The statistical table as colonial knowledge

The statistical table is one expression of the settler colonial capacity and willingness to enumerate colonized "peoples" as "populations." By examining four tables-from 1763, 1828, 1848, and 1850-in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia this paper illustrates the emergence of this powerful technique of representation during the same a period in which European states were developing their capacity to represent the social in statistical terms. In the colonial context, the rise of the notion of a "population" whose characteristics could be averaged contributed to the specifically administrative eclipse of native sovereignty, paralleling the jural/political demise of native sovereignty.