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Convincing Ground: Learning to Fall in Love with Your Country
A wide-ranging, personal and powerful work that resonates with historical and contemporary Australian debates about identity, dispossession, memory, and community. Ranging across the national contemporary political stage, this book critiques the great Australian silence when it comes to dealing respectfully with the construction of the nation’s Indigenous past.
302 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
21 people are currently reading
525 people want to read
About the author
Bruce Pascoe
46 books319 followersBruce Pascoe was born of Bunurong and Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond and graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Education. He is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative of southern Victoria and has been the director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission.
Bruce has had a varied career as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor.
He won the Fellowship of Australian Writers´ Literature Award in 1999 and his novel Fog a Dox (published by Magabala Books in 2012), won the Young Adult category of the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
Source: http://brucepascoe.com.au/about/
Bruce has had a varied career as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor.
He won the Fellowship of Australian Writers´ Literature Award in 1999 and his novel Fog a Dox (published by Magabala Books in 2012), won the Young Adult category of the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
Source: http://brucepascoe.com.au/about/
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 10, 2019
A few years ago, I read a book called The Locals. In that the author suggests that white Australians who live in country towns are remarkably uninterested in their own history. They see themselves as ‘locals’ and they do so in a way that suggests that prior to their families coming to settle on this land, they had no real ‘pre-history’. These are not people who are all that interested in the whole Who Do You Think You Are? Phenomenon. Rather, it is almost as if they had sprung from the ground fully-formed and that they took possession of the land in that strange birthing process. The thing is, though, that it is more than just people who live in the country who struggle with Australian history. Perhaps the most dramatic way to show this lack of interest in Australian History is to look at the number of students who studied Australian history in their last year at school in my home State – the State where this book is set.
In 2018, 57 providers (mostly schools) taught Australian History in the final year of school for the Victorian Certificate of Education to a total of 722 students. In the same year 371 providers taught 20th Century History (1945-2000) to 6,871 students. For History: Revolutions (focusing on the French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions) there were 349 providers teaching 4,756 students – so, that’s about 7 times more people studying Revolutions and nearly ten times more studying 20th century history than studied their own nation’s history.
Now, all facts like that tend to be, as academics like to say, over-determined. That is, there’s probably no single reason for this wilful ignoring of our own history. All the same, I’m sure one of the reasons contributing to this is that white Australia has a very odd relationship with the land. Not unlike the first line of Frost’s ‘A Gift Outright’ – ‘The land was ours before we were the lands’ – although, I would argue Americans have a similar problem, since their land also remains haunted by the ghosts of the dispossessed.
Many people think that Australia was set up as a convict settlement. And while that was true for many of the early settlements: Sydney, Hobart, Brisbane, Perth – it certainly wasn’t true of Adelaide nor or Melbourne. In fact, there was an anti-convict league in Melbourne to ensure convicts were kept out. Melbourne was set up by ex-convicts from Tasmania – against the express will of the governor of New South Wales. The ex-convicts had become entrepreneurs, and were running out of land suitable for grazing. They moved from being convicts to being entrepreneurs, a process that seems more likely to go the other way nowadays.
The local Aboriginals had something of a disadvantage. They believed that once they died they would come back as ghost-like creatures – basically, human negatives. Which is to say, they would come back as white people. So, when white people started arriving, the local tribes made the fatal mistake of not properly resisting the invasion – in fact, they welcomed them as ancestors. And the invading force made the most of that mistake. In the US, the local population had proven to have very little resistance to western disease – which is the reason Diamond’s book has Germs in the title, and why James I thanked god for the benefits of small pox. The author says the role of germs as a mass murdering force was much less the case here in Australia – although the introduction of sexually transmitted disease did reduced the fertility of Aboriginal women. The author says that the entrepreneurs who came (one of them literally on a boat called The Enterprise) recognised that they needed to get the local population out of the way as quickly as possible. The killings started almost immediately. But on the quiet, since they certainly didn’t want any trouble from the government officials in Sydney or back in Britain.
Generally, we like to think of the killings as being almost an accident of nature. For instance, it was said at the time that the local Aboriginals had been on the verge of disappearing anyway. This is so obscene that it is almost laughable. The idea that a people who had lived on the land for at the very least 60,000 years and possibly as much as 120,000 years would just happen to be on the verge of disappearing as white people arrived would be a coincidence of more than lottery proportions. It would, obviously enough, be better explained by Aboriginal people’s lack of natural resistance to bullet-holes.
