A Radical’s Career: Responsible government, settler colonialism and Indigenous dispossession

Henry Samuel Chapman (1803-1881) was one of the leading advocates of Responsible Government in the white-settler colonies. In tracing the biography and political opinions of one of its main proponents, we can trace roots of Responsible Government in 1830s-40s British radicalism, and see how its principles evolved in specific settler-colonial contexts, as well as being carried and adapted from Canada, to New Zealand and the Australian colonies. Chapman’s extensive writings, including his influential legal judgments, show how a high-level colonial official expressed his contradictory views on Indigenous people, both before and after his own extensive encounters with Maori in particular.