Aborigines' Protection Society 'from the bottom-up' - Britain and the World History Conference 2021

Presentation given virtually by Darren Reid at the 2021 Britain and the World conference.

Title: The Aborigines' Protection Society "from the bottom-up": epistolary performances of imperial citizenship(s) in the late nineteenth century.

Abstract: The Aborigines' Protection Society is most often located in British historiography in terms of its impact on the empire: how it succeeded or failed in changing "native policies," how it raised awareness of imperial injustices, how it was complicit in perpetuating genocidal discourses of "civilization." Such approaches take for granted that the APS was principally a metropolitan organization, existing primarily in the minds and actions of its members in England. In this paper, I highlight that the APS also existed in the minds and the actions of its correspondents, the global network of settler, missionary, traveller, and Indigenous correspondents that provided the APS with information on the conditions of the imperial peripheries. The APS simply could not have been without their information, yet these correspondents did not write to the APS simply to provide information. They wrote as political agents intending to intervene in imperial situations, both local and foreign, that they perceived to be contrary to their own personal or collective interests. I argue that letters to the APS reveal performances of imperial citizenship(s) in which correspondents attempted to participate - through an epistolary mobility – in imperial politics from the edges of the empire. More than simply "attempting" to participate, I also argue that correspondents occasionally succeeded in their attempts, convincing the APS to raise their questions in the House of Commons and publish their opinions in daily newspapers. By approaching the APS from the perspectives of its global correspondents, I propose a new understanding both the APS and colony-metropole relationships in the late nineteenth century.

Bio: Darren Reid is a PhD student at University College London. His research focuses on local engagements with British imperialism during the nineteenth century in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, particularly through newspaper and letter-writing networks. Darren has previously published on colonial legal cultures, transracial identities, and African engagements with imperial networks as spaces of resistance, while his current research examines settler engagements with such networks as spaces of identify formation

[cemilozcelik]

Very important work! Thank you to all the presenters and the organisers.

[ubay]

Great and diverse collection of papers and interesting discussion.

[oyuntv-riii]

Imagine someone coming to your land and telling you what you can do and what you can’t

[gd-brolar]

Excellent. I would love to have been at that conference.

[furkansenturk]

Can we see a report about the Turkish occupation and colonialism in Anatolia and the genocides on the Greeks and Armenians?

[kurulusedits]

Everytime I read about a conflict or a humanitarian disaster the word British comes up .They are still depending on divide and rule policy.

[BTOyun-vney]

I love (sarcasm) how people try to downplay the massive destruction British imperialism had on the world by talking about resistance that didnt work

[ruzgargt]

They have this idea that land is life. Violence forms the foundation of the us system. African slavery was use to conquer

[picbirtiktoker]

Who else would stalk him for a lock of his hair? xD

What kind of audience is this? They seem positively bored

[skeq]

his obsession with a british identity transcending "artificial" national borders is not a particularly historic consideration but instead is a very current political one