Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance: Protecting Aborigines across the Nineteenth-Century British Empire

Critical Perspectives on Empire

by Alan Lester, Fae Dussart

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.

Genres: History

294 pages, Hardcover

First published April 2, 2014

About the author

Alan Lester is an English historian, historical geographer and author who has worked for Sussex University since 2000. He was appointed Professor of Historical Geography in 2006. He is known for his research on imperial networks, colonial humanitarianism and imperial governance.

In Colonisation and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance he and co-author Fae Dussart analysed the ways in which men considering themselves humane oversaw the destruction of Indigenous societies. His book Ruling the World: Freedom, Civilisation and Liberalism in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire, he examined how imperial governance worked 'everywhere and all at once' across the British Empire at key moments during the nineteenth century.

Lester gave the Distinguished Historical Geographer Lecture at the 2022 Association of American Geographers annual conference. He is co-editor of the Manchester University Press's Studies in Imperialism research monograph series. Lester has been described as “the pioneer of the idea” of “a key concept much used in recent ‘new imperial history’ writing … that of the imperial network”.

Lester has written of his concern at the recent politicisation of imperial history, and critiqued British academic Nigel Biggar's representation of colonialism.

Reviews

[Serena]

Helpful for Indigenous Studies or Australian Studies or History subjects.