Environmental History and the Port Phillip District

1
Environmental History and the Port Phillip
District

• Richard Broome

2
Australian History revolutionary?

• Revolution
• a) Overthrow of govt
• b) Complete change
• Post 1788 changes
• Communal to private property
• Reciprocity to Market economy
• Radical shift-land use
• Collins Street by William Macnight NLA ?

3
Why Has Frontier History Ignored the
Environmental approach?

• Early histories Social Darwinist
• First Aboriginal histories - focus on violence
• New themes of Aboriginal agency emerge
• Environmental history begins, but focus on
  settlers
• ?Night Attack Samuel Calvert, NLA

4
Land and Landscape

• Landscape as constructed Seddon
• As deep and mythical Scharma
• As a cultural place
• Cultural landscapes constructed, changing,
  remembered, identity shaping
• Nature shapes culture Rappaporte
• An Interdependence

5
The Great Tradition

• Culture emerges from human interactions from the
  land and land-use
• An inspired imagining of creation human
  relationships creates dreamings
• William Barak traditional painting, SLV?

6
The Pastoral Revolution

• The Great Transformation.. Agora no 4 2013
• Case of Robertson at Wando Vale
• Lin Onus Ground Lice (1990)Qlzand Art Gallery?

7
Ideas Underpinning the Revolution in Land Use

• Dominion Over Nature Book of Genesis
• Idea of Progress
• Neolithic prejudices- Esau and Jacob
• Nature as Unlimited
• Settler theory of value