did Britain commit mass killings or genocide in the course of building up the magnificent British Empire ?

Question

Can you point out the mass killings and genocide that were committed by British soldiers and/or British nationals in different parts of the world in the course of building the British Empire. eg.Tasmania

Answer 1

Unfortunately, the answer is yes. They killed and humiliated others to show that they are much superior. Shot and mutilated just for a laugh. Apparently it was only fair then. Does anyone talk about it now? Ssssshhhh. No. JUST DIRRTY HISTORY we would rather forget and carry on. Mmmmm

Answer 2

We Invented Biological Warfare By Giving Canadian Indian Tribes Smallpox Infested Blankets
We Created The First Concentration Camps during The Boer War Inprisoning Boer Families Mothers Wives Children in Unhealthy Belltents exposed to all weather conditions
The Younghusband Expedition to Tibet Slaughtered Buddhist Monks
The Storming of The Golden Temple at Armritsar The Queen made a Pubic Apology for recently After Culloden The Jacobite Highlanderand Their Family Was Put To The Sword and The Homes Burned
Yeah You could Say The Brits were Naughty Boys

Answer 3

FIRST, get the correct definition of GENOCIDE : the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.

Sadly there are deaths throughout the history of the British Empire... but I can't consider Ireland "genocide"... the Potato Famine was an act of nature, followed by greedy and uncaring policies on behalf of the Crown. This is NOT deliberate and systematic. REMEMBER that the people of IRELAND switched to potatoes from grains in the 1600-1700's as a result of the end of the "Little Ice Age" which destroyed almost all grain crops throughout Europe and caused mass-famine.

South Africa, India, Afghanistan... these incidents occured during war, and are regretable... but again, NOT deliberate and systematic. Often reactions to the behavior of the other sides behaviours

And most of this occurs back in the 1700's - 1800's... not the best times throughout the world: thus the American Revolution, French Revolution, and beginnings of democracy. It's a little rough to attempt to apply the moral rules of today to the history of policies in the past.. the LONG past !! That is "Revisionist-History"

Good lessons to LEARN from... but to punish retroactively is foolish and pernicious.

Answer 4

As a South African, I must point out that the answer regarding the concentration camps in South Africa is not entirely correct. The women and children weren't murdered. They were kept in unsanitary conditions, with little medical help and probably poorly nourished. This caused diseases to spread. And yes, it is a shame to the British flag, but those same women had a lot to be grateful to the British people here in the UK for, particularly Emily Hobhouse, who alerted the British public to what was going on.
It is incorrect to say they were murdered. The British had no right to be there, but then, by extension, neither did the Afrikaners. Or the Africans, for who knows where they came from?
They certainly weren't gassed or shot as the Nazis did, anyway. The intention was to bring the Republic's men to their knees by preventing their women from feeding them.
And by the way - it was thousands - around 26 000 women and children died. And yes, some were raped. Around 24 000 British men died - most of disease, too. 4 000 Afrikaners died. The whole situation was a disgrace, but it wasn't genocide.

Answer 5

The so-called " Potato Famine" in the 1840s in Ireland has been acknowledged as a "Genocide" and not as a Famine, by the British government. The difference being, there were plenty of other crops that were sent to England, However the principal food of the Irish was the potatoes and the English landlords wanted them off the land so they could use it more lucratively. They didn't care whether they starved or moved to the new world. It's ironic really, because when they & others from other nations moved to the US, it really kick started the Genocide of the Native people in America.

Thank you CALPURNIA for explaning about the "Boar War" situation, I knew it was something like that but I didn't know the details

Answer 6

There haven't BEEN a lot of "women dictators". If there had been, then over the centuries, some of them would probably have turned out to be pretty ruthless. But men largely kept women out of positions of power until relatively recently in the history of the world. A previous poster mentioned Isabel of Castile. She ruled jointly with her husband, but given their treatment of Jews and Muslims and their support for the Inquisition, I think it can be said that Isabel, while not engaging in any hands-on torture and killing, indicates that women may be no better than men when it comes to certain behaviors.

Answer 7

Ah yes, the Pattato Fammon. It's a well known fact that lack of Pattatoes causes inability to spool priperly. But failure of policy hardly qualifies as a deliberate act of genocide and, by the 1840s, Ireland had long ago been added to the Crown - not the Empire.
There's any number of bloody slaughters that could be pointed to. The Battle of Omdurman, for example where Kitchener's army, equipped with the Maxim gun, wiped out thousands of Sundanese warriors. Any number of excesses in india, particularly in the wake of the Mutiny. It just goes on and on and on.
But India would probably be far better off as a confetti of tiny monarchies, with no common language, without democracy, without the rule of law, don't you think. And, looking at the map of Africa, I think we can all agree that all those happy, healthy, thriving little countries are doing so much better running themselves, slaughtering their own people quietly and efficiently with no intervention from the nasty old white men.

