to carve out a better life for themselves. In the early days, India was a place where the slates of 'blotted pedigrees' were wiped clean; bankrupts given a chance to make good; a taste for adventure satisfied - for women. They went and worked as milliners, bakers, dress-makers, actresses, portrait painters, maids, shop-keepers, governesses, teachers, boarding house proprietors, midwives, nurses, missionaries, doctors, geologists, plant-collectors, writers, travellers, and - most surprising of all - traders.
As wives, courtesans and she-merchants, these tough adventuring women were every bit as intrepid as their men, the buccaneering sea captains and traders in whose wake they followed; their voyages to India were extraordinarily daring leaps into the unknown."
This was a good, comprehensive and enlightening history of British women in India. It allowed British women to speak for themselves through Primary sources about their life and experiences in India.
Unfortunately, the sources by the English women are not complemented by any sort of meaningful discussion of Indian women. The British women said Indian women were stuck in zenanas and lived grand but highly claustrophobic lives, and that's all there was to it--Hickman takes this at face value, perhaps ignoring the rich literary and political traditions that women have sustained in the subcontinent. It seems as though we are encouraged to root for or sympathize with women who arrived in the subcontinent because they were daring and "different" from other British women at the time and were sometimes in great peril. In celebrating their accomplishments, Hickman steamrolls over very infuriating events during British colonization and offers no real commentary about their complicity in the whole endeavour. I saw some negative reviews that it didn’t include Indian voices, and it doesn’t at all. But despite my comments, it arguably isn’t what it set out to do. I think it is definitely skewed to favour the British as it hardly every explores how British racism and/or colonialism effected India, which can be somewhat unsavoury at times. However, it seemed well-researched but I am not informed enough about this subject to speak accurately on that front.
I was appalled to read about the Siege of Lucknow and the Massacre of Cawnpore, things I had never even heard of. To hear about the events of these incidents from Primary Sources just increased my horror.
One of my main irritation about this book is, that while it never suggested that it would explore Indian women's culture so I cant be too frustrated on that head, I was promised Merchants and Buccaneers. There are glancing mentions of Merchants and no Buccaneers. The huge majority of the women in this book, while having very interesting and illuminating life stories, fit firmly into the Gentlewomen category. I really wanted to explore a wider understanding of the lives these women lived. I could have had less lists of their clothing choices and more discussion of how unmarried ladies made a living? How did the working class ladies get by? What where the lives of the mixed race children?
All round a very interesting and illuminating read that I thoroughly enjoyed, however explores a narrow demographic and doesn't try to weave these narratives into the larger story of Indian history. A good starting point but requires substantial further reading into Indian History, feminism, Indian gender politics and British Colonialism.
Age Rating 17+ Some very distressing and graphic description of certain events.
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