HISTORY

Introduction

Writing the history of the Newcastle-Lake Macquarie area has largely been the domain of non-Aborigines. For more than a century, local authors, dilettantes, journalists, genealogists, antiquarians, municipal committees and historical societies have produced literature to describe and commemorate a local past. On the whole, Aboriginal people have not rated highly among the interests and concerns of local history, being entirely neglected in many works, badly misunderstood in others. Only recently have indigenous authors and scholars begun to write history according to their own experiences and perceptions.

This section of the Awaba project is devoted to aspects of Aboriginal history in the Newcastle-Lake Macquarie area, particularly the history they have shared with non-indigenous peoples over two-hundred years of contestation and coexistence. It features contributions from indigenous and non-indigenous historians on a variety of topics including:

• an account of race relations on the Newcastle penal settlement  by David Andrew Roberts
• Greg Blyton's brief outline on the violent dispossession of Aboriginal people  during the frontier era
• a timeline of local history, outlining the major events and developments effecting Aboriginal peoples in the local region.