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Herman Merivale and the Native Question, 1837–1861

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

David McNab
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Extract

One of the most important consequences of the granting of colonial self-government in the British Empire in the early and mid-Victorian period was that it created complex problems for the Colonial Office concerning the future of native populations. In the nineteenth century this imperial dilemma was termed the “native question.” Natives were regarded as a lower class, like the Irish or the poor in Britain, and British liberals sought to better the material condition of these people by means of the panaceas of education and religion. Their object was humanitarian and their methods were usually paternalistic. Herman Merivale, in his role as a commentator on the native question, was both naive and at times Utopian in his attempts to find a solution. As an imperial administrator he was involved in the ineffectual attempts to implement the schemes of “amalgamation” (gradual union leading to assimilation) and “insulation” (reservations). British native policies failed largely because of resistance by native peoples and the weaknesses of imperial administration rather than British racial attitudes.

For Merivale “race” was a cultural idea derived from early nineteenth century ethnography, not a pseudo-scientific rationale which determined that native peoples were physically and, therefore, intellectually and materially inferior. Until the 1860's, at least, his ideas on this subject were not very different from those of his British contemporaries and were derived from a wide variety of written sources rather than direct observation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Winter 1977 , pp. 359 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1977

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References

1 Merivale's views on the native question have never been fully analyzed and have been frequently misunderstood. See Bolt, Christine, The Anti-Slavery Movement and Reconstruction, A Study in Anglo-American Co-operation, 1833-77 (London, 1969), pp. 34–35Google Scholar; Victorian Attitudes to Race (London, 1971), p. 72Google Scholar.

My interest in this subjecct was initially stimulated by my supervisor, Dr. J. M. Mackenzie who noted in two articles the importance of Herman Merivale in relationship to nineteenth century colonial labour theory: “African Labour in the Chartered Company Period,” Rhodesian History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1970): 43–58Google Scholar, and “Colonial Labour Policy and Rhodesia,” The Rhodesian Journal of Economics, Vol. 8, No. 1 (March 1974); 1–16Google Scholar. For a more complete analysis of this whole question see McNab, D., “Herman Merivale and the British Empire, 1806-1874,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Lancaster, 1978, Chapters 5, 6, 7Google Scholar. This research was undertaken and completed with financial support provided by a Canada Council doctoral fellowship and a research grant from the Inter-University Centre for European Studies. I would also like to thank Dr. J. W. Cell and Dr. B. M. Gough for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper.

2 Merivale, , “Senior on Political Economy,” Edinburgh Review, 66 (October 1837): 87–88Google Scholar; (hereafter E.R.); “Statistics of France”, E.R., 69 (April 1839): 61Google Scholar; “Gypsies of Spain”, E.R., 74 (October 1841): 64, 66Google Scholar; “Great Western Prairies” E.R., 78 (July 1843) 165Google Scholar; “Lyell's Travels”, E.R., 83 (January 1846) 146Google Scholar; “Pascal Paoli”, E.R., 101 (April 1855) 444–45Google Scholar; “Troyon's Lacustrine Abodes of Man”, ibid., 116 (July 1862): 157-160; “Palgrave's Arabia”, ibid., 122 (October 1865): 482-483. For his contemporaries see Bolt, , Attitudes to Race, pp 1–28Google Scholar, Harris, Marvin, The Rise of Anthropological Theory, A History of Theories of Culture (New York, 1968)Google Scholar. For a revisionist interpretation see Lorimer, D.A., “Bibles, Banjoes and Bones: Images of the Negro in the Popular Culture of Victorian England,” in Gough, B.M., ed., In Search of the Visible Past (Waterloo, 1975), pp. 31–50Google Scholar.

3 Merivale, H., Historical Studies (London, 1865) p. 431Google Scholar.

4 Curtin, P. D., The Image of Africa, British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850 (London, 1965), pp. 374–375, 387Google Scholar; Tyler, W. P. N., “Sir Frederic Rogers, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office, 1860-1871,” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1962, p. 225Google Scholar; Bolt, , Victorian Attitudes, pp. 75–108Google Scholar. Cf. Merivale, H., “Westward: A Grandfather's Dream,” Fraser's Magazine, Vol. 81 (January 1870): 30Google Scholar.

