This post was triggered by the wonderfully evocative old photo above. It comes from the Fryer Library, University of Queensland, part of a large collection indexed here.
The page will gradually grow into an anthology-style post like People in Australia before Europeans arrived and The European colonisation of Australia but covering specifically the early colonial period in northern Australia, roughly 1850 – 1930 and anywhere north and east of a line from Bundaberg to Darwin. Like those two, it will be a collection of snippets from items that deserve to be remembered, from various online sources.
Readings
A review of Frontier Justice: A History of the Gulf Country to 1900 by Tony Roberts (2005). classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/IndigLawB/2005/29.html
Artifacts returned to traditional owners near Ingham by descendants of the first European settlers: abc.net.au/news/2024-03-16/indigenous-artefacts-cane-fields-traditional-owners-returned/103591436
It’s believed a ward of Mackay hospital is being built near the site of the old ‘Kanaka hospital’ where countless Islander people died. A prominent historian and a South Sea Islander elder have called for the exploration of the building site to look for remains. abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-06-10/fears-missing-south-sea-islander-bodies-buried-at-hospital/103912808
Powerful art presenting an indigenous perspective on colonisation: an exhibition in Brisbane described and shown at peterhanley1.wordpress.com/2024/07/29/a-walk-on-the-light-side-the-powerful-and-beguiling-work-of-waanyi-artist-judy-watson/
And also…
Here are some related posts on Green Path, my environment-focused blog:
- An introduction to the Roper Bar (a river crossing used by Leichhardt, in 1845, and settlers ever since) and nearby Roper Gulf communities and missions.
- mogoer munya, a book by John Elliott about James Morrill, who was shipwrecked off the Queensland coast in 1846 and rescued by the Birri-Gubba people of Cape Cleveland.
- Mataranka and We of the Never-never are introduced here.
- Alex Miller’s novel Landscape of Farewell centres on a massacre near Springsure in 1861.