Re-Reading Morant Bay: Protest, Inquiry, and Colonial Rule

IF 0.8 3区 社会学 Q1 HISTORY
J. Connolly
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Abstract

Abstract The 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion figures prominently in scholarship on modern Britain, colonial Jamaica, and the British Empire, as a milestone of post-emancipation protest, a turning point in British race-thinking, and a focal point for debates on martial law and British justice. This article presents a new interpretation of the rebellion’s legal and political significance. Focused on processes of formal inquiry, I argue that legal analysis reshaped the political “moral” of the event. For the rebellion’s participants and some British observers, Morant Bay challenged the practice of colonial rule. But beginning with the royal commission of inquiry called to investigate the suppression, formal inquiry displaced the systemic critique that had largely motivated the uprising. Focused increasingly on the nature of martial law and culminating in the criminal prosecution of Jamaica’s colonial governor, legal debate and analysis transformed the scandal’s moral center and turned Morant Bay into a new justification for further and more centralized imperial control. In developing these arguments, the article examines law’s capacity to read, write, and exclude competing narratives of empire. In so doing, it contributes to scholarship on scandal and legitimation, and offers a new interpretation of a seminal nineteenth-century debate on the use of martial law.
重读莫兰特湾:抗议、调查和殖民统治
1865年的莫兰特湾叛乱在研究现代英国、殖民地牙买加和大英帝国的学术研究中占有重要地位,是解放后抗议活动的里程碑,是英国种族思想的转折点,也是戒严法和英国司法辩论的焦点。本文对这次叛乱的法律和政治意义提出了新的解释。我把重点放在正式调查的过程上,认为法律分析重塑了事件的政治“道德”。对于叛乱的参与者和一些英国观察家来说,莫兰特湾挑战了殖民统治的做法。但从皇家调查委员会被召集调查镇压开始,正式的调查取代了在很大程度上推动起义的系统性批评。法律辩论和分析越来越关注戒严法的本质,并最终以对牙买加殖民总督的刑事起诉而达到高潮。这些辩论和分析改变了丑闻的道德中心,并将莫兰特湾变成了进一步和更集中的帝国控制的新理由。在发展这些论点的过程中,本文考察了法律阅读、写作和排除帝国竞争叙事的能力。在这样做的过程中,它为丑闻和合法性的学术研究做出了贡献,并为19世纪关于使用戒严法的开创性辩论提供了新的解释。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
1.10
自引率
12.50%
发文量
42
期刊介绍: Law and History Review (LHR), America"s leading legal history journal, encompasses American, European, and ancient legal history issues. The journal"s purpose is to further research in the fields of the social history of law and the history of legal ideas and institutions. LHR features articles, essays, commentaries by international authorities, and reviews of important books on legal history. American Society for Legal History
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