
From the 1990s onwards, aboriginal affairs have been driven by an increasingly rampant legalism. A period of ‘rights-recognition’ was transformed into a second-generation jurisprudence of rights-management and rights-integration. The author examines the political resurgence of aboriginal peoples in the last quarter of the 20th century. The same questioning continues today in the renewed and controversial claims of the tribal societies to a distinct constitutional position and associated rights of self-determination. These issues were addressed in many and varied imperial and colonial contexts, but all jurisdictions have shared remarkable historical parallels which have been accentuated by their common legal heritage.

Throughout the history of engagement with common law legalism, questions surrounding the settler-state's recognition - or otherwise - of the integrity of the tribe have recurred. The historical basis of relations is described through the key, enduring, but constantly shifting questions of sovereignty, status and, more latterly, self-determination. It then focuses on North America and Australasia from their early national periods in the 19th century to the modern era. The book begins by looking at the nature of British imperialism and the position of non-Christian peoples at large in the 17th and 18th centuries. That history runs from the plantation of Ireland and settlement of the New World to the end of the 20th century. It is a history of the role of anglophone law in managing relations between the British settlers and indigenous peoples. This book describes the encounter between the common law legal system and the tribal peoples of North America and Australasia.

It is a history of the role of anglophone law in managing relations.