Of course, the author doesn’t say the local population was all killed by guns – but for a while now we have had a spate of local historians saying that the ‘black arm band’ story of Australian history is grossly overstated, and that the colonisation of Australia was instead remarkably peaceful.
The problem is that the term ‘frontier wars’ is much more accurate. The local Aboriginals did eventually fight back, but the destruction of their houses, of their crops, of the food stores, and then the rape of their women and the stealing of their children made their life situation desperate.
The title of this book is also a place name. The Convincing Ground was where the white settlers sought to convince the local Aboriginals of their rights to the land, and to their women, to their children and to anything else they wanted. It was the site of yet another massacre.
But the author also points out, many Victorians have more Aboriginal ancestors than is generally recognised. He says:
“But it is the size of the European population which is most crucial to this analysis. In 1837, Europeans numbered around 500 in Port Phillip with almost no women among them. By 1838 this population has climbed to 3500 but still only 430 are females and perhaps only 200 to 300 are adult women. How were the other 3300 men, most of whom were convicts or penniless shepherds, sating their lust? Duck shooting?
“No, 3300 white men do not just twiddle their thumbs; they engage in sexual activity ranging from violent rape to sexual slavery and sometimes consensual cohabitation.
“Almost every record of contact between black and white in the period 1835–1845 attests to the brutal treatment of Aboriginal women who were stolen, raped and enslaved often after the murder of their menfolk. As the Silent War progressed, the population of adult Aboriginal males plummeted and the numbers of white men increased. Under these circumstances Aboriginal women were more likely to cohabit voluntarily with white men.”
Recently, one of the pioneer settlers of Victoria, who used to have a federal electorate named after him, had this renamed due to people bringing up the evidence of him killing Aboriginals. He had wanted almost everything in Melbourne named after him – his name was John Batman and wanted Melbourne itself to be called Batmania (and yes, part of me still regrets that this never happened). He lost his nose to syphilis, his wife was kicked to death while working as a prostitute in Geelong after leaving him for his best friend, and just about everything that was named after him now no longer exists – from Batman Hill, to Batman Swamp – even the graveyard he was originally buried in, along with so many of our pioneers – was later turned into a carpark (did I mention Australians aren’t particularly interested in their history? What nation turns their pioneer cemetery into a car park?)
Australia’s heart has a gaping wound – reconciliation would go a long way towards healing that wound. And then maybe even white Australia would be able to take pride in our shared history. But first we need to acknowledge the pain that forms the foundation of so much of the white history to this land. Accepting and acknowledging that pain will finally give us access to the longest continuous culture in the world, as part of our own history. As the sub-title to this book says, it would finally allow us to fall in love with our country.
In 2018, 57 providers (mostly schools) taught Australian History in the final year of school for the Victorian Certificate of Education to a total of 722 students. In the same year 371 providers taught 20th Century History (1945-2000) to 6,871 students. For History: Revolutions (focusing on the French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions) there were 349 providers teaching 4,756 students – so, that’s about 7 times more people studying Revolutions and nearly ten times more studying 20th century history than studied their own nation’s history.
Now, all facts like that tend to be, as academics like to say, over-determined. That is, there’s probably no single reason for this wilful ignoring of our own history. All the same, I’m sure one of the reasons contributing to this is that white Australia has a very odd relationship with the land. Not unlike the first line of Frost’s ‘A Gift Outright’ – ‘The land was ours before we were the lands’ – although, I would argue Americans have a similar problem, since their land also remains haunted by the ghosts of the dispossessed.
Many people think that Australia was set up as a convict settlement. And while that was true for many of the early settlements: Sydney, Hobart, Brisbane, Perth – it certainly wasn’t true of Adelaide nor or Melbourne. In fact, there was an anti-convict league in Melbourne to ensure convicts were kept out. Melbourne was set up by ex-convicts from Tasmania – against the express will of the governor of New South Wales. The ex-convicts had become entrepreneurs, and were running out of land suitable for grazing. They moved from being convicts to being entrepreneurs, a process that seems more likely to go the other way nowadays.
