Book Reviews 117

Book Reviews 117 BOOK REVIEWS On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race and the Making of British Columbia, 1849-1871 Adele Perry Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. 320 pp. Illus. $60.00 cloth; $24.95 paper. SARAH CARTER University of Calgary n this lively history, Adele Perry on and contributes to an international demonstrates that, despite pro body of literature that examines I tracted efforts to create an orderly connections between imperialism, White settler colony anchored in gender, and race. British Columbia fits "respectable" gender and racial be within a broader context of European haviours, during the years between colonialism in that it was a settler 1849 and 1871 British Columbia was a colony where dispossesion of the "racially plural, rough and turbulent" indigenous societies and resettlement place, where the inhabitants chal by a newcomer population were inter lenged the norms and values of main twined. While this is imperial history, stream nineteenth-century Anglo- it is not an example of the triumph of American society. British Columbia imperialism as in this era Aboriginal failed to live up to imperial expectations, peoples remained demographically Perry argues, because of the persistence dominant and socially central. Perry and resistance of First Nations and the provides compelling evidence for the unwillingness of White settlers. Perry importance of gender in understanding contends that many British Columbians the formation of this unique variant today cherish an idealized image of a of colonial society. Gender figured "White man's province" that never prominently in colonial critiques of was: "In contemporary newspapers Aboriginal societies and in the efforts and conversations, White British to remake British Columbia as a Columbians often long for the days White society. The gender roles and when our society was unquestionably identities in this setting departed from British, when our tea and crumpets and challenged imperial plans and were not disrupted by Asian neighbours ideals. This book also makes a valuable or First Nations demands for land and Canadian contribution to "Whiteness" recognition. When we do so we long studies. These studies have blossomed for a fiction of our own invention" (201). over the past decade and critically A recognition of the significance of examine the social construction of colonialism to BC history is central to Whiteness, which gained its meaning Perry's approach, and her study draws from encounters with non-Whiteness. BC STUDIES, no. 136, Winter 2002/03 HJ Il8 BC STUDIES These themes are explored in an culture. In characterizing these rela intriguing series of topics, beginning tionships Perry stresses the need to with White men and the "homosocial" look beyond the "happy stories," such culture that profoundly disrupted pre as the long marriage of James Douglas scribed gender organization. British and Amelia Connolly, that can "obscure Columbia's White society was over both coercive details and the larger whelmingly male because the resource- brutality of colonialism" (62). extractive economy, particularly gold, Seeking to regulate, reclaim, and attracted large numbers of young, reform British Columbia was a frag highly mobile workers. A vibrant mented collection of missionaries, culture was formed among White men politicians, journalists, and "freelance and was characterized by male house do-gooders." Efforts to reshape White holds; same-sex social, emotional, and homosocial culture included missions sometimes sexual bonds; and such to White men, YMCAs, mechanics in practices as drinking, gambling, and stitutes, and sailors homes as well as violence. This culture stood in sharp other means of replicating the political contrast to the White masculine ideal and social functions of the nineteenth- of the time, which stressed self- century middle-class home. For the control; temperance; discipline; and most part the targeted group responded heterosexual, same-race, hierarchical to these efforts with indifference. unions. Although moral reformers and Reformers adopted a number of tactics missionaries did not view these men that were aimed at regulating mixed- as fit representatives of imperialism, race relationships, including assimilation these White men saw themselves as to European sexual and social norms, superior and shared ideologies of racial the discouragement of mixed-race solidarity and exclusion. relationships, and the segregation of Intimate relationships between colonized from colonizer (particularly Aboriginal women and White men in urban spaces). There is fascinating further challenged visions of British material here on the astonishingly ela Columbia as a respectable White borate plans for a racially segregated settler society and were the cause of Victoria. All of these efforts failed, Perry great consternation and hand-wringing. contends, because both Aboriginals Perry concentrates on the way in which and non-Aboriginals resisted imported the women and the relationships were visions of a colonial society. Aboriginal denigrated and caricatured in nine people continued to live among Whites teenth-century texts. These rela and to have extensive social and tionships were symbols of imperialism intimate contact with them. gone awry, and they were constructed Efforts to radically reconfigure BC as deeply dangerous, especially for the society also involved schemes to attract men involved as both their morality White settlers and to encourage them and manliness were seen to be in peril. to become permanent agriculturalists Perry does not write a history of these living in model nuclear families. There relationships, noting the difficulties is an amusing section on the "not with available sources, but she does argue travel" literature on British Columbia that they were not confined to the fur - literature prepared by writers who trade and could be found in the city, had never been there. The introduction in the country, and in mining towns, of more White women was seen as a overlapping with White homosocial panacea for many of the ills besetting Book Reviews 119 this edge of empire: British Columbia for example, where there were similar would finally fulfill its destiny as a reshapings of gender roles and identities, stable, respectable White society. The along with reformers who abhorred presence of White women would such behaviour and attempted to compel White men to reject their impose stabilizing customs and to rough ways and would ensure com import White women. The theme of pliance with proper European gender the "social centrality and political roles. There were four assisted immi agency" of the Aboriginal peoples of gration schemes to bring White British Columbia could have been women to British Columbia, and each further developed. This is important boatload of women was eagerly anti to the central argument, and more cipated and celebrated. But these evidence of their initiatives and schemes too faltered as Perry argues responses would have permitted a that many of these women, like their richer account of cultural exchange male counterparts, frequently failed to and an enhanced sense of how the live up to the elevated standards ex Aboriginal foundations of British pected of them. Once again there was Columbia helped to create this unique a sharp disjuncture between colonial colonial variant. Efforts to alter gender discourse and colonial practice. Intro relations within Aboriginal societies ducing large numbers of single un must also have been an important married women into British Columbia component of colonial plans for posed delicate and difficult questions, British Columbia. particularly as the women threatened Perry weaves together the many to acquire a degree of independence. threads of her argument into a superb By the early 1870s, single White conclusion that reinforces the cen women were no longer seen as an trality of imperialism to BC society "unspeakable benefit" to the colonial but that also stresses the need to project: family migration was seen as appreciate the fragility of this colonial a better bet. project. The book is skilfully written Some themes and topics could have and nicely illustrated, and it should been further developed. While the enjoy wide readership not in only in British imperial framework is apt, one Canada but also among scholars of the should not lose sight of the North American West and those elsewhere American setting. This edge of empire engaged in the study of gender, race, had much in common with California, and empire. I20 BC STUDIES Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains Theodore Binnema Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. 263 pp. Maps. US$29.95 cloth. MATTHEW EVENDEN University of British Columbia HIS BOOK IS WELL NAMED: provides, fur traders appear as the Common ground because it is latest group to arrive on the Plains, in- T about a place - the North eluctably involved, however unwillingly, western Plains - that played host to a within the broader scheme of military variety of band societies of diverse rivalry. linguistic, ethnic, economic, and The time scale of this study is broad, military affiliation. Over time, different from about AD 200 to 1806. This leads groups sought out the rich bison Binnema to consult a wide range of resource of the Plains, hunting at first evidence and interdisciplinary research. without bow and arrow, and then, in He has examined ecological studies the eighteenth century, obtaining (albeit

Load more