Rupture & Rebuild- Aboriginal History in Victoria

A joint event between First Nations Justice Merri-bek and First Nations Focus @ Brunswick Uniting Church.

'Colonisation rolled over Merri-bek quickly and early and because it was so close to Melbourne where numbers quickly went against First Nations people, it was less violent. There is a story to tell about Merri-bek including land appropriation, the assimilation of the Bungaleene boys, William Thomas’ efforts etc but it is perhaps better as part of a wider and longer Victorian story.'

This lecture, presented by Richard Broome AM, Emeritus Professor of History at La Trobe University entitled ‘The Rupturing and Rebuilding of the Aboriginal World in Victoria and Merri-bek’, is a wide-ranging talk. It begins with a brief discussion of the traditional world of First Nations peoples in Victoria through some of their land management techniques, to reveal what was. It discusses the  rupture of this world by legal, practical and moral claims made by colonisers; by the devastating impact of the frontier and by the policies of the colonisers that followed over 150+ years. It then examines Aboriginal agency and responses to colonisation to this day, focussing on some case studies featuring Merri-bek stories.

Talk with Q& A and Refreshments

Richard Broome AM, Emeritus Professor of History at La Trobe University, taught at universities for thirty-five years and worked as a public historian for six years.  His varied research interests cover the local, regional and national sphere in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous history. He has author/co-authored 20 books (including two prize winners) and a further 10 updated editions. His widely read Aboriginal Australians. A History since 1788 (2019) has appeared in five editions over 40 years, being entirely rewritten in 2010. Aboriginal Victorians A History since 1800 (2005), was shortlisted four times and won the NSW Premier’s Prize for History. A new edition appeared in 2024. His work in Indigenous History is summed up in Ben Silverstein (ed.) Conflict, Adaptation, Transformation. Richard Broome and the Practice of Aboriginal History (2018). He was co-author and co-editor of a four-volume textbook for Year 12 Analyzing Australian History (2021) published by Cambridge University Press.

Richard Broome is a former President of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria; a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, and was awarded an AM in 2020 for services to education and history He is currently part of a 15 person team, Ngura Ninti, to produce a four-volume history of Aboriginal community directed stories of colonisation.