Global Encounters and the Archives: Britain’s Empire in the Age of Horace Walpole
Item
Considerations on the Agreement of the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury with the Honourable Thomas Walpole and the Association for Lands upon the River Ohio, in North America, 1774
Title
Considerations on the Agreement of the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury with the Honourable Thomas Walpole and the Association for Lands upon the River Ohio, in North America, 1774
Description
By the early 1770s, Britain's policies toward South Asian and North American indigenous peoples had changed significantly. Robert Clive's acquisition of diwan from Mughal Emperor Shah Alam had transformed the British Company into territorial sovereigns of Bengal, while the ejection of the French from North America catalyzed an insatiable demand by settlers for expansion into the Ohio Valley. Both South Asian and North American indigenous peoples faced new imperial policies that reduced their status within the empire in entangled ways. Robert Clive, who was synonymous with new forms of governance in India, used his speech to Parliament to frame "inferior" Bengalis as "servile" and "mean" and "superior" Bengalis as "effeminate" and "cruel." Here, Thomas Walpole's agreement also downplays indigenous peoples' status by casting the Six Nations Iroquois not as North American power brokers, but as agents for the transaction of territory to white settlers. Thomas Walpole's papers help to explain this overlap; before leading his group of investors to seek the Iroquois land grant in North America, he had in fact served as an East India Company director and influenced company policy in India.
Contributor
Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library
Relation
Thomas Walpole Papers (1770-1790) This new and unmined acquisition of approximately 400 letters in the Thomas Walpole Papers provides a unique and unmined insight into the Age of Revolutions, in which Thomas Walpole (1727-1803)was both participant and observer. Extent: approximately 400 letters Summary: The Thomas Walpole Papers provide insight into the American and French Revolutions through correspondence of participants and diplomatic officials. Thomas Walpole (1727-1803), MP and banker, was the nephew of Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and cousin of Horace Walpole. Thomas Walpole was involved in ventures across the Empire, from America to India, and his correspondence features prominent historical figures including Benjamin Franklin, Lord North, Lord Shelburne and Jacques Necker. Much of the material in this extensive collection dates from the 1770s and 1780s and concerns Walpole's diplomatic efforts with America during the Revolution and France in the early 1780s. Walpole, then, was a witness to and actor in the politics surrounding both the American and French Revolutions. In addition, he also corresponded frequently with William Pitt the Elder as well as the Duke of Newcastle. Outside of the realm of politics and diplomacy, this collection also contains private correspondence relating to Walpole's own financial exploits and failures. These papers provide insight into the political world of Britain and her position in the international political sphere during the revolutionary period of the late-eighteenth century.
