ABSTRACT
In fact, during the century from 1760 to 1860, domestic economic expansion and the experience of empire were finally absorbing the “indigenous peoples” of the British Isles themselves. This chapter argues that the period 1760—1860 was a critical one in the epistemological and economic creation of “indigenous peoples” as a series of comparable categories across the globe. It shows that a consideration of the nature of British imperial expansion and of British intellectual history is central to an understanding of the invention of these “indigenous peoples”. British territorial expansion throughout the empire beyond the West Indies between 1760 and 1830 was driven centrally by the need to finance and provision imperial armies from local resources. It was redoubled by the resistance of indigenous peoples to that very expansion. The chapter indicates ways in which indigenous peoples fought back against, “wrote back” against and creatively negotiated the advances of colonial rule throughout the British-dominated world.
