Book contents
- Empire, Kinship and Violence
- Critical Perspectives on Empire
- Empire, Kinship and Violence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Nomenclature
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I North America
- 1 Before the Revolution
- 2 All the King’s Men
- 3 Land, Identity and Indigenous Sovereignty in British North America, 1783–1820
- Part II Upper Canada, New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, Victoria, Western Australia, the Cape Colony, Sierra Leone
- Part III Britain, the Cape Colony, West Africa
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Land, Identity and Indigenous Sovereignty in British North America, 1783–1820
from Part I - North America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2022
- Empire, Kinship and Violence
- Critical Perspectives on Empire
- Empire, Kinship and Violence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Nomenclature
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I North America
- 1 Before the Revolution
- 2 All the King’s Men
- 3 Land, Identity and Indigenous Sovereignty in British North America, 1783–1820
- Part II Upper Canada, New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land, Victoria, Western Australia, the Cape Colony, Sierra Leone
- Part III Britain, the Cape Colony, West Africa
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
After the American Revolution, the British gave away Six Nations lands at the negotiating table in 1783. The loyalist Six Nations claimed territory in what would become Upper Canada in 1791. The chapter first examines the corruption scandal around Guy Johnson’s abuse of Indian department funds in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution. It then follows the move of the Six Nations to territory that would become Upper Canada, where their presence posed questions about Indigenous sovereignty and the extent of imperial control. Joseph Brant tried to exploit his interstitial role both to accumulate personal power and to promote Indigenous sovereignty, even as the Grand River community struggled over the best economic strategy to adopt and many rejected Brant. Despite considerable ambiguity and the enduring importance of kinship-based political strategies, the eventual colonial response to the challenge of Indigenous claims would eventually be to seek to control the membership of Indigenous communities, while failing to protect Indigenous lands or investments, even as ‘white’ and ‘Indian’ increasingly became separate social categories. Attacks on the power of Indigenous peoples were linked rhetorically to attacks on corruption and on family bio-power.
Keywords
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- Information
- Empire, Kinship and ViolenceFamily Histories, Indigenous Rights and the Making of Settler Colonialism, 1770-1842, pp. 114 - 150Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022