For the authors writing here, children were central to the imperial project and this book argues that their experience exemplifies the process through which ‘Britishness’ was expressed and contested across the globe. By considering a wide range of imperial children from those at the centre of the metropole, to temporary migrants, settlers and indigenous communities this book highlights the dive...

The history of sheep scab is briefly discussed since it was first mentioned in 180 BC. It was probably introduced to South Africa by the early settlers and was mentioned as a problem by Simon van der Stel, although its cause was only discovered in 1809. Various measures taken over the centuries to control or eradicate the disease, which has always been of considerable economic importance, are d...

In 1754, Spanish officials and Catholic missionaries in the province of Sinaloa, located in northwestern Mexico, debated the wisdom of requiring local Indians to pay tribute to the King of Spain while exempting certain non-Indian settlers from such payments. A Jesuit missionary, whose opinion but not his name is preserved in the historical record, argued against the measure, indicating that the...

The past 35 years have witnessed a large-scale human migration from the densely settled areas of northeastern and southern Brazil to the Amazon basin. Desiring to escape the problems of population pressure, poverty and skewed land distribution in their home regions, settlers have moved to the Amazon hoping to carve a prosperous existence out of an unfamiliar environment. The result, however, ha...