Why should they pay money to the Queen?: Aboriginal miners and land claims
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred) , Clark, Ian
- Date: 2008
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Australian Colonial History Vol. 10, no. 1 (2008), p. 115-128
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: There is little evidence of Aboriginal involvement in the events of the Eureka Stockade, but there are numerous ways in which Aboriginal people are relevant to the Eureka story. The events took place on Aboriginal land (an obvious but rarely articulated truth) and Aboriginal people were present on the Ballarat diggings, as they were, indeed, on and around most Australian goldfields. The records are full of references to their fundamental and diverse contribution to life and work on the diggings, and to the complex and varied relationships they formed with the invaders. For Indigenous communities already reeling from the invasion of pastoralists, the arrival of 300,000 immigrant miners, swarming onto the alluvial districts of Victoria, represented a second wave of dispossession. But as we have noted elsewhere, there is abundant evidence that gold, at least in Victoria, brought many new economic opportunities for Aborigines, many of whom took advantage of these changed circumstances.' David Goodman argues persuasively for historians to consider an 'edgier interpretation' of the goldfields story. This could include a better appreciation of the social dislocation and cultural adaptations experienced by Indigenous people on the goldfields .
- Description: C1
Finders not keepers : Aboriginal people on the goldfields of Victoria
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred)
- Date: 2007
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Eureka Reappraising an Australian Legend Chapter 12 p. 143-152
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: The history of gold has traditionally excluded a whole quadrant from its landscape. This chapter aims to reconstruct the close association between Aboriginal people and Victoria's gold mining that undoubtedly existed during the nineteenth century. It is especially appropriate to do so in a book that reconsiders the Eureka story from unexpected angles in order to reflect generally upon the historical inheritance of the goldrushes upon Australian society.
- Description: B1
- Description: 2003005225
Black gold : A history of the role of Aboriginal people on the goldfields of Victoria, 1850-70
- Authors: Cahir, David (Fred)
- Date: 2006
- Type: Text , Thesis , PhD
- Full Text:
- Description: Reconstructs the history of Aboriginal people and gold mining in Victoria from 1850-1870.
- Description: Doctor of Philosophy