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1 results

  • 8 - Slave Traders

  • from Part II - The Problem of Unfreedom
  • Lisa Ford, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Kirsten McKenzie, University of Sydney, Naomi Parkinson, University of New South Wales, Sydney, David Andrew Roberts, University of New England, Australia
  • Book:
    Inquiring into Empire
    Published online:
    18 March 2025
    Print publication:
    27 February 2025, pp 198-222

  • Summary

    When the Commission of Eastern Inquiry tried to investigate sensational allegations that the former Governor of Mauritius, Robert Farquhar, had actively collaborated in and profited from the thriving slave trade (1826–29), it demonstrated the limits of crown commissions as information gatherers and incubators of reform. This chapter shows how every layer of Mauritian society (with the notable exception of a few disgruntled officials and Liberated Africans) worked to thwart investigation, not only into the slave trade but also into other key objects of inquiry. In the process, the Mauritius inquiry demonstrates how much the success of conservative reform relied on buy-in from and compromise with colonial publics. The centrality of the commissioners’ role in binding new publics to empire, and the consequences of its failure, are abundantly clear.