A Due Observance of Justice? Protectors of Aborigines in Britain’s Australasian Colonies, 1837-1857

本项目将是第一次对殖民早期维多利亚、南澳、西澳大利亚和新西兰的土著保护者进行比较研究。受英国帝国政府任命，保护土著人民“免受残酷，压迫和不公正”，保护者担任着一个模棱两可的职位，努力调和殖民野心和人道主义情感的冲突目标。他们坐在帝国、定居者和土著利益的交汇点上，谈判慈善热情和定居者扩张的融合。保护者的生活提供了一个独特的见解，人类的成本殖民努力，其道德困境和其持久的遗产。

This project will be the first comparative study of the Protectors of Aborigines in early colonial Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand. Appointed by Britain's imperial government to shield Indigenous peoples 'from cruelty, oppression and injustice', the protectors held an ambiguous office, struggling to reconcile the conflicting aims of colonial ambition and humanitarian sentiment. They sat at the nexus of imperial, settler and Indigenous interests, negotiating a convergence of philanthropic enthusiasm and settler expansion. The lives of the protectors offer a unique insight into the human cost of colonial endeavour, its moral dilemmas and its lasting legacies.