WEBVTT 00:01.360 --> 00:02.000 Prof: All right. 00:02.000 --> 00:05.320 I'm going to talk about imperialism today. 00:05.320 --> 00:11.140 This complements the chapter in the book. 00:11.140 --> 00:14.870 00:14.870 --> 00:21.430 The main topic is the New Imperialism, and the lecture is 00:21.434 --> 00:26.714 very much about the culture of imperialism. 00:26.710 --> 00:33.050 Part of the age of mass politics in Europe in the 1880s 00:33.051 --> 00:39.861 and 1890s, before World War I, involved massive support for 00:39.861 --> 00:42.681 the New Imperialism. 00:42.680 --> 00:45.290 What was new about the New Imperialism? 00:45.290 --> 00:54.030 What period do we talk about as having had the New Imperialism? 00:54.030 --> 00:58.640 It's really from the mid-1880s, just say the 1880s, 00:58.638 --> 00:59.558 to 1914. 00:59.560 --> 01:03.030 It's at that point, as you can see from the maps in 01:03.026 --> 01:06.076 the book and you can see from the discussion, 01:06.075 --> 01:09.815 that the European powers really conquer the world. 01:09.819 --> 01:12.749 There's no other way to put it. 01:12.750 --> 01:16.540 There's a frenetic, wild chase even to the South 01:16.536 --> 01:18.386 Pole as part of that. 01:18.390 --> 01:23.730 The African continent, of which there were huge blanks 01:23.733 --> 01:28.683 in the maps of Africa, by 1914 virtually the entire 01:28.680 --> 01:34.440 continent was not only charted but had been conquered. 01:34.440 --> 01:40.620 Europeans really control the globe. 01:40.620 --> 01:44.140 The Americans, in a smaller way, 01:44.144 --> 01:48.014 are part of the New Imperialism. 01:48.010 --> 01:54.330 Let me just start out by posing the question, 01:54.330 --> 01:55.810 and I sent all this stuff around to you, 01:55.810 --> 01:58.530 so I don't have to scribble on the board and you don't have to 01:58.527 --> 02:01.197 try to figure out what it is that's written on the board, 02:01.200 --> 02:02.960 because it's hard to see from here. 02:02.959 --> 02:09.969 If you were going to point out or to claim that there was a 02:09.972 --> 02:15.052 central reason for the New Imperialism, 02:15.050 --> 02:19.360 why even Bismarck, who described colonies as an 02:19.360 --> 02:23.320 albatross around the neck of Germany while he gets into the 02:23.319 --> 02:28.099 kind of feeding frenzy himself, it's been put rather cleverly 02:28.103 --> 02:31.573 by a guy called Baumgar a long time ago, 02:31.568 --> 02:37.968 that it comes down to God, gold, and glory. 02:37.970 --> 02:42.920 There were those who interpreted the mad quest for 02:42.923 --> 02:47.273 colonies as being the missionary impulse. 02:47.270 --> 02:52.630 A sort of subset of this would be the French idea that there 02:52.632 --> 02:58.272 was a civilizing mission going on and trying to give indigenous 02:58.266 --> 03:01.626 peoples access to French culture. 03:01.628 --> 03:06.658 Basically it argues that Dutch Calvinist ministers, 03:06.659 --> 03:09.619 and Lutheran ministers, and Catholic priests, 03:09.620 --> 03:16.740 and other denominations encouraged states and their own 03:16.744 --> 03:24.924 church people to bring to their religion indigenous peoples all 03:24.923 --> 03:27.433 over the place. 03:27.430 --> 03:29.670 Well, we can dispense with that one. 03:29.669 --> 03:31.939 That was part of it, of course. 03:31.938 --> 03:35.078 You can't distinguish any of these three and say that any of 03:35.079 --> 03:36.249 them are nul. 03:36.250 --> 03:42.760 But that is a rather small part of the quest for yet more 03:42.759 --> 03:48.939 colonies in the New Imperialism, and indeed for all of the 03:48.941 --> 03:52.711 well-meant, however condescending in many 03:52.711 --> 03:56.931 cases, quest for religious conversion. 03:56.930 --> 04:01.320 Most of the Lutheran ministers and Dutch Calvinist ministers in 04:01.316 --> 04:04.696 Southeast Asia, and Catholic priests all over 04:04.699 --> 04:08.629 the place such as Vietnam--my friend Charles Keith just 04:08.628 --> 04:12.188 finished a dissertation on Catholic Vietnam in the 04:12.194 --> 04:16.714 1920s--most of those priests in areas such as Africa were there 04:16.706 --> 04:21.506 to tend to the religious needs of the European communities. 04:21.509 --> 04:24.449 It was particularly true of, for example, 04:24.449 --> 04:28.639 Lutheran ministers in German Southwest Africa and in other 04:28.641 --> 04:29.451 places. 04:29.449 --> 04:36.549 The drive to convert peoples to organized European religions was 04:36.545 --> 04:40.365 probably greatest, and the Vietnam case is a very 04:40.372 --> 04:42.442 good one, and the role of the Catholic 04:42.442 --> 04:45.732 Church is extremely interesting in Vietnam and the origins of 04:45.726 --> 04:47.146 Vietnamese nationalism. 04:47.149 --> 04:49.739 But that is another story. 04:49.740 --> 04:52.280 The second one was gold. 04:52.279 --> 04:55.139 Gee, I put a "d" for the "o" 04:55.141 --> 04:57.821 in gold, but it's spelled G-O-L-D usually. 04:57.819 --> 05:02.889 I said in what you're reading that if you get Karl Marx, 05:02.889 --> 05:05.469 if he ever sat together with Hobson, 05:05.470 --> 05:09.640 a very major economic thinker whom I describe in there, 05:09.639 --> 05:12.729 if they were having dinner, there would be a lot that was 05:12.728 --> 05:14.368 uncomfortable about the dinner. 05:14.370 --> 05:15.820 But they would really agree. 05:15.819 --> 05:20.169 They would say that the New Imperialism, of which obviously 05:20.170 --> 05:24.220 Hobson was a great critic, emerged out of the quest for 05:24.220 --> 05:26.170 riches, for resources. 05:26.170 --> 05:29.860 Part of Marxism and part of Leninism, 05:29.860 --> 05:32.770 an important part was that imperialism is sort of the final 05:32.771 --> 05:34.881 stage of the development of capitalism, 05:34.879 --> 05:37.789 and that states need new markets. 05:37.790 --> 05:40.210 They need new resources. 05:40.209 --> 05:47.239 Therefore, they set out to, at a time of economic 05:47.238 --> 05:52.828 crisis--nothing like now, but there is a depression that 05:52.829 --> 05:57.989 lasts from 1874 to the mid-1890s--they set out to find 05:57.987 --> 05:59.347 new riches. 05:59.350 --> 06:03.610 The people going up the Niger River, for example, 06:03.610 --> 06:09.250 where I've been in Mali, they expected to find gold 06:09.247 --> 06:13.747 around the next bend, or more peanut oil, 06:13.747 --> 06:17.057 or diamonds, because of the diamonds in 06:17.064 --> 06:19.734 South Africa, which was the equivalent of the 06:19.726 --> 06:20.856 gold rush in the U.S. 06:20.860 --> 06:23.940 in about 1848 in California. 06:23.939 --> 06:26.729 Hobson was no Marxist at all. 06:26.730 --> 06:29.300 And he was a critic of the brutality of the New 06:29.295 --> 06:32.025 Imperialism, which I'll talk about in a minute. 06:32.029 --> 06:34.469 But he said, "If you want to find out 06:34.470 --> 06:37.550 where this all began, you look at high finance in the 06:37.545 --> 06:40.755 City," the City being the City in London, 06:40.759 --> 06:43.529 Westminster, where the high rollers, 06:43.529 --> 06:45.809 and the bankers, and the big capitalists are. 06:45.810 --> 06:51.320 There are the origins of the New Imperialism. 06:51.319 --> 06:56.229 Now, there were critics of the New Imperialism. 06:56.230 --> 06:57.760 Most of them, but not all, 06:57.759 --> 06:58.859 were in Britain. 06:58.860 --> 07:04.740 Many of them opposed the New Imperialism because of the 07:04.735 --> 07:11.695 brutality exerted on indigenous peoples by the imperial power. 07:11.699 --> 07:16.819 There was a real wave of opposition, for example, 07:16.819 --> 07:22.859 to imperialism that swept through Britain and London in 07:22.860 --> 07:28.120 1900 in what they called the Khaki Election, 07:28.120 --> 07:35.040 khaki because it was the color of the uniforms of many of the 07:35.035 --> 07:39.065 British soldiers in hot climates. 