AustLit

This chapter looks at the initial contact between Captain Cook and members of his official party and Australian Aboriginals of the Sydney region. Healy argues that literature has played both a reflective and constructive part in the development of Australia, and in the seeds of Cook's visit there were tensions of values which went to the heart of the new commonwealth. Literary representation is seen as part of the consciousness of white writers of Australian Aboriginals between 1770 and 1975.

This chapter examines the earliest works of fiction produced in Australia representing Aboriginal people as fictional characters. Healy traces a trajectory of works which seek to attribute meaning to Aboriginal Australians by white authors, beginning with the 1830 work Alfred Dudley by Sarah Porter. Nineteenth century representations by G. W. Rusden and James Tucker are also analysed.

This chapter looks at representations of Aboriginal Australians constructed by squatters in the early colonial period. Healy identifies Rolf Boldrewood (aka Thomas Alexander Browne) as the principal chronicler of squatter reflections of Aboriginal Australians. Focus is also given to the works of Rosa Campbell Praed.

In this chapter Healy examines Frederick Sinnett's review in 1958 of fiction fields of Australia, where he rejected the idea of the Aborigine as a valid subject for Australian literature. Healy looks at the difficulties of constructing Aboriginal cosmology into poetry or other prose by white 19th Century authors. Focus is given to several works of George Gordon McCrae.