Introduction
One of the features of the historical development of statehood is the pursuit of colonization and conquest as a means of expanding political, economic, cultural, and territorial influence. Underlying these processes is the ideology of imperialism or colonialism, in which a state can use any means, including military force, to achieve its desired expansion. Imperialism is not a universal path to maturity for absolutely any state, but history knows many examples of empires in different eras. The Roman and Byzantine empires can be considered illustrations from the ancient world, while the Ottoman, Mongol, French, and Russian empires should be considered among the later state formations.
Particular attention should be paid to the British Empire because, according to some estimates, it was the British Empire that “covered a quarter of the world’s habitable land area and contained a fifth of its people.” At the same time, the political influence of the Empire was so great that, to this day, a number of states are dependent on Britain. The majesty and undeniable scale that the British Empire had created a large number of historical and research questions about the milestones of development, policy formation, colonial culture, and, no doubt, the British Empire as seen from the perspective of the British people.
This historical essay focuses on the phenomenon of domestic support for the British Empire. As this paper will show, the Empire experienced various milestones in the course of its civilizational development, whether it was the heyday and golden age of the Empire or the decline and rapid collapse of its political weight. The different phases of the historical life of the British Empire resonated differentially with the British, and it cannot be said that the general public treated the phenomenon of imperialism uniformly. Thus, there were cohorts who appeared indifferent to the Empire, there were those who supported it or, conversely, were in favor of decolonization, and there were groups who were little aware of the state system of their homeland. The purpose of this essay is to explore in-depth and comprehensively the image of imperial Britain as perceived directly by Britons in order to answer the question of just how widespread the Empire was among the domestic population.
A Brief History of the Empire
Imperialism in British history has distant roots in the age of feudalism. In the twelfth century, Britain began its first conquests with Ireland, and then, almost a century later, Britain included Wales and Scotland. With the consolidation of capitalist ideas at the foundation of the state, the thesis of colonialism became central to Britain’s rulers. In particular, territorial and political expansion was motivated directly by aristocratic owners of big businesses seeking to enrich themselves from the resources of new lands, including precious metals, minerals, and sugar cane.
A significant contribution to the expansion of the British Empire came from the Age of Discovery and directly from the discovery of North America. Through the efforts of Queen Elizabeth I, the first British colony in North America — namely, Virginia — was established in 1607. It is worth emphasizing that at the same time, two other major geopolitical players, namely Spain and Portugal, were also seizing newly discovered American lands, which naturally led to the formation of contradictions and military clashes with Britain. As early as 1588, however, Britain was able to defeat Spain, after which nothing prevented the country from actively expanding on the globe.
Imperialism developed especially intensively with the conclusion of the 16th and 17th century Bourgeois Revolution, during which state control was taken over new territories in North America, including French Canada, Gibraltar, Jamaica, and Barbados. For the emerging and aspiring British Empire, the captured colonies were not enough, and the state did not stop the processes of expansion. The deficit of political influence was particularly acute during the War of Independence, during which the former British colonies were able to escape the control of the metropolis, shaking Britain’s economic and political reputation considerably. In the New Age, Britain succeeded in conquering India, thereby expanding significantly in the Asian direction.
Australia, discovered somewhat later than other significant acquisitions, occupies a special place in the history of empire expansion. The Australian continent, discovered by James Cook in 1770, was not attractive to British agricultural development because of its large desert and savannah areas, its infertile soil, and its distance from the metropolis. For much of the first century, therefore, Australia was used by the British monarchs as a giant prison, to which persons undesirable to the Empire were transported in huge numbers.
Eventually, gold deposits were discovered in the Australian territories, after which Australia, as a British colony, became a key exporter of gold. The Victorian era, named after Britain’s Queen Victoria, is characterized by a period of supreme imperial prosperity. The defeat of Napoleon further motivated Britain to consolidate its greatness on the European continent, leading to the formation of a policy of balance of power. The Empire’s advanced naval fleet helped Britain retain power for many decades, but with the advent of the twentieth century, the British Empire’s golden age came to an end.
