Post-colonialism refers to the effects on any given culture after their civilization has been colonized by a separate cultural group. Throughout history, England has been known to colonize many parts of the world in order to benefit from unique resources. In the Victorian era, England had few rivals and insignificant competition for maintaining strongholds in many parts of the world since Napoleon had been defeated. England held land and processed resources as if it were part of England in parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Though England is proportionally a small country, the British people relied on the resources from their colonies for generations. In addition, they contributed these resources to the “cultural colonization” of their lands as well.

One of the primary colonies of England during the Victorian era was western and southern India. However, the year 1876 began with a failed monsoon and as a result, a famine that lasted three years. Due to their reliance on grain from India, England continued to collect all the grain they could in order to export it to other colonies and the “mother land” itself. Due to the famine and Britain’s control over the little grain that existed nearly 11,000,000 people died from starvation and other famine-related conditions in English controlled India during the 3 years the famine stayed.

In our readings, we have discussed England’s involvement in imperialism and colonization of foreign lands. Many of the characters we’ve read about have traveled to these colonies including ones in Australia, the Americas, and India. With so much reliance on resources from these places, characters from novels who were wealthy often owned land and worked to sell these resources back to the state for profit. Others traveled to these lands as missionaries who wanted to spread cultural beliefs. In essence, colonialism not only had its physical and cultural effect on the people and lands of the colonized, but also (though less dramatic) on the colonizers through literature.

Works Cited

Frederickson, Kathleen. “British Writers on Population, Infrastructure, and the Great Indian Famine of 1876-8.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=kathleen-frederickson-british-writers-on-population-infrastructure-and-the-great-indian-famine-of-1876-8. Accessed on 12.04.2018