Invasive Species: The Naturalization of Settler Colonialism by Flowered Quilts in Southeastern Ontario During the Nineteenth Century (1820-1880)

Studying three embroidered quilts made by British women who lived in southeastern Ontario during the nineteenth century, this dissertation establishes that the floral designs typical of the homecrafts that British women transported to and made in nineteenth-century Canada express the same settler-colonial desires for authority and belonging that have been attributed to the historical North American landscape painting tradition produced by Western men. This is significant because it suggests that the seemingly mild-mannered decorative traditions of white women contributed to a visual and material culture that was hostile to Indigeneity.

The three embroidered quilts within this study were made by Mary Morris (1811-1897), Elizabeth Bell (1824-1919), and Margaret McCrum (1847-1888), respectively. My research involved establishing the provenance and geographies of these quilts, tracing the history of their floral designs, and assessing their cultural meaning. I have found that some of the quilts embroideries make specific references to floral designs found in Indian, British, and Indigenous decorative arts, and that a select few have been inspired by Ontarios wildflowers and gardens. These quilts show that British women in nineteenth-century Ontario were invested in the consumption, study, and transformation of Canadian land. Rather than attributing malintent to Morris, Bell, and McCrum, I situate their homecrafts within a broader cultural context and detail the political dimensions of their artistic references.

I characterize these three quilts as belonging to an invasive species. Several species of European plants and animals have become successful colonizers in Canada, including the common dandelion and house sparrow. As a metaphor, these species represent the slow, steady course of settler-colonialism and its ultimate aim, to appear, feel, and act natural in a foreign environment. In Canada, this end depended upon the transplantation or deterritorialization of Indigenous peoples because the settler-colonial imaginary took root in a mythology of an untouched wilderness. This dissertation treats the floral embroideries produced by three British women as specimens within the broader invasive species of Western culture that has incessantly asserted its perceived entitlement to Canadian land.