The twentieth century saw the intensive development of Germany in alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. German authorities increasingly began to declare and affirm with actions the necessity of rearranging the world, which forced the Empire to conclude a Triple Entente alliance with unfriendly Russia and France. At the conclusion of World War I, even though the anti-German allied forces had won and the Empire had gained new territories, it became clear to the general public that Britain’s military might was not as great as it had once seemed, and the hegemonic right gradually began to recede to the United States. On the other hand, Britain continued its expansion on the African continent but faced resistance from the Dutch natives.
A devastating step for the Empire was taken during World War II, which resulted in a weakening of the power of the metropolis and an intensification of colonial national self-determination. In addition, the Labor Party won the 1945 parliamentary elections, actively opposing the policy of colonization. Thus, in the second half of the twentieth century, the Empire lost control of India, Palestine, and virtually all of Africa. Scattered now around the world, individual states subordinate to Britain eventually began to realize the political value and economic advantage of sovereignty. Officially, the British Empire ceased to exist by 1997, when its last colony, Hong Kong, withdrew. Since then, Britain has no longer been considered an empire, although it did initiate the creation of the Commonwealth of Nations among the colonies and dominions that once comprised it.
Imperialist Modes of Development
Despite its disintegration, the British Empire was undeniably the most remarkable state formation, allowing British monarchs and aristocrats to dictate rules and laws to the world. To achieve success, the Empire employed a large number of geopolitical stratagems and techniques that helped rulers successfully establish and hold onto new territories. A fundamental resource for the British Empire was provided by exploratory naval missions, during which new territories were mapped and proclaimed by captains as belonging to Britain. Often, such colonies were used as outposts for the extraction of minerals that stimulated the economic growth of the metropolis.
It is noteworthy that Britain used cheap slave labor from Africa to work in the new territories, thereby reducing the financial burden and directing the flow of money into the conquest of new lands. Military force played an essential role in the development of the Empire, which the British Empire resorted to every time resistance was encountered. In the Empire’s golden age, Britain’s military power was particularly strong, enabling the metropolis to control the seas and economically important canals.
In addition to geographical discoveries and warfare, the British Empire also used covert control, in which the inhabitants of the colonies may not have been fully aware of their control: lobbying was actively used by British politicians and people in business. Propaganda also worked well: the conquest of new territories was generally presented as a benevolent civilizational mission, with an image of the Empire that was not hegemonic but friendly and helpful. The British helped the colonies make technological advances and develop science, education, and culture: “Imperial tutelage… was delivering benighted peoples from the errors of their ways — child marriage, widow immolation, headhunting.” This, in turn, contributed to the entrenchment of British culture and language, which positively influenced the expansion of the metropolis’ political influence.
In other words, instead of using universal rules, the British Empire individually chose an approach for each new territory. Some of the future colonies were rich in minerals; others came as spoils of war; in any case, each British colony or dominion was different. The monarchy acted as a binding bridge, no doubt aiding underdeveloped nations in their progress. However, the flip side of this assistance was dictating its rules and lobbying, stifling economic growth and social consciousness. A succinct idea of the raison d’être of the British Empire was expressed by Wong, who declared that “The British Empire was constructed with the predominant purpose of benefiting the colonial state through large-scale resource extraction and extortion from its colonies”.
Heterogeneous Support for British Imperialism
The problem of exploring the impact of British imperialism on domestic populations does not find universality in academic, public, and historical literature. On the one hand, it seems that the phenomenon of the Empire could not help but affect the British. Porter writes about it, saying, “It must have had an impact on Britain.” However, in the same book, Porter reports that even during the fall of the Empire, “They [the British] went on as always, scarcely affected by this apparent revolution.” There are also opinions that the imperialist experience was traumatic for the population; as Gott writes, “Not a year went by without large numbers of its inhabitants being obliged to suffer for their involuntary participation in the colonial experience.” At the same time, Lal points out that “Among the significant characteristics of the empire was that the most virulent criticism often came from within.”
