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

Protecting the Empire's Humanity lays bare the contradictions of mid-nineteenth-century imperial Britain and the fatal flaws in imperial 'humanitarianism'.

Zoë Laidlaw (Author)

9781107196322, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 September 2021

390 pages
23.6 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.7 kg

'The book is a careful and important reminder to historians that 'humanitarianism' was (and is) neither unified nor self-evident in its politics, policies, or relationship to power. … [it is] deeply researched and shows, with close attention to personal networks and institutional politics, the ambiguity and historical specificity of the 'rights' framed and promoted by imperial humanitarianism.' Padraic X. Scanlan, Journal of Modern 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.

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.

Subject Areas: Colonialism & imperialism [HBTQ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1]