Abstract
This article argues that information about child laborers in mining industries outside of Britain greatly informed ideas about British childhood in the mid-nineteenth century, the period of much legislation and activation against child labor in mining in the UK. The Atlantic World, and particularly Brazil, was a major crucible for cultural formation in global mining industries and therefore ideas about “British childhood,” especially with reference to mining, inhered racialized notions of white privilege. In addition, the article shows how the contexts of mid-century gold rushes and East India Company (EIC) activity in the Punjab also factored into notions of British childhood. “Childhood” was one category through which British imperial culture developed and worked to assert imperial authority at home and abroad within a global and ever-more-globalizing context. The article is based on English travel-writing on Brazil, surveys of the British press, and the records of the EIC.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Erica L. Fraser, Audra Diptee, Cheryl Cundell, David Trotman, and the two anonymous readers, for their feedback and support.
Notes on contributor
Danielle C. Kinsey is an assistant professor in history at Carleton University. She specializes in the history of the British Empire in the nineteenth century and is at work on a book manuscript about diamonds and the diamond trade in this period.
Notes
2. The Illustrated London News, 21 May 1842, 22.
3. The Illustrated London News, 21 May 1842, 22.
8.
CitationStearns, Childhood in World History, 65–71; CitationPomfret, “World Contexts,” 192–4, 197–8, 202. For a discussion of the “child-saving movement” that emerges in Brazil at the end of the late nineteenth century, see CitationRizzini, “The Child-saving Movement in Brazil,” 165–80.
10.
CitationDavin, “Imperialism and Motherhood”; CitationHall, White, Male, and Middle Class, 255–89; CitationLevine, Prostitution, Race, and Politics; CitationBurton, “Child Bride to ‘Hindoo Lady.’”; CitationSinha, Colonial Masculinity; CitationMurdoch, “‘Suppressed Grief.’”
19. The Hapsburg Empire began a “School of Mines” network in Hungary in 1735 and the venerated Freiberg Institute in Saxony was founded in 1765. Russia and France followed suit in 1773 and 1783, respectively, and it was not until 1851 that Britain developed its own institutions – in the context of the global gold rushes of the nineteenth century.
21. In Quechua speaking areas in Peru the tributary labor system was known as Mita. Gier and CitationMercier, Mining Women, 11–5.
23.
CitationMawe, Travels in the Interior of Brazil, 139–41, 196–201, 315–62.
39. For a discussion of this historiography see Schwartz, “Cornish Migration,” 37–41, 50–1.
41. Tyack Family Pedigree, Cornwall Record Office, Truro, FS/3/1128/42.
44. For a discussion of Freemasons organizations and Methodists in Cornwall see CitationMills, Regulating Health and Safety, 86–7. For a discussion of Freemasons organizations throughout the British Empire see CitationHarland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, 4–11, 23, 202, 234–35. See also CitationPayton, Cornish Overseas, 36–7; CitationSchwartz, “Cornish Migration,” 265–92.
45.
CitationTodd, The Search for Silver, 36–46, 48–50, 62, 101, 107, 144–5, 162–3. CitationSchwartz, “Cornish Migration,” 145–6, 177, 270–92; In Brazil, the gender ratio in these communities was about 4 men for every 1 woman. See CitationSchwartz, “Cornish Migration,” 197.
47.
CitationSchwartz, “Cornish Migration,” 228–30, 237, 241–3, 246–9. For a discussion of the inadequacy of schools in Cornwall see CitationMills, Regulating Health and Safety, 66.
50.
CitationBurton, Highlands of the Brazil; CitationCaldcleugh, Travels; CitationGardner, Travels in the Interior; CitationKidder, Sketches; CitationLuccock, Notes; CitationMawe, Travels in the Interior of Brazil; CitationWalsh, Notices of Brazil; CitationCandler and Burgess, Narrative of a Recent Visit to Brazil. For a discussion of Mawe, Burton, and travelogs in general see CitationPratt, Imperial Eyes, 146, 149, 151, 201–8.
55.
CitationWalsh, Notices of Brazil, 124; CitationCaldcleugh, Travels, II, 131, 137; CitationLuccock, Notes, 202, 415–6, 470; CitationBurton, Highlands of the Brazil, I, 241–2; CitationMawe, Travels in the Interior of Brazil, 41, 141, 159, 162, 254.
57. For negrolings, see CitationBurton, Highlands of the Brazil, I, 236.
59.
CitationMawe, Travels in the Interior of Brazil, 358–9. See also CitationCaldcleugh, Travels, 83; CitationGardner, Travels in the Interior, 13; CitationWalsh, Notices of Brazil, 129; CitationBurton, Highlands of the Brazil, I, 268; CitationLuccock, Notes, 461, 504.
62. CitationMawe, Travels in the Interior of Brazil, 43, 82–3, 105, 176, 358–9; CitationLuccock, Notes, 116–7, 127, 471; CitationCaldcleugh, Travels, II, appendix, 342; CitationKidder, Sketches, 335; CitationGardner, Travels in the Interior, 278.
74. Campbell, “The Gold in Australia,” Manchester Guardian, 24 September 1851, 3.
75. Braim, “The Australian Gold Fields,” The Observer, 4 July 1852, 6.
76. “Emigration to California,” The Observer, 1 January 1849, 4; “Gold Districts of Australia,” The Observer, 4 October 1852, 3.
77. “Emigration to California,” The Observer, 1 January 1849, 4.
78. “Emigration to California,” The Observer, 1 January 1849, 4.; “Gold Regions of California,” The Observer, 6 August 1849, 3; “Gold Districts of Australia,” The Observer, 4 October 1852, 3.
79. “The Australian Gold Diggings,” The Manchester Guardian, 19 November 1851, 3.
83. “Gold Districts of Australia,” The Observer, 1 November 1852, 3.
84. For a discussion of child labor in the Australian case see CitationLieten, Child Labour, 616–30.
85. “Sketches from the Turon Gold Fields, New South Wales,” The Illustrated London News, 21 August 1852, 124–5.
86. “Sketches from the Turon Gold Fields, New South Wales,” The Illustrated London News, 21 August 1852, 124–5.
95.
CitationKinsey, “Koh-i-Noor,” 391–419. The Observer, for example, referred to Dalip Singh as the “boy king.” “The Great Indian Diamond – the Koh-i-Noor.” The Observer, 25 July 1852, 6.
96. India Office Records, IOR/L/PS/11/296/5115, British Library. For Dalhousie's quote see Memo: 26 August 1854.
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