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[MUSIC PLAYING] TED KODITSCHEK: Well, in the most general sense, a frontier is any kind of an intermediate zone between two states, two countries, two nations, or two

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empires. And in the British imperial context, the most important thing to keep in mind is that there's always an asymmetric power relationship

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between one side and the other. That is, the British always have a lot more power than the indigenous people that they're facing on the other side.

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And so this really works in, really, three respects. First of all, their military technology is superior. Secondly, they have a much more complex social organisation. And thirdly, they're much more thoroughly

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integrated into economic networks and markets. And this means that in any kind of conflict, that the British are always going to be superior, and always going to win out--

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at least in the long run, although sometimes the indigenous people gave them quite a run for their money. Well, there are many, many reasons that one could talk about, but there are really five

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that I want to emphasise. First of all, it's important to keep in mind that the frontier, in this imperial context, is always a moving zone-- that it's not always in one place.

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It's in one place for a while, and then it moves somewhere else. So it's kind of a moving target. But at any given moment, there are always

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five factors that are at work. First of all, the frontier is a place where exploration is occurring-- where the metropolitan power, the British,

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are engaged in exploration of the frontier. Secondly, they see it as a defensive perimeter that they're using to protect themselves against either some other empire,

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or some uncontrolled territory outside. Thirdly, they see it, potentially, as a place that they can send settlers-- that is, British people to go and settle in this frontier,

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and kind of create a society that will be a replica of Britain. And thirdly, they see it as a zone in which they have some kind of economic goals.

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That is, they see some kind of economic development that they're looking forward to, as promoting in that area. But in all of these respects, what they're dealing with at any given moment is, essentially,

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an encounter between the British-- this highly-sophisticated, developed, powerful, society-- and indigenous groups that are much less powerful than they are.

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Well, there are really three points here, that I want to emphasise. First of all, race became a kind of a conceptual system-- a set of stereotypes that one group--

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particularly the British, the powerful group-- used to try to understand and make sense of this other group that is alien to them-- sort of a set of stereotypes in which they can

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very simply characterise these people, as being a certain type of group-- a certain type of people. Secondly, especially as their power became more established,

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these racial concepts became frameworks which they would use to develop policies for how to manage and how to control those people. So what they thought about the racial character of this group

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would determine what kind of policies they would adopt in dealing with them. And thirdly, and finally, race became a way for the British to think about what the ultimate possibilities for that group

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were-- that is, how far they could be improved, how far they could be modernised, how far they could be brought into British civilisation. If they thought that they had a high potential for this,

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well, that would be sort of one racial view of them. Another racial view would suggest that they had a low possibility, and therefore they should not be given much power.

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They should certainly not be given the vote. And so this would govern not only the way in which they were managed and administered, but how the British thought about their ultimate fate

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and their ultimate potential. OK, the important thing to remember here is that when the British empire started in the 17th and the 18th century,

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paternalism was no part of the picture. Everybody understood that the point of the empire was to exploit indigenous peoples-- to take their land, to get rid of them--

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really even to the point of eradication. And so that was pretty much the basis of imperial policy, right through the end of the 18th century. Now, things began to change for complicated reasons

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around the beginning of the 19th century, and a new conception of empire emerged during that period. And that's really when paternalism starts to come in. So in other words, this is the period

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of early industrialisation in Britain, in which people in Britain are having a new understanding of capitalism. They think that it's not something

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that you will just do to make money, but that it will also be beneficial. It will be benevolent, and it will be progressive. And so there's this idea that you can both make money,

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and you can do good at the same time. And so that changes attitudes towards indigenous people. There's a feeling that instead of exploiting indigenous people-- and certainly, instead of getting rid of them--

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we should try to civilise them. We should try to bring them up to our level, integrate them into our system, Christianise them. Christianity became one of the primary vehicles

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for doing this. And this really got its start in the movement against slavery. But it applied on the frontier areas as well, and particularly was put into effect

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by British missionaries, who were kind of the shock troops of this new attitude, this new policy. And it's really during the 1830s that this new idea-- this new attitude-- really reached its peak.

