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What Fate Awaits? The Indigenous Peoples of the Darling Downs in 1851–52

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2016

Maurice French
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Extract

At the time of Conrad Martens' painting tour of the Darling Downs in 1851–52, the Aborigines of the area were in a state of numb transition — still conscious of the dreaming before the white man, yet fearful of the time to come. In a decade of European intrusion, they had been psychologically traumatized, culturally belittled, sexually exploited, and drastically reduced in number. In the decades to come, they would become fringe dwellers, figures of fun and charity and yet, withal, demonstrating a remarkable resilience and adaptability. The few Aborigines in Martens' sketches and ‘house portraits’ from the early 1850s reflect the trauma and the uncertainty of that era.

Type
Special Themed Section: Conrad Martens
Information
Queensland Review , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 2002 , pp. 23 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 

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References

Notes

1 See French, Maurice, Conflict on the Condamine: Aborigines and the European Invasion (Toowoomba: Darling Downs Institute Press, 1989), 13–17.Google Scholar

2 Hall, Thomas, A Short History of the Downs Blacks Known as the ‘Blucher Tribe', facsimile ed., (Warwick c.1923; Toowoomba: Vintage Books, 1987).Google Scholar

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17 See French, Maurice, Travellers in a Landscape: Visitors’ impressions of the Darling Downs 1827–1954 (Toowoomba: USQ Press, 1994), chapter 2 for an account based on primary sources. Also see Maurice French, Explorations in Frontier History: Darling Downs, 1840–1860 (Toowoomba: USQ Press, 1997), chapter 3 on massacres.Google Scholar

18 See French, , Conflict on the Condamine, 111–13.Google Scholar

19 Leichhardt, Ludwig cited in Aurousseau, M., ed., The Letters of F.W. Ludwig Leichhardt (London: Cambridge UP, 1968), 658.Google Scholar

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26 See Steele, J.G., Conrad Martens in Queensland: The Frontier Travels of a Colonial Artist (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1978), 60, 108.Google Scholar

27 See French, Maurice, A Pastoral Romance (Toowoomba: University College of Southern Queensland Press, 1990), chapter 10.Google Scholar

28 Based on the ideas of van Gennep, Arnold, The Rites of Passage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960), 11, 15, and Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, –(Princeton: Princeton UP, 1949), 30. See Maurice French, ‘From the Profane to the Sacred: Travellers’ Images of the Darling Downs before Separation’. Journal of Australian Studies 40 (March. 1994): 44–56 for a fuller discussion.Google Scholar