Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:38:15.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“SAVING BRITISH NATIVES”: FAMILY EMIGRATION AND THE LOGIC OF SETTLER COLONIALISM IN CHARLES DICKENS AND CAROLINE CHISHOLM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2015

Terra Walston Joseph
Terra Walston Joseph*
Affiliation:
Rider University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As Cambridge historian J. R. Seeley writes inThe Expansion of England (1883), the fear of colonial secession, inspired by that of the United States, haunted Britons’ perception of their “second Empire” throughout the nineteenth century, effectively working against a sense of shared national destiny with the white settlers of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia (14–15). One important way Victorian writers combatted the “optimistic fatalism” Seeley observed in his fellow Britons was through an imperial economy of affect, which circulated sentiment and stressed emotional identification between settlers and metropolitan Britons (15). If mid-nineteenth-century British literature can be said to negotiate the tensions of Britain's empire through representations of racial, cultural, and linguistic difference, then narratives of sameness – of British families across the oceans – offer models for cohering the British settler empire. In such a model, techniques designed to reinforce the sentimental bonds of settlers to their families might also reinforce the social, political, and affective connections of the settlers to the metaphorical “mother country.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 43 , Issue 2: EDITORS' TOPIC: The Nineteenth-Century Pacific Rim , June 2015 , pp. 261 - 280
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Barst, Julie M. “Pushing the Envelope: Caroline Chisholm, Colonial Australia, and the Transformative Power of Postal Networks.” Prose Studies 33.3 (2011): 200–16. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Duncan S. A. “Empire and International Relations in Victorian Political Thought.” Historical Journal 49.1 (2006): 281–98. Cambridge UP Journals Complete. Web. 13 Apr. 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belmessous, Saliha. Assimilation and Empire: Uniformity in French and British Colonies, 1541–1954. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. Google Books. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogle, Joanna. Caroline Chisholm: The Emigrant's Friend. Leominster: Gracewing, 1993.Google Scholar
Brantlinger, Patrick. Dark Vanishings: Discourse on the Extinction of Primitive Races, 1800–1930. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003.Google Scholar
Brantlinger, Patrick. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Carens, Timothy L.Outlandish English Subjects in the Victorian Domestic Novel. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“A Carol on Caroline Chisolm.” Punch 25 (12 August 1853): 71. Google Books. Web. 1 July 2009.Google Scholar
Chilton, Lisa. Agents of Empire: British Female Migration to Canada and Australia, 1860s-1930. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Chisholm, a Woman of Note, Could Be Our Next Saint.” Sydney Morning Herald 24 Oct. 2007. Web. 31 August 2009.Google Scholar
Chisholm, Caroline. The A.B.C. of Colonization: In a Series of Letters. London: John Ollivier, 1850. Google Books. Web. 8 June 2011.Google Scholar
Chisholm, Caroline. Comfort for the poor! Meat three times a day!! Voluntary information from the people of New South Wales, collected in that colony by Mrs. Chisholm in 1845–46. London: John Ollivier, 1847. Microfiche.Google Scholar
Chisholm, Caroline. Emigration and Transportation Relatively Considered; in a letter dedicated, by permission, to Earl Grey. London: John Ollivier, 1847. Microform.Google Scholar
Chisholm, Caroline. Female Immigration Considered: In a Brief Account of the Sydney Immigrant's Home. 1842. Sydney: U of Sydney Library, 2003. SETIS Digital Resources. Web. 8 June 2011.Google Scholar
Chisholm, Caroline. “Prospectus, of a Work to be Entitled ‘Voluntary Information from the People; of New South Wales, Respecting the Social Condition of the Middle and Working Classes in the Colony, by C. Chisholm.” Bengal Catholic Herald [Calcutta] 10 (10 Jan. 1846): 24–25. Google Books. Web. 19 June 2013.Google Scholar
[Chisholm, Caroline, and Horne], Richard H.. “Pictures of Life in Australia.” Household Words 1 (22 June 1850): 307–10.Google Scholar
Collins, P. A. W. “Bleak House and Dickens's Household Narrative. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 14.4 (1960): 345–49. JSTOR. Web. 8 June 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Bradbury and Evans: London, 1853. Google Books. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1848. Google Books. Web. 16 June 2014.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles. The Letters of Charles Dickens 1820–1870. 1st release electronic ed. Ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson. 12 vols. Charlottesville: InteLex Corporation, 2001. Web. 10 June 2010.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844. Google Books. Web. 16 June 2014.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Bradbury & Evans: London, 1850. Google Books. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.Google Scholar
Dickens, Charles. The Pickwick Papers. London: Chapman and Hall, 1837. Google Books. Web. 16 June 2015.Google Scholar
