Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance

Protecting Aborigines across the Nineteenth-Century British Empire

Alan Lester, Fae Dussart

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781107007833
• eBook ISBN:
  9781139898249
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

How did those responsible for creating Britain's nineteenth-century settler empire render colonization compatible with humanitarianism? Avoiding a cynical or celebratory response, this book takes seriously the humane disposition of colonial officials, examining the relationship between humanitarian governance and empire. The story of 'humane' colonial governance connects projects of emancipation, amelioration, conciliation, protection and development in sites ranging from British Honduras through Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, New Zealand and Canada to India. It is seen in the lives of governors like George Arthur and George Grey, whose careers saw the violent and destructive colonization of indigenous peoples at the hands of British emigrants. The story challenges the exclusion of officials' humanitarian sensibilities from colonial history and places the settler colonies within the larger historical context of Western humanitarianism.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Series title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Colonization and humanitarianism: Histories, geographies and biographies
• 2 The genesis of humanitarian governance: George Arthur and the transition from amelioration to protection
• 3 Colonization and protection: An experiment orchestrated in London
• 4 Humane colonization in practice: The Port Phillip District Protectorate of Aborigines
• 5 The New Zealand Protectorate of Aborigines
• 6 Humanitarian governance in a settler empire
• Index