Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History can be divided into six areas in accordance to time. :-

It has not been easy for Aboriginal Australians [Dreamers] to be given the freedom of living their lives and the right to teaching their culture on their country.

Most Australians don’t know the difficulties endured by Australian Aboriginals [Dreamer] or understand the struggles Dreamers have had to take in order to gain basic civil human rights.  

Honestly, you can’t blame Australian society, as it is easier to believe the media stereotype presentation of “Australian’s” as the good-guys – larrikins, rather then acknowledge that they come from a people that attempted “Genocide” of the oldest culture in the world. 

This was performed through having historical documents written in ethnocentrism derogatory language to offend Aboriginal customs as insignificant and support European colonialism ideology of superiority in conquering an “uninhabited” landscape through Terra nullius and justify the stealing of land and its resources from Dreamer till the early 20th Century.

An indoctrinating of Eurocentric attitude in schools that British colonialism were a conquering race that tamed a harsh nation and saving the less fortunate “friendly primitive” people through enforcing their laws and civilised customs upon them.  To ‘remove and enslave’ the Dreamer culture, while hide the genocidal acts and frontier wars  massacres.  To ignore that an armed policing military force and uneducated convicted felons were released onto a group of people had long-lasting ramifications of lore against laws. 

In 1991 Reconciliation was introduced to Australian’s which is based and measured on five dimensions: historical acceptance; race relations; equality and equity; institutional integrity and unity. Yet, these goals cannot be meet without the hiring of professional Indigenous information managers in government information institutions to open up Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections via a holistic institutional approach to the Australian wider communities. 

There is a need for information institutions to go beyond their policies and stereotypical ideology, in order for Reconciliation to occur via education.

I have decided to use other terms to disassociate Australian history from a Eurocentric portrayal of history and highlighted events. 

  • Dreamtime (65,000 – 1400) instead of “Pre-contact”,
  • Dreamers to identify “Aboriginal” people of the past.
  • Terra Australis instead of “Australia”. Terra Australis Incognita’ or ‘Unknown South Land’ and New Holland was the name used prior to “Australia” https://www.nla.gov.au/faq/how-was-australia-named.
  • Migaloo [white-man] for Australian European immigrants.

View the Dreamtime History to find out more about this and other topics