In Good Faith? Governing Indigenous Australia Through God, Charity and Empire, 1825-1855

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

In Good Faith? Governing Indigenous Australia Through God, Charity and Empire, 1825-1855 In Good Faith? Governing Indigenous Australia through God, Charity and Empire, 1825-1855 In Good Faith? Governing Indigenous Australia through God, Charity and Empire, 1825-1855 Jessie Mitchell THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY E PRESS E PRESS Published by ANU E Press and Aboriginal History Incorporated Aboriginal History Monograph 23 This title is also available online at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/good_faith_citation.html National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Author: Mitchell, Jessie. Title: In good faith? : governing Indigenous Australia through god, charity and empire, 1825-1855 / Jessie Mitchell. ISBN: 9781921862106 (pbk.) 9781921862113 (eBook) Series: Aboriginal history monograph ; 23 Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Indigenous peoples--Government relations. Philanthropinism. Aboriginal Australians--Politics and government. Aboriginal Australians--Social conditions--19th century. Colonization--Australia. Dewey Number: 305.89915 Aboriginal History Incorporated Aboriginal History is administered by an Editorial Board which is responsible for all unsigned material. Views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily shared by Board members. The Committee of Management and the Editorial Board Kaye Price (Chair), Peter Read (Monographs Editor), Maria Nugent and Shino Konishi (Journal Editors), Robert Paton (Treasurer and Public Officer), Anne McGrath (Deputy Chair), Isabel McBryde, Niel Gunson, Luise Hercus, Harold Koch, Christine Hansen, Tikka Wilson, Geoff Gray, Jay Arthur, Dave Johnson, Ingereth Macfarlane, Brian Egloff, Lorena Kanellopoulos, Richard Baker, Peter Radoll. Contacting Aboriginal History All correspondence should be addressed to Aboriginal History, Box 2837 GPO Canberra, 2601, Australia. Sales and orders for journals and monographs, and journal subscriptions: Thelma Sims, email: Thelma.Sims@anu. edu.au, tel or fax: +61 2 6125 3269, www.aboriginalhistory.org Aboriginal History Inc. is a part of the Australian Centre for Indigenous Studies, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University and gratefully acknowledges the support of the History Program, RSSS and the National Centre for Indigenous Studies, The Australian National University. WARNING: Readers are notified that this publication may contain names or images of deceased persons. ANU E Press: All correspondence should be addressed to: ANU E Press, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia Email: anuepress@anu.edu.au, http://epress.anu.edu.au Cover image: Missionary Register, September 1834, L & G Seeley, London. National Library of Australia, N266.3CHU. Cover design and layout by ANU E Press Printed by Griffin Press Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. This edition © 2011 ANU E Press and Aboriginal History Inc Contents Illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 ‘This land of Barbarians’: missions and protectorates begin 13 ‘Godless political experiments’: philanthropy and governance 39 ‘All white masters belong to your King’: race, identity and empire 65 ‘Our country all gone’: rights, charity and the loss of land 87 Deserving poverty? Rationing and philanthropy 109 Keeping body and soul together: creating material ‘civilisation’ 129 ‘Can these dry bones live?’ Religious life and afterlife 151 ‘This bitter reproach’: destruction, guilt and the colonial future 173 Conclusion 195 Bibliography 199 v Illustrations Figure 1. Map showing the locations of Indigenous communities and missions in Australia. Prepared by Karina Pelling, Cartographic and GIS Services, Australian National University. Figure 2. During the 1830s, the Church Missionary Society published tales of bush life, cultural clashes and missionary work at Wellington Valley. As the picture indicates, many aspects of traditional Wiradjuri life were continuing, to the fascination and concern of the missionaries. Missionary Register, September 1834, L & G Seeley, London. National Library of Australia, N266.3CHU. Figure 3. British missionary publications were even more dismissive of pre- colonial life than were their Australian counterparts, as this juxtaposition of Indigenous people and native animals suggests. ‘An Australian Group’, Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, Wesleyan Juvenile Offering, February 1853, Wesleyan Mission House, London. Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, 266.705/W. Figure 4. By the 1840s, philanthropists’ reports were becoming pessimistic. As this choice of illustration in a missionary journal shows, Indigenous Australians were increasingly portrayed as hopeless and doomed. ‘Burial of one of the natives of Australia’, Wesleyan Missionary Society, Papers Relative to the Wesleyan Missions, and to the State of Heathen Countries, no CXI, March 1848, London. National Library of Australia, Petherick NK5726. vii Acknowledgements This work began life as a doctoral thesis in history at the Australian National University, and became a book during my time as a staff member with the Australian National University and the University of Sydney, working as part of a Discovery grant funded by the Australian Research Council. I also was assisted greatly by a creative fellowship with the State Library of Victoria. Particular thanks must go to Ann Curthoys for her keen, thoughtful and generous supervision of this project, and to Peter Read and Jay Arthur of the Aboriginal History monograph series, for their encouragement and support. I am also grateful to the Australian Historical Association, who helped to promote this work through the 2006 Serle prize. Thanks must go to the manuscripts staff at the State Library of Victoria, the Mitchell Library of New South Wales, the National Library of Australia and the Public Records Office of Victoria for their assistance and permission to use images, to Geoff Hunt for his editorial work, and to Karina Pelling of the ANU’s Cartographic and GIS services for putting together such a useful map. I am grateful, too, to Lynette Russell for making me welcome during a brief stay at the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University, and to Jane Lydon, Tom Griffiths and Verity Archer for their insights and enthusiasm. Thanks, finally, to my family, for all their love and encouragement. ix Introduction Contemporary Australia has been shaped powerfully by legacies of colonialism. Disputes over national responsibility, guilt, denial and shame for Aboriginal dispossession have become especially notable in public life since the late 20th century. This has proven most striking in debates about the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families (a process which can be traced back to the philanthropic projects described in this work), and while questions of national responsibility for historical wrongs have taken on slightly different forms of late – with the federal government’s 2008 apology to the stolen generations, and ongoing debates over government ‘intervention’ into troubled Aboriginal communities – their continued relevance is clear. In this climate, tracing histories of dispossession, Indigenous rights and the mixed meanings of paternalism and state authority is a challenging and important task. Ideas about rights, in particular, have become both notable and disputed in recent Australian political life. Questions of Indigenous people’s entitlements – as colonised peoples, as Australian citizens and as human beings – continue to provoke debate. Such controversies have emerged from efforts to situate Indigenous grievances in human rights frameworks, as well as in debates over whether ‘civil’ and ‘Aboriginal’ rights are compatible, and in attacks on a rights- based discourse by those who view it as irrelevant or dangerous. Related disputes are also occurring in a wider context, where the very concept of human rights has become both highly articulate (employed by activists and governments) and under attack from different quarters. My own belief in the importance of pursuing these issues has been influenced not only by my academic research, but also by a period of time spent working in the community sector. Here, tensions between rights and charity and questions about the supposed (in) gratitude of vulnerable people towards state and benevolent agencies continue to have strong relevance. This work was prompted partly, therefore, by a belief that more attention must be paid to the evolving and problematic nature of philanthropic support for Indigenous people’s entitlements, and its shifting connections to empire, charity, religion and the state. Furthering my interest in this topic is the fact that, by the beginning of the 21st century, the historical plight of Indigenous Australians has become seen (often contentiously) as central to broader national identity. This belief is no doubt relevant to the desire which has emerged over the past couple of decades to trace histories of Australian humanitarianism, including that of certain 19th century missionaries and protectors of Aborigines. While I appreciate and support such a project, I would add nonetheless that it can be equally important to examine the complexities, paradoxes and deep cracks within these humanitarian movements; the fault lines in colonial philanthropy have, themselves, left rich and troubling 1 In Good Faith? legacies. The place
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...