5 Merivale, H., Introduction to a Course of Lectures on Colonization and Colonies (Oxford, 1839), pp. 26–27, 29, 35–36Google Scholar.

6 Merivale, H., Lectures on Colonization and Colonies, (New York, 1967), p. 505Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., pp. 490-491.

8 Ibid., pp. 281-282.

9 Ibid., pp. 298-299.

10 Ibid., p. 282.

11 Ibid., p. 128.

12 Ibid., p. 282.

13 for an example other than southern Africa, which will be examined below, see: Colonial Office Records, Public Record Office (hereafter cited as CO.), C. O. 144/9 H. Merivale Minute of May 28, 1852 on E. Hawkins to Sir J. Pakington, May 27, 1852, ff. 294. On the question of a bishopric for Labuan, Merivale had no objection to the plan because it was part of missionary work in China and Borneo, but he could see little benefit deriving from it. See also his articles in the Quarterly Review, “The Missions of Polynesia,” Vol. 94 (December 1853): 80–122Google Scholar, and “Christianity in Melanasia and New Zealand,” Vol. 95 (June 1854): 165–206Google Scholar.

14 Galbraith, , “Myths of the Little England Era,” American Historial Review, Vol. 67, No. 1 (October 1961): 27–45Google Scholar and compare with Merivale's important article “The Colonial Question in 1870,” Fortnightly Review, N.S. Vol. 7, No. 37 (February 1870): 152–175Google Scholar. For a complete discussion of this problem see Eldridge, C. C., England's Mission, The Imperial Idea in the Age of Gladstone and Disraeli, 1868-1880 (London, 1973), pp. 1–52Google Scholar.

15 Merivale, H., Lectures, p. 487Google Scholar.

16 The best example is Lloyd, C., The Navy and the Slave Trade (London, 1968)Google Scholar, in which the author interpreted Merivale as a “fascist” because of these views. Other commentators have been more favourable, but have still distorted his arguments: Reece, R. H. W., Aborigines and Colonists: Aborigines and Colinial Society in New South Wales in the 1830's and 1840's (Sydney, 1974), pp. 212–213Google Scholar; Upton, Leslie, “The Origins of Canadian Indian Policy,” Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 4 (November 1973); 51–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Adams, Harold, Prison of Grass, Canada from the Native Point of View (Toronto, 1975), p. 34Google Scholar.

17 Merivale, H., Lectures, pp. 487, 490, 492Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., pp. 511-512.

19 Ibid., pp. 495-498.

20 Ibid., pp. 506-512.

21 Jaenen, Cornelius J., Friend and Foe, Aspects of French-Amerindian Cultural Contact in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Toronto, 1976), pp. 153–189Google Scholar.

22 Merivale, H., Lectures, p. 524Google Scholar. For an excellent case study in the nineteenth century see Usher, Jean, William Duncan of Metlakatla (Ottawa, 1974)Google Scholar.

23 Merivale, H., Lectures, pp. 531–538Google Scholar. Cf. Van Kirk, Sylvia, “Women and the Fur Trade,” The Beaver, Outfit 313:3 (Winter 1972): 4–21Google Scholar, for a description of miscegenation in fur-trading society in Rupert's Land when Merivale was writing his Lectures.

24 Merivale, H., Lectures, pp. 539–553Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., pp. 560-563.

26 Robinson, R. and Gallagher, J., Africa and the Victorians, The Official Mind of Imperialism (London 1961), p. 15Google Scholar; Galbraith, J. S., Reluctant Empire, British Policy on the South African Frontier, 1834-1854 (Berkeley, 1963), pp. 210–211Google Scholar: Johnston, H.J.M., British Emigration Policy, 1815-1830 (Oxford, 1972), pp. 32–48Google Scholar.

27 Merivale, H., Lectures, pp. 492–493Google Scholar. Cf. Bolt, , Victorian Attitudes to Race, pp. 157–205Google Scholar; Wilson, Monica, “The Hunters and the Herders.” The Oxford History of South Africa, edited by Wilson, Monica and Thompson, Leonard, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1969). pp. 40–74.Google Scholar

28 Galbraith, , Reluctant Empire, pp. 1–9Google Scholar.

29 Cell, J. W., British Colonial Administration in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The Policy-Making Process (New Haven, 1970), pp. 22–23Google Scholar.

