Chapter 4
Slavery and Sati
Abolitionism has a distinct place in the story
of the making of modern Britain. The campaigns against the slave trade and slavery
brought the religious conviction of Quakers,
evangelicals, and others into the political
mainstream, introduced the idea of a national lobby, demonstrated how outside pressure
could be brought to bear effectively on parliament, and revealed the power of a moral
crusade.1 Antislavery also refashioned the
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national identity. As Linda Colley and David
Brion Davis argue, abolitionism fostered a
sense of moral superiority that gave Britons
confidence in a “mission to lead the world.”2
The “idea that Britain should set a moral
lead to the world” would prove lasting; as
Brian Harrison notes, it informed various reform movements from antislavery onward,
including the one for nuclear disarmament.3
Vital here is the fact that the campaigns
against the slave trade and slavery became
models. Victorians adopted tactics first employed or perfected by abolitionists, shared
their sense of being moral crusaders, and
took inspiration from the long and difficult,
but eventually successful struggle to end
slavery. Staple tactics of later reformers that
antislavery activists pioneered or revitalized
included using paid lecturers; publishing
single-issue journals; collecting pledges; circulating petitions to parliament; and creating
national
networks
of
local
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societies—including
exclusively
female
4
ones—to generate public pressure. Victorians tended to view abolition as a moral crusade or found inspiration in the lonely
struggles of early abolitionists, as the examples of Richard Cobden, J. S. Mill, and
Josephine Butler demonstrate.5 Harrison argues for the vital part played by antislavery
in the emergence of a “heroic British reforming tradition,” one that encouraged individuals to take up an endless stream of good
causes.6
A key feature of this tradition was the constant spillover of individuals into new
causes. William Wilberforce and T. F. Buxton were founding members of the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in
1824.7 Four years later Buxton joined Thomas Clarkson and William Allen at the opening meeting of the Society for the Diffusion
of Information on the Subject of Capital
Punishments. The participation of these
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prominent abolitionists in other humanitarian movements might well be explained by
Bentham’s oft-quoted statement on animal
rights: “We have begun by attending to the
condition of slaves, we shall finish by softening that of all the animals which assist our
labours or supply our wants.”8 Examples of
nineteenth-century
reformers
moving
through a long series of causes are legend.
Joseph Sturge supported the peace movement, antislavery, anti-Corn Law agitation,
Chartism, complete suffrage, and adult education.9 Elizabeth Pease Nichol’s list of
causes included antislavery, anti-Corn Law
activism, Chartism, temperance, abolition of
religious tests, higher education for women,
and medical reform.10 George Thompson has
been described as “the archetype of the midVictorian professional reformer,” who began
as an abolitionist lecturer in the 1830s, went
on to a host of other causes, including temperance, the Peace Society, anti-Corn Law
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agitation, and land reform in India, before
settling down as editor of a general reform
newspaper.11 Samuel Gurney the younger
served in 1864 on the executive committees
of eleven philanthropic bodies. Howard
Temperley uses Gurney’s example to demonstrate how the British and Foreign AntiSlavery Society was integrated into “a great
complex of organizations, many of them with
interlocking committees, devoted to education, peace, temperance, universal suffrage,
women’s rights, free trade, prison reform, religious conversion, famine relief and innumerable other worthy causes.”12
Part of this story is the nurturing of
Victorian activism that took place in domestic and social circles devoted to abolition. This
was often the case with women, where family
ties to abolition could be an indicator of future activism. Mary Carpenter and Elizabeth
Blackwell were both reared in Bristol by fathers opposed to slavery, while Barbara Leigh
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Smith Bodichon’s grandfather, William
Smith, had played an important role for over
two decades in the campaign against the
slave trade.13 Emmeline Pankhurst grew up
in an antislavery family and as a child went
to bed listening to stories crafted by her
mother from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.14
Josephine Butler’s family were abolitionists
and she turned to the history of antislavery
for inspiration when dispirited in 1875.15
Eleanor Rathbone came from a family that
supported nearly every major nineteenthcentury reform cause in Liverpool dating
back to the campaign against the slave
trade.16 As a teenager Harriet Martineau fell
under the sway of Mary Carpenter’s abolitionist father, Lant Carpenter.17 Quaker families and social circles were noteworthy for
producing female activists. Elizabeth Pease
Nichol worked with her father, Joseph Pease,
on the campaign against slavery in South
Asia; Eliza Cropper was the daughter of one
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leading Quaker antislavery activist and husband of another; and Elizabeth Heyrick,
whose 1824 pamphlet Immediate, Not
Gradual Abolition, galvanized abolitionists,
belonged to a Quaker circle of prominent antislavery activists in the Leicester area.18
Indeed, antislavery is important for the
emergence of Victorian feminism, as Clare
Midgley has argued. It provided women with
new opportunities for public activism and
political involvement. Women were active
with financial and moral support in the crusade against the slave trade. In 1825 the first
female antislavery society was founded in
Birmingham, followed by many others in a
national network of local societies during the
great campaigns of 1825–1838. Many of
these societies were founded by women
themselves, who raised and disbursed significant funds. Women gave speeches, wrote
poetry, published important tracts, and edited journals to promote the cause. In
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massive numbers they signed national petitions against slavery and the apprenticeship
system in 1833 and 1838. And they introduced or actively sponsored novel strategies
such as abstention from slave-produced
products, employing paid traveling agents,
and door-to-door canvassing.19
Such activism reinforced and challenged
conventional notions of gender roles. Many
women were motivated by a sense of responsibility for domestic affairs and ideas of
feminine compassion. Crusading against
slavery was an extension of a presumed female duty to protect the weak and a special
ability to feel for others. The plight of slave
women and children were thus women’s particular concern. They contrasted the condition of female slaves and slave families with
the conditions that British (middle-class)
women and their families took for granted.
They crafted powerful images of enslaved
women as passive victims enduring physical
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and sexual abuse, and of families brutalized
by degraded slave owners, images meant to
elicit from British women a well-defined
sense of philanthropic duty.
But abolitionism also led some women
beyond traditional gender roles. Elizabeth
Heyrick’s call for immediate emancipation,
supported by abstention from sugar, resonated with female audiences increasingly convinced that the male-dominated campaign
for gradual abolition was a failure. Heyrick
and others developed strategies for bypassing the men who controlled the antislavery movement. One was to utilize the network of female abolitionist societies to press
for immediate emancipation; the first society
to go on record with the new demand was
the Sheffield Female Anti-Slavery Society in
1827. Another was to exert financial pressure
on the men running the Anti-Slavery Society,
which the Female Society for Birmingham
did with success in 1830. More generally,
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they took the message of immediate emancipation to the street and helped arouse the
public demand for action. Above all, they
politicized the domestic sphere, transforming women’s responsibility for household
consumption and tea-party sociability into a
political base capable of major boycotts. In
this and later antislavery activities, Midgley
argues, British women acted in protofeminist
ways. They challenged male authority over
the direction of policy and asserted their independence; they helped fashion a national
political movement that pioneered strategies
for mobilizing public opinion; they organized
their own local societies and created national
networks of contacts and associations; and
they politicized domesticity and developed
gendered arguments regarding important
public issues.20
These linked stories of antislavery, humanitarianism, and female activism provide
another
clue
to
Rammohun
Roy’s
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transnational celebrity. This becomes evident once a fourth narrative is introduced.
The movement to abolish sati (suttee) in India parallels the antislavery campaigns in
key respects. It too witnessed shifting goals
and campaign strategies before final success,
and it provided inspiration at a moment of
indecision in the history of antislavery. The
campaign against a perceived form of human
sacrifice tapped into and energized the humanitarian conscience. It reinforced activist
tendencies to take up multiple causes, opening up South Asia to the moral imagination
of some reformers and encouraging others to
apply lessons learned there to domestic
causes. Women in Britain found opportunities for public participation in the anti-sati
campaign, which raised gender issues of violence and legal injustice. The movement to
suppress widow burning also brought the
name, ideas, and deeds of Rammohun Roy to
the attention of slavery abolitionists,
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humanitarians, and early feminists in Britain. Adding to his renown as a religious
controversialist, anti-sati activists helped
forge the idea that Rammohun was a partner
in the moral crusades and spirit of reform
sweeping through early nineteenth-century
Britain.
