HUMN 3018 Australian Indigenous History: From first contact to 'dying race'

This is an archived copy of the 2021-2022 catalog. To access the most recent version of the catalog, please visit https://hbook.westernsydney.edu.au.

Credit Points 10

Legacy Code 101919

Coordinator Timothy Rowse Opens in new window

Description Until 1788, Australia was peopled by those who we now call Aborigines. Then Europeans arrived and began to spread across the continent, displacing and marginalising the Aborigines. This unit will tell the stories of that transformation, beginning with an account of the ideas and motivations of British authority in the late eighteenth century and concluding at the moment when six British colonies formed a federated nation. Topics to be covered will include: violence, humanitarianism, Christian missions, institutional authority. The course will emphasise and explain regional and temporal differences in the ways that Indigenous and non-Indigenous interacted. Students will study primary sources and learn to understand them in context.

School Humanities & Comm Arts

Discipline Indigenous Studies

Student Contribution Band HECS Band 4 10cp

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Level Undergraduate Level 3 subject

Equivalent Subjects LGYA 1557 - Australian Indigenous History

Restrictions Successful completion of 60 credit points of study in currently enrolled program.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:
  1. Identify the key theoretical concepts relevant to understanding Australia as a settler-colonial society.
  2. Examine the geographically variable impact of colonisation and thus of Indigenous responses.
  3. Describe the different phases and methods of colonial authority and Indigenous response.
  4. Explain the persistence of a self-conscious Indigenous minority and of controversy about its entitlements
  5. Analyse primary documents in order to understand the perspectives of government policies and social changes.
  6. Evaluate the effects of colonising authority, against the stated aims of such authority
  7. Apply historical approaches to identity formation to current debates about Australian society and history.

Subject Content

. European ideas about native peoples in late C18
.The colonisation of Port Jackson and Cumberland Plain, 1788-1820: law and violence
.Tasmania, 1804-1836: law and violence
.The Buxton Report 1837
.What missionaries tried to do up to 1850.
.Swan River, King George Sound and South Australia, 1829-1850: law and violence
.Protection: Coranderrk 1860-1900
.Protection? : Racial pessimism and Social Darwinism
.Queensland 1859-1897: law and violence
.New Norcia Mission 1847-1900
.The Torres Strait 1879-1900

Teaching Periods

Structures that include subject