The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy

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First, she recalled, the British shut down the islands’ plantations and cut off food supplies to the remembered paradise of her childhood. The hundreds of Chagossian families were told that they had no option but to leave by ship by 27 April 1973 or slowly starve. “We were like animals in that slave ship,” she remembered of her 20-year-old self. “People were dying of sadness.” Elysé was four months pregnant. Her child was subsequently stillborn. Anderson, Adam; Combe, William (1801). An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, from the Earliest Accounts. J Archer. Head of the Commonwealth". Commonwealth Secretariat. Archived from the original on 6 July 2010 . Retrieved 9 October 2010. Low, D.A. (February 1966). "The Government of India and the First Non-Cooperation Movement – 1920–1922". The Journal of Asian Studies. 25 (2): 241–259. doi: 10.2307/2051326. JSTOR 2051326. S2CID 162717788. Brown, D. E. (1 February 1984). "Brunei on the Morrow of Independence". Far Eastern Survey. 24 (2): 201–208. doi: 10.2307/2644439. JSTOR 2644439. Archived from the original on 15 November 2020 . Retrieved 15 November 2011.

This occurred in spite of the 1956 Maltese United Kingdom integration referendum, but in accordance with 1964 Maltese constitutional referendum. The British Somaliland Protectorate gained independence on 26 June 1960 then united with the Trust Territory of Somalia on 1 July 1960 to form the Somali Republic, but later broke away and unilaterally declared independence, which is internationally unrecognised.At its height in the 19th and early 20th century, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. [1] By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412million people, 23per cent of the world population at the time, [2] and by 1920, it covered 35.5millionkm 2 (13.7millionsqmi), [3] 24per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as " the empire on which the sun never sets", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. [4] Gibraltar held a referendum on whether or not to share sovereignty with Spain. 98.48% of voters rejected the proposal in favour of remaining solely a British overseas territory with only 1.02% supporting the proposal. In the East Indies, British and Dutch merchants continued to compete in spices and textiles. With textiles becoming the larger trade, by 1720, in terms of sales, the British company had overtaken the Dutch. [56] During the middle decades of the 18th century, there were several outbreaks of military conflict on the Indian subcontinent, as the English East India Company and its French counterpart, struggled alongside local rulers to fill the vacuum that had been left by the decline of the Mughal Empire. The Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which the British defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, left the British East India Company in control of Bengal and as a major military and political power in India. [64] France was left control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and an obligation to support British client states, ending French hopes of controlling India. [65] In the following decades the British East India Company gradually increased the size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or via local rulers under the threat of force from the Presidency Armies, the vast majority of which was composed of Indian sepoys, led by British officers. [66] The British and French struggles in India became but one theatre of the global Seven Years' War (1756–1763) involving France, Britain, and the other major European powers. [45]

Maddison, Angus (2001). The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (PDF). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. ISBN 978-92-64-18608-8. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 November 2020 . Retrieved 22 July 2009.Canny, Nicholas (1998). The Origins of Empire, The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume I. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-924676-2. Archived from the original on 18 January 2016 . Retrieved 22 July 2009. Areas of the world that were part of the British Empire with current British Overseas Territories underlined in red. Mandates and protected states are shown in a lighter shade. In the 1951 general election, the Conservative Party returned to power in Britain under the leadership of Winston Churchill. Churchill and the Conservatives believed that Britain's position as a world power relied on the continued existence of the empire, with the base at the Suez Canal allowing Britain to maintain its pre-eminent position in the Middle East in spite of the loss of India. Churchill could not ignore Gamal Abdul Nasser's new revolutionary government of Egypt that had taken power in 1952, and the following year it was agreed that British troops would withdraw from the Suez Canal zone and that Sudan would be granted self-determination by 1955, with independence to follow. [220] Sudan was granted independence on 1 January 1956. [221] Waitangi Day". nzhistory.govt.nz. New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Archived from the original on 20 December 2008 . Retrieved 13 December 2008. The British Empire was the largest of its kind in history, and once covered about one quarter of all the land on Earth.