Empire and Indigeneity: Histories and Legacies

373 Pages·2021·2.065 MB·English

by  Richard Price

EMPIRE AND INDIGENEITY
Indigeneity is inseparable from empire, and the way empire responds to the
Indigenous presence is a key historical factor in shaping the flow of imperial history.
This book is about the consequences of the encounter in the early nineteenth
century between the British imperial presence and the First Peoples of what were
to become Australia and New Zealand. However, the shape of social relations
between Indigenous peoples and the forces of empire does not remain constant
over time. The book tracks how the creation of empire in this part of the world
possessed long-lasting legacies both for the settler colonies that emerged and for the
wider history of British imperial culture.
Richard Price has written widely on British social, labor, and imperial history.
His most recent book, Making Empire: Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial
Rule in Nineteenth Century Africa (2008), was awarded the 2010 prize for the best
book in British history post-1750 by the North American Conference on British
Studies.

EMPIRE AND
INDIGENEITY
Histories and Legacies
Richard Price
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Richard Price
The right of Richard Price to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Price, Richard, 1944– author.
Title: Empire and indigeneity : histories and legacies / Richard Price.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Taylor and Francis, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020053237 | ISBN 9780367565787 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780367565794 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003098447 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Indigenous peoples—Oceania—Social conditions. |
Imperialism. | Great Britain—Colonies—Oceania—History—19th
century. | Oceania—Colonization—Social aspects—History. |
Oceania—Ethnic relations.
Classification: LCC DU40 .P75 2021 | DDC 323.193—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020053237
ISBN: 978-0-367-56578-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-56579-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-09844-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For Iona McQuade Price and Lesley Danson

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments x
List of abbreviations xiii
Introduction: problem and perspectives 1
1 Engagements 15
Introduction 15
Agency and engagement 16
Order and disorder 27
Cultural and social intimacies 32
Knowledge and observation: a different eye 38
Conclusion 43
2 Mentalities 50
Introduction: the discourse of humanitarianism 50
Culture and governance 51
Sensibilities and psychology 58
Anxieties 66
Conclusion 70
3 Policies: conciliation and coercion 79
Introduction: policies and history 79
Conciliation 80
Sir George Arthur and Van Diemen’s Land 84
The disenchantment of Sir George Arthur 96
The inner turmoil of Sir George Arthur 102
viii Contents
4 Policies: protection 112
Arthur and the history of protection 112
Protection history and typologies 114
Protection and governance 119
The failure of Port Phillip Protectorate 122
Transforming protection 126
Conclusion 132
5 Policies: racial amalgamation in New Zealand 139
Introduction 139
Racial amalgamation in discourse and policy 140
Sir George Grey and racial amalgamation 142
Racial amalgamation and the law 147
Land and dispossession 149
The period of pre-emption: before c. 1863 152
Dispossession post-1860 158
Conclusion 164
6 Violence and the coming of colonial order 173
Introduction 173
The structures of violence 174
The state and violence 176
Salutary terror and normalization of violence 183
The psychology of colonial violence: fear 186
The psychology of colonial violence: blindsight and splitting 189
The psychology of colonial violence: regimes of silence and
denial 191
The psychology of colonial violence: projections
and narratives 196
Conclusion 200
7 Law and sovereignty 208
Introduction: law and empire 208
Uncertain sovereignty: the continued importance of natural
rights 209
When lawlessness was the law 213
Exceptionalism or assimilation? 215
Aboriginal evidence and the oath 217
Inter se 220
Stabilization: positivist law and Aboriginal rights 225
Conclusion 228
Contents ix
8 Settler politics and the coming of a new racial order 235
Introduction 235
The exhaustion of the humane policy agenda 237
Settler consciousness 240
Reconciling liberalism to empire in nineteenth-century
political theory 251
Conclusion 260
9 Legacies in modern Indigenous politics 267
Introduction: the past in the present 267
The silences of settler society 268
Making modern Indigenous politics 271
Disruptions 282
Conclusion 290
10 Legacies in imperial culture 297
Introduction 297
Humanitarian narratives 299
Silence, forgetting, and distancing 303
Networks 308
Heroes and villains 310
Conclusion 318
Bibliography—primary sources 325
Bibliography—secondary sources by chapter 329
Index 352