Victorian Era Race Ideas: Charles Dickens "The Noble Savage"

Charles Dickens, in his excerpt "The Noble Savage", uses some brutal rhetorical moves to classify what he believes to be a savage, and how they are nothing close to "noble". He comes right out and says it in the beginning: that he does not believe in Rousseau's idea that those with less civility are somehow more noble than those who live in a modernized world. He uses a lot of language to demonize these people - "howling, stamping, stabbing", etc., to bring to light that he doesn't even really see them as human beings. It's tempting rhetoric; much of it appeals to logic, and Dickens has always been known for his strong use of logos.

I had to keep in mind while I was reading it that these were actual people that he was referring to. He made plenty of excellent points; some more biting than others. One I found to be most compelling was the reference he made to another opinion held on the matter by Leclerc; that the savage was a "sulky tyrant" (p 988) to his women and that it was no wonder their numbers were dwindling. I have read many stories of witch hunts and other ways that women have been mistreated in almost every society of uncivilized groups, and when you hear some of these stories, it is incredibly easy to give in to the rhetoric of savage groups being sub-human.

Overall, I think that Dickens takes a tricky stance here, though he does it with grace. He uses some derogatory terms that I feel made him seem unnecessarily barbarous himself (kaffirs, etc), and that, in the end, weakened his stance for me. I understand that in his time it was more acceptable to use such terms, but such hateful language leads me to believe his position is more of bitter bias, rather than actual logic, which it appears to be on the surface.

Smith's Canadian Gazetteer

William H. Smith's excerpt reads something like if the Victorians had infomercials. He summarizes his tour of Canada's "great natural advantages" in what seems like an attempt to draw more emigrants from Britain, and in doing so casually reveals some prejudiced attitudes that might in truth be as antiquated as we'd want to believe.

After illustrating that the American economy is not as favorable as his Victorian reader might think, he goes on to explain why the way of life in both the U.S. and New Zealand are not as good as in Canada - in the U.S., he claims, "the only law is mob law, and the bowie knife is the constant companion of the citizens," while in New Zealand, the average settler may be "roasted for the breakfast of some native chief, and his interesting family." In the former claim, Smith spins America as an anarchic hellhole, while in the latter, he suggests that the natives of New Zealand are cannibals. I'd conjecture that part of the motivation of these depictions is an ethnocentric judgment of these two regions as not being quite British enough, in addition to the obvious colonial racism that rears its head in the latter statement.

Furthering the casual racism against indigenous people is the note Smith makes about native Canadians, saying that they are "tolerably civilized, none of them at any rate are cannibals, and few of them are even thieves." The use of 'even' suggests that Smith regards cannibalism and thievery as the natural state of the 'savages.'

Finally, a somewhat surprising element that appears near the end is Smith's claim that "Retired military men do not generally make good settlers," preceding his depiction of how veterans would squander their retirement pay and that their children would end up in "idle and dissipated habits."

As we brought up in class, modern prejudice is rarely spelled out as plainly as in these Victorian texts, but the fact is that racism, ethnocentrism/xenophobia, and prejudice against military veterans are attitudes held by fairly significant populations in the Western world.

When Sentimentality Isn’t Favourable

From The Drover’s Wife by Henry Lawson

In his short story, The Drover’s Wife, Henry Lawson reveals the hardships of living in the Australian bush. Lawson states that “her surroundings are not favourable to the development of the ‘womanly’ or sentimental side of nature,” (p 1038). The drover’s wife accepts the challenging role of protecting her home and family during her husband’s long absences. While she endures these hardships, she experiences few moments of relief and carefree activities. However, I believe the drover’s wife has developed healthy emotional, maternal connections, despite the harsh demands of her lifestyle.

With a poisonous snake hiding in the home and a thunderstorm and nighttime coming on, the drover’s wife tucks her four children into bed on the kitchen table, and sits at watch through the night for the snake. These calm and careful actions reveal her experience, independence, and determination. Despite the tense situation, she smiles at eleven-year-old Tommy’s influence on his younger brother for swearing.

Lawson reveals that “recent events have shaken her nerves,” (p 1036). Her nephew recently died from a snake bite and her husband has been gone for six months. As she waits for the snake to show itself, her mind reminisces on her life, revealing moments of emotional connection: after fighting a bush-fire wearing trousers, she holds her crying child who doesn’t recognize her; she fights to save the dam from a flood, but loses it, and cries; she fights to save the cattle from a sickness, but loses two, and cries; she fights bullocks, crows, and eagles; occasionally she fends off suspicious-looking men who come around. During each of these fights, she is alone to protect her home and children. While she is not emotional during these “fights,” her efforts during the struggles and her tears following the struggles reveal her emotional connection to her home and family.

Her influence on her household is shown after defeating the snake, when “she lays her hand on the dog’s head, and all the fierce, angry light dies out of his yellow eyes,” (p 1038). Tommy, on seeing the tears in his mother’s eyes, emotionally declares that “I won’t never go drovin’; blast me if I do!” (p 1038). I anticipate that his mother’s calm acceptance of her lifestyle will increase in influence over Tommy’s emotions as he grows older. He already exemplifies her in his desire to protect home and family as she does, a behavior that indicates a strong emotional connection, despite the lack of opportunity for sentimentality.

