This book provides a new approach to the historical treatment of indigenous peoples' sovereignty and property rights in Australia and New Zealand. By shifting attention from the original European claims of possession to a comparison of the ways in which British players treated these matters later, Bain Attwood not only reveals some startling similarities between the Australian and New Zealand cases but revises the long-held explanations of the differences. He argues that the treatment of the sovereignty and property rights of First Nations was seldom determined by the workings of moral principle, legal doctrine, political thought or government policy. Instead, it was the highly particular historical circumstances in which the first encounters between natives and Europeans occurred and colonisation began that largely dictated whether treaties of cession were negotiated, just as a bitter political struggle determined the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi and ensured that native title was made in New Zealand.
By:
Bain Attwood
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 236mm,
Width: 162mm,
Spine: 29mm
Weight: 750g
ISBN: 9781108478298
ISBN 10: 1108478298
Pages: 454
Publication Date: 16 July 2020
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgements; List of Abbreviations; Principal Players; Maps; Introduction; 1. Claiming Possession in New Holland and New Zealand, 1770s–1820s; 2. Batman's Treaty and the Rise and Fall of Native Title, 1835–1836; 3. The South Australian Colonisation Commission, the Colonial Office, and Aboriginal Rights in Land, 1834–1837; 4. Protection Claims and Sovereignty in the Islands of New Zealand, 1800–1839; 5. Making Agreements and a Struggle for Authority, 1839–1840; 6. The Land Claims Commission and the Return of the Treaty, 1840–1843; 7. A Colony in Crisis and a Select Committee, 1843–1844; 8. The Retreat of the Government and the Rise of the Treaty, 1844–1845; 9. The Making of Native Title, 1845–1850; Conclusion; Appendix (The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi); Bibliography; Index
Bain Attwood is Professor of History at Monash University and has held fellowships at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University. His book Possession: Batman's Treaty and the Matter of History (2009) won the Ernest Scott Prize for the most distinguished contribution to the history of Australia or New Zealand. He is the author of Rights for Aborigines (2003) and the co-editor of Protection and Empire: A Global History (2018).
Reviews for Empire and the Making of Native Title: Sovereignty, Property and Indigenous People
'Empire and the Making of Native Title is a masterful account of the early colonisation of Australia and New Zealand that provides a clear, engaging, and persuasive explanation of why Britain treated the two places so differently.' Stuart Banner, author of Possessing the Pacific 'If you thought there was nothing more to say about the history of native title in Australia and New Zealand, think again. Bain Attwood's fascinating account is brimming with new insights about sovereignty, property, possession, protection, indigenous power, and imperial policy. An extraordinary achievement.' Lauren Benton, author of A Search for Sovereignty 'Attwood displays and advances all the best qualities of historians' post-millennial interest in law and political discourse inside the British Empire. Native title is the contested ground in the constitutional politics of the nineteenth century Australasian colonies, an irresolute discursive practice the inflections of which play out differently in their particular settings.' P.G. McHugh, author of Aboriginal Title 'This probing work by one of Australia's most distinguished historians delivers a richly textured account of imperial claims in the Australasian colonies. Meticulously researched, it traces how British sovereignty in the settler world proceeded less from firm policy than from fluctuating circumstances that served to recognise or deny the existence of native title.' Amanda Nettelbeck, author of Indigenous Rights and Colonial Subjecthood
