An Awakening in the East 223taken hundreds of years to evolve in Europe—were pressed upon the
colonized lands with no attempt to render them in terms the indige-
nous population would either recognize or understand. Western tech-
nology was shared only insofar as it increased production. New cities
were built instead of old cities being developed. Cheaply manufac-
tured imports destroyed most local industries, and native markets had
little choice but to focus almost exclusively on the economic needs of
the colonial powers.
In return for the pillaging of their lands, the suppression of their
independence, and the destruction of their local economies, the colo-
nized peoples were to be given the gift of “civilization.” Indeed, in
every region to which Europeans laid claim, the colonialist project
was presented in the guise of a “civilizing mission.” As Cecil Rhodes,
founder of the De Beers diamond company and at one time the virtual
dictator of modern-day South Africa, famously declared, “We Britons
are the first race in the world, and the more of the world we inhabit,
the better it is for the human race.”
Among the many problems with this so-called civilizing mission
was that, well-intentioned as it may have been, it was often deliber-
ately shadowed by a “Christianizing mission,” the principle goal of
which was, in the words of Sir Charles Trevelyan, Governor of
Madras, “nothing short of the conversion of the natives to Christian-
ity.” In India, Christian evangelists were placed in the highest posi-
tions of government, including at all levels of the British Army.
Charles Grant, the director of the East India Company (which until
1858 retained nearly all powers of government), was himself an active
Christian missionary who believed, along with most of his country-
men, that Britain had been granted dominion over India by God in
order to rear it out of its heathen darkness and into the light of Christ.
Nearly half of all schools in the Subcontinent were run by missionar-
ies like Grant who received large amounts of aid from the British
Empire to indoctrinate the natives into Christianity.
Not all colonialists agreed with Britain’s missionary agenda. Lord
Ellenborough, Governor General from 1842 to 1844, continually
warned his countrymen that the imperial promotion of Christian evan-
gelism was not only detrimental to the security of the Empire, it would
likely lead to popular resentment and perhaps to open rebellion. Yet