Mayhew, Labour, and the London Poor

Mayhew, Labour, and the London Poor

Henry Mayhew, as the preface his excerpt titled "Hindo Beggars" suggests, was a writer that tended to focus on the "plight of poor Londoners" in regards to post-Industrial society, drawing sympathy for the downtrodden and unfortunate souls that couldn't find a way to get on their feet. However, Mayhew's sympathies extended only as far as those he considered his countrymen and women; regarding the "Hindos" and "Brahmins" - presumably Indian Londoners - Mayhew took a stance of hard-line distaste and outright racism. He calls these Londoners "snake-eyed Asiatics" with a penchant for deception, "entrapping the sympathy" of the good Christian Englishmen and women of London by regurgitating tracts or by insisting that they are of high birth - "Brahmins", or members of the highest caste in the predominantly Hindu British India. In essence, Mayhew paints these Indian-Far East Londoners as a wholly distasteful group of people who seek only to further their own fortunes through any means necessary. They are the other, the criminal, the bad in London society.

In many ways, this sort of distaste can be paralleled with the distaste that any major racial group can and more than often will have with the minority in a society. It's far too easy for the human creature, in general, to blame the ills of society on a single group of people that lack the numbers to defend themselves on a wide scale. While not the most original of comparisons, Nazi Germany and Victorian England share several similarities in their views of minority groups - in the Nazi's case, the Jews, Roma, and disabled suffered in together due to the popular demand for the development of the pure German Ubermensch and the propaganda that hung the ills of post World War I Germany, burdened to the breaking point with reparations to be paid to the Allies, on this group. While nothing on such a scale occurred in Victorian England, Mayhew describes the "Hindo Beggars" of London in similar fashion, seeking to out them as a credible danger to the common populace of London. Perhaps the most interesting move that Mayhew makes, however, is how he either subconsciously or purposefully enforced the idea of a supreme state power that could eliminate these "problems" from London. After all, if "they [the titular Hindo Beggars] never beg of soldiers, or sailors, to whom they always give a wide berth as they pass them in the streets..." then that must mean that they fear the state. The state, therefore, must be able to cull the issue of the "Hindo Beggars"; otherwise, the beggars would have no need to fear the state. It follows to reason, then, that if the "Hindo Beggars" are as bad as Henry Mayhew describes, that the state, whom the beggars fear, should eliminate them. 

The Rhetoric of Abolition

Rhetoric in “Occasional Discourse on the N- Question (Carlyle), and “The N- Question (Mill)”

For my own personal reasons, I will be replacing uses of the N-word with N- throughout this blog. I personally am not comfortable using this language, even in an academic sense.

Racial tension peaked in Britain in the early-mid 1800’s, following the abolition of slavery in Britain and British colonies in 1837. The text supplies that the end of the tariff on sugar in 1846 widely angered plantation owners in the mid-nineteenth century, sparking the voracious argument in Thomas Carlyle’s strongly-worded essay, “Occasional Discourse on the N- Question”. Throughout this essay Carlyle makes appeals to fellow ‘philanthropic’-minded people, repeatedly calling the readers his friends, suggesting they are of like mind. Further, Carlyle makes appeals of logic, using latin terms Adscripti glebae, and mentioning the dismal science of economics. Carlyle’s largest claims, however, seem drawn from pathos and emotion, seeking to frighten the reader with the threat of an unworked black man. Carlyle states that white British are not well-off, and are in fact starving, because black men aren’t working. He  raves,

“These two, Exeter Hall philanthropy and the Dismal Science, led by any sacred cause of black emancipation, or the like, to fall in love and make a wedding of it - will give birth to progenies and prodigies: dark extensive moon-calves, unnameable abortions, wide coiled monstrosities, such as the world has not seen hitherto! (Carlyle, 982)”

John Stuart Mill’s rebuttal to Thomas Carlyle’s essay was written to the editor of Fraser Magazine, titled “The N- Question”, written just a year later. Mill uses much the same terminology and rhetorical appeals as Carlyle, simply aims at a different group than Carlyle’s anti-abolitionist reader. But on top of Mill’s appeals to logic and Pathos, he also piles on a direct analysis of Carlyle’s own rhetoric. Mill immediately introduces Carlyle’s use of “The Destinies”, “immortal gods”, and “The Powers”. Mill then directly sets out to ‘correct’ Carlyle, as he says, by rebutting that the abolition movement was successful, not out of sentiment, but out of justice. He appeals to the reader’s conscience and idea of sin. 

“For nearly two centuries had n-, many thousands annually, been seized by force or treachery and worked to death, literally to death; for it was the received maxim, the acknowledged dictate of good economy, to wear them out quickly and import more. (Mill, 984)”

Mill then dissipates Carlyle’s rocky statement that black men are designed, or compelled to work. Carlyle had suggested that without labor, black men in British colonies wasted away, or gorged themselves on food they didn’t earn. Mill disputes this by suggesting that the way Carlyle defines labor is not good on its own, and not a pragmatic method to judge by. Mill supplants Carlyle’s attempts to connect emotionally with an audience of anti-abolitionists, while simultaneously making his own claims and criticisms of Carlyle’s audience. Slowly Mill works in words like ‘tyranny’, suggesting over time, so as not to shock his reader, that the concept or act of slavery is not as benevolent or harmless as Carlyle suggested.

