Law & constitutions

Topics represented

British Empire (107) · Law & constitutions (76) · Law & imperial government (61) · Resistance & colonized agency (58) · Colonization & sovereignty (47) · Decolonization & independence (33) · Slavery & coerced labor (24) · Indigenous peoples & dispossession (23) · War & conquest (22) · Self-government & Commonwealth (21) · Companies, trade & extraction (17) · Memory, reparation & restitution (15)

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

1. 1871–1876

   The Numbered Treaties and Indian Act reorder sovereignty in Canada

   Between 1871 and 1876 the Canadian Crown concluded the first six Numbered Treaties with multiple First Nations while Parliament enacted the Indian Act. Crown texts recorded territorial surrenders in exchange for reserves, payments and promises; many Indigenous interpretations instead hold that the agreements concerned sharing the land and maintaining an enduring relationship with the Crown. The Indian Act consolidated coercive federal authority over community status, lands and government, making imperial continuity within the Canadian state visible

2. 1874–1965

   Winston Churchill

   Churchill was a soldier, colonial minister and prime minister during the Second World War and again from 1951 to 1955. He openly defended empire, opposed Indian self-government and participated in wartime decisions affecting imperial populations, including the Bengal crisis. His role in defeating Nazism does not erase his racial ideas or imperial policies; both dimensions belong together and require historically precise causal claims

3. 1879

   A British ultimatum precipitates the Anglo-Zulu War

   High Commissioner Bartle Frere delivered King Cetshwayo an ultimatum designed to be unacceptable, and British forces invaded Zululand. The Zulu victory at Isandlwana exposed imperial limits, but British reinforcements defeated the kingdom and fragmented its authority

4. 1883–2015

   Residential schools: assimilation, survival and truth

   From the 1880s, the Canadian state and several churches operated a residential-school network that separated Indigenous children from their families, languages and cultures; the last federally funded school closed in 1996. After decades of survivor testimony, litigation and organizing, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission published its final report and 94 Calls to Action in 2015. The timeline thus connects a long-lived colonial institution with the agency of those who compelled the country to document its harms and legacies

5. 1884–1885

   European powers regulate the partition of Africa

   European and US delegates—with no African representation—agreed rules for trade, navigation, and “effective occupation” in the Congo and Niger basins. The conference did not itself draw all African borders, but it accelerated claims and coercive treaties, including British expansion

6. 1885–1886

   The Third Anglo-Burmese War ends in annexation

   Following a commercial dispute and ultimatum, British troops occupied Mandalay, deposed King Thibaw, and annexed Upper Burma to India. The rapid seizure of the capital gave way to years of rural resistance and counterinsurgency

7. 1885

   The first Indian National Congress meets

   Seventy-two delegates met in Bombay to debate representation, administrative reform, and political rights. The organization evolved from constitutional petition to a mass movement for `swaraj`, encompassing rival tendencies and leaders including Dadabhai Naoroji, Gokhale, Tilak, Gandhi, and Nehru

8. 1885

   Métis and Indigenous allies resist in the North-West

   Ignored petitions over land title and political survival led to a Métis provisional government at Batoche and conflict across the plains. The railway enabled Canada to deploy troops; Louis Riel was executed for treason and Cree leaders imprisoned, deepening national divisions and dispossession

9. 1888–1895

   Chartered companies turn treaties into African rule

   Charters for the Imperial British East Africa Company and British South Africa Company delegated treaty-making, policing, extraction, and administration to private firms. Their agents obtained concessions of disputed meaning, and the government proclaimed protectorates when company rule proved costly or unstable

10. 1893–1897

    Ndebele and Shona resist company rule

    The BSAC defeated the Ndebele kingdom in 1893 and expanded land seizure, taxation, and coerced labour. In 1896–1897 Ndebele and Shona communities rose in the Chimurenga/Umvukela; Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi were executed, while memories of resistance shaped later nationalism

11. 1896–1899

    Reconquest culminates at Omdurman and an unequal condominium

    The Mahdist state had expelled Egyptian-British rule from much of Sudan. Kitchener’s army—largely Egyptian and Sudanese and equipped with machine guns—defeated it at Omdurman; the 1899 Anglo-Egyptian condominium left effective control in British hands

12. c. 1897–c. 1978

    Jomo Kenyatta

    Kenyatta articulated Kikuyu demands over land and representation, participated in Pan-African networks and was imprisoned during the Kenya Emergency after a trial whose fairness has been widely questioned. Released in 1961, he led the negotiated transition, became prime minister at independence in 1963 and president from 1964. His government consolidated national sovereignty but also concentrated power and maintained unequal land distribution

13. 1901

    Australia federates and restricts non-white immigration

    Six colonies formed the Commonwealth of Australia under the Crown. The same year the Immigration Restriction Act created the dictation test underpinning White Australia; settler self-government coexisted with migration exclusion and continued denial of First Nations sovereignty