The local Aboriginals had something of a disadvantage. They believed that once they died they would come back as ghost-like creatures – basically, human negatives. Which is to say, they would come back as white people. So, when white people started arriving, the local tribes made the fatal mistake of not properly resisting the invasion – in fact, they welcomed them as ancestors. And the invading force made the most of that mistake. In the US, the local population had proven to have very little resistance to western disease – which is the reason Diamond’s book has Germs in the title, and why James I thanked god for the benefits of small pox. The author says the role of germs as a mass murdering force was much less the case here in Australia – although the introduction of sexually transmitted disease did reduced the fertility of Aboriginal women. The author says that the entrepreneurs who came (one of them literally on a boat called The Enterprise) recognised that they needed to get the local population out of the way as quickly as possible. The killings started almost immediately. But on the quiet, since they certainly didn’t want any trouble from the government officials in Sydney or back in Britain.
Generally, we like to think of the killings as being almost an accident of nature. For instance, it was said at the time that the local Aboriginals had been on the verge of disappearing anyway. This is so obscene that it is almost laughable. The idea that a people who had lived on the land for at the very least 60,000 years and possibly as much as 120,000 years would just happen to be on the verge of disappearing as white people arrived would be a coincidence of more than lottery proportions. It would, obviously enough, be better explained by Aboriginal people’s lack of natural resistance to bullet-holes.
Of course, the author doesn’t say the local population was all killed by guns – but for a while now we have had a spate of local historians saying that the ‘black arm band’ story of Australian history is grossly overstated, and that the colonisation of Australia was instead remarkably peaceful.
The problem is that the term ‘frontier wars’ is much more accurate. The local Aboriginals did eventually fight back, but the destruction of their houses, of their crops, of the food stores, and then the rape of their women and the stealing of their children made their life situation desperate.
The title of this book is also a place name. The Convincing Ground was where the white settlers sought to convince the local Aboriginals of their rights to the land, and to their women, to their children and to anything else they wanted. It was the site of yet another massacre.
But the author also points out, many Victorians have more Aboriginal ancestors than is generally recognised. He says:
“But it is the size of the European population which is most crucial to this analysis. In 1837, Europeans numbered around 500 in Port Phillip with almost no women among them. By 1838 this population has climbed to 3500 but still only 430 are females and perhaps only 200 to 300 are adult women. How were the other 3300 men, most of whom were convicts or penniless shepherds, sating their lust? Duck shooting?
“No, 3300 white men do not just twiddle their thumbs; they engage in sexual activity ranging from violent rape to sexual slavery and sometimes consensual cohabitation.
“Almost every record of contact between black and white in the period 1835–1845 attests to the brutal treatment of Aboriginal women who were stolen, raped and enslaved often after the murder of their menfolk. As the Silent War progressed, the population of adult Aboriginal males plummeted and the numbers of white men increased. Under these circumstances Aboriginal women were more likely to cohabit voluntarily with white men.”
Recently, one of the pioneer settlers of Victoria, who used to have a federal electorate named after him, had this renamed due to people bringing up the evidence of him killing Aboriginals. He had wanted almost everything in Melbourne named after him – his name was John Batman and wanted Melbourne itself to be called Batmania (and yes, part of me still regrets that this never happened). He lost his nose to syphilis, his wife was kicked to death while working as a prostitute in Geelong after leaving him for his best friend, and just about everything that was named after him now no longer exists – from Batman Hill, to Batman Swamp – even the graveyard he was originally buried in, along with so many of our pioneers – was later turned into a carpark (did I mention Australians aren’t particularly interested in their history? What nation turns their pioneer cemetery into a car park?)
Australia’s heart has a gaping wound – reconciliation would go a long way towards healing that wound. And then maybe even white Australia would be able to take pride in our shared history. But first we need to acknowledge the pain that forms the foundation of so much of the white history to this land. Accepting and acknowledging that pain will finally give us access to the longest continuous culture in the world, as part of our own history. As the sub-title to this book says, it would finally allow us to fall in love with our country.
June 6, 2020
In some ways, I wish it was this book, not Dark Emu which had become the best seller. It’s a more important book. It’s not just about adding facts but the need to confront the genuine ignorance of Aboriginal Australia. It is about why we need to learn so that we can find firm ground on which to build a prouder and stronger nation. It is the book which says why the details of Dark Emu are so important – and not simply because they are unexpected or little known.
While this book had sat on my shelf for a little while, Reconciliation Day in June 2020 felt like the right time to read it. I’m glad I did. This is a powerful, passionate, enriching book. One defined by both love and anger, and the kind of anger that can only come from true love.
