Empire and the Making of Native Title

Sovereignty, Property and Indigenous People

Bain Attwood

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781108478298
• eBook ISBN: 9781108801829
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Contents
• 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