229 pages remaining, click to load more.

Recommended publications
  • Victorian Historical Journal
    VICTORIAN HISTORICAL JOURNAL VOLUME 90, NUMBER 2, DECEMBER 2019 ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF VICTORIA VICTORIAN HISTORICAL JOURNAL ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF VICTORIA The Victorian Historical Journal has been published continuously by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria since 1911. It is a double-blind refereed journal issuing original and previously unpublished scholarly articles on Victorian history, or occasionally on Australian history where it illuminates Victorian history. It is published twice yearly by the Publications Committee; overseen by an Editorial Board; and indexed by Scopus and the Web of Science. It is available in digital and hard copy. https://www.historyvictoria.org.au/publications/victorian-historical-journal/. The Victorian Historical Journal is a part of RHSV membership: https://www. historyvictoria.org.au/membership/become-a-member/ EDITORS Richard Broome and Judith Smart EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE VICTORIAN HISTORICAL JOURNAL Emeritus Professor Graeme Davison AO, FAHA, FASSA, FFAHA, Sir John Monash Distinguished Professor, Monash University (Chair) https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/graeme-davison Emeritus Professor Richard Broome, FAHA, FRHSV, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University and President of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria Co-editor Victorian Historical Journal https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/display/rlbroome Associate Professor Kat Ellinghaus, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/display/kellinghaus Professor Katie Holmes, FASSA, Director, Centre for the Study of the Inland, La Trobe University https://scholars.latrobe.edu.au/display/kbholmes Professor Emerita Marian Quartly, FFAHS, Monash University https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/marian-quartly Professor Andrew May, Department of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne https://www.findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person13351 Emeritus Professor John Rickard, FAHA, FRHSV, Monash University https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/john-rickard Hon.
    [Show full text]
  • Sydney Australia Inquests 1837.Pdf
    New South Wales Inquests, 1836; 05 June 2008 1 SYD1836 SYDNEY HERALD, 08/02/1836 Supreme Court of New South Wales Forbes C.J., 5 February 1836 On Friday last, an Aboriginal Black named Jack Congo Murrell, was indicted in the Supreme Court for the wilful murder of another Aboriginal Black named Jabbingee, at Windsor, when his Counsel put in the following ingenious and puzzling plea. In the Supreme Court, The King v. Jack Congo Murrell. ``And now the said Jack Congo Murrell in his own proper person comes, and having heard the Information aforesaid read, and protesting that he is not guilty of the premises charged in the said Information or any part thereof, for plea, nevertheless saith that he ought not to be compelled to answer to the said Information; because, he saith that the said Territory of New South Wales before and until the occupation thereof by his late Majesty King George the third, was inhabited by tribes of native blacks, who were regulated and governed by usages and customs of their own from time immemorial, practised and recognised amongst them, and not by the laws of statutes of Great Britain, and that ever since the occupation of the said Territory as aforesaid, the said tribes have continued to be, and still are regulated and governed by such usages and customs as aforesaid, - and not by the laws and statutes of Great Britain. And the said Jack Congo Murrell further saith that he is a native Black belonging to one of such tribes aforesaid, and that he is not now, nor at any time heretofore was a subject of the King of Great Britain and Ireland, nor was nor is subject to any of the laws or statutes of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