That passion does lead to a somewhat varied book. It reminds of nothing less than sitting around a camp fire, listening to a wise old uncle tell story after story. Some move you, some you wonder just how much is real, others you feel you’ve heard before – but you never interrupt the story teller because you know the overall value is so high. A tighter edit of length and focus might have helped, but it could also end up sanitising and thus damaging as well.
The book ranges widely. The central historical theme is the way the role and suffering of First Nation people in western Victoria has been too easily dismissed and downplayed to soothe western consciousness. Yet this very refusal to front up to our real history makes for a nation which can’t be nearly as strong or capable as it ought to be. To give one emblematic paragraph:
To conclude with ‘What a magnificent prospect’ – and mean it! – after two such harsh truths is the mark of a great soul. This is a book not simply about recognising Australia’s fault – but as the book’s subtitle puts it ‘learning to fall in love with your country’. That love is deep and genuine.
That largess strangely does not seem to extend to other Australian historians. Maybe it’s the academic in me getting defensive, but Pascoe seems to engage with few of them, and he’s prone to making sweeping statements about none having ever written about the things he is covering. So in Dark Emu he downplays scholarly analysis of First Nation agriculture and in this he just off-handed claims no one has ever written a book about the Frontier Wars.
I don’t want to push this point too far, since I’m also an outsider to the field but Professor Tom Griffith’s defence of recent generations of historians working on the First Nations is persuasive to me. But more so, it feels so unnecessary to wave everyone else away, and indeed is unhelpful if his goal is to inspire others to learn. Pascoe is an important historian. He is serious about his subject, has a clear and distinct voice and his aim is the most important of all: To make people aware and to care. For that, most else can be forgiven.
There’s thus something of the Moses in Bruce Pascoe. He rages, condemns, and points to the promised land. You wouldn’t put him in charge of building anew, but you’re damn glad he’s there to shake a too-comfortable establishment up and urge us all to make the very necessary journey together.
What a magnificent prospect.
While this book had sat on my shelf for a little while, Reconciliation Day in June 2020 felt like the right time to read it. I’m glad I did. This is a powerful, passionate, enriching book. One defined by both love and anger, and the kind of anger that can only come from true love.
That passion does lead to a somewhat varied book. It reminds of nothing less than sitting around a camp fire, listening to a wise old uncle tell story after story. Some move you, some you wonder just how much is real, others you feel you’ve heard before – but you never interrupt the story teller because you know the overall value is so high. A tighter edit of length and focus might have helped, but it could also end up sanitising and thus damaging as well.
The book ranges widely. The central historical theme is the way the role and suffering of First Nation people in western Victoria has been too easily dismissed and downplayed to soothe western consciousness. Yet this very refusal to front up to our real history makes for a nation which can’t be nearly as strong or capable as it ought to be. To give one emblematic paragraph:
“There are two fundamental Australian truths. One: Black people have proven they will not go away despite the exaggerated reports of their demise. Two: White people won’t go away either despite what some Aboriginal people believe. We’re stuck with each other and we’re stuck with this land. What a magnificent prospect”
To conclude with ‘What a magnificent prospect’ – and mean it! – after two such harsh truths is the mark of a great soul. This is a book not simply about recognising Australia’s fault – but as the book’s subtitle puts it ‘learning to fall in love with your country’. That love is deep and genuine.
That largess strangely does not seem to extend to other Australian historians. Maybe it’s the academic in me getting defensive, but Pascoe seems to engage with few of them, and he’s prone to making sweeping statements about none having ever written about the things he is covering. So in Dark Emu he downplays scholarly analysis of First Nation agriculture and in this he just off-handed claims no one has ever written a book about the Frontier Wars.
I don’t want to push this point too far, since I’m also an outsider to the field but Professor Tom Griffith’s defence of recent generations of historians working on the First Nations is persuasive to me. But more so, it feels so unnecessary to wave everyone else away, and indeed is unhelpful if his goal is to inspire others to learn. Pascoe is an important historian. He is serious about his subject, has a clear and distinct voice and his aim is the most important of all: To make people aware and to care. For that, most else can be forgiven.
There’s thus something of the Moses in Bruce Pascoe. He rages, condemns, and points to the promised land. You wouldn’t put him in charge of building anew, but you’re damn glad he’s there to shake a too-comfortable establishment up and urge us all to make the very necessary journey together.
