Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality

383 Pages·2008·1.341 MB·English

by  Marilyn Lake, Henry Reynolds

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Drawing the Global Colour Line
In 1900 W. E. B. DuBois prophesied that the colour line would be
the key problem of the twentieth-century and he later identified one
ofitsmajordynamics:thenewreligionofwhitenessthatwassweeping
theworld.Whereasmosthistorianshaveconfinedtheirstudiesofrace-
relations to a national framework, this book offers a pioneering study
of the transnational circulation of people and ideas, racial knowledge
andtechnologiesthatunderpinnedtheconstructionofself-styledwhite
men’scountriesfromSouthAfricatoNorthAmericaandAustralasia.
Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds show how in the late nineteenth
centuryandearlytwentiethcenturythesecountriesworkedinsolidar-
itytoexcludethosetheydefinedasnot-white,actionsthatprovokeda
longinternationalstruggleforracialequality.Theirfindingsmakeclear
the centrality of struggles around mobility and sovereignty to modern
formulationsofbothraceandhumanrights.
marilyn lake holdsaPersonalChairintheSchoolofHistoricaland
European Studies, LaTrobe University, Melbourne. Her publications
includeGettingEqual:TheHistoryofAustralianFeminism(1999),Faith:
FaithBandler,GentleActivist(2002)and,asco-editor,ConnectedWorlds:
HistoryinTransnationalPerspective(2006).
henry reynolds holdsaPersonalChairinHistoryandAboriginal
StudiesattheUniversityofTasmania.Hispreviouspublicationsinclude
TheOtherSideoftheFrontier(1981),WhyWeren’tWeTold?(2000)and
TheLawoftheLand(2003).
CriticalPerspectivesonEmpire
Editors
ProfessorCatherineHall
UniversityCollegeLondon
ProfessorMrinaliniSinha
PennsylvaniaStateUniversity
ProfessorKathleenWilson
StateUniversityofNewYork,StonyBrook
CriticalPerspectivesonEmpireisamajornewseriesofambitious,cross-disciplinary
works in the emerging field of critical imperial studies. Books in the series will
exploretheconnections,exchangesandmediationsattheheartofnationaland
global histories, the contributions of local as well as metropolitan knowledge,
and the flows of people, ideas and identities facilitated by colonial contact. To
thatend,theserieswillnotonlyofferaspaceforoutstandingscholarsworking
attheintersectionofseveraldisciplinestobringtowiderattentiontheimpactof
theirwork;itwillalsotakealeadingroleinreconfiguringcontemporaryhistor-
icalandcriticalknowledge,ofthepastandofourselves.
Drawing the Global Colour Line
White Men’s Countries and the International
Challenge of Racial Equality
Marilyn Lake
LaTrobeUniversity,Melbourne
and
Henry Reynolds
UniversityofTasmania
CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB28RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521881180
© Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds 2008
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of
relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place
without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2008
ISBN-13 978-0-511-37738-9 eBook (EBL)
ISBN-13 978-0-521-88118-0 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-70752-7 paperback
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for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not
guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
For our children:
Katherine and Jessica
and
John, Anna and Rebecca

Contents
Acknowledgments pageix
Introduction 1
Part1 Modernmobilities
1 Thecomingman:Chinesemigrationtothegoldfields 15
Part2 Discursiveframeworks
2 TheAmericanCommonwealthandthe‘negroproblem’ 49
3 ‘Thedaywillcome’:CharlesPearson’sdisturbingprophecy 75
4 TheodoreRoosevelt’sre-assertionofracialvigour 95
5 Imperialbrotherhoodorwhite?GandhiinSouthAfrica 114
Part3 Transnationalsolidarities
6 WhiteAustraliapointstheway 137
7 DefendingthePacificSlope 166
8 Whitetiesacrosstheocean:thePacifictouroftheUSfleet 190
9 TheUnionofSouthAfrica:whitemenreconcile 210
Part4 Challengeandconsolidation
10 Internationalconferences:cosmopolitanamityorracial
enmity? 241
11 Japanesealienationandimperialambition 263
12 Racialequality?TheParisPeaceConference,1919 284
vii
viii Contents
13 Immigrationrestrictioninthe1920s:‘segregationona
largescale’ 310
Part5 Towardsuniversalhumanrights
14 Individualrightswithoutdistinction 335
Index 357