Arneil LIBERALCOLONIALISMDOMESTIC 2012

LIBERAL COLONIALISM, DOMESTIC COLONIES AND CITIZENSHIP
Author(s): Barbara Arneil

Source: History of Political Thought , Autumn 2012, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Autumn 2012), pp.
491-523
Published by: Imprint Academic Ltd.
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LIBERAL COLONIALISM,
DOMESTIC COLONIES AND CITIZENSHIP
Barbara Arneil 1,2
Abstract: There is a growing body of literature which argues that the two major theo
ries of liberal citizenship (those of John Locke and J.S. Mill) were deeply enmeshed
with both colonization (the processes by which the imperial state takes over the land
and/or sovereignty of another country) and colonialism (the theoretical framework
by which colonization is justified). This article, builds upon this literature but asks
whether the existence of hundreds of domestic colonies within (as opposed to outside)
the borders of Britain and British settler states for citizens (as opposed to foreigners) at
the turn of the twentieth century challenges the scope and definition of 'colonialism'
in previous literature. Liberal colonialism, it is argued, seeks to transform those
deemed to be 'idle', 'irrational' and/or custom bound, both at home and abroad, into
'industrious and rational' citizens. Domestically this meant housing the idle poor and
mentally ill/disabled in labour and farm colonies, respectively in order to break them
free through segregation from their bad customs/habits and teaching them, through
education and agrarian labour, to become proper citizens. Ultimately, it is hoped that
this analysis will help to explain how liberal states could come to embrace rather than
reject within their own borders such deeply illiberal practises as segregation and
assimilation against 'internal' others well into the twentieth century.
A body of scholarly literature, including my own previous research, has

argued that classical liberal theory3 is deeply enmeshed with both coloniza
tion (the processes by which a colonial state takes over the land and sover
eignty of another people or country) and colonialism (the theoretical or
1 Political Science Department, 1866 Main Mall, University of British Columbia,

Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada. Email: arneil@interchange.ubc.ca
2 I want to thank the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their extremely use
ful feedback — their questions and suggestions were very important in the substantive
rewriting and rethinking of the article. In particular, they suggested that the analysis
should be historically anchored in archival and secondary material on colonies them
selves and one referee asked me to clearly distinguish between how liberal colonialism
may have justified domestic colonies as opposed to other ideologies such as eugenics,
socialism or conservatism. I would also like to acknowledge Iris Marion Young's help.
Her extensive comments on a very early version of this paper shaped the substance of the
current version. I also want to thank Aylon Cohen for his assistance in researching this
article.
3 In this article, I use John Locke and J.S. Mill because they were central figures in
classical liberal theory and engaged in the colonial activities of their day. While Locke
and Mill do not constitute the totality of classical liberal thought, nor are their arguments
reducible to a defence of English colonialism, I wish to analyse the degree to which the
colonial dimension of their theories (written about at length in relation to non-Western
foreigners) can also justify domestic colonies within Britain and British settler states.
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXIII. No. 3. Autumn 2012

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492 Β. ARNEIL
ideological framework by wh
ship analyses liberal colonial
Locke's theory of property an
America and India, respective
and civil society in explicit op
'Indian' who may be transform
his/her 'customs' or 'ways' an
In this article, I build upon t
that it has a much larger scop
common parlance6 as well as
understood to be settlements e
the hundreds of domestic colon
particular groups of British cit
citizens. Thus, colonization i
Western peoples are subjected
ain) within America, Africa a
which certain kinds of Britis
are forcibly segregated in d
century within Britain itself
and America. Most important
both kinds of colonization (
colonialism.
4 See Β. Parekh, 'Liberalism and Colonialism: A Critique of Locke and Mill', in The
Decolonization of the Imagination, ed. J. Pieterse and B. Parekh (London and Atlantic
Highlands, 1995), pp. 81-98; J. Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in
Contexts (Cambridge, 1993); J. Tully, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age
of Diversity (Cambridge, 1995); B. Arneil, 'Disability and Self Image in Modem Politi
cal Theory', Political Theory, 37 (2) (2009), pp. 218-42; B. Arneil, John Locke and
America: A Defense of English Colonialism (Oxford, 1996); U.S. Mehta, Liberalism and
Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago, 1999);
L. Zastoupil, John Stuart Mill and India (Stanford, 1994); J. Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The
Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, 2005); D. Ivison, 'Locke,
Liberalism and Empire', in The Philosophy of John Locke: New Perspectives, ed.
P. Anstey (London, 2003), pp. 86-105; D. Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the Brit
ish Empire (Cambridge, 2000); D. Armitage, 'John Locke, Carolina, and the Two Trea
tises of Government', Political Theory, 32 (5) (2004), pp. 602-27.
5 Other scholars, in response to this literature, have argued against the colonialist
reading entirely (see J. Waldron, God, Locke and Equality: Christian Foundations of
Locke's Political Thought (Cambridge, 2002); S. Buckle, 'Tully, Locke, and America',
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 9 (2) (2001), pp. 247-83) or that the rela
tionship is more multifaceted than these analyses suggest (see S. Muthu, Enlightenment
Against Empire (Princeton, 2003); A. Sartori, 'The British Empire and its Liberal Mis
sion', Journal of Modern History, 78 (6) (2006), pp. 623^12).
6 The Webster New World Dictionary defines a colony as 'a group of people who set
tle in a distant land but remain under the political jurisdiction of their native land' (1980),
p. 280.

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LIBERAL COLONIALISM 493
I begin the article by defining two kinds of

colonies for the 'idle poor' and farm colonies fo
they existed in Britain and two British settler
Canada).81 will then review how external liber
through Locke's agrarian theory of labour
through textual analysis and secondary resear
tify particular forms of non-liberal governme
will then show how these same notions of 'idlen
habit' are used in Locke's and/or Mill's writings
authority being exercised over particular kind
namely the 'idle poor' and mentally disable
within Britain. Ultimately, Locke and Mill con
nal authority is required to limit the liberty/ri
measures to 'improve' them to the extent p
from civil society and/or compulsory education
their reproductive freedom.
In the second half of the article, I turn from
eral colonialism to examine the extent to whic
cally, to justify labour colonies for the idle poo
mentally disabled/ill in Britain and British se
twentieth century. In order to do this, I will seek
colonialism with that of other ideologies that
domestic colonies. These include conservatis
nies in the name of order and moral rectitude;
colonies for the mentally disabled in order
socialism-liberal democracy which justified
7 I have not included in this analysis two other kin

colonies and prison farm colonies. The former occurred
overseas colonies (American colonies initially but a
nies were established next to prisons in order to enco
and sell the produce to create revenue for the prison
nies, created by state authorities in Canada and the Uni
society organizations to populate rural parts of the P
groups immigrating from Europe (for example Hutt
nies). While these other domestic colonies share simil
nies and farm colonies, including the centrality of ag
ences. In the interests of length of this article I have no
of parallels could be drawn and I hope to draw these o
81 choose these three countries because they are al
cant degree) in the classical liberal ideas of Locke and
farm colonies for the mentally disabled were created
course, influenced by ideological traditions other th
discussed shortly, particularly in relation to the role
colonies. Labour colonies were also found in British s
and Australia but in the interests of space I have limited

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494 Β. ARNEIL
unemployed as a form of une

for the unemployable as a wa
economy. While all of these i
eral colonialism was a commo
fying, in particular, colonies
improvement.
Domestic Colonies in Brit
As early as the eighteenth ce

nineteenth through to the fir
and the United States propose
segregate those citizens in ea
nal' , often under the influen
tions (including, as will be
American Colonization Societ
Despite variations, colonies ca
'problem' to be solved.
1. Labour colonies, built at th
twentieth century, segregate
from society in order to enco
contain the threat they posed
unemployed' in England, 'vag
in Scotland, unemployed free
peoples in Canada and demobi
the First World War, as shall
farm colonies is not to sugge
mission (for indeed it genera
ments were deployed in thei
9 Labour colonies existed (and

many and Holland, but were differ
The German colonies ( Arbeiter K
and did not emphasize improve
counterfoil to the revolutionary
were 'free' — in essence they we
become the model often endorsed
very reason). There were also pe
endorsed by conservatives in th
model were the Dutch labour col
colonial experience 'of laborers of
Holland', in J. Mavor, 'Labor Co
Economy, 2 (1) (1893), pp. 26-53.
nies was the expectation that the
it was hoped the colonized wou
property owners/farmers either