In contrast, some authors report a high level of support for imperialism among the British population, especially those who were influenced by the political propaganda machine. For example, Potter wrote in his article that “an imperial nationalism, compounded of monarchism, militarism, and Social Darwinism, through which the British defined their own unique superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the world.” Thus, the historical understanding of the impact of imperialism on ordinary citizens varies significantly among the authors, largely because of what criteria of civilization are taken into account and what social classes this attention has been extended to. In this context, a pithy observation was made by Thompson, who wrote that “Hence it was always highly improbable that a single or monolithic ‘imperial culture’ would emerge in Britain.” This section offers an in-depth and critical examination of the different levels of perception and support for the phenomenon of imperialism on the part of ordinary Britons, a domestic population that has been forced for centuries under the imperialist state rule of its monarchs.
Positive Perceptions and Support for Imperialism
Economic Benefits
There were a large number of factors that led to the empowerment of the British Empire’s domestic population, which in turn found support from them. The Empire was rapidly conquering new territories, opening new tourist and trade routes, and filling store shelves with Empire-branded goods whose production costs were low. For ordinary citizens, such empowerment was a distinct advantage of living in the Empire, as it improved their quality of life and had a positive impact on the exchange of knowledge, experience, and well-being.
The impact was particularly strong on the working class, who were more easily tempted to believe in the benefits of imperialism. The developed system of propaganda, which worked not only for the colonies and dominions but also for the domestic population through the printed media, was reflected in those who read these newspapers more often than others, namely the average working-class citizen. Remarkably, many of them may not even have had sufficient knowledge of what the Empire was really like, but they “bought into this imperial mindset” and so were quite supportive of the idea of imperialism.
On the other hand, the clear benefits of invasive imperialist development accrued to the merchants, industrialists, and people in business who ran the first transnational companies. For them, the country’s imperialism was a way to increase profits by tapping new markets, hiring cheap labor, and increasing the area of production coverage. Trade within the Empire was particularly powerful because the colonies were often forbidden to trade with the outside world, so all goods and services produced were to be exchanged directly with the center of the monarchy.
At the same time, the British Empire pursued an intensive policy of protectionism, which imposed high tariffs on goods of the outside world, which stimulated the production and consumption of domestic products. The cohort of such beneficiaries was capaciously identified as mercantilists in O’Brien’s work, indicating their motivation from their country’s polity. Although Davis and Huttenback’s economic study showed that the redistribution of wealth remained imperialist rather than metropolitan, the mercantilists still concentrated the most significant benefits in their hands.
Cultural Benefits
An important area in which support for Britain’s imperialist sentiments was often found was culture and the arts. The phenomenon of imperialism entailed the formation of ideals of racial superiority in which the domestic population of the metropolis, the true Britons, dominated the peoples of the colonies and dominions. The imposition of political values extrapolated social attitudes as well so that the British, often elites, could assume that their values, ideals, institutions, and legal systems were perfect and could be imposed on other populations. This was particularly evident in the promotion of Britain’s civilizational mission, in which the metropolis acted as a preacher of technology, development, and progress for the underdeveloped colonies.
The cultural expansions of imperialism were also relevant to Britain, especially during the Empire’s golden age. One of the most prominent literary figures of this period is Rudyard Kipling, who wrote many works praising imperialism. His poem ‘The White Man’s Burden’ contains the following lines: “Take up the White Man’s burden // The savage wars of peace // Fill full the mouth of famine // And bid the sickness cease” and “Ye dare not stoop to less // Nor call too loud on Freedom // To cloak your weariness.” Kipling refers to the United States, which had recently broken free from the control of the British crown and begun to promote freedom; the poet points out the price the former colonies had to pay to try to build a new world.