    [Show full text]
  • A History in Three Rivers
    A History in Three Rivers Dungog Shire Heritage Study Thematic History April 2012 Michael Williams Gresford Crossing source: Dungog Shire Heritage Study, Karskens, 1986 Ships at Clarence Town source: Dungog Shire Heritage Study Karskens, 1986 Mill on the Allyn River source: Dungog Shire Heritage Study, Karskens, 1986 carste STUDIO Pty Ltd Architects and Heritage Consultants ADDENDUM TO THEMATIC HISTORY 1 DUNGOG HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC COMMENTS ON ‘A HISTORY IN THREE RIVERS’ JANUARY 2014 The Dungog Historical Society makes the following observations for your consideration. They are intended to enhance the project. One of the general observations is ‘A History in Three Rivers’ is largely about wealthier or prominent males their roles and their activities. Professor Glenda Strachan has carried out detailed research on Dungog highlighting the role of women and children in poorer farming families. Because of the nature of the research it also gives insights into life for poorer rural men. See, for example ‘Women’s Work is Never Done” The intersection of Work and Family’ 2004http://www.griffith.edu.au/?a=314657 accessed 10 January 2014, G Strachan, E Jordan, H Carey, ‘Women’s Work in a Rural Community: Dungog and the Upper Williams Valley 1880- 1900’ Labour History No 78, 28 May 2000, p 7 and G Strachan ‘Assumed but Rarely Documented: Women’s Entrepreneurial Activities in Late Ninetieth Country Australia’ www.historycooperative.org/proceedings/asslh/strachan accessed 13/9/2006 p7 Second paragraph reference to Barton – the point of the visit was electioneering for his seat of Hunter, which included Dungog. The first elections were held later in the year and he was elected unopposed.
    [Show full text]
  • Aboriginal Agency, Institutionalisation and Survival
    2q' t '9à ABORIGINAL AGENCY, INSTITUTIONALISATION AND PEGGY BROCK B. A. (Hons) Universit¡r of Adelaide Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History/Geography, University of Adelaide March f99f ll TAT}LE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF TAE}LES AND MAPS iii SUMMARY iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . vii ABBREVIATIONS ix C}IAPTER ONE. INTRODUCTION I CFIAPTER TWO. TI{E HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA 32 CHAPTER THREE. POONINDIE: HOME AWAY FROM COUNTRY 46 POONINDIE: AN trSTä,TILISHED COMMUNITY AND ITS DESTRUCTION 83 KOONIBBA: REFUGE FOR TI{E PEOPLE OF THE VI/EST COAST r22 CFIAPTER SIX. KOONIBBA: INSTITUTIONAL UPHtrAVAL AND ADJUSTMENT t70 C}IAPTER SEVEN. DISPERSAL OF KOONIBBA PEOPLE AND THE END OF TI{E MISSION ERA T98 CTIAPTER EIGHT. SURVTVAL WITHOUT INSTITUTIONALISATION236 C}IAPTER NINtr. NEPABUNNA: THtr MISSION FACTOR 268 CFIAPTER TEN. AE}ORIGINAL AGENCY, INSTITUTIONALISATION AND SURVTVAL 299 BIBLIOGRAPI{Y 320 ltt TABLES AND MAPS Table I L7 Table 2 128 Poonindie location map opposite 54 Poonindie land tenure map f 876 opposite 114 Poonindie land tenure map f 896 opposite r14 Koonibba location map opposite L27 Location of Adnyamathanha campsites in relation to pastoral station homesteads opposite 252 Map of North Flinders Ranges I93O opposite 269 lv SUMMARY The institutionalisation of Aborigines on missions and government stations has dominated Aboriginal-non-Aboriginal relations. Institutionalisation of Aborigines, under the guise of assimilation and protection policies, was only abandoned in.the lg7Os. It is therefore important to understand the implications of these policies for Aborigines and Australian society in general. I investigate the affect of institutionalisation on Aborigines, questioning the assumption tl.at they were passive victims forced onto missions and government stations and kept there as virtual prisoners.
