romantic colonization and british...

ROMANTIC COLONIZ ATION AND BRITISHANTI-SL AVERY

The loss of Britain’s North American colonies sparked an intensedebate about the nature of colonization in the period 1770–1800.Drawing on archival research into colonies in Africa and Australia,including Sierra Leone and Botany Bay, Deirdre Coleman showshow the growing popularity of the anti-slavery movement gave autopian cast to the debate about colonization. This utopianism can beseen most clearly in Romantic attempts to found an empire withoutslaves, a new world which would also encompass revolutionary sexual,racial and labour arrangements. From Henry Smeathman and JohnClarkson in Sierra Leone to Arthur Phillip and William Dawes inBotany Bay, Coleman analyses the impact of the discourses and idealsunderlying Romantic colonization. She argues that these paved theway for racial strife in West Africa and the eventual dispossession ofAustralia’s native people.

deirdre coleman is Associate Professor of English at the Uni-versity of Sydney. Author of Coleridge and ‘The Friend’, 1809–1810(1988) and Maiden Voyages and Infant Colonies (1999), she has pub-lished on anti-slavery discourse, travel literature and racial ideology inthe journals Eighteenth-Century Studies, English Literary History andWomen’s Writing. She has also contributed chapters to The CambridgeCompanion to Coleridge (Cambridge, 2002) and Romantic Sociability:Social Networks and Literary Culture in Britain, 1770–1840 (Cambridge,2002).

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Cambridge University Press0521632137 - Romantic Colonization and British Anti-SlaveryDeirdre ColemanFrontmatterMore information

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cambridge studies in romanticism

General editorsProfessor Marilyn Butler Professor James Chandler

University of Oxford University of Chicago

Editorial boardJohn Barrell, University of York

Paul Hamilton, University of LondonMary Jacobus, University of CambridgeKenneth Johnston, Indiana University

Alan Liu, University of California, Santa BarbaraJerome McGann, University of Virginia

David Simpson, University of California, Davis

This series aims to foster the best new work in one of the most challenging fieldswithin English literary studies. From the early 1780s to the early 1830s a formidablearray of talented men and women took to literary composition, not just in poetry,which some of them famously transformed, but in many modes of writing. Theexpansion of publishing created new opportunities for writers, and the politicalstakes of what they wrote were raised again by what Wordsworth called those ‘greatnational events’ that were ‘almost daily taking place’: the French Revolution, theNapoleonic and American wars, urbanization, industrialization, religious revival,an expanded empire abroad and the reform movement at home. This was an enor-mous ambition, even when it pretended otherwise. The relations between science,philosophy, religion and literature were reworked in texts such as Frankenstein andBiographia Literaria; gender relations in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman andDon Juan; journalism by Cobbett and Hazlitt; poetic form, content and style bythe Lake School and the Cockney School. Outside Shakespeare studies, probablyno body of writing has produced such a wealth of response or done so much toshape the responses of modern criticism. This indeed is the period that saw theemergence of those notions of ‘literature’ and of literary history, especially nationalliterary history, on which modern scholarship in English has been founded.

The categories produced by Romanticism have also been challenged by recenthistoricist arguments. The task of the series is to engage both with a challengingcorpus of Romantic writings and with the changing field of criticism they havehelped to shape. As with other literary series published by Cambridge, this onewill represent the work of both younger and more established scholars, on eitherside of the Atlantic and elsewhere.

For a complete list of titles published see end of book.






ROMANTICCOLONIZ ATION AND

BRITISH ANTI-SL AVERY

DEIRDRE COLEMAN






published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridgeThe Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom

cambridge university pressThe Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, cb2 2ru, UK40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011–4211, USA

477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, AustraliaRuiz de Alarcon 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain

Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa


C© Deirdre Coleman 2005

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,

no reproduction of any part may take place withoutthe written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2005

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

Typeface Adobe Garamond 11/12.5 pt. System LATEX 2ε [tb]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication dataColeman, Deirdre.