What a magnificent prospect.
July 10, 2009
Well I learnt about the houses that the Wathaurong people built in the Western District. That's just for starters. Fucking genius book. Fucking devastating record of dispossesion. So much great primary source material and I love his strange ramblings as well.
July 11, 2019
The battle site became known as the Convincing Ground, the place where the Gundidjmara were ‘convinced’ of white rights to the land. The Gundidjmara were beaten in that battle but never convinced of its legitimacy.
The title of Bruce Pascoe's survey of Victoria's colonial history is also the name of a place: the Convincing Ground site in Portland Bay is on the Victorian Heritage Register as the probable first recorded site of a massacre in this state. There had been tensions between the local indigenous Gunditjmara people and whalers who had set up a station at Portland in the late 1820s, and the conflict erupted into violence over who had rights to a beached whale some time in 1833-34. Estimates vary but it is thought that between 60 and 200 Gunditjmara people were killed. The exact date is not known (and the authenticity and details of the event are contested) because there were only two young survivors and the massacre wasn't documented until a journal entry in Edward Henty's diary in 1835.
As Bruce Pascoe says: This is not a history, it's an incitement. Pascoe isn't an historian: he's a writer from the Bunurong clan, of the Kulin nation, a teacher, a farmer, and a researcher working on preserving the Wathaurong language. And the point is that while it may not ever be possible to verify the precise circumstances of this or any other massacre in neat and tidy documents, there is no doubt at all that the settlement of Victoria, as elsewhere in Australia, involved frontier violence. James Boyce, (who is an historian) makes this abundantly clear in his award-winning history 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia which I reviewed here. What Pascoe's book offers is an Indigenous point of view about these and other events, based on oral testimony as well as the documentary record:
I love my country and its people. While working on a dictionary for the revival of the Wathaurong language I kept turning up new information on how the Kulin Nation (the clans surrounding Port Phillip and Western Port bays) defended their land. There was plenty of unused material in the archives but more importantly I was told stories and shown diaries, letters and photos by Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians which proved crucial to an understanding of those turbulent days. Few of my sources were scholars and they had had no previous opportunity to paint the picture of their ancestors' lives. From that perspective our national story looked quite different and it seemed unfair that most Australians' knowledge of their homeland was blighted by a cruelly inadequate history.
This book is for the Australians, old and new, black and white. Some might find the style offensive and abrupt but it has been written so that Aboriginal Australians can recognise themselves in the history of their country. Too often Aboriginal Australians have been asked to accept an insulting history and a public record which bears no resemblance to the lives they have experienced. (p. ix)
So yes, Pascoe doesn't beat about the bush, and sometimes his tone is abrasive and his sarcasm is a bit heavy-handed. The stories about the violence are confronting to read, and these feelings are exacerbated by Pascoe's uncompromising assertions about White behaviour.
The Convincing Ground should remind us to bite our tongues every time we utter the sentiment that 'Australia is the only nation founded without a war. It's a myth, a joke, the most ridiculous intellectual folly we could commit, and yet the point at which we could remind ourselves of the true history of the nation we avert our face and allow the battleground of our soul to be obliterated, wash our minds of memory, impoverish our intelligence with deliberate contempt. (p.94)
Reading this made me search my own posts to see if I had made, or quoted the same sentiment.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/07/10/c...
December 28, 2014
"We can make a great nation here, one worthy of the land, but we must be honest with ourselves and learn how we were lucky enough to live here. It won't be easy and sometimes we will be hurt and confused, but nations are not forged without the metal getting hot." (page x)
Lots of people have talked in their reviews about the circular, ambling, personal nature of the writing in this book, and how -- for them -- this detracted from the quality of the work. I'm not going to do that, though it's true that if that's enough to put you off, you will probably struggle with this work. On the other hand, if you are willing to suspend your expectation that a work of history HAS to be linear, impersonal/objective, and unemotional then this book is for you. It is a moving, confronting, didactic, heartfelt, and energetic book about the way Australian history has been written -- what has been left, how and why -- and why it's important for you -- yes you -- to learn the truth. To seek out the truth of the history of your country. And to know that despite the many terrible things that happened here, it is still your country. And you can fall in love with it.
I came to this book after having read a little of Pascoe's fiction, and having had the great honour of meeting him, very briefly, at the Watermark Literary Muster. I have rarely had the honour of meeting a more imposing and gentle man.