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However, from the 1840s through the 1870s, this notion really began to fall apart. And it began to fall apart, essentially, because as British settlers began to move in,

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as British capitalism begin to move into these frontier areas, profit making took precedence over paternalism. And it became clear in most cases that actually, what they were really there

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for was to make money, and that the way they would make money is by exploiting-- and in many cases, getting rid of-- the indigenous people. This was particularly true in the early period,

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because in places like Australia and South Africa, one of the things they wanted to do was, they wanted to have sheep, because there was a woollen industry in Britain.

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And so sheep would provide wool, and sheep take a lot of territory. And this really, essentially, meant getting rid of the indigenous population.

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And then somewhat later, plantations were established in various frontiers. Mining camps were set up, and all sorts of activities of that sort--

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mineral extraction began to take place. And there, too, what they needed primarily was labour. And primarily what they wanted was cheap labour. And they wanted to exploit the native population.

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So in other words, by the 1870s or by the 1880s, the reality was that the Empire on the frontiers was primarily about exploitation and even hostility and elimination of indigenous populations.

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Paternalism was just window dressing. It had pretty much gone out the window. So in some sense, it was a return to the earlier period of the Empire.

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The one difference was that now the British had to explain this to themselves-- how could they justify this? And this is really where race came in,

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because racial ideologies were developed to explain why it was that paternalism hadn't worked, and they had ended up falling into this older pattern of exploitation and in some cases, elimination.

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So of course, this is also a very complicated question. But I would say the single most important factor here has to do with the nature of the indigenous population itself. So let's take Australia, for example.

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In Australia the indigenous population, the Aborigines, were people that had no contact with Westerners before imperialism began. And that meant that they were mostly hunters and gatherers.

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They were foragers. Their population was rather thin, low density. They had absolutely no resistance to European diseases, no familiarity with European weaponry,

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and their levels of social organisation were highly localised. And so that meant that this asymmetry-- this disparity between the British and the Aborigines--

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was huge. And that meant that, really, the Aborigines had very, very little powers of resistance against British imperialism.

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And so if you look at the history of the British in Australia, you can see that really, almost within a generation, the British had taken over virtually half of the entire subcontinent--

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the eastern half. Essentially, the Aboriginal population had been reduced to a very small percentage of its original level, through disease and through warfare.

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And they had been replaced by sheep. Now there were 13 million sheep where the Aborigines had formerly been. Now, in South Africa the situation was a little bit more

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complicated. And the reason for that, again, had to do with the nature of the indigenous population. In South Africa, the indigenous population

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had more of a history of contact with Westerners-- at least some contact. Their populations were denser. They were mostly people who were involved

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in pastoralism, or in some cases in agriculture. So they had higher levels of technology, and they had some familiarity with European weaponry. And this meant that they were able to put up more resistance

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against British designs on their territory and on their way of life. So in South Africa, it really took four generations for the British to really take over the entire country,

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and turn it into what it took only about two generations in Australia to do. So for example, in the early 19th century the British were mostly focused in the area around Cape Town,

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in the Cape Colony, on essentially taking over the lands and appropriating the labour of this group known as the Khoi, or sometimes referred to as the Khoisan. And by about 1840, they had succeeded in doing that.

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And then for the next 30 years, they were focused a little bit further to the east, on the Xhosa. And so they were sort of doing the same thing with the Xhosa,

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but it took them about 30 years to do that. And then once they had gotten the Xhosa into their system, and gotten the Xhosa lands under their control, then next it was the turn of the Zulus.

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And there, too, it was a somewhat difficult operation. It took about 20 or 30 years. And then finally, by the 1890s, the only real group that was left to provide any resistance against the British

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were the Boers, or the group that is now known as the Afrikaners, who are actually whites. But they, too, eventually got into war with the British. Obviously, they were even better able to resist.

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But eventually, the British were able to take control there as well, so that by about 1910, Britain really controlled all of South Africa. But it was a much longer and more complicated

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process than had occurred in Australia.