The Politics of Indigenous Enumeration in Australia, Canada and New Zealand - a History

By highlighting the formation of the colonists' quantitative knowledge, we will rewrite the history of efforts by European colonists in Australia, Canada and New Zealand to define and to manage Indigenous peoples since the 1830s. Colonial authorities have acted, in part, according to their understanding (whether accurate or not) of the size and dynamics of the Indigenous population. How did they acquire that population knowledge? What did the colonists seek to know, and how did that knowledge affect what they did? In what ways did practises of government change that knowledge? How has knowledge about the Indigenous population informed continuing debate about social justice?