A manda N ettelbeck . Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood

The creation of empire poses the problem of how to govern colonial possessions without appearing usurper-like to the world. This question exercised British humanitarians in the fourth decade of the nineteenth century as a genuine moral, as well as a reputational issue. What were the rights of Indigenous subjects and how were they to be brought forth within empire? This discussion began in the metropole with Saxe Bannister’s Humane Policy; or Justice to the Aborigines of New Settlements (1830). Amanda Nettelbeck’s outline of this discourse among evangelicals and members of the British administration is both detailed and expansive. One of the most significant moments in the discussion within the British world was the report in 1837 by the British Parliamentary Select Committee on the Aborigines, headed by British slave trade reformer Thomas Fowell Buxton. The report implemented the idea of protection as imperial policy. Nettelbeck probes the report and its...

Archaeology · British Empire · Colonialism · Economic history · Empire · Expansive · Human settlement · Indigenous · Political science · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies