Page 3 - Indiginous Australians

Mary Alp
examples. Greenwood who was professor of history at Queensland University until 1978, had his 1955 social & political writings set as major text for history students. His works have no Index reference for Indigenous Australians. Similarly, Coleman who was a politician, writer & editor of the Bulletin & Quadrant for 20 years, had little to say about Indigenous people. This is especially evident in his 1962 publication ‘Australian Civilization’ which Curthoys says is ‘totally silent on all Aboriginal matters’. Even Manning Clark’s early influential works had, she
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states,’ little to say about Aboriginal people’.
do include Indigenous people in their narrative often use such terms as ‘primitive’, ‘noble savages’, ‘nomads’, ‘heathens’ & ‘passive’. They usually talk in paternalistic terms and see missions and government policies restricting Indigenous people as overall ‘good policy’. Importantly, they also downplay Indigenous Australian resistance and consequently the number of Indigenous people’s deaths due to colonialization & settlement. Professor Geoffrey Blainey who taught economic & social history at Melbourne university in the 60s & 70s & whose writings were influential in our education system, shaped much of our knowledge of history. While he certainly laments the destruction and dispossession of Indigenous Australians, he does justify such actions with the utilitarian principle – the greatest good for the greatest number - for he asks, hadn’t white settlers use of the land provided wheat and wool to feed and clothe
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much of Europe while the Aboriginals use of land had been largely wasteful.
Such influential traditional/conservative interpretations of our past - either by omission, denial, justification or ideological bias – not only helped whitewash our consciousness regarding the past but also presented an incomplete version of history.
In 1968 these traditional right- wing interpretations were being challenged by
what became known as the left-wing or Black Armband historians – those seen as
6 sympathetictowardsIndigenousAustralians .Thismovementwasinpartaresult
of people like the anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner who used such terms as - the
4 Ann Curthoys, W.E.H. Stanner and the historians pp. 236-7. Quoted in aiatsis.gov.au. 5 G. Blainey, Triumph of The Nomads; A Land Half Won, pp. 90-98.
6 J. flood, The Original Australians, pp xii - xiii
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Other conservative historians who