07:39.069 --> 07:46.809 Some of the opposition in the liberal party were opposed, 07:46.810 --> 07:52.340 ran on a campaign of anti-imperialism. 07:52.339 --> 07:53.639 They were just wiped away. 07:53.639 --> 07:57.189 They were just absolutely swept away in the elections of 1900. 07:57.190 --> 08:01.650 Ordinary people in Britain thrilling to the accounts of 08:01.646 --> 08:05.356 colonial exploits voted overwhelmingly for the 08:05.360 --> 08:10.560 conservatives who just blow the liberals out of the water, 08:10.560 --> 08:13.900 and the labor party exists in 1900, 08:13.899 --> 08:17.829 but is not yet a major force. 08:17.829 --> 08:24.069 Imperialism carries the day. 08:24.069 --> 08:27.619 The big parades in London of returning soldiers from the Boer 08:27.617 --> 08:30.157 War in South Africa and from other wars, 08:30.160 --> 08:33.640 from all the wars, they are greeted as conquering 08:33.638 --> 08:36.318 heroes nowhere more frenetically, 08:36.320 --> 08:39.720 enthusiastically, exuberantly than the City, 08:39.720 --> 08:42.130 because there is a link between big finance, 08:42.129 --> 08:47.109 big capital and imperialism. 08:47.110 --> 08:51.300 08:51.298 --> 08:53.978 Besides that, we have a category we call 08:53.976 --> 08:55.416 social imperialism. 08:55.418 --> 09:01.468 The imperialist power saw imperialism as part of the 09:01.471 --> 09:05.271 overall strategy of conquests. 09:05.269 --> 09:08.159 They said, "Look, if you've got economic problems 09:08.155 --> 09:11.905 at home and you've got a lot of unemployed workers--also in 09:11.909 --> 09:15.919 France--if you've got a lot of unemployed workers who happen to 09:15.923 --> 09:18.063 be socialists, or in Italy, 09:18.058 --> 09:20.748 that you could kind of export your problems, 09:20.750 --> 09:22.980 because you can point people in the direction and say, 09:22.980 --> 09:24.490 ‘Hey, times are tough here. 09:24.490 --> 09:28.330 But if you go to Algeria, we'll rip off some Arab land 09:28.326 --> 09:30.856 for you and you'll be just fine.' 09:30.860 --> 09:36.580 Or ‘You can go make it rich in Vietnam.' 09:36.580 --> 09:40.220 Or ‘You can go to Kenya or to Ghana,' (or what would 09:40.215 --> 09:41.805 become Kenya or Ghana). 09:41.808 --> 09:46.018 ‘You can export your social problems.'" 09:46.019 --> 09:48.889 This is sort of what New Imperialism meant. 09:48.889 --> 09:53.569 A classic case would be the insurrection of 1851. 09:53.570 --> 09:55.290 This is backing up before the New Imperialism. 09:55.288 --> 09:59.328 What do they do with the people who are arrested after the 09:59.328 --> 10:00.958 insurrection of 1851? 10:00.960 --> 10:03.430 A lot of them are sent to Algeria. 10:03.428 --> 10:06.408 You export your "social and political problems." 10:06.409 --> 10:09.709 The irony there, amazing delicious irony, 10:09.711 --> 10:11.461 is their great, great, great, 10:11.464 --> 10:13.514 great, great grandchildren end up 10:13.513 --> 10:16.363 being right-wing supporters of the National Front, 10:16.360 --> 10:20.940 and before that of various right-wing groups that believe 10:20.937 --> 10:25.837 in French Algeria and who try to keep the French from leaving 10:25.842 --> 10:29.982 Algeria in the early 1960s, after the Algerian war of 10:29.979 --> 10:30.829 independence. 10:30.830 --> 10:38.290 So, social imperialism is seen by sort of the economic canon, 10:38.291 --> 10:41.881 that is, the way of thinking about the 10:41.880 --> 10:44.870 political economy of these countries, 10:44.870 --> 10:47.230 as a way of keeping things calm at home. 10:47.230 --> 10:48.760 They say, "Give people opportunities. 10:48.759 --> 10:50.089 Send them to these foreign places." 10:50.090 --> 10:55.730 Geez, in the case of France I remember reading these gripping, 10:55.730 --> 10:58.660 just pathetic stories of these people who just can't make it in 10:58.664 --> 11:01.084 the area in which we live in the south of France. 11:01.080 --> 11:04.360 They pack up all their stuff and they walk. 11:04.360 --> 11:06.630 They walk or they get little push carts, 11:06.629 --> 11:08.559 try to get to Avignon, try to get to Marseilles, 11:08.558 --> 11:11.728 try to get a boat to get to Morocco, or Tunisia, 11:11.734 --> 11:14.094 or Algeria, to try to make a living there. 11:14.090 --> 11:18.260 This, too, is part of social imperialism and is part of the 11:18.261 --> 11:21.931 idea that somehow social imperialism is economically 11:21.929 --> 11:23.009 determined. 11:23.009 --> 11:24.899 That it's the final stage of capitalism. 11:24.899 --> 11:27.109 Is that the biggest reason? 11:27.110 --> 11:28.690 No. 11:28.690 --> 11:30.290 But it's damn important. 11:30.288 --> 11:35.298 The biggest reason has to do with the entangling alliances 11:35.298 --> 11:37.758 and great power rivalries. 11:37.759 --> 11:43.139 It's represented best by Fashoda, 11:43.139 --> 11:47.159 at the end of the 1890s, where a British force stumbles 11:47.163 --> 11:50.103 into a French force in the middle of Sudan and they say 11:50.101 --> 11:53.521 nasty things to each other, finally toast each other with 11:53.524 --> 11:57.114 what drinks they had brought along and their countries almost 11:57.111 --> 11:59.831 go to war, because the flag would be 11:59.827 --> 12:04.257 tarnished by losing out to the craven reptiles that you just 12:04.256 --> 12:06.506 stumbled into in the Sudan. 12:06.509 --> 12:13.329 The New Imperialism is one of the fundamental causes of World 12:13.331 --> 12:15.151 War I, period. 12:15.149 --> 12:17.559 That is the biggest reason. 12:17.559 --> 12:22.259 Now, don't get rid of the gold interpretation completely, 12:22.259 --> 12:26.909 because obviously as Britain and Germany become huge economic 12:26.913 --> 12:29.193 rivals, big economic rivals, 12:29.190 --> 12:34.680 as the Germans are not only nipping at the heels of the 12:34.677 --> 12:37.127 city, British industrial production 12:37.133 --> 12:40.353 and British naval production, but passing them in things like 12:40.352 --> 12:44.392 chemistry, and production of steel, 12:44.389 --> 12:47.099 and the production of big battleships. 12:47.100 --> 12:50.020 All this stuff runs together. 12:50.019 --> 12:54.799 Your victory is your craven reptile opponent's loss. 12:54.799 --> 12:56.769 That's the way they viewed it. 12:56.769 --> 12:59.249 Most people, I'll talk about this on 12:59.249 --> 13:00.099 Wednesday. 13:00.100 --> 13:02.750 It's fun to talk about, sad but also fun. 13:02.750 --> 13:05.960 Most people in the 1890s thought that the next war would 13:05.964 --> 13:07.664 involve France and Britain. 13:07.658 --> 13:11.148 They'll be fighting again and their rivals here and there. 13:11.149 --> 13:13.479 Or they thought that maybe the British and the Russians would 13:13.476 --> 13:15.876 fight because they're rivals in what was called the "Great 13:15.881 --> 13:19.011 Game" for north of India, and Afghanistan, 13:19.009 --> 13:23.689 and all of that. 13:23.690 --> 13:30.830 Basically, glory and the great power rivalries is the biggest 13:30.831 --> 13:36.421 reason that Germany gets into the imperial game, 13:36.424 --> 13:38.334 for example. 13:38.330 --> 13:42.000 Bismarck--;it's the famous Bismarck story--a really awful 13:41.996 --> 13:42.386 man. 13:42.389 --> 13:47.249 But when there's an imperial lobby comes racing along and 13:47.254 --> 13:51.744 says, "Look, Herr Chancellor, 13:51.740 --> 13:53.530 we really need to have the troops go and protect our 13:53.528 --> 13:54.158 merchants." 13:54.158 --> 13:56.448 People like the sort of freelance guy, 13:56.445 --> 13:57.305 Karl Peters. 13:57.308 --> 14:00.658 He said at one point, he slams down a map of Europe 14:00.660 --> 14:04.550 on the table and he says, "That's my map of Africa. 