Fragile Settlements
Aboriginal Peoples, Law, and Resistance in South-West Australia and Prairie Canada
Fragile Settlements compares the historical processes through which British colonial authority was asserted over Indigenous people in southwest Australia and prairie Canada from the 1830s to the early twentieth century.
Description
Fragile Settlements compares the processes by which British colonial authority was asserted over Indigenous peoples in south-west Australia and Prairie Canada from the 1830s to the early twentieth century. At the start of this period, in a humanitarian response to settlers’ increased demand for land, Britain’s Colonial Office moved to protect Indigenous peoples by making them subjects under British law. This book highlights the parallels and divergences between these connected British frontiers by examining how colonial actors and institutions interpreted and applied the principle of law in their interaction with Indigenous peoples “on the ground.”
Reviews
Fragile Settlements is a testament to the benefits of collaboration and an answer to the daunting logistics of comparing multiple historic sites ... [It] is a valuable contribution to the historiographies of Canada and Australia.
- Kenton Storey, independent historian, Canada