It is a peripatetic and partial reconstruction of the history of some areas of Australia, with a particular focus on the south-east coastal areas/Victoria, and Tasmania. In a sense, it is more historiography than history: a book about what happened, but why what happened has disappeared, largely, from the historical record. Or was never part of it to begin with. It is an attempt to begin to recover what evidence there is for a 'history from below'.
The book is rambling, and personal, and shot through with passion -- anger and love. It is an uncomfortable read, if you are a whitefella living on this land with any sense of consciousness about what happened in order for that to be the case.
I am a first generation Australian. My parents came here from Europe after the Second World War. It would be easy for me to say that what was done to the Indigenous peoples of Australia in the early years of settlement is not my responsibility. In a strictly personal sense, it isn't. BUT, my parents were able to come to Australia, and settle here, and flourish, because Australia was 'settled' by the English. The work they did in founding the colony, and the genocidal practices that were included in that action, are part of what made it possible for my Western European/Anglo parents to settle here. To buy homes built on land that was once stolen from Indigenous people, for example.
This is my country, my home, and its history is not an easy one. Few histories are easy to live with, if lived with honestly. And reading this book has been, for me, one small part of facing up to the history of the country of which I am a citizen.
A friend who moved to Australia from Zimbabwe talked recently, following the death of Mandela, about the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' in neighbouring South Africa. About how her recollection of that process was that it was a period in which people told their stories. And how it was the role of everyone in the country (and many of those outside it) just to listen. To listen well. To pay attention. To acknowledge and receive the history of their country, so that they could face the future with dignity, honesty, and hope for a better world. So that they could know what they had done, or what had been done in their name, or what they had benefitted from, even indirectly.
Reading this book was like reading one testimony from the almost silenced, invisible and unofficial Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Australia. I feel honoured to have read it. Awed by the courage of those who fought in the colonial war. Shamed by the way in which my ignorance has contributed to the ongoing silencing and oppression of the truth about my country's history. Grateful to have my eyes opened.
Lots of people have talked in their reviews about the circular, ambling, personal nature of the writing in this book, and how -- for them -- this detracted from the quality of the work. I'm not going to do that, though it's true that if that's enough to put you off, you will probably struggle with this work. On the other hand, if you are willing to suspend your expectation that a work of history HAS to be linear, impersonal/objective, and unemotional then this book is for you. It is a moving, confronting, didactic, heartfelt, and energetic book about the way Australian history has been written -- what has been left, how and why -- and why it's important for you -- yes you -- to learn the truth. To seek out the truth of the history of your country. And to know that despite the many terrible things that happened here, it is still your country. And you can fall in love with it.
I came to this book after having read a little of Pascoe's fiction, and having had the great honour of meeting him, very briefly, at the Watermark Literary Muster. I have rarely had the honour of meeting a more imposing and gentle man.
It is a peripatetic and partial reconstruction of the history of some areas of Australia, with a particular focus on the south-east coastal areas/Victoria, and Tasmania. In a sense, it is more historiography than history: a book about what happened, but why what happened has disappeared, largely, from the historical record. Or was never part of it to begin with. It is an attempt to begin to recover what evidence there is for a 'history from below'.
The book is rambling, and personal, and shot through with passion -- anger and love. It is an uncomfortable read, if you are a whitefella living on this land with any sense of consciousness about what happened in order for that to be the case.
I am a first generation Australian. My parents came here from Europe after the Second World War. It would be easy for me to say that what was done to the Indigenous peoples of Australia in the early years of settlement is not my responsibility. In a strictly personal sense, it isn't. BUT, my parents were able to come to Australia, and settle here, and flourish, because Australia was 'settled' by the English. The work they did in founding the colony, and the genocidal practices that were included in that action, are part of what made it possible for my Western European/Anglo parents to settle here. To buy homes built on land that was once stolen from Indigenous people, for example.
This is my country, my home, and its history is not an easy one. Few histories are easy to live with, if lived with honestly. And reading this book has been, for me, one small part of facing up to the history of the country of which I am a citizen.
A friend who moved to Australia from Zimbabwe talked recently, following the death of Mandela, about the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' in neighbouring South Africa. About how her recollection of that process was that it was a period in which people told their stories. And how it was the role of everyone in the country (and many of those outside it) just to listen. To listen well. To pay attention. To acknowledge and receive the history of their country, so that they could face the future with dignity, honesty, and hope for a better world. So that they could know what they had done, or what had been done in their name, or what they had benefitted from, even indirectly.