14:04.548 --> 14:06.928 Here we are and we're surrounded by Russia and 14:06.933 --> 14:07.733 France." 14:07.730 --> 14:12.800 But toward the end of his career was completely different. 14:12.798 --> 14:18.348 He's backing up German merchants with expeditionary 14:18.350 --> 14:19.350 forces. 14:19.350 --> 14:22.230 Plant the flag and then you'd better defend it. 14:22.230 --> 14:30.100 The big issue there is rivalry with France and with Russia. 14:30.100 --> 14:33.580 Bismarck says, "Geez, if we can get the French 14:33.575 --> 14:35.625 interested in all these colonies in Africa, 14:35.629 --> 14:39.529 then they won't be dreaming of re-conquering Alsace and much of 14:39.529 --> 14:40.599 Lorraine." 14:40.600 --> 14:42.830 At the end he says, "Well, we'd better be out 14:42.832 --> 14:43.702 there, too." 14:43.700 --> 14:45.240 And they're all out there. 14:45.240 --> 14:49.260 As some wag once puts it, Italy gets into the game, too, 14:49.259 --> 14:53.789 with Libya and Ethiopia, with "a huge appetite and 14:53.793 --> 14:56.343 bad teeth," as someone once put it. 14:56.340 --> 14:59.740 Of course, they get defeated in the battle in 1896. 14:59.740 --> 15:04.500 Then they will pay them back with poison gas and cascades of 15:04.495 --> 15:07.985 bombs in the 1930s, and just destroy everybody and 15:07.988 --> 15:09.648 kill them all, if they can, 15:09.649 --> 15:13.169 to pay them back for their defeat in 1896. 15:13.168 --> 15:18.438 I am eventually going to talk about the culture of imperialism 15:18.440 --> 15:22.500 and give you the example, which I find telling, 15:22.500 --> 15:25.600 of Robert Baden-Powell and the origins of the Boy Scouts. 15:25.600 --> 15:28.600 You didn't associate the Boy Scouts with imperialism, 15:28.601 --> 15:30.161 but you will in a minute. 15:30.158 --> 15:33.258 First, let me just say that this is not some sort of 15:33.259 --> 15:35.879 ‘70s radical guy saying--there he goes 15:35.875 --> 15:39.575 again--;"it's really nasty to be slaughtering hundreds of 15:39.583 --> 15:41.533 thousands of people." 15:41.529 --> 15:43.329 But it is nasty, and that's what they did. 15:43.330 --> 15:45.940 That cannot be forgotten. 15:45.940 --> 15:50.350 It doesn't just start with the famous case of the Germans in 15:50.349 --> 15:51.769 Southwest Africa. 15:51.769 --> 15:53.139 More about that in a minute. 15:53.139 --> 15:56.829 Bugeaud, the name is quite forgettable but who's a general 15:56.828 --> 15:57.798 from Limoges. 15:57.798 --> 16:02.548 The French conqueror Algiers anyway in 1830 is a political 16:02.548 --> 16:03.548 diversion. 16:03.548 --> 16:07.738 Gradually they expand their control over Algeria. 16:07.740 --> 16:11.350 Algeria becomes a colony. 16:11.350 --> 16:15.120 It becomes an integral point of view--from the point of view of 16:15.118 --> 16:17.418 the French, in a different way than 16:17.417 --> 16:19.617 Tunisia, and Vietnam, or Morocco, 16:19.620 --> 16:23.520 and other places of France, even though it's not part of 16:23.518 --> 16:24.498 metropolitan France. 16:24.500 --> 16:30.880 Bugeaud and his successors kill about 850,000 people during the 16:30.875 --> 16:34.265 campaign, very unequal battles. 16:34.269 --> 16:38.269 Bugeaud comes up with the idea of simply putting men, 16:38.268 --> 16:40.828 women, and children into these huge 16:40.831 --> 16:43.911 caves and caverns, and then simply throwing bombs 16:43.908 --> 16:45.298 in and so they all die. 16:45.299 --> 16:46.889 He did that over and over again. 16:46.889 --> 16:49.109 It's easy to say, "Well, the demons of the 16:49.113 --> 16:51.243 twentieth century, they come in the twentieth 16:51.240 --> 16:52.690 century, don't they?" 16:52.690 --> 16:55.310 But, as I suggested before in terms of the Commune, 16:55.308 --> 16:58.098 this stuff is out there in the nineteenth century as well, 16:58.100 --> 17:01.430 and so racist ideology is out there in the nineteenth century. 17:01.429 --> 17:03.119 There's no doubt about it. 17:03.120 --> 17:07.390 It wasn't that way in every place, but the French experience 17:07.394 --> 17:08.994 was pretty terrible. 17:08.990 --> 17:14.130 17:14.130 --> 17:17.700 In the very well-documented case of what happened in what 17:17.701 --> 17:21.551 now is Congo and Zaire, which were sort of the private 17:21.550 --> 17:25.640 colony of the king of Belgium, the atrocities there are 17:25.643 --> 17:26.523 well-known. 17:26.519 --> 17:30.199 One could go on all day talking about these atrocities. 17:30.200 --> 17:32.840 The most well-known, certainly, 17:32.839 --> 17:37.619 and most well-documented, and, in a way because of what comes 17:37.616 --> 17:42.826 later in the twentieth century, is that of the conquest and 17:42.834 --> 17:44.774 indeed genocide. 17:44.769 --> 17:47.319 Here I'm borrowing an appropriate term, 17:47.320 --> 17:50.170 I think, in this case-that's not a term 17:50.173 --> 17:53.413 you throw around very loosely--of my friend and 17:53.413 --> 17:55.163 colleague, Ben Kiernan, 17:55.160 --> 17:58.260 whom some of you know, in his big book on genocide, 17:58.259 --> 18:00.859 which Yale Press published recently. 18:00.858 --> 18:07.518 They begin conquering Southwest Africa in 1885. 18:07.519 --> 18:12.669 So, Bismarck still has a few years to go. 18:12.670 --> 18:16.700 In their way, as they would see it, 18:16.700 --> 18:20.140 among other people were the Herero, 18:20.140 --> 18:24.430 H-E-R-E-R-O, a Bantu group of about 75,000 18:24.433 --> 18:30.143 cattle herders who were in the center of what would become the 18:30.144 --> 18:32.864 German colonial territory. 18:32.858 --> 18:36.518 Again, European powers are putting things like borders 18:36.519 --> 18:40.089 there, boundaries, and that has nothing to do with 18:40.092 --> 18:42.432 the way that, particularly nomadic 18:42.429 --> 18:45.439 people--they don't have any sense of borders. 18:45.440 --> 18:49.760 Mali, where I've been because my daughter was just studying in 18:49.755 --> 18:53.005 Touareg in northern Mali, north of Timbuktu. 18:53.009 --> 18:57.619 The Touareg are a people who had no sense of borders. 18:57.618 --> 18:59.808 There were Touareg across other borders, too. 18:59.808 --> 19:03.608 Borders are something that were artificially constructed by 19:03.611 --> 19:05.841 these powers to say, "Here. 19:05.838 --> 19:09.018 Our empire goes there and yours doesn't start until there." 19:09.019 --> 19:14.179 And, so, as these people rise up to defend their own 19:14.182 --> 19:18.942 territory, they are systematically massacred. 19:18.940 --> 19:33.150 They basically first decide to crush the uprising at all costs. 19:33.150 --> 19:37.620 There is in 1904 an extermination order. 19:37.618 --> 19:42.068 That's literally the German translation from the German. 19:42.068 --> 19:45.008 The proclamation of the local military commander is that, 19:45.010 --> 19:47.480 "The Herero people must leave this land. 19:47.480 --> 19:50.960 If they don't I will force them to do so by using the great 19:50.960 --> 19:52.820 gun," that is artillery. 19:52.818 --> 19:54.698 "Within the German border," 19:54.698 --> 19:58.208 that is defined as now German, "every male Herero armed 19:58.208 --> 20:00.428 or unarmed, with or without cattle, 20:00.430 --> 20:02.160 will be shot to death. 20:02.160 --> 20:06.190 I shall no longer receive women or children," 20:06.190 --> 20:09.660 that is spare them, "but will drive them back 20:09.655 --> 20:11.585 to their people or have them shot. 20:11.588 --> 20:15.518 These are my words to the Herero people." 20:15.519 --> 20:19.229 Now, I couldn't make this up. 20:19.230 --> 20:21.640 It's easy to say how terrible this is, but it is terrible. 20:21.640 --> 20:26.830 It was part of the enterprise and has remained part of the 20:26.825 --> 20:29.095 imperialist enterprise. 