Brokers, collectors, collaborators : mediating colonial modernization in Malta, 1870-1914

Abstract

The notion that imperial rule was generated in the metropolis and imposed on the subject people with the sole assistance of a handful of hybrid Anglo-Maltese collaborators still forms part of mainstream historical discourse on British colonialism in Malta. Yet, deepening historical research on the nature of imperialism completely discredits this essentially narrow, nationalistic, post-independence view of history. Drawing on an array of current theoretical approaches and on-going comparative research in imperial studies, this paper treats colonialism as a "dialogue" between the British imperial force, with its own internal military, naval, administrative and commercial concerns on the one hand, and the dominant native social sectors and power institutions on the other. British colonialism in Malta and Gozo is therefore conceived as the product of a complex symbiotic relationship between the British imperial authorities and the domestic social formation. In order to understand the essential, and sometimes unique, characteristics of colonial rule during this period, it is imperative that we undertake a thorough analysis of the power structures of the colonial state - structures which incorporated an assortment of native elite groups along with the British authorities in Malta. This is why Maltese historiography needs to focus more on the shifts in the collaborative partnerships developing in Malta during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. An examination of the early colonial collaborative alliance forged between the colonial authorities, the higher reaches of the Catholic hierarchy, the merchant and landowning classes, from the inception of British rule up till the 1860s, has already been made. The present study is a follow-up, seeking to analyse the new collaborative colonial alliance which came into being as a result of a major alteration in the identification of interests between the British authorities and a different selection of collaborative elites and power institutions as from 1870 to 1914.