Reading this book was like reading one testimony from the almost silenced, invisible and unofficial Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Australia. I feel honoured to have read it. Awed by the courage of those who fought in the colonial war. Shamed by the way in which my ignorance has contributed to the ongoing silencing and oppression of the truth about my country's history. Grateful to have my eyes opened.
March 16, 2021
This is a book that will upset some people. But I find Pascoe's central argument - that Australia needs to face the truth about how Aboriginal land was stolen from them in order to come to terms with what it means to be Australian - a valid one.
'Australia has a black history' is not just a slogan on a t-shirt, and Pascoe's book addresses some elements of this statement by writing frankly about the circumstances under which many early white "settlers" took possession of land. In terms of history, Pascoe mainly focuses on incidents that happened in Victoria, in particular those massacres and battles that occurred under Batman and LaTrobe although he does refer to a few other incidents (such as the Coniston Massacre, which was the topic of a documentary released in 2012).
In the six or so years since Pascoe's book was published more about the true history of white invasion in Australia has been released (for example, Rachel Perkins brilliant DVD series and book, The First Australians). However there is still a long way to go in facing up to the realities of the violent nature of black and white relations in the late 1700s, 1800s and 1900s.
Pascoe offers up some good research and some alternative viewpoints but I'll admit his style is at times confronting. But I like his tell it like it is style. Other reviewers have described his writing as rambling but I prefer to call it conversationalist. Pascoe knows he upsets people with some of his views, and he doesn't apologise for this, but at the core of this book is his love for the land of Australia and his sincere wish that through acceptance and acknowledgement of the past, Australians can heal their relationship with this country's First Peoples, and with the land.
If you want to challenge yourself as an Australian, and challenge what you thought you knew about Australian history, read this book. But read it with an open mind, and use it as a catalyst to find out more about the history of Australia, from its ancient history until now.
'Australia has a black history' is not just a slogan on a t-shirt, and Pascoe's book addresses some elements of this statement by writing frankly about the circumstances under which many early white "settlers" took possession of land. In terms of history, Pascoe mainly focuses on incidents that happened in Victoria, in particular those massacres and battles that occurred under Batman and LaTrobe although he does refer to a few other incidents (such as the Coniston Massacre, which was the topic of a documentary released in 2012).
In the six or so years since Pascoe's book was published more about the true history of white invasion in Australia has been released (for example, Rachel Perkins brilliant DVD series and book, The First Australians). However there is still a long way to go in facing up to the realities of the violent nature of black and white relations in the late 1700s, 1800s and 1900s.
Pascoe offers up some good research and some alternative viewpoints but I'll admit his style is at times confronting. But I like his tell it like it is style. Other reviewers have described his writing as rambling but I prefer to call it conversationalist. Pascoe knows he upsets people with some of his views, and he doesn't apologise for this, but at the core of this book is his love for the land of Australia and his sincere wish that through acceptance and acknowledgement of the past, Australians can heal their relationship with this country's First Peoples, and with the land.
If you want to challenge yourself as an Australian, and challenge what you thought you knew about Australian history, read this book. But read it with an open mind, and use it as a catalyst to find out more about the history of Australia, from its ancient history until now.
March 7, 2012
Despite the enticing feminine and cultured image of the introduction, this book is a difficult read. Perhaps it should be for all the horrors of history which have so long been passed over or minimised in our national conscience. But Pascoe actually challenges further by his peppering of current political opinions and events into this already angry volume. Personally I find the assumption of such an attitude jarring me into resistance against the history he is attempting to bring to light. I don’t agree with the alignment of one era with another in this way. There is much more to the story than presented here and I am inclined to look into his references rather than listen further to his own version. And that seems a wasted opportunity. And he is wrong about democracy. This was a system devised in Greek culture where slaves were part of the invisible picture. To equate indigenous culture in Australia with democracy is actually a denigration of their valuing of all members of their society.
April 22, 2019
I should have been warned by the other reviewers on Goodreads about this book, but I am very interested in the hidden history of Australia, and much of the history covered here is little known to Australians, which makes it an important book despite its severe faults. It's far too self indulgent and polemical, unfortunately, for most students of history, who are more interested in facts than endless, unrestrained opinion on any issue which seems to enter Pascoe's head, from Refugee policy to the Howard Government, to the betrayals of the Labor party. And all this criticism I am making is coming from a person who agrees with Pascoe's views, in general, but even I am alienated by his rantings and the poor, vague referencing of the source of his claims.