Much has been written about sati, the colonial campaign against it, and the prominent role played by Rammohun before and
after its abolition in 1829.21 Most of the attention has been directed at the situation in
Bengal, and similarities to the campaign
against slavery have largely been ignored.
This chapter reestablishes connections
between these two movements that peaked
at roughly the same momentous point in
British history. Chapter 5 then situates Rammohun’s fame in the context of those forgotten ties.
The colonial context in which both slavery
and sati were situated is important. Slavery
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and the slave trade were integral to the first
British empire and were actively pursued by
private individuals and encouraged by the
state. The practice of sati predates British
power in India, but, as Ashi Nandy argued in
a classic essay, it resurged in Bengal after
British rule was established.22 Moreover, sati
was condoned by East India Company officials in ways suggestive of a common
eighteenth-century attitude about slavery.
Until the 1760s slavery in the New World
was widely viewed as a practical way to overcome labor shortages and thus necessary for
economic growth and national prosperity.23
For Company officials, tolerating a custom
seemingly rooted in ancient practices, enjoined by sacred texts, and enjoying popular
support was no less an act of colonial pragmatism. Keenly aware that their fledgling
Raj rested upon the good opinion of the
people they ruled, the Company developed a
broad tolerance of Indian social customs and
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religious practices summed up in the policy
of noninterference. It responded to humanitarian pressure in the same way that defenders of the slave trade and slavery did, raising
the specter of revolt as the consequence of
rash intervention, a parallel in strategies that
Wilberforce noticed in parliament in 1813.24
Throughout the 1820s, Company officials insisted that abandoning a liberal policy of respecting a religiously sanctioned practice
would inflame public opinion and jeopardize
British rule.25
The campaigns to end slavery and sati
shared a similar moral sensibility rooted in a
common religious impulse. To be sure, secular arguments regarding the superiority of
free labor and distress at the suffering of women were important factors. But the preeminent role played by evangelicals and Dissenters in both movements is legend, and the
fact is that the campaigns against slavery and
sati became moral crusades. The conviction
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that slavery was a sin and a blot on the British national honor ran parallel to the belief
that toleration of sati entailed participation
in a crime offensive to both God and humanity.26 This explains why religious activists in
one campaign could easily lend their support
to the other. Clarkson, Wilberforce, and Buxton—all prominent figures in the antislavery
movement—also drew public attention to
sati, the latter two in parliamentary debates
between 1813 and 1825.27 Buxton’s interest
in widow burning was stirred by the missionary and anti-sati activist James Peggs, who
took up the antislavery cause in India during
the 1840s.28 The overlap between the two
campaigns was evident in 1823, when—during the same session of parliament—Buxton
introduced the first parliamentary motion
calling for the (gradual) abolition of slavery
and presented the first petition to parliament
calling for the suppression of sati.29
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The clash of imperial pragmatism and
moral outrage produced similar results in
both campaigns. Those in authority sought
to appease humanitarian sentiments by appealing to the prospect of eventual abolition
while cautioning against rash action that endangered imperial interests. In the case of
slavery, the hope that ending the supply of
slaves would eventually end slavery—though
soon shown to be illusory—contributed to
the conviction that the institution was on the
road to extinction. Abolitionists thus concentrated on ameliorating the condition of
slaves after the trade was ended in 1807. The
first measure that many embraced was slave
registration, introduced in 1812. The idea
was to accumulate accurate data regarding
the number of slaves and their condition, to
prevent illegal importations, to inhibit mistreatment, and to ensure the legal status of
freed persons. The measure met with stiff
opposition from the West Indian lobby,
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which stalled a central registration system
until 1820. Nonetheless, a door had been
opened for government intervention.30
When abolitionists sought to push that door
further open, as Buxton did in his 1823 motion—which called for the immediate emancipation of all children born to slave parents
after a date to be determined—those in
power demurred. Acknowledging the desirability of eventually ending slavery, George Canning stated the government’s position that abolition could come only when it
was “compatible with the well-being of the
slaves themselves, with the safety of the
colonies, and with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private property.”31 This vague commitment to emancipation was designed to appease abolitionists
while reassuring the West Indies lobby that
it was a mere “political expedient needed to
keep the humanitarians at bay.”32
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There are clear parallels to the situation
regarding sati at this time. After mostly ignoring widow burning for the first half-century of its rule in Bengal, the East India
Company reluctantly addressed sati with a
mindset remarkably similar to Canning’s in
1823. In 1789 the Calcutta government recorded an initial opinion that sati was legal
under Hindu law, adding that it trusted that
the “repugnant” custom would slowly disappear as Hindus “discern the fallacy of the
principles which have given rise to this practice.”33 In 1805, however, Calcutta requested
a legal opinion on the textual basis of sati in
Hindu law and broached for the first time
the possibility of abolishing or at least regulating the practice.34 Nothing was done until
1813, when the Calcutta authorities issued
their first instructions. Additional regulations followed in 1815 that included the collection of annual statistics on the number of
satis. The regulations of 1813 and 1815
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remained in effect until abolition in 1829.
They restricted sati to circumstances sanctioned by Hindu sacred texts, as interpreted
by the Company’s pandits. Sati was forbidden for women younger than sixteen; for
those pregnant, under the influence of intoxicants, or coerced; and for those with young
children, unless support for these had been
arranged. Other restrictions were imposed
regarding when satis could take place.35 As
with slave registration, this limited form of
interference balanced imperial pragmatism
with moral outrage by looking to the promise
of gradual abolition. By restricting sati to
those cases supported by Hindu scriptures,
the Company could maintain its policy of
noninterference, ensure that especially inhumane or even murderous practices were
ended, and proclaim its trust that the diffusion of Western education and modern
knowledge would gradually undermine Indian support for the custom. Not surprisingly,
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the policy met with approval in London from
Canning.36
The Company was moved to action by requests for guidance from local officials wishing to prevent satis in cases involving adolescent or pregnant wives, or women with small
children.37 Baptist missionaries and evangelicals also played a critical role. They gathered
data on the incidence of sati and critically examined the scriptural texts supporting the
practice. They raised the issue at home in
parliament and in missionary publications
during the period 1812–1813, when the Company’s charter was up for renewal. It is likely
that the 1813 and 1815 regulations were drafted with an eye toward appeasing humanitarian sentiment.38
Reliance on ameliorative measures such as
slave registration and the sati regulations
would give way to demands for decisive action. By the mid-1820s, many antislavery
activists believed that piecemeal reforms
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were of little value in the face of obstructionist tactics by the West Indian planters and
their parliamentary allies. Important here
were reports on the conditions of slaves that
illuminated the continued misery of enslaved
Africans. A slave rebellion in Demerara, and
the harsh repression that followed, added to
the sense of urgency.39 The founding of the
Anti-Slavery Society in 1823, with its commitment to emancipation, albeit gradually,
marks the change in attitude. Elizabeth
Heyrick’s 1824 pamphlet calling for immediate abolition gave radical voice to the sentiment in favor of parliamentary action. Over
the next decade, antislavery activists toured
the country, magazines exposing the evils of
slavery proliferated, provincial antislavery
organizations sprang into existence, and petitions advocating emancipation flooded into
parliament. As noted, women emerged as
important public actors during this phase of
the campaign, founding their own societies,
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mobilizing another abstention campaign,
and leading the demand for immediate
emancipation. These efforts bore fruit: by
1830, as James Walvin notes, “the extent and
depth of anti-slavery feeling [in Britain] is
difficult to overstress.”40
This was not, however, a seamless campaign steadily gaining strength and culminating in an explosion of public opinion in the
early 1830s. Davis notes that in 1826 and
1827, antislavery was sunk in “a state of lethargy and hopelessness,” and that another
two years of bitter internal debates followed.
