Colonial Panics Big and Small in the British Empire (1865–1907)

Abstract

Colonial panics range in scale from outrage over misbehaving youth to fears for the survival of the ruling elite. A study of panics in Southern Africa and the West Indies shows that it is underlying anxiety about the moral and physical foundations of the colonial order rather than the immediate subject of fear-mongering that sustains public alarm. Settlers in Natal in the late 1860s demanded that the authorities do something about black rapes of white women—even though such assaults were practically unknown. In 1865 a panic over protests at living standards in Jamaica inspired fears of a general uprising. At the turn of the twentieth century, the government of Natal panicked over the ‘Ethiopian menace’, a supposed movement of African preachers to overthrow constituted authority.