250 years since Captain Cook landed in Australia, it’s time to acknowledge the violence of first encounters
The Conversation, CC BY63 MB(download)
The way Australia has commemorated Cook's arrival has changed over time – from military displays in 1870 to waning interest in Cook in the 1950s, followed by the fever pitch celebrations of 1970.
Many teachers want to teach Indigenous perspectives but often lack confidence or know-how. Teachers must be willing to confront the ongoing effects of colonialism in and outside the classroom.
Uncle Fred Deeral as little old man in the film The Message, by Zakpage, to be shown at the National Museum of Australia in April. Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage
An honest reckoning with Captain Cook’s legacy won’t heal things overnight. But it’s a start
The Conversation41,4 MB(download)
The impact of 1770 has never eased for Aboriginal people. It was a collision of catastrophic proportions.
A picture titled ‘Captain Cook taking possession of the Australian continent on behalf of the British crown, AD 1770’. Drawn and engraved by Samuel Calvert from an historical painting by Gilfillan in the possession of the Royal Society of Victoria.
Trove/National Library of Australia
To find out how the teaching of Captain Cook in Australian schools has changed, I examined textbooks used in the 1950s until today.
Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) with Doug Nicholls on Frenchman’s Beach, La Perouse, on April 29 1970. During the Cook bicentenary protest, activists declared a day of mourning for Aboriginal nations.
Image from the Tribune collection from the 1970 Cook Bi-centenary protest, to be featured in the State Library of NSW's upcoming exhibition 'Eight Days in Gamay.'
Re-enactments of James Cook’s arrival in Australia have served only to gloss over the violence of his interactions with Indigenous people and elevate Australia’s imperial and British connections.
A scene from the Zakpage film The Message, commissioned by the National Museum of Australia. Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage,
Every European ship that voyaged the Pacific was, in the first instance, a floating fortress, an independent command that could send out small shore parties or to concentrate firepower as needed.
Two Dharawal men opposing Cook’s arrival at Kurnell.
Wikimedia
Unpicking the threads of the stories told about Captain Cook’s arrival is vital to find agreement on the provenance of materials that changed hands during colonisation.
Anzac biscuits are the perfect treat to bake in COVID-19 isolation. Recipes emerged from another world-changing crisis, the first world war, yet we can still bake together online.
A new book gives a full account of Tasmanian Indigenous woman Truganini’s life. In this extract, she is taken to Melbourne and caught up in the murders behind Victoria’s first public execution.
An archaeologist tells the story of how she and her colleagues discovered a traditional Irish village, a clachan, in a South Australian field – the first confirmed clachan found outside Ireland.
Signatures developed to replace rituals as a form of legal validation. Indigenous people have seen their marks used against them and rallied communities to use signatures in innovative protests.
Thanks to savvy public relations, General Motors inserted itself at the heart of culture in mid-century Australia. But dreams don’t last forever.
In 1948, as Cecil George Harris lay dying after a tractor accident, he scratched a final message into the vehicle’s fender.
illustration supplied by: Impact Studios/Dinalie Dabarera.
Courts have had to consider whether an eggshell, a tractor fender, a petticoat hem, graffiti on a wall, and a poem might be valid wills. They’ve shown surprising flexibility in judgment.
Though illegal, fortune telling was only sporadically prosecuted. Here, two women set up tents at the 1913 Adelaide Children’s Hospital fete.
State Library of SA
In the early 1900s, fortune-telling provided entertainment, social connection and a job for some Australians. Its legal status made criminals of women, yet allowed others entry to the police force.
Australian families have been sitting down in front of the TV on New Year’s Eve for over 60 years.
Wikimedia Commons
Australia’s hospitals have come a long way from the huts of convict times to the well thought-out spaces we see today.
Waters from the Herbert River, which runs toward one of northern Australia’s richest agricultural districts, could be redirected under a Bradfield scheme.
Patrick White
The ‘New Bradfield’ scheme seeks to revive a nation-building ethos supposedly stifled by bureaucratic inertia. But there are good reasons the scheme never became a reality.
Elephants destined for Wirths’ circus on a ship’s deck circa 1925. Early last century, Frances Levvy asked school students to write an essay on whether the exhibition of wild animals in travelling menageries was consistent with humanity.
By Sam Hood ca. 1925-ca. 1945, State Library of NSW
Born in 1831, at a time when animals were widely regarded as property, Frances Levvy used the power of the press and the passion of children to advocate for their welfare.
The anti-transportation ‘ladies petition’ from 1850 is one of the first concrete examples of political engagement by women in the NSW colony.
Parliament of NSW
