The attack of the creolian powers: west indians at the parliamentary elections of Mid-Georgian Britain, 1754-74

• Autores: Perry Gauci
• Localización: Parliamentary history, ISSN-e 1750-0206, Vol. 33, Nº. 1 (February), 2014 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Parliament, Politics and Policy in Britain and Ireland, c. 1680-1832: Essays in Honour of D.W. Hayton / Clyve Jones (ed. lit.), James Kelly (ed. lit.)), págs. 201-222
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article seeks to build upon recent work on the impact of empire in mid-18th-century Britain by study of the electoral experience of parliamentary candidates who had lived in the West Indies and could boast a direct familiarity with the Caribbean. By 1750, a significant number of rich planters had relocated to Britain, and, in common with the Indian nabobs, their efforts to enter parliament aroused much adverse commentary at the elections of 1754-74. While these attacks were damaging to their interest, and occasioned the most thorough review of Caribbean society to date, the West Indians were able to respond by adapting their political campaigns to assuage metropolitan sensibilities, thereby ensuring that they were not bracketed with the nabobs or rebellious North Americans as imperial sources of domestic upheaval. Their success highlights the possibilities for successful imperial integration in mid-Georgian Britain, although the West Indians could not rely on the same strategies to combat the abolitionist movement after 1787.