Search results

Listed under:  History  >  World history  >  Aboriginal history
Image

Pacific Islander workers on a coffee plantation, c1900

This black-and-white photograph shows indentured Pacific Islander labourers manually gathering coffee beans from lines of bushes on a Kuranda coffee plantation on the Atherton Tableland in Queensland. This image shows male, female and child labourers standing among the shoulder-high coffee bushes. The Pacific Islanders ...

Image

Rock painting, Carnarvon Gorge, 1938 - item 1 of 2

This sepia photograph of an Indigenous rock painting shows several stencilled hands and what appear to be boomerangs. In some of the images three fingers and thumb are prominent and in the central image the little finger is bent. The images appear to be well preserved. The photograph was taken in 1938 at Carnarvon Gorge ...

Interactive

Primary history: presentation

These seven learning activities focus on presentation using a variety of tools (software) and devices (hardware) and illustrate the ways in which content, pedagogy and technology can be successfully and effectively integrated in order to promote learning. In the activities, teachers ask students to present their historical ...

Interactive

Gold rush: level 1

Dig for gold on the Ballarat goldfields in 1865. Try your luck at alluvial or shaft mining. Buy a miner's permit, tools and enough supplies to last a month. Discover how hard life was on the goldfields. Explore a map showing the countries migrants left to join the gold rush in Australia. Find out which towns developed due ...

Interactive

Discovering democracy: the law rules

Interact with a slideshow of images and text to explore the development of law and citizens' rights in the early years of British settlement in Australia. Look in particular at the role of Governor Macquarie, and compare the judicial system in his time with the Australian judicial system of today. Complete a related task.

Interactive

Discovering democracy: people power

Interact with a slideshow of images and text to explore the struggles for equal rights in Australia. Look in particular at the Eureka Stockade, 1891 Shearers' strike and the Freedom Ride. Complete a related task.

Audio

May O'Brien talks about Aboriginal storytelling, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of an interview with Western Australian Aboriginal educator and author May O'Brien. O'Brien says that in her early life she was told Aboriginal stories orally and in drawings in the sand. She says that when she puts Aboriginal stories in writing, she thinks carefully about the words she ...

Audio

May O'Brien recalls the traditional bush lifestyle of her childhood, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of an interview with Western Australian Aboriginal educator and author May O'Brien. She recalls the traditional bush lifestyle of her childhood in the eastern goldfields region of WA. She describes living in comfortable humpies made from bush materials and how she was taught traditional ...

Audio

May O'Brien recalls school at the Mount Margaret Mission, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of an interview with Western Australian Aboriginal educator and author May O'Brien. She gives an account of the police practice of removing Aboriginal children from their families in line with government policies of the time. She recalls being fearful as a child of being removed and taken ...

Audio

May O'Brien reflects on becoming an activist, 2008

This is an edited sound recording of an interview with Western Australian Aboriginal educator and author May O'Brien. She recalls beginning secondary school in Perth in 1949 when she was aged 17, and how she went on to become a teacher. She also relates how she campaigned to improve education for all Indigenous children ...

Audio

Jimmy Little outlines his views on racism, 2008

This is an edited sound recording, from July 2008, of Indigenous singer-songwriter Jimmy Little. Little tells how his parents lived on an Aboriginal mission, with their movements very restricted. He also recalls going to a movie theatre where people were separated by race, but says examples of racism such as these were ...

Image

Pacific Islanders harvesting cane on Bingera Plantation, 1884

This sepia photograph shows around ten Pacific Islander labourers in a sugar-cane field at Bingera Plantation near Bundaberg in Queensland as the cane is being harvested. A well-dressed European man and two young children pose in the cleared foreground, while in the mid-ground stands a fully laden horsedrawn wagon with ...

Image

Ceremonial headdress, c1921

This is a ceremonial headdress of the Wangkanguru (Wonkonguru) people, made at an Aboriginal settlement in the north-east of South Australia in about 1921. Its main features are three thick tassels made of rabbit-tail fur attached to string made of kangaroo fur and hair. It is 56 cm long and up to about 34 cm wide.

Image

Rock painting, Carnarvon Gorge, 1938 - item 2 of 2

This 1938 sepia photograph of a large Indigenous rock painting displays many stencilled hands, boomerangs, coolamons and a net-like shape, possibly representing a cycad, on a cliff wall in Carnarvon Gorge in central Queensland. A large rock near the wall shows some engraved art. The photograph was taken during the second ...

Image

'Arrival of the mail, Myers Flat diggings', probably 1850s

This is a black-and-white print, measuring 17.7 cm x 21.6 cm, created from a wood engraving. It shows two men seated on a horse-drawn, two-wheeled buggy. Nine miners are gathered by the buggy, awaiting the delivery of letters, reading letters or newspapers and exchanging news. Although not visible on this image, the title ...

Image

Pacific Islander women working in cane fields, c1890

This sepia photograph shows eight indentured Pacific Islander female labourers preparing to hoe weeds in rows of cane at Hambledon Mill, near Cairns in Queensland. The women and girls, some barefoot, stand at the edge of the cane, which is above head height. The foreground is bare soil and a thickly wooded hill rises in ...

Image

Sedge hunting baskets, 1936, 1980s

These are four hunting baskets from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. All are made from sedge grass. The top bag on the left and the two at the bottom were made in the late 1980s, while the bag on the top right-hand side was collected in 1936. The oldest bag is 113.5 cm high, 51 cm wide and 28 cm in diameter. The other ...

Image

Three Indigenous Australians, c1850

This is a watercolour painted by Samuel Gill in about 1850, entitled 'Two natives and child by a creek'. The painting, which measures 10 cm x 12 cm, is also known as 'Aborigine with barbed spear'. The location is unidentified. The image shows three Indigenous Australians - a man, a woman, and a child aged about three. All ...

Image

Neck ornament, c1890s

This is an Aboriginal neck ornament from central Australia, believed to have been made in the late 1800s. It comprises two pairs of eaglehawk claws, connected with resin to a string made of human hair. The ornament is 43 cm long and 4 cm wide.

Audio

Brian Clouston describes the success of 'We are going', 2007

This is an edited sound recording of Brian Clouston, the founder of Brisbane-based Jacaranda Press, discussing the publication in 1964 of 'We are going', a book of poetry by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (known at the time as Kath Walker). Clouston describes the 'phenomenal' success of the book, and outlines why he believes it was ...