Protecting the Empire's Humanity

Thomas Hodgkin and British Colonial Activism 1830–1870

Zoë Laidlaw

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781107196322
• eBook ISBN: 9781108174053
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Rooted in the extraordinary archive of Quaker physician and humanitarian activist, Dr Thomas Hodgkin, this book explores the efforts of the Aborigines' Protection Society to expose Britain's hypocrisy and imperial crimes in the mid-nineteenth century. Hodgkin's correspondents stretched from Liberia to Lesotho, New Zealand to Texas, Jamaica to Ontario, and Bombay to South Australia; they included scientists, philanthropists, missionaries, systematic colonizers, politicians and indigenous peoples themselves. Debating the best way to protect and advance indigenous rights in an era of burgeoning settler colonialism, they looked back to the lessons and limitations of anti-slavery, lamented the imperial government's disavowal of responsibility for settler colonies, and laid out elaborate (and patronizing) plans for indigenous 'civilization'. Protecting the Empire's Humanity reminds us of the complexity, contradictions and capacious nature of British colonialism and metropolitan 'humanitarianism', illuminating the broad canvas of empire through a distinctive set of British and Indigenous campaigners.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series information
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Maps
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Mapping Humanitarianism
• Part II Humanitarianism and Settler Colonialism
• Bibliography
• Index