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Australians in history narratives. The contrast between Social Studies for Queensland schools
grade 5 and Australian in world history (Logue, McLay, Pearson, & Sparkes, 1965) illustrates
those differences:
Kennedy was killed by Aborigines in 1848 near Cape York after exploring the
eastern part of the peninsula.
...
This pastoral expansion into the north was a really remarkable one, over vast
distances, through a wilderness peopled by often hostile natives. However, the
settlers had proved too eager, and, as Prof. J. Macdonald Holmes point out in Our
Open North, by 1870 they were forced to withdraw from the Gulf Country. Drought
and falling prices were the main problems, but there were many others—aboriginal
attacks, lack of transport, insufficient capital for improvements, shortage of labour
and insecurity of tenure. (Logue et al., 1965, p. 376, emphasis in original).
Australia: Colony to nation (Dunlop & Pike, 1963) also demonstrates the disparity of
Indigenous representations, with the following paragraph, being the only mention of Jacky
Jacky in the textbook, providing evidence of this:
For almost seven months they pushed on, hacking a path through jungle so dense that
they averaged little more than a mile a day. Their goal seemed almost in sight when
Kennedy, leading a small advance party, was killed by aborigines. Jack Jacky, an
aboriginal in his party, struggled on although wounded by spears and reached the
waiting schooner. Of the remainder of Kennedy’s companions at least six starved to
death, and only two were ever rescued. (Dunlop & Pike, 1963, p. 115)
By including such scant detail, the significant contribution of Jacky Jacky to Australian
history, particularly his following Kennedy’s instructions by taking his books and journals
with him, is ignored, making Jacky Jacky an insignificant footnote to the exploration of
Kennedy.
6.4.7 Narratives of Wiley.
Just as Jacky Jacky is an anomaly example of individual Indigenous people being explicitly
named and the focus of a narrative, Wiley an Indigenous man who accompanied Eyre and
Baxter’s exploration of South Australia also shares in this anomaly. The naming of Wylie
seems to legitimize his position in the expedition, highlighting the important role he played,
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