Indigenous Diplomacy and Colonial Entanglement Through the Native Institution of New South Wales

ABSTRACT This article examines the Native Institution, the first residential school for Aboriginal children in the British colony of New South Wales. It is well known and recognised as an early example of institutional child removal and assimilationist ideas that would later be known in Australia as the Stolen Generations. Yet, the Native Institution was also short‐lived. In colonial terms, it ‘failed’, as it could neither attract enough voluntary submission of children—nor retain them. This article looks again at the Native Institution to consider it through Indigenous practices of diplomacy and broader Indigenous‐settler relations. I argue that the Native Institution (1814–1829) functioned as a site of intricate intercultural negotiation, as well as more subtle Indigenous evasion. Aboriginal individuals and clan groups navigated the entangling terrain of settler‐colonialism with political acumen, drawing deeply on their own cultural repertoires of diplomacy, adapted to new and urgent realities. By focusing on diplomacy, this paper offers a different perspective on the institution's legacy and contributes to a deeper understanding of Indigenous political agency in intercultural worlds.