Nineteenth-Century Palestine and the British Imperial Imagination: James Silk Buckingham and the Politics of Private Dissent

This article studies the account of travels in Palestine by one of the most controversial travel writers in early nineteenth century Britain, James Silk Buckingham, whose life, career, and writings sparked a political storm. Buckingham criticised British imperial and missionary activities in the East through his journalism and travel books which reached large audiences. He was the first writer in nineteenth century Britain to use a travel narrative about Palestine as a medium to develop and express liberal, anti-colonial attitudes at a time when Britain’s imperial stock in the Middle East was on the rise. While in Palestine, Buckingham uncovered evidence that confirmed and justified his liberal views. He exposed the hypocrisy of missionary activities and undermined the rising calls in Britain for restoring the Jews. He did not call for possessing the land and reconstituting it anew; nor did he see it, as his countryman the Earl of Shaftesbury did, as an empty land needing the restoration of its original Jewish possessors. Yet the fact that he saw the land as a repository of religious fanaticism to which all religions contributed indicate his limited understanding of the diverse communities of Palestine. As this article shows, Palestine, in Buckingham’s travelogue, constituted a test case, a laboratory for testing anti-colonial and liberal ideals rather than a land of invested identities and ways of life of equal worth to those in Europe.