Colonial Hooliganism

In his review of Richard Toye’s book Churchill’s Empire, Johann Hari portrayed Churchill as a brutal thug. According to Hari, Churchill thought natives rebelled against British rule only out of a “strong aboriginal propensity to kill”. Hari wrote that Churchill bragged about personally killing non-white people. Hari adds that Churchill was seen by his contemporaries as “at the most brutal and brutish end of the British imperialist spectrum”.

Hari’s review is one of the worst book reviews that I’ve ever read, on any subject. He misinterprets the book he is reviewing, attributing to Toye a thesis (that Churchill was nothing more than a brutal thug) that Toye categorically does not make. As I’ve described before, the examples that Hari cites of Churchill’s colonial brutality are not particularly convincing.

Hari also ignores clear instances where Churchill opposed colonial violence. In other words, evidence that Churchill was not on the “most brutal and brutish end of the British imperialist spectrum”. This post will discuss examples of this from three colonies that took place while Churchill was Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (1905-1908). It is not my goal to provide a detail history of everything significant that happened during Churchill’s time in that office. I merely wish to highlight certain important events that shed light on Churchill’s attitude to colonial violence.

Natal

In February 1906 a rebellion broke out in the colony of Natal (today called KwaZulu-Natal) in South Africa. The rebellion started as a protest against a recently imposed poll tax on adult males. On the 8^th of February two white police officers – Inspector Hunt and Trooper Armstrong - were killed. The following day the Governor, Sir Henry McCallum, proclaimed martial law, and mobilised roughly 1,000 local troops to put down the rebellion. He also brought in censorship while the rebellion was on-going. On the 15^th of February two Africans were executed after a “hastily convened court martial” found them guilty of the murder of the two police officers. In the days that followed a further 24 Africans were arrested for the murders, of whom 12 were sentenced to death.

Sir Henry McCallum

Based on how Hari describes him, one might think that Churchill was a supporter of hitting the rebels as hard as possible, and backed the Natal government to the hilt. In fact, the exact opposite happened.

Churchill had a realistic sense of what caused the rebellion. He didn’t think it was caused by the innate violence of aboriginals or anything like that. He blamed the poll tax (Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.239). Churchill also considered the imposition of censorship to be an overreaction. He wrote in a minute that:

“The action of the governor and ministers is preposterous. The proclamation of martial law over the whole colony, causing dislocation and infinite annoyance to everyone, because two white men have been killed, is in itself an act which appears to be pervaded by an exaggerated excitability. The censorship exploits descends to the category of pure folly” (quoted in Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.240).

Churchill was also sceptical that the proposed executions were justified. He wrote to the Natal government requesting more information, impliedly threatening to block the executions if they were unjust:

 “Continued executions under martial law certain to excite strong criticism here, and as H.M.G. are retaining troops in Colony, and will be asked to assent to Act of Indemnity, necessary to regularize the action taken, trial of these murder cases by civil course greatly to be preferred. I must impress upon you necessity of utmost caution in this matter, and you should suspend executions until I have had opportunity of considering your further observations” (quoted Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.241).

This telegram caused an outrage. Settlers across the Empire regarded the idea that the Colonial Office in London might interfere with the treatment the settler could mete out to natives to be unconscionable. The Prime Minister of Natal, C.J. Smythe, and the rest of his Cabinet resigned en masse in protest. Protestation against Churchill’s action came from elsewhere too. For example, the Governor-General of Australia messaged London:

“Since an intervention of H.M. ministers… with the administration of the self-governing colonial of Natal would tend to establish, even in regard to prerogative of pardon, a dangerous precedent affecting all states within the empire, your excellency’s advisers desire most respectfully to appeal to H.M. ministers for reconsideration of the resolution at which they are reported to have arrived in this subject” (quoted in Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.241).

The Colonial Secretary, the Earl of Elgin, and other officials, telegraphed their Natal counterparts to assuage their hurt feelings and assure them that London did not mean to step on their toes. This apparently satisfied them as they all withdrew their resignations. The Africans were duly executed on the 2^nd of April (Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.242).

Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin

By the end of 1906, the Natal government had imprisoned 4,000 Africans, and didn’t know what to do with them all. They asked the British government to assist in deporting the ring-leaders of the revolt. Churchill was against this in principle, but he wanted to use it as leverage to force Natal to provide better treatment for the imprisoned. As he put it:

“We cannot help unless we also mitigate” (quoted in Hyman, Elgin and Churchill, p.247).