Fine art also carried the sentiments of a progressively advanced metropolis in comparison to the colonies over which control had been taken. For example, the famous painting ‘Thomas Baines with Aborigines Near the Mouth of the Victori’ by Thomas Baines depicts the incoming British as strong, powerful, and evolved against a background of dirty, inept, and not even upright Australian Aborigines. The Great Exhibition, held in London in 1851, was also an important milestone: the purpose of the exhibition was to show the world the scientific, cultural, and technological achievements of the British Empire, but it also had the additional task of spreading the global idea of the superiority of the British nation.
Social Benefits
It should be particularly emphasized that support for imperialism could not be realized only through ideas of racial superiority and domination of Britain’s domestic population over the rest of the world. While such views were undoubtedly present, support for imperialism was not unified. Thus, a large number of social organizations were born in Britain that promoted the Empire through aid to colonial lands. Among the iconic ones are the Aborigines’ Protection Society (APS) and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), whose aims were to defend the rights of the indigenous peoples of the British Empire. The actions of the APS and BFASS human rights movements were not subversive: they did not seek to destroy or harm the Empire.
On the contrary, seeing shortcomings that could not help but exist in such a vast state formation, the APS and BFASS sought to help the Empire correct them and allow the colonies to continue to exist as part of the Empire as more complete structures. At the same time, as Lal points out, “past empires also promoted prosperity… by providing the essential public good of protecting the life, liberty, and property of their citizens.”
Negative Perception of and Support for Imperialism
Economic Criticism
Oppositional public attitudes toward the advantages of the British Empire were resentment, harsh criticism, and disagreement with the policies of the metropolis. One of the primary grounds for criticism was the Empire’s economic system. The primary beneficiaries of imperialist expansion were manufacturers and big businesses, but for the ordinary people, there was a severe economic burden. Wong succinctly observed that “The economic benefits that had materialized for these colonies were largely coincidental side effects to the grander imperialist scheme of benefiting a highly select group of colonial and commercial elites.”
Against this background it is fair to emphasize that the population of Britain before World War I was deprived of an income tax, mainly because of disagreements in parliament over the intervention of the state government in the private incomes of citizens. Nevertheless, budgetary deficits found after the losses of successive wars of conquest, epidemics, or corruption had to be covered. In addition to high tax rates for colonial peoples, the Empire had taxes for the local population, among them the window tax, the occupation tax, and the purchase tax. Filling gaps in the budget was also realized through higher tariff rates on colonial products, making life more expensive for local people.
One of the chief economic critics of the British Empire was the famous Scottish economist Adam Smith. In his writings, he wrote that “valid economic principles taught that the Empire was injurious to the prosperity of Great Britain itself // consequently, the Empire should be transformed into a political union, based on the model of the union of England and Scotland.” In his book ‘The Wealth of Nations, Smith criticized mercantilist policies primarily at the expense of strict rules and economic restraints that hindered free economic growth.
Humanitarian Criticism
In addition to economic areas, the moral and humanistic ideals of British imperialism were also criticized. The invasive missions of British envoys to colonial territories were often accompanied by the cruel treatment of the native populations and discrimination against the local populations: “Critics lamented what they perceived as the negative, distorting effects of ‘imperialism’ on Britain’s domestic development, and the debilitating influence of ‘colonialism’ on Indigenous societies.” There are many tragic examples of British envoys carrying out assassinations in the colonies.
For example, during the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, the British military brutally suppressed an Indian colonial uprising with pro-independence slogans, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths. Also known as The Stolen Generations policy, according to which the British removed children from Australian Aborigines in order to assimilate them culturally, destroying families and creating severe trauma for both parents and orphans. Naturally, such tragedies resonated with the British, who responded with harsh criticism.
Among the most prominent British philosophers and critics of British imperialism stands John Stuart Mill. In his essay ‘On Liberty,’ Mill ironically wrote that “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end.” Criticism of imperialism was also found on political levels: William Wilberforce, British politician and abolitionist leader, spoke in his parliamentary speeches of the horrors experienced by the captive and dispossessed people of the Empire: “Having now disposed of the first part of this subject, I must speak of the transit of the slaves in the West Indies // This… is the most wretched part of the whole subject // So much misery condensed in so little room, is more than the human imagination had ever before conceived.”
