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The settler’s security blanket: Vanessa Nicholas, ‘The naturalisation of settler colonialism by a flowered Irish quilt in Upper Canada’, International Review of Environmental History, 7, 1, 2021, pp. 21-36

11Jul21

Abstract: Studying an embroidered quilt that Mary Morris (1811–97) made as a young girl in Ireland four years before she transported it to Upper Canada in 1829, this article argues that the floral decorative traditions imported by British women to British North America had a political dimension. The quilt, which is a patchwork of printed cottons surrounding panels of white cotton embroidered with representations of flowers, birds, insects and hunting scenes, combines embroidered motifs inspired by Indian chintz textiles with printed cotton fabrics of English manufacture featuring floral designs. As such, Morris’ flowered quilt represents the imperial economy that enabled settler colonialism in Canada. This is significant because it suggests that the seemingly mild-mannered domestic objects prized or made by British women in Upper Canada contributed to a visual and material culture that was invested in destabilising the environmental and cultural sustainability of Indigenous life.


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