20:29.098 --> 20:32.618 It wasn't the goal of every imperialist to exterminate the 20:32.616 --> 20:35.886 people who were there, but if they got in the way in a 20:35.887 --> 20:37.367 very equal fighting. 20:37.368 --> 20:40.508 In India there were various cases of soldiers complaining it 20:40.507 --> 20:43.747 was too easy shooting down the rebels because it was just like 20:43.750 --> 20:44.390 hunting. 20:44.390 --> 20:46.440 It was a very British, upper-class analogy. 20:46.440 --> 20:48.360 It was just like hunting. 20:48.358 --> 20:53.778 Basically what they do if they don't shoot them they chase them 20:53.777 --> 20:58.757 out into the desert and then they cement over the wells in 20:58.758 --> 21:01.028 the oases so they die. 21:01.028 --> 21:05.388 Basically they exterminate about two-thirds of the people. 21:05.390 --> 21:08.530 There's a very excellent book on this written by a former 21:08.530 --> 21:12.060 graduate student here many moons ago called Isabel Hull that was 21:12.064 --> 21:14.144 published four or five years ago. 21:14.140 --> 21:18.150 The origins of this, and again there are people now 21:18.153 --> 21:22.413 writing and saying, "Well, it wasn't that bad. 21:22.410 --> 21:27.110 They brought trains to India, ended the huge disparities in 21:27.113 --> 21:28.333 prices." 21:28.328 --> 21:31.608 Certainly lots of good things did come. 21:31.608 --> 21:35.288 But looming in the background were these massacres. 21:35.288 --> 21:37.378 The edition that I'm working on now, 21:37.380 --> 21:40.770 that I'm just finishing of the book that you're kindly reading, 21:40.769 --> 21:45.699 there's a whole recent spate of interesting literature on the 21:45.700 --> 21:49.810 end of the British empire in Kenya in the 1950s. 21:49.808 --> 21:53.988 History of the Hanged is one. 21:53.990 --> 21:56.980 There's another one by a woman called Caroline Elkins at 21:56.984 --> 21:57.534 Harvard. 21:57.529 --> 21:59.139 The title escapes me at the moment, 21:59.140 --> 22:01.530 but these are just fantastic, just gripping, 22:01.528 --> 22:07.608 just chilling accounts of essentially the mass murder, 22:07.609 --> 22:10.559 incarceration, and murder, 22:10.559 --> 22:13.469 and shooting, under the guise of "trying 22:13.473 --> 22:16.443 to escape" and all of this of hundreds of 22:16.442 --> 22:17.962 thousands of people. 22:17.960 --> 22:19.900 This was hidden from the British public, 22:19.904 --> 22:21.904 just systematically by the government. 22:21.900 --> 22:25.830 It's a long story and it's one that we have to wrestle with. 22:25.829 --> 22:29.769 Having said that, I want now to talk about the 22:29.773 --> 22:35.253 culture of imperialism--this is sort of shifting gears rather 22:35.249 --> 22:40.819 rapidly--and talk about Robert Baden-Powell and the origins of 22:40.815 --> 22:42.635 the Boy Scouts. 22:42.640 --> 22:45.630 Again, because I was once asked to leave the Boy Scouts in 22:45.630 --> 22:47.650 Portland, Oregon because I was of no use 22:47.654 --> 22:49.474 and never accumulated a single badge, 22:49.470 --> 22:51.200 this is not the origins of this lecture. 22:51.200 --> 22:54.220 There's lots of stuff written on Baden-Powell. 22:54.220 --> 22:55.670 He's an easy person to mock. 22:55.670 --> 22:58.400 He's an easy person, I suppose, to have some sort of 22:58.395 --> 23:00.745 respect for, too, in a way, depending on your 23:00.747 --> 23:01.707 point of view. 23:01.710 --> 23:03.040 I'm not dissing the Boy Scouts. 23:03.039 --> 23:04.169 Once I had people running up. 23:04.170 --> 23:06.390 There was a woman who came up who was a Girl Scout. 23:06.390 --> 23:07.990 She says, "Oh, this is so cruel what you're 23:07.990 --> 23:08.810 saying about scouting. 23:08.809 --> 23:09.929 It's not like that." 23:09.930 --> 23:11.420 I know it's not like that now. 23:11.420 --> 23:14.930 But having had some relative who had the very strange idea of 23:14.925 --> 23:18.195 giving me, of all people, Boys' Life as a birthday 23:18.198 --> 23:18.898 present. 23:18.900 --> 23:23.050 I remember reading that and all this kind of over-the-top 23:23.046 --> 23:27.036 Americana publications, I suppose I'm reacting a little 23:27.044 --> 23:28.974 bit against that, too. 23:28.970 --> 23:32.390 But there is a point to all of this, so the rest of this is 23:32.390 --> 23:34.750 about Baden-Powell and the Boy Scouts. 23:34.750 --> 23:40.340 Robert Baden-Powell was a soldier. 23:40.338 --> 23:45.928 He came up with the idea of scouting as a way of preparing 23:45.931 --> 23:51.131 British youth for imperialism and for the next war. 23:51.130 --> 23:55.280 The origins of the Scouts, in terms of its timing, 23:55.279 --> 23:58.149 that is the first decade of the twentieth century, 23:58.150 --> 24:01.720 has to be seen in terms of these international conflicts, 24:01.720 --> 24:06.120 these international great power rivalries with which we began. 24:06.118 --> 24:09.018 It comes at the time of the Moroccan Affair, 24:09.019 --> 24:12.939 the first Moroccan Affair and the second Moroccan Affair in 24:12.941 --> 24:15.731 1905,1911, when it seems like the French 24:15.731 --> 24:19.821 and the Germans will go to war against each other and they will 24:19.820 --> 24:22.130 bring in the other great powers. 24:22.130 --> 24:24.030 More about that. 24:24.028 --> 24:26.318 Robert Baden-Powell was a professional soldier. 24:26.318 --> 24:32.288 When he went back to England he thought that British youth were 24:32.288 --> 24:35.258 cigarette-smoking, heavy-drinking, 24:35.259 --> 24:41.479 flabby weaklings, whether they were upper classes 24:41.482 --> 24:44.372 and, even worse, his few lower classes, 24:44.368 --> 24:47.708 because they were underfed and therefore smaller. 24:47.710 --> 24:50.360 He hated the Oxbridge common rooms; 24:50.358 --> 24:53.628 he said, "With its town life, buses, hot and cold water 24:53.630 --> 24:56.070 laid on, everything is done for you." 24:56.068 --> 24:58.848 The British working classes, like the upper classes, 24:58.851 --> 25:00.161 tended to drink a lot. 25:00.160 --> 25:04.520 He was sure that there'd be a war fought in the lifetime of 25:04.517 --> 25:07.817 these same people, and he came to the idea of 25:07.823 --> 25:08.803 scouting. 25:08.798 --> 25:12.968 Now, America has a role in all of this. 25:12.970 --> 25:17.100 This country has always believed in the frontier. 25:17.098 --> 25:20.248 Those of you who had Glenda's course in American history and 25:20.253 --> 25:22.453 other people know about the Turner Thesis, 25:22.446 --> 25:24.796 about always you can expand to the west. 25:24.798 --> 25:28.278 You can diffuse your social tensions in the east by giving 25:28.279 --> 25:32.009 people access to land further on and get rid of the Indians in 25:32.005 --> 25:33.405 the way, etc., etc. 25:33.410 --> 25:38.670 Now, we have friends in France who still read The Last of 25:38.666 --> 25:40.356 the Mohicans. 25:40.358 --> 25:44.518 There's just a fascination with the American frontier. 25:44.519 --> 25:50.729 This is extremely important in the end of the nineteenth 25:50.730 --> 25:52.990 century in Europe. 25:52.990 --> 26:01.830 Baden-Powell borrows the uniform of the Boy Scouts from 26:01.830 --> 26:10.510 the frontier uniform as he imagined it in America--the 26:10.509 --> 26:14.329 cowboy hat, the flannel shirt, 26:14.329 --> 26:19.389 their neckerchief, the short pants. 26:19.390 --> 26:22.550 He said, "The shape of a face gives a good guide to a 26:22.554 --> 26:25.224 man's character," this sort of firm face. 26:25.220 --> 26:26.350 He loved that. 26:26.348 --> 26:28.618 Square jaw, compared to working-class 26:28.618 --> 26:31.388 "loafers" and "shirkers," 26:31.393 --> 26:32.783 as he called them. 26:32.779 --> 26:35.639 It's this cult of masculinity. 