How did those responsible for creating Britain's nineteenth-century settler empire render colonization compatible with humanitarianism? Avoiding a cynical or celebratory response, this book takes seriously the humane disposition of colonial officials, examining the relationship between humanitarian governance and empire. The story of 'humane' colonial governance connects projects of emancipation, amelioration, conciliation, protection and development in sites ranging from British Honduras through Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, New Zealand and Canada to India. It is seen in the lives of governors like George Arthur and George Grey, whose careers saw the violent and destructive colonization of indigenous peoples at the hands of British emigrants. The story challenges the exclusion of officials' humanitarian sensibilities from colonial history and places the settler colonies within the larger historical context of Western humanitarianism.

‘Specialists and post-graduate students will find this monograph to be both a compelling and intellectually stimulating history of colonial humanitarianism as well as an important dimension of colonial governmentality and the ‘civilizing’ mission of the British Empire.’

Richard Batten Source: Imperial and Global Forum (imperialglobalexeter.com)

'Then as now, humanitarianism often served the needs of its benefactors better than its receivers. Lester and Dussart's complex, nuanced, and sympathetic account does much to illuminate the process by which that happened.'

Aidan Forth Source: Victorian Studies