Among the most contentious issues were
whether to bring public pressure to bear on
parliament and what type of legislative intervention to demand.41 It was only after 1830
that a consensus emerged in favor of immediate abolition, an idea that provided the
spark for the final massive effort to persuade
parliament to act. In the eyes of one contemporary, the change after 1830 was so stark as
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to mark a revolution, one in step with the
overthrow of Old Corruption.42 Why the
change? Some attribute it to outrage at reports of persecution of missionary antislavery activists in the West Indies, along with
growing anger at the various means by which
West Indies planters evaded or obstructed
slave regulations.43 Others credit the activities of the Agency Committee, a group of
young activists instrumental in giving a radical tone to the movement and its tactics. The
Agency Committee promoted the idea that
slavery was a sin and as such should be abolished immediately. This simple message galvanized the antislavery campaign, lifting it
above the parliamentary maneuvers of Old
Corruption into the realm of a religious crusade, thus freeing abolitionists from the restraints of Canningite pragmatism.44
The campaign against sati peaked in the
late 1820s, at the moment when antislavery
was in the doldrums. Indeed, anti-sati
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activists anticipated what was to transpire
shortly thereafter in antislavery. They kept
attention focused on a simple moral fact (sati
is evil). They made special appeals to women45 and helped pioneer the tactic of female petitions. And they found a way to cut
the Gordian knot surrounding the issues of
imperial security and moral evil. Before
slavery abolitionists discovered in the sinfulness of slavery sufficient reason to act, sati
abolitionists demonstrated that humane intervention in the colonies was perfectly safe.
Immediate, not gradual, abolition was the
cry of the anti-sati lobby by the late 1820s,46
a cry met by the criminalization of sati in
1829 without incident.
It may be coincidence that the successful
conclusion of the campaign against sati was
quickly followed by an explosion of antislavery activity. The interest in sati that some
antislavery activists had long shown gives
reason to think otherwise. As we shall see,
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anti-sati campaigners organized in 1829 a
society to suppress human sacrifice in India,
which launched a nation-wide effort to petition parliament for the speedy abolition of
sati, infanticide, and the like. Among contributors to this society were the slavery abolitionists Buxton and Joseph Sturge.47 Buxton had taken an early interest in sati and
thought it “a stain upon the B[ritish] name.”
His private papers indicate that he considered making its abolition one of his life’s
missions. As indicated, he introduced in
1823 the first parliamentary bill to end sati.
He remained interested in the issue thereafter, enough so that some contemporaries
thought him responsible for the suppression
of sati in 1829. News of the latter reached
Britain in the spring of 1830 and energized
Buxton. In speeches before the Church Missionary Society and in Commons, Buxton
seized on the news as proof that action
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against moral evil could be taken without
threatening imperial interests.
It is a matter of the most sincere & I think just gratification to me that the practice of burning widows . . . has
been abolished, & that hitherto at least no evils have
resulted from that act of humanity. The natives appear
to understand our motives & to submit quietly to our
decision—& thus without convulsion or bloodshed, a
practice has been extinguished, revolting to human
nature.48
That same spring, Buxton announced his
strong support for “bolder measures” against
slavery in a letter citing suppression of sati
as “comforting” news.49 What exactly Buxton
meant by bolder measures in March of 1830
is not obvious. What is clear, however, is that
he and other antislavery activists soon employed tactics and ideas that the campaign
against sati had successfully wielded against
moral compromise sanctioned in the name
of empire.
Jörg Fisch notes that the British campaign
against sati escalated after 1818 and reached
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its high point between 1828 and 1829.50
Baptist missionaries were crucial actors in
this. The first major pamphlet on the subject
in Britain was published by William Johns, a
medical officer and Baptist missionary in
training expelled by the East India Company
in 1813.51 While not calling for outright abolition, Johns’ 1816 pamphlet set an example
for later works in terms of tone, organization
of evidence, and even title page layout. More
important was Johns’ fellow Serampore missionary, William Ward. Ward’s was an early
voice against sati in Bengal, and beginning in
1813 missionary magazines in Britain repackaged his accounts to highlight the need
for missions. Initially, Ward was reluctant to
call for decided intervention, contenting
himself with what Lata Mani calls a matterof-fact descriptive approach that contrasted
with the missionary magazines’ portrayal of
Hindu horrors.52 Ward’s attitude soon
changed. In 1817 and 1820 a messy53 third
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edition of Ward’s multivolume A View of the
History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos appeared in London, and Ward released a more orderly edition in 1822. The
tone in these editions, as Mani demonstrated, is decidedly different.54 Ward joined
the missionary magazines in depicting sati as
a shocking example of the barbaric practices
of a superstitious and idolatrous people.
Viewing it as a form of human sacrifice,
Ward traced sati’s prevalence to the condition of Hindu women. He now felt confident
challenging the policy of noninterference,
asking rhetorically “shall these [sati] fires
never be put out?” and answering “Forbid it,
British Power! Forbid it, British humanity!”55
Ward made a fundraising tour through
Britain in 1819 and 1820. Sati figured prominently in his lectures. Versions of some of
these lectures were published as letters to
correspondents in an 1821 volume; that same
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year he published a letter on sati in the
Times.56 In his published letters, Ward reiterated his argument that sati was a prime example of Hindu depravity and made explicit
appeals to British women to take up the
cause. He included newly available information regarding the numbers of satis in
Bengal.57
The data Ward cited was generated by the
1815 regulations. The first statistics were
published by parliament in July 1821 and
new returns followed on a regular basis
throughout the 1820s.58 The early data suggested that British regulation had led to a
dramatic increase in the number of satis.59
Moreover, the highest incidence rate seemed
to be in the immediate vicinity of Calcutta.
The number of recorded satis peaked in
1818, then decreased significantly to a constant level in the 1820s.60 The initial impression, however, that regulation was a failure
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remained strong, perhaps because so many
satis took place near the seat of British
power. The dissemination of this data, coming as it did fast on the heels of Ward’s
volumes and lectures, explains why the first
public meeting and petition calling on parliament to prohibit sati took place in 1823, as
well as why the next year an unsuccessful attempt was made to alter policy by some of
the Company’s directors in London.61 More
public meetings and petitions followed in
1825, 1827, 1829, and 1830 (the last before
news had reached Britain of the regulation
criminalizing sati). These too drew attention
to Company data that disproved the idea that
widow burning was gradually disappearing,
as did speakers addressing parliament and
the Company’s Court of Proprietors.62 From
1825 onward, an increasing number of
pamphlets and journal articles on the subject
also appeared, most expressing outrage at
the steady, if not increasing, numbers of sati
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63
under Company regulations. All this attention led one observer in 1828 to claim that
people in Britain thought only of sati when
discussing India.64 As Mani has pointed out,
by this point the public at home was convinced that the custom should be abolished.
Even the Company’s semiofficial organ, the
Asiatic Journal, conceded the point.65
A crucial factor was the testimony of observers in India that sati could be safely prohibited. The opinion of various officials favoring interdiction found its way into Company proceedings and debates in London
during the 1820s, and from there into parliamentary papers. This official testimony was
recycled repeatedly in the pamphlets,
speeches, and petitions produced by opponents of sati, who compiled similar comments
from missionaries, Indians, and other critics.
The consensus of these presumed experts
was that sati was not enjoined by sacred
texts, that it was not widely practiced, and
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thus that abolition would not be violently opposed. Many pointed to previous interventions—such as prohibiting infanticide, introducing capital punishment for brahmans,
and individual officials acting to prevent
satis—as proof that interference would not
provoke unrest. Some argued that many Indians would indeed welcome abolition.66 The
cumulative effect was a successful challenge
to Company claims about the religious
nature of sati and the dangers of intervention. The balance of imperial realities and
moral principles had come down on the humanitarian’s side.
