Global Citizens: Mixed-Race Jamaicans in the Caribbean, Britain, and India

Sailing from London to Bengal in the spring of 1777, Robert Morse dreamt about the potential fortunes awaiting him on the subcontinent.  Not only would East-Indian riches stock his coffers, but they would allow him to distance himself further from a West-Indian past.  In fact, Morse was born to a “mulatto” mother and a white father in Jamaica two decades earlier, and he used global travel to advance beyond his ancestral roots in colonial enslavement.  Morse was not alone.  A number of mixed-race West Indians used Britain as a launching pad for careers in India, enough so that the East India Company army finally barred them from its ranks in 1800.  This paper examines the phenomenon of mixed-race migration from the West Indies to the East to explore how racially-oppressed groups used imperialism not only for self-advancement, but for total self re-creation.  In particular, I argue that growing racial oppression in Britain, directed toward elite Jamaicans of color living in the metropole, pushed many to leave for India as part of a re-fashioning which could obscure colonial roots.

        Using personal correspondence, East-Indian registers, probate records, and diaries, this paper combines personal experience, political changes, and cultural shifts towards West Indians of color.  In particular, I will detail the lives of three Jamaican families of color who traveled to India between 1770 and 1810.  This paper adds a more nuanced consideration of colonial identity in the British Empire.  In addition, it gives a detailed reflection on racial ideology and societal structure in Jamaica, Britain, and India.