Taking Assimilation to Heart examines marriages between white women and indigenous men in Australia and the United States between 1887 and 1937. In these settler societies, white women were expected to reproduce white children to keep the white race “pure”--hence special anxieties were associated with their sexuality, and marriages with indigenous men were rare events. As such, these interracial marriages illuminate the complicated social, racial, and national contexts in which they occurred.

This study of the ideological and political context of marriages between white women and indigenous men uncovers striking differences between the policies of assimilation endorsed by Australia and those encouraged by the United States. White Australians emphasized biological absorption, in which indigenous identity would be dissolved through interracial relationships, while white Americans promoted cultural assimilation, attempting to alter the lifestyles of indigenous people rather than their physical appearance. This disparity led, in turn, to differing emphases on humanitarian reforms, education policies, and social mobility, which affected the social status of the white women and indigenous men who married each other.

Shifting from the personal to the local to the transnational, Taking Assimilation to Heart extends our understanding of the ways in which individual lives have been part of the culture of colonialism.

Les mer
Examines marriages between white women and indigenous men in Australia and the United States between 1887 and 1937. This title uncovers striking differences between the policies of assimilation endorsed by Australia and those encouraged by the United States.
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Introduction 1. Native American Education and Marriages at Hampton Institute; 2. Interracial Marriages of Male Carlisle Indian School Alumni; 3. Educated Native American Men and Interracial Marriage; 4. A Middle-Class White Woman Philanthropist and Interracial Marriage; 5. The Broken Promise of Aboriginal Education in Australia; 6. Regulating Aboriginal Marriages in Victoria; 7. White Women Married to Aboriginal Men; 8. Solving the "Indian Problem" in the United States; 9. Absorbing the "Aboriginal Problem" in Australia Conclusion
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An examination of marriages between white women and Indigenous men in the United States and Australia.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780803218291
Publisert
2006-11-01
Utgiver
University of Nebraska Press
Vekt
635 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
278

Biografisk notat

Katherine Ellinghaus a Hansen Lecturer in History in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of Blood Will Tell: Native Americans and Assimilation Policy  (Nebraska, 2017) and coeditor of Historicising Whiteness: Transnational Perspectives on the Construction of Identity.