HTAV Conference, Keynote speech: Richard Broome on Aboriginal History

Richard Broome, keynote speaker

Below are my notes taken during Richard Broome’s keynote. I picked up some interesting things, it was interesting to learn about the “history of Aboriginal history”. He referred to Guns, Germs and Steel, which is always good. I must say that Richard Broome’s style of delivery was a tad old-school, a long stream of interesting but rapidly delivered information; typical history professor! I think ‘learned’ people like this need to transfer their considerable knowledge in a more lively, engaging manner, this is taking me back to my uni days!

Notes:

• Supplanting societies: The process of moving onto another’s land to make it one’s own. Legal claim, claim of effective and moral proprietorship.
• Captain Cook wrote about the aboriginal people as have-nots, abject, wretched. This helped Europeans to appropriate the land from their ‘unworthy’ owners. Justifying possession. Usurper complex.
• Broome makes the point that there is no scientific base for race. Mentions Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel. We have to explain to students that race is a made-up idea. Culture is essentially a result of environment. Aboriginal people adapted to their environment in the best possible way, which is very different from the European landscape etc. Aboriginal people did not more to agriculture because of environment, not because of “race”.
• Important to explain this to kids. Students understand the power of words, bullying, school yard policies.
• Four modes of writing/talking about/regarding aboriginal people: Talking about 1910>, talking for, listening to, working with.
• Sanitarium Children’s Encyclopedia, 1946. Went in to many households because it was free. Very judgmental about aboriginal people, good for historiography.
• Broome explains change in attitude to writing about / writing for Aboriginal people in the 1950 after WW2, decolonisation. 1970s: new discipline: Aboriginal History. Goes on to mention books which change the landscape of Aboriginal History  “born in the cattle”, “the making of the aborigine”. Keith Windschuttle: History Wars, claims that British empire was benign, claims Aboriginals were bandits, accused other historians of falsifying sources.
• Keating’s Redfern speech.

Some links to look at later:

• https://itunes.apple.com/au/course/australian-aboriginal-history/id506578131
• The other side of the frontier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Side_of_the_Frontier