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Papers by Juliette Milner-Thornton

From the 1950s, we begin to see white officials’ aggressive advancements to impose Colouredness a... more From the 1950s, we begin to see white officials’ aggressive advancements to impose Colouredness as a distinct racial categorization in Northern Rhodesia, as well as Eurafricans’ progressive adoption of Colouredness as an ethnic identity to make cultural and political distinctions between themselves and Northern Rhodesia’s European, African, and Indian communities. Despite white officials’ and Eurafrican people’s cultural and political grappling, Colouredness was never legislated as a distinct racial categorization in Northern Rhodesia. Nonetheless, it continued to be used to define the Eurafrican community. In earlier chapters of this book, we have seen the exterior and interior factors that greatly influenced racial policies and practices in Northern Rhodesia, and these factors in turn helped to shape and construct racial and cultural distinctions within the territory.

More than 25 years ago, my cousin Spencer Bloomfield stirred my interest in our English ancestor,... more More than 25 years ago, my cousin Spencer Bloomfield stirred my interest in our English ancestor, Dr. Sidney Spencer Kachalola Broomfield.1 Both Spencer and I were curious about Broomfield’s imperial and colonial role in Northern Rhodesia. Broomfield is the archetypical European male, whose life story (as a result of his imperial career across the British Empire) is found in the British official archive in both the empire and the metropole. Broomfield’s life story has all the elements of the white male transnational traveler’s tales about adventure, hunting, exploration, and discovery in culturally diverse and remote geographical locations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Broomfield traveled, explored, pioneered, and “careered” in varying sites of the European Empire. My initial fascination with Broomfield was his “absent” presence within my family history in Zambia.2 Since then, though, my interest in Broomfield has broadened to encompass his “haunting” presence in the wider British Empire, particularly in Zambia—the former British Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia—and in Australia.

History Compass, Jun 1, 2007

African American Studies Center, May 31, 2015

Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks, 2012

I remember, as a child, hearing my grandfather Stephen Broomfield describe himself as a musungu h... more I remember, as a child, hearing my grandfather Stephen Broomfield describe himself as a musungu half-caste,1 “white, half white and half black.” My grandfather emphasized his white British genealogy, thus dissociating himself from his African ancestry and more importantly from the harsh discriminatory policies and practices that specifically targeted Africans in Northern Rhodesia, where Africans could not travel freely within towns and even within the country—they had to carry a “pass.”2 Africans could not marry under the statutes of Northern Rhodesian Marriage Ordinances. Furthermore, the colonial administration refused recognition of the traditional customary marriages of African women with European men. Consequently, African women who participated in cross-cultural sexual relationships were dishonored as decadent and their Eurafrican children were bastardized.3 The large majority of Africans were prohibited from purchasing firearms and liquor. Africans were paid a fraction of what Europeans earned; and they could not enter cinemas, shops, or butcheries, or eat in restaurants.4 Such was Northern Rhodesia’s racialized landscape in the colonial era. Eurafricans such as my grandfather Stephen proclaimed their European ancestry to dissociate themselves from these discriminatory practices, but instead they became culturally estranged and displaced—not belonging to either culture, African or European.

In 1947, the Northern Rhodesian government appointed a second committee to inquire into Coloureds... more In 1947, the Northern Rhodesian government appointed a second committee to inquire into Coloureds’ status in the territory. In this chapter, I examine the Second Coloured Persons Committee. I begin by reconstructing Northern Rhodesia’s racial and social landscape in the 1940s and then, against this background, I explore the Second Coloured Persons Committee and the committee’s “interim” report submitted to the Northern Rhodesian government in 1948. I recreate Northern Rhodesian’s social and racial landscape through an analysis of three texts: a Northern Rhodesian Eurafrican man’s letter published in a Southern Rhodesian newspaper in 1947; a letter from a Belgian official in neighboring Congo asking the Northern Rhodesian government for clarification on half-castes’ status in Northern Rhodesia in 1941; and a chapter from the memoirs of a white settler woman who lived in Northern Rhodesia in the 1940s. Read together and in relation to one another, these texts provide us with a greater appreciation of Northern Rhodesian society in the 1940s, leading to increased understanding of Eurafricans’ unstable legal and social predicament in the British Empire.

Many Eurafricans recount memories of loving childhoods in their interracial families in Northern ... more Many Eurafricans recount memories of loving childhoods in their interracial families in Northern Rhodesia. For example, a few years ago I spoke to a woman about her childhood memories growing up in an interracial family in Northern Rhodesia in the 1930s and 1940s. The woman spoke to me about her British father’s love and kindness to her African mother and her Eurafrican siblings, all of whom were her British father and African mother’s children. In the course of our conversation, I emphasized our African origins, characterizing us as “African descendants of white men.” She responded: “My father was British.” I do not ridicule the woman or accuse her of being in denial of her African origins; rather, her comments demonstrate the intimate bonds shared within interracial families in Northern Rhodesia and the complexities of being fathered by British men.1

Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 31, 2014

Journal of Southern African Studies, Mar 23, 2020

Lawrence Mbogoni undertakes in this book a sweeping survey of interracial sexuality, the producti... more Lawrence Mbogoni undertakes in this book a sweeping survey of interracial sexuality, the production of mixed-descent children and the anxious racialised debates that these two

New York University Press eBooks, 2014

New York University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020

The Journal of African History, Jun 9, 2016

African American Studies Center, 2015

The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification, 2020

The Long Shadow of the British Empire, 2012