Description
Book SynopsisIn the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American Indians in the United States and Aboriginal people in Australia suffered a common experience at the hands of state authorities: the removal of their children to institutions in the name of assimilation.
White Mother to a Dark Race examines the key roles white women played in these removal policies.
Trade Review“An important work. . . . Jacobs’s thoroughness, breadth of comparative research, and fresh analysis of the removal of indigenous children have earned three awards for this book (2010 Bancroft Prize; 2010 Athearn Western History Association Prize; 2010 Armitage-Jameson Prize).”—Christine Choo,
American Historical Review"This study stands as an excellent model and should encourage further comparisons between federal Indian policy and other maternalist projects within the United States as well as intimate strategies in other colonial regimes."—Cathleen D. Cahill,
Western Historical Quarterly"[
White Mother to a Dark Race is] a monumental comparative study."—Cristina Stanciu,
Studies in American Indian Literatures“A painstakingly researched and brilliantly written account of the key roles white women played in the removal policies of U.S. and Australian governments in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . If you are ready to remove your blindfold, then this is a must read!”—Carrie Bourassa,
Canadian Journal of Native Studies"[Margaret D. Jacobs] has produced a balanced, meticulously researched book filled with heartbreaking stories of loss and uplifting accounts of survival."—Lynette Russell,
Great Plains Quarterly"[Jacobs] has taken the study of these nineteenth and early twentieth century institutionalizing policies in a rewarding new direction. . . . I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in indigenous studies, women's studies, and the history of intercultural relations in colonizing situations like the American West."—Nancy J. Parezo,
Journal of Arizona History"This book deserves wide readership in U.S. western history, women's history, Indian history, and comparative ethnic studies."—Peggy Pascoe,
Montana, the Magazine of Western History"Jacobs' focus on the role of white women, and specifically the function of maternalism, generates important insights into the interrelationship between race and gender in the creation of the modern white nation. Attention to the specificities of colonial regimes in the different locations of Australia and the American West—revealing the uncanny similarities as well as significant differences—can only enhance our critical understanding."—Trish Luker,
International Journal of Critical Indigenous StudiesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
List of Maps
Preface: White Mother to a Dark Race
Acknowledgments
A Note on Terms
Abbreviations
1. Gender and Settler Colonialism in the North American West and Australia
2. Designing Indigenous Child Removal Policies
3. The Great White Mother
4. The Practice of Indigenous Child Removal
5. Intimate Betrayals
6. Groomed to Be Useful
7. Maternalism in the Institutions
8. Out of the Frying Pan
9. Challenging Indigenous Child Removal
Epilogue
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
