The Unholy Art of Divide & Conquer
Religion was the empire’s masterstroke. Go in with the guns and the ships. Stay with the good book.
The British conquered the world with holy book in one hand, a ledger in the other, and the conviction that God was on their side. The best British civil servant ever.
I wouldn’t mind if they meant it. Were in any way people of faith. But actions speak way more volumes than sanctimonious words and ultimately, taking stuff without consent is fundamentally at odds with the tenets of the good book.
The trick was simple: tell people their gods were sh!t, then offer them a new one – the Anglican guy, of course. He’s all about the obedience to the Crown and likes to charge you for the privilege. He can often be seen dining out on the spoils with his Majesty’s revenue and customs.
What They Said About Other Religions
Hinduism? Barbaric. Point to widow-burning as proof, ignore its rarity, and quietly reinforce caste divisions so Indians fight each other instead of their colonisers.
Indigenous spirituality? Devil worship. Across Africa, Australia, and the Americas, ancestral traditions were bulldozed. Residential schools branded languages as sinful, dances as satanic and shamans as witches.
Islam? Too stubborn. Too unified. Too much competition. Solution: split it. Hindus vs Muslims in India, Sunni vs Shia in the Middle East. Prop up the pliable and undermine the independent.
Christianity? That was the jackpot. But not as one neat package—oh no. The real weapon was in exporting its divisions…
Christianity as Divide-and-Rule
Britain couldn’t even agree on how to do God. Anglicans, Puritans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists – each with their own beef. If you wanted unity, you came to the wrong parish.
So why not turn that mess into a method?
In Ireland, Catholics vs Protestants became the empire’s crown jewel. Penal Laws, famine, sectarian propaganda – all fine tools for keeping people busy hating each other instead of Westminster.
Scotland had the Kirk snarling at Anglicans. England had Dissenters railing at the established Church. Export that energy abroad and suddenly you’ve got Methodists and Anglicans battling for African converts, Baptists preaching emancipation while Anglicans defended slavery in the Caribbean. The brilliance wasn’t in unity – it was in permanent fracture.
The Alibi of Civilization
Churches sprouted beside garrisons. Schools taught obedience disguised as literacy. Local gods mocked, names Anglicised, resistance branded as rebellion against both Crown and Christ.
And the alibi always stood ready: however much land was stolen, however many cultures erased, Britain could point at the missions and say, How can we be evil? We built schools! We gave them hymnals!
Legacy: Holy Division, Still Paying Dividends
Fast forward, and the fractures remain. Hindu-Muslim tensions in India trace back to colonial meddling.
Irish politics still bends around Catholic vs Protestant identity, with sectarian murals outlasting the empire itself.
Even the Church of England is still addicted to splitting – first over Catholics, then over Dissenters, now over women priests and gay bishops. Anglicans in Africa vs Anglicans in America, synods breaking up like bad family reunions. The empire didn’t just divide its colonies; it programmed division into its own DNA.
It turns out the one thing Britain could always reproduce faithfully was conflict – holy, righteous, and dressed up as moral duty.
In the name of God, yes, to an extent. More accurately, always in the interests of Britain.
Domesticky 
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