Immigrant Imperialism: Germans and the Rise of the British Empire Restricted; Files Only
Zonderman, Andrew (Summer 2019)
Published
Abstract
“Immigrant Imperialism” reframes the British Empire as a transnational endeavor and connects German-speaking Europe to the eighteenth-century world. The expanding imperial project relied upon the labor of not only growing pools of metropolitan Britons and exploited indigenous and enslaved peoples, but also continental Europeans who carried over skills desired by imperial officials, as well as their own agendas. The migrants’ activities in the empire also belie enduring narratives of German-speaking Europe and its peoples as provincial prior to the formation of the German state and empire in the mid-nineteenth century. Rather, these migrants participated in the world-altering phenomena of global trade, settler colonialism, European overseas expansion, and Atlantic political revolutions.
The dissertation analyzes four distinct migrations to explore the Germans’ backgrounds, engagements with British officials as well as indigenous and enslaved populaces, and the application of their labor to constructing the British Empire. The first study examines the Lutheran missionaries educated and employed at the University of Halle and the Francke Foundations in Prussia and their increasingly close ties with, and work for the British East India Company (EIC) as chaplains, school administrators, and translators. The second case probes the EIC’s recruitment of thousands of Central Europeans for military service in South Asia, and their role in helping make the EIC the dominant power on the subcontinent. The third considers how German migrants moving to state-planned borderland settlements in colonial South Carolina and New York sought to transform these projects for imperial defense into opportunities for personal enrichment. The final study investigates the German merchants of colonial Philadelphia and their role in integrating themselves and their immigrant community into British systems of credit, consumption, and law.
“Immigrant Imperialism” examines how eighteenth-century British imperial actors and institutions recruited German-speaking peoples into their colonies or sought to co-opt those already abroad to address the empire’s defense needs, demographic instability, and labor shortages. German immigrants sought to leverage their status as fellow Europeans and Protestants, as well as British desires and anxieties, to shape imperial projects to fulfill their own economic, social, and spiritual needs.
Table of Contents
Introduction ..... 1
Chapter One: German Lutheran Missionaries, The British East India Company, and the Entangling of Mission and Empire ..... 25
Chapter Two: German Lutheran Missionaries and the Struggle to Build the Kingdom of God in Late Eighteenth-Century British India ........ 91
Chapter Three: The British East India Company and Its Recruitment of German-Speaking Soldiers .................156
Chapter Four: German Migrants and Negotiated Settlements on the Eighteenth-Century British North American Borderlands ....... 225
Chapter Five: Making Merchants Out of Migrants in Colonial Philadelphia ....... 299
Chapter Six: The German Merchant Community of Colonial Philadelphia and the Politics of Empire .... 375
Epilogue ...................................................................................................................................... 430
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 438
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File download under embargo until 20 August 2025 | 2019-08-06 18:55:10 -0400 | File download under embargo until 20 August 2025 |
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