Customer Reviews

Poor Relations: The Making of a Eurasian Community in British India, 1773-1833

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This book covers the British Eurasian community, descended from liaisions and marriages between British men and Indian (or Eurasian women). As the book points out, other Eurasian communities, notably a Portuguese and a French Eurasian community, existed before the creation of British India. But the "Eurasians" that came to exercise the minds and consciences of some British politicians and religious leaders, and British Indian administrators, was that formed by marriages or other unions between British men and Indian wives (not even Eurasian wives).

The book does a good job in explaining why this community first came about - because of the paucity of European women in India, at a time when the journey was long and arduous; because of the unsettled political future of Europeans in India for the first three centuries of their arrival as traders, and above all, because of the shaky financial position of many European men - merchants, administrators, or soldiers - when they first arrived. As soon as the British consolidated their hold on native states and then began to create their own empire (first in Bengal, and then spreading through most of what is now India by 1818), and as travel to India became faster and more comfortable, things began to change. More British women came out, supplanting the native concubine or Eurasian wife. The "bibi" was replaced by the "memsahib", giving rise to what we know as the Raj.

It is a pity that the book does not focus more on the crucial change in attitude towards the "poor relations" during the administrations of Hastings, Cornwallis, and then Wellesley. As the empire expanded, tolerance of the natives and of the Eurasians seemed to diminish. I would have liked to have seen this issue studied more.

I would also have liked to have seen a comparison of British attitudes towards their mixed-race offpsring in India, compared to that of the Portuguese or French or Spanish or Dutch official attitudes towards *their* mixed-raced offspring. If official policies were remarkably different, why were they different? Furthermore, how did the British treat non-British Eurasians? It is argued that anti-Catholic sentiment played a part in the distrust of French and Portuguese Eurasians (who were usually Catholics).

The book touches very little on the role played by British political intrigue both in London and in British India. Did Hastings' disgrace and removal have any connection to his having gone too "native"? [Hastings was noted as a scholar and patron of ancient Indian culture].

Some Eurasians did very well - including one James Skinner, a famous soldier, and many bankers and administrators - but they relied on their personal contacts and friendships, rather than their education alone. In the case of Skinner, Lake's support (and untimely death) made a difference at crucial moments.
Did personal friendships of individual administrators and commanders (such as Lord Lake) make that much of a difference to the average Eurasian, as opposed to a brilliant soldier like Skinner?

Within the British community, class and the financial and less material resources that a particular British male could muster played a part in the future of his Eurasian offspring. The higher-class British fathers are more able to do more for their sons and daughters, with the daughters frequently marrying British officers, administrators and so forth. Some of the children are even mentioned by their British fathers in their wills (back in England). And of course, an upper-class British male could ensure some help to his Eurasian sons even if separated by two oceans and three continents.

By contrast, the lower-class British fathers are unable to help that much, or are unwilling to help. Why were so many "wives" and children abandoned? There was no way to to transport them back to England on Company-owned ships (this was Company policy). Indian women were not always willing to move to England, and often financial settlements were made by a departing British father for his Eurasian concubine and children.

There are some curious points. Eurasians (the illegitimate scions of non-sanctioned unions) are considered "immoral" early on. No such judgement was made about the illegitimate British-born children of peers and other notables, some of whom came out to India and fathered Eurasian children.

The book is about the Eurasian community before the Mutiny. It therefore does not claim to present the state of the community in the real "Raj" (actual Crown rule), nor does it pretend to explain what happened to the descendants of these people after Indian independence (1947). But it is a worthy source to begin with, although hard to find at a reasonable price.

Recommended reading for anyone seriously interested in early British Indian history (ca 1600-1818)

[revised September 4, 2002]

The Anglo-Indians were created by intermarriage and mating between British soldiers and Indian women. As early as the 1830s, Eurasians (later called Anglo-Indians) already exceeded the number of British civilians in colonial India. At the time of India's independence, they outnumbered ALL British residents. Yet, there has been little historical attention to the development of this mixed-race community, the problems which it faced (social, economic and attitudinal) nor to the questions which its rise posed to British authority.

Hawes describes how the mixed-race experience in India is typical of the "European colonial adventure" worldwide. The social and legal experiences of mixed-race people is influenced by class status (especially the father's status), birth within marriage versus the stigma of bastardy (British discrimination against people born outside of wedlock was especially harsh), and the conflict between the law and family ties.

Hawes' research shows that the British as individuals had no real qualms about interracial marriage and, contrary to the hypodescent rule, wanted their biracial offspring to be British. The problem lay with British elites whose devotion to the new "scientific" racist doctrines resulted in oppression typical of the mixed-race experience:

a) The mixed-race communities are utilized to maintain colonial authority but denied the highest offices reserved for "pure" whites (with a few exceptions for multiracial persons of great wealth).

b) The colonial power fears that the mixed-race community will present a challenge to "white" authority and blur the lines between the "superior" European and the "inferior" non-European.

c) The mixed-race community (especially its educated elites) maintains its ambition to be treated as part of the European caste, but is subject to laws that prevent a full identification with the ruling nation to which it is bound by blood and culture.

"Eurasian populations...undermined, in the most public manner possible, concepts of colonial rule which depended ultimately on maintaining the illusion of the racial superiority of white European males. The consequent dilemma for Eurasian populations was how they might identify fully with their parent colonial societies, on which they were economically dependent and to which they were culturally bound. They shared in what has been termed the `imagined community' of nationalism as fully as their European fathers and forefathers, but were denied participation on equal terms. In turn the predicament of colonial authority was how far should it go in acknowledging its children of mixed race. In practice it seems that there was an uneasy compromise in colonial societies between disavowal and acceptance. Parental responsibility and considerations of Eurasian utility to the regime were in tension with concepts of Eurasian political unreliability and the damage which full acceptance might do to perceptions of white prestige."