At its height in 1921, the British Empire covered 11,400,000 square miles of territory, more than 120 times the size of the British Isles themselves.
Maintenance of these vast colonies required outposts and government systems in correspondence with and which answered to the British Crown. This placed British colonists—such as Cloud 9’s Clive—in positions of great political power over native subjects they would never have otherwise exercised at home, and instilled in them a sense of imperialist responsibility as the instrument of the Crown’s desire.
The imparity of power between natives of the African territories and the system of British rule left both a political and cultural legacy, not only in terms of practical issues like the transition into self-governance, but also in the lasting damage of colonial power structures and rhetoric. As Churchill developed Cloud 9 with Joint Stock Theatre Company, she found an echo to the company’s investigation of gender norms and sexual repression passed down from the Victorian era in Britain’s legacy of colonial oppression, prompting her to set part of the play in British colonial Africa.
16TH CENTURY
English monarchy colonizes Northern Ireland, subduing rebellions by confiscating land and establishing plantations. Elizabeth I encourages piracy and raiding Spanish and Portuguese slave ships.
17TH CENTURY
England establishes settlements in North America and the Caribbean, including its first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. East India Company is formed in 1600; establishes and expands trade in India and China throughout the 17th century.
18TH CENTURY
England and Scotland unite into Great Britain in 1707. The British Empire begins to expand into the Pacific, and claims the Australian continent in 1770. Britain is ultimately victorious in power struggles with France over India and the Americas before losing its Thirteen Colonies, which become the United States of America.
19TH CENTURY
Great Britain, along with other European powers, turns its attention to Africa. The continent’s rapid colonization during this century, particularly after 1880, was termed “the scramble for Africa.” Britain’s African colonies were critical to securing coastal trade routes; its colonized areas in the interior of the country became reliable sources for raw materials for its industry, as well as sources of gold, diamonds and other precious resources.
The native inhabitants of British colonies enjoyed little to no power in their governance. African resistance to this usurpation of trade and then harsh imperial rule was diplomatic and commercial, and ultimately military. In countries with decentralized societies, armed resistance generally took the form of guerrilla warfare—the “native uprisings” that unsettle the colonists of Cloud 9. Countries with centralized state systems saw standing armies confronting European imperial powers, including Ethiopia, which successfully fought off Italian rule in the 1890s.
At the height of its power in Africa, Great Britain maintained a colonial presence in vast swathes of East and South Africa, along with territories in North and West Africa.
20TH CENTURY
After World War II, a pro-decolonization Labour government is elected. Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the United Kingdom falls from 700 million to five million. Ghana becomes the first independent African nation when it declares independence from Britain in 1957. Britain relinquishes control over Hong Kong to China in 1994, and recent (and projected) referendums on home rule in Scotland and potentially Northern Ireland may yet reshape the geographic scope of the United Kingdom.