Married to the land: Land grants to aboriginal women in South Australia 1848–1911

Abstract

In the period between 1848 and 1911, sections of Aboriginal reserve land were granted to Aboriginal women who married non‐Aboriginal men in South Australia. This article traces the establishment and evolution of that practice, and locates it within changing discourses central to the colonizing process: those around race, gender and ‘civilisation’. This analysis highlights the perceived importance of both land and marriage in these discourses.

Notes

* The research on which this article is based was funded by a small ARC grant. An earlier version was given at the Australian Historical Association conference in Adelaide in 2000. Mandy Paul is a consultant historian and part‐time PhD candidate at La Trobe University; Dr Robert Foster is a lecturer in the Department of History, University of Adelaide.