Introduction: settler colonialism and its forms of knowledge; Part I. Imagining Settler Humanitarianism: 1. Morality, violence and sentiment: precarious lives on colonial frontiers, 1788–1797; 2. Language, poetry and song: reading indigenous wordlists and grammars, 1770–1874; Part II. Regulating Settler Society: 3. 'Virtuous curiosity': penal practices and social theories, 1791–1843; 4. Prison letters: reading and writing from Norfolk Island, 1834–1860; Part III. Inventing Settler Science: 5. Collecting practices: Botany, print culture and empire, 1768–1988; 6. Creating colonial readers and imperial networks: the Tasmanian journal of natural science, 1841–1849; Conclusion: knowing the colony, knowing the world.