30 Cell, , “British Colonial Policy in the 1850's,” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1965, pp. 175–182Google Scholar. This dissertation was in part published in Cell's British Colonial Administration as cited above, but important chapters of the dissertation on native policy were not included.

31 See for example CO. 48/277 H. Merivale Minute, February 7, 1848, on Henry Pottinger to Earl Grey, November 26, 1847, ff. 88.

32 Galbraith, , Reluctant Empire, pp. 210–241Google Scholar.

33 C.O. 48/284 H. Merivale draft despatch, Earl Grey to H. G. Smith, June 21, 1848, ff. 127-130.

34 C.O. 48/284 H. Merivale Minute, June 6, 1848, on H. G. Smith to Earl Grey, March 11, 1848, ff. 124.

35 Galbraith, , Reluctant Empire, pp. 242–276Google Scholar.

36 Cell, , “British Colonial Policy”, pp. 183–193Google Scholar.

37 C.O. 48/309 contains despatches on the outbreak of the Kaffir War in 1850 but the few minutes by Merivale in it are inconsequential because Grey took on the full responsibility himself. See also Earl Grey Minute, October 2, 1850, on H. G. Smith to Earl Grey, July 12, 1850, in CO. 48/306, ff. 270-275. Galbraith in his only reference to Merivale, in Reluctant Frontier also points this out. pp. 262–263Google Scholar.

38 C.O. 48/308 H. Merivale Minute, December 5, 1850, on H. G. Smith to Earl Grey, October 14, 1850, ff. 121-122.

39 Cell, , “British Colonial Policy”, pp. 200–206Google Scholar. Throughout the 1850's Merivale became increasingly hostile, particularly in southern Africa to the humanitarians, missionary societies and the missionaries on the spot. See for example: C.O. 48/320 H. Merivale Minute, March 13, 1852, on H. G. Smith to Earl Grey, December 23, 1852 on Memorial of the Aborigines Protection Society April 29, 1852, ff. 381; CO. 48/349 H. Merivale Minute, July 12, 1853, on British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to the Duke of Newcastle, July 11, 1853, ff. 286, C.O. 48/377 H. Merivale Marginal Note, probable date November 1, 1856, on extract of a letter dated August 21, 1856, unsigned, ff. 382; C.O. 48/387 H. Merivale Minute on Petition of the Aborigines Protection Society to Henry Labouchere, December 13, 1855, ff. 377. The most revealing minute was in C.O. 48/349 ff. 286 (above): “This is a terrible account. If published, it might do something towards shaking confidence in the fashionable doctrine of laissez-faire, as regards colonists and aborigines. But I cannot conceive any likelihood of good arising from remonstrance. If it is thought advisable to take any step, the papers might be transmitted to Sir G. Clerk, but with injunction to be very cautious in adopting any measures on the subject of them.”

40 Cell, , “British Colonial Policy”, pp. 194–199Google Scholar.

41 C.O. 48/328, H. Merivale Minute, December 22, 1852, on Sir G. Cathcart to the Secretary of State, October 12, 1852, ff. 12-13.

42 C.O. 48/328, H. Merivale Minute, January 26, 1853 on Sir G. Cathcart to Sir John Pakington, November 29, 1852, ff. 352.

43 C.O. 48/364, H. Merivale Minute, February 12, 1855, on George Clerk to Sir George Grey, November 30, 1854, ff. 486.

44 For judgments of Sir George Grey and his policy of “amalgamation” see: Cell, , “British Colonial Policy”, pp. 209–211Google Scholar; Rutherford, J., George Grey, 1812-1898, A Study in Colonial Government (London, 1961), p. 292Google Scholar; Morrell, W. P., British Colonial Policy in the Mid-Victorian Age (Oxford, 1969), p. 92Google Scholar.

45 C.O. 48/365, H. Merivale Minute, April 17, 1855, on Sir George Grey to the Secretary of State, George Grey, n.d. ff. 241.

46 C.O. 48/366, H. Merivale Minute, July 19, 1885, on Sir George Grey to Lord John Russell, June 11, 1855, ff. 380. See also C.O. 48/368, H. Merivale Minute, March 12, 1856 on Sir George Grey to William Molesworth, December 18, 1855, ff. 159.