49.216.175.29 on Mon, 10 Jul 2023 08:10:15 +00:00
because that was the term used at the time but also to
farm colonies (again, so called at the time) that were d
problem of mental disability/illness rather than idlen
however, as some labour colonies (for example, those
soldiers after the First World War) were called farm co
name, I include them in this category because they aim
of idleness.
2. Farm colonies were also built around the end of th
to address the problem of the 'irrational', namely the
Their purpose, according to their proponents, was to
tions from society and break them of their bad habi
become rational and/or industrious to the extent pos
labour. If education proved impossible, these colonies a
of permanently removing the so-called 'mentally def
well as preventing them from reproducing.10 In the U
feeble-minded were created in seven states and propo
ers. Britain also created several farm colonies for t
including those at Monyhull, Chalfont, Langdon and S
number of farm colonies were created in Ontario as w
next to the Riverview Asylum in British Columbia w
house all of the mentally ill/disabled persons in that p
Despite some differences in terms of the populations
solved, there were many similarities between labour an
both were rooted in the principle of segregation of a c
from civil society in order to contain and/or 'improve
tion. The belief was that by separating them from thei
ties there was a greater likelihood that they would rel
of idleness/irrationality while minimizing the threat t
preventing them from reproducing. Second, agrarian
importance — putting the colonized to work on the farm
agricultural skills, it was argued, would improve both
Third, civil society organizations played a central
domestic colonies connecting the principle of charity
nate with a liberal political view that saw philanthropi
vehicles for delivering social services over the sociali
preference for state-based social policies. Fourth, a stro
10 Farm colonies for the mentally disabled were found alm

the USA, Canada and Australia. There were a couple of farm
Belgium (the famous Gheel colony) but they tended to be alm
mentally ill. It is also clear, as will be argued shortly, that the
dinavia and Germany (as well as Japan) was forced sterilizati
tion, of the mentally disabled, suggesting eugenics was a pow
work in these countries whereas liberal colonialism was stron
lite states.

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496 Β. ARNEIL
animated the defence of the

social democrats
t who viewed
attribute of these colonies, no
their general failure — they w
policies in the second half of t
Liberal Colonialism:
Improving the Idle and Irrational Foreigner and Citizen
The concern with idleness and irrationality in modern Western political theory
can be traced back to chapter five of the Second Treatise of John Locke's Two
Treatises when he famously argues that God gave the world to the 'industri
ous and rational'. 'God gave the World to Men in Common... but it cannot be
supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He
gave it to the use of the Industrious and Rational (and Labour was to be his
Title to it).'11 Locke combines a Protestant concern with idleness with a lib
eral concern with irrationality (since reason is needed to consent to authority)
to create a political theory in which only the 'industrious and rational' can
claim property and therefore be freemen with political power.12 Each of these
ideas (industry and reason) is not only key to Locke's political theory but
delineates the idle and irrational, both at home and abroad, from the industri
ous and rational.
Industry and the 'Idle' Foreigner and Citizen

The moral and political concern with idleness is often associated with the rise
of Protestant religious and political thought; what Max Weber famously
called the Protestant work ethic of Northern Europe. As Kliewer and Fitzger
ald point out, the Protestant concern with industry in the wake of the Reforma
tion had profound implications for the 'idle' both for foreigners in lands
colonized by Europeans and the poor/disabled within Europe:
[As a result of the Protestant Reformation]: idleness became the supreme

affront to God's order . . . Hard work served as a manifestation of one's
acknowledgement of the absolute glory of God. This held ominous meaning
11 J. Locke, 'Two Treatises of Government', in Cambridge Texts in the History of

Political Thought II, ed. P. Laslett (Cambridge, 1988), p. 475.
12 Locke draws the link between property and different kinds of power, including that
of 'freemen', in Chapter 15 of the Second Treatise (when he contrasts the political power
of free men to despotic power exercised over the slave and parental power exercised over
the child). Thus, to exercise political power, one must have property (which of course is
created by labour and reason): 'Political power [exists] where Men have Property in their
own disposal' (J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government', II, p. 174).

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both for those colonized and those in Europe w

burden of a community's labour.13
As James Tully, David Armitage and I have a

of property that provides a defence of Engl
cause with which he was deeply engaged t
Shaftesbury). Locke fundamentally distingu
Englishman engaged in agrarian labour, defi
enclosure and husbandry of land,14 and the
('there cannot be a clearer demonstration of a
the Americans are of this . . . rich in Land
Life ... for want of improving it by labour')
industrious, meaning they do not enclose or
colonizer has the right to claim the 'waste' th
The connection between agrarian labour and
colonialism is etymologically connected to ag
words colonus meaning fanner and colere m
eral colonialism, from Locke onwards, was a
settlement of land through agrarian labour an
colonial project of America or more specific
patron the Earl of Shaftesbury.17 Thus, wh
ism, we are centrally concerned with settlem
The distinction between the Englishman an
triousness is not biologically determined for
become freemen if they are taught to adopt a
tises of cultivation, enclosure and husbandry
distinction between industrious Englishmen
improvement, whereby the latter can become t
transformation on a larger scale that results in
into civil society). But first, the idle Indian
ways and customs. This colonial dimension o
it can so easily lead to policies of assimilatio
13 C. Kliewer and L.M. Fitzgerald, 'Disability, Sch

nialism', Teachers College Record, 103 (3) (20
Bhikhu Parekh makes a similar comment in his ana
about the implications of imperialism for the Engli
"backward" races abroad, they used the state to
classes at home. The two missions were closely rela
formed part of a common national project.' In Par
Critique of Locke and Mill', p. 35.
14 J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government' ,11, c
15 Ibid., pp. 41,26, 43.
16 Arneil, John Locke and America: A Defense
Approach to Political Philosophy.
17 Armitage, 'John Locke, Carolina, and the Two

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498 Β. ARNEIL
liberal colonial literature —

for the idle in Britain — th
abled, including whether the
and become industrious in o
Locke himself addressed
when, as a member of the B
on the relief of the poor —
Law. Locke argues that the
them'.18 He draws a line bet
will not work) and worthy
that able bodied 'idle' adul
compelled to work, using pu
cally disabled) should be car
tian principle of 'charity',19
Those who are not able to w

hospitals to receive them be
since the . . . wants of the po
and that they may have the l
bread and meat or other char
ishes.20
This principle of separate lodging along with basic charity for the disabled
poor is consistent with Christian poor laws in England dating back to Elizabe
than times.
18 J. Locke, Essay on the Poor Law [1697 September-October] Public Record

Office, CO/388/5/86-95, ff. 232-49; Bodleian Library, MS. Locke c. 30, ff. 86-95 found
in H.R. Fox Bourne, The Life of John Locke (2 vols., London, 1876), Vol. 2.
http://files.libertyfund.org/files/2331/Locke_PoorLawReforml697.pdf
19 As Henri Jacques Stiker argues in his powerful analysis of modern notions of dis
ability, the principle of 'charity' dominates the classical period's (seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries) approach to both mentally and physically disabled people. Charity
will remain central to conceptions of disability, and distinguished from the principle of
justice, through liberal thought up to and including John Rawls (H.J. Stiker, A History of
Disability (Ann Arbour, 1999); Arneil, 'Disability and Self Image in Modern Political
Theory'). The legacy of this distinction between able-bodied and disabled recipients
based on an individual's capacity to labour, continues today in liberal states. The defini
tion of disability according to the US Social Security Administration is: the 'inability to
work' (www.socialsecurity.gov/dibplan/dqualify4.htm). Thus, a physically disabled
person is forced to define herself as 'unemployable' to receive benefits. This demarca
tion, which contemporary disability advocates have challenged as creating perverse
incentives as well as failing to account for the transitory and contingent nature of some
disabilities in relation to work, is rooted in the liberal norm of 'industry' and a distinction
between the worthy and unworthy poor.
20 Locke, Essay on the Poor Law, p. 90.