London Labor and London Poor: Deserved Penury

Blayne Sanders

London Labor and London Poor: Deserved Penury

                  Post-industrialized Britain was rampant with poverty, filth, and disease. Specialization and factory work attracted thousands of British citizens to the cities searching for jobs. The majority of the population was extremely poor. Horrific conditions circulated disease, such as inadequate housing which left families in small tight cramped housing. Furthermore, working conditions in the factories were inhumane. Children, women, and men worked exceptionally long hours, around fourteen to sixteen hours a day, for minimal pay. With the migration into the cities, factories owners placed wages astoundingly low as there was a constant supply of new workers willing to work.

                  Victorian authors of the time created literature which exposed the petrifying conditions the new poverty-ridden working class. Charles Dickens’ A Walk in the Workhouse sympathetically details the the conditions of the poor who seek sanctuary in the workhouse. Images of burned dying children, starving old men, and women who would realistically have better conditions imprisoned highlight the terrifying reality of post-industrialized Britain. “Generally, the faces were depressed and subdued, and wanted colour. Aged people were there in every variety. Mumbling, blear-eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame; vacantly winking in the gleams of sun” (751). Despite authors attempts to gain sympathy for the poverty ridden, there was a clear distinction between the poor, those who innately deserved to be poor such as the Hindu beggars Henry Mayhew chronicles and those who were undeserving of the penury.

                  Mayhew describes beggars on the London street, however due to their race, he explicitly details how they are deservedly poor. Accusing the Hindu of lying about their religious beliefs to gain support from elderly Christian women, as well as lying about the caste in which they came in order to seek refuge from the winter cold, infuriates Mayhew. “As untruth is habitual to them, there is not the slightest dependence to be placed on what they say” (1019). Continually, he describes the conditions in which these individuals starve for food and freeze for warmth. “Sometimes in the winter they… stand on the kerb-stone of the pavement, in their thin, ragged clothes, and shiver as with cold and hunger, or crouch against a wall and whine like a whipped animal” (1019). In addition, Mayhew explains that the beggars often sing and dance or sell matches in order to earn money. Nevertheless, the Hindu were deservedly poor for being lying, manipulating, and deceitful in Mayhew’s opinion.

                  These categorical divided between the poverty ridden, although horrifying, does not mask the penury Britain suffered during the Victorian era. The majority of the country was poor, food was scarce, working conditions were grueling and long, pay was minimal, housing was destitute and small, and diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis swept through towns.

"Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question" Thomas Carlyle

I wish this was something other than what it seems. After the abolition of slavery in all British lands and colonies in 1837, plantation owners in the West Indies complained about their situation, and having to compete with other sugar producers where slavery was still legal. Carlyle was one among many who supported their arguments. In this rather disgusting article, Carlyle wrote on why black people need slavery in order to ensure they “do competent work, to labor honestly according to the ability given them; for that, and for no other purpose, was each one of us sent into this world; and woe is to every man who by friend or by foe, is prevented from fulfilling this, the end of his being.”  He seemed to believe unless compelled by such means that they would simply sit idly by eating pumpkin.

Carlyle believes fully in the dignity of the “European white man.” He claims that without the European colonist Jamaica would have remained a tropical wasteland filled with naught but poisoned flora and fauna and cannibals. That the presence of the white man is the only thing that made these islands profitable. “For countless ages, since they first mounted oozy on the back of earthquakes, from their dark bed in the ocean deeps, and reeking, saluted the tropical sun, and ever onward, till the European white man first saw them some three short centuries ago, those islands had produced mere jungle, savagery, poison reptiles and swamp malaria till the white European first saw them, they were, as if not yet created; their noble elements of cinnamon—sugar, coffee, pepper, black and gray, lying all asleep, waiting the white Enchanter, who should say to them awake!” His belief in white superiority is not only present, it exists to him like magic, a force that exists outside of mere reality. A truth universally known. And as such, the subjugation of lesser men is only natural.

He sees the abolishment of slavery as an abomination. It is difficult to understand such a man. His words make apparent his unchangeable belief of superiority. It is doubtful he ever saw first-hand the situation of Jamaican Sugar Plantations, or he wouldn’t be so sure of European White Superiority of Self and Moral. I wonder if he would be so supportive of Adscripti glebae if serfdom was still practiced in Britain at the time he was writing.

What’s unsettling is that his was not an uncommon view in Victorian England.  What’s really unsettling is that his is not an uncommon view for some people today. Racism is not just a disgusting fact of the past. It still exists today. The KKK has not been abolished and still produces pamphlets and has a website that anyone can access. I wish that we could say views and writings like this no longer existed, but this is sadly not truth. Hopefully one day it will be.