‘Looking back, there was a lot we missed’ An examination of how settler descendants from South Australia’s North-East Highland and Wirrabara districts know and understand the nineteenth-century colonial past Skye Krichauff This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology, 2014 ii Abstract Drawing primarily on a series of qualitative interviews and site visits, plus archival research, personal experience and a survey of local histories, this thesis examines how the occupation of land in the North-East Highland and Wirrabara districts of South Australia in the nineteenth century is known, understood and articulated by settler descendants who continue to live on and/or have close connections with that land. In particular, this thesis seeks to understand the overwhelming absence of stories and knowledge about the traditional owners of these districts (the Ngadjuri and Nukunu) among this group of settler descendants, and the sense that the histories of Aboriginal people are separate or disconnected from their own (settler) histories. Mid-northern settler descendants who have grown up on land occupied by their family for generations primarily draw on their own experiences and those of their forebears when making sense of the past. This thesis argues that while the past known through external sources such as local written histories, plaques or information boards orientates and shapes settler descendants’ historical consciousness, the past which is most powerfully known and readily related to has been absorbed through everyday life – through dwelling in place and among others with whom settler descendants share experiences, memories and histories. Our experiences are mediated and articulated in accordance with the social world in which we belong and the cultural system in which we have grown up; our consciousness of the past is formed and shaped in socially, culturally, historically and geographically specific ways. In the North-East Highland and Wirrabara districts, a dominant settler-colonial historical epistemology in which South Australia is understood as terra nullius at the time of British occupation and in which Aboriginal people are understood as ‘other’, as nomadic and primitive, continues to frame and orientate settler descendants’ understandings of the early colonial period. Stories of Aboriginal presence and settler‒Aboriginal interaction which are decipherable in family stories, local histories, nomenclature and through country itself contain the potential to disrupt and unsettle this historical epistemology. This thesis examines how these alternative stories are received, interpreted and subsequently conveyed. iii Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank all the people who so generously shared their time, memories, stories and knowledge with me, and who unhesitatingly agreed to the recording of our conversations. These people are too numerous to individually thank on this page. A list of everyone who met with me for recorded interviews appears in Appendix 1. Also listed are people who showed me around their homes (their houses and/or their properties) but whom I did not record for various reasons but primarily due to time constraints and a need to limit the scope of this project. To all, thank you for your warmth and hospitality, your openness and honesty. In particular I’d like to thank Julia Clarke, Ian Warnes and Heather Sizer for going well beyond the call of duty with help and assistance. Several people I have spoken with during the course of this project have since died. I am deeply grateful for the chance to have met or reconnected with these people, to have recorded their memories, their reflections on life and their insights. For those in their eighties and nineties, whose grandparents and parents were alive in the nineteenth century, their knowledge of the colonial past is invaluable and irreplaceable. I feel extremely fortunate that I was able to speak with many people of this generation. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by an Australian Postgraduate Award. An additional grant was provided by the Australian Research Council for the ‘Social Memory and Historical Justice’ project, Discovery Project DP0877630. I also acknowledge and thank Mary-Jo O’Rourke, an Accredited Editor with the Institute of Professional Editors, for proofreading and copyediting this thesis. To the staff at the Swinburne Institute for Social Research (the ISR) who sat on panels and listened to various presentations, read sections of chapters and provided constructive feedback, thank you for your unwavering enthusiasm and support for this project and your valuable insights and perspectives. Tom Gara has been typically generous in sharing his great historical knowledge of people and places. To my fellow postgrads at the ISR, what intelligent, warm and inspiring people you are! In particular I acknowledge the collegial support of Josefine Raasch, Kath Wilson, Jill Stockwell, Steffi Scherr, Michaela McCallahan, Annika Lems, Jasmina Kijevcanin and Christine Horn. I look forward to hearing where your passions lead you in the future. I would especially like to thank Christine Horn for providing the maps which appear in this thesis. iv To my supervisors, Klaus Neumann and Ian McShane, thank you. To Klaus; for introducing me to scholars and ideas that have inspired and challenged me; for organising such brilliant workshops and residential seminars; for your ability to succinctly summarise the weaknesses of a chapter or paper in a few short sentences and your close attention to detail. To Ian; for your considered and pertinent insights, sound advice and easy-going personality. To Nat Mulraney and Roxxy Bent, many thanks for your enduring and consistent interest in this project and for helping me debrief and problem-solve while either getting some much needed exercise and fresh air or during our shared writing days. Long may our catch-ups continue. To the rest of my friends (if you ever read this) – thank you for your friendship, laughter and patience. Special thanks to all the people ‘from home’ – from Hallett in particular but the mid-north in general. You’ve been in my thoughts constantly over the past few years and the strong and enduring bonds I formed with you during my childhood years have influenced my research and thinking. Thank you to my brother George Krichauff and my childhood friend Amy Sullivan for hospitably suppling me with a bed and a base whenever I was in Melbourne for PhD related business. To my immediate family: YES – it’s over! Thank you to Henry and Mary Krichauff for all you do, all the time. We are so lucky to have you. To Sam, Emily, Jemima and Hamish Crawford, thank you for being there and for being you. v Declaration This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award to the candidate of any other degree or diploma, except where due reference has been made in the text. To the best of my knowledge this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the text. Much of the material used in this thesis comes from interviews which were conducted in accordance with the guidelines set out by the Swinburne University of Technology Human Research Ethics Committee. Skye Krichauff, August 2014 vi Contents Abstract Acknowledgements Declaration List of figures 1. Introduction: Cappeedee ……………………………………………………………………. 1 The disconnect 16 Returning to Hallett and Cappeedee 22 Different ways of knowing and relating to the past 28 The primacy of lived experience 33 A settler-colonial historical epistemology 35 Composure and the cultural circuit 39 Positioning 40 Chapter outline 47 2. ‘All the history is there in my mind’ ………………………………………………… 52 Lived experience 54 ‘They were just there’ 60 Country/place 65 Attachment to place 68 Homesteads 75 The lack of a sense of individual ownership 79 Conclusion 82 3. ‘A great feeling of belonging’……………………………………………………………… 84 Belonging 86 Different types of community 92 Communities of geographical proximity 95 Family and friends 97 The occupation and lifestyle of farming 105 Emotions versus rationality 110 Conclusion 115 4. The legacy of Billy Dare……………………………………………………………………. 120 Billy Dare’s interaction with Aboriginal people 122 Rollo and Geoff Dare 125 Rollo’s narrative 128 Geoff’s stories 134 References to Aboriginal people 136 Stereotypes 147 Unutilised memories 155 Conclusion 158 vii 5. ‘The Blacks’ camp’……………………………………………………………………….…….. 161 ‘The Blacks’ camp’ 169 Colin’s, Heather’s and Kath’s stories 172 Drawing on one’s own experiences 183 Conclusion 184 6. ‘I read it but then I forget it’……………………………………………………………… 188 Oral to text 189 The relationship between oral stories and written histories 197 The influence and/or authority of written histories versus oral histories 199 The authority of information learned through external means 203 The influence of the past learned through history 206 Conclusion 209 7. Historical contingency and human experience…………………………………. 214 Variations in myths of settlement and the quality of linear time 215 Differences between squatters/pastoralists and freeholders 217 Learning from the historical records 222 Generational transference of intangible traces of the past 230 Knowledge of pastoralists: variations between districts 232 Ruins and paddock names 238 The Wirrabara district 242 Cultural context and lived experience 246 The recognition of Chinese