Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War

Description

This pioneering comparative history of the participation of indigenous peoples of the British Empire in the First World War is based upon archival research in four continents. It provides the first comprehensive examination and comparison of how indigenous peoples of Canada, Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa experienced the Great War. The participation of indigenes was an extension of their ongoing effort to shape and alter their social and political realities, their resistance to cultural assimilation or segregation and their desire to attain equality through service and sacrifice. While the dominions discouraged indigenous participation at the outbreak of war, by late 1915 the imperial government demanded their inclusion to meet the pragmatic need for military manpower. Indigenous peoples responded with patriotism and enthusiasm both on the battlefield and the home front and shared equally in the horrors and burdens of the First World War.

Timothy C. Winegard is Assistant Professor of History at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado. His publications include Oka: A Convergence of Cultures and the Canadian Forces (2008) and For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War (2012). He served for nine years as an officer in the Canadian Forces including a two-year attachment to the British Army.

'A groundbreaking work on British and Dominion military policy in the First World War and the evolution of Dominion citizenship.' The NYMAS Review 'Winegard's study is based on extensive archival work across all the Dominions, and he has a solid grasp of the secondary literature as well. In his reconstruction of the legal and political framework Winegard is careful not to lose the individual experiences and voices of the indigenous soldiers. In addition to the soldiers' experiences, he also examines the impact of the war on the indigenous Home Front ... In addition to specialists in minority groups during wartime, this book will be an interest to scholars who study the mobilization of resources in an age of total war.' Frederic Krome, Canadian Journal of History