Protecting the Empire's Humanity: Thomas Hodgkin and British Colonial Activism 1830–1870

ISBN-13: 9781107196322 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 330 str.

Zoë Laidlaw (University of Melbourne)

Opis

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.

Recenzje

'… magisterial in its scope … a major contribution to the examination and illumination of Victorian humanitarianism in the nineteenth century. It warrants close and attentive reading by scholars.' Penny Edmonds, History Australia

Spis treści

1. Introduction; Part I. Mapping Humanitarianism: 2. Indigenous protection at the humanitarian apogee; 3. Metropolitan contexts: Thomas Hodgkin, science and medicine; 4. Anti-Slavery, colonization and emigration: 'civilizing' West Africa; 5. Free trade versus free labour: British India and the West Indies; Part II. Humanitarianism and Settler Colonialism: 6. Making colonization civilizing: the Aborigines' Protection Society; 7. Dealing with the devil: systematic colonization in Australasia; 8. Conscripts of civilization: North American networks; 9. Betrayal in the borderlands: Lesotho and New Zealand; 10. Conclusion.