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Scheer and Groce comment on this distinctio

unworthy poor and its impact on the physica
America:
The changing and increasingly restricted position of disabled persons in

American society began during the colonial period when local communities
adopted the English Poor Laws . . . The physically disabled were among
other 'defectives' and 'vagrants' granted community protection. The Poor
Laws regulated the type of local assistance given to the 'impotent or worthy
poor' and the 'able-bodied or unworthy poor'.21
What is unique in Locke's essay and underscores a classical liberal approach

to the poor laws in England as it did in his view of the American Indian, is the
emphasis on education and the capacity to improve if the idle are segregated
from their habits or customs. Thus, he argues, to prevent idleness in young
persons, 'working schools' should be established in every parish to separate
children from the idle habits of their home environment. As E.J. Hundert
comments: '[Locke] recommended the establishment of "working schools in
each parish" that would remove children above the age of three from the
source of the disorder and instill the habit of industry into them.'22 Thus, as
with indigenous Americans, Locke argues progress is possible with the idle in
England but only through segregation and education.
Reason and the 'Irrational' Other
'Reason' is the second key principle in Locke's political theory, in large part
because he sought to create an alternative to that of Robert Filmer's absolute
monarch rooted in divine right.23 For Filmer, monarchical power is absolute
because divine patriarchal right gives the king unlimited power over his
subjects and the father unlimited power over his household — thus all power
is reducible to a single kind: absolute paternalism that exists in perpetuity.
Locke counters this by arguing that there are various kinds of authority (politi
cal, conjugal, paternal, despotic) that are generally time-limited and can be
distinguished from each other by the degree to which the freeman, wife, child
or slave has or does not have reason/property in their own person.24 In
21 J. Scheer and N. Grace, 'Impairment as a Human Constant: Cross-Cultural and

Historical Perspectives on Variation', Journal of Social Issues, 44 (1) (1988), pp. 23-38,
p. 32.
22 Ε J. Hundert, 'The Making of Homo Faber: John Locke between Ideology and
History', Journal of the History of Ideas, 33 (1) (1972), pp. 3-22, p. 6.
23 The child is no longer a subject when he has, 'the Reason and Ability to govern
himself and others' (J. Locke, Two Treatises of Government, II, p. 6).
24 While conjugal and parental authority are limited because wives and children
enjoy a degree of authority vis-à-vis their husband/parent, respectively, proportional to
their reason, there is no limit on the despotic power exercised over slaves. Almost all

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500 Β. ARNEIL
Locke's theory, the [male] ch

reaches the age of reason, at
other freemen.
The centrality of reason in L
adults deemed to be irrationa
Once again, there is an exter
American Indian is deemed ir
habits: 'they never employ'd
that way, but contented them
their Country, as they found t
ment to customary ways, alo
tive' life in the state of natu
according to Locke.26 As with
provement' through educat
rational if only they had an E
ary ways and notions. 'Had th
England, he [would be] as goo
between him and a more impr
exercise of his Faculties was b
his own country.'27
Classical liberal theory is th
idea of progress through educ
'ways and modes'. If there
stronger forces may be need
ment in workhouses or segre
tion, we saw how Locke's liber
him in his Essay on the Poor
dren in order to break them fr
home. Similarly, if indigenous
types of authority are time limit

wife leaves the husband, the serv
25 J. Locke, Essay Concerning H
sect. 12.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., sects. 13-14. Jeremy Waldron has criticized Tully on this point, suggesting
that Locke was 'hostile ... to colonial imposition'. Quoting from the Essay on Tolera
tion, which suggests that Locke does not believe Christians should impose their religious
views on a 'pagan country', Waldron argues that Locke was hardly the 'epitome of colo
nial insensitivity ' (Waldron, God, Locke and Equality, p. 167). Waldron has a point with
respect to religious toleration but he fails to recognize that while Locke is opposed to reli
gious intolerance, he firmly believes that 'reason' and 'education in England' exists in
opposition to the 'customs' of indigenous peoples and that the former should transcend
the latter. In other words, Locke is not making a colonial argument in the name of Chris
tianity but in the name of 'reason' and education — this is what makes him a liberal as
opposed to a missionary colonialist.

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and ways, they would also need to be separated

as the hypothetical example of Apochancan ed
While the full ramifications of this separation
customs in the name of 'reason' did not manif
by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, resid
with farm colonies were created in North Am
Americans from their communities' customs.
ogy that marries segregation with improvemen
As with idleness, the commitment to reason
found implications for the 'irrational' (namely
England and how they are to be governed.
between children, 'savages' and 'idiots' sinc
bound by custom, in the Essay Concerning Hu
Two Treatises Locke argues that because the m
reason, they must be governed under a uniqu
English children, who have the potential for re
free men and exercise political power if prope
abled and ill (or in Lockean terms 'ideots' and
al and should, therefore, be subject to paternal
If through defects that may happen out of the or

one comes not to such a degree of Reason, wh
incapable to know the Law ... he is never capab
is never let loose to the disposure of his own W
Ideots are never set free from the Government
Thus, the idea that mentally ill and disabled

under a different authority than others and perm
society is first articulated by Locke in the seve
way that non-disabled English children and A
lel status as 'immature' and therefore governed
a similar parallel exists between slaves and the
are without reason and governed under a perma
a theory otherwise devoted to destroying Film
absolute patriarchal authority that Locke explic
people should remain under just such an autho
ill/disabled.
There is of course one key difference between
disabled: the former are subject to the life/deat
28 'But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and th

maxims are to be found? What universal principles o
and narrow, borrowed only from those objects they ha
have made upon their senses the frequentest and str
Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. 1, ch. 2, se
29 Locke, 'Two Treatises of Government', II, ch.

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502 Β. ARNEIL
the latter are governed by a C

right to life. Thus Locke is v
which he refers to 'ideots' as
cised over the mentally disab
lute patriarchal power he sta
which God and nature has laid
their offspring . . . and will s
regal authority.'
Thus, the twin ideological
combined with breaking free
segregation from civil societ
eral colonialism. I hope to hav
profound implications not on
the colonial literature describ
at home in England, as eviden
idle poor and permanent segr
ety for those deemed to be m
how such commitments in lib
selves in the creation of parti
states, let us first examine Jo
the context of nineteenth-cen
improvement to include auto
tion control of the idle poor.
J.S. Mill: Autonomy/Indi

If industry (particularly agra
Locke's liberal theory, idlen
and autonomy (with a similar
norms of Mill's political thou
He who lets the world, or his
him, has no need of any other
who chooses his plan for him
observation to see, reasoning
material for decision, discrim
firmness and self-control to h
Mill's distinction — between t

'deliberate decision' and those
whohas the right to exercise
comments: 'This Millite assu
30 J.S. Mill, On Liberty (New Yo

ments of well-being', accessed fr
February 2009 (emphasis added)

49.216.175.29 on Mon, 10 Jul 2023 08:10:15 +00:00
implies an important boundary between citi

soning powers to be full members and those
Locke, Mill's theorizing about the irrational a
project in which he was engaged, namely Br
Mill defines 'western' autonomy/individualit
sition to an 'East' who live under the despot
over the whole East. Custom is there, in all t
see the result... A people, it appears, may be
of time, and then stop: when does it stop? W
ality.'32 As a growing body of literature33 has
Mill's theory for the custom bound Asian is
dispense with 'backward customs' and ado
This commitment to 'progress' allows Mill t
India paradoxically within a theory of lib
mode of government in dealing with barbar
improvement and the means justified by actu
As with Locke, implicit in Mill's theory a
English children is their immaturity of reas
power to guide them, always backed by forc
ernment of force, but one of guidance. Bein
yield to the guidance of any but those to wh
of force, the sort of government fittest for t
but seldom uses it: a parental despotism or
Mill argues the 'despotism of custom' is so s
may need to be despotic in its own right:
The despotism of custom is everywhere the

advancement, being in unceasing antagonism
something better than customary, which is
stances, the spirit of liberty, or that of progr
of improvement is not always a spirit of liber
improvements on an unwilling people.36
This is critically important for it demonstrat

ple of improvement may be in tension with
for both Locke and Mill is to break such peop
31 Desmond King, In the Name of Liberalism: I

States and Britain (Oxford, 1999), p. 12.
32 Mill, On Liberty, ch. 3.
33 Parekh, 'Liberalism and Colonialism'; Mehta
Turn to Empire.
35 J.S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Go
emphasis added. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.aU/m/mil

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504 Β. ARNEIL
notions' or 'customs' respectiv

both thinkers in the transfor
mately provides an ideologic
populations of people within b
tion provides the necessary co
habits.
Mill's belief in autonomy and

through illiberal means if nece
ance of the idle poor and irra
links children, the mentally
examples of people too 'immat
It is, perhaps, hardly necessary

to apply only to human beings
speaking of children . . . [or] t
taken care of by others [disab
of consideration those backwa
may be considered as in its no
Zastoupil has argued that Mill

became more orientalist in his
gress and reform remained.38
Like Locke, Mill is equally co
ing in England using the same
of the poorest class of labour
that there is always some ten
better hope that by proper
improve more and faster.'39 M
erty of the poor, most particu
strained: 'Relief [for the idle
which they disliked, consistin
privation of some indulgences
tion under its control' in orde
paupers in the workhouse'.41
While constraints on reprodu
rather then classical liberal th
are key to 'improvement'. Mil
1847 that population control i
37 Ibid., ch. 1.
38 Zastoupil, John Stuart Mill and India.
39 J.S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social
Philosophy, ed. William James Ashley (London, 7th edn., 1909), Vol. II, ch. 11: 'Of
Wages', fromhttp://oll.libertyfund.org/title/101/36269/714060. Accessed February 2009.
40 Ibid., Vol. II, ch. 12. Emphasis added.
41 Ibid., ch. 12:8.

