Review of White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940 by Margaret D. Jacobs

Authors

Lynette Russell, Monash University

Date of this Version

Winter 2011

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 31:1 (Winter 2011).

Comments

Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

Comparative studies involving similar historical events in different locales have been neglected over the last few decades, in my opinion to the detriment of history. It is indeed gratifying to see this change with the publication recently of several important comparative works. Two that compare North America with Australia are Penelope Edmonds's outstanding Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities (2010) and Katherine Ellinghaus's Taking Assimilation to Heart: Marriages of White Women and Indigenous Men in Australia and the United States, 1887-1937 (2006). To this we can now add Margaret D. Jacobs's important White Mother to a Dark Race. Jacobs's award-winning book (2010 Bancroft Prize) builds on foundational work of many scholars while extending the accomplished and comprehensive work of the author. It is an enormous tome (over 500 pages) representing over a decade of careful research in archives and libraries across Australia and North America.