Australia's Aboriginal History

This podcast was by Richard Broome put out by La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia. It starts with Broome describing how he began writing about Aboriginal people. His book, boriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800, was some of the first research done on the subject from an historical perspective. He speaks about how he wrote this book for the general public rather than for scholars and that prior to this the only research on the topic of Aboriginal people was from anthropologists rather than historians. Most interestingly he writes this book in the perspective of Aboriginals. He chose to do this so that people might be able to feel that they experience what those people went through rather than just learn about them. This was difficult because most of the sources are from white males rather than Aboriginal people themselves. Broome claims that the biggest thing you can notice from this type of history was how extremely the Aboriginals opposed cultural changes brought from the whites. In the fourth rewrite of the book Broome completely changed the book from looking at racial perspectives to colonialism. Aboriginal history has been a touchy subject because the people were never offered a treaty or agreement by Australians. Now that Australians feel some empathy for the Aboriginal people the history is a bit easier to study. There was an official apology to Aboriginal people for their treatment by Australians issued by the Prime Minister which was a symbolic peace offering. During the reconciliation movement by the Aboriginal people started in the 1990's they called for compensation for their losses and it wasn't given. Until the 1960's Aboriginal people didn't have equal rights to Australians (social welfare ect.). Unfortunately even thought they now have equal rights the education and job opportunities offered to these people are limited. There were colonial legislative acts over 100 years ago that had stopped their ability to travel freely in the country and be employed where they wanted to work. Worst of all European settlers began to take children from the Aboriginals. Broome suggests that even though these laws are gone it takes a long time to culturally shake it off. He ends by telling a story of an Aboriginal in the 1930's who signed an unofficial treaty that was quickly dismissed. However he became close with a European protector of Aboriginals. This mans view was that some land should be given to the Aboriginals to live on. His hope was to live in an Aboriginal life style in the modern world. Broome tells this story to show that even 100 years ago people were able to see through the stereo types and become progressive thinkers.