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grand source of improvement [is] repression

an extraordinary statement for a liberal to m
from the liberal colonial argument advanc
combined with coercion and limitations on th
and/or idle/custom bound in order to serve t
both at home and abroad.
Liberal Colonialism and Domestic Colonies
Thus, at the heart of liberal colonialism is the principle of progress or

improvement by which the idle and irrational are to become, through a combi
nation of segregation, force, agrarian labour and education, the industrious,
rational and autonomous citizen to the extent possible and if not, to remain
segregated from civil society and deprived of their rights and freedoms. As
has been argued, liberal colonial principles are key to understanding how
classical liberal thought could justify external forms of colonization in Locke
and Mill's theory, as each thinker created a fundamental distinction between
the English characterized by reason/industry/autonomy/individuality and non
Western 'Indians' (on two different continents) who lacked some/all of these
qualities (and could not therefore be freemen). Most importantly for liberals,
such differences were not biologically determined so all 'Indians' could
improve or progress to become freemen if educated (forcibly if necessary) to
relinquish customs that prevented improvement. Locke and Mill used the
same constructs to argue that the idle and irrational in England must also be
subject to improvement and, as necessary, illiberal authority and segregation
(including living under permanent parental authority, enrollment in working
schools, workhouses, controls on reproduction and/or deprivation of liberties).
In the remainder of this article I hope to show how these theoretical con
structs are deployed, at the turn of the twentieth century, by proponents of
internal colonization, to justify particular kinds of domestic colonies for the
idle and irrational in Britain and British settler states, including Canada and
the United States. While there were no domestic colonies when Locke was
alive and they only came to full fruition in Britain after Mill's death, the lib
eral colonial principles embedded in their political theories provide the theo
retical tools by which to justify the segregation of irrational/idle people within
the borders of Britain, break them of their habits and 'improve' them through
education and agrarian labour just as seemingly irrational, idle and custom
bound non-Western peoples had been subject to similar forces of liberal colo
nialism overseas.
42 J.S. Mill, 'Letter to John Austin', 1847, in The Collected Works of John Stuart
Mill, Volume XIII — The Earlier Letters of John Stuart Mill 1812-1848, Part II, ed.
Francis E. Mineka, with an introduction by F.A. Hayek (Toronto and London, 1963).

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506 Β. ARNEIL
Labour Colonies and the 'Idle Poor'
Labour colonies were proposed as a solution to the problem of 'idleness' in

Britain, Canada and the US towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Depending on the ideological justification, the nature of labour colonies var
ied considerably. For example, conservatives preferred long-term, closed,
compulsory penal labour colonies in order to punish and/or force those
deemed to be vagrants, tramps and beggars to repay their debt to society;
eugenicists supported sex-segregated and closed colonies to prevent the unfit
from reproducing; and socialists and social democrats defended open labour
colonies as vehicles to house, feed and protect the 'unemployed' from the
vagaries of capitalist economics as well as closed colonies to house the unem
ployable or 'residuum'.
By and large, these other ideological justifications rejected the principles of
'improvement' and agrarian labour that animate liberal colonialism: for con
servatives, idleness was a moral fault but generally viewed as an irredeemable
one — the more pressing purpose served by the colony was that of punish
ment and to protect society from the threat posed by moral degenerates. For
socialists, idleness was not a moral fault at all but a by-product of the capitalist
market, thus the idle did not need improvement. Finally eugenicists were the
least interested in improvement, being focused almost exclusively on the
genetic as opposed to behavioural dimension of idleness.
For liberal colonialists, as argued above, improvement of the idle individ
ual, including forcing them to relinquish bad habits and teaching them to
become industrious and/or rational to the extent this was possible, was the
cornerstone of their model of labour colonies, with agrarian labour as the key
mechanism for progress. Just as Locke's justification of colonialism in
America was rooted in the etymological connection between agrarian labour
and colony (colonus (farmer) and colere (to cultivate)), made concrete in the
English farmers' claim to occupy the 'terra nullius' of America by farming,
agrarian labour was also at the heart of the domestic labour colony defended
by liberal colonialists.
The leading liberal colonial defender of labour colonies in Britain was Wil
liam Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) who deployed liberal colonial
arguments to make the case for moral improvement through agrarian labour in
domestic colonies within England. He begins his book, In Darkest England,
by drawing explicit parallels between the English idle poor and the 'savages'
of Africa: 'As there is a darkest Africa is there not also a darkest England?
Civilisation . . . can breed its own barbarians.'43 Booth articulates a tripartite
colonial model made up of a few city colonies that would gather the English
idle poor and transfer them to 'farm colonies' where they would be trained in
43 W. Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out (Champaign, 1st edn., 1890)
http://www.jesus.org.uk/vault/library/booth_darkest_england.pdfPart 1, ch. 1.

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agricultural skills to improve their moral cha

ony], the process of reformation of character
especially including those forms of labour a
ture' ,44
Booth established a farm colony at Hadleigh, Essex, five city colonies and
eighteen labour bureaux in London.45 The farm colony at Hadleigh was the
centre of the scheme and its explicit purpose was to not only develop agricul
tural skills but create small private property owners: 'the aim was.. . giving
them the necessary training in agriculture to allow them to become small
holders'. Once adequately trained in agricultural labour, the idle could either
work on farms in England or be sent to an 'over-sea colony' where 'millions
of acres of useful land to be obtained almost for the asking capable of support
ing our surplus population . . . were it a thousand times greater' (echoing
Locke's references to land that could hold 'a hundred thousand times as
many' if only labour were introduced to it). Booth concludes: 'we propose to
secure a tract of land [overseas] . . . prepare it for settlement. . . settling it
gradually with a prepared people [i.e. trained in agrarian labour] and so create
a home for these destitute multitudes'.46 Booth's ideas became widely dissem
inated, as Haggard comments: 'Booth's Darkest England was a great popular
success, selling roughly 115,000 copies within the first few months ... In
addition, Booth received strong support in the British press.'47
Fabians and socialists also supported labour colonies48 but for very differ
ent reasons. On the one hand, socialists supported the German model of open
camps from which an unemployed man could come and go freely as the
labour market expanded and contracted. But they also endorsed a second
model, championed by Charles Booth and, later, Beatrice and Sidney Webb,
namely labour colonies that absorbed the 'residuum' or very poor unemploy
able class and prevent them from competing with the unemployed for jobs.
Thus, William Beveridge advocated for a closed colony for the unemployable
and two kinds of free colonies for those temporarily out of work.49 Socialists
44 Ibid., Part 2, ch. 1, sect. 2.

45 R. Haggard, The Persistence of Victorian Liberalism: The Politics of Social
Reform in Britain 1870-1900 (Westport, 2001), p. 72.
46 Booth, In Darkest England, Part 2, ch. 1, sect. 2.
47 Haggard, The Persistence of Victorian Liberalism, p. 73.
48 'Home colonization' was part of the Social Democratic Federation's early pro
gramme, the Fabians were on the whole sympathetic' (D. Colledge and J. Field, ' "To
Recondition Human Material..." An Account of a British Labour Camp in the 1930s:
An Interview with William Heard', History Workshop Journal, 15 (1) (1983), pp.
152-66, p. 154).
49 For Charles Booth, 'the entire removal of this class [the very poor]... is the only
solution to the problem of poverty'. (C. Booth, 'Condition and Occupations of the People
of East London and Hackney, 1887', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, LI (1888),
pp. 276-339, p. 299). Labour colonies were the way to remove them. Likewise, the

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508 Β. ARNEIL
were generally very sceptical o

provement' in moral characte
colony. As Sydney Webb co
social means to a social end, b
Beveridge similarly argues 'un
of. . . personal character, but
British socialists thus rejecte
and were either ambivalent or
opposed in particular to the
Brown comments: socialists 'di
labour] . . . [and] showed indif
creation of small land holders] '
socialists and Fabians publicl
generally scathing of their po
A large part of the Labour and
proposals. The People's Press,
reception given this extraordin
how eagerly the well-to-do cla
that does not interfere with the
people.53
Conservatives, on the other hand, generally supported closed and punitive

labour colonies. While they agreed with liberals that idleness was a moral
flaw, they were not convinced that the idle could be educated or improved.
Colonies therefore were designed to protect society from the threat posed by
beggars and vagrants and/or to compel such 'miscreants' to labour in order to
punish them and/or force them to repay their debt to society. Lord Gerald
Webbs argued in their Industrial Democracy that labour colonies should house the 'un
employable' residuum (unwilling to work) in order to avoid 'parasitic competition with
those who are whole'(S. Webb and B. Webb, Industrial Democracy (London, 1902),
p. 787). Again, in the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and
Relief of Distress (1905-9), penned by the Webbs, they argued, despite their central dis
agreement with the Majority Report over moral improvement of the idle (believing that
'character was irrelevant in discussions of unemployment' (John Welshman, 'The Con
cept of the Unemployable', Economic History Review, LIX (3) (2006), pp. 578-606,
p. 592)) for labour colonies for the residuum or unemployable. Finally, Beveridge in his
1909 book, A Problem of Industry, proposed 'the creation of compulsory and permanent
colonies for the unemployable' but also 'two kinds of free colony' for the unemployed.
(W. Beveridge, Unemployment: A Problem of Industry (London, 1979 (originally pub
lished 1909)), p. 161; J. Brown, 'Charles Booth and Labour Colonies', The Economic
History Review, 21 (2) (1968), pp. 349-60, p. 356).
50 Webb, Industrial Democracy, p. 349.
51 Welshman, 'The Concept of the Unemployable', p. 590.
52 Brown, 'Charles Booth and Labour Colonies', p. 357.

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Balfour, Second Earl of Balfour and Conserv

Leeds from 1885-1906, explicitly defended c
society of 'vagrants and tramps'. Winston Ch
ought to be proper Labour Colonies where [tr
for considerable periods and made to realize
vatives, like socialists, were also highly sc
scheme. 'Booth lost credibility among con
strongest supporters — T.H. Huxley, Ben Ti
Newspaper — argued that his system of col
Britain.'55
William Booth also had an important influence north of the border in the
creation of several labour colonies in Scotland. As Ronald Johnston argues,
William Booth's liberal colonial arguments resonated in the lowlands of Scot
land, particularly amongst the Protestant middle class. In December 1890,
Booth was invited to address a public meeting at St Andrew's Hall that
included, according to Johnston, 'the cream of Glasgow's middle class'. The
'occasion was judged to be a great success. Six thousand pounds were
pledged in support of Booth's programme and the labour colony idea rose
higher in middle class imagination.'56 One month later, the classical liberal
Adam Smith Club debated 'General Booth's scheme' of labour colonies. The
liberal colonial and socialist arguments both held sway in Scotland as the
Scottish Labour Colony Association ultimately implemented a 'dual system'
(socialist-backed voluntary colonies for the unemployed and Booth's com
pulsory farm colonies for the idle).57
Another example of labour colonies rooted in liberal colonialism in Britain
and British settler states were farm colonies for unemployed soldiers at the
end of the First World War. An article in the New York Times, published 18
October 1916, describes the colonies in the following way: Ά determined
attempt is being made all over the British Empire — in Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa and even in the United Kingdom itself — to make
such arrangements that a large proportion of the soldiers shall settle in the
country and not in the towns ... [through] a scheme of home colonization.'58
The principle behind such colonies was threefold: (1) to create employment
opportunities for 'idle', that is unemployed, soldiers; (2) to make soldiers into
private property owners with the granting of land within agrarian cooperative
54 Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 10 February 1911.
56 R. Johnston, ' "Charity That Heals": The Scottish Labour Colony Association and
Attitudes to the Abie-Bodied Unemployed in Glasgow, 1890-1914', The Scottish His
torical Review, 77 (203, Part 1) (April 1998), pp. 77-95, p. 86.
57 Ibid., p. 86.
58 'Canada Plans Farm Colonies for Soldiers; Dominion Government Looks For
ward to Establishing Its Fighting Men on the Land and Teaching Them to Grow Success
ful Crops', New York Times, 8 October 1916.

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510 Β. ARNEIL
communities that will help so

case of Canada at least, (3) 'to
West . . . [and] the large area
emphasis on private property
Locke's theory.
In America, the justification
dimension to it, and tended t
social order and moral rectitu
one finds in the United State
colonies in which 'vagrants',
to be punished and made to p
writes in 1912 that 'the colon
rarily out of work and seek
posely and persistently defied
make them decent citizens' .59
The liberal colonial defence
the colonization of 'freed' Af
until the time of the Depress
also created in liberal colonia
out the Midwest under vario
Johnny Cash famously grew u
and nineteenth centuries, th
American Society for Colon
States) championed agrarian
overseas (governed by the Am
One member, Benjamin Rus
ence, medical doctor and arde
and agrarian labour were the k
and making him industrious
farm colonies to provide 'reg
teach them agrarian labour.61
Like both John Locke and
tance of private property thr
colonies would create small p
59 O.F. Lewis, 'The Tramp Probl

cal and Social Science, 40 (1912
60 D. Streifford, 'The American
Ideology to Early Antebellum Re
201—20; H. Sherwood, 'The For
Journal of Negro History, 2 (3
Rush and the Negro', Journal of
61 D'Elia, 'Dr. Benjamin Rush a

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was the best way of life for the Negro'.62 In 1

near Bedford Pennsylvania and presented it to
to be used as a farm colony for 'negroes'. A d
donation of land to the society in Cambria Co
project of Negro farm colonies'.63 In the e
schemes did not materialize and his Utopian d
rooted in an idyllic vision of rural life and farm
despite land and the presence of freed black s
come into existence within the borders of the USA.
But domestic labour colonies were created for freed blacks outside the bor
ders of the United States. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
the American Colonization Society, supported by leading politicians, dedi
cated itself to the creation of an American colony/colonies somewhere in
Africa, Haiti or Central America, to which freed blacks could be sent and 'civ
ilized' . Liberals formed the backbone of the ACS and they defended colonies
for freed blacks as a way of setting up slaves in a place where life would be
better, if they were properly educated and 'civilized'. Thomas Jefferson was
one of the earliest liberal defenders of 'Negro' colonization, arguing in a letter
in 1773 that 'a settlement of colored people on the west coast of Africa', gov
erned under the auspices of the US government would be 'the most desirable
measure which could be adopted for gradually drawing off [the black popula
tion] '. He went on to say 'the United States should... undertake to make such
an establishment on the coast of Africa' ,64
Jefferson's model is in some ways similar to William Booth's scheme for
purchasing land overseas in order to settle the idle poor of England in settle
ments owned and governed by the Salvation Army and within which agrarian
labour would be key. It is also profoundly different, because both Jefferson
and Lincoln, as will be discussed shortly, did not believe it was possible for
white and black Americans to live together in America, even with African
Americans in colonies — thus such colonies, while governed by the American
state, had to be established overseas and not on continental America. The pro
found racism of American society towards African Americans is manifested
in the distance placed between such colonies and their homeland, unique
amongst all of the cases described in this paper.
President Lincoln stated in September 1862 in a preliminary version of
the Emancipation Proclamation: 'The effort to colonize persons of African
descent with their consent upon this continent or elsewhere .. . will be con
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
64 Sherwood, 'The Formation of the American Colonization Society', p. 210.

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512 Β. ARNEIL
tinued.'65 He justified his su

Americans to give up their w
and Locke, he sees this proc
their current status to becom
fully colonize the Negro and
system of government under
of manhood.'66 The first su
Sierra Leone) was Liberia (w
port given to the American C
it would eventually become a
then be put under American
In Canada, farm labour colo
peoples. This kind of colon
external colonization policy b
eth century, indigenous peop
thus the original external li
onies within the borders of the new Canadian state. Farm labour colonies
included: Metis Rehabilitation Colony at Green Lake, the Colony at Lebret in
Qu'Appelle Valley, the File Hills Farm Colony on the Peepeekisis Reserve,67
along with a number of smaller colonies at Crooked Lakes, Lestock, Cresent
Lake, Blajennie, Willow Bunch, Duck Lake and Glen Mary.68 The colonies
were seen as a continuation for adults of the 'education' received in the resi
dential school system in which indigenous children were separated from their
families and placed in boarding schools in order to break them 'free' from
their own language, traditions and customs and thus allow them to become
'civil'.
65 Preliminary version of Emancipation Proclamation can be found in R.P. Basler,

The Collected Works Of Abraham Lincoln: Vol. V (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953), pp.
433-6.
66 R.P. Basler, 'Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes in Washington, DC on
August 14, 1862', The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln: Vol. V, p. 371.
67 The File Hills Colony provided inspiration to other jurisdictions including the
North West Territories. David Laird of the Indian Commission for the NWT wrote in his
1902 Annual Report: 'Too many ex-pupils have gone back to the ways of the old teepee
life. Convinced that it is desirable to separate the most promising graduates of the schools
from the down-pull of the daily contact with the depressing influence of those whose
habits still largely pertain to savage life, the department has authorized an experiment to
be made of the colony system.' (Quoted in C.D. Bednasek, Aboriginal and Colonial
Geographies of the File Hills Farm Colony (Kingston, 2010), retrieved 21 June 2010
from Queen's University: http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/dspace/bitstream/1974/ 5303/1/
Bednasek_C_Drew_200910_PhD.pdfBednasek, p. 74).
68 F.L. Barron, 'The CCF and the Development of Metis Colonies in Southern Sas
katchewan During the Premiership of T.C. Douglas, 1944-1961', The Canadian Journal
of Native Studies, 10 (2) (1990), pp. 244—70, p. 252; Bednasek, Aboriginal and Colonial
Geographies of the File Hills Farm Colony.

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In 1901, William Morris Graham, the Indian a

founded the first [File Hills Farm Colony in S
wan] — the primary objective of the colony [was
Aboriginal cultures and ways of life after resid
selected graduates from various schools to settl
Euro-American style houses, cultivate crops, go t
ised' life, well away from reserve influences.69
A second form of colony implemented in Saska

ernment and then extended under socialist Tom
and 1961) were 'colonies' for Metis people.7
attempt 'to teach the Metis the latest farming te
livestock and animal feed for the settlement',7
intertwined with both Locke's liberal colonialism
were to be improved and become 'industrious an
and agrarian labour, and Mill's liberal colonialis
'improvement' meant educating 'Indians' to reli
and adopt the arts and sciences and the individu
now it was the Canadian state colonizing its ow
In conclusion, throughout Britain, Canada and
the eighteenth century but primarily from the en
the middle of the twentieth century, labour co
society organizations in conjunction with libera
manifestations of 'idleness' amongst their own
social democratic theories underpinned open co
and closed colonies for the unemployable in Br
vative ideologies led to punitive kinds of colonie
who were thought to be largely irredeemable in
the majority of these colonies were agrarian-ba
the principles of improvement and progress for
that is they were domestic manifestations of lib
Thus, by seeking to break attachments to bad c
some citizens through education, by emphasizin
ian labour and using civil society organizations a
and by rooting the colony as a whole in the beli
transforming the idle into the industrious and s
farmer, William Booth's tripartite colonial sche
supported by the Scottish Labour Colony Assoc
for soldiers in the British Empire, Benjamin Ru
freed blacks in Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson
69 Ibid., p. 1.
70 Barron, 'The CCF and the Development of Metis Colonies in Southern Saskatche
71 Ibid., p. 249.

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514 Β. ARNEIL
the American Colonization

United States/Liberia and
labour/farm colonies for in
ries are all products of an in
British settler states.
Farm Colonies and the 'Feeble Minded'
Farm colonies were also established in Britain, the United States and, to a
much less degree, Canada at the end of the nineteenth century, as a solution
the problems of mental illness, 'feeble mindedness' and 'mental deficiency'.
It is often assumed, in the historical literature on these institutions, that eugeni
ideology was the central reason and only justification for farm colonies sinc
segregation prevented the 'feeble-minded' (a central target for eugenicists)
from reproducing and therefore contributing to the 'degeneracy' of the race
While eugenics did play a role in the creation of farm colonies for the men
tally disabled and ill, four empirical realities raise questions as to whether
should be held solely or even mainly responsible for their existence.
First, while eugenics was stronger in other countries (Germany and Scandi
navia72) at the beginning of the twentieth century, farm colonies were foun
almost exclusively in Britain and British settler states and forced sterilizatio
was the preferred public policy in Scandinavia and Germany — why do far
colonies develop largely in Anglo-American countries? Secondly, why t
near universal emphasis on agrarian labour in these farm colonies if the mai
or only purpose (from a eugenicist perspective) was to stop reproduction?
Thirdly, if eugenics was the main ideological force at this time, would ster
ization not be the preferred social policy in Britain, Canada and the US
much more reliable method of preventing reproduction? Fourthly, and per
haps most importantly, is chronology — if eugenics emerged in full force
after the turn of the twentieth century, and reached its apex in the first quart
of the century, how do we explain the establishment of farm colonies in the
United States in the last quarter of the nineteenth century? Thus, while th
first chair of eugenics was established at University College London in 191
the first farm colony for the chronically insane was introduced in Illinois in
January 1878 and in California, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan in th
1880s and 90s.73 Again, what we see following the rise of eugenics in the fir
decade of the twentieth century was a great increase in the use of forced ste
ization from the 1910s through to the 1960s.
72 P. Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics between National Unificatio

and Nazism, 1870-1945 (New York, 1989); Eugenics and the Welfare State: Sterilization
Policy in Demark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, ed. G. Broberg and N. Roll-Hanse
(Ann Arbor, 2005).
73 J.W. Trent, Inventing the Feeble-Minded: A History of Mental Retardation in th
United States (Berkeley, 1994), p. 92.

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Thus, I hope to show that while eugenics pla

defence of farm colonies, particularly in Eng
later than in the United States, it was more clo
cally and conceptually with the campaign to i
tion — and in many cases as an explicit altern
mentally deficient in all three countries as sha
pulsory sterilization was first introduced in Ind
the farm colony), sterilization seems to be ch
eugenics; but there is also a stronger conceptu
goal of preventing reproduction is assured wi
more probable with colonization. What was pe
teenth century when farm colonies were intr
liberal colonialism, as the British empire reac
toria but increasingly felt the need to justify
onic post-colonial forces. Liberal colonialism p
the name of progress and improvement to
abroad and at home.
Farm colonies were justified and defended, like labour colonies, from a
variety of ideological perspectives. As in the last section on labour colonies, I
will analyse the role liberal colonialism played in the creation of farm colo
nies by comparing it historically to the arguments made for the same colonies
by eugenic, socialist or conservative arguments — all focused on the question
of how to solve the problem of 'mental deficiency' or 'feeble mindedness'.
Each of the ideologies combined in different ways with other ideologies to
create distinct kinds of social policies for mentally disabled/ill citizens at the
turn of the twentieth century. Eugenics, for example, was more important in
the US and (western) Canada while socialism was more important in Canada
and Britain in the development of policies towards the mentally disabled. I
will show that liberal colonialism was at the heart of all three countries' deci
sion to implement farm colonies supported by eugenics (particularly in the US
and Canada) and socialism (particularly in Canada and Britain).
The problem of the feeble-minded was at the top of the policy agenda in all
three countries at the end of the nineteenth century, in large part due to the
introduction of universal primary education. Hastings Hart, of the Russell
Sage Foundation in America, argued 'the most acute and pressing social prob
lem at the present time is the problem of the feeble-minded' ,74 The solution,
beginning in the 1870s in the United States, for the mentally ill and disabled
was the farm colony, endorsed by most states by the turn of the twentieth cen
tury.75 Mary Waggaman, in an article published in the Monthy Labor Review
74 S. Noll, Feeble-Minded in Our Midst: Institutions for the Mentally Retarded in the
South, 1900-1940 (London, 1995), p. 1.
75 On 26 May 1899, the New York Times quotes Dr G. Alder Blumer at a meeting of
the American Medico-Psychological Association: 'It is uncommon, I hope, to find any

