Nineteenth-century Newfoundland was an archetypal borderland - a space where changes in the authority of imperial, national, and indigenous territorial claims shaped the opportunities and identities of a socially diverse population. Conflicted Colony elucidates processes of state formation in Newfoundland through a reassessment of key moments in the country's history. Kurt Korneski closely examines five conflicts from the late nineteenth century - the Fortune Bay Dispute of 1878, the St George's Bay Dispute of 1889-92, the 1890s Lobster Controversy, the Battle of Foxtrap, and disputes over salmon grounds in Hamilton Inlet, Labrador - to explain how local regimes received, challenged, and reworked formal and informal diplomatic and commercial arrangements, as well as policies set out by the colonial and imperial government. The chapters examine antagonisms and divisions that grew out of clashes between the distinct commercial and social identities of regions in the borderlands and the sensibilities of merchants, politicians, and working people on the Avalon Peninsula. Providing new insight into the social history of Newfoundland and Labrador, these disputes illuminate contending perspectives driven by informal systems of governance, political movements, and local economic, social, demographic, and ecological circumstances. Conflicted Colony broadens, deepens, and clarifies our understanding of how Newfoundland became an integrated Dominion in the British Empire.

Kurt Korneski is associate professor of history at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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“Exploring under-utilized written sources and untapped ecological evidence, Korneski writes authoritatively about the evolution of regional resource management regimes in Newfoundland that were often out of sync with the interests of political and mercantile elites in the capital. With its engaging prose and careful attention to the local, Conflicted Colony will attract a strong readership among scholars of social, diplomatic, environmental, and borderlands history, as well as within the general public.” - Willeen Keough, Simon Fraser University

"[Korneski brings] superb and ambitious scholarship and insight to his subject. He has set a new standard in the study of nineteenth-century Newfoundland history." American Historical Review