What do you think?
Rate this book
Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800
Early settlers saw Victoria and its rolling grasslands as Australia felix happy south land a prize left for Englishmen by God. However, for its original inhabitants this country was home and life, not to be relinquished without a fierce struggle. Richard Broome tells the story of the impact of European ideas, guns, killer microbes and a pastoral economy on the networks of kinship, trade and cultures that various Aboriginal peoples of Victoria had developed over millennia. From first settlement to the present, he shows how Aboriginal families have coped with ongoing disruption and displacement, and how individuals and groups have challenged the system. With painful stories of personal loss as well as many successes, Broome outlines how Aboriginal Victorians survived near decimation to become a vibrant community today. The first history of black-white interaction in Victoria to the present, Aboriginal Victorians offers new insights into frontier conflict, attempts at control and assimilation, the Stolen Generation, and Aboriginal survival and identity in modern Australia. Based on consultation with Aboriginal communities and families, as well as a range of historical research, it is an even-handed and compelling account. Richard Broome is to be congratulated for writing this history in a style that is easy to read, very informative and brings the past to the present.' Jim Berg, JP, Gunditjmara man, founder and director of the Koorie Heritage Trust This finely crafted and wonderfully compassionate book deepens our understanding of the history of colonialism.' Bain Attwood, Adjunct Professor, Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
9 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 28, 2021
This book spans the history of white Australia’s contact with Victoria, from the earliest encounters between Victorian Aboriginals and Europeans, through white settlement, the frontier wars and dispossession, through policies of assimilation, up to today. It’s a fascinating read. I’ve learnt a lot from this.
Many of the recent books I’ve been reading about Aboriginal Australia make it clear that rather than being essentially nomads and hunter/gatherers, Aboriginals prior to white settlement ought to be characterised as farmers. This became a problem, because when whites arrived with their sheep, the sheep ate the crops the Aboriginals lived off and therefore made their ‘traditional’ ways of life impossible. Many of the early Aboriginals sought to have positive and friendly relations with the white arrivals. But with disease killing so many, and then others being murdered – the population of local Aborigines became vanishingly small.
This also became something of a perverse rallying cry for white Australia. Local areas would pay to support an ageing ‘full-blood’ Aboriginal, out of respect for ‘the last of their race’. But when they died, so too would die Aboriginal claims on land or even white consciences. Whites would not recognise half, or quarter bloods as ‘really Aboriginal’. For the local Aboriginal communities, belonging was mostly cultural rather than related to notions of blood.
I hope that the book’s conclusion that there is a renaissance in Victorian Aboriginal culture proves to be true, as much for white Australia as anything else. Australia’s Aboriginal peoples belong to the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet. White Australia’s treatment of them has frequently approached genocide, in fact, this book documents near constant predictions of the end of a ‘lesser’ race in its competition with a ‘superior’ one. There was so much about the land that white Australia could have learnt from a people with such an intimate connection to it. I’ve been brought up all of my life with white Australians who are somewhat ashamed of their lack of a distinctive, Australian culture. Discovering the humility to learn from the Aboriginal custodians of our lands might prove to a step towards white Australia learning to reconcile not only with what we have done to Aboriginal Australia, but with our own lack as well.
Many of the recent books I’ve been reading about Aboriginal Australia make it clear that rather than being essentially nomads and hunter/gatherers, Aboriginals prior to white settlement ought to be characterised as farmers. This became a problem, because when whites arrived with their sheep, the sheep ate the crops the Aboriginals lived off and therefore made their ‘traditional’ ways of life impossible. Many of the early Aboriginals sought to have positive and friendly relations with the white arrivals. But with disease killing so many, and then others being murdered – the population of local Aborigines became vanishingly small.
This also became something of a perverse rallying cry for white Australia. Local areas would pay to support an ageing ‘full-blood’ Aboriginal, out of respect for ‘the last of their race’. But when they died, so too would die Aboriginal claims on land or even white consciences. Whites would not recognise half, or quarter bloods as ‘really Aboriginal’. For the local Aboriginal communities, belonging was mostly cultural rather than related to notions of blood.
I hope that the book’s conclusion that there is a renaissance in Victorian Aboriginal culture proves to be true, as much for white Australia as anything else. Australia’s Aboriginal peoples belong to the oldest continuous civilisation on the planet. White Australia’s treatment of them has frequently approached genocide, in fact, this book documents near constant predictions of the end of a ‘lesser’ race in its competition with a ‘superior’ one. There was so much about the land that white Australia could have learnt from a people with such an intimate connection to it. I’ve been brought up all of my life with white Australians who are somewhat ashamed of their lack of a distinctive, Australian culture. Discovering the humility to learn from the Aboriginal custodians of our lands might prove to a step towards white Australia learning to reconcile not only with what we have done to Aboriginal Australia, but with our own lack as well.
Displaying 1 of 1 review