"The Collective Nyungar Heritage of an "Orphan Letter
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4902211 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tiffany Shellam (0000-0001-8521-7564, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2019-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1532-5768 • E-ISSN: 1532-5768 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/cch.2019.0015 |
| OpenAlex | W2968427304 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 14 |
In the State Records Office of Western Australia (SROWA) is a 30-page file which includes a petition letter that was scripted on behalf of two Nyungar men, Tommy Dower and Johnny Carroll, in November 1886. The petition was supported by the signatures of 47 settlers of the Swan River Colony. In the archive today, the petition is considered to be an "orphan letter," with no family to connect it to. This article explores a methodology still in development for re-reading and re-contextualising Nyungar letters when a letter cannot be connected to a Nyungar descendant. By focusing on contemporary Nyungar heritage, working closely with archivists at SROWA, and guided by a Nyungar Elder, I unpack this petition letter and the histories of the petitioners through a collective framework established by the ARC Linkage Project Ancestors Words: Nyungar writing in WA Archives, 1860–1960
Descendant · Genealogy · Media studies · Petitioner · Political science · Sociology · Computer Science · Digital and Traditional Archives Management · Diverse Musicological Studies · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Law
Rewriting political history
Distrust in the archive
From Camp Life to Suburbia
Authors, scribes and owners
Tommy Dower and the Perth newspapers
Conflict, Adaptation, Transformation
Indigenous Intermediaries
Indigenous Communities and Settler Colonialism
Native ClaimsIndigenous Law against Empire, 1500–1920
Colonial archives and the arts of governance
Archives, records, and power
The Death of William Gooch
In the Same Predicament as Heretofore
Identity, Authority, and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,25 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2022 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |