Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World

Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire from 1837 to 1901. In the latter years of this era—known as the Victorian Period—the empire grew significantly. Davis suggests that the Victorians took advantage of the drought-famines plaguing the Global South to enrich their mother country and expand imperial power. Though the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) caused these disasters, the British worsened them through their concomitant liberal capitalist and imperialist policies. The Empire, for instance, engaged in a “land grab” when disaster struck, thus benefiting the mother country while devastating the Global South. The “third world,” Davis argues, emerged during the Victorian era.

When the disastrous Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852) left approximately two million Irish people dead, the catastrophe established a model for British policy in India. Free market economics led British Prime Minister John Russell to create “relief programs” that forced Irish famine victims to work for relief, under the assumption that free relief encouraged idleness. Furthermore, the British government passed relief responsibilities on to landlords in Ireland, who failed to reduce the suffering experienced by the tenant farmers on their lands, who were totally dependent on potatoes for survival. Landlords evicted starving families rather than financially support them. This disaster caused mass emigration to the United States, Canada, and Australia. The famine engendered Irish anger and resistance to British colonial rule, fueling an independence movement that, after much violent conflict, led to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. Meanwhile, The British viceroy, Lord Lytton, enacted similarly exploitative relief policies in India during the late-19th century. Famines in China, India, and Brazil similarly resulted in violent revolts against colonial rule. The Boxer Rebellion (1898-1900) in China, for example, broke out in famine-stricken northern China and sought to oust foreign missionaries and others from the country, blaming them for the devastation.

The Victorian period also witnessed rapid industrialization as technology advanced. This development negatively impacted British colonies in the Global South, as the empire used these colonies as export markets while also exploiting local labor and resources to support capitalist and imperial growth. This trend devastated local producers, like textile workers, who could not compete with cheaper, industrially produced British imports. The British constructed railways across the Global South, but this technology did not ameliorate the effects of famine, as the railways were used to export grain stores to England rather than transporting them to affected regions. When grain was available, moreover, the price was so high that impoverished famine victims could not afford it. Factory conditions in England and British colonies were poor, but overall standards of living increased in England itself during this period, while populations in the Global South shrank due to liberal capitalist policies that strengthened Victoria’s formal hold on India (known as the British Raj) and informal control of Qing China.