Through the efforts of political and social activists, the abolitionist movement was born in the British Empire. Proponents of this movement spoke out strongly against the slave trade and the use of enslaved people in the industry, pointing out the inhumanity and immorality of such actions. Abolitionism was gaining political traction in the Empire, and increasing numbers of Britons were becoming critical of the British Empire’s economic strategies of conquering territory and managing industry through slave labor.
In a sense, identical to the abolitionist movement, the social and political Little Englander movement developed in the Empire. The original value of the term was determined by the Liberal Party’s desire to limit the British Empire’s capacity for permanent expansion and conquest. The middle “Little Englander” opposed expansionary policies, called for the independence of colonial entities and the removal of the onerous burdens of imperialism. Only a few centuries later did the term change its meaning to the opposite, but in the early stages, ‘Little Englanders’ were critical of the phenomenon of imperialism and did not support the pursuit of border expansion.
Cultural Criticism
As part of the anti-support for Britain’s imperialist experience, many critics pointed to the loss of national identity of the internal and external populations. Obvious evidence can be found in the literature of prominent British publicists, among them George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, and John A. Hobson. Among the many productions in which Orwell criticized the ideals of imperialism, the essay Shooting an Elephant is particularly noteworthy. In this metaphorical work, the narrator must follow orders from above and kill a rampaging elephant, which the crowd of Indian residents also expects him to do. However, the narrator cannot so easily commit the murder of the sacred Indian animal and does so only to maintain the right image in the eyes of the people. The metaphor of this essay is the pressure that the metropolis exerts on the colonies, unhindered and without regret, destroying the culture and planting a new identity in the locals.
Russell also repeatedly criticized British imperialism in his writings, for which he eventually earned the nickname of a utilitarian pacifist. Thus, Russell opposed imperial ideals of domination and pointed to the need to respect the cultural identity of colonial peoples. It would also be valuable to recall John Hobson, who wrote that imperialism led to the enrichment of wealthy Britons and the impoverishment of the poor, a decline in the standard of living of ordinary citizens due to the diversion of resources to the needs of the Empire, and an elevated militarization of society.
Indifference to Imperialism
It is correct to acknowledge that in addition to sincere support or harsh criticism of British imperialism, there were strata of the population that did not relate in any way to the ideals of the Empire and the desire for expansion. Ideas of the insignificance or even non-existence of the British Empire as a phenomenon in the perception of ordinary Britons are reflected by Porter. Thompson writes that “many people in Britain do seem to have thought about the empire.” The view that Britain’s domestic population was not interested in imperial affairs because their primary needs were for personal life and sociocultural and everyday tasks is supported by other evidence.
For example, Linda Colley, an expert on British imperial history and professor at Princeton University, confirmed Britons’ unawareness of the country’s imperialist path. In particular, she wrote that “most Britons still lived and died without encountering anyone whose skin color was different from their own.” This is also reported by Price when she writes that “The empire as such did not figure much in their actual lives or work // They did not actually know much about empire, nor, it seems, did many of them go to India.”
However, indifference to imperialism did not necessarily mean ignorance of the existence of the imperialist experience. It is impossible to deny the effect of extended propaganda and domestic trade between the metropolis and the colony, which led, among other things, to the discovery of goods unknown to the British on store shelves. Potter wrote of this: “Stereotyped images of empire and of Africans and Asians found their way into many British homes and may have constituted one of the most basic and pervasive ways in which British people experienced empire and images of racial difference.” From this, it follows that for many of them, an introduction to Empire might have ended on store shelves.
