why didn't they intermarry with the Indians?
The Spanish from the beginning of LatAmer intermarried with the American Indians, thus creating the Mestizo race. Why didn't the Brits do the same in India? Indian women are indeed very attractive.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
The Brits tended not marry the natives of their occupied countries, unlike the Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Racism probably played a big part in it, but the British tended to bring their women with them.
shareThere actually were an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 "Anglo Indians" by 1947, when the British left India. Their numbers have been dwindling ever since. See "Fadeout for a Culture That's Neither Indian Nor British," from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15india.html
What a negative racist title!
Why not ,,Fadeout for a Culture That's BOTH Indian and British''?
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
Negative racist title... wtf you talking about? Maybe, for once, leave the fundamentalist political correctness out of it, for f-ck´s sake. Not ALL things in this world have racist or xenophobic connotations.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Thanks Flora. I guess I was basing my comment on Brits in North America as compared to the Spanish and Portuguese in South America and the Caribbean. Maybe that's wrong also.
Some of them did, but it was just different ideologies. The British did the same when they came to North America. They simply brought their wives with them and therefore displaced the natives in NA and replaced them with whites. And yes, it's a form of genocide.
For the record, our even more distant Homo sapiens ancestors did the same when they encountered Homo neanderthalis and Homo erectus, both of which co-existed with sapiens. When sapiens encountered them, they killed them, and intermixed with them to a point, but for the most part, just had sex with their sapiens mates and displaced their populations to the point of extinction.
The WIKI article MEXICAN NOBILITY tells the very fascinating story of how the Aztec aristocracy intermingled with the Spanish; the descendants of Moctezuma are Grandes of Spain. Were the rajahs made peers of GB?
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
The descendants of Moctezuma? I very much doubt it, but would not be surprised about the descendants of the Tlaxcalan nobility. Of course, if this story had been in Spain's colonies, Aziz would've probably been lynched without a trial, Godbole would've been executed as an infidel, etc.
shareen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_nobility
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
"Why didn't the Brits do the same in India? Indian women are indeed very attractive."
Look at that interesting thought by the original poster. The OP is implicitly assuming that the intermarriage between Brits and Indians has to be between a man from Britain and a woman from India. But how about the other way around?
Yes, Indian men are also very sexy.
God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)
[deleted]
British men did indeed take Indian women as Mistresses. For the first 200 years of the East India Company doing business in India, (that's why they went, not to conquer, that was basically accidental) The Company employees who could afford to, did keep Indian Mistresses. As they were either Hindu or Muslim, The British Agents could not marry them under Christian doctrine. The History of India tells many stories of great loving relationships, and of course sad stories as well. British Women did not arrive in any great numbers until the middle of the 18th Century. It was primarily the coming of the British Memsahib that changed the easy-going relationship that had prevailed between the English and Indians up to that time. There was an intense competition among the British Ladies for the few available British Men, (due primarily to disease and harsh living conditions among the small numbers of Company employees). So using a combination of snobbery, and outright racism, they forced a change in the attitude of the British towards all Indians deeming them inferior, especially the Women. Clandestine affairs among the Ruling Class British with Indians never died out, but did severely diminish over time. Lower class British Men were far more likely to have an Indian Bibi (love). Because of this more common origin of mixed children, they were not looked on with esteem by either Native Indians or the British Upper-Class . This had not been the case prior to the 18th century.
They did intermarry, from the 1750's to around 1800. After that, a lot of British women started arriving in India, mostly sisters and other dependents of the British men posted in India. The custom of Anglo-Indian marriages fell out of favor.
Interestingly, there is another Anglo-Indian population that predates the one in India. This was in earlier days of the East India Company. They obtained the permission to trade from the Mughal Emperor Jehangir in 1614, and set up warehouses and trading posts on the coast. In this period (the 17th century), there were a lot of Indian sailors employed on British ships that made regular trading voyages between India and England. Many of these Indian sailors settled in England, and took English wives.
So there is a community of Anglo-Indians living in England who predate the Anglo-Indians in India.