Empire and ethics
Understanding the process of colonisation.
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Alan Lester
Professor of Historical Geography
The legacy of colonial rule is still apparent today. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Zimbabwe, currently the most contentious colonial site in the world.
Our research suggests that in order for us to understand the impact of our colonial heritage, we must first engage with the process of colonisation.
Our work attempted to understand this process by first appreciating the connections the colonisers maintained with their British counterparts elsewhere. Our aim was to broaden our understanding of settler-humanitarian politics and their implications for what it meant to be British in both the colonial and domestic world, with particular emphasis on ‘racial’ difference.
Our work engaged with current political debates in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa by connecting their past with their present, and their colonial histories with one another. For example, during the early 19th century, there was a fierce debate among colonial Britons about how to relate to indigenous peoples. On one side were humanitarians, who felt that colonisation meant bringing Christianity and ‘civilisation’. On the other side were those who left Britain to carve out new lives on colonial frontiers. For them, indigenous peoples were a threatening presence to be removed from the landscape or ‘tamed’, so that they no longer presented an obstacle to the settlers’ livelihood.
Putting Australian colonial relations in this broader perspective helps us to understand how prominent and well-publicised revisionists like Keith Windschuttle, the author of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History (2002), may have been mistaken. Such revisionists deny that the mass murder of Aborigines took place, claiming that colonial Britons were guided by humanitarian principles. But this theory overlooks the fact that British settlers on all of the Empire’s frontiers were condemned by humanitarians for ignoring precisely these principles in their relations with indigenous peoples. These debates played a fundamental role in defining what it was to be British in the colonial world and, ultimately, the very purpose of the Empire.
By placing colonial Australia within this broader, imperial context, we also question the revisionists over policies of Aboriginal assimilation. Windschuttle has accused early 19th-century missionaries and humanitarians of devising policies of Aboriginal separation from ‘white’ society. He blames various contemporary social ills on these policies. However, our research suggests that the imperial humanitarian network actually advocated the very policies of assimilation that Windschuttle promotes. The problem with these policies in Australia was the same as that in other parts of the Empire: they were never worked out through consultation with indigenous peoples. Instead, European ideas of progress and civilisation were foisted on people who resented being so patronised.
By placing postcolonial contentions in each former colonial site alongside one another, we aim to bring new understanding to the debate.
