Indirect Agents of Empire: Army Officers' Wives in British India and the American West, 1830-1875

The author teaches in the history department at Texas A&M University. The experiences of army officers' wives stationed in British India and the U.S. West during the period 1830-1875 offer a critical dimension to understandings of imperialism. This comparative analysis argues that these women designed a distinct identity that blueprinted, directed, and legitimized the ambitions of empire. In feminizing the Army's ranking system, officers' wives appropriated and wielded male authority. Military homes a space where class, race, ethnicity, and gender intersected-functioned as operational sites of empire, and, in managing household servants, officers' wives both designed and endorsed the principles of benevolent imperialism. Whether adjudicating local disputes, emasculating soldier-servants of lower rank, or enacting the social norms of the metropole, these women confidently executed their duty as imperial agents.