History
'The Bancroft Prize is awarded each year by the trustees of Columbia University for books about diplomacy or the history of the Americas.
'It was established in 1948, with a bequest from Frederic Bancroft, in his memory and that of his brother, diplomat and attorney, Edgar Addison Bancroft.
'The Bancroft Prize is considered one of the most distinguished academic awards in the field of history. The prize has been generally considered to be among the most prestigious awards in the field of American history writing. It comes with a $10,000 stipend (raised from $4,000 beginning in 2004). Seventeen winners had their work supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and 16 winners were also recipients of the Pulitzer Prize for History.' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancroft_Prize
Latest Winners / Recipients
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Year: 2010
winner y
White Mother to a Dark Race : Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940
Lincoln
:
University of Nebraska Press
,
2009
10782074
2009
multi chapter work
criticism
'In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, indigenous communities in the United States and Australia suffered a common experience at the hands of state authorities: the removal of their children to institutions in the name of assimilating American Indians and protecting Aboriginal people. Although officially characterized as benevolent, these government policies often inflicted great trauma on indigenous families and ultimately served the settler nations’ larger goals of consolidating control over indigenous peoples and their lands.
'White Mother to a Dark Race takes the study of indigenous education and acculturation in new directions in its examination of the key roles white women played in these policies of indigenous child-removal. Government officials, missionaries, and reformers justified the removal of indigenous children in particularly gendered ways by focusing on the supposed deficiencies of indigenous mothers, the alleged barbarity of indigenous men, and the lack of a patriarchal nuclear family. Often they deemed white women the most appropriate agents to carry out these child-removal policies. Inspired by the maternalist movement of the era, many white women were eager to serve as surrogate mothers to indigenous children and maneuvered to influence public policy affecting indigenous people. Although some white women developed caring relationships with indigenous children and others became critical of government policies, many became hopelessly ensnared in this insidious colonial policy.' [publication summary]