Romantic colonization and British anti-slavery / Deirdre Coleman.p. cm. – (Cambridge studies in Romanticism; 61)

Includes bibliographical references and index.isbn 0 521 63213 7

1. Great Britain – Colonies – Administration – History – 18th century. 2. Antislavery movements –Great Britain – History – 18th century. 3. Slave-trade – Great Britain – History – 18th century.4. Slavery – Great Britain – History – 18th century. 5. Romanticism – Great Britain – Colonies.6. Imperialism – History – 18th century. 7. Smeathman, Henry, d. 1786. i. Title. ii. Series.

da16.c627 2004325′.341′09033–dc22

isbn 0 521 63213 7 hardback

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that URLs for external websites referred to inthis book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no

responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that thecontent is or will remain appropriate.






For Gretta






‘There is not a more difficult subject for the understanding of menthan to govern a large Empire upon a plan of Liberty.’

(Edmund Burke, on the America colonies, 1766)






Contents

List of illustrations page xiiAcknowledgements xiv

Introduction: the Cowpastures 1

1 Henry Smeathman, imperial flycatcher and aeronaut 28

2 The ‘microscope of enthusiasm’: Swedenborgian ideasabout Africa 63

3 Rallying under the flag of Empire: the Nova Scotiansin Sierra Leone 106

Landing place 134

4 ‘New Albion’: the camp at Port Jackson 141

5 Etiquettes of colonization and dispossession 164

Epilogue 198

Notes 200Bibliography 237Index 261

xi






Illustrations

Figure 1 After Henry Smeathman. ‘The hill-nest raised by theTermites bellicosi’, Plate vii from ‘Some Account ofthe Termites, which are found in Africa and other hotclimates. In a Letter from Mr Henry Smeathman, ofClement’s Inn, to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. P. R. S.’, inPhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ofLondon, vol. 71 (1781), pp. 139–92. From the originalin the Rare Book and Special Collections Library,University of Sydney. page 44

Figure 2 Matthew Darly, ‘The Fly Catching Macaroni’ (1772).C© The British Museum. 51

Figure 3 After Henry Smeathman. ‘The turret nests’, Plate ixfrom ‘Some Account of the Termites’ (1781). From theoriginal in the Rare Book and Special CollectionsLibrary, University of Sydney. 60

Figure 4 ‘Cidaris erit Africo’ (‘Africa will have the crown’),from The New-Jerusalem Magazine, or a Treasury ofCelestial, Spiritual, and Natural Knowledge (1790).Courtesy of the Swedenborg Association of Australia,Swedenborg Centre, North Ryde, New South Wales. 74

Figure 5 ‘Plan of the Island of Bulama’ (detail), from C. B.Wadstrom, An Essay on Colonization, particularlyapplied to the Western Coast of Africa (1795). Bypermission of the Syndics of Cambridge UniversityLibrary. 84

Figure 6 Carl Fredrik von Breda. ‘Portrait of a SwedishGentleman [Carl Bernhard Wadstrom] Instructing aNegro Prince [Peter Panah]’; exhibited with this title,Royal Academy, London, 1789. Nordiska Museet,Stockholm. A print of the portrait published in 1792

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List of illustrations xiii

was inscribed, ‘The Benevolent Effects of AbolishingSlavery, or the Planter Instructing His Negro’.

Figure 7 ‘Nautical Map’ (detail), from C. B. Wadstrom, AnEssay on Colonization, particularly applied to theWestern Coast of Africa (1795). By permission of theSyndics of Cambridge University Library. 95

Figure 8 Frontispiece to The Interesting Narrative of the Lifeof Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.Written by Himself (London, 1789). By permissionof the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. 96

Figure 9 Title pages of the 1790 and 1794–5 French-languageeditions of Robert Norris’s Memoirs of the Reign ofBossa Ahadee (London, 1789) published ascompanion text to C. B. Wadstrom’s Observationson the Slave Trade (London, 1789). C© ClicheBibliotheque nationale de France-Gallica. 98

Figure 10 Title page vignette from John Hunter, An HistoricalJournal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and NorfolkIsland (1793), drawn by Thomas Stothard from asketch by Hunter, and engraved by J. Hall. From theoriginal in the Rare Book and Special CollectionsLibrary, University of Sydney. 172

Figure 11 William Bradley. ‘First interview with the NativeWomen at Port Jackson in New South Wales [1788]’,watercolour. Mitchell Library, State Library of NewSouth Wales. 175