Contemporary British Attitudes toward Empire
In addition to examining the experience of the past, it is of research interest to examine the attitudes of contemporary Britons toward the imperialist experience of their country. In synthesis with the evidence discussed earlier, such a study would make it possible to assess the historical continuity of generations of Britain’s domestic population. Consideration should be given to the fact that no more than three decades have passed since the official destruction of the Empire. A reference to sociological surveys of British opinion reveals that about one in three modern Britons considers the historical past of their homeland a cause for pride rather than shame. It is noteworthy that for territories that were subject to the British monarch’s colonies, this percentage is significantly lower.
The results of these surveys lead us to several surprising conclusions. First, much of contemporary British society does not have romanticized and idealized conceptions of the British Empire. These people may be consciously aware of the methods and practices that are constantly being used by British authorities for territorial, cultural, and political expansion. The interests of elitist minorities and lobbyists were above the freedoms and comforts of life of ordinary citizens, which is the reason for the low approval of the Empire by contemporary Britons.
Second, support for British imperialism is substantially higher for Britain than for the populations of the former colonies. In many ways, this may reflect the developed sense of historical pride with which approximately one in three modern Britons reflects on their country’s imperialist past. Propaganda-formed views about the racial, cultural, and technological perfection of the metropolis as compared with the controlled territories have hardly wholly disappeared from the consciousness of modern Britons.
Against this background, it is fair to point out that the British government is taking steps to portray the country’s just and critical past in the eyes of future posterity. The Labor Party’s official manifesto, issued a few years ago, was intended to fix at the state level the episodes of rigidity, political domination, and pejorative discrimination that existed in the history of the British Empire. It does not follow that the entire history of the Empire was colored by such shades, but it is one landmark step in the practice of objectifying history, even if its individual elements were unflattering.
Conclusion
This historical essay has sought to explore the lens of the perception of the British Empire in the eyes of the British themselves. To summarize, British society was heterogeneous in its definition of what the British Empire was to it. The phenomenon of imperialism in the British context involved numerous and ambiguous manifestations — on the one hand, the Empire promoted the development and progress of backward subordinate colonies. The massive and undeniably transnational imperial resources of the time were able to optimize supply chains, diplomatic relations, and links between all structures of statehood.
The Empire grew rapidly, acquiring new territories and building new economic ties. In the golden age of the Empire, when the British monarchy was at its peak, some colonies served as outposts and prisons to isolate prisoners and undesirables, others were sources of minerals and precious metals, and still others enhanced the monarchy’s political influence within the dominions.
However, there was another side: one of the main goals of the British Empire was constant expansion, both territorially and politically, economically, and culturally. Expansion often encountered natural resistance, including from existing colonies. In its attempts to develop new territories, including on the part of geographical discoveries, the Empire regularly encountered the discontent of local natives. In turn, in an effort to suppress rebellion, the British often used cruel and immoral restraints, including the isolation of children from their families in an attempt at cultural assimilation. There is ample historical evidence that the Empire’s envoys suppressed such rebellions violently and brutally, usually resulting in the maintenance of British crown control and loss of life.
Given this, it cannot be said that the general British public had a unified view of the nature of the British Empire. One part of the public was seriously and harshly critical of the imperialist policy of expansion, appealing to aspects of humanity, civil liberties, and equality before the law. Criticisms of this cohort included the leadership of the monarchy, bureaucracy, violent methods of expansion, and procedures of cultural assimilation.
Another part of society, while turning a blind eye to the shortcomings of imperialism, endorsed the civilizing mission of the British Empire and was content with the limitless expansion of statehood. Support for British imperialism could be found in works of art and literature — an essential attribute of such works was the idea of the racial and evolutionary superiority of the British. There was, however, a third part of society, namely, uninformed citizens who were indifferent and neutral to the way their homeland was being governed. For such people, everyday concerns were more important than the political needs of the Empire, and many of them had never encountered the manifestations of British imperialism. Thus, in answering the question posed at the outset, it cannot be argued that the perception of the British Empire phenomenon in the eyes of the domestic population is universal.
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