The Australian Dream of an Island Empire

Race, Reputation and Resistance

Bibliographic Data

ID12345108
AuthorsMarilyn Lake (0000-0002-9288-5808, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume46
Issue3
Pages410-424
Publication date2015-09-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1031-461X • E-ISSN: 1940-5049
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1031461x.2015.1075222
OpenAlexW1916245348
LanguageEN
Citations received7

The Commonwealth of Australia was founded in dreams of a Pacific empire. One of the first acts of the new nation in 1901 was to request the transfer of British New Guinea to Australian control. Aware of their poor reputation with regard to the treatment of Aborigines, Australian political leaders determined to redeem their reputation in the new colony. At the same time, however, they wanted to encourage white settlement and overcome Papuan resistance to the white take-over of their land. Alfred Deakin recruited professed ‘Australianist' Hubert Murray, the foremost critic of the old regime of Captain Barton, to effect this goal. Papuans were anxious about the transition from British to Australian authority, apprehensive that ‘white men' were coming to steal native land ‘like they had stolen the lands of the Queensland natives'. From the Papuan perspective, the Australian take-over of British New Guinea and Murray's ascendancy represented continuity in colonial practice, rather than the advent of modern imperial ideals

Ancient history · Archaeology · British Empire · Colonialism · Commonwealth · Dream · Economic history · Empire · Ethnology · Genealogy · New guinea · Political science · Politics · Race (biology · Reputation · Resistance (ecology · Settlement (finance · Sociology · White (mutation · Australian History and Society · Gender Studies · History · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Law · Psychology

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