This would effectively remove London’s ability to safeguard indigenous interests.2) Jamaica significant planter anxiety about the emancipation of formerly enslaved “apprentices” on 1 August 1838. Planters were devising schemes to secure replacement cheap labour from other colonies including Malta, until William Ewart Gladstone’s father set a regional precedent in Guyana: he emulated Mauritius’ planters by importing inden- tured labourers from British India. Jamaica’s governor, Lionel Smith, meanwhile, was proposing a way of excluding newly freed black people from the legislative assembly’s franchise in order to maintain the white grip on power.3) Sierra Leone Still the main dropping-off point for Africans rescued by the Royal Navy from other nations’ slave ships. Traditionally referred to as “liberated Africans”, they are today generally referred to as “Recaptives”. Unable to return home across hundreds of miles of raider-infested territory, most were apprenticed for 15 years to free settlers without pay. In 1838 James Stephen was considering whether the apprenticed “liberated Africans” in Sierra Leone should be emancipated like the formerly enslaved apprentices in the Caribbean, Cape and Mauritius, but he decided against it, believing that their apprenticeships would help to “civilise” them.4) Cape Colony Afrikaner colonists continued to move across the northern frontier on what later historians called the Great Trek (as 4 shown below in an 1837 engraving), preferring their system of slavery, cont- inued expansion, and self-rule to British governance. The Colonial Office recalled Governor Benjamin D’Urban for refusing to communicate once his annexation of land belonging to the Xhosa people across the eastern frontier was disallowed. The lieuten- ant governor, Andries Stockenström, was maintaining peace through treaties with the Xhosa people; he was soon sacked after British settlers’ lobbying.5) New South Wales The rapid colonisation of the Port Philip District (now Victoria) continued as British pastoralists invaded Kulin peoples’ lands. Despite the arrival of a handful of Protectors of Aborigines (men appointed by the Colonial Office in order to safeguard the interests of Aboriginal people), the Aboriginal population is estimated to have declined by 90 per cent during the 1840s. In 1838 colonists perpetrated two well-known massacres of Aboriginal people at Waterloo Creek and Myall Creek. The courts hanged seven white men for the latter offence, energising settlers’ calls for self-governance.6) India The Agra famine continued in the north-west provinces, only partially mitigated by the East India Company’s relief for the able-bodied. Some 800,000 would die of starvation. Meanwhile, the Company’s invest- ments in steam were laying the foundations for steamship navigation of the major rivers and railway development; Company forces were set to invade and occupy Afghanistan; and Company steamships were preparing to join with the Royal Navy in war on China for daring to crack down on the smuggling of the opium it produced in India.7) Mauritius Governor Nicolay was delighted that the British government’s payment of compensation to the island’s former slave owners was now feeding into the economy, enabling enhanced sugar production with indentured workers. Plantation owners were establishing an industrial-scale indentured labour system to bring low-paid workers from India. (Nearly half a million indentured labourers arrived at Aapravasi Ghat, Port Louis, shown left.) This proved cheaper than providing food and shelter to former enslaved persons. British planters facing the loss of enslaved labour in Central America, the Caribbean and Ceylon would copy this indentured labour experiment.

From central London, a huddle of harried clerks sent out an endless stream of dispatches that influenced the fate of the British empire. Alan Lester focuses on the year of 1838 to reveal how these city-bound bureaucrats managed to govern the world’s largest maritime empire

1838: A year in the life of the British empire

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