The Slow Rush of Colonization
The Slow Rush of Colonization
Spaces of Power in the Maritime Peninsula, 1680–1790
In The Slow Rush of Colonization, historian Thomas Peace traces the 100-year context that underpins the widespread Euro-American/Euro-Canadian settlement of the Maritime Peninsula.
Broad in chronological and geographic scope, The Slow Rush of Colonization uses the concept of spaces of power to provide a history of settler colonialism in eastern North America that demonstrates the continuity of Indigenous sovereignties while also calling attention to the diverse – and often unaligned – strategies both the French and English Empires used in their attempt to dispossess First Peoples.
By analyzing deeds, censuses, treaties, and imperial correspondence, Peace demonstrates how Mi’kmaw, Wabanaki, Peskotomuhkati, Wolastoqiyik, and Wendat nations persistently resisted these incursions. At the same time, with each renewed conflict and treaty that followed, a British culture of settler conquest developed, allowing them to ignore this history of resistance once imperial warfare came to an end.
The Slow Rush of Colonization is essential reading for those who want to understand the roots of settler colonialism in Canada and the US and the tools France and England used to occupy and settle Indigenous Homelands during the eighteenth century.
A trenchant and comprehensive history of how warfare, settlement, trade, and treaties laid the groundwork for the normalization of European colonization and settler occupation of the Maritime Peninsula – and hence to the legal and judicial systems still in use in Canada and the US today – this book is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of settler colonialism in North America.
Awards
- 2024, Winner - Clio Award (Atlantic Canada), Canadian Historical Association
- 2024, Winner - Wilson Book Prize, Wilson Institute for Canadian History
[Peace] highlights evidence that shows Indigenous people standing up to colonizing powers and significantly shaping encounters.
The Slow Rush of Colonization reveals new insights about the complicated and contested history of the Maritime Peninsula. Peace skillfully reframes the region’s history in ways that highlight the tangled relationship between imperial projects, space and land, and Indigenous power. In doing so, the book makes a valuable contribution to the field and challenges readers to reckon with the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.
The Laws and the Land
The Settler Colonial Invasion of Kahnawà:ke in Nineteenth-Century Canada
By Daniel Rück
To Share, Not Surrender
Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia
Edited by Peter Cook, Neil Vallance, John Lutz, Graham Brazier, and Hamar Foster
