How Empires Fall

Globalization is not new, and neither is its repercussions.

A little over a hundred years ago England stood at the center of the first truly globalized economy.  The British navy and the East India Company had conquered nearly a fifth of the world’s land mass, and Queen Victoria ruled over roughly a quarter of the world’s population.  Raw materials and raw wealth flowed into England from all over the world, and at any time somewhere in the world backs were bent in sweatshops and fields laboring in England’s behalf.  It was truly said that “The sun never set of the British Empire.”  

Such great empires require complex organizations, and it wasn’t enough to send out agents from England.  Local bureaucrats and managers had to be trained to read and write in English.  As the bureaucratic infrastructure became increasingly complex new center of power emerged in the colonies.  A new middle class appeared, raised to think of themselves as citizens of the English Empire.  In time, they began to wonder why they should not also share in the rights of Englishmen.  Pressures for self-rule became protests for independence as local leaders began to emerge in the colonies.

At the same time similar questions were arising at home.  Increasingly the wealth of the empire was flowing into the pockets of investors, insurers and merchants while nearly a quarter of the English population lived at or below the poverty line.  With the industrial revolution many workers lost their jobs to mechanization, and major industries like mining and ship building saw periodic cycles of unemployment.  While nineteenth century reforms gave householders and farmers the right to vote many of the poor were still excluded, as were all women, and an arcane electoral system resulted in unequal representation.

Through the end of the 19th century the two main political parties traded the government back and forth with relatively little disagreement over foreign policy or free trade.  Then in 1901 disagreements over the Boer War brought the conservatives back into power on a wave of nationalist sentiment, but the war proved expensive.  It soon became clear that Britain could no longer act unilaterally, but long decades as the world’s only superpower had left British politicians ill prepared to negotiate with allies.  As news spread of Boer women and children dying in unsanitary “concentration camps” the public turned against the war.  The conservative defended their actions as military necessities, but the elections in 1905 saw a liberal victory.

The start of the twentieth century saw the rise of progressive issues.  Women demanded the right to vote, and working parents demanded better education for their children.  The poor demanded better living conditions, prison reform and reform of the poor laws, and the public demanded higher taxes on the rich and tariffs on imports.  The liberal party introduced national insurance and unemployment support, but the party began to fracture over its embrace of free trade and its willingness to compromise with conservatives.  Radical progressives formed a socialist “labor” party, and by the 1920s they had replaced the old liberals.  

Faced with declining influence overseas and an insurgent working class at home, those in power struggled to maintain their hold.  Politics became increasingly volatile as old answers no longer met the new realities.  This is how empires fall—not because those at the top become soft and weak but because those who have labored to build the foundations become lean and hungry.  To resist their demands, or to capitalize on them, only widens the cracks in the social infrastructure.

The First Internment Camp

1675 would be a turning point in American history.  That year saw the start of King Philip’s War.  It was the final breakdown in the alliance with the Wampanoag that had been establish by the Pilgrims at Plymouth and Philip’s father, Massasoit.  It would be the bloodiest war in colonial history and, per capita, the bloodiest war in American history.  –But that was not the only turning point that year. 

King Philip by Paul Revere

Relations with the native tribes had been deteriorating for some time.  The war with the Pequot had been fought almost forty years earlier, but something had changed in that time.
During the Pequot War, the English settlers had been allied with the Narraganset and Wampanoag, and the war was partly the product of inter-tribal conflicts.  As a result of that war, however, the New England colonies had formed a confederation, and Philip had spent a dozen or more years building alliances with the neighboring tribes.  As a result, King Philip’s war would be fought along racial lines.

At the start of the War, some men had tried to negotiate with local tribes.  Benjamin Church had convinced the Sakonnet and Pocasset to remain neutral, and John Eliot—known as “the Apostle to the Indians”—had converted many of the Nipmuc and Pennacook to Christianity.  These converts, called “praying Indians,” had adopted English clothing and culture and even founded the English-style towns of Natick and Marlborough.  They would remain loyal to the English throughout the war.  

Many of the English distrusted even their Christian allies, and laws were passed banning the Nipmuc and other converts from bearing guns or travelling outside their villages.  This prevented them from hunting or, in some cases, cultivating their fields.  Tensions only increased as Philip’s forces won a series of victories as far west as Springfield and along the coast north into southern Maine.  Then in October the Nipmuc residents of Natick were ordered to relocate to Deer Island in Boston Harbor—which became America’s first internment camp.  Some time later they were joined by the Pennacook from Marlborough.

Some of the English colonists protested this decision, such as the missionary John Eliot and the magistrates Daniel Gookin and Thomas Danforth.  These men had been born in England, where society was divided along lines of class and religion, and they still saw their world in these terms.  Philip’s allies were not Christian, and Philip had expressed distrust of the converts.  For Eliot, Gookin and Danforth that made all the difference.  By 1675, however, the majority of English colonists had been born in America, and their world was divided into English and “Indian.”  They saw no difference between Philip’s allies and the “praying” allies of the English.  As a result, both Danforth and Gookin received death threats over their open support of the Christian brethren. 

Finally, in May of 1676 the war turned against the Wampanoag, partly because Philip had failed to secure an alliance with the Mohawk who saw an opportunity to harass his western border.  With the threat diminished, the English colonists began to relax, and the survivors were released from Deer Island.  Unfortunately, during the winter without adequate food or shelter roughly half of the Nipmuc and Pennacook on the island had died.  For the rest, the world had changed.

Roughly fifty years after the first English colonists had settled in New England, as the first generation born in America were beginning to craft an identity distinct from their cousins in England, race had become a defining part of that identity