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Possessing the Pacific : land, settlers, and indigenous people from Australia to Alaska / Stuart Banner.

By:

Banner, Stuart, 1963- [author.]

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2007Description: vi, 388 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

0674026128
9780674026124

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

325.3091823 22

LOC classification:

DU29 .B24 2007

Contents:

Introduction: The Pacific World and Its Atlantic Antecedents -- 1. Australia: Terra Nullius by Design -- 2. New Zealand: Conquest by Contract -- 3. New Zealand: Conquest by Land Tenure Reform -- 4. Hawaii: Preparing To Be Colonized -- 5. California: Terra Nullius by Default -- 6. British Columbia: Terra Nullius as Kindness -- 7. Oregon and Washington: Compulsory Treaties -- 8. Fiji and Tonga: The Importance of Indigenous Political Organization -- 9. Alaska: Occupancy and Neglect -- Conclusion: What Produced Colonial Land Policy?

Summary: Tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska, and how the settlers acquired vast amounts of land from the indigenous people. This acquisition still shapes the relations between whites and indigenous people in most of the world.Review: "During the nineteenth century, British and American settlers acquired a vast amount of land from indigenous people throughout the Pacific, but in no two places did they acquire it the same way. Stuart Banner tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Today, indigenous people own much more land in some of these places than in others. And certain indigenous peoples benefit from treaty rights, while others do not. These variations are traceable to choices made more than a century ago - choices about whether indigenous people were the owners of their land and how that land was to be transferred to whites." "Banner argues that these differences were not due to any deliberate land policy created in London or Washington. Rather, the decisions were made locally by settlers and colonial officials and were based on factors peculiar to each colony, such as whether the local indigenous people were agriculturalists and what level of political organization they had attained. These differences loom very large now, perhaps even larger than they did in the nineteenth century, because they continue to influence the course of litigation and political struggle between indigenous people and whites over claims to land and other resources."--BOOK JACKET.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Book	City Campus City Campus Main Collection	325.3091823 BAN (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		A328051B

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Previous								Next
Previous	325.303 ENC Encyclopedia of Western colonialism since 1450 /	325.30722 MAJ Writing postcolonial history /	325.309174927 MEM Decolonization and the decolonized /	325.3091823 BAN Possessing the Pacific : land, settlers, and indigenous people from Australia to Alaska /	325.3092 EDW Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the colonial dream : a reconsideration.	325.3092 WAK The amazing career of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, with extracts from "A letter from Sydney" (1829 /	325.3092 WAK Edward Gibbon Wakefield : builder of the British Commonwealth /	Next

Format: Hardback.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-380) and index.

Tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska, and how the settlers acquired vast amounts of land from the indigenous people. This acquisition still shapes the relations between whites and indigenous people in most of the world.

"During the nineteenth century, British and American settlers acquired a vast amount of land from indigenous people throughout the Pacific, but in no two places did they acquire it the same way. Stuart Banner tells the story of colonial settlement in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Today, indigenous people own much more land in some of these places than in others. And certain indigenous peoples benefit from treaty rights, while others do not. These variations are traceable to choices made more than a century ago - choices about whether indigenous people were the owners of their land and how that land was to be transferred to whites." "Banner argues that these differences were not due to any deliberate land policy created in London or Washington. Rather, the decisions were made locally by settlers and colonial officials and were based on factors peculiar to each colony, such as whether the local indigenous people were agriculturalists and what level of political organization they had attained. These differences loom very large now, perhaps even larger than they did in the nineteenth century, because they continue to influence the course of litigation and political struggle between indigenous people and whites over claims to land and other resources."--BOOK JACKET.