Chapter 5 explores how Rammohun Roy
helped tip the balance. Here we need to discuss the fact that winning the British public
over had something to do with women. From
the start, as Clare Midgley has shown, female
participation was as important to the campaign against sati as to the struggle against
slavery. Initially, evangelicals used sati and
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the condition of Indian women to appeal to
British women to support missionary activity. As with antislavery, this reflected common attitudes regarding female responsibility for the home and family, and it paralleled
efforts to engage middle-class women in domestic philanthropic work among lowerclass women and children. This call to save
Indian women and children was successful.
Missionary societies came to rely on the
funds raised by local female auxiliaries, and
as early as 1814, one such auxiliary, the
Southwark Ladies’ Association, had committed itself to rescuing Hindu women from
sati.67 After about 1820, the missionary effort focused on female education as a means
to eradicate the presumed superstition and
ignorance undergirding sati and other social
evils. This drew women further into the
mainstream of the sati campaign. Ladies’ societies and auxiliaries turned their fundraising skills to the project of establishing
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schools for female education in India. One of
them—the Ladies Committee of the British
and Foreign School Society—also funded and
selected the first female missionary, Mary
Anne Cooke, who was dispatched in 1821 to
head a girls school in Calcutta.
This was a significant development. Freeing Indian women from what was deemed
their ignorance opened a door to new opportunities for British women.68 As Jane Haggis
points out, the latter were pushing this door
open themselves. The wives of missionaries
were challenging limits on their activity,
opening schools for girls and articulating the
need for a separate missionary establishment
devoted to female education in India. This
led to the establishment of the Society for the
Propagation of Female Education in the East
in 1834, which recruited single women to be
teachers in India. This effort drew little opposition, largely because missionary wives
had already made this seem appropriate. In
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addition, men felt it inappropriate to recruit
and train single women. Finally, the plan was
in accord with expanding philanthropic
activities for British women, as the career of
Elizabeth Fry and the campaign against
slavery indicate.69 In short, Haggis argues,
during the 1820s and 1830s, “[e]vangelical
doctrine and the Woman Question were
coming together in new formulations of the
most appropriate roles for women and
men.”70
This assessment is shared by others.
Midgley notes that the British discourse on
sati was dominated by missionaries who
needed “to appeal to a female audience.”
Their discourse accorded a “central place . . .
to the question of female emancipation,” that
is, liberating Indian women from their supposed degradation through Western education. But this call for emancipation, Midgley
adds, was situated in an imperial and conservative evangelical context that left
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71
unchallenged gender roles at home. Other
appeals to British women to engage with sati,
however, came closer to doing just that. This
is evident in the petitions against sati that
women signed. Until the 1830s, petitioning
was a form of pressure politics reserved for
men. Prior to that, women occasionally
signed petitions against slavery, and there
were instances of petitions organized and
signed by women alone. But encroachments
by women in this area were ridiculed or resisted, as with the 1829 petitions in favor of
Catholic emancipation and those supporting
parliamentary reform during the period
1830–1832.72 Midgley argues that public attitudes changed only with the massive petitioning drives against slavery and apprenticeship that took place after 1830, when women signed petitions by the hundreds of
thousands and organized their own national
petition drives. Midgley finds several reasons
for the change. One was the precedent set by
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women who signed petitions against sati in
1829 and 1830.73
Petitioning against sati began in 1823 and
reached a peak between 1827 and 1830. The
majority of the 107 petitions presented to
parliament were organized and signed by
men. Some 20 percent were signed by fourteen different groups of women representing
various Dissenting congregations and provincial towns.74 In Midgley’s view, these female petitioners were careful not to challenge male authority in the realm of legislative matters, adopting a “humble feminine
tone” and couching their action as an extension of their domestic roles. They stressed
that their motives were humanitarian, not
political, and that they were moved to act by
the suffering of women. This followed what
advocates of female education in India were
doing, using conventional ideas to widen the
acceptable sphere of activity for women. But
it also recalls the implicit challenge to gender
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roles raised at this time by antislavery women pressing for immediate abolition. In the
case of sati, female petitioners asserted “a
public role for British women in moralising
the imperial nation and reforming the Empire, based on their particular ability as women to represent the interests of colonised
women to the imperial Parliament.”
Moreover, some petitions may have been inspired by the sense that—as a London
pamphlet put it—if men would not act, then
British women “ ‘will surely unite to quench
this murder and fire.’ ”75
At the very least, the women who petitioned against sati were pioneers. They did
not meet with ridicule and rebuke, as did the
women who signed petitions for Catholic
emancipation. Theirs was an important first
step toward direct participation in the mainstream of British political life, where petitioning parliament was an important privilege and a means of shaping parliamentary
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debates. In making this a respectable undertaking for women, the sati petitioners
opened the door for the massive participation of women in the petition drives against
slavery and apprenticeship. If the latter mark
“the first large-scale intervention by women
in Parliamentary politics,” then the petitioners of 1829 and 1830 were in the vanguard.
Although petitioning against sati and slavery,
as Midgley notes, did not evolve directly into
political self-assertion in Britain as it did in
the United States, it surely paved the way.76
Anti-sati activists set this stage by making
female participation acceptable as “part of
women’s philanthropic mission to women.”77
The domestic discourse on sati was saturated
with images and narrative structures designed to appeal to women and their sense of
responsibility for household affairs. As
Midgley notes, Wilberforce set the tone in his
1813 speech to parliament, drawing a stark
contrast between the fireside pleasures of an
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idealized British household with the fireside
evils of Hindu women burning.78 Later commentators emphasized that sati made children into orphans and more lurid accounts
recounted heart-wrenching separations of
mothers and children. Often there was mention that the ritual could require a son to
light the funeral pyre that would consume
his living mother along with his just-deceased father.79 Appeals to a sense of women’s special mission to protect the weak
and the helpless were commonplace. These
usually were accompanied by narratives of
powerless women—including mere adolescents—browbeaten by greedy in-laws and
devilish priests, or physically restrained. Accounts of women who jumped from the
flames and then were tricked or coerced back
onto the pyres received particular attention.80 The strategy was to create emotional
images of Indian women as passive (or
powerless) victims, and then draw a sharp
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contrast with the privileged status of
(middle-class) women in Britain.81 This was
the same strategy that antislavery propagandists were employing, one that owed its
success to established patterns of female
philanthropy. The result in both cases was
the mobilization of philanthropic British women against evil in the colonies.82
William Ward was central to this effort. In
his lectures, letters, and books from 1817 to
1822, Ward appealed for action from women
in ways suggesting new arenas for their exertions. Ward employed all the usual rhetorical
strategies designed to rouse British women
into action to protect families and the helpless. He stressed that Hindu women were often physically restrained on the funeral pyres
of their husbands and, should they try to escape, beaten back and held down. The fact
that sati required sons in mourning for their
fathers to light the pyre that would consume
their living mothers led Ward to ask, “Who
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shall count the groans and screams of all
these widows in the scorching flames, and
the tears of all these orphans?” He pointed
out how sacrificial victims could include girls
of eight and women of eighty.83 The general
condition of Hindu women also drew Ward’s
attention. They were little more than household slaves, victimized by systems of early
marriage and polygamy, and—because deprived of education—prone to the worst superstitions, including sacrificing their own
infants and even themselves.84
The degraded condition of women in
Hindu society served as Ward’s focal point in
appealing to British women. His letter to the
Times was addressed to the ladies of Liverpool and the United Kingdom, and elsewhere
he called on women to form associations to
agitate against sati.85 Ward asked female
readers to contrast their privileged lives with
the lot of their sisters in India.86 He called on
the “benevolent females” who supported
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Bible societies to “make the case of their sex
in India a common cause,” to “become the
guardians of these Ten Thousand orphans
surrounding these funeral piles,” to raise up
Indian women who would earn future honor
as that nation’s “female moral writers, her
poets, and her teachers; [as] her Moores and
Frys.”87 As the reference to Hannah More
and Elizabeth Fry indicates, Ward respected
the power of devout women to effect change.
