Coercive control, financial abuse, and reproductive coercion and abuse in a settler colony: Western Australia, 1860–1900

Abstract

This essay explores the value of recently developed concepts such as coercive control, financial abuse, and reproductive coercion and abuse for histories of domestic and family violence. It does so by investigating the lives and circumstances of six women who petitioned for a judicial separation on the grounds of cruelty in the British colony of Western Australia between 1865 and 1891. The women and their husbands were all British or Irish immigrants, except for the youngest couple, who were born in the colony of English parents. The investigation of their cases in detail involves examining some key features of colonisation, including continuing dispossession and incarceration of Indigenous people, two decades of convict transportation from Britain to Australia, continual commercial development as settler society expanded into Indigenous lands, and towards the end of the century, urban expansion. We find that the court records and newspapers are rich in descriptions of physical violence and financial abuse, are useful for historicizing coercive control, and add historical depth to our knowledge of physical violence during pregnancy.