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Three Rebellions considers the context, causes, consequences and commemoration of three major popular disturbances in the British Empire during the early years of Queen Victoria’s long reign. In the Canadas, present-day Quebec and Ontario, during 1837 and 1838, at Newport in South Wales in 1839 and at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria in Australia in 1854 thousands of largely working people took up arms against the forces of colonial rule and oppression. What linked these three events was a popular form of constitutionalism, linked to British radicalism and especially to Chartism that sought constitutional and democratic change but which was denied by colonial oligarchies that sought to retain political power in their own hands. They all failed when faced by the overwhelming force of the colonial state but, although they were defeated militarily, each played a significant role in the emergence of more responsive and responsible government. Today, the losers are better remembered than those who defeated them in 1837-38, 1839 and 1854.
This book attempts something that has never been done before: a detailed examination of constitutional and political developments in Canada, South Wales and Australia in the first six decades of the nineteenth century. It is based on a comprehensive examination of available materials and should appeal to both historians and general readers interested in considering how and why Canada and Australia, two of the most important white-settler colonies, achieved a form of self-government and why reform in Britain took much longer. It also provides analysis of the global impact of British radicalism and the ways in which its ideas were transposed to the colonies and modified by that experience.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
1: Situating events
2: Causing events
3: Describing events
4: After the event
5: Linking events
6: Remembering events
7: Rebellion and Empire
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
Features
Comprehensive narrative of the context, causes, course and consequences of the three rebellions combining analysis of the constitutional, political, social, economic and cultural features
Links the British Chartist movement to events in the Canadas and Australia
Examines how the three rebellions have been remembered and commemorated
Considers each rebellion in its historiographical context
Explores the role played by women and the ‘historically voiceless’ indigenous peoples in the rebellions
Provides a model for examining white-settler societies grounded in different ‘voices’
Three Rebellions: Canada 1837-1838, South Wales 1839 and Victoria, Australia 1854
Richard Brown
865 pages, £35, paperback
(Clio Publishing), 2010
ISBN-10: 0955698332
ISBN-13: 978-0955698330
It is also available as a Kindle book.
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