Answer 8

As a trained historian I am again bemused by the misconception that surrounds the potato famine, I could give you my opinions gained from studying primary sources but thought instead a more objective source might carry more weight:

The Great Famine or the Great Hunger (Irish: An Gorta Mór or An Drochshaol), known more commonly outside of Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, is the name given to the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1851.

The Famine was due to the appearance of "the Blight" – the potato fungus that almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for the majority population.

The immediate after-effects of The Famine continued until 1851. Much is unrecorded, and various estimates suggest that between 500,000 and more than one million people died in the five years from 1846 to 1851 as a result of hunger or disease. Some two million refugees are attributed to the Great Hunger (estimates vary), and much the same number of people emigrated to Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia (see the Irish Diaspora).


Might I draw attention to the second paragraph. Also view here the section on the UKs response, I think any reasonable person would concur this is far from genocide:

The initial British government policy towards the famine was, in the view of historians such as F.S.L. Lyons, "very delayed and slow"[2]. Professor Joe Lee contends: "There was nothing unique (by the standards of pre-industrial subsistence crisis) about the [Irish] famine. The death rate had been frequently equalled in earlier European famines, including, possibly, in Ireland itself during the famine of 1740–41" [3]. This 1740–1741 famine is commonly referred to as The Forgotten Famine.

In the case of the 1846–49 Irish Famine, the response of Tory government head Sir Robert Peel was to purchase some foreign maize for delivery to Ireland, and to repeal the Corn Laws, which prohibited imports of the much cheaper foreign grain to Ireland. The repeal of the Corn Laws was enacted over a three-year period from 1846 to 1849 and came too late to help the starving Irish, and was politically unpopular, resulting in the end of Sir Robert's ministry. Succeeding him was a Whig ministry under Lord John Russell. Lord Russell's ministry focused on providing support through public works and soup kitchens. Unfortunately, in the autumn of 1847, these relief programs were shut down and responsibility for famine relief was transferred to the Poor Laws unions. The Irish Poor Laws were even harsher on the poor than their English counterparts; those paupers with over a quarter-acre of land were expected to abandon it before entering a workhouse-something many of the poor would not do. Furthermore, Ireland had too few workhouses. Many of the workhouses that existed were closed due to financial problems; authorities in London refused to give large amounts of aid to bankrupt Poor Laws unions. As a result, disaster became inevitable.

During the winter of 1845–1846 Peel's government spent £100,000 on American maize which was sold to the destitute. The Irish called the maize 'Peel's brimstone' — and the nickname was only partly because of the yellow colour of the maize. Eventually the government also initiated relief schemes such as canal-building and road building to provide employment. The workers were paid at the end of the week and often men had died of starvation before their wages arrived. Even worse, many of the schemes were of little use: men filled in valleys and flattened hills just so the government could justify the cash payments.

Altough the British Empire as with any Empire was built with deaths and suffering, it was not the premeditated ethnic cleansing which many seem to think.

Answer 9

Scotland (murdered thousands of men, women and children)Eire (millions in the potato famine and stealing the of the north)-India-Africa (rounding up the indigenous for the slave trade plus many more seperate atrocities)-Australia (Aborigines)-New Zealand (Maoris) Greece (rounded up thousands of Jews, most fresh out of concentration camps, en route to Isreal after the second world war had ended and kept them in conditions similar to what they had just left)
The list is endless and undoubtedly covers all continents around the globe... 'magnificent British empire'? All the colonising nations should be ashamed.

Answer 10

Would that be the same 'Great British Empire' that Blair has 'given away'? I don't know about the past but I can assure you there Will be mass killings and genocide here soon because we Brits will Never give up without a fight. And we will start with Blair and his cronies!!!

Answer 11

England gets a bad press, compared to other european countries and their colonies because of the language, literature on Europea countries doesn't get much class time. They could be pretty brutal, when e.g portugal left mozambique they cemented up the sewarge system on purpose. Aparteid - boeurs..

England was all about trade, we paid off people/helped uprisings, put in puppets. When there were battles it was generally against resistance groups, using local soldiers in addition to the brits. Many slaves died in transit, but agains THEY WERE TRADED, africans sold themsleves out. Also at the height of slavery TEN TIMES the amount of slaves were being shipped to the Middle east. Africans make a healthy percentage of modern euopean countries, not so in the middle east. The slaves worked to death and/or castrated. DONT FALL FOR THE SLAVERY MYTHS.

Not many people realise but british troops were sent in initially to protect catholics in ireland!