Midgley attributes this—and his willingness
to circumvent male authority with direct appeals to women—to Ward’s radical youth.88
“There can hardly be a misery,” Ward wrote
to the Times, “connected with human existence, which the pity and zeal of British females, under the blessing of Providence, is
not able to remove, and if this dreadful case
be properly felt in every town of the united
kingdom [sic], these immolations must
shortly cease for ever.” Schools must be
founded and knowledge passed on, Ward
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proclaimed, so that Indian women could become the equals of their privileged counterparts in Britain. This great philanthropic
project, he insisted, was the task of women:
“Other triumphs of humanity may have been
gained by our Howards, our Clarksons, our
Wilberforces; but this emancipation of the
females and widows of British India must be
the work of the British fair.”89
Others implored British women to turn their benevolent attention to Indian women.90 Most notable was the
General Baptist missionary James Peggs, who asked
Buxton to bring sati before parliament in 1821. That
same year Peggs and Mary Anne Cooke left for India on
the vessel carrying Ward back to Bengal. After a brief
stay in Serampore, Peggs helped establish the General
Baptist mission in Orissa before retiring to Britain in
1825 for health reasons.91 After returning, Peggs was
pivotal in rousing the public to action against sati. In
the crucial period after 1827, he published numerous
pamphlets, lectured across the country, founded an influential society, and encouraged petitions to parliament. Like Ward, Peggs also invited women to support
the campaign. Midgley notes that he called for female
petitions to parliament, but in a tentative fashion that
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did little to overcome male resistance to such activity.92 Some women, however, were receptive to the
idea, and there are reasons to believe they were stirred
into political action by Peggs. Certainly, he welcomed
the idea.
Peggs made both subtle and explicit appeals to British women. His published works
bore provocative titles such as The Suttees’
Cry to Britain and India’s Cries to British
Humanity. The former employed contrasting
gothic and roman fonts on the title page to
drive home his message that India was one
of the dark places on earth requiring humanitarian intervention.93 In these works Peggs
reiterated the rhetorical strategies used by
Ward and others to draw women into the
campaign, including the usual depictions of
helpless women coerced into sati and of sons
compelled to burn their mothers.94 He encouraged British women in Bengal and Britain to unite to sign petitions and took pride
when the first three female petitions were
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presented, adding that a parliament that had
abolished the slave trade would surely not
“for ever permit the burning of widows.”95
His familiarity with the antislavery campaign
extended to tactics. Peggs printed poems—at
least one written by a woman—appealing to
British women to turn their compassion to
the sufferings of Indian women and children.96 Midgley notes that antislavery activists had long made such use of women’s poetry, particularly during the campaign
against the slave trade.97 The poems that
Peggs printed made similar appeals to a supposed special sensitivity of women to the suffering of others. With these poems, his rhetorical strategies, and appeals to British women to petition for abolition, Peggs was
manifestly trying to draw British women into
a new national mission. Finding evidence of
divine guidance in Britain’s triumph over
Napoleon, Peggs saw in this victory proof
that it was now “the evident and imperious
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duty of Britain to spread her protecting
shield over these defenceless widows and
orphans.”98
Women were responsive. In 1828 Peggs
published his appeal to the women of Britain
and Ireland to petition parliament against
sati. The next year, he established the
Coventry society to abolish human sacrifice
in India, which drew “many ladies” to its initial public meeting. At this meeting, Peggs
praised those supporting the cause, including a Salisbury woman who had donated five
pounds. He reiterated his call for a network
of abolition societies across the country that
“would rouse the public mind, and fix it
upon the subject” of sati. “Let Britain ‘plead
for the widow,’ ” Peggs told his audience, by
petitioning parliament to abolish sati and
other forms of human sacrifice in India.
Another speaker asked the women in attendance to take pity on Indian women “for in
that country they were often consigned to
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death at an early age, merely because they
were women.” The Coventry meeting ended
with unanimous approval of petitions to both
houses of parliament calling for suppression
of sati.99 Was it mere coincidence that that
same month—February 1829—women’s
groups began submitting their petitions to
parliament? One reason to suspect not is the
fact that the first petition came from a General Baptist congregation, Peggs’ own denomination.100 Another is Peggs’ direct appeal to women, which echoed an earlier one
by Ward, asking them to join a new national
crusade, sanctioned by Providence after the
wars against France. A third reason to believe that Peggs drew women into public activism is his use of visual imagery.
In 1828 Peggs published a second edition
of The Suttee’s Cry to Britain. It was here,
Midgley notes, that he first asked women
from throughout the United Kingdom to petition parliament.101 Also new to this second
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edition was an illustration that became an
iconic representation of sati, in part because
he used in the subsequent editions of India’s
Cries (see figure 4.1). Lata Mani places this
illustration in the context of recorded eyewitness accounts, most of which were by
European men. These accounts marginalized
Indian women, ignoring their suffering and
the material factors underlying sati. Western
men, she argues, fixed their attention instead
on the presumed ritual nature of sati, viewing this with a mixture of fascination and
horror captured well by the illustration that
Peggs introduced to the British public in
1828.102
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Figure 4.1 “A Suttee,” by unknown artist. From James
Peggs, India’s Cries to British Humanity . . ., 2nd ed. (London: Seely and Son, 1830).
This visual image needs to be situated in
another context as well. The fact that sati
was an act of violence against women conducted as a public spectacle permeated British accounts. Eyewitnesses reported that
Hindu widows were sometimes drugged before they performed sati or, more commonly,
physically restrained to keep them from fleeing. One rhetorical image was of women lying “bound as sheep for the slaughter.”103
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Peggs’ illustration reiterates this with its depiction of ropes binding the woman to her
dead husband and men using swords to
bring down a canopy of wood and leaves to
ensure that escape would be impossible. It
also hints at a crowd of Indians to the left
and behind the pyre. Narrative accounts circulating in Britain stressed that satis were
noisy public events. Many suggested parallels to blood sports at home. The Baptist missionary Joshua Marshman—responsible for
the comparison to the slaughter of
sheep—was one of the first to turn attention
to the crowds. Their behavior suggested to
him that sati was but a brutal spectator
sport. Hastening to the scene of a sati,
Marshman reported that it
was a horrible sight. The most shocking indifference
and levity appeared among those who were present. I
never saw any thing more brutal than their behavior.
The dreadful scene had not the least appearance of a religious ceremony. It resembled an abandoned rabble of
boys in England, collected for the purpose of worrying
to death a cat or a dog. A bamboo, perhaps twenty feet
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long, had been fastened at one end to a stake driven into the ground, and held down over the fire by men at
the other. Such were the confusion, the levity, the
bursts of brutal laughter, while the poor woman was
burning alive before their eyes, that it seemed as if
every spark of humanity was extinguished by this accursed superstition.
He went on to recount how the crowd used
bamboo poles to stir and push the woman’s
body, “as you would repair a fire of green
wood, by throwing the unconsumed pieces
into the middle.”104 Marshman’s account
proved popular. William Johns reprinted it
in his 1816 pamphlet and repeated it—down
to the gory details—at a Manchester meeting.
At that 1827 meeting, Johns regretted “that
in this country we appear to have retrograded, for whilst we have legislated to prevent cruelty to animals, we allow a portion of
the human race, nay even of our own subjects, to have cruelties practised upon them
at which humanity shudders.”105
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The reference was to the recent legislative
success of the fledgling animal protection
movement in Britain. Throughout the eighteenth century, there were an increasing
number of voices raised against the ill-treatment of animals. From 1800 onward, a
series of parliamentary bills were introduced, and the first law protecting some domestic animals from abusive treatment was
passed in 1822.106 Those leading the campaign recognized the need for a society to
promote the cause, and in 1820–1821, appeals went out to those “actuated by a compassionate regard for the sufferings of the
brute species.”107 These appeals resulted in
the establishment of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in
1824. William Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton were present, the latter in the
chair, at the founding meeting. As already
noted, this is but one example of the
spillover of humanitarian reformers from
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one cause to another. One possible reason
for the spillover in the case of sati was the
linkage of the Indian ritual and blood sports.
