By Siru Chen [Edited by Jaina Debnam and Tayyiba Nasir]
The task of recovering subaltern history and restoring agency to marginalised voices and actions of the denizens of the past is a challenging one. This is exacerbated when examining subaltern history through the lenses of gender in order to consider the gendered aspects of colonialism, such as the role of women and how colonialism disrupted notions of masculinity and femininity. Historiography of gender in colonialism is limited especially since colonial history tends to focus on the actions of the male coloniser and the male colonised. Recent assessments of imperial history reveal that gender is still considered a marginal category of analysis; gender studies and women continue to remain at the periphery.[1] As such, this essay aims to satiate this historiographical “gap” through a close examination of the various gendered experiences of colonialism and how this subsequently informed anticolonial resistance.
First, this essay will assess the ways in which colonialism was inherently emasculating by looking at the Maji Maji Rebellion, the North-West Frontier in British India, and the Algerian War. Second, this essay will consider how women were assigned a particular significance by looking at the British home in India compared to women during the Maji Maji Rebellion. The last section will examine the ways in which colonialism empowered women to undertake resistance by comparing enslaved women in plantations to Moro women in the Bud Dajo massacre. By closely assessing these three interconnected themes, it is clear that traditional gender dynamics in colonised communities were restructured. Anti-colonial resistance was therefore either shaped by the desire to revert back to traditional gender roles or to capitalise on the new social structures to their advantage. This shows how resistance was multifaceted as it responded to gendered experiences of colonialism in different ways. Colonialism restructured the gender dynamics and hierarchies between the colonised male and female through economic policies which upset the established household and societal roles. As women usurped men by undertaking traditionally “masculine” roles within society, men sought to reclaim their masculinity. As such, anti-colonial resistance was informed by the emasculated male’s desire to revert back to pre-colonial models of gender roles. Indeed, this was shown in the Maji Maji Rebellion in German Tanzania. Sunseri’s work on Uzaramo notes how German economic policies took men out of the rural economy for extended periods. The loss of male labour, especially as protectors of fields, threatened food production as it left the fields vulnerable to invasion by wild pigs and other predators.[2] This resulted in women taking on male tasks. They became hunters, protectors of fields, as well as redefining land use and conducting male agricultural tasks of field clearing and selection.[3] Local jumbe headmen viewed this shift in gender roles as men’s control of the household and community being challenged and subverted by both colonial policies and women’s actions.[4] This informed anti-colonial resistance through male desire to reclaim their authority in rural society by reversing the policies which had upset the traditional patriarchal society.[5] Gregory Maddox corroborates Sunseri in that men and women in the communities of Ugogo saw structural conflicts within the household and that restructuring gender relations was a terrain of struggle.[6] Unlike the reordered gender roles in Uzaramo which emasculated men, however, Maddox argues that women in Ugogo became increasingly marginalised as producers in a rural economy, which demonstrate how colonial policies did not produce a homogenous effect in Tanzania.[7] This is important in order to understand how the same gendered experience of colonialism produced different reactions based on the region. It shows how subaltern history is not monolithic and whilst the experiences may be the same, it still informed anti-colonial resistance in multifaceted ways. The theme of emasculated men is also prevalent in the North-West Frontier of British India. Unlike the Maji Maji rebellion, which was influenced by resentment against colonial policies that had distorted traditional gender dynamics, resistance in India’s North-West Frontier was shaped by the emasculating experiences of colonial violence towards men. Indeed, colonial violence was fundamentally emasculating as it rested on the premise of humiliating and shaming these “fanatics” into obedience. British colonisers reacted to the threat of anti-colonial resistance by creating and justifying a deeply oppressive and authoritarian system of rule in order to subjugate their colonial subjects.[8] This informed anti-colonial resistance because, much like the jumbe headmen in the Maji Maji rebellion, Pashtun men suffering under the oppressive and emasculating rule of colonialism sought to reclaim their masculinity. Indeed, colonial officials noted how “fanatical outbursts” of Pashtun insurgency seemed to possess a uniquely gendered aspect and believed it was undertaken by men in order to validate their masculinity.[9] Violence experienced in the North-West Frontier was parallel to the violence of French torture during the Algerian War 1954-1962. A letter from a soldier described the torture of two Arabs: the first of the tortures consisted of suspending the two men completely naked by the feet […] the second torture consisted of suspending them […] underneath them was placed a trestle, and they were made to swing, by fist blows, in such a fashion that their sexual parts rubbed against the very sharp pointed bar of the trestle. The only comment made by the men […] “I am ashamed to find myself stark naked in front of you.”[10] The overtly sexualised nature of the colonial violence demonstrates how French colonial officers weaponised gender in order to humiliate the men. This example of colonial torture was inherently emasculating as it focussed on the men’s nakedness and the threat of castration. In addition, it shows how gender and violence were often interconnected. As such, the violence of colonialism informed anti-colonial resistance by inspiring equally violent forms of insurgency. Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth notes how colonialism is “violent in its natural state, and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”[11] By examining how colonialism restructured gender dynamics through its economic policies or the use of violence, it is clear that resistance was shaped in diverse ways either to reinstate traditional gender roles, to reclaim masculinity, or to respond to colonial violence with equal ferocity. Colonialism assigned a symbolic meaning to women through the creation of gendered spaces. Some spaces were coded to mean “feminine,” for example, the British home in India was a quintessentially “female space.” As such, colonialism assigned a symbolic meaning to British women by capitalising on the gender dynamics between British women and native men and weaponised gender in order to depict colonial narratives to their advantage. Colonial accounts documenting the 1857 Indian Mutiny exploited the British public’s fear of the natives imposing sexual violence towards their women. Alison Blunt argues that the “severity of the conflict came to be embodied by the fate of British women and the defilement of their bodies and their homes.”[12] Likewise, Jenny Sharpe argues that the idea of rebellion was so closely imbricated with the violation of English womanhood that the Mutiny was “remembered as a barbaric attack on innocent white women.”[13] British colonial memory weaponised gender through the use of the highly charged trope of the British home and woman penetrated by the “savage” Indian, in order to shift the focus from the politics that instigated the rebellion. Indeed, a British cartoon from The Illustrated Times depicts two Indian rebels invading a British home. The source takes care to emphasise the vulnerability of the white woman and her child as it omits the presence of the white male protector.[14] The repeated imagery of the white woman defiled by the natives demonstrates how British colonialism in India had assigned a particular significance to white women. Colonialism in India created a tense relationship between the white woman and the native man. This gender dynamic shaped anti-colonial resistance as the rebels capitalised on the perceived significance of British women. Rudrangshu Mukherjee notes how British women who were taken as prisoners were often taken out to grind corn as this act carried out every day by an Indian peasant woman would be the “utmost humiliation when imposed upon a woman of the master race.”[15] This shows how the gendered experiences of colonialism such as the perceived significance of British women were capitalised in order to shape a resistance which aimed to humiliate them. This was also evident in the Maji Maji rebellion, which had assigned a particular significance to women. Women were often utilised as a means to an end. Jamie Monson argues that gender was a critical component of the politics of conflict and alliance. Women were important due to their agricultural labour and reproductive roles.[16] As a result, their experiences of colonialism differed to that of men because they were often targeted for capture and exchange or used as collateral during raiding and warfare.[17] German troops when undertaking punitive expeditions were likened to plunder as troops captured women and children.[18] The gendered politics of raiding by German troops informed anti-colonial resistance due to the grievances over how colonialism manipulated the significance of colonial women to their advantage. The prominence of sexual violence towards enslaved women reveals how colonialism had restructured gender dynamics in societies of enslaved people which created opportunities for enslaved women to be in close and intimate proximity with the male coloniser. In turn, the combination of sexual violence towards enslaved women and the intimate space informed their resistance as it empowered enslaved women and gave them an incentive and opportunity to partake in colonial resistance. Barbara Bush-Slimani’s work on the British Caribbean slave societies argues that power over women was exercised through control of their sexuality.[19] In addition, women who resisted the sexual advancements risked physical cruelty and punishment.[20] David Geggus notes how enslaved women were vulnerable to rape, with the extent of the sexual harassment likened to “vicious sadism.”[21] Indeed, one in twenty-five babies born to enslaved women in Saint Domingue were fathered by white men.[22] Unlike the colonial violence in the North-West Frontier or during the Algerian War which aimed to emasculate men, the gendered violence towards women was in order to take sexual advantage of them. As such, this shaped their resistance as enslaved women, dissatisfied with their subjugation, capitalised on the new social structures and channelled their anger through appropriate means, such as through the use of poison. Anxieties over poison permeated societies of enslaved people. Poison was the “weapon of the weak” and retained strong associations with women during anti-colonial resistance.[23] Akin to the Indian Mutiny, these societies also created gendered spaces as women formed the domestic entourage of every plantation, which gave them access to the masters’ kitchen and opportunities to poison the food.[24] This intimate proximity facilitated anti-colonial resistance. The Governor of Barbados in 1768 described how an enslaved black woman, Molly, “property of Mr. Isaac Wray” was “condemned and executed” for “attempting to take the life of John Denny Esqr. by poison.”[25] Molly’s attempt to poison a man who was not her master and being in an intimate enough position to administer poison suggests that enslaved women were not only vulnerable to mistreatment by their masters, but by a plethora of other male authority figures. The source is also indicative of how enslaved women were not passive victims. Instead, enslaved women capitalised on the new social structures of enslaved communities to their advantage. Their experiences actively empowered and motivated their resistance, which led them to partake in violent forms of resistance.