Churchill continued to be appalled by what had happened in Natal, and it coloured his impression of the colony in the future. The following year he referred to the rebellion as the “disgusting butchery of the natives”. In June 1907, when he received reports that the Natal authorities had inflicted unlawful punishments on a native for offences under the pass law, he advocated London intervening again, describing Natal as a “wretched colony – the hooligan of the British Empire” (quoted in Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.251).

Churchill insisted on reviewing the diet provided to the deported ringleaders to ensure it was adequate. When the inspection reported its findings to him, he denounced the diet as being “more suited to the lowest of animals than men” (quoted in Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.251).

Here’s what Professor Toye makes of the events:

“[Churchill] was, in fact, consistently infuriated by the behaviour of the Natal government and made serious efforts to improve the welfare of Zulu prisoners. In 1907 he wrote a striking minute condemning ‘the disgusting butchery of natives’ which to him demonstrated ‘the kind of tyranny against which these unfortunate Zulus have been struggling’. Elgin was less inclined to intervention than Churchill, which reflected both the older man’s innate caution and his perhaps more realistic appreciation of the powers of the Colonial Office, which were in practice quite limited. It was hard to control territories thousands of miles away using telegrams or written despatches; it was easy for those on the spot to use their supposedly superior knowledge of local conditions as an excuse for circumventing the wishes of Whitehall. Deferring to such knowledge was at any rate a standard tenet of imperial administration. As the battle over the execution of the twelve rebels showed, it was easier to put up with the criticism of a few Radicals at home than it was to hold British colonial governments to account” (Toye, Churchill’s Empire, p.102).

Kenya

Churchill’s opposition to wanton violence against colonial subjects was also apparent with regards to Kenya. In March 1907, Ewart S. Grogan, the President of the Colonists’ Association, dragged three Kikuyu employees – who had allegedly been disrespectful to his sister and another white woman - to the court-house in Nairobi and flogged them in the street. A medical official reported that two had suffered “simple hurt” while another had been severely hurt (Clayton and Savage, Government and Labour, p.33). The colonial authorities charged Grogan with unlawful assembly (and also assault, but for some reason that charge was dropped). This incident outraged the Kenyan settlers – not the assault, but the fact that the authorities prosecuted a white man for attacking black men. One settler, W. Russell Bowker, said bluntly:

“It has always been a first principle with me to flog a n***er [asterisks my own] who insults a white woman” (Clayton and Savage, Government and Labour, p.33).

Churchill was outraged, but not for the same reason as the settlers. He was appalled by their cruelty. He wrote the following in a minute:

“We must not let these few ruffians steal out beautiful and promising protectorate away from us, after all we have spent upon it – under some shabby pretence of being a ‘responsibly governed colony’. This House of Commons will never allow us to abdicate our duties towards the natives – as peaceful, industrious, law-abiding folk as can be found anywhere” (quoted in Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.410).

The rest of the Colonial Office agreed with Churchill and they backed the Kenyan Government in prosecuting Grogan. A cruiser was sent to Mombasa to deter the settler community from causing any trouble (Clayton and Savage, Government and Labour, p.33).

Ewart Grogan

The Grogan incident reflected, according to the Acting Governor, a growing tendency by white settlers to “deny the native any rights whatever” and to treat Africans “not as a labourer but a helot, not a servant but a slave” (quoted in Clayton and Savage, Government and Labour, p.33). A.C. Hollis, head of the Native Affairs Department, campaigned for improved working conditions for Africans, to the consternation of many settlers. According to historians Anthony Clayton and Donald Savage, the department:

“received massive on-the-spot- support from Churchill…. Churchill… had on arrival [in Kenya] seen at first hand a shocking example of bad labour conditions. He had found a large party of some 300 labourers walking back from a site over 150 miles away and demanded an explanation; he wrote of them later as ‘skinny scarecrows crawling back to their tribe after a few weeks contact with Christian civilization’. Hollis ascertained that the men had originally been recruited for work on a farm not far from their homes near Nairobi, but the farmer had transferred them to a railway ballast contractor who did not have the money to feed or house them. At the end of the contract the contractor had been unable to pay the men off, telling them to wait, without food, for five days until a train with the money arrived. But the labourers had had enough and had begun to walk home. The contractor, a European, was prosecuted, no doubt at Churchill’s instigation, and ordered to pay immediately or face imprisonment” (Clayton and Savage, Government and Labour, p.34).

