Heaven’s Command by Jan Morris

The predominant image of the British Empire in popular culture of bewhiskered bastards mechanically exterminating entire nations of noble savages is challenged repeatedly in the history related by Jan Morris in Heaven’s Command.  Morris tells the story from the point of view of the invading conquerors, rather than those invaded, and it is interesting to discover that the British didn’t spend all their time murdering innocents in a mad drive to conquer the world, and that the imperial actions of the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign seem to have been characterised by rather more altruistic, if misguided, aims.

Much expansion of the Empire around the edges of Africa in the early nineteenth century happened not because of a desire to subjugate or convert the natives, but because Britain took it upon herself to fight the slave trade, policing the coasts of both sides of the continent in order to stop Europeans and Americans in the west and Arabs in the east from exporting Africans as a cheap commodity. Abolition actually hit Britain quite severely, reducing income from the colonies, which were no longer able to produce cheap crops without the use of forced labour, and the government paid out large sums of money in compensation to plantation owners whose worth was significantly reduced by the emancipation of their slaves, but this did not prevent the British from fighting the slavers wherever they encountered them.

The most dramatic and violent episodes in the earlier sections of the book deal with atrocities perpetrated not by instruments of the expanding empire, but by inhabitants of its subject nations, actual or intended. The fate of the Boer Voortrekkers at the hands of the Zulu, the events of the Indian Mutiny, and the ill-fated 1839-41 occupation of Kabul all show that the indigenous populations were capable of spectacular barbarism. The various armed forces and colonists appear tame in comparison to the bloodthirsty Zulus, sepoys and Afghans, who thought nothing of inflicting horrific death on all, women and children included. Putting aside the question of whether or not the Europeans should have been there in the first place, these are powerful stories, and go some way towards explaining why the British felt the need to subjugate and civilise.

Most of the early forays dealt with here were opportunistic affairs and it was only later, in the 1860s and 70s that the British moved on from ad-hoc expansionism to a more deliberate and coherent mission:

The Indian Mutiny had clearly demonstrated that a sizeable number of Victoria’s subjects detested the presence of the Raj, but the British were neither depressed nor disillusioned but this disclosure. It merely confirmed a growing national suspicion that they had been called to terrible but noble duties. They were not made to be loved: they were made to rule the world for its own good. (p405)

Even then a sizeable proportion of the British were uncertain of the benefits of overseas possessions, and imperialists did not by any means account for the majority.  Even at the height of imperialist expansion, in the heart of empire, whether or not Britain should have been doing what she was doing was a question inviting equivocal answer.

It is of course entirely possible for the author to mislead the inexpert reader, and there could be more truth in the popular conception of evil British imperialists than Morris is prepared to admit. She does in fact state in the introduction that her aim is not total impartiality:

It had occurred to me how fascinating it would be to read a book about the later Roman Empire, written by a former centurion, say, who himself remembering that dominion in the last days of its power had set out to create an evocatively retrospective portrait of it…

She notes that, in emulating this hypothetical historian, her account of the British Empire would be “…a very particular view of history - highly subjective…” and it is possible that this subjectivity has coloured the book and made her portrayal of the British rosier than it should be.  But she does not ignore instances where, directly or indirectly, the British caused great suffering amongst those they chose to grace with their imperial attentions.  The story of the last Tasmanians is heartbreaking, and gets an entire chapter to itself.  Reprisals for native aggression and rebellion are documented, and the events surrounding British treatment of the Irish echo throughout and beyond Queen Victoria’s reign - negligence and ignorance led to widespread famine in Ireland, indifference exacerbated it to the level of genocide, and the repercussions are felt to this day.  Whilst some episodes are glossed over, they are on both sides of the argument, and are probably due to restrictions of space rather than any desire to give an unbalanced account.  Morris brings to life some of those who played a part in building the largest empire in history without demonising or idealising them.

2 comments 2008-06-18 11:18 Categories: Books, Reviews