Makes you wonder if Europeans had collaborated wisely/fairly between themselves couple of centuries ago, what kind of world it would've been today.
`Greed` got to them before `Envy`, driven by `Pride`
How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
31–40 of 96 posts
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no expert on Indian history, but that seems implausible. Famines would only serve to increase unrest and undermine the stability of British rule. The famines seem to be more a result of neglect and mismanagement than active efforts. Furthermore, India in the 1800s-1900s was not exactly like the Americas, Australia or South Africa. The population was much larger, and social, economic or cultural structures were mu…
starving people is more likely to make them stop fighting than make them start
Dead men can’t fight
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Famines were mainly a result of British mismanagement of resources. This mismanagement peaked when World War 2 was the top priority (read: Bengal famine). The British were indeed sloppy when it came to the welfare of Indians and did enact some evil policies. They were imperialists after all. But there's no evidence that the British wanted to "wipe out" the native population.
> there's no evidence that the British wanted to "wipe out" the native population. No one accused all "the British". If you read my sentence, I used the word, some Brits such as Churchill. There's ample evidence of Churchill's desire to genocide, and even actions taken to genocide non-white people and subsequent whitewashing of the matters. I am sorry if some readers are upset to discover this about their hero, as I…
There were parts of the world earmarked for white settlement, like the Kenyan highlands, and of course Australia & the Canadian prairie. But I've never heard of India making this list, everyone thought it was too hot.
To the extent that there was any plan for most of India, it seems to have been along the lines of taxing the peasants (hence salt) and using them as soldiers. Which of course was the traditional aim of empires, this was precisely the Mughal aim, but was quite a few generations past its prime in the 1940s. But if this is your game plan, then killing off the people is not in your interest. (I say "most" because obviously the plan for Bombay etc. was much like that for Hong Kong & Singapore, offshore trading posts, certainly a post-Mughal way to make a living.)
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#34Why so much concern of British officers in India, Better question would be how did common Indian population survived British Raj, when American Native populations did not.
There was enough trade to exchange disease between Europe and Asia. The most well known example would be the plague that devestated Europe originated in East Asia. So the Indian population survived because they were exposed to the same diseases as Europeans and had developed some level of immunity.
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#35Very interesting. Also seems to apply to African ex-colonies: I live just below the "Hill Station" neighbourhood of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Native Americans had no exposure or resistance to smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, tuberculosis, etc etc. There are a lot of accounts of cities and towns being completely depopulated very rapidly during the early colonial period just from disease before there was large scale immigration to the Americas from the old world.
Follow-up question: why did the disease exchange only affect native Americans. Why didn't the colonists perish due to contact with deadly American diseases they had no exposure or resistance to? Why were the European diseases so deadly to Americans, but not vice versa?
This was less likely for two reasons. First, the old world had dense concentrations of people for much longer, which domesticated many different diseases, making them childhood annoyances. And second, we spent much longer living in Africa, and co-evolved with diseases like malaria, which but left these behind when emigrating via Alaska. (Edit: I forgot syphilis, which is a likely candidate for a new-world disease. But certainly there were fewer.)
East-west contact within Eurasia of course did bring some serious diseases to the West, to which people had no resistance. Plague in the 14thC, cholera in the 19th. (Did any similar diseases arrive in the East? I can't think of any.)
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#37When he says temperatures were 5-10 degrees lower, he means fahrenheit, correct?
The author is a history professor from the US, I would say, yes you are correct, Fahrenheit.
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Native Americans had no exposure or resistance to smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, tuberculosis, etc etc. There are a lot of accounts of cities and towns being completely depopulated very rapidly during the early colonial period just from disease before there was large scale immigration to the Americas from the old world.
Follow-up question: why did the disease exchange only affect native Americans. Why didn't the colonists perish due to contact with deadly American diseases they had no exposure or resistance to? Why were the European diseases so deadly to Americans, but not vice versa?
Interesting question. I found this: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/03/native-ameri...
Fun tidbit:
> But contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t all one sided. It’s believed that one Native American disease did slip on to the European ships and sailed onward to Europe doing some major damage in the process. That disease was syphilis.
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#39Gin. Lots and lots of gin and tonic. https://slate.com/technology/2013/08/gin-and-tonic-kept-the-...
And tea. And polo on the maidan. And camp entertainment:
Re: How did British officers live in the scorching heat of India?
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Native Americans had no exposure or resistance to smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid, tuberculosis, etc etc. There are a lot of accounts of cities and towns being completely depopulated very rapidly during the early colonial period just from disease before there was large scale immigration to the Americas from the old world.
Follow-up question: why did the disease exchange only affect native Americans. Why didn't the colonists perish due to contact with deadly American diseases they had no exposure or resistance to? Why were the European diseases so deadly to Americans, but not vice versa?
Syphilis was taken back to Europe and killed millions.