    [Show full text]
  • Learning Resource Pack
    TANDERRUM LEARNING RESOURCE PACK Melbourne Festival’s free program Presenting proudly supported by the City of Melbourne Partner With support from VicHealth, Newsboys Foundation and the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust TANDERRUM LEARNING RESOURCE PACK INTRODUCTION STATEMENT FROM ILBIJERRI THEATRE COMPANY Welcome to the study guide of the 2016 Melbourne Festival production of ILBIJERRI (pronounced ‘il BIDGE er ree’) is a Woiwurrung word meaning Tanderrum. The activities included are related to the AusVELS domains ‘Coming Together for Ceremony’. as outlined below. These activities are sequential and teachers are ILBIJERRI is Australia’s leading and longest running Aboriginal and encouraged to modify them to suit their own curriculum planning and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Company. the level of their students. Lesson suggestions for teachers are given We create challenging and inspiring theatre creatively controlled by within each activity and teachers are encouraged to extend and build on Indigenous artists. Our stories are provocative and affecting and give the stimulus provided as they see fit. voice to our unique and diverse cultures. ILBIJERRI tours its work to major cities, regional and remote locations AUSVELS LINKS TO CURRICULUM across Australia, as well as internationally. We have commissioned 35 • Cross Curriculum Priorities: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander new Indigenous works and performed for more than 250,000 people. History and Cultures We deliver an extensive program of artist development for new and • The Arts: Creating and making, Exploring and responding emerging Indigenous writers, actors, directors and creatives. • Civics and Citizenship: Civic knowledge and Born from community, ILBIJERRI is a spearhead for the Australian understanding, Community engagement Indigenous community in telling the stories of what it means to be Indigenous in Australia today from an Indigenous perspective.
    [Show full text]
  • Racist Structures and Ideologies Regarding Aboriginal People in Contemporary and Historical Australian Society
    Master Thesis In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science: Development and Rural Innovation Racist structures and ideologies regarding Aboriginal people in contemporary and historical Australian society Robin Anne Gravemaker Student number: 951226276130 June 2020 Supervisor: Elisabet Rasch Chair group: Sociology of Development and Change Course code: SDC-80436 Wageningen University & Research i Abstract Severe inequalities remain in Australian society between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. This research has examined the role of race and racism in historical Victoria and in the contemporary Australian government, using a structuralist, constructivist framework. It was found that historical approaches to governing Aboriginal people were paternalistic and assimilationist. Institutions like the Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines, which terrorised Aboriginal people for over a century, were creating a racist structure fuelled by racist ideologies. Despite continuous activism by Aboriginal people, it took until 1967 for them to get citizens’ rights. That year, Aboriginal affairs were shifted from state jurisdiction to national jurisdiction. Aboriginal people continue to be underrepresented in positions of power and still lack self-determination. The national government of Australia has reproduced historical inequalities since 1967, and racist structures and ideologies remain. ii iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Elisabet Rasch, for her support and constructive criticism. I thank my informants and other friends that I met in Melbourne for talking to me and expanding my mind. Floor, thank you for showing me around in Melbourne and for your never-ending encouragement since then, via phone, postcard or in person. Duane Hamacher helped me tremendously by encouraging me to change the topic of my research and by sharing his own experiences as a researcher.
    [Show full text]
  • A LETTER from ARTHUR HODGSON to HENRY STUART RUSSELL the Genesis of Queensland
    211 A LETTER FROM ARTHUR HODGSON TO HENRY STUART RUSSELL The Genesis of Queensland SIR ARTHUR HODGSON The Editor has received from Mr. Alec. H. Chisholm, ornithologist and historian, and a Fellow of the Society, a copy of a letter sent by Arthur Hodgson' to Henry Stuart Russell,^ which is of historic interest. It relates to the pub­ lication of Russell's book "The Genesis of Queensland."^ The letter was dated 9 March 1888. It read as foUows: Clopton House, Stratford on Avon. "My Dear Russell, "Yesterday 'The Genesis of Queensland' reached me from Sydney by parcel-post. It was a long time en route, our son Edward, manager of Eton Vale, having written to us that the book was in his possession, and received favourable reviews, had been forwarded by him to Clopton. 212 "I called last week, when in London, at several bookseUers, but they knew nothing, and at Stamford's, Charing Cross, I was told that such a book would be in great request, as Queensland, owing to its vast mineral resources, was largely in the ascendant. "I have sent them the name of the pubUsher, and to Bumper's in Oxford Street, etc., etc., and at the Colonial Institute your book was unknown. "I hope that the pubUshers have their agents in London, and that they have forwarded at least 100 copies, which I feel assured would find a very ready sale. "All this by way of introduction, and I may add that as soon as our friend RoUeston'' told me that such a book was on the stocks, I immediately (in May last) ordered two copies.
