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5 - New South Wales

Frontier Violence and the ‘Rule of British Law’

from Part II - Upper Canada, New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, Victoria, Western Australia, the Cape Colony, Sierra Leone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2022

Elizabeth Elbourne
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
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Summary

Saxe Bannister was appointed Attorney General of New South Wales probably at least in part because his interactions with the Six Nations had brought him to the attention of the Colonial Office. He found himself plunged into conflict with competing settler factions. The chapter focuses primarily, however, on his interaction with Indigenous resistance, particularly by the Wiradjuri, in the context of the violent conquest of Australia. Bannister tried to apply the British rule of law as he saw it to frontier contexts, calling for the declaration of martial law during warfare in both Bathurst and Hunter Valley. He also tried unsuccessfully to prosecute police officers and local settlers for extrajudicial murders. Bannister left New South Wales in disgrace but his legal legacy persisted in debates that had implications across the British settler empire: the court case would later lay the groundwork for the legal refusal of Indigenous sovereignty in exchange for the protection of Indigenous people against settler violence. The chapter highlights the importance and the contradictions of the British ideology of the rule of law.

Type
Chapter
Information
Empire, Kinship and Violence
Family Histories, Indigenous Rights and the Making of Settler Colonialism, 1770-1842
, pp. 189 - 231
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • New South Wales
  • Elizabeth Elbourne, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Empire, Kinship and Violence
  • Online publication: 15 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108782791.008
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  • New South Wales
  • Elizabeth Elbourne, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Empire, Kinship and Violence
  • Online publication: 15 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108782791.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • New South Wales
  • Elizabeth Elbourne, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Empire, Kinship and Violence
  • Online publication: 15 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108782791.008
Available formats
×