14. c. 1908–c. 1988

    Vincent Lingiari

    A Gurindji elder and stock worker, Lingiari led the 1966 walk-off from Wave Hill against unequal wages and conditions. He helped transform a labor dispute into a sustained campaign for the return of ancestral lands, symbolized by transfer of the Daguragu leasehold in 1975. His leadership was communal and collaborative: this profile does not reduce the actions of Gurindji families and organizers to one person

15. 1909–1972

    Kwame Nkrumah

    Nkrumah participated in the 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress, organized the Convention People’s Party and linked popular mobilization to “self-government now.” He led the Gold Coast to independence as Ghana in 1957 and advocated African unity. As president he concentrated power and established a one-party state before his 1966 overthrow, a reminder that anticolonial leadership and postcolonial government require distinct assessments

16. 1910

    The Union of South Africa consolidates a white settler state

    Four colonies united as a dominion under the Crown after the war. The constitution placed national power in white hands and retained only a limited multiracial franchise in the Cape, preparing the ground for segregationist law and regional expansion

17. 1912–1913

    The ANC organizes against a racial land order

    African leaders founded the South African Native National Congress in 1912. The 1913 Natives Land Act restricted African purchase and occupation to a small share of the territory; Sol Plaatje documented dispossession and a delegation carried protest to London

18. 1916

    The Easter Rising accelerates Ireland’s break

    Republicans occupied buildings in Dublin and proclaimed a republic during wartime. The rising was defeated within a week, but the executions of Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and other leaders and mass arrests transformed opinion and opened the path to the War of Independence

19. 1917

    The Balfour Declaration promises a Jewish “national home”

    Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour conveyed British support for a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, with a clause against prejudicing the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities. It did not recognize Palestinian national political rights and was issued before British occupation was consolidated

20. 1919

    The Treaty of Rawalpindi confirms Afghan autonomy

    Amanullah Khan launched the Third Anglo-Afghan War, and the Rawalpindi agreement ended the conflict. Afghanistan gained effective control of foreign relations; the inherited Durand Line continued to divide Pashtun communities and remains contested

21. 1919

    British troops fire at Jallianwala Bagh

    Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to fire without warning into a trapped crowd at Amritsar. The official toll was 379 dead; Indian estimates were higher, so the total remains disputed. The massacre and martial law radicalized opposition; Rabindranath Tagore renounced his British knighthood

22. 1920–1922

    Partition precedes the Irish Free State

    The Government of Ireland Act created two jurisdictions; after war and negotiation, the Anglo-Irish Treaty established a 26-county dominion. Northern Ireland opted to remain in the United Kingdom, while the oath, boundary, and partition divided nationalism and contributed to civil war

23. 1920–1922

    Mandates turn occupation into international trusteeship

    San Remo assigned Britain mandates over Iraq and Palestine, with Transjordan administered within the Palestine framework under the League of Nations system. In Iraq, a broad tribal, clerical, and urban revolt against occupation and taxation was suppressed; its cost encouraged monarchy and indirect rule under Faisal

24. 1922

    Britain declares a limited Egyptian independence

    Following the 1919 nationalist revolution politically led by Saad Zaghloul’s Wafd, Britain ended the protectorate and recognized Egypt as a sovereign state. It reserved defence, communications, minorities, and Sudan, retaining troops and decisive influence

25. 1922–1923

    The League approves the Mandate for Palestine

    The instrument incorporated the Balfour Declaration and charged Britain with facilitating the Jewish national home and developing self-governing institutions, alongside an obligation to safeguard all inhabitants. Tension between these duties and the absence of Palestinian consent structured mandate rule

26. 1926–1931

    Dominions become autonomous and equal communities

    The 1926 Balfour Declaration described Britain and the dominions as autonomous and equal in status; the 1931 Statute of Westminster removed much legislative subordination. Application varied by dominion, and this equality did not extend to colonies or Indigenous peoples within settler states

27. 1929–1930

    Ogu Umunwanyi mobilizes women against indirect rule

    Thousands of Igbo and Ibibio women organized assemblies, songs, boycotts, and the practice of “sitting on” authorities against feared taxation and warrant-chief abuses. Colonial forces fired at several locations, killing dozens; exact totals vary. Later commissions partially reformed local government

28. 1930

    Gandhi turns salt into mass civil disobedience

    Mahatma Gandhi marched with followers from Sabarmati to Dandi and symbolically broke the colonial salt monopoly. The campaign spread across India, brought in women and workers, and prompted mass arrests; Sarojini Naidu was among those who continued the protest

29. 1932

    Iraq enters the League of Nations

    The formal end of the mandate and Iraq’s admission to the League made Faisal I’s kingdom an independent state. A treaty retained British bases, military transit, and influence, while oil and minority protections remained sites of power and conflict

30. 1935

    The 1935 Act expands provincial autonomy without sovereignty

    The Act proposed a federation never fully realized and created elected provincial governments under a still-restricted franchise. Governors retained reserve powers and the center remained under imperial control; nevertheless, the 1937 elections gave Indian parties experience in office