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Colonization and the origins of humanitarian governance: protecting aborigines across the nineteenth-century British empire

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posted on 2023-06-08, 15:28 authored by Alan LesterAlan Lester, Fae DussartFae Dussart
How did those responsible for creating Britain’s nineteenth century settler empire render colonization compatible with humanitarianism? Avoiding both cynical and celebratory answers, 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. That story challenges the exclusion of officials’ humanitarian sensibilities from colonial history and inserts the settler colonies within the history of Western humanitarianism.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Place of publication

Cambridge

ISBN

9781107007833

Series

Critical perspectives on empire

Department affiliated with

  • Geography Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-07-31

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