This is a really interesting sketchbook, now part of the collection of the National Museum of Australia. It belonged to a young Aboriginal man named Oscar. The article is a bit vague about the circumstances of Oscar’s life– it sounds like he could have been a slave, or indentured servant, or at best an orphan … Continue reading Oscar’s Sketchbook
Some fascinating historic notebooks recording the first contact between British settlers and Aboriginal people in Australia: A set of 1788 notebooks recording the first attempts at communication between British settlers and Indigenous Australians reveals language that is still in use in Sydney Aboriginal communities today. The Dawes notebooks, named for First Fleet officer William Dawes … Continue reading The Dawes Notebooks
A really interesting find! There is a video at the link below– you can see the notebooks at about 1:30. Three rare handwritten notebooks from the first Indigenous activist to campaign overseas have been given a permanent home in Canberra. Anthony Martin Fernando left Sydney in the 1890s and travelled throughout Europe, publicising the plight … Continue reading An Aboriginal Activist’s Notebooks