At the end of the day, despite its important message, this book is a very poor vehicle for the facts, and too thick with viscera to wade through, IMHO.
At the end of the day, despite its important message, this book is a very poor vehicle for the facts, and too thick with viscera to wade through, IMHO.
May 5, 2021
Pascoe's polemic on the theft of indigenous land and the massacres perpetrated by 'settlers' is confronting reading. Pascoe insists that true reconciliation cannot happen without Australians facing and accepting the truth about our history. While his frustration and anger is justified, it also tempts the reader to put down the book because it is just too difficult to deal with the anger and complexity. A further problem is that the text wanders around within and between chapters dealing with a huge number of issues as well as being repetitive, making it hard to read. It is perhaps best approached in short sessions with time for reflection between sessions. There are so many important issues and insights here, both historical and contemporary, and much food for thought and grounds for reassessment of perspectives, for the persistent reader. An important, but difficult, book.
April 22, 2019
Somewhat incoherent mixture of history, political diatribe and anguished cry against injustice. A lot of this ground was covered more compellingly in Dark Emu.
November 6, 2019
Super duper important book every Australian should read.
January 22, 2024
Poorly written tbh but very powerful
March 11, 2025
5+ , one of the most profoundly important books I have ever read, made even more poignant by reading it while I was visiting SW Victoria, where the ‘convincing ground’ occurred. So much history retold, shared and reinterpreted which has really built my understanding of some of the monumental changes that took place during ‘settlement’ of Victoria in the mid 1800’s. I really liked Pascoe’s writing style and even sense of humour (usually ironically made).
p.34 “Just because we weren’t there when injustice occurred doesn’t absolve us from responsibility to try to set it right. Unless, of course, we are happy with things as they are.”
p37-8 “Was anyone in England under the delusion that on this land imperialism would be undertaken with genuine care for the Indigenous population? When you label a race as heathen barbarians without any attempt to enquire into their belief systems or methods of civil governance can you ever interact with these people without the bible in one hand or the gun in the other?”
p25 “in the space of just eight years, (from 1835) 12,000 Europeans had arrived with 100,000 cattle and 1.5 million sheep”
p 95 “ ..you will never recover the entire land but you can demand to live in it equally and to have the trove of your people’s great history learnt with respect and kept close to the heart of most Australians”
p156 “Aboriginal populations were held within the constraints of the land to sustain the people in its worst season. White farming works on the opposite premise and when a dry season occurs it is a state of emergency and farmers have to be rescued.”
p219 “You cannot out-wait justice while it lives in the memory of the dispossessed “
p.34 “Just because we weren’t there when injustice occurred doesn’t absolve us from responsibility to try to set it right. Unless, of course, we are happy with things as they are.”
p37-8 “Was anyone in England under the delusion that on this land imperialism would be undertaken with genuine care for the Indigenous population? When you label a race as heathen barbarians without any attempt to enquire into their belief systems or methods of civil governance can you ever interact with these people without the bible in one hand or the gun in the other?”
p25 “in the space of just eight years, (from 1835) 12,000 Europeans had arrived with 100,000 cattle and 1.5 million sheep”
p 95 “ ..you will never recover the entire land but you can demand to live in it equally and to have the trove of your people’s great history learnt with respect and kept close to the heart of most Australians”
p156 “Aboriginal populations were held within the constraints of the land to sustain the people in its worst season. White farming works on the opposite premise and when a dry season occurs it is a state of emergency and farmers have to be rescued.”
p219 “You cannot out-wait justice while it lives in the memory of the dispossessed “
April 6, 2015
This book is an absolute revelation. So much history that has been erased from the dominant narrative and settler consciousness. It is also another of Pascoe's book that confirms just how brilliant his writing is. He is definitely my favourite author. I absolutely lov his passion and politics. What an inspiration
August 31, 2007
Rather rambling and repetitive, but has some very interesting insights into the history of settlement of Victoria (especially western Victoria) and the frontier war. Thought provoking; though, lazy person that I am, I would have liked more answers to the thoughts provoked.
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January 29, 2011pdf bookfinder
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