For more than seventy years the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) fought to protect the rights of natives living under the rule of the British Empire. Active on four continents, the APS resisted the efforts of white supremacists while defending aboriginal interests across the globe. The APS put Zulu King Cetshwayo in contact with Queen Victoria and brought Maori rebels to the banqueting hall of the Lord Mayor. The society's supporters faced dangerous pushback by the powers they challenged and were labeled Zulu-lovers and traitors by senior British Army officers and white settlers. This book tells the story of the struggle among Britain's Colonial Office, white settlers, and aborigines that determined the development of the empire in its formative years. Particularly, it describes the pivotal role of APS in limiting the claims of white settlers for the sake of native interests. Despite this victory, native protection policy actually expanded imperial rule. Focusing on examples from southern Africa, the Congo, New Zealand, Fiji, Australia, and Canada, James Heartfield shows how the arguments made by supporters of native protection policy indirectly justified colonization. Highlighting the wreckage of humanitarian imperialism today, he sets out to identify its roots in the beliefs and practices of its nineteenth-century equivalents.
Before 1788, the peoples of this continent did not consider themselves 'Aboriginal'. They only became 'Aborigines' in the wake of the British invasion. In this startling and original study, Bain Attwood reveals how relationships between black Australians and European colonisers determined the hearts and minds of the indigenous peoples, making them anew as Aboriginals. In examining the period after the 'killing times', this young historian provides new perspectives on racial ideology, government policy, and the rule of law. In examining European domination, he unravels the patterns of associations which were woven between European and Aborigine, and shows the complex meanings and significance these relationships held for both groups. In this book, the dispossessed are not cast as merely passive victims; they appear as real characters, men and women who adapted to European colonisation in accordance with their own historical and cultural experience. Out of this exchange the colonised created a new consciousness and began to forge a common identity for themselves. A story of cultural change and continuity both poignant and disturbing in its telling, this important book is sure to provoke controversy about what it means to be Aboriginal. 'This intelligent and impeccably researched book seeks to advance our understanding of the story of white/Aboriginal contact. It will be required reading for anyone working in the field.' - Henry Reynolds 'Colonisation is both destructive and creative of peoples. Recent historians have revealed the extensive destruction of black Australians and their cultures. But now Bain Attwood, in this finely crafted and highly original series of case studies. plots the complex human relations and historical forces that re-made these indigenous people into the Aborigines.' - Richard Broome
For many of their campfire tales, the aboriginal people of Australia looked to the skies, where they found a twinkling text of morals and stories within their own version of the zodiac. Today, the starry birds, fishes, and dancing men that provided a backdrop to life Down Under for thousands of years have found a new popularity beyond Australia. With this colorful compilation of oral traditions, readers can savor the tales as they were told by their aboriginal narrators. Footnotes throughout the text clarify occasional obscurities, providing background on aboriginal life and customs as the need for explanation arises. For the most part, however, the author allows the myths to speak for themselves, without any attempt to support or disprove anthropological theories. The myths range in nature and tone from reverent recountings of the origins of the world and human life, to legends about the roots of religious and social customs, to fanciful and humorous animal fables. Unabridged republication of Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals, Ballantyne Press-Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd., London, n.d., ca. 1930. Index. 63 black-and-white illustrations.
The highly regarded history of Australia's First Nations people since colonisation, fully updated for this fifth edition. 'The vast sweeping story of Aboriginal Australia from 1788 is told in Richard Broome's typical lucid and imaginative style. This is an important work of great scholarship, passion and imagination.' - Professor Lynette Russell, Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies, Monash University In the creation of any new society, there are winners and losers. So it was with Australia as it grew from a colonial outpost to an affluent society. Richard Broome tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians: those who lost most in the early colonial struggle for power. Surveying over two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, he shows how white settlers steadily supplanted the original inhabitants, from the shining coasts to inland deserts, by sheer force of numbers, disease, technology and violence. He also tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation, and traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of a settler society to a more central place in modern Australia. Broome's Aboriginal Australians has long been regarded as the most authoritative account of black-white relations in Australia. This fifth edition continues the story, covering the impact of the Northern Territory Intervention, the mining boom in remote Australia, the Uluru Statement, the resurgence of interest in traditional Aboriginal knowledge and culture, and the new generation of Aboriginal leaders. 'Richard Broome's historical analysis breaks the back of every theoretical argument about colonialism and establishes a clear pathway to understanding the present situation.' Sharon Meagher, Aboriginal Education Development Officer, Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide
Collection of traditional Aboriginal stories from South Australia, written David Uniapon, an early Aboriginal activist, scientist, writer and preacher, who appears on the Australian $50 note. The stories originally appeared in 'Myths and Legends of the Australian Aboriginals', but were attributed to W. Ramsay Smith, FRS, anthropologist and Chief Medical Officer of South Australia. For this edition the stories have been re-edited, with the cooperation of Uniapon's descendants, and for the first time appear as the work of their true author. The editors contribute a substantial introduction that gives the historical and cultural context of Uniapon's work, and the story of this publication. Includes photos, glossary and bibliography. Muecke is Professor of Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney. Previous works include 'Reading the Country' and 'Paperbark: A collection of Black Australian writing'. Shoemaker is Dean of Arts at the Australian National University. Previous works include 'Black Words, White Page' and 'Mudrooroo: A critical study'.
The Aboriginal Australians first arrived on the continent at least 60,000 years ago, occupying and adapting to a range of environmental conditions—from tropical estuarine habitats, densely forested regions, open plains, and arid desert country to cold, mountainous, and often wet and snowy high country. Cultures adapted according to the different conditions and adapted again to environmental changes brought about by rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age. European colonization of the island continent in 1788 not only introduced diseases to which Aborigines had no immunity but also began an enduring and at times violent conflict over land and resources. Reconciliation between Aborigines and the settler population remains unresolved. This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Australian Aborigines contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and more than 300 cross-referenced entries on the politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture of the Aborigines. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the indigenous people of Australia.
In the debates which followed the publication of Darwin's book on the origin of species, Australian Aborigines were used as the ideal exemplars of early human forms by European scholars bent on discovering the origins of social institutions. The Aborigines have consequently featured as the crucial case-study for generations of social theorists, including Tylor, Frazer, Durkheim and Freud. Arguments about Aborigines reviews a range of controversies such as family life, religion and ritual, and land rights, which marked the formative period of British social anthropology. Professor Hiatt also examines how changes in Aboriginal practices have affected scholarly debate. This elegant 1996 book will provide a valuable introduction to aboriginal ethnography for students, scholars and the general reader. It is also a shrewd and stimulating history of the great debates of anthropology, seen through the prism of Aboriginal studies.