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wiki:world_gallery:layered_info:publish:perspectives:museum:strangers:groups:picturesque_people_of_the_empire

Please note that the commentaries on this ..:..:..:..:..:perspectives:museum:strangers:objects:1019073|cigarette card series discuss prevailing attitudes in Britain toward the peoples of the British Empire in 1927 and, thus, can reflect the often-racist opinions of the time. In reading them, you are invited to consider how attitudes and communication on questions of race and nationality in Britain have changed in the years since and continue to change.

Burma was added to the British Empire in the nineteenth century and became a remote attachment to British India. Relatively few colonists settled there, and Burma, instead, became a mercantile centre for the Empire where traders of all nations came together to conduct business. The card suggests that the local inhabitants were considered to be childlike in nature, outside of these commercial structures. However, the card makes an aside about Burmese women, which suggests that, on an unofficial level, the Burmese were much more effective traders than they have been given credit for here.