[Dickens, Charles]. “The Last Words of the Old Year.” Household Words 4 Jan 1851: 337–39. Google Books. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.Google Scholar
[Dickens, Charles]. “The Noble Savage.” Household Words 11 June 1853: 337–39.Google Scholar
[Dickens, Charles]. “Review of The Narrative of the Expedition sent by Her Majesty's Government to the River Niger in 1841, under the command of Captain H. D. Trotter, R.N.” Examiner 19 Aug. 1848: 531–33. 19th Century British Library Newspapers. Gale. Web. 8 June 2011.Google Scholar
[Dickens, Charles, and Chisholm, Caroline]. “A Bundle of Emigrants’ Letters.” Household Words 1 (30 Mar. 1850): 19–24.Google Scholar
Gribble, Jennifer. “Borrioboola-Gha: Dickens, John Jarndyce and the Heart of Darkness.” Dickens, Europe and the New Worlds. Ed. Sadrin, Anny. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. 90–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[Gwynne, Francis, and Wills, W. H.]. “Two Letters from Australia.” Household Words 1 (10 Aug. 1850): 475–80.Google Scholar
Hoban, Mary. Fifty-One Pieces of Wedding Cake: A Biography of Caroline Chisholm. Kilmore, Victoria: Lowden, 1973.Google Scholar
Hogan, James Francis. The Irish in Australia. London: Ward & Downey, 1887. Google Books. Web. 19 Jan. 2014.Google Scholar
Kiddle, Margaret. Caroline Chisholm. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 1950.Google Scholar
Landor, Walter Savage. “To Caroline Chisholm.” Examiner 13 August 1853: 517. Google Books. Web. 8 June 2011.Google Scholar
Lansbury, Coral. “Terra Australis Dickensia.” Modern Language Studies 1.2 (1971): 12–21. JSTOR. Web. 7 Aug. 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lorentzen, Eric G. “‘Obligations of Home’: Colonialism, Contamination, and Revolt in Bleak House.” Dickens Studies Annual 34 (2004): 155–84.Google Scholar
Lougy, Robert E. “Nationalism and Violence.” Dickens and the Children of Empire. Ed. Jacobsen, Wendy S.. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000. 105–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGregor, Russell. Imagined Destinies: Aboriginal Australians and the Doomed Race Theory, 1880–1939. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1997.Google Scholar
Moore, Grace. Dickens and Empire: Discourses of Class, Race and Colonialism in the Works of Charles Dickens. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.Google Scholar
Myers, Janet C.Antipodal England: Emigration and Portable Domesticity in the Victorian Imagination. Albany: State U of New York, 2009.Google Scholar
Richards, Eric. “How Did Poor People Emigrate from the British Isles to Australia in the Nineteenth Century?” Journal of British Studies 32.3 (1993): 250–79. JSTOR. Web. 11 Aug. 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Bruce. “Telescopic Philanthropy: Professionalism and Responsibility in Bleak House.” Nation and Narration. Ed. Bhabha, Homi. London: Routledge, 1990. 213–230.Google Scholar
Russell, Shannon. “Recycling the Poor and Fallen: Emigration Politics and the Narrative Resolution of Mary Barton and David Copperfield.” Imperial Objects: Essays on Victorian Women's Emigration and the Unauthorized Imperial Experience. Ed. Kranidis, Rita S.. New York: Twayne, 1998. 43–63.Google Scholar
Seeley, J. R.The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures. London: Macmillan, 1891. Google Books. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.Google Scholar
Sidney, Samuel, and Sidney, John. Sidney's Australian Handbook: How to Settle and Succeed in Australia: Comprising Every Information for Intending Emigrants, By a Bushman. 9th Edition. London: Pelham Richardson, 1849. State Library of Victoria. Web. 4 Aug. 2013.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “An Australian Ploughman's Story.” Household Words 1 (6 Apr. 1850): 39–43.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “Better Ties Than Red Tape Ties.” Household Words 4 (28 Feb. 1852): 529–34.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “An Exploring Adventure.” Household Words 1 (27 July 1850): 418–20.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “Family Colonisation Loan Society.” Household Words 1 (24 Aug. 1850): 514–15.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “Three Colonial Epochs.” Household Words 4 (31 Jan. 1852): 433–38.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “Two-Handed Dick the Stockman: An Adventure in the Bush.” Household Words 1 (4 May 1850): 141–44.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “Two Scenes in the Life of John Bodger.”Household Words 5 (3 July 1852): 364–66.Google Scholar
[Sidney, Samuel]. “What to Take to Australia.” Household Words 5 (3 July 1852): 364–66.Google Scholar
Tracy, Robert. “Lighthousekeeping: Bleak House and the Crystal Palace.” Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): 25–53.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. The Tireless Traveler: Twenty Letters to the Liverpool Mercury. 1875. Berkeley: U of California P, 1978.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Patrick. “Land, Labor, and Difference: Elementary Structures of Race.” American Historical Review 106.3 (2001): 866–905. JSTOR. Web. 5 May 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfe, Patrick. “Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native.” Journal of Genocide Research 8.4 (2006): 387–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Paul. Globalization and the Great Exhibition: The Victorian New World Order. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar