Missions and Missionaries in the Pacific by Char MillerReview by: John W. CellThe American Historical Review, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Feb., 1987), pp. 195-196Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1862912 .

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Asia and the East 195

suppositions; if they seek a new hypothesis or new set of data, they will find this book partly repetitious.

The study expresses the author's obvious sympa- thy with the cause of Indian independence and the struggle of its preindependence politicians for their homeland and their values. His compassion, how- ever, does not obscure the power of his judgments and, in fact, enables him to demonstrate the histor- ical evolution of the British-Indian relationship with some of its complexity.

The book is directed to the general public inter- ested in the economic history of India, and it can be valuable as a first reading for students whose aim is to specialize in some area of the Indian subconti- nent.

PAUL JONAS

Universit of New Mexico

ANAND A. YANG, editor. Crime and Ciminality in British India. (Association for Asian Studies Monograph, number 42.) Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 1985. Pp. xi, 192. $17.95.

This book is the forty-second in the generally splen- did series of monographs published by the Associa- tion for Asian Studies. Given the enduring fascina- tion of crime and punishment, it is also one of the most intriguing volumes in the series. The introduc- tion by Anand A. Yang, who edited the volume, sets the appropriate tone in discussing the history of scholarly trends and schools of thought in the study of crime and criminality. John McLane's excellent essay concentrates on the situation in Bengal in the first years after the permanent settlement. Not sur- prisingly, the dacoits were drawn from the lower orders of society-village watchmen, laborers, culti- vators, servants, fishermen, cowherds, beggars, and so on. McLane contends that the local landholders probably could have eliminated the dacoits, but many of them profited from sponsoring the bandits or helping them dispose of stolen goods. Of course, a major catalyst for banditry was the permanent set- tlement of 1793, which, as McLane points out, separated authority and power from property.

Bruce Robinson writes on the bandits of western India and comments on the social role of the armed gangs and the bandit chief as the righter of wrongs and public hero. Chapter 3, by David Arnold, moves the area under investigation to Madras in the years 1858-1947. He emphasizes the role of crime as protest and notes that the British reaction was not one of redress for victims of individual criminal acts but rather of concern about group acts as symptoms of incipient revolt.

Chapter 4, by Edith Brandstadter, deals with the curious tale of the Konds and their propensity for human sacrifice. After the Goomur War of 1837-38

the British authorities used various socioeconomic strategies to "civilize" the Kond. They supported the establishment of social, political, and economic net- works that seemed to be leading to the increased "hinduization" of the tribe. The British even man- aged to gain the acceptance of buffalo meat in place of human flesh for Kond ceremonies.

Yang next discusses the Criminal Tribes' Act of 1871 and the British propensity for categorizing groups of people into generalized classes such as warrior races, criminal tribes, and dangerous castes. The policy probably simplified administration but was hardly calculated to advance the cause of indi- vidual human rights. In that sense it was in stark contrast to developments in Britain itself.

Stewart Gordon uses the Bhils as a case study of the rehabilitation of a criminal tribe, and Sandria Freitag concludes the volume with an essay on collective crime and authority in northern India. He cogently discusses the development of a philosophy of effective crime control originally inspired by the establishment of revenues from land as the chief source of income for the state and the consequent commitment to protect settled agrarian communi- ties.

Monographs, by their very nature, are usually for the eyes of the specialist. This book may well be an exception, for it belongs on the bookshelf of any scholar concerned with the history of British rule on the subcontinent.

ROBERT A. HU'TTENBACK

University of California, Santa Barbara

CHAR MILLER, editor. Missions and Missionaries in the Pacific. (Symposium Series, number 14.) New York: Edwin Mellen. 1985. Pp. 125. $19.95.

Reviewing this volume reminds me of the task of commenting at an all-too-typical session at a profes- sional meeting: it consists of three papers of widely disparate focus and quality, related only in being small pieces of the same general subject, and leaves the commentator vainly struggling to develop a common theme. The first of the three essays, James Boutilier's "We Fear Not the Ultimate Triumph: Factors Effecting the Conversion Phase of Nine- teenth-Century Missionary Enterprises," lists some ten variables in a complex interaction: the intentions of missionaries, the intermediary role of beach- combers, the degree of hierarchy in indigenous religion, the readiness of the political elite to seize on the religion to bolster its power, and so on. He then illustrates these one by one with examples drawn mainly from secondary works and concludes by repeating the list. In lieu of transitions, his thirty- nine-page piece contains no less than eighteen sec-

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196 Reviews of Books

tions separately subtitled. And, somewhat discon- certing in view of the subject, the word "deities" is frequently and consistently misspelled. The writing in this essay, in my judgment, is not up to publish- able standard.

The essay by the editor, Char Miller, entitled "Domesticity Abroad: Work and Family in the Sand- wich Island Mission, 1820-1840," examines the con- tradictory and traumatic interrelationship between hard realities and the goal of providing examples of functioning Christian families. Like other Europe- ans who lived in the tropics, missionaries employed native servants, sent their children "home" to school, or left themselves-but they thought, worried, and wrote about the problem at length. Based mainly on diaries and other primary sources, Miller's tightly argued, artistically cast, and well-written essay gets close to the lives of missionary women.

Last is Charles Forman's "Playing Catch-Up Ball: The History of Financial Dependence in Pacific Island Churches," which begins with a singularly bland statement-"One of the problems of the so- called developing nations, as they enter the world economic system, is that they seem trapped in a position of dependence on the developed nations" (p. 9 1)-on which it somewhat improves. Early missions, it seems, living off the modest contribu- tions of the island villagers they served, were usually self-supporting. But, like jet airplanes, such symbols of modernity as theological training, outreach pro- grams, and conferences seemed essential for re- spectability, and these activities far outstripped re- sources. Thus, Pacific missions, like those in Asia or Africa, remained dependent on Western sponsors.

Symposium volumes rarely make good books. The rationale for them, I suppose, is that several writers can achieve more range and depth than one. It seldom works that way. This volume is poorly produced, overpriced, and badly proofread. I hate to be churlish, but Miller's interesting essay would have been better placed in Signs.

JOHN W. CELL

Duke University

NORMAN G. OWEN. Prosperity without Progress: Manila Hemp and Material Life in the Colonial Philippines. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1984. Pp. xxii, 311. $30.00.

Norman G. Owen has written an interesting eco- nomic history of the Bikol (Kabikolan) region of the Philippines during the nineteenth century. Situated in the southeastern part of the northern island of Luzon, the area was portrayed as a backwater by contemporary sources at the beginning of the pe- riod under study (p. 39). Reality changed dramati- cally after 1820, when the economy of Bikol became

integrated into the world economy as a producer of abaca (manila hemp). After World War I, the mar- ket declined, and so did the region; few effects of the boom of the previous century remained.

Owen draws on the concept of a capitalist world economy as developed by Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein, but the author acknowl- edges that the model is of use in understanding events in Bikol only in the nineteenth century (p. 32). Although the area was administered by the Spanish colonial authorities in Manila, it was eco- nomically and geographically isolated from Manila, the rest of the Philippines, and the world economy. The population was relatively homogeneous; the economy was self-sufficient in rice and most other items; and the colonial superstructure, apart from the tobacco monopoly (1782-1882), had relatively little impact. Marauding Muslim pirates from the southern Philippines (Moros) were the most signif- icant contact that the region had with the outside.

Abaca changed all that. The fiber came into great demand for ships' rigging (by the Civil War only abaca was used on American vessels for running rigging [p. 47]) and, later, binder's twine. In 1818 fourteen tons of abaca were shipped to Salem, Massachusetts. With fluctuations, exports from Bikol increased until the period 1910-15, when they averaged over ninety thousand tons per year. Thereafter, the industry declined in the region, both absolutely and relative to other areas of abaca production in the Philippines.

Tracing the link between Bikol and the global economy, Owen focuses on the agency houses in Manila and examines the impact of the initial surge in demand for abaca and the later fluctuations in the market. The changes were largely a matter of de- gree. Abaca was complementary to rice cultivation; therefore, the pattern of ownership in the lowland area was not disrupted. The labor system in abaca production rested on a combination of wage and share payment. In the author's view, however, the workers remained essentially peasants, keeping one foot in the subsistence sector (p. 114).

Nevertheless, the region lost its self-sufficiency in rice production and in general became more eco- nomically attached to the national economy. Much of the abaca-growing area came under the owner- ship of outsiders, and Bikolanos began to migrate in response to differential economic opportunities. The region, however, was unable to transcend its dependence on abaca. When the market declined, so did the region's prosperity.

Throughout the book Owen points to limitations in available information and the need to draw infer- ences. Many of his comments are qualified, and he does not provide a general discussion of his data. Another problem is that the author does not inves- tigate the reasons for the inability of the Bikol

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