Migration and Empire

by Marjory Harper, Stephen Constantine

Overview

Migration and Empire provides a unique comparison of the motives, means, and experiences of three main flows of empire migrants. During the nineteenth century, the proportion of UK migrants heading to empire destinations, especially to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, increased substantially and remained high. These migrants included so-called 'surplus women' and 'children in need', shipped overseas to ease perceived social problems at home. Empire migrants also included entrepreneurs and indentured labourers from south Asia, Africa, and the Pacific (together with others from the Far East, outside the empire), who relocated in huge numbers with equally transformative effects in, for example, central and southern Africa, the Caribbean, Ceylon, Mauritius, and Fiji. The UK at the core of empire was also the recipient of empire migrants, especially from the 'New Commonwealth' after 1945.

These several migration flows are analysed with a strong appreciation of the commonality and the complex variety of migrant histories. The volume includes discussion of the work of philanthropists (especially with respect to single women and 'children in care') as well as governments and entrepreneurs in organising much empire migration, and the business of recruiting, assisting, and transporting selected empire migrants. Attention is given to immigration controls that restricted the settlement of some non-white migrants, and to the mixture of motives explaining return-migration. The study concludes by indicating why the special relationship between empire and migration came to an end. Legacies remain, but by the 1970s political change and shifts in the global labour market had eroded the earlier patterns.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198703365
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/17/2014
Series:	Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Marjory Harper is Professor of History, University of Aberdeen,Stephen Constantine, Professor of Modern British History, Lancaster University.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: The British Empire and Empire Migration, 1815 to the 1960s2. Crossing the Atlantic: Migrants and Settlers in Canada3. A Land of Perpetual Summer: Australian Experiences4. Sheep and Sunshine: New Zealand5. Africa South of the Sahara6. Exile into Bondage? Non-White Migrants and Settlers7. Immigration and the Heart of Empire8. A Civilizing Influence? The Female Migrant9. Children of the Poor: Child and Juvenile Migration10. The Emigration Business11. The Homecoming Migrant12. Afterword: The Politics of Migration and the End of Empire