Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, fear of Indigenous uprisings spread across the British Empire and nibbled at the edges of settler societies. Publicly admitting to this anxiety, however, would have gone counter to Victorian notions of racial superiority. This posed a distinct problem for journalists tasked with reporting on events of the day.
In this fascinating examination of British imperial communication networks, Kenton Storey compares newspaper coverage in New Zealand and on Vancouver Island during the 1850s and 1860s. Challenging the notion that there was a decline in the popularity of humanitarianism in the mid-nineteenth century, he demonstrates how the local colonial press adopted humanitarian language – hitherto used by Christian evangelists to promote Indigenous rights – to justify the expansion of settlers’ access to land, promote racial segregation, and allay fears of Indigenous violence, all while insisting on the “protection” of Indigenous peoples.
Settler Anxiety at the Outposts of Empire offers fresh perspectives on the history of race relations in British colonies, while it deftly explores the intersections between settler anxiety, the perceived threat of Indigenous violence, and the public use of humanitarian language. By locating New Zealand and Vancouver Island within networks of imperial communication, it also illustrates how the press worked to connect distant parts of the British Empire.
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