Important here was Wilberforce, who, in
1813, entered into the parliamentary record
Marshman’s graphic comparison of brutal
crowds delighting in violence to women and
animals. Once parliament began addressing
animal abuse, commentators kept the comparison alive in the 1820s by asking how the
British nation could concern itself with the
plight of mules and hogs, but stand silently
by while helpless women were tortured to
death in India.108 One measure of the
strength of these perceived parallels between
violence done to women and to animals is
the fact that in 1830s, when the SPCA began
campaigning against select sports, James
Peggs entered the fray. He petitioned government to stop bull running at Stamford, a
sport so popular that the law prohibiting it
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could be enforced only by sending in a detachment of light dragoons.109
Women provide another reason to believe
that the comparison between sati and blood
sports resonated with an awakening humanitarian impulse in Britain. Comparisons of
restrained women and tethered animals sacrificed for the amusement of noisy, callous
crowds in India and Britain struck female
audiences differently than male ones. Evidence for this comes from the fact that the
SPCA, initially a male stronghold, soon drew
avid support from women: over one-half of
the society’s nineteenth-century legacies, for
example, came from women.110 Traditional
philanthropic motives predominated in the
society’s early stages, as women again took
on the role of compassionate protectors of
the helpless. It is noteworthy, however, that
sati and animal cruelty emerged as linked issues at nearly the same time in public discourse and that both were successfully
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legislated against within the same decade.
Midgley argues that in “petitioning parliament [to abolish sati] women were becoming
publicly involved in defining the limits of
male behaviour, asserting the value of a woman’s life and the unacceptability of male violence.”111 With but minor substitutions,
Midgley’s sentence would also accurately
characterize how the Victorian women who
supported what became the Royal Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(RSCPA) challenged male behavior and reduced male violence by asserting the value of
animal life against the men who abused work
animals or gambled at dog or cock fights.
The working class men who first bore the
brunt of the RSCPA’s interventions saw it
this way. Their often violent resistance to
what they perceived as meddling in their
work and recreation was a classic response to
encroachments on traditionally sanctioned
male behavior.112
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A brief look at antivivisectionism adds to
the impression that sati helped set the stage
for later campaigns by British women
against male violence. This late Victorian
and Edwardian movement was supported by
women “in numbers exceeded only by the
suffrage societies,”113 and its leadership was
predominately female.114 Their opponents—the medical community and its public
defenders—were by and large male. Women
were mobilized for the antivivisection campaign by the same appeals to traditions of female philanthropy and a special capacity for
compassion that had attracted earlier women
to antislavery and anti-sati.115 The new crusade owed much else to those earlier movements, drawing on the successful use of itinerant lecturers, circulating tracts, fundraising techniques, and the like. Although most
would see antislavery as the inspiration for
these tactics,116 the campaign against sati
likely contributed something as well. For
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instance, if—as Richard French argues—the
strategy of Victorian crusaders was first “to
make vivisection ‘infamous, then illegal,’ ”117
then the campaign against sati deserves consideration as the model, since it was one of
the first successful examples of the strategy.
Certainly the antivivisectionists’ use of
graphic illustrations and related emphasis on
brutalized spectators suggests a debt to the
anti-sati movement. They circulated gruesome images of restrained animals enduring
violence that recall Peggs’ famous illustration, and they emphasized the dehumanizing
effects on the medical students who observed
vivisections.118 As Coral Lansbury has
shown, antivivisectionists drew frequent
comparisons to blood sports to condemn vivisection for appealing to the basest motives
in spectators.119 This attempt to delegitimize
a socially accepted practice—one whose moral evils were seemingly offset by its practical
benefits—by drawing parallels to blood
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sports and their demoralizing effects looks
back to Joshua Marshman and other opponents of widow burning.
Relevant here is the way that some women
came to identify with animals as victims of
male violence. Lansbury argues that late
Victorian women “saw themselves as horses
being flogged and beaten, and many saw
their own condition hideously and accurately
embodied in the figure of an animal bound to
a table by straps with the vivisector’s knife at
work on its flesh.” During lectures by antivivisectionists, women in the audience “would
often sob and become hysterical, to the delight of the jeering medical students.” Lansbury attributes this to a new consciousness
fashioned by Elizabeth Blackwell and others
who drew explicit parallels between various
gynecological procedures and vivisection. In
this new consciousness, the vivisected animal “embodied all the fears of sexual surgery:
images of women strapped to chairs or
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tables, feet held high in stirrups, and the
gynaecologist standing over them with a
knife.”120 Such comparisons between violence to women and to animals, each restrained and helpless before callous onlookers, were not new. They had been first made
in the 1820s during the campaign against
sati. The fact that these comparisons were
still stirring women into action at the end of
the century suggests that sati may have had
more than a momentary impact on the British public imagination.
The campaign against sati drew women into public activism in important ways. Efforts
by William Ward and James Peggs to create
a national crusade in which women would
play a vital role—even take the lead—bore
immediate fruit that helped shape the direction of British humanitarianism for decades
to come. The campaign opened up new avenues of political participation for women and
raised issues of female emancipation and
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violence against women. It is also important
to remember that the anti-sati agitation was
one of the first major successes of a burgeoning humanitarian movement, one in which
women by social consensus were accorded a
privileged role. If antislavery should command special status in the story of British
humanitarianism and pressure-group politics, also deserving of credit are the men and
women who demonstrated that it was possible to rouse the nation against moral compromise in the name of imperial interests in
India.
But this narrative is incomplete without
mention of Rammohun Roy. The Bengali reformer helped unleash this humanitarian
impulse, providing key evidence against a
main argument of imperial pragmatism. He
also addressed gender issues that appealed
to British middle-class women. The result
was a celebrity status that spilled over into
transatlantic antislavery circles and nascent
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feminist ones in Britain. As the next chapter
demonstrates, it was not only Unitarians defending an expansive vision of Christianity
who claimed Rammohun as their own.
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109. Gillen, Royal, Chaps. 25, 27, 29–34, 36 (Morning
Chronicle quotations, pp. 209, 210); Van der Kiste, George, pp. 31–32, 46, 70–71, 80–81, 105, 128, 150;
Kriegel, Holland, pp. 6, 49–50, 184–85, 187, 190, 198,
220, 232, 239, 371, 391. For the duke’s heterodoxy, see
Aspland, Memoir, p. 579n, and Gillen, Royal, pp.
168–69.
110. Aspland, Memoir, pp. 481–89, 578–79n. Supporting
evidence comes from the duke’s comments about the
Athanasian Creed: “This is but a Creed, and consequently of human invention” (Gillen, Royal, p. 169).
For the duke’s habit of making marginal notes in books
he owned, see Gillen, Royal, pp. 168–69, and Van der
Kiste, George, p. 80.
111. Literary Gazette, July 23, 1831, p. 475; for Rammohun’s invitation, see Minutes of Council of the Royal
Asiatic Society, vol. 3, June 18, 1831 session, RAS.
112. For the text of the letter and Sussex’s marginal notes in
Rammohun’s volume, see appendix B.
4 SLAVERY AND SATI
1. Anstey, Atlantic; Bolt and Drescher, Anti-Slavery;
Temperley, “Anti-Slavery.”
2. Colley, Britons, pp. 352–60; Davis, Slavery, p. 127
(quotation).
3. Harrison, “Genealogy,” p. 122.
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4. Harrison, “State,” p. 292; Temperley, “Anti-Slavery,” p.
33; Hollis, “Anti-Slavery,” pp. 294–95.
5. Hollis, “Pressure,” p. 10; Harrison, “Genealogy,” pp.
122–23, 129–31.