26:35.640 --> 26:38.470 This comes at a time, one must say, 26:38.470 --> 26:43.200 when you've got very aggressive movement for female suffrage by 26:43.195 --> 26:47.385 the suffragettes who want the rights of women to vote in 26:47.387 --> 26:50.177 Britain, one of whom throws herself in 26:50.178 --> 26:52.348 front of a horse at a horse race, 26:52.348 --> 26:55.108 and sacrifices her life to make a point. 26:55.108 --> 26:59.188 It comes at a time as the famous Oscar Wilde trial. 26:59.190 --> 27:02.070 Oscar Wilde, of course, was gay. 27:02.068 --> 27:08.418 There was a sense that the virility of English manhood was 27:08.417 --> 27:14.987 being tested by women-- Baden-Powell did not like women, 27:14.990 --> 27:19.530 he referred to women as "silly women," 27:19.527 --> 27:23.387 "silly girls"--and by gays, 27:23.390 --> 27:27.630 whom he saw as effeminate and therefore not really British, 27:27.630 --> 27:28.830 and wouldn't be there. 27:28.828 --> 27:32.708 What good could they do in the next war? 27:32.710 --> 27:35.580 Also it's a time where in Germany particularly, 27:35.582 --> 27:38.332 but not only in Germany, men were dueling. 27:38.328 --> 27:40.558 There's sort of that test of masculinity. 27:40.558 --> 27:43.168 If you're lucky you'll end up with a dueling scar and not 27:43.173 --> 27:44.203 actually get killed. 27:44.200 --> 27:45.450 Most of them don't get killed. 27:45.450 --> 27:46.900 But they're dueling all over the place. 27:46.900 --> 27:48.920 They're dueling in the woods outside of Paris. 27:48.920 --> 27:51.000 They're dueling almost everywhere in Germany. 27:51.000 --> 27:53.100 They're dueling still in Britain. 27:53.098 --> 27:55.418 That sort of reaffirmation, according to Bob Nye and lots 27:55.419 --> 27:57.239 of other people, and all sorts of people have 27:57.240 --> 27:58.070 written on this. 27:58.068 --> 27:59.348 Ute Frevert, , my colleague, 27:59.349 --> 28:01.199 is now gone from Yale, unfortunately. 28:01.200 --> 28:04.970 This is part of the reaffirmation of virility. 28:04.970 --> 28:07.230 The tendency is to say, looking back, 28:07.230 --> 28:08.750 "Well, they're taking it out on 28:08.751 --> 28:11.181 animals, blowing the hell out of them 28:11.176 --> 28:14.256 and indigenous people, etc., etc." 28:14.259 --> 28:17.589 So, scouting for boys takes off. 28:17.588 --> 28:21.358 It spreads from Britain to Australia to Canada to New 28:21.361 --> 28:25.061 Zealand to India to Chile to Argentina to Brazil. 28:25.058 --> 28:29.068 In 1910 it starts in the United States. 28:29.068 --> 28:33.248 In 1910, Baden-Powell resigns from the command of a division 28:33.247 --> 28:37.777 of the Territorial Army to spend the rest of his life involved in 28:37.779 --> 28:38.699 scouting. 28:38.700 --> 28:42.170 Again, what I'm saying is that involves this sort of grafting 28:42.173 --> 28:44.493 on this idea of the American frontier. 28:44.490 --> 28:46.050 You're going to create your new frontier. 28:46.048 --> 28:49.118 Your new frontier is going to be in Africa. 28:49.118 --> 28:52.628 Your new frontier is going to be in Afghanistan. 28:52.630 --> 28:58.200 You create your frontiers, and then you hold the frontiers 28:58.202 --> 29:03.292 and you train these boys, these young men to hold the 29:03.288 --> 29:05.438 colonial frontier. 29:05.440 --> 29:08.830 He finds sponsorship in the Daily Telegraph, 29:08.829 --> 29:11.609 which was a big conservative newspaper. 29:11.608 --> 29:13.688 All of the big newspapers are conservative. 29:13.690 --> 29:17.730 The 60,000 scouts--I think I sent this around--by 1909 29:17.730 --> 29:20.400 there's 60,000 scouts in Britain. 29:20.400 --> 29:22.920 In 1910 there are 107,000. 29:22.920 --> 29:28.570 In 1913,152,000, and in 1917,194,000. 29:28.569 --> 29:32.529 Why was there such a short gap? 29:32.528 --> 29:36.348 Not that much of a leap between 1913 and 1917? 29:36.349 --> 29:37.919 Because they're dead. 29:37.920 --> 29:40.410 They get killed in the war. 29:40.410 --> 29:41.770 They're going off to fight. 29:41.769 --> 29:44.869 Scouting is finished rather early. 29:44.868 --> 29:47.428 You've got these big rallies, enormous in London, 29:47.434 --> 29:49.844 and scouts coming from all over the empire. 29:49.838 --> 29:54.508 Girl Scouts are created in 1914, but Baden-Powell didn't 29:54.507 --> 29:56.457 care much about that. 29:56.460 --> 30:00.660 Now, there had been groups of frontier-inspired youth 30:00.663 --> 30:05.113 organizations that existed in Scotland, particularly. 30:05.108 --> 30:09.048 They're called things like The Sons of Daniel Boone, 30:09.045 --> 30:13.125 The Woodcraft Indians, The Boys' Brigade in Glasgow in 30:13.134 --> 30:13.834 1883. 30:13.829 --> 30:15.829 Some were church sponsored. 30:15.828 --> 30:19.388 Again, this is the sort of moralization of the working 30:19.387 --> 30:20.057 classes. 30:20.059 --> 30:22.179 You get them into groups. 30:22.180 --> 30:24.450 They won't smoke cigarettes, which is a good thing not to 30:24.446 --> 30:24.646 do. 30:24.650 --> 30:25.670 They won't drink. 30:25.670 --> 30:27.860 They won't hang out with the wrong people. 30:27.858 --> 30:32.748 They will go to work and become cogs in Britain's industrial 30:32.752 --> 30:33.502 empire. 30:33.500 --> 30:38.570 They, too, can look at maps of Africa being increasingly 30:38.566 --> 30:43.076 painted red, which was the color of the empire. 30:43.078 --> 30:48.558 So, nature remains a part of this. 30:48.558 --> 30:52.178 Again, to repeat, the cult of the American 30:52.184 --> 30:55.814 frontiersmen, let me say a little bit more 30:55.809 --> 30:58.639 about that, is part of this. 30:58.640 --> 31:02.190 The idea of the frontiersmen, the buckskin man. 31:02.190 --> 31:08.710 Rudyard Kipling is not my kind of poet, but anyway, 31:08.713 --> 31:12.763 he expresses often this idea. 31:12.759 --> 31:15.889 There's something hidden; go and find it--what's happened? 31:15.890 --> 31:18.600 I must have pushed something. 31:18.599 --> 31:20.989 I pushed something. 31:20.990 --> 31:22.060 It doesn't matter. 31:22.058 --> 31:25.298 I'm not easily alarmed--Go and find it. 31:25.298 --> 31:29.068 Go and look behind the ranges, something behind the ranges is 31:29.065 --> 31:30.755 lost and waiting for you. 31:30.759 --> 31:32.169 Go! 31:32.170 --> 31:37.020 Baden-Powell described the frontiersman whose manhood is 31:37.020 --> 31:40.020 strong and rich, of a pure life. 31:40.019 --> 31:45.209 Now, his own predilection is that for him a life would not 31:45.209 --> 31:49.579 involve "silly women," as he put it. 31:49.579 --> 31:55.769 The other idea, and this is not at all, 31:55.769 --> 31:58.979 I'm not saying anything about his sexuality, 31:58.980 --> 32:02.520 but the reality of the situation is that he preferred 32:02.519 --> 32:05.379 the company of young men to anyone else. 32:05.380 --> 32:07.820 This is involved in the way he lived his life. 32:07.818 --> 32:14.298 The idea is that the free man must earn independence with his 32:14.300 --> 32:14.950 gun. 32:14.950 --> 32:18.760 This is, again, part of this old American 32:18.761 --> 32:22.861 western idea, but you apply it to indigenous 32:22.861 --> 32:23.911 people. 32:23.910 --> 32:27.610 Now, you have aggressive models coming from the American West. 32:27.608 --> 32:32.368 William "Wild Bill" Cody, from my wife's state of 32:32.368 --> 32:35.978 Nebraska, had killed thousands of buffalo. 32:35.980 --> 32:37.670 He had dueled. 32:37.670 --> 32:43.380 The duels that they do with the German dueling fraternities, 32:43.380 --> 32:45.890 you've got the equivalent in Dodge City, and all of this, 32:45.890 --> 32:48.990 where you're dueling, and the classic kind of Clint 32:48.988 --> 32:50.358 Eastwood western. 32:50.358 --> 32:53.198 He'd killed thousands of buffalo, dueled, 32:53.198 --> 32:56.248 and he's a killer and scalper of Indians. 