Scandal of Colonial Rule
Power and Subversion in the British Atlantic during the Age of Revolution

A dramatic and innovative history of the British public's confrontation with the iniquities of nineteenth-century colonial rule.

James Epstein (Author)

9781107003309, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 March 2012

314 pages, 9 b/w illus. 3 maps
23.5 x 16.5 x 1.9 cm, 0.63 kg

'Questions about the way that colonial law fit with metropolitan law, about the different meanings of race and gender in mostly white England and in its mostly nonwhite colonies, and about who could lay legitimate claim to the status of subject of the crown, and what that status offered were not amenable to a single clear answer. Instead they took shape in a response to different contingencies as the center spoke to its peripheries and, to borrow a famous formulation, the empire spoke back. James Epstein has offered a wonderful case study of that process, a case study that speaks to important questions about the meanings of empire in the nineteenth century while casting important if indirect light on the uncomfortable workings of empire today.' James Sidbury, Journal of Modern History

In 1806 General Thomas Picton, Britain's first governor of Trinidad, was brought to trial for the torture of a free mulatto named Louisa Calderon and for overseeing a regime of terror over the island's slave population. James Epstein offers a fascinating account of the unfolding of this colonial drama. He shows the ways in which the trial and its investigation brought empire 'home' and exposed the disjuncture between a national self-image of humane governance and the brutal realities of colonial rule. He uses the trial to open up a range of issues, including colonial violence and norms of justice, the status of the British subject, imperial careering, visions of development after slavery, slave conspiracy and the colonial archive. He reveals how Britain's imperial regime became more authoritarian, hierarchical and militarised but also how unease about abuses of power and of the rights of colonial subjects began to grow.

Introduction
1. Politics of colonial sensation
2. A gentleman's way in the world
3. 'Only answerable to God and conscience': justice unbounded by law
4. Ruling narratives
5. The radical underworld goes colonial
6. In search of free labor
7. Conspiracy in the archive
Epilogue: moving on.

Subject Areas: Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]