Figure 12 ‘The Knight of the Wo[e]ful Countenance going toextirpate the National Assembly’, by FrederickGeorge Byron, November 1790. C© The BritishMuseum. 183

Figure 13 Thomas Watling. ‘Dirr-a-goa’ wearing the barrin,pencil portrait in the Watling Collection [Drawings35]. Natural History Museum, Kensington. 193

Figure 14 Artist not known. ‘Fanny Hardwick a Native, witha ring tailed Possum, of Van diemans Land’ (1821),watercolour drawing. Private collection. 196






Acknowledgements

Funding from the Australian Research Council (1998–2001) provided mewith the two necessary tools required to write a book of this kind inAustralia – research assistance and teaching relief. For enabling me to takethe best advantage of these, whilst also maintaining other commitments,I thank my colleagues in the Department of English at the University ofSydney, especially Elizabeth Webby, Geraldine Barnes, Margaret CluniesRoss, Penny Gay and Margaret Harris. Carol Willock, research assistantthroughout, has worked tirelessly with me on this project. Her dedicationto the task, together with her fine intelligence and pleasure in the materials,have made her a wonderful interlocutor.

The book is indebted to many fine scholars working in the areas of Aus-tralian and African history, travel writing, Romanticism, colonialism andabolitionism: Alan Atkinson, Alan Bewell, Stephen Braidwood, MarilynButler, Mary B. Campbell, Chloe Chard, Will Christie, Gregory Claeys,David Brion Davis, Greg Dening, Markman Ellis, Peter Kitson, P. E. H.Hair, A. J. Harding, Nigel Leask, Iain McCalman, Jon Mee, Alan Richard-son, Bernard Smith, Vanessa Smith, Nick Thomas, Jim Walvin and EllenGibson Wilson. Christopher Fyfe, leading historian of Sierra Leone, hasbeen more directly involved, commenting generously on drafts and engag-ing just as enthusiastically with my work on Botany Bay as on the SierraLeone chapters. I am deeply indebted to his wit, acumen and wide knowl-edge, a debt only partially acquitted by his late conversion to ‘Smeathmania’.At an early stage Peter Otto cemented the connection between the Swe-denborgians and Africa, while Markman Ellis patiently copied some rareworks in the British Library. Frances Muecke helped with some Latin, JudyBarbour and Les Hiatt shared their knowledge of Bennelong and GranvilleSharp, and Niamh Whitfield made a last-minute dash across London to theRoyal Geographical Society. Warm thanks, too, to Debra Adelaide, JudyBarbour, Hilary Fraser, Dorothy Jones, Gillian Russell and Clara Tuite. I

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Acknowledgements xv

am indebted to their many conversations with me over the years, and fortheir publications, which have been an inspiration.

A large number of librarians in Sydney, London, Oxford and Cambridgehave been helpful over the years. In particular I thank Terry Barringer,formerly of the Royal Commonwealth Society Library, Rod Dyson, RossColeman and Jill Brown at University of Sydney’s Fisher Library, and MattFishburn, former researcher at Hordern House, Sydney. Neville Jarvis gen-erously loaned me the Swedenborg Centre’s rare copy of the New-JerusalemMagazine (1790), and the late Joan Kerr made some illuminating commentson the drawing of Fanny Hardwick.

Over the last decade Susan Griffith and Philip Hardie have provided asecond home for me in Cambridge, England, a base from which I havebeen able to conduct a good part of the research contained here. I thankthem for this, and for their warm friendship and hospitality. My familyhere in Sydney, a string trio composed of Vince, Susanna and Benjamin,are also to be mentioned, for their love and patience. Finally, I dedicate thebook to Gretta, my mother, an inspiration on the strings and in so manyother areas as well.

Parts of chapters 1 and 2 have appeared in Discourses of Slavery andAbolition, eds. Brycchan Carey, Markman Ellis and Sara Salih (Palgrave,2004), and Islands in History and Representation, eds. Rod Edmond andVanessa Smith (Routledge, 2003). An earlier version of chapter 4 appearedin Australian Writing and the City, eds. Fran de Groen and Ken Stewart(published by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 2000).I thank the editors of these volumes for allowing me to reproduce thematerial here.






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