Imperial Emotions: The Politics of Empathy across the British Empire

Abstract

ences. This collection demonstrates, on the contrary, that colonial Australian and New Zealand histories of protection can be productively and insightfully analysed side-by-side. A strength of this book is that it places a spotlight on Western Australia and New Zealand, especially in comparison with New South Wales (including the Port Phillip District) and South Australia, whose protection histories have tended to dominate the historiography. Marjan Lousberg’s excellent chapter on Edward Shortland in New Zealand is a case in point. Shortland lobbied the colonial government to establish a trusted repository of Māori genealogies, which could authorise land transactions acceptable to both settlers and Māori. His story reminds us that some protectors had a strong understanding and appreciation of the cultures of their ‘charges’. Malcolm Allbrook describes the Western Australian office of Government Resident, providing an illustration of how Western Australia differed from New South Wales and its descendant colonies. His case study is Government Resident Robert Sholl, who among other things approved punitive expeditions against local Aboriginal people in the Pilbara – an action the modern reader might not consider constituted ‘Aboriginal protection’. Allbrook’s chapter is also an excellent illustration of how a biographical study can form the main analytical and narrative thrust of a frontier history. Another strength of this collection is its reconsideration of how histories of the nineteenth century can be approached. In their chapter, Penelope Edmonds and Zoë Laidlaw consider the journeys of the physical copies of the 1837 Select Committee Report on Aborigines, and the journeys of its proponents. They show how different interest groups repackaged and circulated the report, and so remind readers of the often-overlooked material history of this important document. Joanna Cruickshank and Mark McMillan call for historians to look for ‘lawful conduct’, their term for settlers and Aboriginal people operating within their own laws. Theirs is a very interesting reading against the grain of British records, and one that helps illuminate other aspects of frontier relations. The focused case studies are a real strength of this book, but they also create a slight weakness. There was scope to examine the fundamental incongruity of protection: Indigenous peoples needed protection only because the British had invaded their lands, and had begun destroying their societies. Was protection imperial window dressing? Was it dealing with the survivors of dispossession? Did it matter that some of the protectors studied in this book genuinely wanted to help, but were constrained by powerful settler lobbying? Several authors address these questions, to be sure, but perhaps a chapter devoted to them was warranted. In a similar vein, in some of the chapters I wanted to hear more from the ‘protected’ themselves. Having conducted research in this area, I am well aware of source limitations and the dangers of reading recorded Indigenous speech in the records of protectors and missionaries. Bearing these cautions in mind, there was scope in some chapters for a stronger representation of Indigenous people and their interactions with protectors. Some authors achieved this with more success than others. This book will be of interest to students of race relations in the Australian colonies and New Zealand. Overall, the collection provides an up-to-date, single-volume examination of the topic of Aboriginal protection in the nineteenth-century Antipodes. Focused case studies illuminate many aspects of Aboriginal protection during this period. By drawing New Zealand andWestern Australia into the analysis, the collection provides an insightful overview that moves beyond the usual single-colonycentred histories.