    [Show full text]
  • Place Names of South Australia: W
    W Some of our names have apparently been given to the places by drunken bushmen andfrom our scrupulosity in interfering with the liberty of the subject, an inflection of no light character has to be borne by those who come after them. SheaoakLog ispassable... as it has an interesting historical association connectedwith it. But what shall we say for Skillogolee Creek? Are we ever to be reminded of thin gruel days at Dotheboy’s Hall or the parish poor house. (Register, 7 October 1861, page 3c) Wabricoola - A property North -East of Black Rock; see pastoral lease no. 1634. Waddikee - A town, 32 km South-West of Kimba, proclaimed on 14 July 1927, took its name from the adjacent well and rock called wadiki where J.C. Darke was killed by Aborigines on 24 October 1844. Waddikee School opened in 1942 and closed in 1945. Aboriginal for ‘wattle’. ( See Darke Peak, Pugatharri & Koongawa, Hundred of) Waddington Bluff - On section 98, Hundred of Waroonee, probably recalls James Waddington, described as an ‘overseer of Waukaringa’. Wadella - A school near Tumby Bay in the Hundred of Hutchison opened on 1 July 1914 by Jessie Ormiston; it closed in 1926. Wadjalawi - A tea tree swamp in the Hundred of Coonarie, west of Point Davenport; an Aboriginal word meaning ‘bull ant water’. Wadmore - G.W. Goyder named Wadmore Hill, near Lyndhurst, after George Wadmore, a survey employee who was born in Plymouth, England, arrived in the John Woodall in 1849 and died at Woodside on 7 August 1918. W.R. Wadmore, Mayor of Campbelltown, was honoured in 1972 when his name was given to Wadmore Park in Maryvale Road, Campbelltown.
    [Show full text]
  • Dialogue and Indigenous Policy in Australia
    Dialogue and Indigenous Policy in Australia Darryl Cronin A thesis in fulfilment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Social Policy Research Centre Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences September 2015 ABSTRACT My thesis examines whether dialogue is useful for negotiating Indigenous rights and solving intercultural conflict over Indigenous claims for recognition within Australia. As a social and political practice, dialogue has been put forward as a method for identifying and solving difficult problems and for promoting processes of understanding and accommodation. Dialogue in a genuine form has never been attempted with Indigenous people in Australia. Australian constitutionalism is unable to resolve Indigenous claims for recognition because there is no practice of dialogue in Indigenous policy. A key barrier in that regard is the underlying colonial assumptions about Indigenous people and their cultures which have accumulated in various ways over the course of history. I examine where these assumptions about Indigenous people originate and demonstrate how they have become barriers to dialogue between Indigenous people and governments. I investigate historical and contemporary episodes where Indigenous people have challenged those assumptions through their claims for recognition. Indigenous people have attempted to engage in dialogue with governments over their claims for recognition but these attempts have largely been rejected on the basis of those assumptions. There is potential for dialogue in Australia however genuine dialogue between Indigenous people and the Australian state is impossible under a colonial relationship. A genuine dialogue must first repudiate colonial and contemporary assumptions and attitudes about Indigenous people. It must also deconstruct the existing colonial relationship between Indigenous people and government.
    [Show full text]
  • The Hon Tf Bathurst Chief Justice
    THE HON T F BATHURST CHIEF JUSTICE OF NEW SOUTH WALES FRANCIS FORBES SOCIETY AUSTRALIAN LEGAL HISTORY ‘A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK’1: THE HISTORY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN NEW SOUTH WALES THURSDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2019* INTRODUCTION 1. I would like to begin by respectfully acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging. As I will discuss later in this tutorial, the first legal system in Australia belonged to that of Australia’s Indigenous people. We acknowledge and respect the ongoing laws and customs of the traditional custodians of this land. 2. If any of you are here to hear about the development of the law of New South Wales or the history of its courts, you are sure to be disappointed. To console you there will be plenty of these lectures during the Court’s bicentenary in a few years’ time. This speech is about the profession itself, not the law, Courts or judiciary. 3. A traditional view of the advent of the legal profession in New South Wales would focus exclusively on the advent of solicitors, both free and former- convict, and barristers in the emerging penal Colony. However, far too often we conflate the start of the legal profession in New South Wales with the start of the legal profession for men. The advent of the legal profession for women did not occur until over a century later, and regrettably, even later for Australia’s Indigenous peoples.
    [Show full text]
  • Aboriginal/ European Interactions and Frontier Violence on the Western
    the space of conflict: Aboriginal/ European interactions and frontier violence on the western Central murray, south Australia, 1830–41 Heather Burke, Amy Roberts, Mick Morrison, Vanessa Sullivan and the River Murray and Mallee Aboriginal Corporation (RMMAC) Colonialism was a violent endeavour. Bound up with the construction of a market-driven, capitalist system via the tendrils of Empire, it was intimately associated with the processes of colonisation and the experiences of exploiting the land, labour and resources of the New World.1 All too often this led to conflict, particularly between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Overt violence (the euphemistic ‘skirmishes’, ‘affrays’ and ‘collisions’ of the documentary record), clandestine violence (poisonings, forced removals, sexual exploitation and disease) and structural violence (the compartmentalisation of Aboriginal people through processes of race, governance and labour) became routinised aspects of colonialism, buttressed by structures of power, inequality, dispossession and racism. Conflict at the geographical margins of this system was made possible by the general anxieties of life at, or beyond, the boundaries of settlement, closely associated with the normalised violence attached to ideals of ‘manliness’ on the frontier.2 The ‘History Wars’ that ignited at the turn of the twenty-first century sparked an enormous volume of detailed research into the nature and scale of frontier violence across Australia. Individual studies have successfully canvassed the 1 Silliman 2005. 2
    [Show full text]
  • “To the Dowlings Who Served in America's Wars”
    “to the Dowlings who served in America's wars” A MEMORIAL PLAQUE PRESENTED BY. MAUD DOWLING TURNER AT THE 1946 DOWLING FAMILY REUNION MEETING HAMPTON, SOUTH CAROLINA PUBLISHER’S NOTE Maud Dowling Turner authored this document in 1946 for the dedication of a plaque honoring those in the Dowling Family who served in America’s wars – from the Revolutionary War through World War II. It was presented at the Dowling Family Reunion in Hampton South Carolina that year. I obtained my copy from a cousin. It contains a great deal of history of the Dowling family. Since it is apparently no longer in print, I have prepared this copy to assist other Dowlings in the search for their family’s history. The Dowlings honored on the plaque and in this publication are members of the Robert Dowling family, chiefly Robert’s descendants by his son James and James’ son John. This copy was prepared using Optical Character Recognition of a copy of the original. Due to the differing styles and formatting of the original, the OCR software had difficulty with many words. While I have attempted to proofread it carefully, if you find any apparent typographical errors, please contact me and I will check them against the original. I have attempted to retain the original wording and punctuation as closely as possible. However, I have resized and relocated the photographs to place them beside the story of the person in the photograph. I also changed the original two-column layout in order to format it for the Web. The few changes or additions I have made to the text are contained within brackets [ ].
    [Show full text]