Bibliograph

People of the river, lost worlds of early Australia, Grace Karskens

Type

Label

People of the river, lost worlds of early Australia, Grace Karskens

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Illustrations

platesmapsillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

People of the river

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1155324586

Responsibility statement

Grace Karskens

Sub title

lost worlds of early Australia

Summary

Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, is where the two early Australias - ancient and modern - first collided. 'People of the River' journeys into the lost worlds of the Aboriginal people and the settlers of Dyarubbin, both complex worlds with ancient roots. 0The settlers who took land on the river from the mid-1790s were there because of an extraordinary experiment devised half a world away. Modern Australia was not founded as a gaol, as we usually suppose, but as a colony. Britain's felons, transported to the other side of the world, were meant to become settlers in the new colony. They made history on the river: it was the first successful white farming frontier, a community that nurtured the earliest expressions of patriotism, and it became the last bastion of eighteenth-century ways of life. 0The Aboriginal people had occupied Dyarubbin for at least 50,000 years. Their history, culture and spirituality were inseparable from this river Country. Colonisation kicked off a slow and cumulative process of violence, theft of Aboriginal children and ongoing annexation of the river lands. Yet despite that sorry history, Dyarubbin's Aboriginal people managed to remain on their Country, and they still live on the river today. 0The Hawkesbury-Nepean was the seedbed for settler expansion and invasion of Aboriginal lands to the north, south and west. It was the crucible of the colony, and the nation that followed

Table Of Contents

Part I. Deep country. Old land, first people -- Dyarubbin -- Part II. Frontiers. The great experiment -- Contact and crossings -- Conflict: given no peace -- Part III. New old land. Forests and clearings -- Farming in the bush -- Floods and flood-mindedness -- Commoners and strangers -- Part IV. People of the river. Family fortunes -- Family survival -- The people's pleasures -- Transforming cultures -- Sacred landscapes -- Sacred Country -- Epilogue -- Appendices -- Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations used in the notes -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Creator