Governors and Settlers: Images of Authority in the British Colonies, 1820-60

"In nineteenth century settler colonies such as New Zealand, Upper Canada and New South Wales, governors not only administered; they stood at the head of colonial society and ordered the festivities and ceremonies around which colonial life centred. Governors were also expected to be repositories of political wisdom and constitutional maxims. The public also held them responsible for prosperity, education and culture. Such prominence brought criticism as well as praise. Almost all governors were as some time burned in effigy, and they were frequently the targets of scurrilous and libellous comment. Transfigured as ideal rulers -- and disfigured as the embodiments of tyranny and personal vice -- they played the symbolic roles of both hero and sacrificial victim in the emerging settler societies. "Governors and settlers" explores the public and private beliefs of governors such as Robert Fitzroy, Sir George Grey, and Thomas Gore Browne as they struggled to survive in colonial cultures which both deified and vilified their personal qualities. It also describes the context in which British and colonial thinking behind the Treaty of Waitangi tooks place, and how political strategies and ceremonies designed for one colony were successfully imposed on another. Further to this, the author describes how colonial culture in New Zealand coped with its unique situation -- in particular where politics were largely a matter of avoiding racial clashes rather than reinforcing colonial authority." -- Inside front cover.