Eye of the beholder 2 rye uk5/31/2023 ![]() Those seeking good pastoral land embraced the views that evolutionary theories, the teachings of Darwin and Wallace, showed that Aborigines were at the lowest level of mankind and their culture was destined to disappear. On the Australian frontier the male power structure was dominant. The writings of people such as Dampier, Cook and Banks were very significant in shaping perceptions of Indigenous Australians. We are reminded that two very strong influences on the six women were evangelical Christianity and middle-class respectability. Only one of the settlers, Rose Scott Cowen, was Australian-born, and the others were all British-born. The second group she calls "settlers", who were able to establish much longer-term relationships with Indigenous peoples. The first group she calls "adventurers", those who had only a brief and transitory knowledge of Indigenous peoples, but wrote about their rather superficial impressions, often in a sensational way. The author divides her subjects into two groups. ![]() ![]() The author writes that her aim is to help write the story of Indigenous Australians into the Australian legend by resurrecting pockets of insight of Aboriginal culture before, or soon after, its subjugation and reassessment after British settlement. The picture that emerges of the early contact between two cultural worlds is quite intriguing.
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