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516 Β. ARNEIL
in 1920, lists existing and

Colony in Massachusetts, t
Jersey, in New York thirte
Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florid
sas, South Carolina, Tennes
In 1916 Joseph Mastin, Sec
rections of Virginia, argued
those who are 'backward' wi
erty that is enjoyed by a no
pleases, but the right to live
Mastin concludes that the
labour being key: 'The only
ing ... they have a yearning
both high and low grades; w
likely to be contented, si
minded.'78 Waggaman likewi
institution because they use
improve.
A Colony Farm was created in 1905 near Vancouver, British Columbia,
next to the Provincial Hospital for the Insane, and remained open until
1984 — the name remains in existence today in the form of Colony Farm
Regional Park. The language used by those defending this colony in Canada
was improvement through agrarian labour. Thus, the Medical Officer in his
annual report in 1883 observed: 'There are about four acres of ground imme
diately in front of the Asylum . . . which ought to be fenced in and brought
under cultivation. This would ... have a most beneficial effect on a large por
tion of the patients ... to have them a portion of the time employed in cultivat
ing vegetables.'79
where in the United States of Canada at this time a hospital for the insane that does not
possess its open ward... farms and gardens to which the patient sallies forth each day as a
contented laborer to his toil.' 'Farm Work for Lunatics: Dr. G.A. Blumer Describes the
Colony of the Utica State Hospital', New York Times, 26 May 1899.
76 M.T. Waggaman, 'Labor Colonies for the Feeble-Minded', Monthly Labor Review,
11 (8) (1920), pp. 12-19.
77 J. Mastin, 'The New Colony Plan for the Feeble-Minded', Journal of Psycho
Asthenics, 21 (1916), pp. 25-35, pp. 28-9.
78 Ibid., p. 31.
79 Annual Report on the Provincial Hospital for the Insane, Department of Health
Services and Hospital Insurance, Mental Health Services Branch, 12 January 1883, cited
in L.G. Roman, S. Brown, S. Noble, R. Wainer and A. Young, 'No Time for Nostalgia!:
Asylum-making, Medicalized Colonialism in British Columbia (1859-97) and Artistic
Praxis for Social Transformation', International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Edu
cation, 22 (1) (2009), pp. 17-63, p. 33.

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In Britain, 'feeblemindedness' was also deem

lem, due to the introduction of public educati
sion on the Care and Control of the Feeble M
Five members of the Commission travelled to
farm colony system and based on their ob
colonies' be established in Britain for both 'feeble-minded' children and
adults: 'The Commissioners speak with approval of the American system of
farm colonies for the feeble-minded ... [They] were struck by the originality
and directness of the methods adopted in several of these institutions with a
view to stimulating the activity of the perceptive power of the inmates.'80 As
with Booth's Darkest England, the commissioners linked the 'feeble-minded'
of Britain to the colonized 'savage' of the colonies — both requiring to be
seen as a 'race apart' and in need of civilizing influences:
Racial metaphors... defined the form of institutional provision established
for mental defectives. In a manner akin to efforts to tame the savage 'other'
by imperialistic measures imposed on the colonies, the minds and bodies of
the idiotic, the imbecilic and the feeble-minded were also to be subdued and
domesticated in the safe, segregate environment of purpose built 'colonies'
for defectives. As a result of this geographical isolation and marginaliz
ation, mental defectives became literally, as well as metaphorically, a race
apart.81
As with the American farm colonies, there was always a 'curative' dimen
sion to agrarian labour that would help the inhabitants to improve and pro
gress to the extent possible: 'The countryside location provided space and
cheap land for the dispersed design, and farmland on which patients could be
set to work cultivating their own food; at the same time, the fresh food, exer
cise and fresh air seemed to offer therapeutic advantages for the residents.'82
The Commission concluded that the mentally deficient should be under the
permanent care of the state (echoing Locke's view that 'lunatics' and 'ideots'
are to be kept under the domestic government of their parents in perpetuity).
English doctor Langdon Down (who lent his name to Down's syndrome) con
curs: 'The colony should aim to make life in the colony an end in itself; once it
had been decided that an individual was mentally stunted and a suitable per
80 Royal Commission, The Problem of the Feeble Minded: An Abstract of the Report
of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded (London, 1909),
pp. 61, 76.
81 M. Jackson, 'Changing Depictions of Disease: Race Representation and the His
tory of "Mongolism" ', in Race Science and Medicine 1700-1960, ed. E. Waltraud and
H. Bernard (London and New York, 1999), pp. 167-88, pp. 167-8.
82 M. Thomson, The Problem of Mental Deficiency: Eugenics, Democracy, and
Social Policy in Britain c. 1870-1959 (Oxford, 1998), p. 115.

49.216.175.29 on Mon, 10 Jul 2023 08:10:15 +00:00
518 Β. ARNEIL
son to join the colony, it sho

life for him there as long as
Winston Churchill, who re
behalf of the government,
nent segregation of the men
that Churchill's support for
site of his view on criminal
mental defectives, Churchill
habitual criminals on the gr
defectives from the possessi
liberals from the time of Lo
need to expunge limitless au
until the second half of the
sons who were governed und
and practice (Churchill). C
farm colonies was also infl
died with them and was not
One of the key debates at th
the mentally disabled, refle
ism versus the growing infl
or mentally deficient should
paths taken by Britain vers
ologies were at work to diff
nialism was at work in all t
was stronger than in the UK
ism to lead to the adoption
farm colonization.
This debate is best articulated in the United States in the famous Bell v.
Buck case of 1927. Carrie Buck, a seventeen-year-old girl, was the first per
son in the state of Virginia to be sterilized under its new law. She and her
mother lived in a farm 'colony' — the 'Bell' referred to in the title of the case
is the superintendent of the colony who wanted to sterilize Carrie Buck. The
Virginia farm colony's argument was that she would be allowed her freedom
if she were sterilized. Thus classical liberalism (individual freedom) and
eugenics (no right to reproduce and benefit to society) were combined on one
side of the argument and liberal colonialism (the right of states to colonize the
mentally disabled for their own improvement) lay on the other.
83 Langdon Down, 'The After Care of the Feeble-Minded', British Medical Journal
(.BMJ), 6 November 1909, p. 1357.
84 Thomson, The Problem of Mental Deficiency, p. 33.
85 M. Gilbert, 'Churchill and Eugenics', The Churchill Center (London, May 2009),
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/support/the-churchill-centre/publications/finest-hour
online/594-churchill-and-eugenics. Accessed September 2010.

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Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the United

favour of forced sterilization because it would
from the colony and allow her to become an i
monwealth is supporting in various institution
if now discharged would become ... a menac
ing might be discharged with safety and becom
to themselves and to society.' At the same tim
argument that it was 'better for all the world,
who are manifestly unfit from continuing their
a different policy outcome with respect to fe
colonialism: forced sterilization instead 0/colo
the prevention of reproduction, sterilization
policy than farm colonies.
In Britain, on the other hand, neither classica
ics was able to challenge the combined infl
socialist/social democratic arguments. Thus, u
ain never implemented compulsory sterilizatio
Royal Commission recommended it and Wi
exactly because the liberal colonial argumen
agrarian labour on farm colonies and the so
Millian argument that the state could legitimate
'backward' populations within such colonies
favour colonization as a more 'civilized' answ
mindedness than sterilization, even if it depriv
'liberty'. The Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 t
sory sterilization in favour of confinement an
abled and ill in Britain until replaced by the 1
A.M. McCutcheon, Resident Medical Superint
in Birmingham, perfectly articulates the libera
nies over sterilization. He begins by arguing t
mentally deficient should have three objective
disabled] to proper conduct, 2) to train them to
and 3) to prevent procreation' and then he con
be achieved by segregation in institutions, pre
whereas sterilization, which is advocated by som
one of the objects, namely that of preventing
certainly does not tackle the conduct aspect, no
McCutcheon and more broadly Britain as a
86 Bell v. Buck. Carrie Buck v. James Hendren Bell,

for Epileptics and Feeble Minded. US Citation: 274 US
(1927).
87 A.M. McCutcheon, 'Institutional Treatment of Mental Defectives, with Special
Reference to Occupation', Journal of Mental Science (1925), pp. 694-703, p. 695.

