Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841-1880For its earliest promoters, Hong Kong was an island 'bespread with palaces, a beautifully and well ordered city, a miracle of British enterprise and dormant power' at the edge of a crumbling Chinese Empire. This 'capital of Anglo-China', as some of them called it, was a place where Chinese and Europeans could freely exchange goods and ideas under a benevolent and progressive British rule. Nineteenth-century Hong Kong was all of that. But it was also a struggling frontier settlement, troubled by crime and war, divided by race, and periodically rocked by controversy. Through a succession of experiments in government, early British officials sought ways of managing a politically complex Chinese population, who, though essential to Hong Kong's economic success, seemed intractable to traditional colonial methods. The uneasy solutions that emerged combined heavy policing of the lower classes and shaky collaboration with a burgeoning Chinese merchant elite. Anglo-China traces the development of colonial rule in early British Hong Kong. Drawing on a variety of hitherto neglected sources, the book also explores how the daily practice of government affected the lives of people in the region – and how they in turn sought to shape colonial rule. |
Contents
1 | |
19 | |
PART TWO Crime and Justice | 107 |
PART THREE Finding an Finding an Equilibrium | 255 |
Conclusion | 374 |
Other editions - View all
Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841-1880 Christopher Munn Limited preview - 2001 |
Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841-1880 Christopher Munn Limited preview - 2013 |
Anglo-China: Chinese People and British Rule in Hong Kong, 1841-1880 Christopher Munn Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
25 February Anstey April August Bowring to Labouchere Bowring’s Bridges British British Parliamentary Papers British rule Caine Caldwell Caldwell’s Canton Press China Mail Chinese authorities Chinese community Chinese government Chinese inhabitants Chinese merchants Chinese offenders Chinese officials Chinese population Chinese Repository colonial community colonial government colonial Hong Kong Colonial Office colonists colony’s convicted coolies crime Davis to Stanley December defendants difficulties early colonial early Hong Kong European evidence Executive Council minutes extortion February fines first five flogging Friend of China gaol government’s Governor Hennessy Hongkong Government Gazette Hongkong Register ibid imprisonment influence island January John Pope Hennessy July June jury Kong’s labour Lower Bazaar MacDonnell MacDonnell’s Magistracy March monopoly November October offences officers officials opium Ordinance petition piracy pirates police political Pottinger prisoners problems prosecution punishment sentenced September servants shopkeepers Supreme Court Taipingshan Tarrant tepos trade transportation trial Tung Wah Hospital villagers W.T. Bridges witnesses Ye Mingchen