Murray Arnold

A Journey Travelled: Aboriginal-european Relations at Albany and Surrounding Regions from First Contact to 1926 Murray Arnold

This is a pivotal story long overdue for the telling: how Aboriginal and European people interacted with each other in the Albany region of Western Australia following the British territorial invasion of 1826 for the next hundred years. There has always been a wealth of documentary and oral history available to researchers prepared to write from a local history perspective, yet very few Australian historians have accepted this challenge. What has been lacking until quite recently is the sense among historians and the general Australian public that the history of Aboriginal-European relations, not only for the first few years of contact but for a period of many decades, is central to the nation's story. This extraordinary situation persisted with very few exceptions until the intense cultural and political foment that occurred throughout the Western world during the 1960s inevitably impacted upon the history departments of Australian universities. For the first time, Australians were confronted by the reality of their past as the old reluctance to write about the history of Aboriginal-European relations came to an abrupt end. Murray Arnold tells this story from the vantage point of the town of Albany and the wider Great Southern region of Western Australia, and brings the unique story to life.