6. Harrison, “Genealogy,” p. 124.
7. Ibid., p. 120.
8. Quoted in Anstey, “Pattern,” p. 36.
9. Temperley, British, p. 72.
10. Walkowitz, Prostitution, p. 126; Midgley, Women, pp.
151–53.
11. Rice, “Anti-Slavery,” pp. 17–19.
12. Temperley, British, p. 73.
13. Harrison, “Genealogy,” p. 125; Anstey, Atlantic, pp.
261, 364–65; Manton, Carpenter, pp. 76–77; Herstein,
Mid-Victorian, pp. 1–8, 117–23.
14. Harrison, “Genealogy,” pp. 135–36.
15. Ibid., pp. 130–31; Walkowitz, Prostitution, p. 115.
16. Harrison, “Genealogy,” p. 135.
17. Manton, Carpenter, pp. 17–18, 25; Martineau, Autobiography 1: 92–96, and 2: 9–10.
18. Davis, Slavery, pp. 185–86; Fladeland, Men, pp.
178–79; Midgley, Women, pp. 75–76, 122.
19. Midgley, Women, Chaps. 2–3.
20. Ibid., pp. 93–118, 154–55; Midgley, Feminism, Chap.
2.
21. Two recent works of note are Mani, Contentious and
Fisch, Tödliche.
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22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Nandy, “Sati,” pp. 168–94.
Davis, Slavery, pp. 74–82.
HPD, vol. 26 (1813), cols. 1072–1074.
H. H. Wilson to Capt. R. Benson, Military Secretary to
Government, November 25, 1828, BL, APAC, L/L/13
(1030), vol. 3, doc. 9, ff. 231–34. A concise statement of
the Company’s official stance on toleration of sati can
also be found in an 1827 dispatch to India, a summary
of which the Company chairman read to the Court of
Proprietors during a debate on sati on June 18, 1828:
AJ 26 (1828): 116.
Davis, Slavery, pp. 129–53, 165–66; Walvin, “Rise,”
pp. 155–56; Grimshawe, Earnest, pp. 1–7; Asiatic Observer (Calcutta) 2 (n.d.[1824]): 365.
Mani, Contentious, pp. 137–38; HPD, vol. 26 (1813),
cols. 859–862, 1066–1067; HPD, 2d ser., vol. 5 (1821),
cols. 1217–1222; HPD, 2d ser., vol 9 (1823), cols.
1017–1020; HPD, 2d ser., vol. 13 (1825), col. 1044;
Barclay, Buxton, pp. 45, 54–55, 76.
Buxton, Memoirs, p. 95; Temperley, British, pp. 94,
103.
HPD, 2d ser., vol. 9 (1823), cols. 257–275, 1017–1019.
Walvin, “Rise,” p. 154; Davis, Slavery, pp. 175–77;
Fladeland, Men, pp. 145–49.
HPD, 2d ser., vol. 9 (1823), col. 286.
Davis, Slavery, 193.
BSP, 1821, vol. 18, no. 749, p. 316.
Ibid., p. 318.
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35. Mani, Contentious, pp. 18–19.
36. Governor-General (Lord Amherst) in Council letter to
the Court of Directors, December 3, 1824, and
Governor-General Lord Amherst, Minute of March 18,
1827, in Majumdar, Progressive, pp. 126–29; HPD, 2d
ser., vol. 5 (1821), cols. 1221–1222.
37. Fisch, Tödliche, pp. 367–77; Mani, Contentious, pp.
18–20.
38. Mani, Contentious, pp. 18, 137–145, 219fn71; Fisch,
Tödliche, pp. 404–405; Buchanan, Memoir, 48–50,
94–100, 102–104.
39. Fladeland, Men, pp. 169–71; Walvin, “Rise,” pp. 154,
157; Davis, Slavery, pp. 196–98.
40. Walvin, “Rise,” pp. 157–58; Davis, Slavery, pp.
180–84; Temperley, British, pp. 9–11; Hollis, “AntiSlavery,” pp. 294–95; Midgley, Women, pp. 103–109.
41. Davis, “Cropper, 1823–1833,” p. 162; for an influential
contemporary view of this period, see Stephen, Antislavery, pp. 97–125.
42. Stephen, Antislavery, pp. 118, 122, 154–55, 159–72.
43. Davis, Slavery, pp. 195–98; Temperley, British, pp.
11–12.
44. Temperley, “Anti-Slavery,” pp. 34–35; Stephen, Antislavery, pp. 112–15, 127, 136–41, 159–75.
45. The appeal made its way even to the fashion conscious:
see Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée 1 (1832): 104.
46. For a clear indication of this sentiment, see MR (NS) 3
(1829): 835.
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47. See “First Report of the Coventry Society for the Abolition of Human Sacrifices in India” (February 1, 1830),
in General Baptist Repository (1830): 113–116, esp.
115.
48. RH: MSS Brit. Emp. s 444: Papers of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, vols. I (pp. 311–13, 349, 357–60), IV (pp.
10, 89), X (pp. 21–24, 25–28, 31–34 [quotations, pp.
23, 25]). Buxton’s notes to his Commons speech on the
abolition of sati are much longer than what is recorded
in Hansard’s: HPD, 2d ser., vol. 24 (1830), col. 1356.
49. Buxton, Memoirs, p. 198.
50. Fisch, Tödliche, pp. 404–405.
51. Potts, British, pp. 148, 196–98; Johns, Collection.
52. Mani, Contentious, pp. 140–47; Fisch, Tödliche, pp.
404–405.
53. The first two volumes appeared in 1817, while Ward
was still in Bengal, and on returning to Britain Ward
added two additional volumes in 1820. Hence, the first
two volumes state that the third edition comprises two
volumes, while the last two volumes list four.
54. Mani, Contentious, p. 148.
55. Ward, View (1817) 2: 47–61, 92–129; View (1820) 3:
Preface (xvii–lv), 277–81; and View (1822) 1: Preface
(xliv–liv), xi–xiii, cxix–cxx, 279–81, and 3: 329–35.
Quotation from View (1820) 3: Preface (xlvii) and View
(1822) 1: Preface (xlvii).
56. Mani, Contentious, pp. 148–49; MsR (1819), pp.
357–59; Ward, Farewell, pp. 62–98.
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57. Ward, Farewell, pp. 62–84, 96–98; “Letter from the
Rev. W. Ward, Missionary in India, to the Ladies of
Liverpool, and of the United Kingdom,” Times, January
3, 1821, p. 3. The Times letter was reprinted in AJ 11
(1821): 141–47.
58. BSP, 1821, vol. 18, no. 749, pp. 295–565; 1823, vol. 17,
no. 466, pp. 155–295; 1824, vol. 23, no. 443, pp.
311–71; 1825, vol. 24, nos. 508, 518, pp.223–444;
1826–1827, vol. 20, no. 354, pp. 303–469; 1828, vol.
23, no. 547, pp. 149–76; 1830, vol. 28, no. 178, pp.
783–1067.
59. Fisch, Tödliche, pp. 382–83.
60. Ibid., pp. 388–94.
61. MsR (1823): 250–52; BSP, 1826–1827, vol. 20, no. 354,
pp. 307–40.
62. HPD, 2d ser., vol. 13 (1825), cols., 1043–1044;
Manchester Guardian, May 12, 1827, p. 3; OH 20
(1829): 544; JHC, 85 (Session 1830), pp. 148, 184, 235;
AJ 23 (1827): 356; 407–408, 689, 691; AJ 26 (1828):
116, 119.
63. For examples, see OH 8 (1826): 1–20; Grimshawe,
Earnest, pp. 5–6; and Peggs, Suttees’ Cry (1827), pp.
50–68.