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520 Β. ARNEIL
preferable to sterilization be
the individual through educ
reproduction.
Thus, farm colonies for the mentally disabled/ill were not wholly or even
primarily the product of a eugenic concern for reproduction as has been com
monly argued, but of liberal colonial notions of progress and improvement
through education and agrarian labour. Such arguments, rooted as I hope to
have shown in Lockean and Millian theories, were similar to the ones used to
justify residential schools and labour colonies for indigenous peoples in
Canada, where the 'irrational' and 'idle' Indian were to be separated from
their families and communities in order to encourage them to relinquish their
'bad' customs and learn through agrarian labour to become industrious and
rational.
Many socialists and Fabians provided ideological support for the coloniza
tion and sterilization of the mentally disabled, particularly in Britain and
Canada, because they defended the state's capacity to engage in social plan
ning for the collective good. As Radford comments:
The notion of mandatory controls on reproduction was particularly attrac
tive to those supportive of social planning in general. Proponents of scien
tific management. . . found a common ground on this issue with groups to
the left of the political center, including social reformers of all kinds. In
Britain, the Fabian socialists were particularly prominent, including such
well-known figures as George Bernard Shaw, the Webbs, and Laski.88
Similarly, in Canada, sterilization laws were passed and endorsed by leaders

of the CCF (a social democratic party). Tommy Douglas, an iconic figure in
Canadian history (voted 'the greatest Canadian' in 2006 in a CBC programme
that included such luminaries as Wayne Gretzky and Pierre Trudeau), dis
cussed earlier as a social democratic provincial premier who introduced colo
nies for Metis, was also a strong supporter of the colonization and forced
sterilization of 'sub-normal' individuals. His master's thesis, completed at
McMaster's University, Hamilton, in 1933, entitled The Problems of the Sub
normal Family, concluded that individuals of 'low intelligence' should be
sent to colonies and the 'fully deficient' should be sterilized, because it would
benefit the collective well-being of society. These views were deeply
eugenicist in character supplemented by a socialist belief in state engineering.
Thus, to the extent that farm colonies were adopted (as opposed to steriliza
tion) in response to the 'problem' of the mentally ill/disabled, it is clear that
liberal colonialism, as opposed to either eugenics or socialism, is at work. The
use of the word colony, the emphasis on 'reason' in distinguishing the colo
nized from the colonizer and, most particularly, the central focus on agrarian
labour in farm colonies to improve the 'feeble minded', suggests that liberal
88 J.P. Radford, 'Sterilization versus Segregation: Control of the "Feebleminded"
1900-1938', Social Science & Medicine, 33 (4) (1991), pp. 449-58, p. 453.

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colonialism, with its emphasis, from Locke on

rationality and Mill's defence of the curtailmen
name of progress, was central to the justificati
of Monyhull Colony's director quoted above, i
because they alone 'improve' the feeble minded
them from reproducing (as sterilization would
colonies were fundamentally justified by reaso
ics; while the emphasis on farm labour is rejec
value in agrarianism as a means to improve m
One might ask, if Locke justified English
century America and Mill justified British imp
India, why domestic colonies only came into e
or early twentieth century? There was a combin
colonialism to both peak and turn inward at the t
First and foremost was the intensity with whi
be defended in Britain itself, as it reached its h
internal dissent and the first of what would b
post-colonial challenges to its moral and politic
including Mill, provided a defence of coloni
sought to civilize or improve humanity (both
had done before him in the seventeenth centur
Secondly, the catalyst for the turn inward wit
was the introduction of universal public educa
Canada at the end of the nineteenth century th
tally deficient' children front and centre in the
an immediate response. Third, the rise of ideol
eth century, such as eugenics (that sought to
reproducing) and socialism and social democrac
engage in social planning and social engineerin
argued above) to the rise of both farm and labo
My analysis of liberal colonialism in relation
overlapping but somewhat different perspective
treatment of the mentally ill/disabled than
Foucault in his famous Madness and Civilizatio
rise of science, particularly medical science, tra
mentally ill from one of terror to one of disc
brings a new set of power relations to bear on its
of observation, diagnosis, and therapeutics' as c
'giant moral imprisonment', a 'juridical space w
and condemned'.89 But what Foucault does not d
colonies. This may be because Foucault's work
89 M. Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History

(New York, 1965), p. 269.

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522 Β. ARNEIL
he does use several English e

tally ill would probably be v
new 'moral' methods of ps
in England and Philippe Pin
I agree with Foucault that t
to be 'irrational' during this
poor simultaneously and bot
required to 'work the land'.
use of the term 'colony' for
gest that there may be som
cine at work in Britain, Can
ideology defending a particu
with an increasing preferenc
of the twentieth century in
history of science (medic
strength of British liberal c
son and industry and its acute
justification for the continu
abroad.
Conclusion
At the heart of this paper is an interrogation of the meaning of 'colonization',

'colonialism' and colony in classical liberal theory and practice. Colonization
understood only as a process by which Britain (or any other imperial power)
takes over the land and/or sovereignty of a foreign, generally non-Western,
people, fundamentally ignores the internal dimension of liberal colonialism
that justified domestic colonies for both the idle poor and the 'irrational'
within the borders of Britain, the United States and Canada at the turn of the
twentieth century. As such liberal colonialism is not only about colonization
outside Europe (as important as this dimension remains). Instead liberal colo
nialism should be thought of as an ideology that sought to make the idle and
irrational into the 'industrious, rational' and autonomous, whether they were
idle 'Indians' in America, the custom bound Indians in Asia, feeble-minded
children and adults in all three countries, the Metis in Canada or the freed
blacks in America. While it is clear that socialism, conservatism, medical sci
ences and eugenics all played varying roles in the justification of domestic
colonies, I hope to have shown that the core ideological defence of colonies as
opposed to asylums, penal labour colonies or forced sterilization for the
irrational and/or poor is fundamentally liberal colonialist.
Thus, liberal colonialism needs to be seen as an ideology with a larger
scope than previously assumed, since while its targets were largely non-West
ern peoples they also included the mentally ill, disabled, idle poor and physi
cally disabled within colonizing countries as well, using the same terms and

49.216.175.29 on Mon, 10 Jul 2023 08:10:15 +00:00
techniques. As such, liberal colonialism should

that seeks to, using a Foucauldian term, 'discip
home or abroad. It seeks to 'improve' those who
these differences in customs, habits and ways
those deemed to be the 'industrious and ration
this inherent need to 'improve' while breaking
their previous customs and ways that liberal s
embrace the extraordinarily illiberal policies o
residential schools and colonization, both at ho
Barbara Arneil UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

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LIBERAL COLONIALISM, DOMESTIC COLONIES AND CITIZENSHIP

Author(s): Barbara Arneil

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26225797

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Barbara Arneil 1,2

A body of scholarly literature, including my own previous research, has

1 Political Science Department, 1866 Main Mall, University of British Columbia,

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXIII. No. 3. Autumn 2012

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I begin the article by defining two kinds of

7 I have not included in this analysis two other kin

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unemployed as a form of une

Domestic Colonies in Brit

As early as the eighteenth ce

9 Labour colonies existed (and

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10 Farm colonies for the mentally disabled were found alm

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animated the defence of the

Industry and the 'Idle' Foreigner and Citizen

[As a result of the Protestant Reformation]: idleness became the supreme

11 J. Locke, 'Two Treatises of Government', in Cambridge Texts in the History of

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both for those colonized and those in Europe w

As James Tully, David Armitage and I have a

13 C. Kliewer and L.M. Fitzgerald, 'Disability, Sch

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liberal colonial literature —

Those who are not able to w

18 J. Locke, Essay on the Poor Law [1697 September-October] Public Record

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Scheer and Groce comment on this distinctio

The changing and increasingly restricted position of disabled persons in

What is unique in Locke's essay and underscores a classical liberal approach

Reason and the 'Irrational' Other

21 J. Scheer and N. Grace, 'Impairment as a Human Constant: Cross-Cultural and

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Locke's theory, the [male] ch

types of authority are time limit

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and ways, they would also need to be separated

If through defects that may happen out of the or

Thus, the idea that mentally ill and disabled

28 'But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and th

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the latter are governed by a C

J.S. Mill: Autonomy/Indi

Mill's distinction — between t

30 J.S. Mill, On Liberty (New Yo

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implies an important boundary between citi

The despotism of custom is everywhere the

This is critically important for it demonstrat

31 Desmond King, In the Name of Liberalism: I

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notions' or 'customs' respectiv

Mill's belief in autonomy and

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary

Zastoupil has argued that Mill

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grand source of improvement [is] repression