In the eye of the beholder : what six nineteenth-century women tell us about indigenous authority and identity / Barbara Dawson.

By:

Dawson, Barbara (Barbara Chambers) [author.]

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Open Access e-Books | Knowledge UnlatchedPublisher: Anu, Acton, A.C.T. : ANU Press, 2014Description: 1 online resourceContent type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9781925021967
1925021963
9781925021974
1925021971

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: In the eye of the beholder : what six nineteenth-century women tell us about indigenous authority and identity.DDC classification:

305.40994 23

LOC classification:

HQ1822

Online resources:

EBSCOhost

Contents:

Notice to indigenous readers -- Introduction -- 1. Sowing the seeds for nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century women's writing -- Part A. Adventurers -- 2. Early perceptions of Aborigines -- Eliza Fraser's legacy : 'Through a glass darkly' -- 3. Literary excesses -- Eliza Davies : imagination and fabrication -- 4. Queensland frontier adventure -- Emily Cowl : excitement and humour -- Part B. Settlers : changing the racial landscape -- 5. An early, short-term settler -- Katherine Kirkland : valuable insights through the silences -- 6. Mary McConnel : Christianising the Aborigines? -- 7. Australian-born settler -- Rose Scott Cowen : acknowledging indigenous humanity and integrity -- Conclusion -- Appendix A : the works of the women writers -- Appendix B : the works of other Australian women writers referred to in this book.

Summary: This book offers a fresh perspective in the debate on settler perceptions of Indigenous Australians. It draws together a suite of little known colonial women (apart from Eliza Fraser) and investigates their writings for what they reveal about their attitudes to, views on and beliefs about Aboriginal people, as presented in their published works. The way that reader expectations and publishers requirements slanted their representations forms part of this analysis. All six women write of their first-hand experiences on Australian frontiers of settlement. The division into adventurers (Eliza Fraser, Eliza Davies and Emily Cowl) and longer-term settlers (Katherine Kirkland, Mary McConnel and Rose Scott Cowen) allows interrogation into the differing representations between those with a transitory knowledge of Indigenous people and those who had a close and more permanent relationship with Indigenous women, even encompassing individual friendship. More pertinently, the book strives to reveal the aspects, largely overlooked in colonial narratives, of Indigenous agency, authority and individuality.

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This book offers a fresh perspective in the debate on settler perceptions of Indigenous Australians. It draws together a suite of little known colonial women (apart from Eliza Fraser) and investigates their writings for what they reveal about their attitudes to, views on and beliefs about Aboriginal people, as presented in their published works. The way that reader expectations and publishers requirements slanted their representations forms part of this analysis. All six women write of their first-hand experiences on Australian frontiers of settlement. The division into adventurers (Eliza Fraser, Eliza Davies and Emily Cowl) and longer-term settlers (Katherine Kirkland, Mary McConnel and Rose Scott Cowen) allows interrogation into the differing representations between those with a transitory knowledge of Indigenous people and those who had a close and more permanent relationship with Indigenous women, even encompassing individual friendship. More pertinently, the book strives to reveal the aspects, largely overlooked in colonial narratives, of Indigenous agency, authority and individuality.