Akin to enslaved women actively participating in anti-colonial resistance, Moro women fighting in Bud Dajo 1906 demonstrates how the experiences of colonialism did not oppress them but empowered them to defend against the colonisers. Indeed, Moro women fought with equal ferocity alongside Moro men against American colonial officers.[26] Colonial officers likened Moro women to “panthers” and described their potential for androgyny and brutality.[27] Enslaved women and Moro women’s participation in violent resistance demonstrates how, although colonial experiences towards women often sexually oppressed and denigrated them, they were able to capitalise on these experiences which informed their resistance by influencing them to undertake violent resistance. This essay has demonstrated the importance and prominence of gender in colonial history. Subaltern history examines the past through the perspective of the marginalised voices. Despite this, discussions of women and gender continue to be neglected in historiographies. Studying “history from below” through gender lenses is therefore important as it sheds light on the significant role of women and gender in facilitating resistance. By examining the gendered experiences of colonialism and how they informed insurgency, it is clear that anti-colonial struggle was influenced in a multitude of ways as different personal agendas ensured resistance was complex and varied. As such, a different methodological approach must be adopted when considering gender history in order to tease out the diverse agendas. An approach which does not homogenise the various motivations for resistance is favoured. By analysing it in this way, the importance of women and the role of gender is revealed. Notes [1] Durba Ghosh, “Gender and Colonialism: Expansion or Marginalisation”, The Historical Journal, 47/3 (2004), p. 737. [2] Thaddeus Sunseri, “Famine and Wild Pigs: Gender Struggles and the Outbreak of the Majimaji War in Uzaramo (Tanzania)”, The Journal of African History, 38/2 (1997), p. 238. [3] Sunseri, “Famine and Wild Pigs,” pp. 238-252. [4] Sunseri, “Famine and Wild Pigs,” p. 238. [5] Sunseri, “Famine and Wild Pigs,” p. 238. [6] Gregory Maddox, “Gender and Famine in Central Tanzania: 1916-1961”, African Studies Review, 39/1 (1996), p. 84. [7] Maddox, “Gender and Famine in Central Tanzania”, p. 83. [8] Mark Condos, The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 9. [9] Mark Condos, “‘Fanaticism’ and the Politics of Resistance along the North-West Frontier of British India”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 58/3 (2016), p. 733. [10] Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York: New York Review Books, 2006), p. 416. [11] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Grove Books, 2004), p. 23. [12] Alison Blunt, “Embodying War: British Women and Domestic Defilement in the Indian Mutiny”, Journal of Historical Geography, 26/3 (2003), p. 403. [13] Jenny Sharpe, Allegories of the Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text (United States: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), p. 2. [14] E. Hull, “English Homes in India 1857”, The Illustrated Times (24 October 1857), <https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/U343814/English-Homes-in-India-1857> [Accessed: 5 December 2019]. [15] Rudrangshu Mukherjee, “‘Satan Let Loose upon Earth:’ The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857”, Past & Present, 128/1 (1990), p. 101. [16] Jamie Monson, “Relocating Maji Maji: The Politics of Alliance and Authority in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, 1870-1918”, The Journal of African History, 39/1 (1998), p. 96. [17] Monson, “Relocating Maji Maji,” p. 114. [18] Monson, “Relocating Maji Maji,” p. 115. [19] Barbara Bush-Slimani, “Hard Labor: Women, Childbirth, and Resistance in British Caribbean Slave Societies,” in David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine (eds.), More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 194. [20] Bush-Slimani, “Hard Labor,” p. 194. [21] David Geggus, “Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue,” in David Barry Gasper and Darlene Clark Hine (eds.), More than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 265. [22] Geggus, “Slave and Free Colored Women,” p. 265. [23] John Savage, “‘Black Magic’ and White Terror: Slave Poisoning and Colonial Society in Early 19th Century Martinique,” Journal of Social History, 40/3 (2007), p. 649. [24] Bernard Moitt, “Slave Women and Resistance in the French Caribbean” in David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine (eds.), More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 250. [25] Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), p. 100. [26] Michael Hawkins, “Managing a Massacre Savagery, Civility, and Gender in Moro Province in the Wake of Bud Dajo”, Philippine Studies, 59/1 (2011), p. 98. [27] Hawkins, “Managing a Massacre,” p. 100.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. London: Grove Books, 2004
Fuentes, Marisa. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016
Hull, E. “English Homes in India 1857”. The Illustrated Times. 24 October 1857. <https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/U343814/English-Homes-in-India-1857> [Accessed: 5 December 2019]
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Horne, Alistair. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York: New York Review Books, 2006
Maddox, Gregory. “Gender and Famine in Central Tanzania: 1916-1961”. African Studies Review. 39/1, 1996
Moitt, Bernard. “Slave Women and Resistance in the French Caribbean” in Gaspar, David Barry and Hine, Darlene Clark (eds.). More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas. Indiana University Press, 1996
Monson, Jamie. “Relocating Maji Maji: The Politics of Alliance and Authority in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, 1870-1918”. The Journal of African History. 39/1, 1998
Mukherjee, Rudrangshu. “‘Satan Let Loose upon Earth:’ The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857”. Past & Present. 128/1, 1990
Savage, John. “‘Black Magic’ and White Terror: Slave Poisoning and Colonial Society in Early 19th Century Martinique”. Journal of Social History. 40/3, 2007
Sharpe, Jenny. Allegories of the Empire: The Figure of Woman in the Colonial Text. United States: University of Minnesota Press, 1993
Sunseri, Thaddeus. “Famine and Wild Pigs: Gender Struggles and the Outbreak of the Majimaji War in Uzaramo (Tanzania)”. The Journal of African History. 38/ 2, 1997