Authority under challenge: Pikampul land and Queen Victoria's law during the British Invasion of Australia

Goodall, H

Authority under challenge: Pikampul land and Queen Victoria's law during the British Invasion of Australia

Goodall, H

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Publisher:: University College Press
Publication Type:: Chapter
Citation:: Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples 1600 - 1850, 1999, pp. 260-279
Issue Date:: 1999-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Goodall, H https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8643-5624
dc.contributor.editor	Daunton, M
dc.contributor.editor	Halpern, R
dc.date.accessioned	2021-05-26T21:52:18Z
dc.date.available	2021-05-26T21:52:18Z
dc.date.issued	1999-01
dc.identifier.citation	Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples 1600 - 1850, 1999, pp. 260-279
dc.identifier.isbn	0812216997
dc.identifier.isbn	9781857289916
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/149247
dc.description.abstract	This chapter explores a crisis of conscience experienced by Richard Bligh, a British official administering a frontier district on the Macintyre River in Australia during the late 1840s. His distress was recorded in a large body of reports, justifications, confessions, accusations and counter-accusations. This outpouring in turn allows a brief glimpse of the experiences of the Pikampul people whose land was under attack. In October 1847, the Pikampul began a regular and central ritual in their society, the Bora, the initiation of young boys into adult manhood. Bligh had little awareness of the significance of these rituals in demonstrating and reaffirming Pikampul authority over land and society. The squatters on the Macintyre were, along with other colonists across the British empire, precursors of a rising, racially exclusive version of British law. Some Pikampul Murris took their own lessons from the failure of Queen Victoria’s law to offer them either protection or retribution.
dc.format.extent	0
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	University College Press
dc.relation.ispartof	Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples 1600 - 1850
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.4324/9781003076711-13
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.title	Authority under challenge: Pikampul land and Queen Victoria's law during the British Invasion of Australia
dc.type	Chapter
utslib.for	130205 Humanities and Social Sciences Curriculum and Pedagogy (excl. Economics, Business and Management)
utslib.for	2199 Other History and Archaeology
utslib.for	210399 Historical Studies not elsewhere classified
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CCS - Cosmopolitan Civil Societies
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/e-Press
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/FASS Faculty Administration
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.consider-herdc	false
dc.date.updated	2021-05-26T21:52:17Z
pubs.place-of-publication	London
pubs.publication-status	Published
dc.location	London

Abstract:

This chapter explores a crisis of conscience experienced by Richard Bligh, a British official administering a frontier district on the Macintyre River in Australia during the late 1840s. His distress was recorded in a large body of reports, justifications, confessions, accusations and counter-accusations. This outpouring in turn allows a brief glimpse of the experiences of the Pikampul people whose land was under attack. In October 1847, the Pikampul began a regular and central ritual in their society, the Bora, the initiation of young boys into adult manhood. Bligh had little awareness of the significance of these rituals in demonstrating and reaffirming Pikampul authority over land and society. The squatters on the Macintyre were, along with other colonists across the British empire, precursors of a rising, racially exclusive version of British law. Some Pikampul Murris took their own lessons from the failure of Queen Victoria’s law to offer them either protection or retribution.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/149247