32:56.250 --> 33:00.840 He was his own publicist and he had enormous influence in 33:00.839 --> 33:01.659 Britain. 33:01.660 --> 33:05.420 At the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876, 33:05.423 --> 33:08.813 he kills Indian Chief Yellow Hand. 33:08.809 --> 33:11.729 In 1887 he crosses the Atlantic. 33:11.730 --> 33:14.800 He goes to London, Paris, and Berlin. 33:14.798 --> 33:19.248 Queen Victoria came out of her extended period of decades of 33:19.250 --> 33:23.850 mourning for her dear husband, Albert, to attend the Wild Bill 33:23.853 --> 33:24.913 Cody Show. 33:24.910 --> 33:26.400 She wants to go. 33:26.400 --> 33:28.440 And she's there with all the others. 33:28.440 --> 33:32.580 She hadn't been to an event like that in twenty-six years. 33:32.578 --> 33:38.718 The irony is that Wild Bill Cody runs these fake combats 33:38.715 --> 33:44.845 between the Indians and the cowboys in the equivalent of 33:44.852 --> 33:47.532 stadiums in Britain. 33:47.529 --> 33:50.419 One of the ironies of this about art and reality merging is 33:50.420 --> 33:53.310 that some of the people he brought across the Atlantic were 33:53.310 --> 33:56.250 Indians who'd actually fought in a battle against him in the 33:56.251 --> 33:59.241 Dakotas, and he hires them as extras and 33:59.243 --> 34:01.853 he takes them to Paris, to London, 34:01.849 --> 34:03.089 and to Berlin. 34:03.089 --> 34:06.969 They are a big, huge success. 34:06.970 --> 34:09.740 It's the Wild West program. 34:09.739 --> 34:13.239 At the same time in Canada, those of you who are Canadian 34:13.242 --> 34:16.622 know about the Mounted Police and all that business. 34:16.619 --> 34:18.849 The Mounted Police become a powerful, 34:18.849 --> 34:21.819 though somewhat tamer, more acceptable, 34:21.820 --> 34:24.700 more vanilla equivalent of that, 34:24.699 --> 34:29.009 of keeping order in Saskatoon and all of these places like 34:29.010 --> 34:29.540 that. 34:29.539 --> 34:30.699 I've actually been to Saskatoon. 34:30.699 --> 34:32.819 It's a pretty nice place. 34:32.820 --> 34:38.200 The idea of these mountain men--now the mountain men get 34:38.195 --> 34:39.265 uniforms. 34:39.268 --> 34:43.358 The mountain men are no longer sort of taking pot shots at 34:43.356 --> 34:47.366 people in Kentucky on the frontier or scalping Indians in 34:47.371 --> 34:48.521 the Dakotas. 34:48.518 --> 34:51.068 They're wearing sort of freelance scalpers. 34:51.070 --> 34:53.450 They're wearing the uniform of these countries and they're 34:53.447 --> 34:54.447 big-time imperialists. 34:54.449 --> 34:56.239 That's really the point. 34:56.239 --> 34:59.219 Here's a verse, I can't remember where I got 34:59.224 --> 34:59.714 that. 34:59.710 --> 35:04.500 Our mission is to plant the right of British freedom here. 35:04.500 --> 35:08.820 Restrain the lawless savages and protect the pioneer. 35:08.820 --> 35:09.640 (It rhymes.) 35:09.639 --> 35:13.529 And ‘tis a proud and daring trust to hold these vast 35:13.532 --> 35:16.062 domains, But with 300 mountain man 35:16.059 --> 35:19.319 You've got to kind of make it rhyme a little bit--mountain 35:19.324 --> 35:22.194 man, pronounce it as if you were a mountain man. 35:22.190 --> 35:25.030 But anyway, and that's a little harder to do if you have an 35:25.030 --> 35:27.040 Oxbridge accent, which I clearly don't. 35:27.039 --> 35:30.109 Also, this is part of the whole-- I don't have time to do 35:30.114 --> 35:30.614 it now. 35:30.610 --> 35:32.860 I spent a fair amount of time in Australia, 35:32.860 --> 35:35.540 but it's also part of the idea of being Australian, 35:35.541 --> 35:35.971 too. 35:35.969 --> 35:38.229 Anyway, that's another thing. 35:38.230 --> 35:41.020 Kipling's Lost Legion is really just awful, 35:41.016 --> 35:43.416 but here we go: There is a legion that was 35:43.423 --> 35:45.813 never listed That carries no colors or crest 35:45.809 --> 35:47.449 But split in a thousand detachments 35:47.449 --> 35:49.129 Is breaking the road to the rest 35:49.130 --> 35:50.850 (I'm supposed to be more respectful when I do this, 35:50.851 --> 35:52.151 but anyway…) Our fathers, 35:52.154 --> 35:55.184 they left us their blessing They taught us and groomed us 35:55.181 --> 35:57.571 and crammed But we're shaking the clubs and 35:57.572 --> 35:59.972 the messes To go and find out and be 35:59.972 --> 36:03.982 damned, dear boys To go and shot and be damned, 36:03.980 --> 36:04.990 dear boys. 36:04.989 --> 36:09.949 Virility, adventure, loyalty--loyalty to boys, 36:09.954 --> 36:14.044 loyalty to young men, and brotherhood, 36:14.039 --> 36:17.459 and so it starts like that. 36:17.460 --> 36:18.760 Can I barely go on? 36:18.760 --> 36:20.920 Out from the woods of the Great Northwest 36:20.920 --> 36:24.350 Under the austral sky From the south and the north, 36:24.351 --> 36:27.021 they'll come forth At the sound of the mother's 36:27.019 --> 36:28.969 cry And each at his post where the 36:28.972 --> 36:31.542 danger is most Will stand as a sentry then 36:31.539 --> 36:33.999 Britishers all to stand or to fall 36:34.000 --> 36:36.900 The Empire's frontiersmen. 36:36.900 --> 36:41.220 Now, Baden-Powell is his own best publicist, 36:41.215 --> 36:45.525 even better than Wild Bill Cody had been. 36:45.530 --> 36:48.540 He helps plant newspaper articles about him. 36:48.539 --> 36:50.039 Here's one from 1900. 36:50.039 --> 36:52.299 "It has been suggested that Major-General 36:52.298 --> 36:55.408 Baden-Powell's unrivaled skill as a cavalry scout forms a quite 36:55.413 --> 36:58.073 remarkable inheritance of heredity that he's descended 36:58.074 --> 37:00.654 from Pocahontas, the American Indian 37:00.650 --> 37:03.790 princess," which he was clearly not. 37:03.789 --> 37:06.229 But how does he become so popular? 37:06.230 --> 37:10.680 How do these God-awful poems that I've just read, 37:10.679 --> 37:13.369 how do they become popular? 37:13.369 --> 37:17.449 They become popular because they become the stuff of boys 37:17.454 --> 37:20.594 literature of the culture of imperialism. 37:20.590 --> 37:22.690 They were the British equivalents of Boys' 37:22.693 --> 37:23.223 Life. 37:23.219 --> 37:25.169 I'm not knocking Boys' Life. 37:25.170 --> 37:27.080 I don't know if that existed. 37:27.079 --> 37:30.739 I strongly preferred Sports Illustrated and the sporting 37:30.742 --> 37:31.632 news to that. 37:31.630 --> 37:34.650 They become the stuff that people are reading as they're 37:34.650 --> 37:37.780 looking at these maps of Africa gradually becoming painted 37:37.780 --> 37:38.440 British. 37:38.440 --> 37:41.330 Now, how did he become well known? 37:41.329 --> 37:42.979 Well, because he's an imperialist. 37:42.980 --> 37:44.270 He's fighting. 37:44.268 --> 37:46.988 In 1896 he fought in the Matabele War, 37:46.985 --> 37:50.285 which I sent around, not the war but the name, 37:50.291 --> 37:54.331 a skirmish against about 1,000 indigenous fighters. 37:54.329 --> 37:59.729 It's at that point where he starts coming up with his own 37:59.733 --> 38:05.623 freelance uniform that would become that of the Boy Scouts. 38:05.619 --> 38:10.629 In military units people that were scouts, again the idea of 38:10.626 --> 38:11.556 tracking. 38:11.559 --> 38:14.319 You're tracking, you're seeing where the Indians 38:14.324 --> 38:15.034 have been. 38:15.030 --> 38:17.290 The Indians can see where you've been now. 38:17.289 --> 38:18.659 You learn how they do it. 38:18.659 --> 38:21.509 How the blades of grass turn and all of that. 38:21.510 --> 38:22.990 I couldn't scout anything. 38:22.989 --> 38:25.489 You see how they do it. 38:25.489 --> 38:28.329 They become known as scouts, which is sort of an 38:28.327 --> 38:30.017 Americanization of a term. 38:30.019 --> 38:33.459 This is what he likes to do. 38:33.460 --> 38:37.370 Teddy Roosevelt, there's a good example of that. 38:37.369 --> 38:40.759 Talk about that kind of narcissism of the colonial 38:40.762 --> 38:44.432 imagination and the imperial imagination, "Rough, 38:44.429 --> 38:46.299 rough, we're the stuff. 