47 C.O. 48/376, H. Merivale Minute, November 4, 1856, on Sir George Grey to Henry Labouchere, August 18, 1856, ff. 213; C.O. 48/378, H. Merivale Minute, December 3, 1856, on Land and Emigration Office to H. Merivale, November 27, 1856, ff. 199. See also Morrell, , British Colonial Policy in the Mid-Victorian Age, pp. 71–76Google Scholar, and Cell, , “British Colonial Policy”, pp. 216–218Google Scholar.

48 C.O. 48/367, H. Merivale Minute, October 1, 1855, on Sir George Grey to Lord John Russell, July 25, 1855, ff. 266; C.O. 48/377 H. Merivale Minute, December 19, 1856, on Sir George Grey to Henry Labouchere, September 27, 1856, ff.50.

49 C.O. 48/377, H. Merivale Minute, January 19, 1857, on Sir George Grey to Henry Labouchere, November 1, 1856, ff. 346-347.

50 C.O. 48/377, H. Merivale Minute, March 20, 1857 on Sir George Grey to Henry Labouchere, December 20, 1856, ff. 440-442. See also H. Merivale draft despatch, Henry Labouchere to Sir George Grey, June 5, 1857, ff. 455-456; and Cell, , “British Colonial Policy”, pp. 223–224Google Scholar.

51 C.O. 48/387, H. Merivale Minute, April 21, 1857, on Sir George Russell Clerk to H. Merivale, April 17, 1857, ff. 22.

52 C.O. 48/385, H. Merivale Minute, February 11, 1858, on Sir George Grey to Henry Labouchere, December 1, 1857, ff. 14; C.O. 48/388, H. Merivale Minute, May 27, 1858, on Sir George Grey to Henry Labouchere, April 14, 1858, ff. 478.

53 C. O. 48/388, H. Merivale Minute, August 24, 1858, on Sir George Grey to Lord Stanley, May 27, 1858, ff. 624-625.

54 C.O. 48/393, H. Merivale Minute, March 5, 1859, on Sir George Grey to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, January 12, 1858, ff. 99, Cf. Morrell, , British Colonial Policy in the Mid-Victorian Age, pp. 57–58Google Scholar.

55 C.O. 48/390, H. Merivale Minute, December 31, 1858, on Sir George Grey to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, November 11, 1858, ff. 412-413.

56 C.O. 48/399, H. Merivale Minute, March 27, 1859, on London Missionary Society to H. Merivale, March 4, 1859, ff. 290.

57 C.O. 48/395, H. Merivale Minute, June 3, 1859, on Sir George Grey to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, April 2, 1859, ff. 28.

58 For judgments of Grey's policies in southern Africa see Cell, , “British Colonial Policy”, pp. 225–226Google Scholar, and Galbraith, , Reluctant Empire, pp. 275–276Google Scholar.

59 Merivale, H., Lectures, p. 511Google Scholar. For the consequences see Mackenzie, , “African Labour in the Chartered Company Period,” pp. 56–58Google Scholar.

60 The purpose of this article has been to evaluate Merivale's attitudes and actions rather than to analyze the larger and more complex question of resistance of native peoples to British imperial administration. See also, McNab, , “Merivale and the British Empire”, pp. 217–278Google Scholar. On the important aspect of nationalism and proto-nationalism of native peoples see Ranger, T. O., Revolt in Southern Rhodesia, 1896-97: A Study in African Resistance (London, 1967)Google Scholar. For another argument which emphasizes the “diversity” of resistance (and which is applicable to the 1840s and 1850s) see Cobbing, J., “The Absent Priesthood: Another Look at the Rhodesian Risings of 1896-1897,” Journal of African History, Vol. 18, No. 1 (1977): 61–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Merivale, H., Lectures, pp. 513–514, 517–518, 520–528Google Scholar. There is no evidence that Merivale's attitudes on the “native question” were overly influenced by racism in Britain before 1861. The cause of the change in his views was largely due to his administrative experience. British imperial administrators' and politicians' attitudes to race were chiefly shaped by imperial events overseas. Compare Merivale's ideas in the following: “MacGregor-American commerce and statistics,” E.R., Vol. 86 (October 1847): 367–396Google Scholar; “Annals of California,” Vol. 107 (April 1858): 295–321Google Scholar; “On some features of American scenery,” Fortnightly Review, Vol. 10 (November 1868): 469–491Google Scholar; “Westward”, F.M., pp. 17–35, 211–219Google ScholarPubMed.