Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia

by R. Cole Harris

Overview

This elegantly written and insightful book provides a geographical history of the Indian reserve in British Columbia. Cole Harris analyzes the impact of reserves on Native lives and livelihoods and considers how, in light of this, the Native land question might begin to be resolved. The account begins in the early nineteenth-century British Empire and then follows Native land policy – and Native resistance to it – in British Columbia from the Douglas treaties in the early 1850s to the formal transfer of reserves to the Dominion in 1938.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780774809016
Publisher:	University of British Columbia Press
Publication date:	01/01/2003
Series:	Brenda and David McLean Canadian Studies
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

Figures and Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1: The Colonial Period

1 The Imperial Background

2 The Douglas Years, 1850-64

3 Ideology and Land Policy, 1864-71

Part 2: Province and Dominion

4 The Confederation Years, 1871-76

5 The Joint Indian Reserve Commission, 1876-78

6 Sproat and the Native Voice, 1878-80

Part 3: Filling in the Map

7 O’Reilly, Bureaucracy, and Reserves, 1880-98

8 Imposing a Solution, 1898-1938

Part 4: Land and Livelihood

9 Native Space

10 Towards a Postcolonial Land Policy

Appendix: Indian Reserves in British Columbia during the Colonial Period

Notes

Source Notes for Maps

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

A fine piece of history.

Pacific Northwest Quarterly

"A fine piece of history."—Pacific Northwest Quarterly

From the Publisher

Harris (geography, U. of British Columbia, Canada) examines the geographical and discursive aspects of the dispossession of the Aht and other native groups in British Columbia and the creation of the "Indian reserves." He argues that the colonial settlers were far from unified in their attitudes towards the Aht and that Native Americans were far more energetic in their resistance to dispossession than has previously been suggested. Harris examines the British theorizing about native lands, looks at the federal-provincial struggle for control of native land policy, discusses how the maps for the reserves were laid out, and explores the implications of reserve geography in the present day. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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