64. Letter to the editor of India Gazette, June 1828, reprinted in OH 20 (1829): 349.
65. Mani, Contentious, pp. 23–24; AJ 23 (1827): 358–59.
66. For key examples, see: BSP, 1826–1827, vol. 20, no.
354, pp. 309–337; Grimshawe, Earnest, pp. 8–10,
14–15, 17–33; OH 8 (1826): 2–4, 7–12, 17–18; Peggs,
760/920
Suttees’ Cry (1827), pp. 15–30, 54–82; Peggs, Suttees’
Cry (1828), pp. 31–50, 57–96; and John Poynder,
Speech before Court of Proprietors, March 28, 1827, in
AJ 23 (1827): 696–706.
67. MsR 2 (1814): 136–40.
68. Midgley, “Female,” pp. 95–105; Midgley, Feminism,
Chap. 3. See also Mani, Contentious, pp. 143–44.
69. Haggis, “White,” pp. 51–53. See also Midgley, Feminism, pp. 95–98, and Mani Contentious, pp. 143–44.
70. Haggis, “White,” p. 53.
71. Midgley, “Female,” 110–12; see also Midgley, Feminism, pp. 121–22.
72. Midgley, Women, pp. 63–64; Midgley, Feminism, pp.
81–83; Colley, Britons, pp. 278–80.
73. Midgley, Women, pp. 62–71.
74. Midgley, “Female,” pp. 95, 106–108. For examples of
these female petitions, see AVP, Session 1829, p. 1515;
AVP, Session 1830, pp. 52, 148; and General Baptist
Repository (1829): 140 [sic: correct pagination is p.
120].
75. Midgley, Feminism, pp. 80–85 (quotations), and “Female,” pp. 108–109.
76. Midgley, Feminism, pp. 85–86, and Women, p. 69
(quotation).
77. Midgley, “Female,” p. 108.
78. Ibid., p. 97.
79. For a few examples, see: Marshman, Essays, pp. 2–3
[FI (MS) 1 (1818): 302–303]; Grimshawe, Earnest, pp.
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39–41; Peggs, Suttees’ Cry (1827), pp. 23–24; Poynder,
Speech, in AJ 23 (1827): 689; and HPD, 2d ser., vol. 5
(1821), col. 1219.
80. Good examples can be found in: MsR, 2 (1814):
136–40; Johns, Collection, pp. 31, 58; Marshman, Essays, pp. 9–10, 13–15, 65 [FI (MS) 1 (1818): 308–309;
and 2 (1819): 319–21, 483]; Manchester Guardian,
May 12, 1827, p. 3; OH 20 (1829): 185–86; and Poynder, Speech, in AJ 23 (1827): 691–92.
81. The following make plain this strategy: Grimshawe,
Earnest, pp. 42–43; Asiatic Observer 2 (1824):
360–61; OH 23 (1829): 461–62.
82. Midgley, Women, pp. 94–102; Midgley, Feminism, pp.
72–73; Mani, Contentious, pp. 31–32, 143–44, 162.
83. Ward, View (1817) 2: 100–111; View (1820) 3: Preface
(xliv–xlvii [quotation, xlv]); Farewell, pp. 73–81; and
“Letter from the Rev. W. Ward,” Times, January 3,
1821, p. 3.
84. Ward, View (1817) 2: 112; View (1820) 3: Preface
(xlviii–xlix), 161–62, 278–81; Farewell, pp. 63–80; and
“Letter from the Rev. W. Ward,” Times, January 3,
1821, p. 3.
85. Ward, “Letter from the Rev. W. Ward,” Times, January
3, 1821, p. 3; Farewell, p. 63; and View (1820) 3: Preface (l).
86. Ward, View (1820) 3: Preface (l).
87. Ward, Farewell, pp. 62–63, 81–82.
88. Midgley, Feminism, pp. 74–75.
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89. Ward, “Letter from the Rev. W. Ward,” Times, January
3, 1821, p. 3.
90. See, for example, Grimshawe, Earnest, pp. 42–43, Asiatic Observer 2 (1824): 360–61, and OH 23 (1829):
461–62.
91. Peggs, Brief, pp. 4, 32–34; Peggs, Letter, p. 3; Buxton,
Memoirs, p. 95.
92. Midgley, “Female,” pp. 106–107, and Feminism, pp.
79–80.
93. This followed the example set by William Johns in his
1816 pamphlet (Collection). Peggs’ pamphlets on sati
and other social problems also follow Johns in collecting testimony describing the social problem and the
possibility of mitigating it.
94. See, for example, Peggs, India’s Cries (1830), pp.
20–24.
95. Midgley, “Female,” p. 107; Peggs, Suttees’ Cry (1828),
p. 91fn; Peggs, India’s Cries (1830), pp. 97–98 (quotation). For Peggs’ enthusiasm for the first female petitions, see his “First Report of the Coventry Society for
the Abolition of Human Sacrifices in India,” in General
Baptist Repository (1830): 113–116, esp. p. 114.
96. Peggs, India’s Cries (1830), pp. 16–17, 112.
97. Midgley, Women, pp. 29–32.
98. Peggs, India’s Cries (1830), p. 111.
99. OH 20 (1829): 539–45 (quotations, 540, 541, 542); for
more on the Coventry society and its campaign, see
Midgley, Feminism, p. 79.
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100. General Baptist Repository (1829): 140 [sic: 120].
101. Midgley, “Female,” p. 107, and Feminism, p. 80.
102. Mani, Contentious, plate 5 and Chap. 5 (especially p.
178).
103. Marshman, Essays, p. 65 [FI (MS) 2 (1819): 483]. For a
similar image, see Asiatic Observer 2 (1824): 25.
104. Marshman, quoted by William Wilberforce, HPD, vol.
26 (1813), cols. 860–61fn.
105. Manchester Guardian, May 12, 1827, p. 3; Johns, Collection, pp. 28–29.
106. Fairholme and Pain, Century, Chaps. 1–2; Moss, Valiant, pp. 9–19; Harrison, “Animals,” pp. 788–89.
107. Monthly Magazine, quoted in Fairholme and Pain,
Century, pp. 24–25.
108. Joseph Hume, HPD, 2d ser., vol. 5 (1821), col. 1221;
OH 1 (1824): 551–52.
109. James Peggs, letter to the Home Secretary, Nov. 6,
1839, NA: HO 44/33. For the suppression of bull running, see Moss, Valiant, pp. 131–33.
110. French, Antivivisection, p. 240.
111. Midgley, “Female,” p. 112.
112. Harrison, “Religion,” pp. 116–17.
113. Lansbury, Old, p. 83.
114. French, Antivivisection, pp. 239–40.
115. Ibid., pp. 242–46.
116. See, for example, ibid., pp. 220, 228.
117. Ibid., p. 252.
764/920
118. Ibid., pp. 255, 257, 303, 414.
119. Lansbury, Old, pp. 91, 176.
120. Ibid., pp. 84, 89–90, 94.
5 RAMMOHUN ROY AND EARLY
VICTORIAN FEMINISM
1. Collet, Life, pp. 89, 105–106; Majumdar, Progressive,
pp. 150–151; Singh, Rammohun, pp. 198–99, 209–211;
CRR 1: 27–37; Fisch, Tödliche, pp. 411–12.
2. Mani, Contentious, pp. 47–48, 55–59, 207 (notes
26–27); Singh, Rammohun, pp. 199–212. The March
1819 letter is often misdated as March 1818: CRR 1:
40–41. Most scholars agree that the letter was written
by Rammohun under the name of a Tantric saint and
friend who knew no English: Collet, Life, pp. 101–102;
CRR 1: 41–42; and Killingley, Rammohun, p. 129fn.
3. Majumdar, Progressive, pp. 123–26, 130–31, 139–48,
156–63, 165–68, 178–79; Collet, Life, pp. 255–66;
Mani, Contentious, pp. 49–54, 59–65; CRR 1:
493–543.
4. Robertson, Rammohan, pp. 30–39, 148–64; Mani,
Contentious, pp. 54–57.
5. Robertson, Rammohan, pp. 162–63.
6. Singh, Rammohun, pp. 152–62, 221–23; Potts, British,
pp. 230–33.