38:46.300 --> 38:48.060 We want to fight and we can't get enough." 38:48.059 --> 38:49.129 Whoopie! 38:49.130 --> 38:54.600 That's the song of the Rough Riders from the Cuban-American 38:54.596 --> 38:59.676 War of Teddy Roosevelt, so it's part of the hysteria of 38:59.684 --> 39:02.234 the U.S. Spanish War. 39:02.230 --> 39:04.760 But again, it's the frontier spirit. 39:04.760 --> 39:08.940 Baden-Powell helps create his own myth, which I've said. 39:08.940 --> 39:12.550 He drew pictures of the people that he had allegedly shot. 39:12.550 --> 39:16.550 These pictures end up being in the tabloid newspapers. 39:16.550 --> 39:19.880 Again, the role of the tabloids in spreading all this stuff is 39:19.882 --> 39:21.032 terribly important. 39:21.030 --> 39:23.750 I said before there's twenty-one daily newspapers in 39:23.751 --> 39:24.821 Paris at the time. 39:24.820 --> 39:27.010 I don't remember how many there are in Britain, 39:27.009 --> 39:28.769 but there are an awful lot of them. 39:28.768 --> 39:32.018 He sketched a last stand of eight people, 39:32.021 --> 39:36.571 supposedly until they get rescued, against the indigenous 39:36.574 --> 39:37.474 people. 39:37.469 --> 39:41.469 He claimed that the Zulus, against whom the British War, 39:41.469 --> 39:46.029 the Zulus called him, this sounds unlikely, 39:46.027 --> 39:48.607 "the man, he who likes to lie down to 39:48.606 --> 39:49.266 shoot." 39:49.268 --> 39:52.778 The Ashanti called him, in awe, this was his term for 39:52.780 --> 39:55.550 himself, "he of the big hat." 39:55.550 --> 40:02.280 And that in this war in 1896, they called him "the 40:02.282 --> 40:07.522 wolf," in awe again, his opponents. 40:07.518 --> 40:10.838 "The beast that does not sleep but sneaks around at 40:10.835 --> 40:11.675 night." 40:11.679 --> 40:15.639 So, he became "the wolf who never sleeps." 40:15.639 --> 40:19.639 There's a slight problem with this invention of a term to 40:19.639 --> 40:23.779 describe himself as "the wolf who sneaks around," 40:23.780 --> 40:26.710 is there aren't any wolves in Africa. 40:26.710 --> 40:28.470 There are not any wolves at all. 40:28.469 --> 40:30.799 He made it up and made it up rather badly, 40:30.798 --> 40:33.638 having taken it out of some book somewhere else. 40:33.639 --> 40:36.499 But that doesn't stop the tabloids from referring to him 40:36.501 --> 40:38.741 as "the wolf who never sleeps." 40:38.739 --> 40:44.919 The Boers understand that in the Boer War, 40:44.920 --> 40:47.850 that is the Dutch Afrikaner opposition opponents, 40:47.849 --> 40:49.519 who by the way--the British created the term 40:49.523 --> 40:50.813 "concentration camp." 40:50.809 --> 40:52.929 Again, I'm not looking back from history. 40:52.929 --> 40:58.629 They're separating children and women from the men, 40:58.630 --> 41:05.470 and trying to avoid that they receive provisioning out in the 41:05.472 --> 41:06.502 bush. 41:06.500 --> 41:09.150 They create the term "concentration camp" 41:09.153 --> 41:10.113 in the Boer War. 41:10.110 --> 41:13.170 The Boers actually lived there and had for a long time, 41:13.170 --> 41:15.550 though they're not an indigenous people. 41:15.550 --> 41:17.400 They know there aren't any wolves there. 41:17.400 --> 41:19.800 So, they start mocking Baden-Powell. 41:19.800 --> 41:23.910 But "he of the big hat" did not slow down at 41:23.914 --> 41:24.384 all. 41:24.380 --> 41:29.520 So, in 1899, he has the good luck to be at 41:29.521 --> 41:36.041 the siege of Mafeking, where they are surrounded by a 41:36.043 --> 41:41.943 force, but not a terribly aggressive force. 41:41.940 --> 41:47.250 Again, he draws pictures of people on duty and all of that, 41:47.248 --> 41:48.438 night duty. 41:48.440 --> 41:53.780 And the town had resisted 217 days stationed on the railway 41:53.780 --> 41:58.110 line that runs between the Cape and Rhodesia. 41:58.110 --> 42:05.300 This was a big takeoff for his reputation. 42:05.300 --> 42:10.680 Just the name Baden-Powell, the initials B.P. 42:10.679 --> 42:13.039 become identified with British imperialism. 42:13.039 --> 42:16.609 B.P, "He loves the night and after his return from the 42:16.610 --> 42:19.230 hollows of the veldt, where he has kept so many 42:19.231 --> 42:21.741 anxious vigils, he lies awake hour after hour 42:21.744 --> 42:25.334 upon his camp mattress in the veranda tracing out in his mind 42:25.333 --> 42:28.863 the various means and agencies by which he can forestall the 42:28.862 --> 42:31.792 Boer move, which unknown to them he has 42:31.789 --> 42:33.759 personally already watched. 42:33.760 --> 42:38.310 He is the wolf who never sleeps." 42:38.309 --> 42:41.779 Now, B.P., those initials also become British Pluck, 42:41.784 --> 42:44.514 the idea that the British are mudders. 42:44.510 --> 42:49.100 This is kind of the image that would come out of the very 42:49.097 --> 42:54.177 heroic Battle of Britain under the bombs of German Luftwaffe in 42:54.177 --> 42:55.567 World War II. 42:55.570 --> 42:58.720 British Pluck, also B.P., British Peerage, 42:58.724 --> 43:01.184 British Peers, the upper classes, 43:01.184 --> 43:03.344 the title British Peers. 43:03.340 --> 43:09.800 He becomes identified with all of this, the wolf who never 43:09.800 --> 43:10.820 sleeps. 43:10.820 --> 43:16.590 His advice to his own garrison is to "sit tight and shoot 43:16.588 --> 43:17.628 straight. 43:17.630 --> 43:20.090 All is well here," he writes. 43:20.090 --> 43:22.620 They were able to get messages out to the newspapers who are 43:22.623 --> 43:23.313 covering this. 43:23.309 --> 43:27.519 Now, again, the British newspapers covered another siege 43:27.516 --> 43:30.956 which ends rather badly, which is at Khartoum, 43:30.958 --> 43:34.398 with the death of Charles Chinese Gordon. 43:34.400 --> 43:39.220 He was called Chinese Gordon because he slaughtered the 43:39.219 --> 43:42.699 Chinese, and he gets his at Khartoum. 43:42.699 --> 43:45.879 Of course, school children, there's an enormous, 43:45.882 --> 43:49.812 enormous outpouring of tears over the death of this man. 43:49.809 --> 43:52.329 The newspapers, because of these modern 43:52.331 --> 43:56.311 techniques, they can follow all of this stuff pretty much how 43:56.313 --> 43:58.573 the siege is going, etc., etc. 43:58.570 --> 43:59.190 So, B.P. 43:59.193 --> 44:02.633 the prince of good fellows, prince of scouts, 44:02.626 --> 44:03.716 here we go. 44:03.719 --> 44:04.919 They emphasize his youth. 44:04.920 --> 44:06.640 He's forty-three but he's youthful. 44:06.639 --> 44:08.029 He's cheerful. 44:08.030 --> 44:10.630 He's always whistling and telling stories, 44:10.628 --> 44:12.718 even when things are going bad. 44:12.719 --> 44:15.259 He loves pranks, childish pranks. 44:15.260 --> 44:17.310 This is from some of the newspapers. 44:17.309 --> 44:19.799 "Life was a game, but you have to play it 44:19.802 --> 44:20.802 honorably." 44:20.800 --> 44:23.240 It was a game that silly women, as he called them, 44:23.242 --> 44:24.092 could not play. 44:24.090 --> 44:28.330 He becomes known again as sports, mass sports is starting 44:28.326 --> 44:29.836 just at this time. 44:29.840 --> 44:33.030 The Olympics are starting just at this time. 44:33.030 --> 44:40.150 Again, there's a reassertion of virility in these Olympics. 44:40.150 --> 44:44.030 He's called "the gallant goalkeeper," 44:44.030 --> 44:47.490 "the goaltender of Mafeking." 44:47.489 --> 44:53.089 So, a sports analogy becomes part again of this imperial 44:53.092 --> 44:54.012 thrust. 44:54.010 --> 45:01.720 They print patriotic letters to him, which can be signed and can 45:01.715 --> 45:02.935 be sent. 45:02.940 --> 45:03.880 You can send a postcard. 