Alternative Visions

I. modes of resistance

-radical European visions: Chartism, Utopian socialism, Marxism

-movements outside the western world: Islamic revitalization movements (Wahhibism; Fulani revolt), Taiping Rebellion

-anti-colonial revolts: Native American prophet movements (Shawnee prophet Tenskwatawa; Ghost Dance movement), caste war of Mayan Indians in the Yucatan, Mutiny/Rebellion in India, Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica

II. case study: the Indian Mutiny/Rebellion

A. the Company-State
-economic policies

-a military state: 46,000 British troops; 230,000 sepoys

Singapore (1819)
Burma (1824-26)
China (1839-42, 1856-60)
Afghanistan (1838-42)
Sind (1843)
Punjab (1845-49)

-accumulation of land and power/ alliances with princely states

-new ideologies of rule
shift to interventionism / anglicizing policies
East India Co Charter Act (1813)

Lord William Bentinck (gg 1828-35)

sati, thuggee, female infanticide

new penal code

Macaulay's Minute on Education (1835): "to form a class whoe may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect"

Lord Dalhousie (gg 1848-56)

reform of Hindu customs

spread Christianity

rationalized revenue administration

military reform

extended education

introduced telegraphy (1851), railways (1853), postal system (1854), and large irrigation works

extend British territory and power
-Awadh (Oudh); Lucknow
-1765 treaty
-Nawab Wajid Ali Shah

B. 1857

May 10, 1857

Bahadur Shah II

centers of rebellion
1) Meerut (contemporary British account)
2) Awadh
-siege of Lucknow
3) recently annexed Maratha territories
-Nana Sahib
-Kanpur (Cawnpore)

counterinsurgency

C. mutiny?

D. outcomes

-India Act of 1858
-army reforms/ martial race ideology (Lowell, "The Relief of Lucknow")
-shift in imperial ideology