How is it our minds are not satisfied? What means this whispering in the bottom of our hearts?' Listening to the whispering in his own heart, Henry Reynolds was led into the lives of remarkable and largely forgotten white humanitarians who followed their consciences and challenged the prevailing attitudes to Indigenous people. His now-classic book The Whispering in Our Hearts constructed an alternative history of Australia through the eyes of those who felt disquiet and disgust at the brutality of dispossession. These men and women fought for justice for Indigenous people even when doing so left them isolated and criticised by their fellow whites. The unease of these humanitarians about the morality of white settlement has not dissipated and their legacy informs current debates about reconciliation between black and white Australia. Revisiting this history, in this new edition Reynolds brings fresh perspectives to issues we grapple with still. Those who argue for justice, reparation, recognition and a treaty will find themselves in solidarity with those who went before. But this powerful book shows how much remains to be done to settle the whispering in our hearts. 'No other historian can match Henry Reynolds' impact on Australians' understanding of their frontier history and its troubled inheritance.' - Mark McKenna
Australia is dotted with memorials to soldiers who fought in wars overseas. Why are there no official memorials or commemorations of the wars that were fought on Australian soil between Aborigines and white colonists? Why is it more controversial to talk about the frontier war now than it was one hundred years ago? Forgotten War continues the story told in Henry Reynolds' seminal book The Other Side of the Frontier, which argued that the settlement of Australia had a high level of violence and conflict that we chose to ignore. That book prompted a flowering of research and fieldwork that Reynolds draws on here to give a thorough and systematic account of what caused the frontier wars between white colonists and Aborigines, how many people died and whether the colonists themselves saw frontier conflict as a form of warfare. It is particularly timely as we approach the centenary of WWI. This powerful book makes it clear that there can be no reconciliation without acknowledging the wars fought on our own soil.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, people of mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry - half-castes - were commonly assumed to be morally and physically defective, unstable and degenerate. They bore the brunt of society's contempt, and the removal of their children created Australia's stolen generations. Nowhere Peopleis a history of beliefs about people of mixed race, both in Australia and overseas. It explores the concept of racial purity, eugenics, and the threat posed by miscegenation. Award-winning author Henry Reynolds also talks for the first time of his own family's search for the truth about his father's ancestry, and gives a poignant account of the contemporary predicament facing people of mixed heritage. Highly personal and moving, Nowhere Peopleis essential reading from one of Australia's most influential and respected historians.
One of Australia's leading historians brings to life Australia's s diverse and thriving far North in the last years of the 19th century. Now in paperback.
‘Australian governments find it easy to go to war. Their leaders seem to be able to withdraw with a calm conscience, answerable neither to God nor humanity.’ Australia lost 600 men in the Boer War, a three-year conflict fought in the heart of Africa that had ostensibly nothing to do with Australia. Coinciding with Federation, the war kickstarted Australia’s commitment to fighting in Britain’s wars overseas, and forged a national identity around it. By 1902, when the Boer War ended, a mythology about our colonial soldiers had already been crafted, and a dangerous precedent established. This is Henry Reynolds at his searing best, as he shows how the Boer War left a dark and dangerous legacy, demonstrating how those beliefs have propelled us into too many unnecessary wars – without ever counting the cost.
This memoir tells of the author's journey towards the realisation that the version of the past he grew up with was distorted and idealised. Examines ideas about the settlement of Australia by Europeans and discusses topics such as Land Rights, the Mabo decision, pastoral leases and the pursuit of justice. Includes an index. Author's other publications include 'Aborigines and Settlers' and 'This Whispering in Our Hearts'.
This captivating work charts the history of Tasmania from the arrival of European maritime expeditions in the late eighteenth century, through to the modern day. By presenting the perspectives of both Indigenous Tasmanians and British settlers, author Henry Reynolds provides an original and engaging exploration of these first fraught encounters. Utilising key themes to bind his narrative, Reynolds explores how geography created a unique economic and migratory history for Tasmania, quite separate from the mainland experience. He offers an astute analysis of the island's economic and demographic reality, by noting that this facilitated the survival of a rich heritage of colonial architecture unique in Australia, and allowed the resident population to foster a powerful web of kinship. Reynolds' remarkable capacity to empathise with the characters of his chronicle makes this a powerful, engaging and moving account of Tasmania's unique position within Australian history.
Revised edition of a ground-breaking study, first published in 1987, of the colonial authorities' attitudes to Aboriginal land ownership. Argues that the British government conceded land rights 150 years ago and that the British sovereignty did not imply ownership of the country. The author is a professor in history and politics at James Cook University whose other books include 'The Other Side of the Frontier'. This edition contains a postscript on the Mabo case, notes, an index and a bibliography.
What if the sovereignty of the First Nations was recognised by European international law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? What if the audacious British annexation of a whole continent was not seen as acceptable at the time and the colonial office in Britain understood that 'peaceful settlement' was a fiction? Henry Reynolds pulls the rug from legal and historical assumptions in a book that's about the present as much as the past. This book shows exactly why our national war memorial must acknowledge the frontier wars, why we must change the date of our national day, and why treaties are important. Most of all, it makes urgently clear that the Uluru Statement is no rhetorical flourish but carries the weight of history and law and gives us a map for the future.
Three themes run through this work: widespread violence on the frontier; the pervasive impact of racism on colonial society; and the absolute importance of land ownership. Considered together, they provide a picture of the Australian frontier experience as it was revealed in the relations between a new white society and the Aboriginal people. This text is about the present as well as about Australian cultural heritage, as it asserts that the forces present at the birth of a new society leave a legacy so that the past is still alive.
In 1900 W. E. B. DuBois prophesied that the colour line would be the key problem of the twentieth-century and he later identified one of its key dynamics: the new religion of whiteness that was sweeping the world. Whereas most historians have confined their studies of race-relations to a national framework, this book studies the transnational circulation of people and ideas, racial knowledge and technologies that under-pinned the construction of self-styled white men's countries from South Africa, to North America and Australasia. Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds show how in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century these countries worked in solidarity to exclude those they defined as not-white, actions that provoked a long international struggle for racial equality. Their findings make clear the centrality of struggles around mobility and sovereignty to modern formulations of both race and human rights.
Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements uncover the extraordinary story of one of Australia’s greatest military leaders. Tongerlongeter is an epic story of resistance, sorrow and survival. Leader of the Oyster Bay nation of south-east Tasmania in the 1820s and ’30s, Tongerlongeter and his allies prosecuted the most effective frontier resistance ever mounted on Australian soil, inflicting some 354 casualties. His brilliant campaign inspired terror throughout the colony, forcing Governor George Arthur to counter with a massive military operation in 1830. Tongerlongeter escaped but the cumulative losses had taken their toll. On New Year’s Eve 1831, having lost his arm, his country, and all but 25 of his people, the chief agreed to an armistice. In exile on Flinders Island, Tongerlongeter united remnant tribes and became the settlement’s ‘King’ — a beacon of hope in a hopeless situation. ‘A masterpiece of military history’ — Michael McKernan, The Canberra Times ‘The astonishing story of Tongerlongeter’s valiant struggle to defend his Country, whatever the cost.’ — Mark McKenna, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Henry Reynolds and Nicholas Clements have worked some powerful historical magic to conjure out of a dark and foggy Tasmanian past the image of a tall, handsome, noble warrior named Tongerlongeter...’ — Charles Wooley, The Weekend Australian
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