45:03.880 --> 45:05.310 You could send a postcard home. 45:05.309 --> 45:07.569 Your parents have left after parents' weekend, 45:07.567 --> 45:08.317 if they came. 45:08.320 --> 45:09.850 You can send them the following postcard: 45:09.849 --> 45:13.359 Dear Parents, Dear Mom and Dad, We have shouted "Rule 45:13.362 --> 45:14.172 Britannia!" 45:14.170 --> 45:16.610 We have sung God Save the Queen. 45:16.610 --> 45:20.000 We have toasted gallant Baden a half a score. 45:20.000 --> 45:23.650 We have sent our best respects to Plucky Mafeking and we have 45:23.648 --> 45:25.958 hoisted flags and bunting in galore. 45:25.960 --> 45:29.390 With a wild and frenzied madness born of joy the empire 45:29.393 --> 45:32.893 cheers, while we Britishers rejoice through the land. 45:32.889 --> 45:36.299 In this hour of jubilation I am sending you a line with the wish 45:36.300 --> 45:38.360 that I could warmly shake your hand. 45:38.360 --> 45:39.920 Yours exultantly. 45:39.920 --> 45:44.070 Then you sign your own name to it. 45:44.070 --> 45:46.560 So, scouting, as someone said, 45:46.556 --> 45:51.646 I can't remember whom, was an attempt to make these 45:51.648 --> 45:56.488 "values" of Mafeking permanent and to 45:56.494 --> 46:02.814 trace them on the map of these countries of these peoples all 46:02.813 --> 46:04.923 over the world. 46:04.920 --> 46:08.700 A 1909 newspaper said: It may be that he is not a 46:08.701 --> 46:11.381 great soldier of the sort which Napoleon, or the Maltese, 46:11.376 --> 46:12.806 or the Kitcheners are made. 46:12.809 --> 46:16.649 He is the frontiersman, the born leader of irregulars, 46:16.648 --> 46:19.978 a maverick, and the empire has need of such. 46:19.980 --> 46:22.710 Furthermore, he has the knack of seizing the 46:22.708 --> 46:26.008 imagination of boys and a deep sympathy with them. 46:26.010 --> 46:29.680 He is doing his day's work for the empire by training a number 46:29.682 --> 46:33.422 of manly little fellows to keep their wits about them and their 46:33.416 --> 46:34.436 eyes skinned. 46:34.440 --> 46:39.840 We shall profit another day in a much greater affair than 46:39.838 --> 46:40.898 Mafeking. 46:40.900 --> 46:44.090 That, of course, is preparing for the war 46:44.090 --> 46:47.500 against those other peoples who might contest British 46:47.496 --> 46:49.826 domination, not the indigenous peoples, 46:49.829 --> 46:53.379 but the other powers in Africa. 46:53.380 --> 46:57.560 So, be prepared, B.P., the same thing, 46:57.559 --> 46:59.819 the same initials. 46:59.820 --> 47:01.960 Anybody here a scout? 47:01.960 --> 47:03.350 I had to memorize that stuff. 47:03.349 --> 47:06.029 I didn't get a single badge, but a scout. 47:06.030 --> 47:06.970 Be prepared. 47:06.969 --> 47:08.069 You're supposed to do that. 47:08.070 --> 47:09.320 The jamborees. 47:09.320 --> 47:10.090 He creates these jamborees. 47:10.090 --> 47:13.200 47:13.199 --> 47:15.359 Also, at the same time, and I don't have time to talk 47:15.358 --> 47:17.008 about this, but this is the same time when 47:17.010 --> 47:20.860 Arthur Conan Doyle, the idea of sleuthing, 47:20.860 --> 47:24.380 but it was sort of an urban sleuthing for evildoers in 47:24.380 --> 47:24.980 London. 47:24.980 --> 47:28.830 It kind of merges with all of that. 47:28.829 --> 47:31.659 Of boys who risked their life, he says, 47:31.659 --> 47:33.699 "I said to one of these boys on one occasion when he 47:33.699 --> 47:35.009 came through a rather heavy fire, 47:35.010 --> 47:37.530 ‘You will get hit one of these days riding about like 47:37.525 --> 47:38.865 that when shells are flying.' 47:38.869 --> 47:41.799 And he replied, ‘Sir, I pedal so quickly, 47:41.795 --> 47:43.445 they'll never catch me.' 47:43.449 --> 47:48.119 Those boys don't seem to mind the bullets one bit." 47:48.119 --> 47:53.369 Of course, millions of them would catch bullets that 47:53.373 --> 47:55.953 ultimately they minded. 47:55.949 --> 47:58.409 "I will do my best to God and the king. 47:58.409 --> 47:59.749 I will do my best to help others. 47:59.750 --> 48:00.680 Whatever it costs me. 48:00.679 --> 48:02.949 I know the scout law and I will obey it." 48:02.949 --> 48:05.079 Again, I am not knocking doing good things for people. 48:05.079 --> 48:06.249 Please do understand. 48:06.250 --> 48:10.290 But I'm just trying to place the origins of whatever you 48:10.289 --> 48:14.329 think of the Boy Scouts in the context of the culture of 48:14.331 --> 48:17.431 imperialism, because that's where it belongs 48:17.434 --> 48:19.174 and that's where it started. 48:19.170 --> 48:24.470 In 1912 in August a boat capsized off the coast of Devon, 48:24.472 --> 48:25.422 I think. 48:25.420 --> 48:28.490 Nine boys from eleven to fourteen drown. 48:28.489 --> 48:30.019 They were scouts. 48:30.018 --> 48:35.118 There was an enormous, enormous national funeral 48:35.119 --> 48:41.299 service in London in which millions of people saw at least 48:41.304 --> 48:43.044 parts of it. 48:43.039 --> 48:44.829 This helped. 48:44.829 --> 48:47.579 Their deaths, and many more deaths would 48:47.579 --> 48:52.019 follow, helped tie together the idea of scouting with service to 48:52.021 --> 48:53.081 the nation. 48:53.079 --> 48:56.079 A magazine called The Captain--again, 48:56.079 --> 49:00.609 this is part of the culture of imperialism and of aggressive 49:00.610 --> 49:04.910 nationalism--had a troop of mobile scouts on bikes fitted 49:04.911 --> 49:08.671 with a rifle bucket and a clip to carry a carbine, 49:08.673 --> 49:09.753 a rifle. 49:09.750 --> 49:12.340 So, it shifts. 49:12.340 --> 49:17.340 The image of all of this shifts from Africa, 49:17.340 --> 49:20.620 where much of the fighting was already over, 49:20.619 --> 49:24.659 and indigenous people destroyed or pacified, 49:24.659 --> 49:30.289 to the European enemies against whom the next war would be 49:30.289 --> 49:31.179 fought. 49:31.179 --> 49:35.279 There's a famous cartoon in the British magazine Punch 49:35.284 --> 49:38.644 which showed a Boy Scout complete in uniform being 49:38.635 --> 49:40.755 prepared, taking Mrs. Britannia, 49:40.757 --> 49:43.627 that is the image of Victoria who was dead, 49:43.630 --> 49:47.530 but the female image of the empire, by the arm. 49:47.530 --> 49:49.690 It says, "Fear not, grandma. 49:49.690 --> 49:52.340 No danger can befall you. 49:52.340 --> 49:54.920 I, after all, remember I am with you 49:54.916 --> 49:55.796 now." 49:55.800 --> 50:00.900 Boy Scouts played an enormous role in 1914 and in the 50:00.903 --> 50:02.773 subsequent years. 50:02.768 --> 50:05.278 "Goodbye, I'm off to war." 50:05.280 --> 50:10.090 There was a caricature in the newspaper as Boy Scouts joined 50:10.092 --> 50:14.912 up along with lots of other people who weren't scouts in the 50:14.907 --> 50:15.557 war. 50:15.559 --> 50:18.669 As you well know, they don't come back, 50:18.666 --> 50:21.526 or a lot of them don't come back. 50:21.530 --> 50:25.370 It's part of the mood of nationalism and of imperialism, 50:25.365 --> 50:27.105 of the New Imperialism. 50:27.110 --> 50:30.130 Those two things are tied together and the expectation, 50:30.132 --> 50:33.042 indeed in many cases, as in the case of Baden-Powell, 50:33.041 --> 50:34.331 joyous expectation. 50:34.329 --> 50:38.459 You could test your virility in a more meaningful combat than 50:38.458 --> 50:41.278 simply slaughtering indigenous people, 50:41.280 --> 50:46.430 or picking off Boers with greater numerical superiority. 50:46.429 --> 50:50.249 By the way, Robert Baden-Powell died in 50:50.246 --> 50:53.976 Kenya, in 1941, from which he had just sent his 50:53.978 --> 50:56.668 last patriotic message to the Boy Scouts, 50:56.670 --> 50:59.810 in what was a very different war. 50:59.809 --> 51:01.159 Thank you. 51:01.159 --> 51:07.999 I'll see you on Wednesday.