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This thesis explores the textualizing of the South Atlantic island of St Helena (a British Overseas Territory) through an analysis of the relationship between colonizing practices and the changing representations of the island and its inhabitants in a range of colonial 'texts', including historiography, travel writing, government papers, creative writing, and the fine arts. Part I situates this thesis within a critical engagement with post-colonial theory and colonial discourse analysis primarily, as well as with the recent 'linguistic turn' in anthropology and history. In place of post-colonialism's rather monolithic approach to colonial experiences, I argue for a localised approach to colonisation, which takes greater account of colonial praxis and of the continuous re-negotiation and re-constitution of particular colonial situations. Part II focuses on a number of literary issues by reviewing St Helena's historiography and literature, and by investigating the range of narrative tropes employed (largely by travellers) in the textualizing of St Helena, in particular with respect to recurrent imaginings of the island in terms of an earthly Eden. Part III examines the nature of colonial 'possession' by tracing the island's gradual appropriation by the Portuguese, Dutch and English in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and the settlement policies pursued by the English East India Company in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Part IV provides an account of the changing perceptions, by visitors and colonial officials alike, of the character of the island's inhabitants (from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century) and assesses the influence that these perceptions have had on the administration of the island and the political status of its inhabitants (in the mid- to late twentieth century). Part V, the conclusion, reviews the principal arguments of my thesis by addressing the political implications of post-colonial theory and of my own research, while also indicating avenues for further research. A localised and detailed exploration of colonial discourse over a period of nearly five hundred years, and a close analysis of a consequently wide range of colonial 'texts', has confirmed that although colonising practices and representations are far from monolithic, in the case of St Helena their continuities are of as much significance as their discontinuities.

The present study is a survey of Anglo-French imperial, policies on the Upper Nile question and the Fashoda Crisis which resulted, and it is an attempt to place this conflict within the framework of the "new imperialism" after 1870.

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Humanities / Master / Master of Philosophy

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Imperialism, as understood by the British in the year 1850, was sentimental in essence as opposed to later utilitarianism. Lord Beaconsfield and his party assumed ‘’an attitude of superiority towards other civilized nations.” “Trade follows the flag” had not yet become an Imperial slogan. [...]

This thesis is a cross-disciplinary study of legal history and customary law. Respect for, and accommodation of local customary law has been a constant and integral feature of law in Britain since Anglo-Saxon times. It guided the emergence of the common law, and continues as a rule of law to the present day. Such respect and accommodation was an essential principle that permitted the peaceful consolidation of the British realms from its constituent parts. Continuity of law is a legal presumption whether territories have been added by conquest, cession or annexation. The principle respect for local legal custom was one of two schools of thought carried to Britain's overseas colonies; the other was a theory that local customary law could be extinguished by non-recognition on the part of the British sovereign or his/her delegates. Nevertheless, customary laws and institutions were explicitly and implicitly recognized in the colonial period. The doctrine has modern application with respect to the customary law ways of indigenous peoples wherever the common law has been extended overseas. Rights under customary law are distinguished from Aboriginal rights, though there is some overlap between the two. Customary law can only be extinguished by an express statute, or by clearly unavoidable implication. Legal customs are not invalid merely for being contrary to the common law. Common law defers to valid customary law as a matter of constitutional common law. But the common law provides tests by which courts can identify valid legal custom. Where a valid, unextinguished legal custom is found, courts are bound by the common law to apply it. Where customary law can be identified, it binds the servants and agents of the Crown, except when it is inconsistent with Crown sovereignty itself.

This thesis does not attempt to trace British policy in Canada in the late eighteenth century, nor to discover the springs of that policy in other parts of the Empire or in Europe. It is only incidentally concerned with many of the statutes and ordinances pertaining directly to Canada, for their import was not always understood by the French-Canadians in the way that they were intended in London or even in Quebec; likewise, the military phases of the dispute between Great Britain and the American colonies, and even the invasion of Canada in 1775-76 have been most summarily treated. The vast volume of secondary material upon the late eighteenth century in Canada deals almost exclusively with these subjects, either justifying British policy, attacking it from the point of view of the modern French-Canadian, or attempting to reconcile these divergent views. Instead, this thesis attempts to disoover the effects of the transfer of authority from French to British hands, in so far as that transfer affected the population of Canada in 1760. It is thus primarily concerned with the reactions of one generation of French-Canadians to the substitution of British for French rule, and to the economic and social changes that they encountered as a result. The fact that these reactions were frequently negative or else rested upon an erroneous conception of the policy of the British government has often led to the conclusion that they were either negligible or non-existent. [...]