Nigeria

In Nigeria, Churchill was also opposed to indiscriminate violence against natives. He put his opposition to punitive expeditions on the record:

“Of course, if the peace and order of [Nigeria] depends on a vigorous offensive we must support him with all our hearts. But the chronic bloodshed which stains the West African seasons is odious and disquieting. Moreover the whole enterprise is liable to be misrepresented by persons unacquainted with Imperial terminology as the murdering of natives and stealing of their lands…. I do not think we ought to enter upon these expeditions lightly or as a matter of course” (quoted in Hyam, Elgin and Churchill, p.208).

In late-January 1906 the Colonial Office sent a telegram to Lugard opposing the dispatch of a large punitive expedition. Frederick Lugard, the High Commissioner of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, was furious with this interference. Elgin and Churchill eventually relented, but only on condition that the expedition should be carried no further than “the immediate object rendered necessary”. In March there was a one-sided battle (or massacre) of Nigerians in Satiru. According to Lugard’s biographer, Margery Perham, Lugard did not order a massacre and, when he heard of it, he put a stop to it (Perham, Lugard, p.199). Nonetheless, Churchill was appalled and criticized the action:

“How does the extermination of an almost unarmed rabble…compare with the execution of 12 k****** in Natal after trial?... I confess I do not at all understand what our position is, or with what face we can put pressure on the government of Natal while these sorts of things are done under our direct authority” (quoted in Pakenham, Scramble for Africa, p.652; asterisks my own).

According to Ricard Toye, Churchill’s views of Nigeria struck some connected to the empire project as dangerous and radical. He quotes the wife of Lord Lugard – then the High Commissioner of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate – as writing to her husband:

“[Churchill] repeated all the foolish things you have ever heard about having gone too fast and added to them the extreme radical rubbish about holding innocent peoples tight in the grip of a military despotism. To abolish the [West African Frontier Force], to give up the greater part of Nigeria ‘which is much too big for us to hold’, put an end to the whole system of punitive expeditions and to be content with the peaceful administration of one small corner of the whole were the principal suggestions which he had to make” (Toye, Churchill’s Empire, p.113 emphasis added).

Lugard and his wife

Conclusion

Some assume that as all empires were built on violence and war, anyone who was explicitly pro-Empire must have been pro-violence against the subjugated populations. However, in the case of Churchill it just isn’t that clear cut. Churchill was definitely committed to the cause of Empire, but he was quite willing to criticize atrocities carried out in its name. To quote Toye:

“Defenders of Churchill’s racial attitudes correctly point out that throughout his career he often spoke up for the welfare of indigenous peoples. His humanitarianism did not imply a belief in racial equality, though, but rather accompanied a conviction that ‘degraded’ races were susceptible to improvement over the very long run” (Toye, Churchill's Empire, pp.58-59).

Another historian, Ronald Hyam, makes a similar point:

"[Churchill] had a generous and sensitive, if highly paternalistic, sympathy for subject peoples, and a determination to see that justice was done to humble individuals throughout the empire. He had this sympathy to a degree that was rather rare among British administrators, and even politicians, at this time. [Emphasis added] Human juices must be injected into Olympian mandarins. By vigilant reading of routine official files he frequently uncovered what he thought were ‘flat’ or ‘shocking’ violations of the elementary principles of law and justice. He insisted that the principles of justice, and the safeguards of judicial procedure, should be ‘rigidly, punctiliously and pedantically’ followed.

He insisted, too, on questioning the Colonial Office assumption that officials were always in the right when complaints were made against government by Africans or, as was more probable, by Asians. He campaigned for an earnest effort to understand the feelings of subject peoples in being ruled by alien administrators, ‘to try to measure the weight of the burden they bear’. The business of a public officer, he maintained, was to serve the people he ruled. The officer must not forget that he was as much their servant, however imposing his title, as any manufacturer or tradesman was the servant of his customers" (Hyam, "Winston Churchill’s First Years", p.306).

Bibliography

Clayton, Anthony and Savage, Daniel Cockfield, Government and Labour in Kenya 1895 – 1963 (Routledge, 1974)

Hyman, Ronald, Elgin and Churchill at the Colonial Office, 1905-1908: The Watershed of the Empire-Commonwealth (Macmillan, 1968)

Hyam, Ronald, "Winston Churchill's First Years in Ministerial Office, 1905-1911" in Ronald Hyam, Understanding the British Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp.299-318

Pakenham, Thomas, The Scramble for Africa (Abacus, 1992)

Perham, Margery, Lugard: The Years of Authority 1898–1945 (Collins, 1960)

Toye, Richard, Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (MacMillan, 2010)